Little ado about everything

The Rome front currently is occupied with housing issues dealing with UChicago, actually, and where I live when I come back to campus next winter. (Current conclusion: there will be no conclusion on this issue until December. Nothing like a good, solid, timely resolution to all your issues.) I'll likely be claiming to want to move back into the housing system, and assuming that a room is available either in my house (ideal but relatively unlikely as it stands now), in my dorm (something I'd definitely take assuming that it's a single), or in a single in a dorm near where I am now or with a similarly acceptable proximity to food, I'll stick with the housing system. I will not stick with housing if my only options are a double (I'll have had enough of rooming with strangers after a quarter abroad) somewhere outside my current dorm or a slot in one of the first-year-heavy dorms with first-year-like cultures. The housing system is mostly first- and second-years anyway, but there's a world of difference between my current dorm and others on campus in terms of culture, and while different people work better in different cultures, I know what I want and don't want. A slightly neurotic, still-high-school-y culture works well for some people, but it is just not for me at this point in my college career.

If no housing system next year, then what? Staying in the International House on campus is a high option, assuming that they would likely still have rooms open on short notice (this is something to discuss with them, obviously.) This would probably require me to cook for myself, which hopefully is something I can sort-of handle after wrangling with my own food in Rome. If no I-House, then I could throw myself at the mercy of renters in the area, of whom I know a few. Transient subletting is a very undesirable possibility but hopefully one so low as to be able to be considered improbable. I could sell myself out as a maid or something to friends. Also extremely improbable, but I guess it's good to have options.

Besides domestic wrangling with various housing authorities and resigning myself to the fact that it's going to involve rolling the dice and hedging my bets, the Rome front is quiet. Parents are apparently beginning the process of making reservations for a) my flight to Rome, b) their own flights to Europe in December, c) our accomodations for touring Europe after my program ends, and d) our collective flight home from Europe before Christmas, something that all has to be finalized before May 16th. Since this is a complex transaction, my mother has indeed begun the process of engaging the help of travel agents instead of simply trying to trust Expedia or something similar. My father has also apparently expressed reservations about trying to cram three European cities into two weeks, so the initial plan I related in my last post may be modified to cut out London or something. This makes me a bit sad, but Paris is just as cool as London, and as my father and I are both neophytes in European travel, one is as good as another to us right now. I'll be glad to go just about anywhere in Europe.