Day 10 (6/14/11):

Woke up this morning and immediately washed our bedding since Jackie so kindly bought washing detergent the night before! We are not quite sure it was washed when we arrived, eek. Then we got ready and went off to go see the Vatican Museum. There was a bit of a line when we arrived but it moved quickly, so we only waited maybe 40 minutes. We were able to use our student ID's and received have off admission, too! That's always a plus :o)

The museum is just amazing! And HUGE! When we first got in, we went to the back patio to ake some pictures of the top of St. Peter's Basilica. It almost looked fake, it's so beautiful! Then we started with the Egyptian Museum. There were numerous tombs and a real mummy. From there we walked through a hallway of numerous sculptures including one of the Goddess, Athena, with eyes made out of a different material so they actually looked real! There were also tons of statues of the Nile,a replica of the Bocca della Verita`, Marc Anthony (including a picture of hwat the staute used to look like when it was painted), and the statue of Laocoon, the buse of Belvedeere that Michelangelo used to base Judas off of in the Sistine Chapel. After those rooms there are several halls to walk through - the candelabra hallway has many more stautes in it, and the ceilings look 3D even though it's just paint! Then we walked through hallways of huge tapestries of scenes from the bible, and then a hallway of map paintings. Then it turned into a march to the Sistine Chapel. There were a lot of people and we kept going down more and more stairs. We walked in and it was just astonishing! We've always known that taking pictures were not allowed but people were just snapping away! We were so confused and expecting people to tell them to stop but no one did. It in a way still felt wrong but we couldn't resist and snapped some pictures as well. :o)

We started to get hungry and still had some time before class began, so from there we headed to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and sit outside to eat. It was a gorgeous day with a beautiful view of St. Peter's Basilica. Then it was off to class!

We started future tense today - good class! I think future is way easier than past tense. The pace we are learning at is really good, too, an we feel like we're learning a lot!

After class we participated in a school sponsored event, a wine tasting at Antica Biblioteca Cafe, where we had the aperitivi last week. There were two white wines (Pecorino, with a lemon and fruit taste & Sauvignon, with a nectarine and tomato taste) and two red wines (Rubizzo Chianti that tasted light, soft and fruity & Canticum Rosso made with Montepulciano grapes and smelled of tobacco!). Each person was given a plate of small portions of food to taste with each wine. The guy spoke entirely in Italian of course and we were provided a handout to follow along. I tried really hard to follow along with the sommelier, but it was super difficult. I think my favorite of the wines was the chianti, and I'm pretty sure Jackie's was the Pecorino. Yum!

From there Jackie and I formed a group to continue on for more food and beverage. We wanted to show everyone the fantastic apertivi we discovered last Thursday so started our walk back towards school. When we arrived though, it did not even seem like the same place! It was very quiet with no apertivi, we must have came across a special event before! So we decided to head to Trastervere and went to Freni & Frizioni. I asked the bartender for una Sopresa! (a surprise) He gave me this delicious drink made with basil and kiwi. Yum!! I never would have thought to put those two things together. It was very pretty, and delicious!! We met another nice gal, Amanda from NY, and Peppin from the Netherlands - both super nice and fun to talk to. We've also been enjoying the fact that most people think we are around 22-23 :o) It was another great night, full of a couple drinks, lots of food and excellent conversation!