roma! ecc.

This weekend was very chill, which I appreciated. I went on a walk on Friday afternoon, intending to take some incredibly beautiful pictures of Toscana, but…well, I always have these dreams of taking spectacular pictures, and they never look as good as I think they should. Anyway…here are the pictures I took of the walk. They aren’t amazing, but they’ll give you a sense of the beauty I am enjoying daily.

Yesterday, Kat and I went to Roma. She is a Classics major and had never been before, so we were pretty excited. We DOMINATED the city. The second we were off the train (around 11:30) we were on the move. We walked down Via Cavour straight to the Colosseo. The line looked awful but it ended up not being bad, and we wandered around inside for awhile. It was fun, I’ve never been inside the Colosseo before. There was an exhibit on mystery cults inside, with some interesting information but the signs advertising the exhibit were more exciting than the actual exhibit itself. When we got out, we were STARVING, but ended up settling for some really crappy panini. On to the forum! I really love the Forum. There is something just really cool about knowing how long the stuff has been there, and thinking about the people that saw it in its grandeur, and thinking about it through the ages (apparently during medieval Rome it was considered pasture. !!!) I went into the Mamertine Prison, where Peter and Paul were held. That was actually really cool. I was really moved, thinking about their dedication to their faith and then all that has happened due to Christianity in the world. Crazy. We went up onto the Palatine hill, which was also cool, but it was a bit frustrating because nothing was really marked so we didn’t really know what we were looking at. It was still neat to wander among the ruins, rather freely, and think of the emporers living there. Amazing view of the Forum and the Circus Maximus (or where it was) and then even of San Pietro in the distance. Then we decided we should bust a move – and set off to the Pantheon. We walked past Trajan’s column and the Vittorio Emmanuale monument (blech…but still captivating in a weird way). Checked out the Pantheon (it was PACKED), got some gelato, then hit the Trevi Fountain. We both tossed in coins, of course. After that, we had some free time so tried to find a Puma store so Kat could brag to her boyfriend about it…but the woman who told us where it was was apparently lying because we walked the WHOLE Via del Corso without seeing the store. We ended up in the Piazza del Popolo, exhausted, wondering, “where the heck ARE we???” We took the Metro back to the Stazione (very exciting. Lots and lots of people), and realized we had actually been in a really famous piazza with a really famous church nearby…whoops. Wandered around for dinner (this is always a difficult task but we found a good place after oh…forever) and caught our train back. Looong ride (we had taken the Eurostar there but decided to be cheaper on the way back) but not too bad – it was good to rest our poor aching feet. We had walked a LOT! And then back to Antella. Sunday was relaxing, I did some homework and watched a lot of TV (in Italian, so it was ok!)…basically restful weekend.