She Lives!

So, I lag on blog posts. I suppose such is the danger of actually being involved in a program. Or, as much involved as I can be for a program that I get 7 credits and NO GRADES ON MY TRANSCRIPT THAT COUNT FOR MY GPA. Ta-Da! Vacation to Italy, right? Which reminds me, there are administrative things I must attend to for the purposes of not completely overloading my schedule in the fall, but that is neither here nor there.

Oh god. This man. Actual words out of his mouth, "Law doesn't matter at all." Seriously, why does he study law, societies and justice if he thinks the law doesn't matter at all. This makes no sense. It is, in fact, contrary to all of the logic of ever. Again, I digress.

Our day outing upon the Aventine, Palatine, and in the ruins of one section of i foro romano was lovely and ended in one of the best dinners I have had in Rome. For the record, we all definitely believed that heading to the Aventine would result in actually going sightseeing on the Aventine. There is not a thing to be seen by tourists on the aventine. You can walk it, there are like two churches (that I was dressed entirely inappropriately for), and that's it, you end up on the Palatine with NO WARNING. So, we stopped in at the Palatine museum and the exhibit on the Forum.

Luckily, all of these lovely things included a visit to the interior of the Colloseum in the price. Note to all tourists: the helpfulness of the audioguide in the forum is minimal at best. We tried. We weren't sure where to start things. It would have been more helpful with actual signs inside the great expanse that is the ruins of the various iterations of the Forum. We spent hours on hours within the Palatine, forum, and in the ruins of Caesar Augustus' palace. It should be noted that there was no food within this area. We, for once, forgot backsnacks (backpack snacks). At some point, all five of us decided that we were starving and left. We found a glorious restaurant called the Old Bear, and had pre-dinner gelato. I made a short excursion to the Lush store off of the Campo Dei Fiori.

It was a multicourse dinner. See alternate blog for the full breakdown of all four (yes, four) courses. It was delicious. I was stuffed. We all went to bed satisfied, happy, and generally sated. Chris's birthday got commemorated by him nearly being scorched by the roman candle atop his slice of cheesecake at the end of dinner. We obtained hilarious pictures from that.

Monday consisted of (largely) class, and sightseeing. There was the Colloseum, which was as I remembered, but with less parts open, the Trevi (still insanely crowded), and the Spanish Steps (again, crazy crowded). Then there was a few hours of an aperitivo with our wonderful professor, who convinced me to apply (semi-last-minute) to a DOJ job for next summer. Then there were late night excursions into our neighborhood of Trastevere.

Tuesday was accordingly, and constrastingly, low key. There was sleep, there was reading, there was the renting of itunes movies and eating of take out Chinese food. I know, you're all recoiling at the thought of eating Chinese food in Italy. You're all missing out if you don't. There was chicken cooked with pineapple. That is basically the best combination ever, second only to pork and pineapple. Fun fact: pineapple is translated to "ananas" in French, Italian, Spanish, AND German.

Yesterday was also low key, in preparation for our voyage to Bologna today. Bologna and Firenze this weekend. Possibly a tiny trip to Siena thrown in. It shall be a whirlwind, combined with the end of my least favorite person's time amongst us. The end. For now. There shall be more. Pictures on alternate blog.