It was such a nice day, sunny and 50°. Big improvement from the 15° I left in Minnesota!
Later we went to the Lay Center, which is a place that lodges students coming to Rome to study in religious colleges but who aren't training to be a monk. As we got off the bus, it was as shock to see the Colosseum casually looming over us. Seeing that much history up close is definitely a major reason why I applied to this program. It's just not something you get to experience in America.
(Some of us are going back tomorrow morning to tour the building and see the Palantine in the daylight. Tons of pictures to come tomorrow night!)
At the Lay Center we got to meet the professor who will be leading us around Rome, Professor Robert White. He made an excellent point that we need to focus on really seeing the places we visit, rather than viewing everything through a camera for the sake of social media. We are required to take pictures for this blog, but I'm definitely going to try to limit the number I take. Obviously the good ones will still go on Instagram and Facebook, but hopefully not quite so many.
Finally, we had a traditional home cooked Italian dinner at the Lay Center. I was so hungry by that point that I would have eaten pretty much anything, but wow that was the best lasagna I've ever had. And in the spirit of trying new foods (which is one of my goals for this trip) I had a slice of tiramisu, even though I hate coffee flavor. (As an aside, I had 2 hot chocolates with shots of espresso at the airport in Frankfort - my first coffee drink ever - and felt sick the rest of the day. So even though dessert really doesn't seem like it should count as adventurous eating, it really did!) After that it was all I could do to waddle back to the dorms and type this out. The glass of wine with dinner didn't help either! Now I'm going to sleep like a baby and wake up early enough to get to the colosseum when it opens tomorrow. Goodnight!!
