The days are fleeting and time refuses to slow down. It seems like I was just thinking about my firsts and suddenly I'm itemizing my lasts - last Tuesday night out, last meal in Florence, last paper. Being busy with finals is making the time fly by even faster! I had a presentation yesterday, a paper due today, tonight is the art show (pics to come!), tomorrow I have a quiz, the list just keeps going. This weekend will be the first that I have been in Florence for the entire weekend since September. It's so different from then though, I actually know where I want to eat and what I want to do!
More pictures from my class field trip to Rome! On Friday night we went out to eat at the cutest restaurant. Four out of five of us got pasta with lamb that was amazing! After Chelsea, Joe and I went to a hole in the wall bar called the Fiddler's elbow. Chelsea left early, but Joe and I drank beer and played darts with Italians. We had such a nice time speaking to them in Italian for hours! We lost darts, turns out I'm really terrible! Whoops. We got back to the hotel around one and had to get up at seven thirty the next morning. We went to EUR, a fascist planned city on the outskirts of Rome. It's so fascist, it's scary. I hated it so much. We went to St. Peter's where there were about thirty marching bands and a circus tent set up...WHAT? The last thing on our itinerary was to visit the Etruscan artifacts at the Villa Guilia.
It was all so great and I'm so happy I got to spend some time in Rome! This was my last trip and while it makes me so sad, it also means I'll be reuniting with my friends and family in America soon. This is the last week of classes and next week in finals. I can't make time slow down! It's going by way too fast. I'll be spending all the time that's not studying enjoying Florence and everything it has to offer. Savoring every moment I have here.
I feel like I can't update fast enough! I went to Rome on Friday and Saturday with my class. My teacher is utterly brilliant and it was a complete joy to have him lead us around the city. Our first stop was the colosseum which did not disappoint! It was everything I had hoped it would be! We also visited the Arch of Constantine, the Basilica of Maxentius, the Roman Forum, the Vittorio Emanuele III Monument, the Risorgimento museum and the Pantheon on Friday. My friend Joe and I started playing a game called 'I spy antiquity,' which was way too easy in Rome! It was a lot of information, but so educational! By the end of it I was completely exhausted. More pictures to come!
On Friday I went to Rome with Grace, Olivia and Carmen. We took an 11 am train and got in a little before one. I'm so happy I have a eurail pass! I was able to go to the station a couple minutes before the train and just get on. I love the ability to come and go as I please. When we got in we went to our hostel to drop off our stuff. It was a tiny hostel on the 5th floor of a small building. They only had a couple rooms and because of booking I was in a single and the rest of the girls were in a triple. We went to dinner at this over-priced but delicious trattoria near the hostel. We didn't realize how over-priced it was until we got our food and the portion size was tiny! The food was delicious though and they were playing The National, one of my newly favorite bands!
After lunch we went to the Trevi Fountain (or as David calls it - the Cherry fountain) and took some pictures. We got gelato at a place claiming to be one of the best - Il Gelato di San Crispino. I got honey and coffee. It was really good! The honey tasted like unprocessed honey which is less sweet and more flavorful than regular honey. After we made our way over to the Spanish steps. We sat there for a while, looking out at the beautiful sunset and taking in Rome. Everyone was exhausted and starting to get a little grumpy, so we went back to the hostel for a nap. We were slow moving and didn't get to dinner until 10. We went to a place called Alfredo that didn't have Alfredo on the menu. Olivia asked if they could make it and they said yes. When she got her dish it was pasta with tomato sauce, sausage and mushrooms (Olivia HATES mushrooms), but fortunately I was able to switch with her. I got carbonara and it tasted purely like black pepper, which I'm not the biggest fan of. Dinner overall was kind of a bust, service wasn't good and they didn't take credit cards!
We went out that night to a bar/club called the Shark. We ended up meeting a bunch of Spanish kids on the way there (we were actually going some where else), but we decided to go out with them. It was half indoors, half outdoors which was nice! The next morning I ended up heading back to Florence early than I had anticipated. Even though my trip to Rome was short, I'll be heading back soon for a class trip so I'll get to see everything I didn't the first time!
