Another weekend in Roma!

This past weekend my Art History professor took all of us to Rome, which seems appropriate since it's a Roman Art and Architecture class. It was such an incredible trip, but VERY long. I woke up at 5 AM on Friday and walked to the train station to meet my class at 6:15. When we got to Rome we began our tour at the Colosseum and the Forum. Each student was assigned a few monuments or statues along the way to present to the rest of the class. This actually helped me pay attention more because it wasn't one person's voice the whole time. I'm exhausted right now, so I'll just list the places we went to:

Colosseum and the Forum

Spanish Steps

Piazza Navona

The Vatican and St. Peter's

Capitoline Museum

Market's of Trajan and his column

the Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

Ostia Antica (A little Pompeii-like city outside of Rome)

We saw SO MUCH that I probably left off some important sites.

While in Rome I was able to meet up with Adrienne, a fellow Sigma, and we ate dinner together. It was so much fun seeing someone from school! I feel left out having missed out on rush stuff, but I'm here having the time of my life so it's all good! This is seriously a once in a lifetime opportunity. I've been able to travel to some amazing places and 

meet great people and try new things. I'm a HUGE vegetable fan now! I know, everyone in my family probably doubts that, but I LOVE them and eat them as often as possible. I even have cravings for vegetables! It's better for my health than having cravings for gelato!

The first picture is me next to the foot from the colossal statue of Constantine. Note that his toes are larger than my big head, hair included!!! The second picture is of my whole class with our professor in front of Augustus of Prima Porta in the Vatican museum. Hiding behind her is Federica from the Student Life staff. She comes on most of the trips and helps plan them. I love her! She's so cool, sweet and fun! 

The picture right above is of a Tibetan monk tying a bracelet of protection on my wrist. My friends Courtney, Brittany and I were walking through a mall and saw these monks doing various crafts. One monk was painting a very intricate painting and the other was doing these bracelets. He blew on the knot and blessed it (or something) before tying it on me. I have such tiny wrists that he tied it three times and even had enough string to do a fourth time! Everyone else wrapped it twice. The first picture below is from Piazza Navona, which was a former gladiatorial stadium for chariot races. Today there are tons of vendors there. While I was having a necklace made out of wire of my name we saw these in the sky. Every black dot you see is a bird. This isn't even the half of it! It was CRAZY!!!! I don't know what they were doing -- probably some kind of migration, but they were in incredible formations. SO BIZARRE!

This picture is from Ostia Antica, where we went on Sunday before returning to Florence. I told the group it would be an incredible photo opp and then we all climbed on the statue to pose with it! It was a  much taller statue than I thought, which is why I had to hold on with my hands, ruining the illusion. Oh well! Overall, a fabulous trip! I recommend going to Rome with an Art Historian if possible! Your experience will be remarkable. 

Ciao regazzi!!!