Just a Simple Neighborhood Tour

So I won't bother telling you how I got to Rome. All it involved were long plane rides and a one day stopover in London where I slept for around 14 straight hours. Once I arrived in Rome I met up with my professors and most of my group at the airport and we took a bus to St. John's University, which is the Roman branch of an American catholic university. It's a very small and spartan building, but everything they have is clean and comfortable.

This is what my room looks like. I'm sharing it with a girl named Katherine who also happens to be from Austin. So far we've been getting along really well. There is air conditioning here but it's not very strong at all. The quickest method of cooling off is just to open the windows.

And this is what I see outside my window. I don't know what church that is but the dome is beautiful with metal stars all over it. The rooftop that you see always has laundry hanging out on it, from time to time nuns come out to collect it.
The temperature here is in the 60's during the night and the low 80's during the day. For the most part this feels great but it is also ridiculously sunny and fairly humid. Walking around in the blazing sun during the day still feels uncomfortably hot, and we've all been sweating buckets (it's disgusting).
After we unpacked our things we went on a walking tour of the neighborhood with our Italian guide, Patrizia. She pointed out the nearest grocery store, which oddly enough is hidden underneath a makeup store. From the street you would never be able to tell that if you wandered inside and went downstairs you'd arrive in a mini HEB. From there we walked for about 5 minutes and ran into the walls of Vatican City. I was impressed enough with that until, much like going through the wardrobe into Narnia, the apartment buildings that surrounded us suddenly became columns and then we broke through into St. Peter's square. It was just right there! We were all caught off guard so we just stared in awe for a while before continuing our walk.
Nothing else really happened on the walk, and when it was over I was drenched in sweat and my feet hurt (little did I know that it was only a fraction of what was to come). By this time it was about 7:00pm and we had to get ready for dinner.