Just as expected, Sunday was an exhausting day. But it was also one that I will remember for a long time. It was the day of the famed bike ride along the Appian Way, which Thermodynamics Professor Shifflett had been talking up for several months. However, from the beginning things didn’t go quite according to plan. Shifflett had done this ride before, and knew the location of the bike shop. But he doesn’t live anywhere near us in Rome, so he gave us directions on how to get to it. We had a group of 25 that left Candia apartments at about 8:45 to meet Shifflett at 9:30. We rode the metro to the San Giovanni stop and then looked for Bus 218 that we were supposed to catch. Well, it wasn’t so easy to find. We wandered around for at least 30 minutes looking for the stop, and when we finally found it we weren’t sure how many stops to go. It had been two from the original location, but we were far from there by this point. We got off where it seemed appropriate, but it wasn’t the right spot. So we walked some more and by blind luck found the Appian Road. We followed it for awhile and eventually found the bike shop. Professor Shifflett was long gone by this time, so we decided to just head out on our own. We rented the bikes for the day for 9 euro and broke up into groups to go explore. The bikes were mountain bikes in order to deal with the rough cobblestone street. Mine turned out to be broken, as it wouldn’t shift out of 5th gear. This was a little frustrating, but of all gears to be stuck in it wasn’t the worst.

So for probably 8 km we followed the Appian Way, which winds its way through the Italian countryside. It was quite peaceful and tranquil and had amazing views along the way. We joked about finding Don houses from The Godfather and saw many good possibilities. The cobblestone was a little rough, so we spent a lot of the time “off-roading” on the sides of the road. There were small paths that wound through the bushes and rocks, which were quite exciting. They did lead to a few close calls though. At some point, the road ended and we continued on through some fields. We went probably another 4 km until we decided it was time to head back. After some photo stops, we got on our way back. A short time later one of the girl’s hit a rock and her bike actually snapped in half. She took a spill but wasn’t hurt that bad, but we were about as far as we could be from the shop with no means of communicating with them. Mike was nice enough to give up his bike so she could get back. So then Mike, Dan, Kara, and I took turns jogging while the others rode the bikes. This was fun and a good workout, so it didn’t end up that bad. A group rode ahead to the shop and talked them into sending a truck for us, so we actually only ran about 2/3 of the way back. We each took ten minute shifts so it worked to be pretty easy. The truck came while Mike was running and he hopped in and went with them to pick up the broken bike. Apparently it was quite the experience because the drivers seemed to be in quite the hurry. He did make it back safely though, and by about 3:00 we were ready to walk back to the metro.

On the way we decided that it was time to grab some food, and after the big workout we had we were craving some big juicy hamburgers. We convinced ourselves that we had earned a stop at McDonald’s, so we got off at the Repubblica stop and went in to the golden arches. It was absolutely delicious. McDonald’s has never tasted so good. I got a BigMac, curly fries (apparently an addition to the Italian menu), a Coke, and a chocolate McFlurry. It was so good. It was also quite risky of me to eat this, as I had planned to go play soccer at 4:30. I guess I was hoping it would taste as good when it came back up the other way :)

So we headed back to Via Candia and got back around 4:00. I had about twenty minutes to catch my breath, and then it was off to soccer. Our landlord, Gianni, organized this activity and all he had was a van and a small car to transport 22 of us. Five went in the car and the rest piled into the van. Let’s just say we all got to know each other a little better. The field we played on was an indoor arena with field turf, so it was pretty nice, but small. We split into three teams and played round robin style. I think we played for about two hours, and by this point I was thoroughly exhausted. Then, Gianni surprised us with watermelon and gelato. I passed on the gelato but the watermelon was so good. I think he might be the best landlord ever. We piled back in to the bus and drove back to our apartments, stinky and sweaty. I crawled into the shower and spent the rest of the night working on my homework. We had an ISE party trying to figure out how to do the homework. Unfortunately, this kept me up until one, so I still have some sleep to catch up on after that exhausting day.