chiese

(note: I wrote this on Saturday.)

I think that has been the theme of day. Churches. But first, yesterday:

School yesterday was nothing exciting… lunch was fantastic. We have figured out that the salumeria in Campo will make sandwiches. They don’t have much in the way of veggies and such, but the meats and cheeses totally make up for that. Besides, who doesn’t like pomodorri secchi (sun-dried tomatoes) and pesto? Apparently they also have melanzane (eggplant) and arugola, which I have not yet taken advantage of. Maybe Monday. =)

After school, returned home… and actually found Villa Pamphili, which is the huge park right near my house that I failed at finding a few days ago. It’s gorgeous. There’s not a track, but I can do intervals on a relatively unused path, and just approximate the distance… there are hills for hill workouts… there are people playing soccer, and gazillions of dogs, and it’s all right in the center of Rome. Fantastic. Then, because we didn’t have class today (Friday), we all met up after dinner (at 10:00 pm… and that was pretty much as soon as everyone could get to Campo after dinner) for a nighttime giro della città. We went by the Pantheon, which is REALLY cool at night… of course, I didn’t have my camera, but there may be pictures on facebook sometime. From there, a few blocks north, and one west… (I’m wondering if Mom will know where I’m going before I get there) and we went to Giolitti. Dana is convinced that Monti is better gelato, but I’m going to have to do a taste test before I believe it. That’s going to be hard to beat. AND, it’s comparatively cheap. We’ve made a pact to try every flavor before leaving Rome.

OK. Anyways. On to today and all the churches. I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts that we did a tour of the piazze of Rome as part of school, but we had only 3 hours to cover a lot of ground, and waiting for that number of buses and metros and all that walking kind of added up, and we ended up without really having time to stop and see anything. Today, Juan and I met up at Campo at 10, and took 5ish hours to do a similar tour. I went into it with no plans, and he only had two places he wanted to see, so we kind of made it up as we went along. This included walking by several different churches that neither of us had ever heard of, and with a “Boh. Andiamo” going in, seeing some amazing artwork, taking pictures, taking the time to actually see things, and moving on. We saw the Pantheon (in daylight), Castel St. Angelo, the Ara Pacis, San Pietro, had lunch at a little pizzeria complete with the house wine, and then headed over to Via del Corso to meet le ragazze, who were shopping. What else is new. By that point, we were all exhausted, so headed home, and I, for one, did a bit of reading and passed out for an hour before dinner, did a bit more reading (10 lines) and i miei genitori italiani started a movie. So I’m writing this while watching Quando Tutto Cambia, which is an American movie, (When Everything Changes? Is that a movie?) dubbed into Italian. Maybe I’ll read later tonight…. But I also have most of the day tomorrow.

Ciao for now!

Baci,

Brian