Day 2, Tuesday, August 26th

Today, at 10 a.m., when I entered the conference room of the UW Rome Center on the 1st floor, all the students were sitting there, smiling, excited and surprisingly fresh waiting for the orientation provided by Sheryl Brandalik, full-time staff member of the UW Rome Center Office and Matthew Newman, the tech support staff here.  They provided the students with the updated handbook full of useful information about nearby grocery stores, coffee shops, and restaurants, as well as guidelines for daily life in Rome and in their apartments.  The students were all happy with their apartments so there weren't any concerns in that way.  After the 40 minute orientation, we went to our classroom on the 3rd floor and we started the first official class of the program.  We started playing a name game to remember each others' names, and then did  a go around where students had to speak a little bit about themselves, the reasons that brought them to choose this program and also to share something that they felt the group needed to know about them as we start this adventure together.  We then covered the syllabus and draft schedule for the next 4 weeks.  After providing 45 minutes for lunch, we met in front of the Rome Center and I took the students for a walk around the neighborhood, pointing out the nearest ATM machine, grocery shop, pharmacy, and some good eating places. We ended the day by coming back to class where I provided a brief Italian lesson on useful phrases (and gave them homework to do where they had to choose from 5 situations where they had to speak to an Italian to order food/coffee/ask for directions etc) and had the students write down their first impressions on the topic of immigration and what questions and curiosities they had.  I also asked them to make a note of what topic they think they would like to pursue for their group presentation to be made on Wednesday, September 17th, right after my faculty lecture........ok, I better go to sleep now since I need to wake up for a 4 hour historical walking tour provided to us by tour guide, Susan Sanders at 9 a.m.....