Day 18: Monday
Today we had a guest speaker on Livy for the first half of class. I thought he was unbearably boring and went on about things that were irrelevant for lengthy amounts of time, such as how Emperor Augustus got his name for at least ten minutes. And he said “What should we say?” every single time he paused. I’m not excited for him to take us through Ostia Antica on Wednesday. By now Tobin has realized that most of the class is not caught up with the reading, so we talked about things that were basically irrelevant to Livy but were very PTCD. After class we went home, had scrambled eggs, went to the grocery store, and then set out to find stamps. Every Tabacchi we go to tells us they don’t have stamps or they only have a couple, so I haven’t been able to send any of my postcards. Finally we found one that had plenty! Then walked down to the photobooth so Elli could take passport pictures and went to our favorite lemonade place and got more deliciousness. Then we walked back home, dropped our stuff off, and went to a camera shop to get Elli’s camera fixed. It was way on the other side of town we haven’t been to, on the very southern part of my map. We took a while to get there and got a little lost of the way, we when we finally found it, Elli realized her camera was a Sony, and the place only dealt with Canon. Luckily, we had an address for a Sony place, so we hopped back on the bus, then hopped off to find a taxi. We found a taxi driver who was about 70 years old and had no idea where we wanted to go, so he asked another taxi driver who knew where it was, but we still had to go with the old man, who drove tame for an Italian driver. As we drove, him and the other driver were yelling at each other across the intersection directions. Finally it seemed that our driver knew where we were going, so we just sat back and waited. We went literally all the way across town. We passed the Palantine and Circus Maximus, the Vittoriano, the Tiber, and up behind the Vatican, to the very Northern part of my map, where the driver dropped us off in exactly the right place. Accent, however, and sent us to a place that no longer exists. It has been closed for quite some time because the signs are turned around and there was mail shoved in the gates of the door. Realizing our defeat, we decided to head to a main road and try to find a bus with a bus stop we recognized. We ended up in the Pantheon area, and decided to visit Trevi while we were there. We also found a McDonald’s and rewarded ourselves from our journey with fresh hot French fries. We headed toward Argentina and browsed through souvenirs, then finally got on the tram for home, making it back four hours after we left. The best thing ever awaited us at home because Kari made dinner! It was so delicious! After dinner we failed at reading for class and had a jam session instead. After our adventure today I am confident that I could never be so lost in Rome that I could never find my home. Using huge churches as monuments doesn’t hurt!
Today we had a guest speaker on Livy for the first half of class. I thought he was unbearably boring and went on about things that were irrelevant for lengthy amounts of time, such as how Emperor Augustus got his name for at least ten minutes. And he said “What should we say?” every single time he paused. I’m not excited for him to take us through Ostia Antica on Wednesday. By now Tobin has realized that most of the class is not caught up with the reading, so we talked about things that were basically irrelevant to Livy but were very PTCD. After class we went home, had scrambled eggs, went to the grocery store, and then set out to find stamps. Every Tabacchi we go to tells us they don’t have stamps or they only have a couple, so I haven’t been able to send any of my postcards. Finally we found one that had plenty! Then walked down to the photobooth so Elli could take passport pictures and went to our favorite lemonade place and got more deliciousness. Then we walked back home, dropped our stuff off, and went to a camera shop to get Elli’s camera fixed. It was way on the other side of town we haven’t been to, on the very southern part of my map. We took a while to get there and got a little lost of the way, we when we finally found it, Elli realized her camera was a Sony, and the place only dealt with Canon. Luckily, we had an address for a Sony place, so we hopped back on the bus, then hopped off to find a taxi. We found a taxi driver who was about 70 years old and had no idea where we wanted to go, so he asked another taxi driver who knew where it was, but we still had to go with the old man, who drove tame for an Italian driver. As we drove, him and the other driver were yelling at each other across the intersection directions. Finally it seemed that our driver knew where we were going, so we just sat back and waited. We went literally all the way across town. We passed the Palantine and Circus Maximus, the Vittoriano, the Tiber, and up behind the Vatican, to the very Northern part of my map, where the driver dropped us off in exactly the right place. Accent, however, and sent us to a place that no longer exists. It has been closed for quite some time because the signs are turned around and there was mail shoved in the gates of the door. Realizing our defeat, we decided to head to a main road and try to find a bus with a bus stop we recognized. We ended up in the Pantheon area, and decided to visit Trevi while we were there. We also found a McDonald’s and rewarded ourselves from our journey with fresh hot French fries. We headed toward Argentina and browsed through souvenirs, then finally got on the tram for home, making it back four hours after we left. The best thing ever awaited us at home because Kari made dinner! It was so delicious! After dinner we failed at reading for class and had a jam session instead. After our adventure today I am confident that I could never be so lost in Rome that I could never find my home. Using huge churches as monuments doesn’t hurt!
