Dia sei (June 10)

The mornings are getting earlier and earlier but hey, it’s ROME, and when in Rome… I decided the phrase should be When in Rome… do as Athenians do, because I think that Rome is great but Athens, Georgia is also hard to beat! Best college town in the nation. This morning the group met at Campidoglio for a walking tour of the Roman forum, a collection of old roman ruins that ended at the Coliseum and the Arch of Titus. It’s minorly mind-blowing to see things that you once stared at on flash cards at 4am in Athens, cramming for an art history test. The Coliseum was ginormious, and all that it’s said to be, but all the people got in my pictures and made me mad. These funny people all dressed up as gladiators stand outside and want pictures with you. Peter, Rach, Mei Lin and I (the usual crew) set out to find lunch and walked a ways to find ourselves at the first truly Italian lunch spot yet. We stopped and asked directions to a great restaurant and we landed at a strand of cafes with insides under awnings and outside eating areas under tents with ivey and winding iron. Little iron tables with waiters that are dressed like the Italian paintings show, little white caps and tuxedo-like outfits that hum and sing and pronounce broken English. I said “oh yes!” really loud when we walked in, and all during dinner our waiter who was high on life would repeat it back to us. We got caprese and bruschetta and real greens and we were so satisfied that we had a comfy place to sit that we just stayed until we absolutely had to go.

After lunch we went to Villa Borghese, the Borghese family gallery in Rome and we got to see the most inspiring art yet. Bernini sculptures were in the middle of each room. Bernini is the famous sculptor for refining marble so well that it looks soft and shows the inprints of fingers on the skin. I know it’s viable to get in trouble for, but I just had to touch one. We learned all about his technique and strategizing. He made so many famous pieces and the Borghese family were his first commissioners. He would have 10 men working on one at a time and he’d give them little replicas and then finish the final details himself. They’d work 8-12 hours a day on them for around a year and he’d have multiple projects going. He was the rival with Boromini and he was the very best at his craft. One foot of the material he used weighed over a ton, so we wonder how in the world they didn’t mess up when carving these out of a solid block and how they moved them so long ago. (I couldn't take my camera in, but there are pics on my first italy post way below!)

We were so pooped afterward that we came straight back to the hotel and I think we’re just going to stay in tonight. I might get a gelatto cone J