Arrival

Two flights, thirteen hours, and two questionable in-flight meals later, I arrived at Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Fiumicino, Italy. The taxi ride to the UWRC was rather eventful, as the driver was very aggressive. You could tell he's been a taxi driver for a long time.

Upon arriving at the UWRC, we checked out our apartment keys and moved in. The keys here seem to be more difficult to use than those in the states - there are many unorthodox shapes and styles in key design. In any case, the locks are very secure when fully engaged, providing all-around bolting. Our apartment is on the fifth floor; it's a non-trivial ascent to reach it. The apartment itself is fairly large, completely equipped for the 9 of us men living in it for the next month.
 
We settled ourselves and helped locate some of the other apartments (ours is literally about 15 seconds away from the Rome Center, while one of the others is at least 10 minutes away. Past that, we had a basic safety and resource orientation about the UWRC, then went to purchase local cell phones/SIMs. My SIM installed without a hitch, and I supplied it with 10 euros of credit. The local calling rate for TIM, the carrier we're using, is only 8 cents per minute.

After acquiring cell phones, we were pretty much free for the evening. 22 of us congregated for an evening meal at one of the local pizzereas. The pizza was very fresh, thin, and tasty, and a couple of us ordered salads or antipasti which looked just as delicious.



I'll post some pictures of the day when I get a chance tomorrow. For now, I'm beat. Good night, all.