Adapting quickly

The past few days have been all about learning from this eternal city; from the monuments to interacting with the locals, I've found myself learning very quickly the way of life around here. The people are either very warming to Americans, especially the people in the central part of the city, or they keep to themselves, like the people in the zones outside of the central part. On friday, the IES team split up the students into roughly 6 groups of 20 or so students, to venture out into the historical city. My group went off into the most central east part of the city where the Pantheon, Spanish steps, and Trevi fountain are located. We learned many interesting facts about churches and historical landmarks that effected the story of Rome. For example, the world headquarter of the Jesuits, which is church, wanted to make this magnificent church with a gigantic dome on top, but the Pope told them they couldn't because he was building his own dome (st. peter's) that wasn't going to be as big as the Jesuits dome. So he told them to figure it out and deal with it because he wasn't going to be embarrassed by them. The Jesuits decided to be quite creative by painting the ceilings to convince everyone that they were arched (it's actually very convincing). The frescos are incredible, yet to mention that no one can tell that the ceilings are flat. After roaming the streets and making our way to the top of the Spanish steps, my group kept climbing higher over the city, in order to capture a gasping view over a city that has been here for thousands of years (still unfathomable). When the tour groups returned, we were released to head home. My friends (dave, mike, and zach) and i headed back to our flat in Monteverde (bout a ten minute bus ride from central rome). Then dave and i heard about a soccer field behind a church near by, so we stopped by and found three young italian boys (bout 10-12 yrs. old) kicking the ball around. It was so much fun to try to interact with italian people, especially when you can barely speak the language. I have found that it's more comfortable for the foreigner to interact with kids, because they don't judge you as much as an adult would. After an hour or so of kicking around, we left the field feeling more confident to interact with italians and more confident about our soccer skills....but not really. I really did feel that this new environment was becoming less foreign and more comfortable; seem to be adjusting quickly.