L'ultima settimana!

"The Last Week"

Trevi Fountain at night

Uh oh. It's getting scarily close to the end of this. I'm so torn about going home!

throwing my coin in...

So Tuesday night I went to Trastevere to have a real Italian dinner with Katey.  We ended up at a cute but really busy little restaurant.  I had spaghetti con pepe e cacio, and it was pretty good.  Afterwards, we walked to the Trevi Fountain so I could FINALLY throw my coins in.  I had really wanted to take pictures of the fountain at night, so I'm glad I got to do that. And thank god for tripods!

Streets in Rome, lit up for Christmas!

Wednesday I spent literally the entire day working on my paper, working on my service journals for italian, or procrastinating doing either of those things.  It was terrible.  But, I got everything done, and handed it in bright and early thursday morning.  Unfortunately, I also had my Italian final that day, and never really got a chance to study for it.  The written part was fine, but I kind of bombed my oral.  Its okay, because everyone did, but I still felt terrible about it.  Then I had theology class, which was the same as always (only one more to go though!).  Thursday night I took it easy; just hung out, recovering from all the hard work I had put in the last few days.

Awesome spiral staircase in the Vatican Museum

Friday during the day, I didn't do much. I finally got some cash, which was exciting. I did some laundry, which was also exciting. I also opened one of my suitcases and put some stuff in it... that was so totally depressing.  Friday night, I went to a club with some of the DTWs.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling

Saturday morning I woke up nice and early and finally went to the Vatican museum.  I went through most of it pretty quickly, but I lingered for awhile in Raphael's rooms and stayed in the Sistine Chapel for almost an hour.  When I first walked into the Sistine Chapel, I was pretty underwhelmed.  I've become pretty used to rooms having intricately painted ceilings, so I didn't immediately see what was so special about it.  Then I sat down and took it all in.  It really is quite amazing.  Especially when you imagine Michelangelo laying there painting it all in the time period that he did it in... it makes you appreciate it much more.  And the longer you look at it, the more detail you realize.  I was certainly impressed.  Then I did a little souvenir shopping and headed back to school.  Took it easy for the rest of the day.  All this time abroad is really catching up with me!

Sandra, the cat I wanted to take home. 

Sunday I woke up early-ish and went to the Cat Sanctuary at Torre Argentina with Mandy.  We had an absolutely delightful time! The cats are so sweet. We spent quite a bit of time in the room with the senior and disabled cats.  We both found ones that we wanted to take home, but of course, we couldn't.  The one that Mandy loved was named Lucky, and he was blind in both eyes.  He was so sweet.  When we squatted down to pet him, he hopped right up onto our laps and laid down.  So cute.  The one I loved was named Sandra, and she was absolutely beautiful.  A grey cat with stripes and beautiful green eyes.  There wasn't really anything wrong with her, except that she hated other cats.  She loves people though.  So she sits in this little bed all day, away from the other cats, watching to make sure they don't come near her.  But she perked right up when I went over to pet her.  There was all sorts of other cats with all sorts of interesting stories.  Eventually we went outside and watched the able-bodied cats climb about on the ruins.  One of the volunteers there said that since ancient times, people had brought their unwanted cats there.  So interesting! But we couldn't stay there forever. :(

One of the cats outside

That afternoon I came back to my room and had a quiet afternoon to myself.  On Monday I did service at the school for the last time, and had our last floor meeting.  Then I spent the rest of the day procrastinating studying for my art final.  I guess I did end up studying a little, but right before the exam, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing, and was pretty nervous.  When I took the final this morning though, I knew everything I needed to know, and I'm confident that I did well.  After that I had my last Theology class (unless you count the dinner we're going to on Friday).

Our street after the rioters passed through

During religion, we heard some shouting outside the building.  I googled it during class and found out the italian citizens were rioting... and it had just reached our area.  After class got out, I went to my friends' room and looked out their window.  You could see the rioters, and they had lit several dumpsters on fire on our street.  It was pretty crazy.  The rioting is still going on.  Theres helicopters circling over our building and you can hear sirens, though now they've mostly moved away from us.  It's rather unfortunate though, because I was hoping to go out and do something this evening, since I have so little time left here.  It's probably not a good idea, if you look up how bad the rioting was today and all the damage they did.  So i'll be staying in tonight, maybe watching some movies or something.

Dumpster on fire, right outside of school

Alright, well thats all for now.  Time is running out so quickly, I don't know what to think or feel!! Ciao!