La Terza Settimana a Roma!

 This week has been the busiest week yet! It’s been an absolute whirlwind of lecture, excursions planned by WorldStrides, exploring the city on our own, and planning a trip for our four-day weekend. After an extremely busy weekend, my girls and I went to the open air market along the Tiber. This market takes place every night from sundown-3 a.m. and it is extremely lively whether it’s a weekday or weekend. This is something I’ve found I really love about Rome— there’s always something to do and there’s always people looking to have fun. The next day after class we went shopping and I visited the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit currently in Rome which featured a lot of his photographs I’ve never seen before which was totally great. 

   

In class this week we read Machiavelli’s The Prince and Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, which got me thinking a lot about leadership. In a way, Ive had to take charge over my life in a way Ive never had to before. Planning a trip to Sardinia with my roommate this week has put a level of responsibility and independence on myself that I’ve never experienced. We had a lot of setbacks such as acquiring an official sworn translation of our driver’s licenses through a shady WhatsApp chat (long story) in order drive a rental car. We were committed to making it happen though, and I am currently writing from Cagliari where we are having an amazing time!!

During the week we also had the privilege of attending a baroque concert featuring Vivaldi’s “4 Stagioni” at the Anglican Church St. Paul’s Within the Walls, climbing the 551 steps to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica, and touring the Vatican. These experiences were all amazing but my favorite was definitely climbing St. Peter’s because the view was stunning and the physical sensation after the climb was crazy. My two apartment mates and I felt very accomplished because we were the only ones to complete the entire climb and honestly, it would not have been so bad if it wasn’t so hot. A section of the walls during the climb towards the top of the basilica was completely diagonal due to the curvature of the dome and the walls were scalding because of the heat. It felt like we were being cooked alive. During our tour of the basilica following the climb I did not feel at all present mentally because of the extreme exhaustion from the heat. I probably could not recite a single thing the tour guide told us- I was completely out of it. It was a very cool and unique experience though, I would recommend it to anyone.