More days!
Day Fourteen
Monday brings classes as per usual which take up a fairly large portion of the day (and delightfully so as much as I might grouse about finishing homework). After class, I was invited to a small dinner cooked by Dr. Behr in the 3rd floor kitchen which is far more private and intimate and thus is a lot better in a lot of ways. Plus it has an oven. Always a plus. Dinner was good and we spent a good bit of time talking between us and talking about my doodle drawings stuff. Along with Dr. Behr (who cooked) and Brandon (who paid for all of it), there was also Jackie (who stayed with me while food was cooking and we played all sorts of very mature and intelligent card games), Lauren and Nicole. The food was fabulous (I actually only ate the potatoes since I’d never been a great fan of pork chops and had been something of a last minute invite so I didn’t want to each much really) and afterwards Nicole (who wanted to go for a drink and a walk) and Lauren (who wanted to see the Pantheon at night) decided to go out on the town. Out of a desire to see the Pantheon at night as well I tagged along and Brandon did too for…reasons of being manfolk I’m sure. The bar we were going to go to as the first stop was overrun with soccer fans so we opted to go to the Pantheon straight on and go back later. We wound our way through the streets and found that while always amazing and awesome, they do close the doors after a certain point so we couldn’t go in. After that we wound our way over to the Trevi Fountain which was awesome at night as well before trying to make our way back to the bar which was still full up. The three of them decided to try another bar in a different area but since I hadn’t intended to drink anyhow, I decided to take the bus back and made my way home far earlier than they did.
Day Fifteen
On Tuesday, we took an excursion out to the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus. They are the largest and most extensive catacombs in Rome and are four stories deep. Our tour did not really take us through very much of the area which was both good and sad. I discovered that I can handle being underground (which I sort of already knew) and that I can handle creepy areas presumably filled with dead bodies (though they are out of their cubbies and in different areas now since after the barbarian raiders dumped them all on the ground they decided a mass grave was better than putting wrong bones in wrong areas). However, it was a bit nerve wracking especially when I’d see a long winding trail off to one side or another. I’m fairly sure I could get lost down there for a very long time and thoroughly terrify myself which doesn’t really bode well for archaeology but I comfort myself with the idea that I want to dig up castles and cities not crypts and that they would be far less open …or something. Shhh.
After the catacombs, we had a few minutes to visit the very cheap gift shop before we wandered out onto the Via Appia Antica or the Appian Way. We walked along there for a while and it was a very lovely walk with very pretty flowers and scenery and some ruins and churches and the like. The walk continued on for some time but myself and a few others decided to go on back to the University since we had both a presentation for History due and a large chunk of Thomas Aquinas due the next day. The rest of the day was largely relaxed and quite nice.
Day Sixteen
Class on Wednesday was a bit more fun than usual. It was the halfway point of the trip so there was a bit of discussion about cooking Mexican food for dinner between our fun and lovely conversations on Aquinas (who I loathe). Before that, however, was our history class which was our crash course and talk on the Roman Forum. We each had to present one of the elements of the Forum and we all got to have fun with powerpoint. (I did the work and research on it beforehand but then promptly forgot to do the notes for the speaking parts so I had to redo stuff but apparently I pulled it off alright).
After class we found out that there was no way to cook so we found a Mexican restaurant and made the long pilgrimage that way. The food was actually really good and the margaritas were fantastic. it was a nice bit of home while in a different country.