Rome Day 3

So I started off today with good ole' Sunday Mass. In Italian. Which might have been the coolest thing ever. I would show you why, but I feel like it's kind of rude to take pictures in a church, especially during mass or the new ordaining of priests (see Rome Day 2). Look up the Basilica Sant' Andreas della Valle and you'll understand why this was so amazing. Plus, Italian. They had little booklets with the mass parts all written down, so that was extremely helpful, plus my limited Italian allowed be to understand the homily fairly well. Win for me!

After that though, the day was basically walking, and then walking, and then more walking. Luckily, there were cool things interspersed between the walking, so that was nice. We first went to the Villa Borghese, the suburban party house of Cardinal Borghese, who was also an obsessive art collector. He would actually go to people on their deathbeds and offer to pay of their debts in exchange for their priceless artwork. We weren't allowed to take pictures here, but look up works by Bernini and Caravaggio, and you'll see some of the same things we saw. Especially Bernini's Apollo and Daphne and Hades and Persephone, both of which are absolutely amazing. But we had a great view on the way up the the villa. Look at the pictures!

                                 View from the ridiculous hill we had to climb on our way

                                 The Villa Borghese = Playboy Manson of the early 1600's

So after this we went walking around, got lunch (pizza, of course), and ended up at the Colosseum, where we were told about its history, the construction, and how Nero was a psychopath.

                                    Ok, so that wasn't the only thing we talked about.

It's actually really interesting how every aspect of Roman culture was intended for the furthering of the Empire's goal to create an ethnocentric social identity.

Some interesting facts about the Colosseum:

• Seating arrangements from bottom to top: Emperor and Vestal Virgins, Senators, Merchant and Wealthy class citizens, regular citizens and foreign dignitaries. Yeah, visiting kings and princes were considered lower than the regular Roman citizen.
• People in the arena (coming from the latin word 'sand') were never citizens. Ever. Even when fighters were freed (an unlikely possibility), they only became freedmen, not citizens.

We then made our way across the street to the Forum, which looked a lot cooler a long time ago than it does today, but it's still pretty legit. At the very least, it makes for some awesome photographs.

                                                                 Old Stuff

                                                            Temple of Vesta

And then we walked back towards the hotel, got some dinner (gnocchi di ragu) and gelato on the way, and then I came inside and started working on our paper that's do tomorrow. Good times.

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• While waiting for the rest of the group at the Arch of Constantine by the Colosseum, a guy (who sounded American) came up to us and asked if we were American. We didn't respond. He then asked us if we liked to party and wanted to bar crawl tonight. We didn't and continued not to respond. He then commented that 1) When in Rome, 2) His father was Canadian and his mother was Persian, 3) that Americans are afraid of their own shadows, and 4) that Fox News has made us paranoid. Then this old British man sitting next to asked why he wasn't asked to party. So he was cool.

A domani!