Sorry I haven't posted but I have lots of pictures!

It's hard to believe I've been in a foreign country for almost a month. Monday starts our fifth week of the program. I'm already learning past tense in Italian, I'm becoming more enamoured with my Cicero translation, and I'm actually enjoying looking at maps constantly! We had a lot of field trips this week (no surprise there), and we're leaving for our week long trip to Sicily next Friday! Starting Monday I will have class every day for the following 13 days or so. But I'll be in Sicily, and allegedly we stay in nice hotels, and most of our meals are all at delicious resturants. I trust that Franco (our program manager) will take good care of us while we're in Sicily.

My shopping trip last Friday was very successful! We found the store near Piazza Navona after a little extra wandering. It's called Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. I splurged and bought not only pomegranate shampoo and conditioner, but also almond soap. They all smell wonderful and I'm going to make sure I buy some before I go home. It will be hard to go without.

Faith and I are finalizing plans for our Greece trip in October. We're investigating where it will be best to spend our time besides Athens. I'm excited for so much travelling over the next few weeks. I'm also very excited for the visitors I'm expecting later in the semester! My aunt, LeAnne was here briefly during her layover (she's a flight attendant for Delta), but it POURED all evening and our night was not that enjoyable as it involved lots of standing in the rain and having wet clothes. It will be nice for her to come back and get to see things when they're not flooded.

Below our some pictures of our field trips. I'll try to give each some context with a caption. I'll tell you one brief anecdote with them. Our trip on Tuesday was to Cosa, a Latin colony which is about a two hour drive outside of Rome. The beautiful vistas below are from Cosa, because like most settlements we visit, it's on a hill. Hills were excellent places for settlements because of the defense benefits. Well when our professors had previously been to the site, I'm assuming they went in a car and didn't realize that the road up the hill was unavailable to busses. There's a low lying bridge that would prevent a tall bus from going under it. So when the bus driver told them this was the end of the road for him... we are all informed that we have "a hike" up to see Cosa. Ha. Most of our excursions require walking, I'm used to it now, and with the weather cooling off a little it's usually not that bad. This walk was rather intense. Definitely a hike. Anyway I just wanted everyone to appreciate the effort that was expended to obtain such a wonderful view!


This is a view of the Forum before it opens. It's a great picture opportunity because there are not swarms of tourists in it.... yet.

This is the Arch of Septimius Severus. I haven't learned anything about it yet, but it looks pretty impressive.

I really like this picture, it's an interesting view of the Temple of Antonius and Faustina. We were actually studying something right next to this temple, instead of the temple itself. Next to it is an archaic sepulcretum, where they found remains from as early as the 10th century BCE.

Popped collar in Rome. Heehee.

View of the Medditerranean from the acropolis of Cosa, Part I.

Part II.

And a view of the Appenine Mountains (I think).