Dear Reader,

Every day of our trip, you will get insight into our adventures from the perspective of one of the students.

Feedback is strongly welcome!  Enjoy!!

Mr. Travers

June 14th-15th:  First Day in Rome

By Katya

Our 1^st day of traveling to Rome started out nice.  We drove to the airport in a shuttle and then boarded on a plane which flew to Toronto.  In Toronto, there was a five hour layover though so we found some fun stuff to do like playing cards and games.  When our plane landed in Rome, however, REAL trouble began.  Our group was taken to the police office. 

            The reason was that I didn’t have a visa which would allow me to stay in Rome for 10 days.  Mr. Travers told everyone to go to the hotel because this delay seemed to be serious.  First, the officers said that since I didn’t have a visa, I would have to be sent back off to the U.S.A.  But, obviously this would have ruined the whole trip, so Mr. Travers asked if there were any other options.  One (more important) officer suggested that we call the Russian embassy and ask for a visa.  But then he said that in order to do that, he needed to find someone who spoke Russian to talk to the embassy.  So me and Mr. Travers waited for about three hours until I said, “I wonder why this is taking so long….”   Mr. Travers decided to check, and it turned out that the work shift at the office had changed.  We encountered a mean officer who said that he did not know anything about the Russian embassy.  We came inside the police office again and everyone in there started making a big deal out of the situation.  They were calling their friends and asking each other what to do…  until someone said that you can just buy a visa for 35 euros.  This was a HUGE relief, and when we came out of the airport, I said, smiling, “Well, that was long.”  (Mr. Travers thought this was funny.)  After this, we found the hotel where everyone was waiting for us and went out to have some dinner.

            Rome is a wonderful city.  It looks very nice with all those narrow streets, balconies, and little restaurants, one of which we stopped at to get something to eat.  Mr. Travers told everyone about our adventure with the visa, which, by the way, I thought was fun (because it had a good ending).  After our nice little dinner, where we had some pizza and pasta, we went for a walk to take a look at the Trevi Fountain and have some gelato.  This concludes our adventures for today, and I am looking forward to some more, but not as bad, and much more exciting and pleasing.