Day 21: Thursday
Class was interesting today because we had a guest speaker who talked about contemporary Italian politics. Crazy stuff! First, their premier owns ALL of the television stations (except one small one) so all of the media bias is what he wants it to be. This makes it difficult for opposition to get the word out about voting or anything like that, and there’s a vote on Sunday. Instead they hold a bunch of big events all around town so they’re very visible, and the media can’t ignore them. As our speaker said, “It’s hard for the media to ignore a bunch of people running nude through the city.” Another interesting thing about Italy is that apparently you have to be convicted of a crime three times before you can actually go to jail (although you can be held during your appeals for up to six years). Our speaker also told us that Italian politics is largely influence by the Catholic and communist background and history of the country, and interesting combination, to say the least. There seems to be a lot of political contradictions in their politics, including a Nazi Maoist party. After class we went home to eat lunch and drop our stuff off, then I headed out for Palatine Hill with Elli, Brandon, Joe, Dylan, and David. We walked to Circus Maximus where they were setting up for the gay pride rally on Saturday. Other than that it was basically just a crater. Next we explored the Palatine Hill, which was cool but at this point I’m not excited by ruins anymore. We slowly made our way into the Forum, where Elli and I took pictures in front of the House of Vestal Virgins with the pond and statues. She also found a giant flower that she took a picture with when she was younger, so she was excited about that, and comparing the pictures is pretty awesome. Then we walked in the direction of the Colosseum to take pictures outside, but we didn’t go in even though we paid for the tickets to do so. We also saw Trajan’s Market and Column.
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| Palatine Hill |
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| House of Vestal Virgins |
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| Colosseum |
Then we split up because David hadn’t been to Trevi fountain yet, and Elli, Brandon, Dylan and I wanted to go to the Argentina cat sanctuary (well Elli didn't want to, but she came to take pictures). It was so awesome! SO MANY KITTIES! Elli took pictures of us playing with them even though she’s deathly allergic. There was one kitty that was black and white, and its feet were all white except one black toe, and another tall gangly one that liked playing with my necklace. There were literally cats in every direction no matter which way you looked. Apparently they have 250! Then they were closing so we had to leave, but I am satisfied with the fact that I got to play with the kitties who live where Caesar was assassinated. After that Elli and I went souvenir shopping, and I bought some stuff for myself and other people. We made our way home to make dinner, then hung around not worrying about class since there’s only one left and there’s no way we’ll get to talking about the reading. I also finally got to skype Jordan again! Elli and I were exhausted and planned on going to bed early, but we went to get gelato one last time at our favorite gelateria/bar at like 10:30pm. I got mango, which was good, and biscotta, which was good too, but not together. Looking forward to finishing up class tomorrow! (Sorry about my posts being delayed, I've been busy in Rome.)
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| Petting a kitty! |
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| Kittttttttty :) |
