Past, Present, and Future... Life is Good

It's been a long time since I actually wrote anything, so sorry if you've all been anxiously awaiting my next post, which I'm sure you have been. These past 2.5 weeks have been some of the most amazing times of my life. The trip to Paris, London, and Prague was absolutely incredible - perfect weather, timing, planning, and locations - and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Caitlin has a list of everything we did, so when she emails me that list I'll write it down on my blog so you can see. Our favorite place was Paris, but Prague was a very close second because of its uniqueness and overall beauty, especially during the evening. London also was tons of fun, with the Tower of London, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben as the highlights. I hope you could kind of grasp what he got to do in each place with a select amount of pictures I posted, although those are but a fraction of the amount I took (with Caitlin and I combined we had ~2,000 pictures... ridiculous I know). I had 2GB card and a 1GB card and filled them both up before day 8. After our trip we both came back to Rome, where Caitlin stayed with her mom for 5 days in an apartment about 5 blocks from my place so we got to travel around Rome together after I finished classes for the day. She left for Spain on Friday morning, where she spent a couple days in Madrid, and then Toledo, and then off to her program in Granada starting Thursday.

As far as school goes, I started last Monday and the first week went by really fast and shouldn't be too difficult in comparison to my classes at UCLA. There is a lot of reading, but being a history major has left me pretty immune to large quantities of pages that need to be read. I'm in Ancient Roman Civilization, Rome and Renaissance Literature, and the Science and Religion of Italy. So far Science and Religion has proven to be the most fascinating of my classes because the class is taught by an incredibly intelligent Catholic priest who challenges both ends of the spectrum very well. Ancient Roman Civilization has predictably been a spectacular class, simply because the Romans are my favorite subject to study. Rome and Renaissance Literature is taught by a well qualified woman, although with quite hairy armpits, and it seems to be more interesting than I thought it would be because the early readings of Francesco Petrarch have made me optimistic for the future. Italian is Italian... fun and relatively easy. Lucilla is my professor and she makes the class far better than it probably should be.

But enough about school... onto the really important stuff: the fact I'm in Italy and get to see cool stuff. Yesterday (Sunday) I went to the Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel for free (last Sunday of the month). The ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and Renaissance art were my personal favorites in the museum part - the Transfiguration by Raphael was beautiful. Obviously, the best parts were the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. Raphael's School of Athens and Michaelangelo's Last Judgment / Ceiling of Sistine Chapel were two of the most awe-inspiring things I've seen in my life. Pictures aren't allowed in the Sistine Chapel, but being as sneaky as I am, I captured a few images of the masterpieces. If you ever go to Rome, you must make it a point to see the Vatican Museum.

And more exciting news, I've made a few travel arrangements for the future. This coming weekend I'm going to beautiful Northwest Italy to Cinque Terre and staying in Riomaggiore. If you've never heard of it, google it or wait for my pictures next week. I'm very excited to hike through all five towns (Cinque Terre means Five Lands) and scoping out all of the views. Other arrangements that I've made are for my second break which begins the night of October 30 and ends the night of November 9. Leaving October 30, I'm going to Barcelona to meet up with Caitlin for the weekend and then leaving that Monday morning for Milan. I'll be in Milan for 2 days / nights with my roommate Phil. We've already reserved a ticket to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, which I'm very excited about. On Wednesday morning (Nov 5) Phil and I leave for Budapest, the capital of Hungary, to meet up with Sean (another roommate) where we'll be staying for 5 days and 4 nights. We're all really excited to go somewhere that's off the beaten path and somewhere we'll probably never go to again. We'll have plenty of time to soak everything in and actually relax instead of traveling so much... although we'll be relaxing in the cold because apparently it can get quite chilly in Hungary. And the best part about all this is that I got all 4 flights for 200 US dollars... TOTAL. I'm quite pleased with my bargain hunting. So, needless to say, the future is looking bright. Hopefully by the time I come home on December 12 I'll have visited Florence and Venice at some point, but as of now no definitive plans have been made. I'll keep you posted. Enjoy these pictures from the Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel.