WE MADE IT!!

Ciao da Roma!

We finally reached our destination of the beautiful city that we will call home for the next 5 months- Rome! Naturally, we hit a few speed bumps along the way- but nothing we couldn't handle!!

The trip started off early Tuesday morning when we met at Chicago O'Hare Airport. Arriving 4 hours early due to the excitement we made our way to the gate area. Looking through Rome and Europe books and making last minute phone calls we filled those four hours pretty fast. We finally got called to board our flight. We gathered up our things and headed to the agent. Sara gave her boarding pass to the lady and it was denied. Then we looked very confused so i gave her mine.... denied. She then looked at us in annoyance and said "ladies, you are the the wrong gate!". Turns out we were trying to board a flight going to the same place (NYC) at the same time but going to the wrong airport. We sprint out of line to the correct gate and walk on board realizing that we were the LAST ones on the plane. Thank god we made it.

Arrived in NYC for a quick 1 hour layover. We double and triple checked to make sure we were on the right gate boarding area and noticed we were in the right place due to the fact that half the plane were students headed to John Cabot also! Sara was sitting next to this nice old Italian man and we charmed our way into asking him to switch seats with me (maggie) so we could sit together. Not understanding a word we said- he moved- so we got to sit together for the flight! The 8 hour flight was pretty uneventful besides the fact that there were honeymooners in the row in front of us kissing the whole time. Real cuteee... We finally landed after getting not much sleep and having millions of cramps in the legs- and the rush of kids ran off the plane.

Our bags came super fast- but we both learned a valuable lesson today, we can't carry 4 hugs bags alone nor depend on boys to help.... struggling big time, we finally reached where all John Cabot students were gathering and had to wait 3 hours till we got on the shuttle bus due to the amount of students. It turned out alright because we met some new friends from New jersey, Boston, California, and Alabama (all asking us what we "do" in Nebraska and do we live in farms? typical..)

(view of the Vatican at night from our balcony)

We got to John Cabot University campus (2 buildings) and it was one of the prettiest drives we had ever had. Rome is just like the movies... but 10x better. We both got assigned to an apartment in the "Vatican" neighborhood- we live 2 block from the pope! We were told we had one of the best apartments the university had to offer because of the views and being a safe area. We have found some negatives like the 25 minutes walk to school and its not the best nightlife... but we did the walk tonight and it is not that bad when you stop and get amazing pizza and walk by gellato stands- just watch out for CRAZY DRIVERS.

(view of the vatican outside of our apt)

Everything is great here and every-time we turn a corner the same words come out of our mouth-"this is so pretty" "I feel like I'm in a movie!"

In the past 48 hours we have had about 9 hours of sleep!

Hope all is well with everyone! We miss you

xoxox

-Mags and sara