Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (January 29th, January 30th, and January 31st)

As seen by the names of my recent posts, I have very quickly run out of witty names for my blog entries. So until I have something witty to name a blog post, I will just use the days of the week. I am going to try very hard to get myself caught up, because I am leaving  in a couple of days to go to Siena, Italy.

So onto Saturday.....(as I am beginning to write this I am realizing that I am going to have to describe the inexplicably long day that I had on Saturday)

Saturday, January 29th 2011


Today started very early. Katie and Casi, my two friends from Knoxville, were still in town, so today was a very big site seeing day. We got up early and made our way to the Vatican. On the way to the Vatican, (or Il Vaticano) we stopped to get cappuccinos. After coffee, we made our way to the Vatican museums, which house the Sistine Chapel, along with countless pieces or art and sculptures. Below, is a very nice picture. (a secret picture that one of my friends took. They do allow photos in the Sistine Chapel. They have people prowling around stopping people from taking photos and even sometimes taking their cameras and erasing the photos of the Sistine Chapel.



After our trip to the Sistine Chapel, we made our way to St. Peter's Square, where we proceeded to climb to the top of the basilica. I had just done this the other day, but the views were so stunning, I knew that my friends would need to see this while they were in Rome. After a long hike, both up and down, we made our way to the city center. From the city center, we proceeded to my favorite pizza place where they have the pizza with the pumpkin sauce. It is one of the greatest things that I have ever had. We decided to take a quick trip to the Colosseum before we met up with another one of Katie's friends from Switzerland. After the Colosseum, we made our way to the city center where we met her friend, Jillian, along with some of their mutual friends for dinner. We went over to a restaurant by the Colosseum for dinner and had a fantastic meal!
to end our day, we went over to the Trevi Fountain for gelato.



One of two things about this photo. One, you will see the jacket, that I purchased for 15 euros at the flea market, and two, right before this was taken, someone proposed to their girlfriend in front of the Trevi Fountain, so it made this a very cool visit. After gelato, we headed back to my apartment, because the girls had to be at the airport by about 7 AM.

To end this day, I will tell you that I left out many of the details about the fact that I walked ten million miles. The friends that Katie brought along were at times very difficult and some of their mutual friends caused many problems that forced me to walk ten million miles...... My feet have never hurt so much in my life.....

Overall though, I was very happy to have my friends from Knoxville visit!

Sunday, January 30th, 2011 


On Sunday, I woke up at 5:45 AM, to see Katie and Casi off. After that I went to bed and didnt wake up until 1 or 2 o'clock.....

After I woke up, I proceeded to have a lazy day around the house, after which, I met up with some of the people from my program. We decided to take a walking tour of Rome. We went to Piazza del Popolo, which is one of the most famous Piazzas in Rome (Piazza means square in Italian). This is where the picture at the top of this entry was taken. In Piazza del Popolo, we got to watch a magician along with a Michael Jackson impersonator, both of which were very good. After our visit to the Piazza, we went back to Bologna for dinner at Stuzziko, which is one of the very few restaurants that are open on Sunday.

One of the exciting things about the weekend, is that I get to lay around and relax, so that is exactly what I did, and this is where my day ends!

Monday, January 31st, 2011


Monday starts with my favorite Italian class! I really enjoy my teacher and I really enjoy the class. After a quick trip to the coffee shop after class, I returned for my new class (I changed my marketing class for a class on the Papacy). I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but this was the class that I took the trip to the San Sebastian catacombs with. With this class, I have already learned some much about the early church, and I am so excited about all the things that I will learn about the church and its origins.

After class, I walked my laundry to a self service laundry mat where they do your laundry. I decided that it was better to pay someone, then to let all my clothes air dry. It was only 12 euros for all of my laundry, so I thought that it was worth it. I also took a trip to the market where I picked up some blood oranges, which are my new favorite fruit. I then worked on some homework. (and also watched some movies on a website that I found). I was able to watch the movie the Kids Are All Right, which was a very good movie. I was planning on eating a small dinner at the apartment and then just having a relaxing night, but around 9ish, one of my friends from the program, Mary Alexa, said that here and Sommer were going to go out for gelato with Matt, another guy from our program for his birthday. So I ended up going to get gelato, and then an early night turned into a late night, because I didnt get back until one in the morning. Needless to say, I immediately went to bed because I had to get up and go to class.

Thus ends my month of January in Rome! On my next entry I will try to write a quick but about the names of the restaurants and the places that I have visited, just in case I ever want to look back and know specifically where I went, or if I ever need to tell anyone about where I went that was good and what kind of things that I did that were fun.

Hope all is well on the other side!