One week, really?

It's officially been one full week since we left home, and it feels simultaneously like a lifetime and only an hour. Wow.

We went to il gesu, which is a church,and campo dei fiori, which is also a church. If you're interested, look them up, or just wait to see my pictures. (today is a boring day as far as blogs, because describing them just won't translate to what I saw)

Then we walked to the Vatican for our free time in that country. We went through the museum, and saw all sorts of things that I won't bore you about. It ends with the Sistine chapel, bt first you have to get through this corridor. Everyone is rushing to get to the chapel so quickly they aren't even looking at what their passing; I saw some Salvador Dali paintings, but I don't knows hat I missed before that.

I have mixed feelings about the Sistine chapel. It is very,very beautiful. It is still kept fairly sacred,as far as dress and photos (although you do have to pay to get in). We had to eas a book about it though, and basically Michelangelo was grouchy about having to do it because he really just wanted to sculpt, and so I just kept thinking about how pissy he was while he was painting it (standing up, btw. He didn't lie on his back, common misconception I kept hearing people talk about).

St peters basilica had a huge line, but we knew we had to see it so we just jumped right in. It went by really fast though; I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of metal detectors here, since people don't get stopped even when the alarm does go off. Weird.

The church was HUGE. One of those places where people tell you it's big, but until you see it in person there is just no way you can fathom the big honkin hugeness that is st peters. Again, it's something that I can explain, but just like when it was explained to me in class, you just can't get it. It throws off your sense of scale to everything, though. We also do the Pieta, but it was in a glass case. It's the only work Michelangelo ever signed, and some crazy ran up to it and started chipping at it one day, so they had to keep it contained and safe.

Since those were the only events planned for us for the day, we came back for dinner at the restaurant we were originally looking for last night. The Italian man there was just fun and cute; at one point, a girl ordered a coca cola, and when he poured it for he called it the "champagne of Americans". Everyone was just very friendly and patient, which goes a long way. Make one student happy, and you easily get 29 more seminar in Europe participants in the next day. I had the ravioli, which was pretty good. The first restaurant set the bar pretty high though. Also, I need to start going out with red wine people, because white it just not cutting it.

Then we just came back to the hotel and chilled; I think everyone is feelings trained, and getting to that breaking point. I know it's starting to get to me, so I'm trying to allow myself some quiet time by myself in my room. I need to stop feeling guilty about not being out always, so I can prevent the grumpiness that makes it harder to enjoy being out. Sometimes, people would prefer you just take the time for yourself so they don't have to deal with your moods, and Id rather make that decision for them then to start bickering a week into the program. So I'm off to bed!