Cara Roma, ti voglio bene.

We just got back from our 3-day group Rome extravaganza. We saw more in 3 days than I though physically possible. In fact, by the third day I believe my body was beginning to give up on me-I felt nauseous from sheer exhaustion!

Yet despite our entry into always one-too-may churches and museums, we all had a fabulous time. There weren't any giant crises, so I could enjoy myself as well. I was psyched to get to see the city from an art-history perspective, as we were there with our art history professor.

Some of the highlights for me were seeing at least ten Caravaggios (two in their original location), the Bernini statues in the Villa Borghese, and most of all, having the opportunity to enter the Necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica. The Necropolis is not well known, as it is another floor below the Papal Tombs and only 150 people per day are permitted to enter. Basically, the Vatican was built on top of an above-ground cemetery from the 1st and 2nd centuries that had to be completely filled in so as to preserve the sanctity of the tombs. They did not know about these tombs until they began excavations in 1939, in an attempt to find the burial remains of St. Peter.

The tour was incredible in that two stories below the Vatican, I was walking along city streets with brick buildings, mosaics, and mausoleums. Also, the tour guide did an incredible job of building suspense, to that point that I got really overwhelmed by the whole experience, especially when at the climax of the tour we saw the bones of St. Peter, who died in 64 A.D.

View of several domes from Palatine Hill. The largest one to the left is St. Peter's.

Here follow a ton of photos of the forum, perhaps my favorite site in Rome. It's simply fascinating to imagine how the city was 2,000 years ago.

Pantheon

The Brotherhood and Kelly in Piazza Navona, after my dinner with the boys Friday night

St. Peter's Square

Important business with the Swiss Guard

One of the many incredible Caravaggios we saw in Rome

An endless hall in the Vatican Museum with an ornate ceiling and ancient maps lining the walls

St. Peter's at dusk
(yes, we were there ALL DAY)

Piazza del Popolo, where all the anti-Burlusconi women's protests were to happen the following day.

The cab driver that brought us here asked me to be his Valentine, but it was really more suggestive than sweet. I preferred the pizza guy at the Trevi Fountain who said he'd wait for me. I wonder just how long he meant?

Spanish Steps

Saturday evening was a blast because almost all of the students and myself met up at the Trevi Fountain. We hung out for hours, drinking champagne and laughing at couples making out and tourists taking silly photos. That night for dinner I returned to a Calabrese restaurant I had remembered going to with my family when they visited three years ago.

After that, I met up with Luigi, Enrico, and Guido, some southern friends that studied in Bologna and now work in Rome. We went out to a bar and played Pictionary. In Italian, at that. All in all a fabulous day, but I was away from the hotel from 9am until 3:00am. You can understand the exhaustion now!

Me with the Pictionary group. The three to the right of me are the Bo friends, the others are all new friends!

There's also a ton of things I don't have a pictures of, like all the churches we entered, Palazzo Barberini and the Villa Borghese, for instance. But you get the idea!

After Rome, I'm definitely on one of my highs, where I love my job and love living in Italy. My students were so together and followed my instructions, and we never ended up in the emergency room for anything! I'm lucky to have such a wonderful group of students. Now we'll wait and see when the next bout of homesickness kicks in...

My next adventure is coming up soon, as next week is spring break for the students and I get it off as well. I'm going to Porto with Azzurra! Finally a trip to Portugal, I can't wait!