rotto is the story of our life.

So I had a thought the other day of how I would put my dress in the dryer, once I washed it, because it was a little loose. Then I realized, oh ya, there are no dryers here! We have to hang EVERYTHING up including socks and underware. It's pretty funny seeing everything hanging out windows and around our flat.


So yesterday we are absolutely exhausted after class. Lindsey had a migraine and felt as though she was going to throw up. We wait 20 minutes for our bus to come and pack onto an already full load. These rides make any normal person feel sick, so Lindsey was about ready to die as more and more people crammed on. We had to get off the bus early because we couldn't take it anymore. We finally arrive at our flat to find Jennifer and Elisa (our roommates) sitting outside our door. They have been waiting two hours because their keys won't unlock the door. We try ours with no avail. So I go knocking on neighbor's doors and finally find someone who is home. There are three old men and they don't speak English. Luckily Andrea is pretty quick with her Italian skills so her and I attempt to explain "key rotto (broken)," "porta (door) rotto." It took a while to explain we needed our landlord's number to call. Finally get the number but need them to call because our landlord speaks no english. Franco, the man who lives there, calls and explains the situation as best he understands. They find someone to call our phone back who speaks english so we can explain what is really wrong. We go back upstairs and wait outside our door for someone to come. Franco tries to unlock the door as well. Then our other neighbor comes home, Alex, and he let's us sit in his flat until help comes. We wait over an hour, in his home, while we practice our Italian skills of two days on him, then his wife comes home, who speaks english, and their two children and she is very friendly to us. FINALLY help comes and they fix our door.

By this time we are exhausted, starving, smell bad and just want the comfort of our flat. I know God was trying to teach us something through this, I have no idea what. I mean, we stood in front of the door and prayed that God would open it, but He didn't want to. Looking back it was fun meeting our neighbors and trying to talk with them. I think we will make them cookies this weekend for their generosity.

Here we are reinacting our rotto porta, we looked a lot sicker than this picture shows.


On a totally different note, here are some pics from this last week.

Andrea and I at the Spanish Steps


Here's my roommates, except James because he's a boy


This is our kitchen. We attempt to cook in it with 3 working burners and 2 pots. It can be tough when all 6 of us want to boil water. It's hard living without a microwave. I have to boil water every morning to make coffee. We're going to start cooking for one another.


This is a view I see as I cross the river for class everyday. There aren't many clouds in Rome.


And this is one of many piles of poop. We step over a lot of these on our way to class.




Oh and if anyone would like to read up more about our experiences check out Andrea and LIndsey's blog. We basically have the same life.
www.andreasgiornale.blogspot.com
www.lindseybennett.blogspot.com