10 days: a quick recap of a lot of stuff

30/9/10

I know it has been FOREVER and a year or so since I updated my blog, a sure sign that #1 I am having lots of fun in Italy, and #2 that I am normal, because this always happens when I try to blog or journal or anything. Let me take a look at my calendar to remember all of the things I have done since I last wrote and I will try to give a little recap of each.

Sunday after I last updated we went to the site of Tiberius’s grotto in Sperlonga, south of Rome. We spend the morning at the villa, grotto and museum, we got to see some really important and somewhat famous sculptures that were potentially made by the same artists that carved the Laocoon. This site was also really cool because in the 1960’s when it was discovered the town of Sperlonga protested the larger museums from Rome who wanted to take the sculptures and they now have a beautiful museum to house the artifacts from the site. In the afternoon we got to swim in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which was extra warm, and the current was super strong because some of the remains of the villa are near shore and they cause a current.

Wedensday the 22^nd we went to Tarquinia to see the famous painted Etruscan tombs, which are some of the best-preserved tombs in Italy, unfortunately (but for the sake of preservation) you can only see them through a glass window and thus we didn’t get to see the backs of some of the more complex tombs. Again in the afternoon we got to visit the beach which was a little chilly and totally deserted (probably because it was a Wednesday in late September but it was a little eerie)

That weekend 24-26 a few of us took a long weekend to Florence and I got to see two of my friends from WU which was a welcome change of pace. I got to see the Uffizi and the academy but it was Italy cultural weekend and the museums were free so they were all PACKED, it was a little crazy. I want to go back for at least a day and see some things I missed but it was a great weekend, and I got some gift shopping done at the open air market and even got myself a new bag.

I have been having lots of fun in Orvieto and even met some people outside of our program that I have been hanging out with and it has been a lot of fun, despite the fact that I am getting almost no sleep on a fairly regular basis now! I will update about Palestrena and Pompeii this weekend at a later time!

Lots of love jess