Livin' the JForce life.

Well, it's been a busy week for me! Although I've mainly been in Rome, there's been quite a bit going on. To sum some highlights of the past week:

Tuesday night, we had a karaoke night at the Rome Center. It ended up being a lot of fun and was just a really good bonding time for everyone. We sang a lot of 80's and 90's music, and had huge dance party.

Wednesday morning, we had to get up early to go the Papal Audience. Unfortunately, although I got there pretty early, it wasn't quite early enough, and I ended up not being able to get into the actual audience with the Pope. FYI: just because you have a ticket does NOT mean that you will get in to the actual audience. On the bright side, I still got to see the Pope up close because he drove by in the Popemobile only about 10 feet away from me!

Classes were canceled on Wednesday so that everyone was free to go the Papal Audience, so that afternoon I went back downtown to the Villa Borghese for a few hours and did some exploring. Villa Borghese is essentially Rome's version of Central Park (or I guess it's technically the other way around because I'm pretty sure that the Villa Borghese is older), and it quickly became one of my favorite places in Rome.

Wednesday night, we had the first set of calcio matches for the semester. Calcio is a huge deal here at the Rome Center. Of course, I've never really played soccer before, and I'm really not very athletic at all, but I signed up to play anyway just because I thought it would be a fun bonding activity. I'm on the Pink Team. I did play for part of the game, but I have to admit that I spent most of the time I was out on the field repeatedly thinking about how scary I think soccer is. I'm hoping that feeling will diminish after a few more weeks. After calcio is over, it's tradition for everyone to go out together to this local pizzeria that we call BP. I think I enjoyed that part more than the actual calcio!

Thursday night, it was one of the girl's from SLU's 21st birthday, so a bunch of us went out to celebrate that with her, which was very fun. We actually visited an Irish pub (complete with Irish music), as well as a few other places.

I stayed in Rome this weekend, which has actually been fantastic! As much as I enjoy traveling, it's also really nice to be more relaxed and hang out here, plus there's always more exploring and fun to be had in Rome.

Although today I did go on a day trip with my Italian class to a nearby town named Velletri, where our Italian teacher lives. We got to meet his family, and we all went grocery shopping, then made dinner. His town was having their annual wine festival, so we also went to that.

And just to wrap everything up, tomorrow morning I'm getting up early to go the flea market, and then my parents should be getting to Rome sometime during the afternoon!

It should prove to be another exciting week. :)
-megan