One month

Can you believe that I have a little under one month left in Rome?! I do love it here, but as I've been telling my friends, I'm anxious to get home! Only three weeks left of classes and I'm feeling the pressure of finals and papers - and I'm dying to get a hold of (well, a bite of, rather) my favorite American foods!

The week with my parents was fun. I'm glad they got to see Italy and that I got to tag along! We had some problems with transportation because of these spontaneous strikes that are always going on in this country, but otherwise we had a really nice time.

Two Mondays ago, we went to the Vatican Museums where I gave them a mini tour of the Sistine Chapel. Dad and I decided that there should be a class dedicated to this Chapel. You would definitely not get through everything in one semester, but it would still be really neat to be able to spend an entire class studying it. We took the "secret" way that Rick Steves (my new BFF, even when he's wrong about things in his books...) told us to go through to get to St. Peter's. It led us straight there! It was beautiful! I loved that there were doves all around the church - and at the very back, Bernini's dove window. The dove and what it symbolizes has a special meaning to me, and if I ever become famous, they will be sure to mention how the dove has been a great influence in my musical life, so look for that on my E! True Hollywood Story, coming in the near future. ;P

(my picture - love the light coming through) -- (this one stolen from Wikipedia)

There was even a mosaic copy of Raphael's Transfiguration, which was neat to see. (There is also a copy of this painting in the Museo del Prado - I love it! I'm writing a paper on it and I love being able to recognize it.) The original is in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums (below). Another favorite is at the very end of the Pinacoteca. It is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden by Peter Wenzel (right). It is perfectly painted, and contains many animals - even little guinea pigs!

We were in Florence for four days, where we had a bike tour of a small town outside of Florence, and a day trip to Pisa. (Aunt Doreen, we totally could have used your fancy artistic skills for The Leaning Tower! But you gotta admit - dad didn't so such a bad job with it!) Both were really fun days.

We headed to Venice Saturday morning. I think this was Mom's favorite place. I left earlier on Sunday afternoon, because there were strikes going on later that evening, and I didn't want to get stuck somewhere! Had a great time, Mom and Dad! Happy Anniversary!

This past week was quite uneventful, except that I realized I have a lot of "catching up" to do, especially with the four research papers I have to get done in two weeks. We're performing our little version of "Charlie Brown" NEXT WEEK. And some of the girls keep wanting to add songs that we haven't worked on yet! It will be really fun and we're all sticking around in Rome this weekend to rehearse before we perform on Tuesday night and Wednesday night, at the Thanksgiving Dinner. Then for Thanksgiving weekend, I'm going to ... *drumroll, please* ... Paris! Ah, yes. I'm looking forward to it...but not looking forward to cramming in all the work that has to be done before that! Stay in Rome and finish all my work before finals! But it's okay, I'm making the right decision, and the Drama girls will also be in town so we're already planning on having Thanksgiving Dinner! And I would like to pass my classes and graduate on time, thank you very much! Paris will always be there. :)

Madrid was really great - I hope to blog more about it soon, but right now...I've gotta get to class. This weekend we got to see most of the touristy places and museums (Museo del Prado = AMAZING. It was huge and wonderful and I saw EVERYTHING in three hours, while taking notes and listening to the audio guide. It was incredible. I love art!)

Don't worry if I don't blog in a while - just picture me researching away in the library! My papers are super interesting, but I keep getting distracted. (Not by blogging, or by Veronica Mars or vampires, but if I'm researching Odysseus online and I see a link for Achilles, I click it. And from there I just keep clicking on more links related to the subject. I'm just trying to fill my mind with all this awesome information that I wish I had learned (and been interested in...) years ago!)

Just one more month. I'll be done with classes and papers. I'll pack my bags and be home before you know it.

(And then I'll be free to eat all the muffins and bagels and hot pockets and hamburgers I want. No pasta and pizza for at least a year!)

Ciao!