Death march

Ok, so I've been falling behind, but it has been a seriously jam packed life. Next week, in Florence, I won't have Internet, so you'll just have to wait until I can upload all of them at once!

We started Wednesday with marc telling us it was "death march" day, and that if we got through it we would be through the hardest day of the trip. Honestly, I don't think it was as bad as the brief walking tour, but that's just me. But here I am writing about it a day later, so I survived.

We basically just went to a million churches, that have their own reasons for being interesting that you would learn if you took an 8 week course on them. There was the San Luigi dei Francesi, Santa Maria del popolo, saint Augustine, and a lot more. The latter two had caravaggio paintings in them. Basically, by the end we were extremely churched out, and starting to wear out, so they seemed to blur a lot in everyone's mind.

The problem was my shoes. I was not equipped for a death march. I had bought these (seemingly) fabulous shoes for walking; super cushiony on the inside, lots of tread so I wouldn't be sliding off all these marble stair cases, a strap on top so they wouldn't slide around...but what they did do, was rub and bite at my heels. Literally, chewing on Me. I went through a bunch of bandaids and medical tape that some of my classmates had on them, but nothing would help. I even stopped at a pharmacy and bought super thick blister wraps. The shoes chomped right through those, too. I'm now nursing two blisters bigger than my toe, and 3 more munch marks. It was intense. However, I was really making a conscious effort not to complain; everyone on this trip has something that's hard for them, and nothing I could do was going to make my feet stop bleeding. Complaining was just going to irritate the people that did care. So I sucked it up, and it felt good. Not my feet, but the personal growth.

We saw the pantheon, which was pretty darn impressive, and spent way too much time sitting around the piazza del popolo, which has the four rivers fountain and lots of street performers. The first night there was a magician, but during the day they have people who paint themselves and sit still to look like statues, or people that look invisible, with a floating hat and glasses above their collar. It's fun to sit and people watch,and play the "who is from where" game. It's safe to say, the americans do stand out. But watching some European women is like getting free fashion advice, so that's fun too.

I forgot; we started the day with the trevi fountain, which if you don't know what it is you should look it up on google images ( I still can't get my memory card adaptor to speak with my iPad). If you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you will return to Rome, so we all threw some change in. Then i found the most delicious gelato I have ever had, so I think later were going to take the subway back and get some more. Yum.

We saw the Aropacus, which is a peace monument that I think is really under appreciated, but it just doesnt fit Rome at all. We went to the Spanish steps, and even though I was a biohazard around my ankles, we went up all of them and came back down.

We ended the day with a restaurant run by a cute little old Italian man. It was the authentic experience we had been looking for. We had lasagna from heaven, pizza, and some other stuff that Matt didn't order but was still good. I'm hoping to go back before we leave. It was exactly what dining in Italy is like; a four course meal, and a table for as long as you want it through the night while you sip wine. The art of conversation gets some serious practice at these dinners, and it makes me appreciate the relationships made that just don't form she you grab something quick at the cyber. I want to hold on to some of these experiences for a lifetime. It's hard to not just leave when you're done, but our dinner wasn't over just because we ate all the food, and it really makes a big difference on how you feel everything else is paced.

We took the metro to the colloseum, and Meghan and I tried to explain Greek life to Matt (who would be an ASIg if he were ever going to go Greek, and either a phi mu or a gam if he was in a sorority). It's fun to talk to people about it that aren't so deep into it. It was so beautiful, and the weather had been perfect and warm all day. Then some French men came and started sexually harassing him, so we ended up leaving. I never thought about it, but he said its hard, because sometimes he's getting hit on, and sometimes it's people baiting him to beat him up. These are things straight middle class white girls don't think of, and we agreed that being gay sounds hard. Understatement of the year.

I was hoping to get the blog done for today (Thursday- officially one week completed!), but it's already almost midnight and sleeping is the most comfortable you get here, so I like to do it as much as I can. Good night, moon!

"Promise me you'll always remember; you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." -a.a. Milne