Weekend 20th-21st

On the 2oth, I woke up early and walked around Via Del Corso which is the main shopping street in Rome. It's not the extremely expensive street, however, the prices are so discouraging! Our currency is so weak here that it makes me so hesitant to want to buy anything! I walked around and eventually got to Piazza Navona. The Piazza has a ton of caricature artists and painters that sell small and large paints of many of the historical buildings. I have seen them before and really liked them so I decided to buy one. Mine is a colored painting (some are in black and white) of the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain. I'm guessing I will be back there to buy more of them. They're a good price and they're a great remembrance of Rome for me. Maybe some souveiner gift ideas? Probably! ;)

After Piazza Navona, I made my way to the Castel San Angelo. They don't have guided tours of the museum so you kind of just have to make the best of it on your own, but it was so cool! It was hard for me since a lot of the signs to read information is in Italian, but seriously, the view from the top of the Castel is breathtaking. I have some pretty good pictures from it and you can see a large part of Rome up there! You can't take pictures in the museum parts but I tried to stand outside of doors and be sneaky to get some snapshots of the detailed rooms of the Castel. Here I am! This isn't at the top but I just tried to get the Tiber in it.

Saturday night we were supposed to go to a food festival that we signed up for with IES. However, to due disfunctional trains, it took us about 4 1/2 hours to get there! By 9:30 I was so hungry!! The food turned out to be pretty good: I had pasta with calamari and french fries, then got gelato (chocolate and lime). The transportation in Rome is so crazy but all the Italians seem so laid back about it! To me, its ridiculous, but I guess it's just another cultural difference I need to accept!

Today, sunday, we went to a town market in the morning. For me, it was a disappointment, but other girls always find things they like there. They have a lot of clothes, but the problem is you can't try anything on! I wouldn't buy it without trying it on first so my options were limited. I went to Via Del Corso with Aimee and Lizzie to find H&M and Mango which was nice until we got stuck out in the rain! It was nice to have the weather finally cool off a little bit but we were just unprepared. And again, everything seems so expensive so I still haven't bought any clothing! I tried more gelato (because, obviously, I have to have it at least once a day) and I had chocolate and black cherry: so delicious! I find that mixing chocolate with any flavor is the perfect mix for me: I get in my chocolate fix while trying a new flavor of gelato!

I went for a run when I got home and now it's time to chill out, do homework, and eat dinner. I have almost been here a full two weeks but it seems like it's been forever! Please keep me posted on what you all are doing at home - I want to know!! Arrivederci!!