We met up at 9:30 to leave for the Borhese Museum and this was probably one of the worst days of the trip.
So apparently, we didn't know exactly where the museum was, just the general idea, at least that's what I can guess from the amount of walking we did that day. But yeah, we walked and we walked looking for this museum. I would say we walked for at least an hour just looking for this museum. Oh and it was raining the entire time. Raining hard. And of course I forgot my umbrella back in the room. Up until this point, it had only lightly drizzled a little bit each day. But on Tuesday, for whatever reason, it decided to rain really hard for a long time. Luckily, I was wearing a water proof coat so I didn't get completely drenched.
Finally we got to the museum and thank god it was heated in there. It was also cold and raining during our little expedition. So we were able to warm up a little and eventually we went into the museum. It came with these head sets that we were able to put in one ear and then tune in to one person that had the microphone and they could talk to us about each piece of art that we came across without having to shout. Unfortunately, reception wasn't very good and if you wandered too far, all you heard was a bunch of static. So most of us eventually abandoned the headsets.
Other than the whole cold, wet, walk to the museum and then the failed headsets, the Borghese Museum was one of my favorite places that we went to. Apparently, it used to be some wealthy families house and when the family died out or they gave away their stuff, they had so many priceless artifacts that they were able to turn it into a museum. There were a whole bunch of impressive paintings a sculptures inside the museum. Two of the most impressive, as well as my favorite, were the sculptures of "The Rape of Persephone" and "Apollo and Daphne" by Bernini.
Once we were done with the museum, we were given the rest of the day to ourselves. A bunch of us wanted to check out the Vatican City, so that's where we went. When we got there however, some people wanted to go into the museum, whereas others wanted to go on Friday so that we could spend as much time as we wanted in there. I was in the "whereas others" group so we just went into St. Peter's Basilica. Although the basilica is given the title "the world's largest church" you have to see it with your own eyes to even begin to comprehend its size.
It is absolutely giant and it's unbelievable how ornate it is. Even though it's incredibly large, there is not a square inch left unadorned. The opulence that resides in that building is unimaginable. So we spent a few hours wandering around in there, but eventually headed back to the hotel to meet up for dinner.
Dinner with Dean Newrock was at a very, very nice restaurant called the Otto Mezzo. It was a relatively short walk to get there and thankfully it had stopped raining. But there we had the best meal I had throughout the whole trip. We had a huge five course meal with some meatball-things, pasta with white sauce, pasta with red sauce, lamb, and desert. At the end of the meal, the professors had us try a drink called grappa and it's supposed to be fermented from the seeds of grapes and very alcoholic. It was definitely very strong and I wouldn't say very good.
After dinner, I went back to the hotel and pretty much went to sleep right away.
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| From Rome '08 |
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