Last Saturday a bunch of the girls decided to head to the city center and to shop and see some of the more touristy spots of the city. We went into two huge, beautiful churches, Santa Anna and St. Ignatious. We also went into the Pantheon, which was the definition of awesome. The circular ceiling leading to the sky was absolutely overwhelming. I can’t believe they were able to construct a building like that in ancient times. We got gelato at Giolitti’s (my favorite so far) and braved the crowds at the Trevi Fountain to throw some coins over our shoulders. In the afternoon we hung out at the underwhelming Spanish Steps, then window shopped down the 5th Avenue of Rome. A bunch of our guy friends met us at the Spanish Steps, then we all headed to a very delicious dinner at Hard Rock Café. It was expensive, but worth it. There’s only so many times a week you can eat pasta before craving a perfectly cooked hamburger.
Early last week I spent the night wandering around the city center again with Heather and Claire. We hung out in Piazza Navona for awhile, which was beautiful at dusk. We watched break dancers and guitarists and those people pretending to be statues. The piazza is lined with beautiful buildings, cafes and several huge fountains. It’s full of artists selling paintings of all of the popular sights in Rome. It was really cool to walk through and look at them all, I had a really hard time not buying anything. After Piazza Navona we headed to the Trevi Fountain, since we hadn’t seen it at night. We ended up running into an Italian navy band playing on the steps of St. Ignatious, it was nice to stand and listen for a little while (Heather was a high school music geek too). The Trevi Fountain is way better at night than during the day, and the crowds proved it. We were able to get some pictures and take in the impressive fountain before getting overwhelmed by all of the tourists and leaving the city center to get gelato in Trastevere.
My Ancient Monuments class also brought me to a lot of cool sights this week. Tuesday was spent at the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, where we saw tons of ruins and learned all about the heyday of ancient Rome. We heard about kings, as well as the senators of the Roman Republic. Most of the ruins in the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are from different time periods, but my crazy German professor did a really good job at giving us a timeline for all of the buildings and stories behind them. Let’s hope I can keep everything straight for our midterm on Friday.
We met at the Coloseum for Thursday’s class, where we learned about the enormous Arch of Constantine, much of which uses pieces of other deconstructed monuments. Next we went into the Coloseum, which is just as cool as you think it is. I learned a ton about the construction of the building, much of which has fallen apart over the course of hundreds of years. I saw some reconstructions, and my professor pointed places that have been cleaned, modified and rebuilt over time. I feel knowledgeable enough about the building now to become a gladiator, they did let women fight! ;-) Since seeing the Colosseum at night was my favorite sight in Rome so far, I was really excited to see the inside. I did not leave disappointed.
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