the roman forum, palatine hill, colosseum

update: here are the pics from the forum, palatine hill, and colosseum. i put lots of info on them

Last weekend, the saturday 3rd of October, we spent the day at the roman forum, palatine hill, and colosseum. The art history professor, archaeology professor, and this awesome Danish woman who comes on all the tours with us, gave us the tours in groups of three. the weather was odd, it was sunny and beautiful one moment, and then the sky would get dark and it rained off and on, it even hailed a little while we were in the forum. i was thinking a lot about my friend kristin back home because she studied latin in high school and i know she would have loved it!! we learned a bunch of awesome stuff about everything we saw that day.

i have also been seeing the coolests rocks (mostly marble), which i know natalie would love! the marble used in all the churches are beautiful. most of us try to go into as many churches as we can here. i've been in so many already in rome. each one is kind of like a little treasure chest or jewel box, as you never know what you'll find in there. the best is when you randomly walk into a huge church and the organist is playing music. this happened when i went into the church at the end of our street for the first time, il Gesu. its actually what the notre dame basilica is modeled after, i just learned. anyway, i walked in with my friend caroline in the evening and it was beautiful. the organist was playing the absolute creepiest gothic church music, it was so awesome. its very very ornate inside, and pretty big. what ive been seeing lately in some churches, like in this one and the santa maria delle grazie in assisi, are that the figures on the ceilings, walls, and columns will have parts of them sticking over the moulding (molding?). like their legs or arms will be dangling out there, and i would have thought the artists would have wanted to be more conservative and "draw inside the lines." six of us went to mass there yesterday, on sunday... it was all in italian, but its exactly the same so we all knew what was going on. when we went to the vatican last sunday (ill post later about that) i was surprised that at the most formal, respected, and msot famous place for catholic mass, that it was exactly the same structure as at home. the only difference was that most of it was in latin. thats pretty cool though, i dont know how many other religions can say that the service will be exactly the same no matter where in the world you attend.
so im sitting here in the library working on not schoolwork, but trying to get pictures up and do this since im so behind! im listening to the boss, which of course makes me think of uncle tom and my family. i have to go to archaeology in a couple minutes, which i am starting to like more and more, now that we are actually visiting the stuff he lectures about in class. we just had lunch at the tiziano (cause its a monday), we had spaghetti, chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans with onions. and gelato! i had some blueberry and chocolate. speaking of gelato, its kind of a crime not to get it almost everyday. id say that i and everyone here has it at least every other day, if not more. the best place is Giolitti's, they have a ton of flavors. for 2 euro you they give you big globs of two flavors, and panna (whipped cream) if they like you. ive gotten cioccolato fondente (tastes like brownie batter! mmmm), blackberry, orange (tastes so real!), pink grapefruit (so real that its too sour for me just like the real thing), and other flavors im sure. yum. ps mom stop freaking out... were walking everywhere. i have walked so much, esp on the weekends its insane. saturdays i usually feel like my feet could just fall off by the end of the day. ill have to write about all the we did this weekend too! in the hotel, to get to my floor the "second" floor (really like 3 1/2) you have to go up about 6 1/2 flights of normal stairs.
....off to archaeology now byeeeee