In response to Andrew and Willows email, I am 7 hours ahead of Utah. It is weird to train my body to get used to when I want to sleep and when I want to eat. It's interesting to notice then when I am visiting sites I'm exhausted, and then when I'm getting home, I'm more wide awake then ever. Even though I do eventually fall asleep ( thanks to my roommates "sleeping herb pills"), the city is still very loud. I don't know how to shut my window, so the street right below me always is really noisy. It's kind of comforting in a way, because it makes me feel like I am not alone.
Today we were supposed to wait up early and get ourselves to the market to buy ourselves breakfast. Because my roommates thought I was already awake, they didn't inform me it was time to go until I was woken up 10 minutes before I had to find my bus. We walked to the Metro, got our tickets stamped and went further into the city to see the famous fountains, churches and the Pantheon. (which was beautiful by the way). The first thing we got to see was a fountain of the God Neptune? I think that is right. It is huge! It is a statue of him drinking water on top of fishes that are holding him up. It was beautiful. Little did I know that Rome has fountains everywhere. They are proud of their water systems that are also something that is given freely to everyone. Anywhere on the streets you walk, you will find little mini fountains that look like fire hydrants. Water trickles out of a little hole and you can drink any water that you see. We also got to see the famous big fountain...to be honest I forgot the name, but it has the God of water looking down on the people. Apparently if you throw a coin in, you are granted the wish that you asked for. To be honest, I am cheap, so I figured i would just use my coins on the love fountain we would be going to the next day ;) . It was really hot and the streets were full, so a couple of girls and I decided to walk into an open church that was across the street. It looked simple, but as soon as we walked in, it blew my mind away. We had a monk ( i think that is what they call them here) greet us, who was trying to sell candles and pictures of the virgin mary so we could repent or ask for things to her if we would like. All over the walls of the church are pictures of the apostle Paul, Jesus Christ and Mary of course. What the catholics believe is that the priesthood was restored and practiced through Paul. That is why you see him depicted with a lot of keys. They also made sure everything was covered in bronze and bright colors to represent the saints. They had a lot of holes next to candles where you could donate to the church, and also on the side of the church you could see a alter where the last pope's heart was buried. He apparently loved the church we were in and requested that his heart be buried in the church he loved. We also got to see where you could do your confessions. It was a little purple box which a picture of christ on the side so you could see him while you confessed. It was really tempting. While I was sitting watching people enter the church, you would see them light a candle and then place it around the sand in one of the pots next to the pictures. They would also go up to Mary, cross their chest and start talking to her about everything that was going on. They beleive in God, but they worship Mary. I don't know why....
After the church experiance, we walked to see other sites. We saw a lot of Pagen statues and pillars that were destroyed and changed for the church. Once the Catholic church started to grow, they destroyed everything that was Pagen and replaced them with Saints of their own church. It was really neat. We got more Gelato after we started getting hot, and we ate at the most famous Gelato store, "Gelliti". It was delicious. I had chocolate, Mint, and Watermelon. It suprisingly tastes exactly like it sounds like. They had other tastes like Raisen Rum, Fish, Carmalized Fig and Banana, which I will be trying soon.
After sight seeing around the city, we went to the Pantheon. It was huge! It did not look real at all . The pillars were massive and the work was beautiful. They say they did no renervations on it, and because Romans mastered archetecture, it will always stay in perfect form. The marble and stone were all the same as when It was built. They had to bolt the Marble into the concrete inside to make sure it would stay. The Pantheon was used as a temple to worship their Gods, but now it is used as a church. They have statues of their Saints inside such as Agtha and Mary, and they also have the burial sites of Raphael, and the First King of Italy. You can see their tombs but no body. At the front of the church, they have huge bronze candles and a picture that is so holy, they covered it up. It is a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus, and they covered it in Metal, but only have the faces and hands uncovered. Even though they claim that that is the original painting, there are 5 other churches in Italy that claim the same thing. It is up to our own ideas to judge that ;) We walked around afterwards to do some more sight seeing, and saw lots of street performers and men who would try to sell you Prada and Gucci bags. Everytime a police man came by they would yell for their other friends to warn them and they would run down a street with their bags. We decided to walk to the Spanish Steps and it was pretty cool. Prof. Stanford never explained to us what it was, but it was pretty impressive. They had a lot of men selling Roses. One of our girls took one and thought they were free. She then told him she didnt want it anymnore, so he yelled at her in Italian and spit on the ground. She was pretty scared. After we took some group pictures, we went to get some lunch, and we found a tiny resteraunt and wine bar and had some pizza. It was very good, but expensive! I refused to spend 10 Euros on a mini pizza, so I had a bite of some one elses. At the end of everyone eating, we had to pay 66 euros for our meal! This place is pretty expensive. After lunch, we broke off, and me and two other girls went around the streets looking some more. I saw Gucci, Prada, Banburry, Armani, and lots more. I almost tried on a 3,000 Euro Jacket, but they followed us around to make sure us "cheap" Americans didn't touch anything. We started to get tired, so we decided to walk back and try to find our Metro. The professor left telling us to find our way back by 8, so we wanted to make sure we left early so we could find our way home. As we found our Metro, we ran to the train to make sure it wouldn't leave without us. The other girls got in, but it shut before I could get in. So...for like 2 minutes I was left alone in a dark subway with only me and one man. I stood by the light and held my bag and prayed until the train came back. I was scared out of my mind. The girls were nice enough to wait for me, and we were able to find our way home. It was a busy but fun day! Tomorrow we are leaving at 7 a.m. to get to the Colosseum before they have their riot. We don't know what they are protesting, but they are closing everything down for it tomorrow. Anyways, another day in Rome :)
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