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| St. Peter's from the bridge |
I only have less than three weeks left in Europe! It's a very bittersweet thought-- I want to go home and see everyone and everything that I've been missing, but at the same time, I know that when I leave, it'll be a very long time until I get back here, and I may never see most of these people again. But, while I'm here, I'm living it up. I have to see everything I came here to see and I'm running out of time!!!
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| Vittorio Emanuele II |
So Thanksgiving weekend came and went. I didn't do much, just started writing my wonderful paper for my wonderful independent study. It is far more work than I ever anticipated. I was going to just write about the birth of the italian language, but I couldn't find enough information, so I decided to write about Dante's legacy instead. The paper isn't finished yet, but I've been spending multiple hours a day working on it. I hope it gets a good grade... especially since its my only grade for my independent study.
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| Ruins in the Roman Forum |
So on Monday I decided to go for a walk. I looked in my tourist book thing and picked somewhere random to go. I wanted to take pictures of the Vittorio Emanuele II monument, and go to Capitoline Hill, so thats where I went. I started by walking down Via del Corso, and arrived at the monument. I took approximately a million pictures, and read the plaques so I would actually learn something. Then I walked around behind the monument, and climbed the stairs to Piazza del Campidoglio. I looked at the statue in the middle, admired the buildings, and then noticed a bunch of people taking pictures of something, so I went to check it out. It turns out that theres this small road leading out the back of the buildings that leads to a beautiful view of the Roman Forum. I had been there before, but couldn't take pictures because I was with my class, so I followed the path and checked it out. I also stumbled upon the prison where St. Peter was kept and where he flooded his cell and used the water to baptize his captors. So I took pictures and then decided that I might as well go to the Colosseum while I was there. So I walked around it and took pictures. It was really awesome. I've been around it before, but hadn't taken any pictures, so I was pretty excited. I spent a few hours out on my own, and it was quite enjoyable. That night I worked on my paper some more... as usual, and walked to Old Bridge Gelato with some of the DTWs. I had lemon and strawberry and it was delicious.
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| Colosseum |
Tuesday morning I went to Art class and listened to a bunch of boring presentations. After Art, I decided to go on the school trip to the Colosseum, even though it meant I might miss Theology class (I hadn't been inside yet). So we left right after my class, and took the bus. Unfortunately, this was at the same time as a strike on the metro, and a huge protest by the college students in Italy. So there was approximately a million people trying to take the bus at the same time, and traffic was moving about 5 inches a minute, so it took quite awhile to get there. Most of the people that were going had to go to class, so they gave up after about 45 minutes on the bus (we hadn't even crossed the bridge yet). Then we gave up on the bus and walked about a half hour. We got to the Colosseum about 2 hours after we left. By that time, it was just me and Katey. We went into the Colosseum and spent quite awhile walking around and chatting about Gladiators. It was a lot of fun, even though it was raining (its been raining for 2 weeks straight). Walking back, we found our way blocked by a ton of police and carabinieri. They were blocking off all the streets and had riot gear and there were sirens everywhere. No one really knew what was going on, so there was a lot of confusion. We made it through and back to the school. That night, I cooked dinner for myself and Katey, and then we watched Gladiator with Mandy. The movie was quite enjoyable, as usual, but by the time we were done, it was very late, so I worked on my paper for a bit and then I went to sleep.
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| Colosseum |
Wednesday morning, I woke up early and went to the Galleria Borghese with Katey. We got there around 8:30, and were allowed in at 9:00. It was pretty wonderful. Theres a bunch of Bernini sculptures, and I really liked them. My favorite was Apollo and Daphne. It's really beautiful, probably my favorite piece of art ever. I loved the other Bernini sculptures, too, but that one was just amazing. There was some Caravaggio pieces that I also enjoyed, but the Bernini sculptures just blew me away. We saw everything in about an hour and a half. Then we walked back through Piazza del Popolo and stopped into the church with the Caravaggio paintings and admired it for a while. Then we came back here and I crashed for awhile before I started to work on my paper. I worked on it for like 6 hours.
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| Me in the Colosseum |
Today, I had classes all day. It was boring. Alas, only a week and a half more of classes, then we have finals! yikes!
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