Greetings from Padua!

Hello, all!

So where did I leave off?  Ah, the Ancient Roman Bar Crawl--it was a lot of fun, actually, basically just a bunch of silly Americans wandering around Rome.  It was a really nice bonding experience for our group (38 of the 44 of us came), and we got to meet some interesting people studying abroad from the US.  I also got in for free since it was the day after my birthday!  Good times :-)

The day after the bar crawl we had a free day in Rome, which was really nice and relaxing.  In the morning I finally got my laundry done (although they use UBER HOT washers and dryers here so they shrunk all of my clothes), then some friends and I went to the Borghese Museum to see the Bernini sculptures for an art class assignment.  The Borghese is a really weird museum; you have to make an appointment the day before, and they only let people in every two hours exactly...if you miss the entrance time you don't get to go in.  It's also really small but TOTALLY worth it--it was hands-down my favorite museum thus far.  We saw three wonderful Bernini sculptures: "David," "Apollo and Daphne," and "Pluto and Persephone."

After the Borghese we wandered over to the Colosseum, which was incredible.  I'm a little (slash very) upset that the church decided they could rip off all the Colosseum's marble to build the Vatican, but it was still beautiful and impressive without being all shiny and white.  The problem with seeing things in Rome is that it's really hard to accurately determine the scale--both the Colosseum and St. Peter's seemed to be really small until you look at the size of a person across from you.  Then you just think..."Oh."

After dinner a few people from our group headed over to the Trevi Fountain (again), which I've decided is hands-down my favorite place in Rome.  At night it's also an incredible place to "people watch," and my friend Memphis and I started making up stories about everyone that passed.  It was great.

This morning we left for Padua bright and early, and after ten hours on the bus we're finally here!  Our hotel is incredible--we have a balcony, a living room, and a little office in our room.  We're spending tomorrow here in Padua and then the next couple of days in Venice, which should be great.  Thank goodness I got to sleep on the bus all day; this constant running around is really starting to catch up to me.

Time to go to dinner, but here's a link to Rome photos if you're interested: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014690&id=1326450024&l=7e0221365a  They're not all up yet, but they should be within the next few hours.

Missing you!

Dara