Day 3

So, I am actually on the fourth day right now, but I am a bit behind, so I am catching up now.

So, on the third day, I had set my alarm for 6:30, another of my roommates for 7:00, then a wakeup call for 7:30. The first two alarms were snoozed instantly and it wasn’t until 7:40 that I dragged my butt out of bed and into the shower.

Breakfast was a nice buffet with lots of bread and spreads, also some bacon and eggs. Oh, and coffee, lots of coffee. I had a double espresso and half of a cappuccino with breakfast. From there we went right into a conference room that is acting as our classroom. We had 4 hours of class that seemed to fly by. This included two 15-minute breaks. The class is really interesting, we covered an overview of Classical societies, including the difference between Greek and Roman advancements. In a nutshell Greece was more intellectual and artistic while Rome was better with engineering and architecture.

After class we had about an hour to grab a sandwich for lunch and get ready to go see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

The roman forum was truly amazing, there are 2000 year old buildings standing there, some even older, going back to 800 BC! This was the ancient centre of Rome, where the emperors lived, the marketplace was, the courthouse and where sporting events were held before the Colosseum. Inside the forum we also got to see the sight of Caesar’s cremation which was really cool.

The Colosseum was really interesting; it is amazing to think that something so huge could have been built 2000 years ago in just 9 years!  It’s kinda sad actually because a majority of the Colosseum has been taken away for other building projects, mostly in the Vatican, but also other churches. This went on until the late 1700’s, meaning that all the seats that covered the Colosseum were gone and not a slab of marble remains.

We made our way back to the hotel on our own, stopping for some gelato along the way. I stayed in the hotel room until dinner; finishing my book, reading some of my homework and writing some emails.

Dinner was fettuccini alfredo, prosciutto & another meat I didn’t know and tartufo for dessert. After dinner I followed some people to a new internet café about 10 minutes away that had wifi and was hidden in the back of a café/bar/gelatteria (They are all serve the same things here) and settled in quite comfortably.

I got back to my room and found my roommate with some visitors, so we talked and got to know each other until curfew. Later I finished writing some emails and began the first blog post.

That was Day 3, stay tuned for Day 4-the Vatican!