Many people have been asking me how my time here has been so far. Honestly, I have not been doing much since I landed on January 9. Despite not being able to go anywhere, my quarantine period has given me the time to get to know my roommates, plan for the upcoming week, and attend classes virtually! The first day I am released, I plan to explore Vatican city because it is very close to my current apartment.
I am taking 15 credits for this semester, one online class and four in-person classes. Currently, I am taking all of them virtually. My courses include Italian 1001, Race in the Ancient Mediterranean, Intellectual Heritage (a mandatory reading-intensive class to graduate), Travel Writing, and an Internship. My classes are intimate and small in numbers. My biggest class holds twelve students!
There were new coronavirus restrictions placed from January 16 until March 5. Italy was divided into colored regions: yellow, orange, and red. Now, there is a new ‘white’ zone to the existing red, orange and yellow zones. The white region is for the fewest numbers of Covid-19 cases. The government retained the ban on non-essential travel between all areas until February 15, and there is still a nightly curfew from 10 PM until 5 AM. With all of this, I still have hope because I’ll have a little less than two months to explore the rest of Italy (praying about it!) If not, I can always revisit Italy!
Check out the video below to see what I did during my first week of quarantine!