Well, today was another good day, but it wasn't without its frustrations. Ironically, none were the result of language barrier or culture shock. I was finally able to sleep in a little bit, but unfortunately couldn't stay in bed past nine. I grudgingly got up and decided it was time to begin my homework, considering I am studying abroad. Over the next hour, I read through a chapter of my Engineering Economics book. It had to do with stocks and company finances, and a lot of it went over my head, but what I did get was useful information and seems quite practical. I also discovered my book has an infatuation with Dell Computers. Hopefully, the next chapters choose a new example, because I now know more about Dell and their finances than I ever wished to.

After my hour of homework, I decided that I had met my quota for the day, or at least the morning anyways. Mike and I sat down and figured out where we wanted to go visit today, and we decided on the Vatican. However, we ruled out the Vatican Museum because of the major crowds and early closing time on Saturdays. So we went with hopes to see get into St. Peter's Basilica. We were joined by Amanda, a senior computer science major that is in both of our classes. On a side note, we discovered that Amanda and I nearly met almost two years ago. It turns out she was Mary David's roommate, one of my friends from Fallbrook in the class ahead of me, and I had gone to visit USC in high school. I went and saw Mary's dorm, but Amanda wasn't there at the time, but she remembers Mary saying I came by. Weird coincidence. Anyways, when we got to St. Peter's we were met with a giant line, so we decided to just take pictures and go grab some lunch instead. We found a pizza place, and then made a stop for gelato at a famous shop called the Old Bridge. I decided to try some new flavors, and got ananos (pineapple), caramello (carmel), and pistachio. It sounds like a bad blend, but they actually mixed quite well and all were very delicious. Melon is still my favorite, but pistachio is close behind.

On our way back, we stopped at the market and got some food – mainly pasta – for our apartment. As I was told to expect, the selection at the markets here is substantially smaller, as the whole store probably could have fit in the cereal aisle back home. Then, we came back and met up with our neighbor Ben and decided to go to the Roman Forum by the Coliseum. We got on the metro, which further convinced me of the superiority of European public transportation. As soon as we got off the metro, we were met by the monstrosity that is the Coliseum. It was awesome. We walked over to the entrance to the Roman Forum, but first stopped by the Arch of Constantine. It was here that my camera batteries died, and I was caught unprepared and had to waste 5 euro on new batteries when I have four more rechargeable ones here. Oh well. Then, we saw a big line at the Roman Forum ruins, and discovered that it cost money. This was a surprise because my guidebook, supposedly current to 2008, said that it was free. However, in reality, you had to buy a ticket for the Coliseum, the Forum, and the Palatine Hill gardens. This isn't a bad deal, but it was three by this time, and we didn't feel we had time to do all three. So, instead we again consulted the guidebook in search of another attraction.

We chose the Musei Capitolini, which was just down the road and had a pretty large art collection. Unfortunately, the roads were packed with people, in addition to being filled with bleachers for the upcoming parade on Monday celebrating the Italian military (the reason for the holiday). We got confused on our roads, and ended up at the wrong museum. We didn't realize this, however, until climbing a million stairs and walking through half the museum. It was a letdown, but it still had some cool art. Luckily it was free. We asked for the actual location of our museum and made our way over to it. We had originally planned to take the audio tour for four euros each, but our book was also wrong about this. It was actually nine euro because you have to buy a headset as well. So we decided to explore on our own.

The museum was pretty big, and had an immense amount of marble sculptures. These happen to be my favorite medium of Italian artwork, so it was quite the enjoyable trip for me. I included some of my favorites below. If any of you were in my art history class, you would recognize most of these pieces from our textbook. Seeing these pieces in real life is pretty amazing. It's just on a whole new level from a picture in a book. Too bad the art history trip doesn't go to Rome... Anyways, we spent close to three hours in the museum, which had a ridiculous amount of staircases in it. We were all quite tired by the time we finished and were ready for some dinner. On our way back to the metro we made two sweet discoveries. First, we came around to the front of the first museum we went it. It turns out it is quite the amazing building, probably one of the most impressive we have seen so far. Unfortunately, I'm still not sure what it is. Then, we found the Column of Trajan, another piece I studied in art history. This was one of my favorites, and I think I may have written about it on the AP test. It is almost 100 feet high and has a continuous frieze that wraps around it from bottom to top, which depicts scenes from wars of the Roman emperor Trajan. It isn't the most well known thing in the world, but it was special to me because of what I learned in my class (thanks Mrs. Hartford!).

We made it back to the metro, and after a short detour, we got back to our apartments. We found one more person who was looking for dinner, and headed out to get some pizza (again, I know). I got pizza diavola, which has spicy italian salami on it similar to pepperoni. On our way back to the apartments, a heavenly smell caught our nose, and we followed it to a small bakery. I got an amazing chocolate croissant that made a perfect end to a long yet successful day. The rest of the night I will work on homework and hopefully get to bed early. Ciao!