Fall Break - The Cat Sanctuary

Tuesday

Since we’d had such a busy Monday, we decided to take it easy on Tuesday. We all had a chance to sleep in, and I took advantage of having Mom as my fellow cat-lover to go back to Largo Argentina to see the cat sanctuary there. I pointed out the remains of the temples, and then started pointing out cats—there are hundreds of them!

Fall Break - Off to the Colosseum

Monday

This was the really big day...I dragged them out of bed early so that we could avoid the lines to get in to see...

Fall Break - Back to the Capitoline

Sunday

I'd like you all to appreciate how much I love my parents--after more than a week of twelve-plus hour days and about six hours of sleep a night, I was willing to wake up early in order to join them at their hotel for breakfast. Of course, when I tried to remind them of this, they pointed out that they flew to Rome to visit me, and I can't really compete with that :) Anyway, the hotel breakfast was very nice, and I discovered a new favorite--meleverde (green apple) juice. It was delicious, and now I keep trying to find it at the neighborhood grocery stores, because I'm fairly certain I won't be able to find it back home.

Fall Break - The Beginning

...which wasn’t actually much of a break at all, if you’re thinking of a break as a relaxing time. But then, why would I want it to be, when I had my parents here and I got to play tour guide in my adopted city? In an attempt to cram a week’s worth of touring around Rome and nearby cities into a theoretically reasonable amount of space, I’m going to try to keep the photos to a minimum (ahaha). Many of the places I took Mom and Dad to are things you’ve already seen here, or will see when we visit them as a class, so I’ll save my photos of those places for their proper times. Speaking of photos, I am obliged to give credit to Dad for taking a lot of these photos and then sharing them with me to post here--you can thank him for the existence of the ever-elusive candid shots of me.

I was originally going to make this week all one post, but when it got to be about 20 pages in Word, with more than 100 pictures, I thought your computers might appreciate it if I split up the days.

Rome

Still playing catch-up, while also working on two research papers, a presentation, and studying for end of semester exams. It has become inescapably clear to me that I won't be caught up by the time I leave, so you're going to get a few posts out of chronological order as I muse on the depressingly few days I have left in Rome, because they won't mean nearly as much if I'm writing them when I get back to the United States.