November in Roma

These last two weeks of school have been pretty brutal. I had four, ten page papers that I handed in, two presentations and a final exam. I have been doing very little besides school work. Last weekend was fun. I signed up for the bike-share program at the Spanish steps. I now have a pre-loaded bike rental card which allows me to take bikes of any of the local racks. I used up about 17 hours of bike riding in the past five or six days. It was a little intimidating to ride on via dell corso and piazza del popolo. The best part about it is that you can see so much more in a day’s time.

This week in my Baroque Rome class we toured two beautiful churches. The first is the Church os St Ignatius which has an incredible dome and the second is a church right by school that has one of the most impressive paintings I have ever seen on the ceiling (this is known as a fresco). This week I also got to go inside the Colloseum. The inside is incredible and I gives you a greater appreciation for the age of the surrounding buildings. We had a bunch of guests stay at our place in these last two weeks. Frederik had his two friends over, Keith had his three friends over, and Greg had his friend over. This may or may not have been a good idea. Although I want to mention that I did get all my work done and I got A’s on all my exams, I went out every night to be sure to show the guests a good time.

The Thanksgiving dinner that was sponsored by the school may have been the best thanksgiving meal I have ever had. There was like four or five courses of all sorts of rare cuisine. The food included some traditional stuff like small slices of pizza but also included some rare baked ravioli appetizers and rice and potato balls. The seafood dish was incredible. The turkey was stuffed with some sort of sausage and both meats are in the top two of any I have ever had. There was an open bar which included champagne and wine in unlimited amounts. The meal was delicious and very filling.

I have been having all sorts of camera issues. The one I brought with me is eating up batteries so fast that it makes no sense for me to use it anymore. Instead, I have been charging my phone and using the camera on that. The problem is that this eats the battery so fast. I have thrown up some old photos of some old trips and other stuff here.