Vacanze Romane

Ciao tutti,
I’m sure you’ll all be very happy to know I had class yesterday! So far we’ve only had 2 classes, one in a coffee bar and one in Rome. Thursday morning we caught the 7:14am train to Rome, and as soon as we got there took off immediately. We went to a church called San Pietro in Vincoli, where they keep 2 sets of chains that Peter was bound in and then miraculously fused together. There’s also a Michael Angelo statue there. The whole church was empty, so we go it to ourselves. Then we walked to the Colosseum and sat down outside it and Kirk gave a lecture right there. How great is school when your classroom is in the shadow of the Colosseum! We walked around inside, got to be tourists for a few minutes and take pictures, and then left for the forum. We walked all through the forum, which was amazing because it was centuries and centuries of history all in the same place. It looked like all the architectural history of Rome thrown together in one place. After that, we stopped by the Pantheon and got a lecture on space in architecture and what it says about the Roman attitude. Basically, Rome is the center of the universe. And, Italians act as if they are the center of their own universe. I can’t even tell you how true that is…people don’t pay attention to where they are walking or driving, everyone cuts in line, and basically does whatever they want when they want to! It all makes sense! We went to a gelato store near the Pantheon that had 150 flavors…it was SO hard to choose! I finally decided on Nutella and Tiramisu. Molto buono! From there we split, and a group of us decided to stay an extra day in Rome.
We walked to our hostel on the other side of the river by the Vatican, dropped our stuff off and got checked in and then headed out to walk around Rome! We went to the Spanish steps, and the Trevi fountain where we stopped to eat more gelato and throw coins in. We ate dinner at a little restaurant on a street right off the Fontana di Trevi, and just sat and talked for a while. When we finally made it back to the hostel we decided to watch Gladiator before we went to bed. As soon as we sat down in the little living room area and put the movie in one of the guys that worked there walked in and said AHH! Basta! Basta! Which means Enough! Enough! He said we were literally the 5th group to come through and watch that movie haha. The atmosphere of the hostel was so great, everyone was young and was either studying or on holiday. There were kids from Germany, Australia and even the States. We were exhausted and all went and climbed into our bunk beds all in the same room. There were 7 of us, so we were toasty warm all night!
Today we got up early, went to St. Peter’s Square and had coffee and ciambelle, donuts, walked to Piazza Navona where it was sunny and warm and local artists had their easels set up all over the place. We walked back to the Fontana di Trevi, later saw the Four Fountains, and the Piazza del Repubblico, grabbed a panino at a café while some other kids ate at McDonald’s haha. Then we went to the train station, where I bought the book Angels and Demons in Italian. I managed to get through about 20 pages on the train before I fell asleep! That was exciting! When we got home we went to our favorite Kebap place where our very sweet Turkish friends work, and now I’m home watching a German TV show called Kebab for breakfast, dubbed in Italian. Very interesting…
Anyways, missing you a lot.
J