Last day in Italy...

'Twas the day before departure

And all through the dorm

Not a student was screaming

Although that was the norm.

All the suitcases packed

Or still strewn across the floor

In anticipation of tomorrow

Which will end our tour.

Okay, I got bored with the rhyming. But it's true, today is our last day in Italia!! It's about 4 pm now. We had our "last lunch" at our beloved Chinese restaurant at 1:00, and then I went with Traci and Katie to the Colosseum to get some final pictures and then to Cavour to see Michelangelo's Moses. If we email Dr. Murphy a selfie with Moses, we will get extra credit! ;) But now we're back. And it's time to blog.

Yesterday I mentioned that we were going to our farewell dinner in Tivoli. It was a fantastic way to end our trip! We visited the Villa D'Este before dinner and it was so spectacularly beautiful I couldn't stand it. Then we had our dinner at Monteripoli at the top of one of the hills in Tivoli and we had a great time singing and dancing with the musicians who were playing for us all throughout our huge meal. Let me describe this for you. We started off with an appetizer with bread, meats, cheese and a tiny salad. Then we got what I guess was an antipasto with alfredo sauce and ham. Then we got some more pasta in red meat sauce, which we thought was the main course. But no, then they brought out some pork topped with olives and mushrooms and potatoes! By then we were so full we felt bad only eating part of it. Then, to top it all off, they brought out the tiramisu and some shots of limoncello, which I can't stand so I gave it to my friend. Throughout the meal we also had both red and white wine, orange Fanta, and water. All in all, it was a huge delicious meal and we were surrounded by friendly people and great authentic Italian music played on guitar and accordion with singing. As we went around our group and gave our final reflections on what our favorite moment of the whole trip was, the sun was setting out the giant windows, creating a beautiful backdrop to the finale of our grand adventure. (Pictures below, of course.)

The view from Villa D'Este!

One of many fountains there

Breathtaking!

The beautiful sunset out the window of Monteripoli :)

In my final reflection, I said that the moment that would stay with me most from the trip, if we could only pick one, would be the moment when we finally reached the top of the Duomo and we saw the aerial view of Florence. That was the first of many breathtaking sights that I saw on this trip, and it was so rewarding to see after the strenuous climb up. But it's really not fair to choose just one thing from the whole trip. For instance, basically every time I have walked into a cathedral, the sight has taken my breath away. Climbing to the top of St. Peter's Dome was up there too. The sights at Capri were so awesome too! And the views from our hotel in Massa Marittima were spectacular. Walking around that corner in Florence and then seeing the Florence Cathedral/Baptistery/Duomo will also be a moment that I will never forget. There are just too many breathtaking moments for me to name! I am excited to go back home and see my friends and family and doggies, but I think once I finally get home and get back to the grind of life, I will miss my time in Italy. I hope I can come back someday, and I'm so glad I was able to come on this trip now at this time in my life!

I have most of my stuff packed away, but I probably won't be totally packed until right before we leave tomorrow morning. We are departing St. John's University at 8 am on a charter bus to get to the Fiumicino airport, where we need to go through security and all that before our flight at 12:15 pm. Boarding begins at 11:20 am for me, I think. I'll have to check again. It's an 11 hour flight to Atlanta, and then I have about a 3 hour layover to go through customs and all that before departing Atlanta at 8:59 pm and getting in to Jacksonville at 10:15 pm. I'll basically lose 6 hours flying over the ocean, so it'll feel like it's 4 am. This should be fun!

I keep telling myself I'll be home tomorrow night, and I'm so excited!! So the next time you'll hear from me I'll be in the United States! Arrivederci, Italia!

~Dani

Three more days??

Buona serra a tutti! (At least here. Buon giorno for everyone back home.)

I'm happy because I'm officially done with my two presentations for my two art history classes! This morning our Art History on Site class presented St. John Lateran to the rest of our group and basically acted as guides through the church and the surrounding monuments, such as the Baptistery, the Obelisk, and the Holy Staircase. It was really cool! That doesn't mean I'm done though... when I get home I have until the end of July to complete my final exam for the Ancient Roman Art and Architecture class and I have to create a travel journal/scrapbook for the Art History on Site class.

The east facade of St. John Lateran!

The basilica of St. John Lateran

We only have three days left! Tomorrow the Art and Culture of Italy class is doing their presentations and our morning meeting place is at a church near the Pantheon and the name is escaping me right now. After that, we are basically done with actual "classes"! On Saturday we are going to Tivoli for our farewell dinner, and then on Sunday we have a free day for packing and farewells. We may also have a "last lunch" on Sunday. It feels like the last 6 weeks have gone slowly and quickly at the same time. The day we landed in Rome and traveled to Ostia feels like it was ages ago, but every day has been so full that the weeks have flown by.

We will take off from the Rome Fiumicino airport at 12:15 pm on Monday, and by the time we land back in Jax, it will feel like it is 4 am on Tuesday but it will really only be 10 pm on Monday. If I've learned anything on this, it's that time is a relative concept. But I have decided as soon as we touch down at the Atlanta airport for our connecting flight, I am bolting to the nearest Starbucks and getting the biggest iced coffee I can. I am so ready for that. :D

Today we also visited Centrale Montemartini, a power plant that was converted into a museum. It was cool seeing the industrial backdrop of the plant with the ancient Roman sculptures. So yeah, that was cool.

Centrale Montemartini

The floor mosaic in Centrale Montemartini

After tonight, I only have three more showers in these dorm showers! Huzzah!!

Hmm... Speaking of showers, I have made a definitive ranking of all of the showers I have encountered during my time here, and I feel like I should share them with you innocent bystanders. I've written them out below, #1 being the worst and #5 being the best (which may be backwards but I don't care, I run this). They've been real weird.

#1) The worst was probably the sit-down shower in the hotel in Massa Marittima. The "shower" itself was a small tub with a built-in slope that made it impossible to stand in, so you were forced to sit. And even if you could stand, the shower head couldn't attach to the wall in any way, so you had to hold it and deal with showering that way. The shower curtain was also too long, but you had to keep it inside the tub so the water wouldn't go everywhere, so you were essentially sitting on the shower curtain. The rod holding the shower curtain wasn't the sturdiest either, and I almost pulled it down multiple times. However, the water pressure was good and the water was pretty warm except for one especially cold night. The hotel didn't have the radiators turned on and the whole place was tile so I was already freezing cold, and the water just could not get warm enough for me. That night I slept with my jacket on. All in all, 4 out of 10, would not recommend. It was hard choosing the worst, but I think Massa won.

#2) If Massa was the worst, the second worst was definitely the shower in the Naples hotel. The shower itself was large and you could actually stand up in it, and the shower head was actually attached to the wall. The water pressure was okay, not great. It actually would have been fine, except the light in the bathroom was automatic (which was odd to begin with) and the shower was closed off in such a way in the bathroom so no motion was detected and the light kept turning off. So half of my shower consisted of me sticking my hands outside the glass shower door and waving them around to turn the light back on. It definitely could have been worse, but the whole thing was really strange.

#3) From here on out the showers are okay but still not the best. The next would probably be the Florence hotel shower, solely because of the water pressure and the position of the shower head. The shower head was on the wall, but it was on a pole on the wall so every position put it at a weird angle and made the pressure weak. The tub was large enough to stand in, so that was a win. All in all, not bad, but it could have been better. 6 out of 10.

#4) I think I need to put the St. John's University showers here. The water pressure is good, and they are definitely the most normal showers out of all of them, but they're communal showers, which makes everything awkward. Carrying all my shower stuff from my room to the bathroom every day is no bueno. Also, the shower stalls are just small enough to make changing in them really not okay. Long story short, I would not have lasted in a dorm with communal showers for an entire year.

#5) This decision for the best shower may have been influenced by the fact that the one and only time I used this shower I was just so happy to be taking a shower and I was so sleep-deprived I was delusional. This shower iiiiiis.... the shower in the Ostia Antica hotel. Coming in after a 9+ hour red eye flight and trudging around the dusty ancient ruins in Ostia Antica, that shower was the best shower of my entire life. It was a small stand-up shower stall, no tub. And the drain was partially clogged. But the Lord knows that shower and I formed a loving bond that will stay with me all my life. Congratulations.

ANYWAY... that was weird. But don't even get me started on European toilets. O_O

Okay, enough of that. Talk to you all soon! Buona notte!
~Dani

Free weekend?

Howdy y'all!

Welcome to our free weekend in Rome! You know what I'll be spending it doing? Sleeping, working on my projects for my two art history classes, and attending a Liszt concert and the La Traviata opera. And that's what separates me from a lot of other people... haha.

A lot of people are traveling this weekend. Their destinations include Venice, Milan, Sorrento, and probably others I'm unaware of. It would have been awesome to travel, but knowing who I am as a person and knowing how much my wallet is screaming at me, I decided to stay in Rome for these three days. I'll live vicariously through my peers' pictures and stories. I think there's seven of us out who opted to stay in Rome out of the 22 of us.

Here's a few thoughts I'm having today as I'm killing time before I walk over to Piazza Navona for my concert:
1) At this point, almost the five week mark of our trip, I'm actually pretty excited to go home and see my family, my friends, and my dogs. We have done so many things and I have already made memories that I will never forget. I've been saying since we got back from Naples that I would not be disappointed if we were leaving the next day. But on the other hand, I hate to rush the last ten days we have here, because I know as soon as I get back home I'll get back to the grind of work and life. At least I decided not to take the Summer B physics class, because if I did, I would be hating myself right now.
2) I'm a bit worried about stuffing all of my items back into my suitcase to take back to the US. I've bought souvenirs from every city we've visited, and I've gotten some gifts for my family (even my dogs). Bringing everything over here was a bit of a squeeze, so we'll have to see how I pull off packing for the trip back. It looks like it's $100 for an overweight bag... O_O we shall see.
3) Next time I travel, I'm bringing some BFFs. Everyone I have met on this trip has been super nice, but I feel like I would enjoy everything so much more if I had some of my good friends with me. But hey, that's what the future is for :) Dr. Murphy keeps saying, "When you come back..." and I hope to make that a reality!
4) I am going to be so glad to just get in my car and drive places when I get home. Walking and using the metro are fine, but I'll be glad when I'll be able to drive 15 miles to go a significant distance instead of walk 15 minutes to go a mile.
5) I miss Target and Publix. That is all.

So yeah, that's my life. I should probably begin the process of looking presentable and prepping myself for the 20 minute walk to this church. TTYL!

~ Dani