What I have been up to

Last week I was busy with my Italian Relationships class. I have read through between 20 and 30 articles and learned more about modern Italy in a week than I ever thought I could. I really like the new professor for the program! On Friday my program took a day trip to Pompeii. I went to Pompeii in high school, but I have such a bad memory that I didn't remember much. Our tour guide was fabulous and made everything so interesting. The best part about Pompeii is being able to see how people really lived in ancient times, because in places like Rome development makes it hard to get a feel for that. The tragedy of the eruption is an unfortunate circumstance for the preservation of this city. After our tour was over, Antonio (tour guide) took us to his family's restaurant by the entrance to the ruins. We had alot of fun here, eating good food, trying limoncello for free, and chatting about how interesting the tour had been. This is Antonio's tour guide profile: http://pompeitour.com/?page_id=15

After the field trip ended, most of the girls in my program headed to towns on the Amalfi Coast for the weekend. Emily, Lane, Lee and I decided to skip the trip because we had a group presentation due yesterday and didn't want to spend too much money. Emily, Lane, and I are trying to budget what we can for the last 6 days we spend traveling independently, so we might see Amalfi then. I went to Sorrento and Capri in high school and want to see another place on the coast. Although I was a little bummed I didn't travel for the weekend, I wound up having a fantastic weekend here in Roma. On Friday night the four of us went out together and had a blast. It was nice to have the apartment to ourselves! We spent all day exploring new parts of the city on Saturday, which was the celebration of Italy's unification so the streets were packed with people. By the end of the day on Saturday, I was too tired from venturing around the city to do anything but fall asleep early and get some homework done.

On Sunday I relaxed for most of the day and went on a run in the other direction on the Tiber and saw some attractions I am definitely going to explore one of these days (when I feel like I have a handle on my homework..) I can't believe it's already June 5 and that I have almost been abroad for an entire month. I look forward to coming home on June 28 but I'm not ready for my time in Italy to be over. I am growing closer with the girls in my program, feeling more comfortable in this city with each day, and learning immense amounts about Italy. It's more than I could have hoped for.

Here's a picture of the sunset overlooking the Tiber River on Friday evening:

 Here's a picture of Lee, me, Emily, and Lane at the Spanish Steps while exploring on Saturday: