We almost missed the tour of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.. We were supposed to meet everyone to walk to the Colosseum at 2:30. At 2:45 we realized we were going to be late, very late. The Colosseum is about 2.5 miles away. Three of my roommates and I went to the bus stop and thought that may be quick, but then we remembered we were in Rome. Rome busses are never on any type of schedule, so we started speed walking. We got extremely lucky and were able to flag down a taxi! Which made us get there only 10 minutes late. So Emilio (our awesome Art Historian) took us on our way into the ancient Roman Forum. There is a lot more land in the Forum than I realized. You could walk around all day and just look at stuff. We however were kind of lazy because we had just ran almost a mile trying to make it on time, so we just went for the big stuff.

Then we went on to tour the Colosseum. That place was HUGE! I know that is kind of obvious, but it is really really big inside. The bottom floor that used to be underground is uncovered now, so it looks even bigger! Back in the day the underground level was where the gladiators and animals would just wait to begin the games. Rome was one of the last to build a colosseum. Before they would play their games in the woods. Nero had built an artificial lake way way back, and they drained this lake after he died to build the Colosseum. There is half of missing now because they used it to build other buildings in Rome.

After our long hot day we went to eat! I got a flaming creme brûlée! The flaming was a happy surprise! It was pretty good too. I was planning on coming back and just chilling, but when I got home I realized I did not have my phone on me. My relaxed night quickly turned into one filled with a lot of stress and panic. I DID FIND IT! A little over an hour later. It outside of our apartment under a potted plant that is by our front door. It had fallen out of my purse when I pulled my keys out I guess. I am so very very lucky! I am now going to basically duck tape it to my hand… I just have to find duck tape in Italy.

This is a 5th century church in Rome devoted to the Roman martyr Saint Cecilia. She was the patroness of musicians. There was a nun playing the organ the entire time we were there.

My grandmothers name was Ouida Celia Parker, so when I heard the name of this church it reminded me of her. I think she would have absolutely loved the art in this church and all of Rome.

We went to the Vatican and it was amazing! We woke up early to get there by 8:30. It was very crowed in the Vatican itself because on Wednesdays the Pope does his blessing. The museum itself is all we were able to really visit today though. It has more art than I could have imagined. It is crazy the history and irreplaceable works in there. We were there all day and I feel like I did not even get to see all of it. I want to go back honestly. No one can do it all in one day and really appreciate it.

The Museum is where the Popes used to live. They turned their homes into this incredible museum. Each Pope would add his own touch. They would try to one up the Pope before them with marble work and elaborate paintings. I am very happy they did this because it just kept getting better and better.

They had two large rooms dedicated just to animals. They had dogs, cows, lions, and so many more. If I was a rich queen I would defiantly get someone to carve a statue of Tibbie and Belle for me. That was one of my favorite rooms.

We walked through all the statues, Neolithic, Egyptian, and Ceramic type pieces and rooms before getting to the paintings. One of my favorite statues was the “Laocoon.” It is interesting because they lost Laocoon’s arm and thought they remade it correctly, but didn’t. They found the original arm around 100 years ago and realized it was wrong. So there are textbooks still that have the wrong positioning of Laocoon’s arm! I just think that is crazy.

I was so happy to see some paintings though after all the statues. I cannot begin to put into words what we saw in just the four Raphael rooms on our walk to the Sistine Chapel. Going through each room seeing the different stories and recognizing the paintings from studying them in a textbook was awesome.

The collection of artist they have is crazy, here are just a few: Caravaggio, Salvador Dali, Matisse, Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Morandi! I never though I would be so blessed to see all those artist in one day!!

I have a lot of pictures from this day, so I just posted them all at the bottom. These are only a few too.

here we go!!

SO HAPPY!

Hello Zeus!

Do we look alike?

pup!

“Achilles and Ajax playing dice”

Female Statuette (fertility statue) from Neolithic (c. 5600 B.C.)

this was just kind of funny.

The view was amazing!

Fertility Statue

🙂

The School of Athens

Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel

Matisse!!! Cheesing big!

Van Gogh

PIET MONDRIAN

Me and the Pope as I leave the Vatican. The real one was busy.. so I made do.

I know every knows there is obviously a lot of art and history in Rome, but there is more that a lot. It is insane. I cannot wrap my head around it just yet, and may never be able to. I am here for over a month and will not have enough time to see it all. Anyways this was my day…

I got a cappuccino this morning. I LOVE the cappuccinos over here, and mine today even was given a sweet blessing of a heart. 

We then walked to the school! We had Italian class and then our first Art History. I am still in awe of all the ancient statues and history Rome has in this one city. We went to three museums today and it went by so quickly. There was so much art we did not have time to get to. It is insane the history that is here! It is all over the place. I cannot begin to count the church and museums I want to go to! There are too many to begin I feel like. It is almost over whelming.

We took the bus for the first time since we have been here. It was interesting. There are
lots of interesting people in Rome. After getting off the bus we saw a girl walk by with leggings that had Ryan Goslings face on them!! I am not even kidding. It was kinda weird but awesome. Only in
Rome though.

Right after the Ryan Gosling leggings was a statue of the old Pope. It was beautiful and HUGE!

That all happened outside the three museums we went in. I am still trying to grasp everything we saw. In one museum we saw a statue that was kind of scary in the face. He has no eyes, they are just black holes. I was pretty tired by the time I saw this one and a little delusional, but I decided to attempted to recreate the face he made. lol

We then went onto the Roman baths. These huge baths could hold up to 30,000 people at one time! That is crazy to me to think about. I cannot even begin to imagine. It
was like the Roman country club. On the way there we walked by this beautiful courtyard where I was able to find another kitty!

Oh and one the best part of my day was that tonight my dinner consisted of Italian ramen noodles, corn, and wine. It was great. I finally found some ramen noodles that are almost like ours! I have seriously gone in at least 5 grocery stores looking for some. I have been craving them as sad as that is.. I live off of them in Auburn and am used to eating them!

Tomorrow we go to the Vatican, and this weekend I am going to a church service there. I know I won’t speak the language, but I still think it will be very worthwhile.

We had Italian class at 9:00 this morning. We got totally lost walking there and were almost 30 minutes late. Hopefully we can get to class on time tomorrow. Our teacher tried to get me to roll my tongue when I said some of the words, but I physically cannot. I sound extremely odd when I try too. I did try to do it to prove to her that it is not on my list of talents. I was planning on writing some of the Italian sayings and words I learned, but I kind of already forgot.. so maybe tomorrow. I will have Italian every morning for the first two weeks so hopefully something will stick.

After Italian we had our first studio class. We basically just talked about our ideas and what we plan on doing. Then we all went out to start sketching.

I went running after class. Running through the streets of Trastevere is so beautiful. I ran down to the run down Tiber river too. The weather here is kind of chilly. It is windy and in the 60’s most days.

Tonight I bought chicken wings and cooked asparagus! When we unwrapped the asparagus it had chunks of DIRT/MUD on the bottom.. it smelt like dirt. I guess it was just very fresh? We cut that part off though and it was very tasty. It was nice to have something that was not spaghetti. I have eaten spaghetti a total of 5 times.. and I have been here 5 days. I found corn at the grocery store today though! I am very happy about that one.

I found the Italian TIBBIE!! (my kitty)

Today I went to this place that has tons and tons of kitties! When I say tons I mean there are over 200 cats. They have a large area to run free in though so it isn’t like the are attacking you. It is right across the river from me! So I can go visit them whenever to get my kitty fix.

These people volunteer to take care of these cats, and it is all based on donations. They get the stray cats fixed and feed them. When I was there I found one kitty that looks just like my Tibbie!

I then proceeded to walk to the Colosseum! I actually ended up at the Colosseum last night by accident. I thought I was headed home with one of my roommates, but we were going in the TOTALLY wrong direction! It was okay though because we literally ran right into the Colosseum!! It was the best thing ever because no one was there really and I was able to actually see it without all the crowds of people that were there today. My mom always says you are never lost just on an adventure and that proved right last night.

The history in Rome is insane. I cannot begin to tell you how cool it is. I have studied it forever in art history, but it is so different to actually see it all in person. I am so blessed to get the opportunity to do all of this and am so happy I decided to take advantage of it.