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.

Thanksgiving at the Centro

Yes, I know, I was trying to keep things in order--rest assured, I'll be back to playing catch up after this, but I wanted to share our Thanksgiving celebrations only a day late instead of about a month late.

Back To Rome

Ah, finally Saturday, and back in Rome at last. The ferry ride was uneventful--this boat didn't have any good decks to stand out on, so I went to bed early and slept through most of the ride. We were once again woken up at an ungodly early hour, packed onto the bus, and headed back to Rome. There were no classes today, which was good as I doubt any of us had the ability to pay attention at this point. The drive from Naples to Rome took somewhere around two and a half hours, and once back in Rome I took just enough time to drag my suitcase up the stairs and then ran off to go visit Mom and Dad, who had gotten in the previous evening. I managed to get horrendously lost, which is just embarrassing, but to be fair I hadn't visited the hotel since the beginning of the semester and I was running on almost no sleep anyway. Eventually with the help of a nice jogger (I ended up near a park and nearly went completely the wrong direction) I found the hotel, and proceeded to start my fall break in earnest.

Wherein There Is A Surprising Lack of Classical Architecture

Sort of a lack of classical anything, actually! Haha, I lied--I forgot that we visited Palermo's classics museum. This is why I take pictures of things! We had a fairly easy and relatively non-classics-oriented Friday wandering around Palermo and the nearby town of Monreale before hopping on the ferryboat again to head back to Rome.

All Over the Geologic Spectrum

So in this one Thursday, we visited quarries, salt flats, sailed to a small island, and traveled to the top of a mountain. We also saw our very last Doric temple of the trip *tear*

Temples Everywhere!

This lovely Wednesday morning we actually got to visit the gorgeous temples we had seen last night, then headed off to another site...for more temples!

Traipsing Around in the Muckity-Muck

Really Tuesday now, so the long day felt appropriate...or it would have, if I hadn’t lost all track of days since we left for this trip on Friday. And of course, there are still three more to go before we get back to Rome to start our Fall Break!

Myths, Theater, and Warfare

...and a little bit of obscure linguistics, just for fun. Is it really only Monday?!?

Wherein Katie Gets to Use Nifty Little Accent Marks

I am very quickly losing my mind—if it weren’t for our (very detailed) schedule of the week, and my camera, I would have no clue what we did two hours ago, much less two days ago. Anyway, it’s Sunday, and appropriately enough our first visit was to a church—so let’s get started!