Day 11 - Milan I

Today was our travel day and only major day of class that we had in Milan. We left Florence at 8:30ish this morning and we able to get on our train without any real problems and travel to Milan. We had a really nice train, so I was able to catch up on some of my journaling and stuff which was nice. We were all pretty tired from all our traveling and visits to museums and just everything, so some people decided to take advantage of it a little bit. Once we arrived in Milan, unfortunately, it was raining and would continue to do so throughout the day. We first went and dropped our stuff off at the hostel that we are staying at for 3 nights. 

Then we went and grabbed a quick lunch before going to Duomo di Milano or Milan Cathedral. It is the first French style gothic building that we have been able to visit, so it was quite fascinating. I really enjoy the gothic style of architecture with the pointed arches and just the way there are a lot of intricate designs that come to sharp angles and points. After we climbed as high as we could go and got pictures from the roof of it, we went inside the actual cathedral and  walked around taking pictures.

Then we walked through the mall that was there next to the cathedral. It was the first structure built with steel and glass to have a dome, which was interesting, and also the architect of it died by falling from scaffolding during construction. We found a vendor just outside the mall sell and interesting hat: Nebraska State. I’m not sure if that is just for the state, or someone made up that it is a university, but that was really funny to find in Italy.

Next we went to Sforza Castle or Castello Sforzesco. There was a nice fountain in front of it that we got to see as well. We only had the opportunity to walk through the courtyard and observe how it was all laid out. When we were walking through the courtyard we had a kind of unpleasant encounter with one of the many people trying to sell us crap, like pieces of string, and that was a funny and interesting event.

Next we made our way over to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana museum. There they had some interesting art, but there were a few exceptionally cool things there. First was a preliminary sketch of “The School of Athens” by Rafael which was not even complete and was missing some very prominent people in the finished project. Just going up to see how big of a scale it was, it was difficult for me to even tell how things looked from as close as you would need to be to draw it. It is incredible the vision that you would have to have and how you would need to be able to see the big picture the whole time you were working on it. It was interest to notice that Rafael did not have himself in the original sketch of the painting, but then added his own head into the right side on the actual painting. The other cool things that we got to see were some drawings and notes by Leonardo da Vinci, one of my favorite people in history. We were not able to take pictures of any of the stuff in this museum, so I unfortunately won’t have any, but the sketches were exceptionally awesome. It was cool to see the ability that he had for creative dynamic thinking and inventive design. Being able to look at his notes, it was easy to see part of why he was so great. He took carful observation of nature and tried to apply it to other applications. Even without the scientific knowledge that we have today, he was able to be creative with pulleys, gears, and all sorts of mechanisms. He had many observations of birds and the ways in which they fly, the position of their wings, and many other notes about them. This was associated with him obsession with a flying machine for people to use including mechanical wings for humans. These were some of the most fascinating things for me so far.

After we were finished there, we headed back to the hostel. We went around trying to find a place to eat and had supper.  Then we went back to the hostel and relaxed the rest of the evening. I got caught up on some blogging since we now have some decent internet and we played some cards. Then we called it a night and prepared for our “free day” where most of us were planning to go to Venice.

Day 10 - Florence IV / Free Day

This was our first “free day” that we had on our trip so far. Dr. Erdogmus had a trail that was along the western coast of Italy from Riomaggiore to Manarola to Corniglia to Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare. The trail went through the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre, which is the basically the five terrains national park. There are five cities that you go through on this trail, so that is where they get “cinque,” which is five in Italian. She asked if any of us wanted to go along because it is always fun to do these things in groups and she had never done it before and was determined to do it this year. We all met up downstairs early that morning because it was about a 2.5 hour train ride just to get to the trail. Getting up early and what people thought the cost of the train tickets would be, were the only reason that I even considered not going, but it was well worth all that I spent and not getting to sleep in a little. The train tickets were considerably cheaper than what someone had said they would be and it was phenomenally beautiful! A group of nine of us, Dr. Erdogmus, Ariel, Kate, Erik, Adam, Nate, Sean, Aaron and I, all took the train to the location where could buy our passes for the hike and train through Cinque Terre. 

At this time, the weather was a little suspect because it very overcast, and there forecast of rain. We then got our tickets and rode the train to get to the first part of the trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola. This was probably one of the most beautiful parts of the hike and it was the easiest that is made for tourist to just have a nice walk right along the edge of the mountains on the cost. We stopped here to get some lunch at a little café there and the sandwich that I had there was extremely tasty. It had started raining by this point, so that was a little disappointing, but we were determined to still have a great time. Then we took the path which was paved, and extremely easy, so Kate, Nate, Sean, and I decided to branch off onto the little paths that were made along it. One went up a ways, so we got some good pictures from up higher, and then the other one went down so that we were able to climb down onto the rocks right by the Ligurian Sea. We had fun climbing on the rocks and getting pictures from there. I went down close enough so that I could put my hands in the water even though it was still raining. 

After we had taken more than an hour on the part that was only supposed to take 20 minutes, we went through the rest until we arrived at the next town. The weather was finally starting to look a little better; the rain had finally stopped but it was still overcast.

Here we would have to ride a ferry since this part of the path was closed for some obvious reasons when we saw it from aboard the ferry. Before we left, we went climbing around on some more of the rocks that we could reach from the edge of the land. Then I needed to go to the bathroom, but could not find one that was public quickly before we needed to take the ferry, so I saw a store with one for customers only. It was the perfect reason to buy some gelato, so I bought a small cone of it and used the restroom, and hurried to go buy my ticket and catch up to our group waiting for the ferry. This was a really fun and relaxing experience. 

We were on the ferry for 15 minutes, but it seemed like almost no time had passed. It was extremely calming and relaxing compared to the rest of the trip. We were just able to sit back and feel the rocking of the boat and waves of the sea. About halfway through the boat ride, the sun had finally peaked out through the clouds!

Then we got to the next town, Vernazza, and began what was supposed to be the most difficult part of the hike. We are all used to walking a ton and hiking around from our first 10 days of the trip, so we didn’t have too much trouble with it, even with our heavy, tired legs. It was pretty steep and long, but it was absolutely gorgeous! 

We were fortunate, though, that we didn’t start on the side we finished on, because it was extremely steep for very first part. For us it was extremely steep at the very end on our way down. Once we had finally finished on the trail, we made it to Monterosso al Mare, where there were a few nice beaches. We headed to find a restaurant and had a very good meal, sitting right above the beach with the waves crashing against the beach. It was extremely relaxing to have a day like this where we were hurrying to get from one place to another and trying to make sure we saw everything we wanted to see.

Then we headed down to the beach for a few minutes and I stuck my feet into the cool water. It felt absolutely amazing since they are a little sore from all the walking we have been doing. Then we caught the train back to the main train station and had some fun taking pictures on the train ride and at the train station. We almost lost Nate and Sean a few times, and we were not sure if they made it on the second train. But sure enough they did and then we finally pulled back into hotel by 12:30 that night. 

It was an amazing, beautiful hike and a day well spent!

Day 9 - Florence III

Today was our big museum tour day in Florence. We were busy visiting a few different museums from 8:30am until 4pm this afternoon. Unfortunately, I most places did not allow us to take photos, so I don't really have any. First we went to Bargello where we were able to see a bunch of art, including probably the most famous in the museum: David by Donatello. There was a lot of pottery and ceramic art. There were many that had the ideas and designs based off of famous paintings and drawings. There were even some of paintings that we had seen in other museums or elsewhere before. Watching a video on the art of pottery gave me a greater appreciation for how difficult it is to decorate and paint the intricate details onto this medium. When I finally found the statue of David by Donatello, I could understand why so many people think that it appears more feminine than what David should probably be portrayed. The abdomen and stomach area seem more like the depictions of a woman, and also the face seems more effeminate. It was interesting to compare the different statues of David throughout Florence. The city had kind of adopted him as their hero, so there is plenty of art including him.

Then we went to Accademia. This museum is famous for having the Sculpture of David by Michelangelo. First off, we entered into a part of the museum that was devoted to music and instruments. We were able to see how a piano and a harpsichord’s strings are hit or plucked differently. There was also a giant bronze bowl thing that showed resonance when you had your hands wet and rubbed the handles back and forth. The water would get some awesome ripples and ringing sounds. One of the coolest things we saw there was a Stradivarius violin that that was on display. There aren’t very many of these left in the world, so it was cool to see one since I wasn’t expecting to have that opportunity. After we were done with the music part of the museum, we walked down the next hallway with unfinished statues of Michelangelo. It was interesting to see the different works that he had not yet completed, and it was quite amazing to know that these statues would have turned into something incredible. They didn’t seem that amazing because they were still rough with chisel marks all over them, and had yet to be polished at all. At the end of the hall, there was what we had come to see primarily, David by Michelangelo! It was even more incredible than I would have imagined. The pictures that there are of it did not even do it justice, it was so lifelike in a gargantuan sense with extremely lifelike body definition. I had to stand around and just look at it for over half an hour just to absorb it all. After I felt like I had a good impression of it in my memory I finally moved onto the next room. In that room, there were a lot of busts of different people along with many different plaster statues. The piece that stuck out the most was this bizarre piece of modern art from 2000 that no one could figure out why it was even there. It was a sculpture of a man in jeans, a shirt, and Adidas shoes who was crying into a puddle of water that would cycle around because it was electrically powered and plugged into the wall outlet behind it. It was the weirdest thing because it was the only piece of art in this room that had any color to it besides the white of plaster and the green of the weathered metal framework of the plaster sculptures. After I walked through this part, we had reached the end of the museum except for another piece of modern art that was a fake David statue that was painted pink for his skin and yellow for his hair. It was really weird and I don’t know why artists seem to feel like copying a famous piece of art is a good idea. If you really want to be excellent, you should express creativity and come up with original designs.

Then we went and had lunch before heading to our last museum in Florence. A few of us went to the supermarket that we had finally found where we could get some less expensive food. I grabbed a peach and some cherries and then we went to a pizza shop and grabbed a slice of pizza. Then I went back to the hotel and prepared my fruit and had a nice lunch.

Finally we went to the Uffizi museum which was overwhelming with the amount of art kept there, similar to the Vatican museum, only the art was a little more varied so that I was able to observe and enjoy most of it. Here we had another handout assignment to write down observations and take notes about several paintings and the museum as a whole. We were supposed to observe two paintings, “The Birth of Venus” and “Primavera”, both by Dr. Erdogmus’ favorite painter Sandro Botticelli; also we were to observe one that was actually under restoration at the moment, but they still had a copy of it up so we could get a sense of it, “The Adoration of the Magi” by Leonardo da Vinci. I can definitely see why these were the painting that she choose out of all the ones in the museum to have us view. They were all phenomenal. First I decided to view the “Primavera” which had a group of famous people from the culture. It was a painting that seemingly deals with the kingdom of Venus where all the others seemed to not be infatuated with her, but just themselves or the others in their group. Then I moved onto “The Birth of Venus,” which is probably the most famous piece of art in this museum. It depicts Venus being blown on a seashell towards land where the lady of spring is ready to embrace her with a sheet to cover her up. It seems as though he are portraying her being given from the mythical world to the real world almost. She was being brought onto the land from floating on a seashell, so that is the way it appeared to me. After seeing this painting, it reminded me that we had actually learned about this piece of art back in World History class, but I had kind of forgotten a lot of the things that I had learned from it. It was cool to see it in person this time. This one is probably one of my favorite portrayal of a female in all the art that I have seen. The expression on her face and the tilt of the head just seem to fit so incredibly well. It is one of the most pleasant faces that I have seen because although she isn’t full out smiling, similar to most of the art in this time period where they do not have smiles, she has this little happy smirk and innocent look on her face. After appreciating this painting for quite a while, I moved on to the next room to find a painting by one of my favorite artist/inventor/creative persons, Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Adoration of the Magi.” It one was extremely fascinating to me because of the fact that I enjoy his creations, but also since they had a sketch that he had done in preparation for painting this masterpiece. To see how he planned out the perspective for this painting was quite interesting; he had many parallel lines in order to have a sort of grid planning out how the objects needed to be painted and drawn. The quality of da Vinci’s work is always amazing, and I enjoyed how he also had indistinguishably distinct worshiper of the Christ that was born.  After I had finished my observations for the worksheet, I went along meandering through the rest of the museum. There were so many pieces of art that I could not take time to look at all of them individually. I would give all of them a glance an if something peaked my interest, then I would take more time and actually observe all the details of it. There was one that was a very detailed painting of some buildings, but I didn’t have my notebook to write it down since they made us check in our backpacks at the front. Then I finished the rest of the museum through a floor almost exclusively devoted to tapestries. I think that these are one of my least favorite mediums of art. I recognize the difficulties associated with their creation, but they just do not seem that intriguing or appealing to me.

After we were done with these tours of the museums, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. I went and worked on some journaling and rested a little bit before we went out for supper. Some of the guys wanted to go to a specific restaurant, but it was pretty packed so we walked around for while before we split up and ate at separate places. Then that night, a group of us went out after having a little fun playing some cards before. I went out and helped everyone have a good time and made sure that they would get back. It was pretty fun and funny. It is kind of incredible all the people that are her from the US; I met some people from either North or South Carolina, Kentucky, and Minnesota. Then after getting some of our group back to the hotel, I went to bed to get some sleep before our “free day” the next day. 

Day 8 - Florence II

Today, we got to start off the day in a new city: Florence, Italy! We woke up early at 7:30am and got some breakfast at our new hotel. We headed for a nice long walk to Piazzale Michelangelo which has a great panoramic view of the entire city of Florence. It is a long hike up these slanted stairs that goes up quite a ways on the mountainside. It is an incredible view of the city from the outside looking down on it. After we had taken all the pictures we wanted and learned about Michelangelo, we headed down to Basilica of Santa Croce. This is a very famous basilica because it is home to the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, they claim Dante, and many other famous people. It was really interesting to see the gothic style arches inside and on the front façade. 

We have been progressing through learning about the different styles and types of architecture, even though we haven’t actually had our lessons on them. We are getting to see so many different kinds of buildings that it is necessary to mention what style they are, so we have already learned a ton about that. It is interesting to learn about the different ways that different countries and their architects came up with to solve the problems created by wanting to build these huge arches. With the gothic architecture style, they used flying buttresses as the way for the sides of the arches that are part of the main area to hold itself up. Even within this area, there were different approaches between the French and the Italian. Learning about these different solutions and seeing them firsthand is exceptionally helpful since there is so much overlap between some styles, and it is hard to classify them. Dr. Erdogmus drew us a sketch that had both the Italian and French styles of this, and that was very helpful so that I can identify each of them. After going through and seeing all of these tombs of famous Italians, we made our way over to Santa Maria Novella.

Santa Maria Novella is especially interesting to all of us on this trip because Dr. Erdogmus actually had the opportunity to do non-destructive testing on this building to see how the ribs in the vaults actually were acting, and whether they were structurally related or just decorative. This building was interesting because it was originally built in the Romanesque style, and then the façade was added later on in the gothic style, so that doesn’t really fit with the rest of it. The façade actually rises higher than the rest of the building to more or less conceal the different style behind it. We were able to go inside this building and Dr. Erdogmus talked to us about how the different shapes and styles of vaults and bays are impacted by geometry. Only more square shaped vaults are conducive to having a dome at the top, and the rectangular ones don’t work well for this. After all the discussion there, we went to Basilica of San Lorenzo. This is the home to many of the Medici family who were one of the most important families in all of Italy. The basilica was mostly designed by Brunelleschi and parts were designed by Michelangelo. It is incredible how it seems like there is so much stuff that is design by these famous artists that never gets talked about outside of being in this class and if you visit or live around it. I had no idea the number of buildings and other artwork that Michelangelo designed or all the buildings Brunelleschi designed. You could see the richness and the power that the Medici family obviously had in Florence. They were able to afford commissioning some of the great artist of all time on their own basilica, just to basically show how great they were. After this we were going to go see the baptistery at the Basilica of Santa Croce, but the line was extremely long, so since it is so close to our hotel, we are going to do that later on our own.

After we had completed all our tours for the day, we had a little free time to go do whatever we wanted until our 2^nd group dinner. Dr. Erdogmus wanted me to help her and Ariel, our TA for the trip, pick out food for our picnic lunch on the terrace on our hotel, so we had to meet up a little earlier than everyone else for dinner. I went and took kind of a nap, and just rested while I uploaded some of my photos from my camera onto my computer. After my nap, I got a little work done on my journals and such. Then we went out to the supermarket, a grocery shop, and a fruit stand/store combo. We picked out different meats, cheeses, breads, fruits, vegetables, some vine, water, and desserts. It didn’t take us as long as we thought it might, so we had plenty of time to go get the tables on the terrace and prepare the food. All of the food was very delicious and there was plenty for everyone to eat. Then we decided we wanted to go see the view from Piazzale Michelangelo, which we had seen this morning, during the sunset. We thought we had to hurry and we were all full of energy. We were walking pretty fast most of the way over to it, and then we decided to start jogging up this hill and then a series of slanted steps that take us up the hill. I had my backpack with me, so I started out not too bad, but by the time I got to the top set of stairs, I had to walk. We had definitely got our exercise for the day! 

The view of the sunset over the mountains/hills in the background was phenomenal. I took a ton of pictures of the different sunsets, since at every moment it is changing and special in its own appearance. After we sat there and enjoyed the sunset, we also got to observe the lights of the city start to turn on. It was also a very beautiful sight to behold. Then we went back to the hotel and watched a documentary/movie on the Medici family and how Brunelleschi’s Dome actually ended up getting built. The building was originally built with the intention of having a dome built on top, but they didn’t have the technology to accomplish it yet. Then finally Brunelleschi was able to come up with a design that works, but the process was not without problems. After all the troubles the Medici family had, he was finally able to accomplish his goal of building the world’s largest dome, and even without the support of temporary wooden scaffolding.

After we finished the movie, I went down to the Wi-Fi area and caught up on journaling/blogging and uploading my photos. Now it is time for bed, cause I am extremely tired from our walking and running up hills that we did today.

Day 7 - Florence I

Yesterday was our last full day in Rome, so this morning at 8:15am we all piled into cabs to get to the Termini railway station to take a train the Florence. Cam, Erik, Sean, and I got into a taxi and were the first ones to leave from the hotel. We got there pretty quickly, but we were dropped off on a side of the station that was really long, so we decided since we didn’t know where to meet, that we would go wait by the ticket office on that side. After a while of not seeing anyone, I decided that I would walk up and down the side to see if anyone had arrived yet, so the others waited with our bags. I walked up and down that side about 3 or 4 times, and we still had yet to see anyone. We started to really wonder where everyone else was, so we all grabbed our stuff and went over to the terminals to see if we could find them. We walked up and down that area a couple of times without seeing anyone, so we looked at the train terminal signs to see which one went to Florence. We found on that did, but none of our group members were around, so we kept on looking. Then we decided to wait at the entrance of this area closest to where we were dropped off. Then Sean and I went to try to use a pay phone to call Dr. Erdogmus since we had been here quite a while already. The payphone was a pain in the butt to use, and it ate about 3 Euros before we finally got it figured out and were able to get a hold of her! Then we started walking around trying to figure out where she was and then we found her finally. Apparently, there is another side of the Termini station that is where all the taxis drop off people, so everyone else got dropped off at this location and we were dropped off on another side. It was a relief to finally find the rest of our group. Then we waited until we could get onto the train we got tickets for and made it on without too much trouble. It was my first time on a train like this, so it was kind of exciting. The ride was pretty smooth and the trains go pretty fast. We finally got out of the huge city of Rome, and got to see some of the countryside. It was quite beautiful. There were a lot of hills and we got to see some of the agriculture that is in Italy. There were a lot of vineyards, sheep, and grains in the fields, pastures, and valleys. In a lot of cases, there were houses that were just built on top of the hills out here which is much different from what we had seen so far. It was a pretty relaxing trip except for the fact that the pressure in my ears was getting messed up when we would go through tunnels and such.

After arriving in Florence, we walked to the hotel carrying our bags which was not that fun for me since I have to carry all my bags because none of them are rolling. Then we went and ate lunch at a sandwich shop, which was really good and cheaper than most of the other places we had been eating. Then we went to a Galileo Museum, where they had all sorts of displays and such about different devices and tools used by the scientists of the time and many things Galileo discovered. They also happen to have a couple of his fingers and a thumb there at the museum, because when they moved his grave, someone decided to take these from it and put them into a museum for everyone to see.

After this, we then went up to the roof of our hotel and Dr. Erdogmus showed us the view we have: we are right next to Brunelleschi’s Dome! It is an incredible view of it to be so close. Then we went over to the church that it is on top of and walked up the many stairs in small staircases to the top of it. It gives a great view of the whole city of Florence. It is kind of in a flat valley area in between the hills that are all around. After we finished looking around there, we went around looking for a supermarket to buy water, and then finally found one. 

This is probably the most frustrating part about Italy is that you only can get bottled water at restaurants, and it is really expensive everywhere. The only way to get decent priced water is at the supermarket. Then we went back to the hotel and relaxed a little bit until we went out to wander around and find some supper. We finally found a nice place after walking around for a while, and I ordered what is apparently a very traditional dish here in Florence: ravioli with wild boar! It was really good, and it was especially good cause you really don’t get too much meat here, so any bit was good. After dinner we went, got gelato, and went back to the hotel. I just relaxed at the hotel and kept up to date on everything. It was an interesting day on our first traveling day in Italy.

Day 6 - Rome V (Last fully day here)

Today we were scheduled to go listen to some lectures at the local university at their engineering building. I didn’t get my camera battery charged before this afternoon, so I only got a couple pics this morning with my cell phone camera. We got up and ready at 8:30am and walked over to the university, which was located closely to the Colosseum. When we arrived there, we met a one of the faculty, Dr. Stephania Arangio, who Dr. Erdogmus knew, and she with a few other professors and PhD students shared about their research that they have worked on and are currently working on. After this, Dr. Arangio showed us around their engineering building which the upperclassman students have classes in, which is off the main campus. She also shared a little about how the college experience, student attitudes, and universities in general were different in Italy from ours in America. It was very interesting the things that she said and talked about; it makes me very happy and pleased that I get to study at the university that I do. Then went and saw the church that is right next door to that engineering building which had a sculpture by Michelangelo. After that we went to lunch and took a subway to go see the main campus for Università La Sapienza in Rome. There campus is a small campus for the size of the university; they have around 145,000 students who go there and it was probably no bigger than UNO. It was interesting to just see all the students hanging out laying in the grass around campus. After she showed us around a little bit, we took the subway back to the Colosseum and walked back to the hotel. We talked about preparing for leaving tomorrow for Florence, and then we just relaxed in the hotel and I caught up on my journaling/blogging and just rested.

Then a group of nine of us went to a restaurant that we had the night where the other table spent 130+ Euros and we really enjoyed tonight. After we had finished our meal, we went to get gelato some stuff to drink and went back to the hotel. Some of us had decided earlier that we wanted to go see the Colosseum at night. So after we a little fun in the hotel, Kate, Jen, Brian, Cameron, Ariel, and I headed out. It was extremely cool to see everything lit up at night time. We captured some good photos of the government building we had seen and there were birds flying all around the top of it and were lit up because of all the lights. Then we arrived at the Colosseum and where we got some phenomenal photos of it and we had some fun just taking pictures. We also saw a couple getting their wedding photos done by the Colosseum. We were all laughing a lot, chatting, and having a good time. It was a very good way to spend the night in our last full day in Rome.

Day 5 - Rome IV

Today was our day where we had what amounts to a “free day!” At 8:30am Dr. Erdogmus had us do a photo scavenger hunt throughout Rome to kind of test us over what she had been teaching us about the different places we went. She had a sheet of riddles that she made up with things that she had talked about on our visits, and we had to go find the place and take a picture of it.

My roommates Brian, Cameron, Erik, and I decided to be a team for the scavenger hunt. The activity was supposed to be a race/competition to see who could do it the fastest, but since Brian’s ankles were pretty sore and swollen from all our walking the past few days, we decided to just go at a nice easy pace and get it done. We first had to go the Pantheon and take a picture of the pediment of it. This was simple since it was right next to our hotel. Then we had to go to the church we visited yesterday that had the Gothic style vaults in the ceiling. This was right next to the Pantheon, so we were already close. The next riddle had us go to the forum that had the cat shelter, and so we had to get a picture of one of the cats wandering around in the ruins. Our next location was the farthest one away, the Colosseum. We had to remember the different styles of column capitals and capture a picture of a Doric column capital on the Colosseum. 

While we were walking over to it, we saw 2 of the other groups coming back from it, running. We knew we made the right decision to take it nice and easy if other groups were going to be running. Once we had the photo of the Colosseum, we had to get a picture of SPQR somewhere, which I mentioned before on here. It is kind of a motto or something for Rome, so it is printed on a ton of things: manhole covers, sewer cover plates, posters, lamp poles, statues, trash cans, and much more. We decided since we weren’t really trying to go fast, we would just have some fun, so naturally, we took a photo of every SPQR that we could find in between the last two destinations. Our last location we needed to take a photo was Trajan’s Column, so I took all the photos between the Colosseum and Trajan’s Column. It is about a 10 minute walk, I would guess, and I took photos of 101 different SPQR’s! Then once we arrived at Trajan’s Column, we decided to have even a little more fun with it and take a photo of us each spelling out SPQR with our bodies in front of the column. Then we got our group photo required for the scavenger hunt and headed back to the hotel.

We were the last ones to arrive at the hotel, but the other groups said they were surprised that we even got back as fast as we did since we were walking. We went and showed our pictures to Dr. Erdogmus, and she thought it was funny that we took all those pictures, and she even gave us extra credit! I was a fun little activity.

After we were done with that activity, we had a free day the rest of the day, and it was only about 10am, so we rested up for a little while. Then most of our group, 17 out of the 20 students, went back to go see St. Peter’s Basilica again since we only got to spend about 30 minutes there the first time, and we didn’t get to go up to the top of the dome. Before we left for the basilica, we decided to go to the market to get lunch so we could eat it while we were waiting in line. We went there and got some really good food. I got a freshly sliced pork sandwich and we split some really good cheese so we put that on there as well, and I also bought a fresh peach from one of the fruit stands. After everyone had bought all the food they wanted, we headed over to the basilica. On the way over there, we thought that we should play some pitch while we waited in line, since I had brought my deck of cards along with me, so older Nate, Kyle, Keith, and I got in line and ready to play a hand of pitch. We had younger Nate as the “table” and one of the other guys as the “discard pile.” The line was actually moving a lot faster than we thought it would, so we were literally walking and playing the hand at the same time. I was also holding and eating my pork sandwich with my other hand. We were only able to get through two hands by the time we had to go through the turnstiles. Then we made it up to the line we needed to be in to walk up the stairs to the top of the dome. We had a good time chatting while in this line, which took a lot longer, and then we went through some really interesting hallways and some difficult slanted steps for our sore and swollen bodies. 

Then we finally made it up to the top area and it was an amazing view and extremely windy. We all got some really good pictures and then after being up at the very top, we made our way down to the area below where the gift shop was and the statues atop the façade. We chilled out there for a while waiting for people to buy a few things and then we headed back to the hotel.

After we arrived back at the hotel, I figured out the location of a church, Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, so that we could go see the crypt that they have there. I found the address and the hours, so Kate, Jen, and I went to go find it before it closed for the day. We kinda went the wrong direction at first, but then we were able to figure it out. It was a very interesting place, and unfortunately, they did not allow us to take any photographs. It was a crypt down in the basement of the church where everything was decorated with skeletons and human bones. There were light fixtures made out of bones, patterns on the walls made with bones, and decorations of bones. It was a little creepy, thinking that they were human bones and skulls. There were even full skeletons dressed in monk robes sitting there on the alter type areas, and also a full skeleton on the ceiling of the last area with a scythe and a weighing scale made of bones in each of his hands. After we had seen all of those, we headed back towards the hotel. We made a quick stop by Trevi Fountain, so that I could take pictures of it, since I hadn’t yet, and then we made it back to the hotel. We just relaxed and I tried to keep up on my pictures and blogging/journaling before we went out for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and got some drinks and watched a movie before heading off to bed. It was a really fun, good day.