Tuesday I essentially did nothing. We had class in the morning, then I basically hung around and posted photos. My dinner was modest at best. I bummed some pasta off Bennett and David. It was pretty good.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was basically the longest day of my life. I will talk about it now.
The day started bright and early at 9:30 AM (I know, right?). We meet up for Kathie's migration class, which really isn't like a class at all. We go to the Piazza del Vittorio, which was AWESOME.
First of all, the piazza, which was depicted as an open square. Now however, it is basically a giant grocery store. The entire space was covered from about 10 years ago, and now vendors line up each space selling everything from cuttlefish to lentils. Everything was amazingly fresh - and cheap! For instance, I bought: 2 carrots, 2 oranges, 4 apricots, and 1 apple for 1 euro.
That is outrageous. Despar has been stealing from me. To think, all that for a euro's bus ride away. The piazza market even had ingredients like ginger and shallots and leeks and fennel.
I must cheat on my fruit lady in the compo.
The stalls would be perfect for my photo essay. I'm nearly certain that a significant amount of workers there are illegal migrants. Too bad my camera ran out of batteries. I didn't get ANY photos of the market, which sucked since I saw shots everywhere.
Walking around was actually quite a revelation. I saw an absolute ton of Asian stores, which are likely fueled by illegal immigrants and cheap child labor. Interesting to say the least, especially considering what we talked about today (Thursday) in Kathie's class.
After the piazza, we basically had an hour's break for lunch. I rush through my art history reading just in time to meet at noon for art history. We talk about the palace of the Farnese family (now the French embassy) which happened to be right next door, Giordano Bruno, and then we walked (walked!) all the way to the Capitoline hill.
The museums there were probably my favorite so far. It was amazing how much Greek bronze they had. Even though I sort of embarrassed myself in front of Lisa by not being able to see Marcus Aurelius' beard, the museum was still super cool. I saw in person the bronze of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. Epic.
After that, we pretty much walked right across town to Hadrian's mausoleum, or the Castle d'Angelo. That was a super long walk, but we stopped in the middle for what is probably the best gelato I've ever had.
When we got there though, it was closed! Sad. :(
In any case, we returned and I basically blacked out from exhaustion.
Thursday was very eventful. Resat and Kathie's classes are both getting increasingly interesting, but the classroom was so hot that I barely paid attention at all.
A bunch of us saw the optional movie "The Leopard" tonight. Roman and I brought alcohol (and I brought cookies) to the movie. Resat, being the cool guy he is, definitely drank with us. That was really cool.
The movie made 0 sense. It was nearly 3 and a half hours long and featured nearly an hour of ballroom dancing.
After the movie, most of us chose to hit to bars since class begins a little later tomorrow (10 AM), but since I'm apparently breaking out in hives and getting destroyed by mosquitoes (photos to come - be patient), I chose to stay at home.
Another reason why I am a loser. :)
you're in ROME and your life hasn't been very interesting lately?! oh silly shurui. but i like that your post was still quite long and QUITE INTERESTING! XP the only reason you would be a loser is if you didn't bring me back a souvenir or you didn't post blogs! XP
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