Rome and the Week

This has been the craziest week ever! Its Friday, and we all just finished our final exams for the Summer semester. Finally! Somehow within the last week, we managed to fit in a trip to Rome, finishing our journals for our Italian Life and Lanscape class, writing and memorizing a 10 minute oral presentation for our Italian exam, studying for our written exams, and planning our trip to Greece! Phew, its time to take a breath. But only for a second, because we are leaving again in an hour for a week in Greece.

Last weekend we had a school field trip to Rome, and it stole a piece of my heart. We left early saturday morning and stopped at two Etruscan sites called Tatquinia and Cerveteri. We visited the Necropolis (land of the dead) at both sites. There were fantastic tombs at both sites, some complete with frescos and carved weaponary. (You know, just the essentials for the after-life.) The tombs we explored were enough to make Indiana Jones jealous.

We got to Rome late saturday night. We checked into our hotel, which was actually quite swanky, and opted to go on the optional walking "night tour" of Rome. How fantastic. Between Saturday and Sunday, we saw the Spanish Steps, the Treve Fountain, The Forum, The Pantheon, the Colosseum, and Church of San Luigi de Francese. It was so surreal to see all of this stuff.

Pictures and postcards do not do these structures justice. Everything in Rome is just enormous. Standing next to the Pantheon is incredibly humbling. To think that something like that could be built or even designed in 27 b.c. is mindblowing.

Rome was way to extraordinary to be seen in two days, so it is definately a place I will return to in the near furture.

But for now... its off to the land of Gyros and Ouzo! (Oopah!) We land Athens, and have two days scheduled there. We haven't booked hostels after that, because we aren't positive which places we want to see yet. We definately have Santorini and Crete on the list though.

I look forward to updating you guys next week.