A Short Week!

Monday, March 23th - Wednesday, March 25th

As you can tell, life has gotten a little busy lately, as I am just now catching up on my blogs! Luckily, we have a short three-day week and a free weekend starting on Thursday!

On Monday we had another group’s walking tour, this time we went to Campo Dei Fiori and walked Via Giulia. San Giovanni dei Fiorentini was yet another beautiful church that we got to visit. What was unique about San Giovanni was that in the church was the foot of St. Mary Magdalene as well as the crypt for the artist Franciscus Borromini.

We walked down Via Giulia, a very straight and kilometer-long road that was originally designed by Pope Julius the II. Afterwards we stopped at the fresh market in Campo Dei Fiori and I enjoyed some fresh fruit and vegetables and got to do a little shopping as well. (My mom is about to be so excited about the goodies I am bringing back for her!)

We ended our tour at Torre Argentina, the ancient remains of the Theater of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was believed to have been killed. After the tour we grabbed some lunch in the Jewish Ghetto, I had schnitzel and a delicious burger!

On Tuesday, we took the early train into Rome so that we could go to the Villa Borghese Gardens! It was an absolutely beautiful morning and we enjoyed our walk through the gardens to get to Villa Borghese Museum. We started our morning with a tour in the museum and it was packed! Luckily we had a time slot for our tour so we were able to get right in and explore! We didn’t have a tour guide, but Professor gave us a tour to follow along with our audio guide from the museum, so with both, we had a really great experience!

After the museum, we found a quiet place in the gardens (which really isn’t hard to do even though it is busy, because the gardens are SO huge!) where we could have class for Global Learning. When we were done with class, we met up with Mike for our bike tour of the gardens! Little did we know, Mike was our “tour guide” so needless to say, there were multiple circle trips around every practically every fountain in the park! It was really great being able to ride our bikes through the paths in the gardens, especially because it was a beautiful, sunny day! We also got to see an amazing view of Rome from the edge of the gardens that overlooks the Piazza del Popolo. That was one of the best parts of the bike tour!

On Wednesday, we had Italian class except, it was not a just a typical day in the classroom! We had a traditional Italian breakfast up in Castel Gandolfo and we got practice our Italian with the restaurant owner and some of her employees. We not only got to enjoy a traditional Italian breakfast, but we had some real-life conversation too!