Dreams Fulfilled

It's been a busy weekend for me, filled with tourist adventures including walking among the streets of ancient Rome, cruising St. Peter's basilica, climbing to the top of St. Peter's, and perusing Castel Sant'Angelo.

On Saturday morning, a group of about 25 of us got a free tour of the Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Coliseum from my future Ancient Roman Civilization professor, Cris Corrado. This was the place that most intrigued and fascinated before my arrival in Rome, and it surely met all my expectations. I was just blown away by the sheer size and complexity of the Coliseum, the views of the Palatine, and the history of the Forum. With a little bit of cloud cover, and it wasn't unbearably hot, but still hot enough to keep me sweating the entire time. I learned so much of antiquity in only about 3-4 hours, leaving me eager to acquire more knowledge throughout the semester. Apparently, I get to come back and see everything again for my Ancient Roman Civilization class, which I'm very excited to do. I'll try to put up one picture of each thing I saw.

Bright and early this morning, about 6 of us woke up and headed to the Vatican to, initially, check out the museums until we realized that the girls were wrong in telling us it was the last Sunday of the month, so the museums weren't free... they weren't even open. So instead, we had no wait for St. Peter's, and got to walk around and gawk at our leisure with hardly anyone there. Everything there had to take years and years to complete by hundreds of different artisans. Seeing St. Peter's made me realize what humans are capable of with a goal in mind and the work ethic to achieve that goal. After that, at 8:30 am, we started the trek up to the cupola (5 euros to take the 500+ stairs the whole way) for the absolute best view of Rome. Unfortunately, it was early morning so on the side looking out over St. Peter's piazza the sun was in our eyes and the lighting wasn't great, but I still loved it.

After lunch today, Sean, Phil, and I checked out the Castel Sant'Angelo for 8.50 euro. Originally built as the mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian, it was later used as a safe house for the pope in times of crisis, among other uses. It provided great views in every direction, especially of the Vatican. There was an exhibit too, about the influence of Egyptian culture on Rome, but no pictures were allowed inside. The highlight was the Archangel Michael on top of the terrace with the view. Probably a little overpriced, but what isn't in Rome?

Tonight, I might be going to a cinema festivale, or film festival, to walk around and check things out. It's 10 euro and the highlight film is Lions for Lambs, but I'm still not sure what the plan is, I guess we'll have to see. I took a ton of pictures this tourist-y weekend, which I'll try to put up at least one from everywhere I visited.