...And Even More

This time, for social rather than academic reasons. I have no classes on Fridays, so I get to SLEEP IN YAY!
Anyway, since the Art History field trips are on Friday afternoons, we all pick up our bag lunches whether or not we're in the class. While this is sad because the bag lunches are nothing compared to the wonderful home-cooked meals we get when eating at the Centro, it's also sort of nice because it makes random picnic lunches really easy. In this case, I got invited along with a group heading out to the Spanish Steps to meet up with the Art History students after their field trip to eat lunch together.

Here we all are! Back row, starting from the left: Joe, Drew, Maggie, Brittney. Middle row: me, Lauren, Kimia. Front row: Alex and Christine. Sarah is taking the picture.

As you can see from the background people, the Spanish Steps are a good place for people-watching. It's obviously a tourist destination, but there's also a long street filled with shops leading to the Steps, so you'll find a lot of Italians there too.

A long and very busy street! We wandered down the street on our way back to the bus, and ran into a few interesting stores.

This is the first McDonald's to be built in Italy. No, we didn't eat there--we just went in to be tourists at the fast-food place that's everywhere back home. Why don't the McDonald's in America look this nice? The other interesting thing we found (that certain members of our group immediately decided they had to go into) was a Disney store. Apparently the merchandise is quite different from what you can get in the US--I was more interested in the statues!

This is not what I have in mind when I think of columns and statues! Still, it was very entertaining, and I of course had to take a picture. Only in Rome!

This is more my idea of a column. This is the column of Marcus Aurelius--for some reason, it's not nearly as famous as Trajan's column. They're actually quite close to one another.

I'm honestly not sure what this actually is--I know it's a government building of some sort (possibly a museum), that it's huge, and that the Italians hate it. They've nicknamed it several things, and the nicest one is the "wedding cake" so that's really the only name I know it by. I don't think it's really all that bad-looking, which is good for me--it's smack dab in the middle of the Piazza Venezia, which is where our most frequently-taken bus drops us off. Since I see it so often, I figured I ought to get a picture of it at some point. It's not the best picture (can you tell I was walking when I took it?) but it gives you a pretty good idea of how big this thing is.

So that was Friday--social, fun, and no classes. I call that a win. Also a win is that now I get to talk about today, and I'm finally all caught up!

I woke up inexplicably early this morning (I think this getting up at 7:00 every morning is teaching me terrible habits), and had a quiet, lazy morning in. I eventually headed out to get breakfast, and ran into some friends at the cafe. We chatted over our cappuccinos (I will never be able to go back to American coffee after this), and discovered that we all had plans to go grocery shopping to feed ourselves over the weekend, so I didn't have to go alone. I found some easy foods to keep around that aren't too unhealthy (it's hard to keep good food on hand when there's only a barely-functional refrigerator and nothing to cook with but a microwave--I miss my kitchen), and headed back to the Centro to hopefully get a head start on my homework. Well, no homework ended up getting done, but I did get my room back in some semblance of order and organized all my paperwork for my various classes so that I could actually find it when it comes time to study. The reason for my lack of homework completion (aside from trying to catch up on blogging) is that I again headed out into Rome, this time with a smaller group and a different mission--to find a stationary store.

Yes, I know you're all making weird faces at the computer right now. But school supplies are some of the things that I didn't think to pack, or to pack enough of, and we'd heard wonderful things about this huge office supply store near the Spanish Steps (so yes, I was basically backtracking. It happens). As it turns out, the store was all it was hyped up to be, and more.

It's a very cool store--it's got basic office supplies (although apparently no mechanical pencils that I could find), stationary, craft materials, scrapbooking materials, art supplies, even a whole room of (absurdly expensive) fountain and calligraphy pens.  I got the folders, clips, and post-it notes that I needed, drooled over the calligraphy pens for a while, and mourned over the lack of boring old normal mechanical pencils. There's a smaller school supply store fairly near here though, and I'll likely have more luck there, so it wasn't really a problem. And, of course, it's always fun to have other people to geek out over the most ridiculous things with.

When we were done with our shopping, we dropped by a pizzeria to pick up a late lunch (I also found panna cotta gelato, which was wonderful), ate again on the Spanish Steps, and eventually made our way back home (making note of an upscale chocolatier on the way). I had a lovely chat with my wonderful parents (and am super excited about them coming to visit in less than a month!), and sat down to finally catch up on my blog, which is as much a record of my journeys for me as it is a way for you all to see what I'm up to. I hope you're enjoying this all as much as I am!