Morning Temperature: -3

Afternoon Temperature: 5

Today started out quitely - no one had to get up for work or for school, so everyone slubbed around this morning, and we had Italian MacDonals's for lunch (literally Italian - I had a burger that you can't actually get in any other country). After that we needed something to do and it was really sunny and clear, so we decided to go and have a look at La Superga which is a huge church-type place on a hill above the city. It's accessed by this ancient cable car that used to be pulled up the hill by horses!

Anyway, it was amazing. The first thing I saw were the HUGE corinthian columns, and you could really see where each drum would have been separate when they made them. I got heaps of photos of the capitals for Classics people. When we went inside it was very church-ish and quite gloomy, but there wa so much art (frescoes and reliefs and a massive dome with coloured glass). Even though it was actually only built in the early 1700s and so isn't Ancient Roman or anything it was still magical and it made me look forward to Rome even more!

Really, that was it for the day! It gets dark here at about 4:30pm, so there's not much that you cn do after that because it's too insanely cold to go anywhere! IN the car on the way home we were discussing the possibility of a ski trip to a nearby mountain next Friday, and then the week after that Meredith suggested that I take a few day trips to other Italian cities like Milan, Florence, and Pisa. Hopefully that all goes ahead...

Time for bed now - their geriatric habit of going to sleep at 9pm or earlier has worn off and now I find it hard to stay awake!