No more cowbell.

First of all, I have to say, that I have the best mom in the world. Because my washington mutual account got frozen, I had no access to money when we were supposed to pay in cash for our apartment in Rome, while covering two other people. My mom fixed the problem for me and got it done. Thank you Mom.
Ok, so since I am writing this from a internet cafe in Rome, you can tell that we made it on our ferry,which was very smoky. I dont want to get into it, but it was not the most fun experience of my life. Anyway, we got off the ferry in Athens and took a 40 minute bus to the airport. Having had no sleep, we spent most of the night sleeping on the floor with our arms wrapped in our luggage to keep be aware of our surroundings. Once we could check in however, we found some chairs that did not have arm rests and slept on them for 2 hours until our plane started to board. I dont remember much of the flight because I was sleeping, but we made it into Rome at about 830. We got our lugagge just fine and took the espress tram to the Rome Termini. We walked, in a most circuituous route i might add, with out heavy, heavy luggage, about 1 mile to our apartment, where at 1130 the manager met us to get us set up and paid. After we got settled in we immediately left to go meet Jeff Yuen at the train station. We found him at the McDonalds and walked back to the apartment. At the apartment I was the first to shower, and I am not sure if that was a good idea. There was absolutely no hot water and because the tap comes ffrom the mountains, I would say that it was even frigid. I did not get a full showre, i basically washed my hair....kinda, and got out. Only, as i got out, i shut the door to the shower too hard and dissconnected the door, thereby making it impossible to open from the outside. Yuen ended up having to climb over the showre door and into the showre in order to fix it. Anyway, we left not long after and headed to meet Joe(our professor) for an optional meeting at the giacommo(?) park. We walked for 2.5 hours on what we were told was a 15 min. one, because we were sent to the wrong place. It seemed as though we had seen all of Rome, except the neat stuff. Finally after turning around we found Joe and two other students who met him. We got to see a fantastic view of the city, and Joe showed us the American Academy at Rome, where he studied when he won the Rome Prize in 2003.
That was yesterday and this morning we met for class under the Arch of Constantine. This is right next to the Colleseum. First we went to a church of st clemente. This church, built in the 1500s was built over two previous churches, one of which was built way back in the first century. It was beautiful, but I have no pictures, only drawings, as photos were not allowed.
After the church, we climbed the Palatine hill to visit the old villa and waited in line for about an hour to buy tickets. It was worth it. The old villa of the emperors was large, and the gardens are very impressive. My group gave our presentation of italy while in that garden. After class we went to look at the ruins on the forum and the old stadium. Its amazing to see what they were capable of way back then. Even the aquaducts are built on a ratio of a 1 to 1000 slope. For those of you non architect/engineers, that means really slow, but sloping drainage. We walked by the arch of titus, and anothe won of whom i do not know. Though I do know that no Jew will walk under the arch of titus as it celebrates a battle he won against them in Jerusalem.
We met up with Joe once more to make plans for tommorrow then headed off to the Colleseum to explore it. because we already had tickets from the villa, we got to cut through the line, which would have taken hours and go inside. Its huge. It is not as huge as the portrayel in gladiator, but impressive nontheless. I cant believe it was made in only 10 years. they remade a set of staicases to use, that are very steep and remade a part by the floors, so that you can see how the seating arangedmnt was. The emperor sat near enough to get sprayed with the blood of any animal slave or gladiator out there. Its a shame that the people of rome dissassmbled much of the colleseo for builing materials, as it is very noble in stature, up until the quite obvious retrofits.
After the colleseo, we went to find dinner and had our both our first sit down italian meal, and my first unshared dinner. The pasta was made after we ordered and the cold water hit the spot. After dinner, we bought gelato for jeff for his birthdya and walked home.

Rome, being one the smelliest cities I have ever been in, has the best water I have evr tasted. Since the water poors from the mountains, they constantly run a stream of potable water from every hydrant. It always cold, and tastes so good. It also minimizes the amount of money spent on beverages :). Anyway, my water bottle i brought with me, when empty hits my hip and makes a sound that reminds jeff yuen of a cowbell. Today when we were on the palantine hill, i dropped it, right after i filled it, and it broked, sending a stream of delicious water down the hill...so no no more cowbell.

I think I saw Larry Byrd today.