La Dolce Vita: Surprise Friends in Rome! (and more class...)

Ciao! Monday and Tuesday were exciting in that each day I was able to see someone from home that was luckily visiting Rome while I'm studying here! Liza Blue and her family were here staying in Rome all weekend so I spent a great morning/afternoon Monday walking around with them and having a long, delicious lunch. Then, on Tuesday, my high school lacrosse coach, Ms. Kridel, was here and we had an awesome dinner catching up since I had not seen her since Christmas break! Besides having these unexpected visitors from home, I had class Monday and Tuesday and learned more about the city and certain parts and new buildings we had not yet encountered. Monday our lesson in literature/culture class was about Petrarch, and our teacher thought that it would be fitting to explore ancient Rome (the Forum and the ruins we went through with the archaeologist Yan) one more time and then make our way over to the beautiful San Giovanni in Laterano for the rest of the afternoon to learn about the history of the chapel and more about Petrarch and humanism. Tuesday morning we had art history with Daria and we went through Villa Farnesina, in which I was assigned to present Raphael's painted fresco loggia of "Cupid & Psyche," which was nerve-wracking but went well! After Villa Farnesina we crossed the Tiber and climbed up a ginormous hill (can I remind you its about 105 degrees here...) to reach another chapel with a famous building by Bramante and luckily class got out early so we spent the rest of the day lazily shopping and wandering the Tiber! Now for the pictures...

Liza and me in front of the famous Trevi Fountain!

Again, on the Spanish Steps.

Ms Kridel! In front of the bridge leading to the Castel Sant'Angelo after our delicious dinner.

Now to the boring class stuff, but some good pictures if you're interested!

This is a statue of the "mother wolf" that, according to legend, raised Romulus and Remus, the two founders of Rome.

Another view of the Forum...so pretty against the blue sky.

The backside of the chapel San Giovanni in Laterano.

Gorgeous frescoed ceiling in the entrance loggia to the chapel.

Inside San Giovanni in Laterano.

Again, part of the altar. So much gold!

This is inside the Baptistery of the chapel, and where we sat to have class for the day.

The stunning facade of the front side of the San Giovanni chapel.

Now onto Tuesday's Art History class...

This is the Villa Farnesina that houses many famous frescoes, including Raphael's in the next picture.

Raphael's painted loggia of the "Cupid and Psyche" story, inside the front porch of the Villa Farnesina.

I found this interesting that even the graffiti in Rome is of the Madonna and Child...

We were greeted with this amazing view of the city after an exhausting hike up to the top of the mountain on the far side of the Tiber, it was clearly worth it.

Some fountain at the top of the hill leading into a park that is turning into my favorite spot to run because it is so shady and breezy compared to the rest of the city.