First Tour

Starting pretty much from where the last post left off...

That night many people were tired and decided to do some of the reading. I read a bit of Livy, regrettably. After finishing about half of the reading due for the paper next Friday I decided to relax as much as I could while continuing to figure out the subletter problem which has been solved... for now. During this stressful time my roommates and a couple others decided it would be a good idea to start drinking and go nowhere... I moved up to my bunk to at least separate myself somewhat while still being able to participate in the conversation. Walking the line between alone time and not alienating myself at times has been a learning process which I feel I'm beginning to find the balance for. A group of approximately 20 has its pros and cons. Our group dynamic needs to be fixed, while individually everyone is unique, interesting and fun.

After going to bed and waking up approximately 6 hours later, which, if you've even met me you know is no where near enough sleep for me to function on, I jumped into the shower and revitalized myself for our first walk! Unfortunately for our first trip I had neither water nor sunglasses. This proved to be tiresome when sitting at the Circus Maximus listening to Crispin, one of my absolutely ridiculously amazing professors specialized in Greek and Roman Art and Architecture. Cris explained the aesthetic and chronological differences between the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite columns. Unfortunately the Circus Maximus is nothing more than a beaten path where it used to be, but the space is completely empty making it easier to picture just exactly how grand it once was. However, actually learning about Classical architecture while sitting on such a historical site is honestly still unfathomable to me.

After that we headed to the foot of the Capitaline hill where we went to a church displaying La Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth). Allegedly if you stick your hand in the mouth and tell a lie it will cut your hand off, so clearly we all took pictures with our hands in it. (Also, keep in mind that there are pictures on facebook of all of these places and I'm going to try get some up here as well as a kind of visual guide.) Inside the church we observed columns that were taken from ruins and put into this church. This was to show us that people both used ancient columns in modern buildings (at the time) and to "test" us on the different types of columns.

Following this we crossed the street to take a look at two different temples, both victory temples, or temples built after a general came back victorious from a battle, which victory had to be approved by the Senate. The first temple we saw was a victory temple with the patron god Heracles. The temple was Greek in nature and possessed columns of a nature which I cannot recall right now, but could definitely tell you if I saw them in person again, but they surrounded the cella, or main room. The other temple consisted of engaged ionic (I'm pretty positive...) columns, but we weren't sure exactly who was the patron god.

After walking not that far we stopped at *edit* Theater of Marcellus *edit*, and if I remember correclty there was a temple to Apollo near it as well. I regret not posting last night when it was a little fresher in my memory. After observing the architecture here we went to the library of Octavia (I believe... again, should have posted yesterday.) Apparently at this place there were works of Ovid that were burned after he was banned from the city.

End the Tour.

Sara, Jeff, and I grabbed a sandwich and headed back to the Candia since we don't have to take the Italian class, which is amazing because it gives us an extra two hours of free time, which I used to come back, relax, and stay out of the intense sun.

I also discovered where to find cheap soda during this time. Heaven.

Later that night people had the intention of going out, however, it turned into many people drinking a little too much, myself not included, and us trying to find a place to go chill, but instead we ended up outside the Vatican around 12:30-1:00 am. Seeing the Vatican at night was a completely 180 from the daytime (I mean... obviously I guess, night and day being opposites and all...). What I mean though is that it has just gorgeous lighting, I don't think I got a picture of it last night, but I will certainly be getting one soon.

2 am. Sleep.