Day 4

Today was a good day we went to see the School of Athens by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. It was spectacular the paintings took up the entire walk and nothing was left bare. The architecture is also beautiful gold flaked molding and not like the small 2 in molding most houses have it's like 6 in molding with enormous detail. The School of Athens was spectacular to see and I loved seeing something I have studied and know a good bit about. Then there was the Sistine Chapel I was ready for this amazing moment were the interaction with the art took me over and I be an an art history lover. Unfortionitly that didn't happen, the paintings were spectacular and I couldn't even imagin painting something like that especially from freehand. However the museum gards were constantly telling everyone to be quiet and not to take pictures over there loud speaker that it kind of killed the entire experience. Once we were done I was off for lunch my favorite meal of the day.  I ate an amazing dish of homemade pasta with a light red and olive oil sause and a meadly of clams, mussels, and octupus. It was called pasta and fruit of the sea it was fricken amazing. Anna a girl on my trip and I both ordered it and had a nice lunch getting to know each other. Then we decided to make the day a walking day we met up with Amy another girl on the trip and walked down the broadway in front of St. Peter's. After a bit we found ourselves on the lawn by the fortress. After a few minutes of rest we wanted to see the parts of Rome only Romans went to, so Amy and I decided to kept walking. We walked threw the city down whatever street we thought looked the coolest. Stopping at restaurant to read the menus while planing our lunch for tomorrow. We found a restaurant that had a full bundle of fresh mushroom out front they looked amazing. As we kept walking I came across my favorite pastry shop again. I got a few cookies to take to Cortona as I know I won't be getting back anytime soon. Soon after we stoped for a bite of gelato. Lemon and cocoanut was my flavors of choice. It was so yummy, the sweet cocoanut aginst the citrusy lemon was a nice contrast in pallet. As we sat and ate our gelato we looked over the market place talking. I started to show Amy all the places I had gone the few days before. I couldent resist the fresh olives today and took some home for my lunch tomorrow. Along with a carbanara spice blend for Cortona, figured carbanara is easy and cheep and were going to do some group lunches and who doesn't like carbanara. After we were all marketed out we were off in the direction of the bridge again. We walked and stopped in a few shops along the way shoes were the general agreement of danger. However I did get a fabulous blazer with beautiful silver buttons going all down the front. Thanks Holly for the birthday money with it I was able to cover my jacket. At this point I wasn't allowed to spend anymore money. I was having to much fun and needed to just enjoy the scenery.  We came across an old book cart were Amy found a French book or two. They were beautiful I found three small books that had covers made out of gorgeous pattern printed paper. However since I don't read Italian or French I passed them on. Amy informed me that they were acts from a play which I found really cool. Wish I could read them. They also had a very old book collection. They were beautiful old leather bound books and for some reason they just sounded like they would be amazing books but everything sounds better in Italian. We headed off for the bridge, as soon as we got there we decided not to cross into the part of town we had been making our way to this whole time. We took the cable car back to the bus and the bus back to St Peters as it closed at 7 and it was 6 when we got there. But an hour was plenty. I got to see a very famous marble sculpture of Mary holding Christ which was spectacular. I remember talking about this piece in class and how unporportanite Mary and Christ are which when you see it in person you can really see how Mary was the emphases. The building on the other had was spectacular it was inlaid with so many diffrent types of marble and even the floors were spectacularly designed and inlaid. We oood and odddd then headed back to the hotel. Here we were just In time for dinner. I was so not hungry all I've don't today is eat or think about eating so I ate my first pasta course and the veggies on my second but skipped my meat with a banana for dessert. Then we had a meeting were we got to hear the teachers class structures. All of the teachers sound amazing and I can't wait to start mine and sit in on others.