Today Italy's sun gave us no sympathy. It was hot from the moment we woke up (7 a.m.) to the time we headed off to our apartments. Professor Stanford, which we have nicknamed CharChar, told us we needed to wake up before 7 so we could make it to the Metro before it shut down. The Metro was very very busy and we had to keep a hold on our bags to make sure no one would take them. We get a lot of looks because we talk really fast and we all are dressed very modest. Most of the women don't wear very much at all. What is interesting is that the men dress better than the women do. They almost have more shops for the men than they do the women. No wonder we think the Italian men look so good!
Anyways, today their was a protest about the working conditions, so all the buses and most of the businesses shut down from 9 to 5, which ruined a lot of our plans :/ . Our plans were to see the Forum and the Coluseum and then come home to eat dinner and go to bed. When we arrived to the Coluseum it was bigger and a lot cooler than I expected it to be. It was huge. The stone work was amazing because it was all built on these little tiny stones. We were not allowed to go inside because the Coluseum went on strike too, so we had to change our tickets to the 15th of September instead.
We decided we would walk and go visit a famous Catholic church called Circus Maximus. The churches here are so beautiful. They have very intricate stone work with all of their priests carved in it, along with bright pictures of Christ, and murals all over the walls that are covered in bronze. There are also lighted candles everywhere and holy water for the devoted Catholics. I also got to see ( and accidently got into one) a Confession booth. It was pretty neat. This church was very large and very plain compared to the rest of the churches but to me it was prettier than all of the other ones. Back when they built it, they wanted the church to look very roomy and very tall, because the people would have very small houses. They wanted them to come to their church and think that they were "true" because they had so much money and power. Apparently it worked! I also noticed that every single catholic church has the same type of picture in it. They all have some kind of picture with Mary holding the baby Jesus. It must be something they worship alot. We also learned that a lot of the churches used to bury their priests underneath their temple grounds. So we would see all these stone works of dead people, and then learn that their bodies were underneath it. Pretty weird...nasty..but pretty cool at the same time.
One of my highlights for the day was going to see where they claim Hercules fought, and was declared a God. They made an alter for Hercules, and made him a tomb. Aparently they believe he was not a God until he died..which makes no sense. Since the Christians don't like the Pagen beliefs, they changed the tomb into a catholic tomb to bury a priest of theirs. It's sad, because I wish we would have more Pagen things here, but there is still just as much. The Catholics pretty much rule Rome. I never really realized how big of a deal it was to have a temple built in Rome, but now I realize it is going to be crazy. It's going to be one of the only other temples other than Catholic in that whole area. I wonder how that is going to go.
Since everything was shut down... we saw a Temple, and sat on steps and played games. Everyone thinks I am the quietest one here, which is easy to say because all of the girls have very loud personalities, which is really fun. We split off into groups and went home after a hot day. My suitcase finally showed up! I got to read moms very sweet leader and I love the bear! It is on our desk right now for me and Alli to share but I'm sure I will sleep with it tonight. I love my family and I miss them, I will keep updating!
No comments:
Post a Comment