Fri­day August 28^th, 2009

Fri­day started out calmly, with a few hours of Ital­ian class and then some gro­cery shop­ping before an exten­sive nap to try and make up for the lack of sleep. When I woke up, a group of us were going to travel down to the Tiber river again for a night out. 4 of them got quite drunk, but myself and Rain took it pretty easy. In all, it was a pretty great evening.

Sat­ur­day August 29^th, 2009

On Sat­ur­day I woke up at 6 to take a shower and check out the world before we met in front of the Rome Cen­ter at 7:30am for an archi­tec­tural tour of part of the city. With excel­lent com­men­tary, we were lead to the Palen­tine Hill, Roman Palaces, Party Head­quar­ters, Churches, the Pan­theon, the Roman Forum and other his­tor­i­cal sites. After get­ting back at around 1:30pm, we took it easy for a while the sun con­tin­ued its relent­less attack upon the city. At 7:30pm, there was a stu­dent din­ner in the UWRC con­fer­ence room for the LSJ Rome par­tic­i­pants and some Ital­ian girls who were inter­ested in going to UW for grad school. Attempt­ing to speak Ital­ian, we didn’t do such a shabby job while eat­ing Gnoc­chi with Pesto and other assorted Ital­ian dishes.

After this, 4 of us decided to go check out the Palen­tine hill at night. Wan­der­ing through the streets while Rain strummed the gui­tair, we mean­dered to the hill and checked out the Roman Forum ruins at night before (of course) mak­ing our way to the Col­i­seum once again. Tak­ing a closer look, we checked out the floor level out­side with a flash­light and then took a break sit­ting on one of the sup­port columns which was demol­ished for build­ing mate­ri­als a few cen­turies ago.

On the way home, we ran into the Largo Argentina cat sanc­tu­ary, which hosts around 250 stray cats which are fed and cared for by a group. These kit­ties live in a his­tor­i­cal site marked by the ruins of 4 ancient tem­ples. At this point we won­dered if they were actu­ally there to eat the large wombat-type rodent we saw at another ruins a few days pre­vi­ous. Leav­ing that aside, it was quite extra­or­di­nary to see cats sleep­ing on tem­ples con­structed over 2000 years ago.

Sun­day, August 30^th, 2009

Wak­ing up at 7:00am, I quickly got ready because a bunch of us were going to visit the Vat­i­can city and wanted to get an early start. The only prob­lem is that nobody showed up or was awake except Rachel. We went regard­less, and after man­ag­ing to miss St. Peter’s and get lost for a short period of time, we got to the basil­ica check­point before the secu­rity guys decided that her shorts were too short and denied entry.  So we went to a shop and got a cheap scarf (that’s what we think it was) which was able to get us inside.

The size of the basil­ica is awe-inspiring, and cer­tainly the view did not dis­ap­point. We ran into 3 other LSJ Rome stu­dents who told us  just went to the top of the dome.

Pay­ing 5 euros each, we started climb­ing 320 steps to the main stag­ing plat­form before start­ing on the dome itself. The steps were mixed types, very nar­row, steep, and often shifted direc­tions and such for no real rea­son. It was entirely too warm, and quite an inferno with­out any ventilation.

Finally mak­ing it to the top, we were rewarded with a stun­ning view of the Roman sky­line and an amaz­ing breeze, mak­ing the climb well worth it. At this point, we decided to decend and find the Vat­i­can Muse­ums, which were hav­ing a once-a-month “free” day (nor­mally admis­sion is 14 euro). Under­stand­bly crowded, we waited in a fairly quick line and then went to the Sis­tine Chapel while admir­ing all of the other works of art before the chapel. Finally after 90 min­utes of crowded and warm walk­ing in a large group, we entered the Sis­tine Chapel.

Which, after all the antic­i­pa­tion, was slightly underwhelming.

Exit­ing, we chilled out­side the Vat­i­can city walls before decid­ing it was 1:30pm, and thus time for some lunch. Find­ing a hole in the wall bar (generic term for an Ital­ian restraunt) and had some pasta and Pizza Mager­hirita. Walk­ing back, our feet were in open rebel­lion before arriv­ing around 2:15pm where I promptly took a 4 hour nap before going to the Rome Cen­ter for some photo edit­ing and faster internet.

Stay­ing in the Rome cen­ter until 11:15, I went back and did some study­ing for tomorrow’s class before tak­ing a shower and writ­ing this post.

Pho­tos can be found at this link.