So yes. it has been quite a while since my last post. actually i just checked and my last post was two days in. wow... A LOT has happened! Where to begin! welllll my most memorable night of the first week in Rome began with a trip to the Trevi fountain and a bottle of wine. A ton of people decided to go see this fountain and my friends and I decided to join them on their excursion. SO, we take the bus to this fountain and it was possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. You must google it and try to imagine walking up to that all lit up at night. The emotion that wells up inside of you is ineffable. So we get walk up to the fountain, pour a few glasses of wine, and throw the customary euro cent over our left shoulder which guarantees you a trip back to Roma later in life. After that we grab some gelato and decide to wander. Sidenote: Walking away from the fountain I ran into someone from cary-grove... small freaking world! Anyway we begin to wander and stumble upon the pantheon. We then decide to have another glass of wine there and make a tradition out of seeing great landmarks and having a glass of wine. By the way the pantheon is also unfathomable. Simly incredible. We continue to wander and reach none other than the spanish steps! All we did is walk around downtown Roma and we reached three beyond beautiful landmarks! Between that and the wine I was so giddy and excited that I couldn't help but skip through Rome for the rest of the night. Anyway by far one of the greatest nights of my life. purely incredible.
The next big thing that happened to me in Rome was a day trip to the beautiful mountain side town of Orviato. You could not take a bad picture of this place! We had a delicious lunch and then a walking tour through the town. (I really should blog sooner so i can be more explicit with details!). So yes, not much more to say on that, a lot of what I have seen is really too incredible to be explained and I can try but I may start getting a little heavy on my use of the words beautiful and incredible.
The next day classes began and after a lot of shifting around of my schedule I have some pretty good classes and teachers that I pretty excited about!
This past weekend Loyola took all of JFRC on an orientation trip to, excuse my spelling, herculaneum, pompeii, solerno, paestrum, and sorento. Herculaneum was by far the coolest. It too was buried by the eruption of the volcanoe that oblitterated pompeii, but unlike pompeii it is not a major tourist attraction so it remains pretty intact and we were able to see actual mosaic flooring, wall paintings, and buildings that were in incredibly good shape for being 2000ish years old! So after the tour of herculaneum we stopped for lunch in Pompeii and continued to Salerno to spend the night at the hotel. The next day we woke up bright and early and went to Paestrum which was not that great. the two temples were incredible, in amazing shape, giant, and overall just impressive. But the mix of a poor tour guide, terrible weather, and a rather dull museum really spoiled the day. (Besides that day it has been about 55 and sunny here in Italy!) After that another stop for lunch at which wine bottles where flowing and everyone (save for the bus drivers and chaperones) got a little tipsy climaxing in me playing the piano (at the reccomendation of JFRC's dean of students) in this ballroom and everyone dancing. Then again back to the hotel in Solerno for another nights stay. The third day we went to Sorento which was a quaint somewhat touristy town that was fun to run around in the rain (I seemed to be the only one really enjoying the rain at this point, but I wasn't as much when my water drenched shoes made my feet freeze for the rest of the 3 hour trip back to Rome). Anyway, we walked around and i bought a cheap, little watch as time seems to be a non-issue for most Italians.
So, now I am back in Roma and went to my one class today, took a nap, and went downtown to purchase a Roma Calcio jersey (soccer jersey, I got number 16 De Rossi, he is an midfielder with a little bit of an anger problem on the field... maybe he should have played rugby... :-) ). One class tomorrow and that isn't till 12 either which explains why I am up at this late hour. Wednesday and Thurday I will be in class all day however so life isn't all roses, but it is pretty damn good. Loving it out here and it will be hard to go home, but I miss all of you terribly and hope all is well back in the states!
Ciao!
Mike
p.s. I apologize for what I assume to be a massive amount of misspelling as in an effort to better my Italian that is the language my computer is set to, so I am recieving no help from the normal livesaver by the name of spellcheck!
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