Mangia Mangia

Ugh I'm so far behind on these posts.

Day 6 - Friday!
Long version: We switched things up a bit and instead of having a free afternoon our morning was free. So the team (Audrey, Olivia, and me) decided to sleep in a little bit and then start our morning at the Piazza del Popolo. We had gone there already, but this time we wanted to go to the Santa Maria del Popolo which had been closed the other times we stopped by. Inside this church are two huge paintings by Caravaggio: The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter. Maybe you've seen/heard of them. That was another one of my highlights from Rome. They were so massive and really just amazing. I can't wait until we get to go into the museums in Rome when we go back in November. After the Caravaggios we headed out of the city to the non-Catholic cemetery to visit John Keats' grave. The cemetery is really cool because no only is it really old, but there are all kinds of people buried there. It used to be that if you were not Catholic you could not be buried inside the city walls. Keats was a Protestant, if that. It was really cool to walk around and see all of the tombstones. Some were more elaborate than others, and we found that most of the tombstones were written in Italian, English or Greek. We even found one written in Japanese. After that we went back into the city to go to the Santa Maria della Concezione, which we dubbed "the creepy church." We called it as such because it used to house Fransican monks, and on the side of the church is a crypt. It's not very big, just a hallway with some niche-like rooms off to one side, but it was veeery very interesting. They have used all the bones of the skeletons to decorate the rooms. For example, some of the walls were lined with stacks of skulls and femurs to make niches for a robed monk skeleton. Like, hundreds of skulls. And the ceilings were decorated with patterns made from vertebrae and other little bones. It was so bizzare. Olivia and Audrey have both taken anatomy (Audrey was a TA even) and so they were both geeking out and identifying and naming all the bones in the decorations. After the creepy church we went back to the Vatican to see if we could manage to get into St. Peter's. The line was insanely long, again, so we decided we'd just wait until November to go back in. Instead we had a snack by one of the pillars in the square and then went back to our hotel where we were supposed to meet up with the rest of our group. Talbot took us to San Pietro in Vincoli which translates to Saint Peter in Chains. Under the altar are some chains that are reported to have held St. Peter bound when he was in Rome before he died. And not only were those at that church, but it is also the home of Michelangelo's Moses. Oh man. The Moses was incredible. So life-like, so powerful. It was really awesome. It was interesting for such a grand piece of art to be in that church, though, because the rest of the interior is really kinda boring. No massive frescoed walls or anything. An interesting juxtaposition. Anyway, our next stop was another church - San Clemente. Upon seeing it, it's really not that exciting. But as we've been learning, it's not just about the outside. San Clemente is a Catholic church that was built on top of an early christian church that was built on top of a Roman pagan church to Mithras. So a triple layer church. We had tickets to go down to the Mithras church. It was hard to imagine that that place was once at ground level and was where real people would go to worship Mithras two thousand years ago. Paul and Peter may have even seen/been inside that very place. Crazy. It was very fascinating. We've seen so many examples of how Catholic churches and traditions take their root from the basic designs of the ancient Romans. What a rich history.

Short version: Caravaggios in Santa Maria del Popolo, cemetery and Keats' grave, creepy church - Santa Maria della Concezione, St. Peter's square, San Pietro in Vincoli (chains of St. Peter and Michelangelo's Moses), triple-layer San Clemente

Day 7 - SIENA!
Long version: This was our last view of Rome! We left in the morning for Siena via a hired coach. About halfway there we stopped at Sarteano, a small town just inside Tuscany. Here we met up with Luca Bonomi, who works at the Dante Alighieri (DA) and is basically our ambassador. Our Virgilio, you might say. He took us to a very little know place in Sarteano where they have discovered Etruscan tombs that are hundreds and hundreds of years old, and one of the tombs still has vibrantly colored frescoes on the walls. This was also the spot where we got our first real view of the Tuscan countryside and I'll tell you what, it looks exactly like all the pictures you've ever seen of the place. It was absolutely beautiful. Luca had arranged a lunch for us at a local cafe, so we ate lunch in Sarteano before getting back on the bus to finally get to Siena. Everyone was nervous to meet their host families, but we were all very excited to get into Siena. We got dropped off at the train station in Siena and then our families came to pick us up. I'm rooming with a girl named Somers (like summers), and we have become pretty good friends. I like her. Our family consists of a husband, Marco, and his wife, Paola, who are both in their 60s. Paola and her sister in law came and picked Somers and me up from the train station and took us to Paola's house. They live northwest of the city center in a cute little apartment on the first floor. And they don't speak any English. Gulp. After we had unpacked all our stuff, Marco took Somers and me on a walk to the Piazza del Campo, the main piazza of Siena and the city center. It's where they run the Palio. We got back to their house just as Paola was finishing making dinner. We eat at about 8pm every night. And we eat a lot. Paola and Marco don't eat very much, but boy do they fill up our plates. And of course genuine Italian cooking is excellent. We always eat a first course of pasta or rice and then the second course is usually some kind of meat and a vegetable or potato side dish. We finish off usually with fruit or cheese or both. And I had mentioned something about how I was excited about the gelato here, so we typically have gelato after the fruit almost every night. It's a good thing I've been doing so much walking because my eating is rivaling that amount. It's all so good!

Short version: leave Rome, Sarteano and Etruscan tombs, Siena!, meet our family, walk to the Piazza del Campo, eat, eat, eat, eat and eat some more