My first week in the eternal city.

I've been here for almost a week and everyday I've discovered a million new things everyday. I guess I'll start at the beginning, Saturday the 10th I took my straight flight to Rome. The flight was almost 9 hours, which wasn't too bad. I got to sit next to an Italian! I met some of the girls in the Dulles airport, most of them had come in from the Chicago airport. We were lucky and somehow had sits almost all together. When we finally arrived in Rome at 7:30 am we were all really excited and exhausted but had to wait in the airport until about 1:30 for the director of the program, Dr. Prebys, to come pick us up.

The ride to the hotel wasn't too long. We are staying the Hotel Tiziano, which is located in a very central place in Rome on the road, Victorio Emanuele II. I was excited to see Jillian for the first time in 5 months! She was waiting at the hotel for us. Once we got my bags into the room, we went out for our first walk in Rome! We ate lunch outside at one of the many restaurants that you can find throughout the city. On the way to the restaurant I very quickly learned that the Pantheon is only about 3 minutes from the hotel. It is quite a sight to see. Dad, I know you would love it! It's funny because it's just sitting there in the middle of the Piazza della Rotuna surrounded with more modern buildings. It's very beautiful. And of course after lunch we went and got gelato for the first time of many, many more, and it was absolutely magnificant! There were so many different flavors I had no clue what to get, and since then I've been trying all different kinds, and have yet to be disappointed. Later that night we went out to dinner and it was great as well. I got spaghetti pomodoro and we all split some of the house wine, which was pretty good. I haven't quite aquired a taste for wine yet so I'm just going to have to work on that slowly.

Monday, we started classes, I'm taking a music appreciation class, a political science class on modern italian problems, a religion/ethics course and Italian, of course. So far they are all really interesting and I'm really excited about all of them. This week we had class on Friday as a "makeup day" for days that we will miss when we take our northern Italy trip, but normally we only have classes Monday-Thursday, which is super nice so that we can easily take trips on the weekends. I also have a great schedule, Monday I don't have classes until 9:35, Tuesdays and Thursdays not until 12:15 and Wednesdays not until 3:55, which is so nice, a lot of the girls have class at 8am every morning, so I'm pretty lucky! It's also a nice break from the crazy busy schedule at Millsaps, both academically and in terms of extracurriculars. I have so much more extra time to go exploring and enjoy getting to know all the girls, who are all really fun!

Throughout the week we've been doing a good amount of exploring. So far, I've seen the Piazza di Spagna where the Spanish Steps are, to the la fontana di Trevi, which is absolutely stunning! I also have of course seen the Pantheon a bunch of times. We've walked through the Piazza Navona, which has Bernini's fountain of the four rivers. There are a lot of really pretty fountains here, especially at night. Let's see what else...I went running along the Tiber river the other day which was a really nice run, much different than just my scenic gym back at home. And we've just walked all throughout the streets of Rome, mostly in search of gelato!

Today, we had our first set of tours. This morning we got up and went to the Roman Forum. It was so cool! We were there for over 3 hours and I still felt like we were rushed trying to see everything. There were such neat things all over! It was so neat to think that it had been used thousands of years ago as a meeting place and being able to see exactly where the people would stand to announce news, to see the temples where they worshiped their gods, where the vestul virgins lived, one of the biggest basilicas in the world, and just all the remains of their social life. It was so beautiful once we climbed up to the top of the Palatine Hill (the location of where Romulus supposedly founded Rome) and were able to look down on the whole forum. From there we could also see the Colosseum to one direction, the dome of St. Peter's, Circus Maximus, and all the other beautiful building of Rome. Up at the top there was also a gorgeous renaissance garden. As we walked along we came to Augustus's (who was the adopted son of Julius Caesar, but really he was his nephew) home when he was emperor. We were actually allowed in his part of his home. It was so amazing because there were original paintings still up on the wall. Right next to his house there were also ancient huts which were from around 5 bc which were so cool to see because I've never seen such ancient stuff! We also saw Augustus's dinning rooms, I'll tell you, he had it good! The rooms were huge, and all he did was just sit there and was fed! That would be the life! His home also overlooked all of rome, quite a nice view if you ask me!

After the forum, we ate lunch back at the hotel, always a time to look forward to, we went to the Colosseum. It was MASSIVE! I finally learned about why part of it was missing, back before how great the Colosseum was, people started pilaging the marble that it was made of little by little, and actually part of St. Peter's was made from the marble from the Colosseum, because the Pope condoned it because back in the day they burned Christians alive in there for sport. We also learned about how within the first 100 days of the Colosseum they killed over 9,000 animals! I just thought that was horrible! We got to walk around and take lots of pictures, it was amazing to be in there! It was kind of funny though because it really reminded me of all the football stadiums that I would go to for football games or whatever nowadays, it's cool how we totally base our structures off of ones that were build thousands of years ago, I guess when it works, it works.

After a long day of touring, we were all exhausted and went back to the hotel and all took nice long naps! My friends, Lianna, Angie and Annie then went out to dinner tonight. We decided to eat right in the piazza where the Pantheon is located. It was quite an amazing backdrop! The waiter was so funny too, he tried to talk to us in english, but we wanted to talk to him in Italian, he laughed at our italian a lot. And as if having the Pantheon there wasn't enough, half way through dinner an Italian man with the most gorgeous voice started singing Italian opera right near us. He gathered quite a crowd...because he was sooooo good!!! We just kept saying how we are going to be so spoiled now, it was such an amazing dinner/experience. We sat there for a long time talking and listening to music. After dinner of course we had to get gelato! But since the rule is if you are walking while you eat gelato the calories don't count, we decided to get it and walk to the vatican. I had never been there before, and it was quite a sight to see! It was so majestic. You walk up and there are huge columns surrounding you with saints and other important religious figures at the top that are lit up. And then there was still a nativity scene from Christmas up. In the middle there is St. Peter's Basilica which is huge and imposing. It was so neat. Up at the top there are statues of the 12 apostles with Jesus in the middle. The dome is behind that. We just stood there for a long time looking at it. It's just something else. It was really interesting to have just been at the forum earlier in the day and having seen all the ancient temples to the gods and then going to a huge monument that celebrates a modern day religion, such similarities.

So I think I've covered the highlights of what I've done so far this week. Tomorrow morning I'm going back to St. Peter's for a tour and then mass. I'm really excited about seeing more of it, and having my camera since I didn't have it with me tonight.

Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up my blog, hope ya'll enjoy reading it and I would love to hear comments back from ya'll! Miss all of you and wish you were here!