A day in the life of a teacher living in Rome

The alarm is set for 6:30 every morning, we leave San Pietro by 7:30, walk through St. Peter’s Square to the Risorgamento bus stop and catch the number 32 bus by 7:45. We switch busses and get on the 301, which takes us to the driveway of Marymount and then we walk the rest of the way up to the main gate. We usually arrive at Marymount between 8:15 and 8:30. Once we arrive, we go to the bar to get cappuccinos and then make our way to our classes. I do the attendance in the morning and we hear the announcements, which is a few announcements and the morning prayer. In May they celebrate Mother’s Day too so every morning they would pray for all the mothers and in June they also celebrate Father’s Day so the last week of practicum, which was June, they would pray for all the fathers. They would be like, “God please bless our mothers…Bless the mothers who are sick and bless the mothers who have babies in their tummies…etc.” It was precious. They also prayed for the people in Northern Italy affected by the earthquakes this month (yes, plural). And then at the end of the announcements they would say things like, “Have a super duper mega dayyyy!” And just imagine them saying all this in a foreign accent…priceless. They have all the core subjects and also a lot of specials (art, music, p.e., computers, library) and they have Italian. Between having a "special" and Italian everyday, there are a lot of planning blocks, which is really nice. See the schedule below. During planning blocks, Ms. Raftery and the other 4th grade teacher, Ms. Lavery, and Mary Katherine and I all talk and plan together and sometimes go to meetings. I feel like a real teacher and it has been the coolest experience.

            At the end of the day, either Ms. Raftery or I will choose a “Star of the Day,” someone who stood out to us that day. Then I meet the group in the outside area where the bar and cafeteria is and we make our way back to the bus stop. The bus ride is much worse in the afternoon. We wait longer, they are more crowded, and they are hot and smelly, and we usually don’t get home until almost 5! It’s such a long day and I’m exhausted. Most days, on the way home from the Risorgamento bus stop, we grab gelato at one of the best gelaterias in Rome, Old Bridge. And it’s only a five minute walk from our apartment! My favorite combination was cookie and dolce latte...yum.

        Mondays are “market days” when we go to the Carrefour Market up the street a little from San Pietro. It’s a pretty short walk. We get fresh fruit and tomatoes, cheese, and bread and a few other odds and ends, and everything is in Italian so it takes some time going through there and making sure we get what we want. You have to buy the plastic bags that they bag your groceries in (seriously, we have to pay for everything) so we bought one of those big reusable bags. So we make dinner at the apartment some nights and go out to eat other nights. Every week, usually Wednesday or Thursday, we have a group dinner with Kyle and Steve. One week we grabbed some sandwiches at a market behind San Pietro and walked up to this park with an overlook of the whole city and watched the sunset. We usually go out and get drinks Thursday nights, and we found this Irish Pub called Scholars that we love. It's just a fun pub with a lot of college students and other study abroad students. They have t-shirts from different American colleges hanging on the walls. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesday nights are karaoke nights. We go and get Magner's, a Northern Irish beer which is a hard cider, and it's so good. We also really like going to Piazza Navona and Campo di Fiori. The Thursday before we went to Elba, we went to this really authentic family-owned restaurant with all the traditional Roman foods- lots of breads, tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, and PORK! We also tried tripe, which is sheep stomach and it's a delicacy. I was really grossed out by it but I wanted to try it because when else would I have that opportunity!? I took a tiny bite and it was really chewy...yuck the texture really got to me. The brothers who waited on us were Mauro and Lorenzo and everyone was flirting with them and when we left we all got free limoncello shots! Then we went to see the Spanish steps.

Top of the Spanish Steps!

        It's really cool because during the week we live as real residents living an everyday life in Rome and then get to do cool touristy things on the weekends. It's the best of both worlds- seeing all the sights and also getting to experience living like a typical person in Italy and really experiencing the culture.