Yesterday we started our projects! I just sketched mine out today because I wanted to get to the post office before it closed. I went to the Vatican to mail my postcards! They are supposed to have the most efficient mailing system, and you get a little stamp with the Pope on it! After dinner, Lane and I walked around Trastevere. There were lots of street performers and this man playing the saxophone. I gave him a coin, so I could take his picture. The Festival Trastevere Rione Del Cinema is here until August, so every night in the square they play a movie! It is only a couple blocks from our apartment too.
Today was Rome’s Independence Day. It rained most of the morning but a couple of us went to St. Peter’s Basilica anyways. The inside of the church was incredible. It is HUGE. We got to walk through the “Holy Door.” This door is bricked up on the inside normally. It is only open during a Holy Year (Jubliee), which happens every 25 years or when a Pope calls for them to. The last time the doors were open were in 2000, and the time before that was 1983. The doors are also called “Doors of the Great Pardon.” When you walk through the doors all of your sins are pardoned. The lines have been extra long to get into St. Peter’s Basilica because it is a Holy Year, but since it was raining it was not very crowed today!
We went to studio for the afternoon to work a little on our project. I got my first layer of paint down, so it will be dry by the time we got back. Tonight we are watching “The Lizzie McGuire Movie!” If you did not know the movie is her in Rome. Hilary Duff rocks in this movie, and I have not seen it in years! It is too funny to watch again. Tomorrow we go to Florence!!
~Caio!
Virginia Barton Sprinkle Art 