I fell asleep shortly after writing that last night, so I will continue it now. A group of us walked from the hotel to the Campo di Fiori market where they sell fresh fruit, vegetables, and many other food items as well as souvenirs. We wandered around the collection of items for sale for about a half hour and left for the Colosseum. The walk was much shorter than expected - we didn't really realize how close everything really is. It was spectacular just turning the corner and seeing the massive Colosseum in the distance. We explored the ruins all along the road leading up to it, and when we finally reached it we realized we only had a little under an hour to get back for our group tour. So we did a spin around the outside, looking at all of the things around it before deciding to head back. (We get free entrance to the Colosseum saturday anyway, and we decided we could wait.) On our way back we stopped in a church and then grabbed sandwiches at Pascucci's before meeting the rest of the group for the tour. Once again, the tour wasn't the best. This one was far more painful than the one before. We practically ran for about a mile, stopped at Augustus' family altar and tomb before once again running to the Piazza del Popolo. Though it was a rather quick stop, we learned a lot. The massive arch way at the far side of the piazza was designed to be the grand entrance to Rome. When ever anyone traveled from the north, this would be the first they saw of Rome. At the opposite side are Bernini's sister churches, designed nearly identically and splitting the three roads that all lead to the piazza. The middle road, back in ancient times, led directly to the Roman Forum. Now, many buildings stand in the way. After that, we ran back to the pantheon to make sure we could get to art history on time. Class was interesting, we discussed catacombs and early Christian art. That was my only class of the day. With all of the running around, everyone pretty much crashed after class, and dinner was at 7. For dinner we had minestrone/pea soup and peas with meatballs and potatoes for dinner. For desert I got orange and strawberry gelato. Delicious! I spent the rest of the night studying while a good majority of the group went out. I managed to finish all my work, talked to my mom, and tried to write a post, but I was far too tired and just went to sleep.
The twin churches (Bernini)
Piazza del Popolo
Augustas' Tomb
The Colosseum (of course...)
Roman Forum Ruins
This morning (thursday) I got up around 10, showered, and read before my Italian class at 1:30. While I would like to explore in the morning with people, there are only 3 girls in my Italian class, and everyone else has Italian at 10 so it isn't really possible. Class went well, and I am far less nervous about it. My professor seems to be pretty easy going. After Italian, I went to Mythology, and right after Mythology was Religion. Both were very good and I am enjoying them! Dinner was directly after religion, and now here I am at 8 o'clock. My homework is all complete for tomorrow so I am relaxing and trying to figure out the plan for tonight. There is talk of booking tickets to Prague for next weekend. Another group is discussing Munich. I'm torn between the two so I guess whichever is booked first is the one I am going to go with.
Tomorrow is the 'monday make-up day.' We don't have friday classes, but because the semester is so short, they added another week by taking four fridays and putting each day's classes on one. So monday's classes are tomorrow and in two weeks we will have tuesday's classes on friday. Should be a relatively easy day. Buonasera!
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