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| caryn took a picture of that raised mosaic for me :] |
- woke up at 7:30 and had the most pointless class ever. it is getting to the point where it is obvious no one has read and we end up going down tangents that aren't even interesting... today i got really frustrated with one argument/discussion we had, so i spent the rest of class writing a 2 page rant
- walked through the market at campo de'fiori after class to browse shirts and buy a fruitcup. we accidentally got the sweatshirt guy to bring the price of the italia sweatshirt down from 23 to 15 as we walked away, but we really didn't want to buy them today. hopefully we can get the same deal later! wooo bartering :)
- lunch in the jewish ghetto with caryn, kari, david and kelly. the restaurant was a little pricy, which we didn't realize initially, but it was amongst the jews so caryn was happy
- took the bus to our first church of the day: san maria de maggiore. today was my first real day without a camera, and i kind of liked it. there is no way to capture the way the raised mosaics on the floor felt under my sandles, or the cool feeling of the marble columns under my hand as i stared up at the beautiful gilt ceilings. it was fantastic to just soak it in
- walked down to our next church: san maria degli angeli e dei martiri. it's the basilica i saw at the end of via nazionale on my way to spain that i've wanted to visit ever since. when we got inside, their organist was practicing and it was awesome. i wish cameras would have been allowed cause the pipes were gorgeous. the best part of this church was the meridian line along one half of the sanctuary that was designed (or inspired? not sure, my italian sucks) by galileo. you can tell the time/date just by the position of the light along this line across the floor... so cool!
- walked down to san maria della concezione dei cappuccini, which is where the crypts of the capuchin friars are. the crypts were really cool, but also extremely disturbing... 4000 bodies were used to decorate these ornate rooms; i cannot understand who would be sick-minded enough to design such a thing! the church was also nice, though nothing compared to the others we saw today. it was obviously a poorer parish, at least when it was built, as the entire interior was done in trompe l'oeil instead of actual carvings. it was impressively deceptive
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| organ pipes! |
- took the metro to piazza del popolo. we were trying to find san maria del popolo but accidentally wandered into san maria dei miracoli instead. it was pretty nice, but, considering it was our fifth church of the day, it wasn't stunning
- walked across the piazza and into san maria del popolo. it is known for its three caravaggio paintings housed there. i'm not a huge fan of caravaggio's style, but they were impressive paintings nonetheless. the church was also used for a part of angels and demons, which caryn managed to find
- tried to take the metro across town to one last church: san maria di cosmedin to see the mouth of truth, but the public transport decided not to cooperate. as it got closer and closer to closing time for the church and still no sign of the metro, we decided to take the bus home instead.
- exhausted we finally returned home after SIX churches, all named san maria... we made quite the dent in our bucket list!
- went down to simply with kari and david to purchase supplies for our american dinner night (ADN)
- read a little livy before going down to the boys' apartment with caryn and kari for dinner: homemade burgers, fries, and mozzarella cheese balls! it was so incredibly delicious, and another wonderful break from pizza and pasta.
- hung out with the boys, reading livy, blogging, writing our papers, and watching angels and demons, inspired by the subtly themed church adventures of the day
