Day 16: Repubblica Del Ragazzi

I originally got signed up for the Repubblica Del Ragazzi visit because it was an alternate.  After spending a few hours there today, I'm really glad I went.  The facility is an orphanage/transition home for kids ages 6-17.  There are currently 32 residents an most are the result of unstable or nonexistent families.  We had a tour of the facility (it's quite pretty being right on the coast) and got a chance to interact with a few of the residents.  It was a little difficult because they didn't speak English but we were able to make it work.  Many of them have pretty significant psychological problems and I was able to talk with two of the administrators/psychologists (both spoke English thankfully) and they provided lot of great info that will come in handy for an Abnormal Psych Field Report.  As a thank you, SAS provided a pretty significant donation to the home.

This afternoon proved to be an adventure of a different kind.  I've been attempting to buy the train tickets for our trip to Venice in a few days but was running into trouble online.  Today I walked down to the Civitavecchia Train Station and attempted to buy tickets from Naples to Venice for later this week.  I was really hoping somebody spoke English but that wasn't the case.  Somehow through very rudimentary Italian and hand motions I was actually able to get the tickets.  I know it's not that great of a story but you have no idea how proud of myself I was.

I don't have anything officially planned for tomorrow.  There's a day trip to Orvieto (halfway between Rome and Florence) and if somebody doesn't show up I'll be able to hop on for free.  Hopefully that will work out.  That's all for now, I'm enjoying the quiet of a nearly empty ship.