Day 5

Today was a thoroughly great day.  First day of classes.  Woke up feeling a little nervous about what to expect from the class and the professor.  The class I am taking is History of Ancient Monuments in Rome.  Attended an American Embassy meeting that just contributed to the unfortunate experiences that people have had while studying in Rome.  Although it definitely sticks out in our minds, it really is anything that you could expect from any big city in the US.  It seems common sense and being level-headed is a sure thing to avoid any unpleasant encounters.

After grabbing some pizza, made my way to class with many people I already knew.  I was very glad that I had met a decent amount of the students already, and were good friends with three others. When class started it wasn't long before I began to think that this really may be my favorite class I have ever taken. The honor & pride, politics, scandals, infrastructure....it's unbelievable.  My favorite thing to think of is that Romans in 500BC were far more modern than the Native Americans were in the 1600's in America.  Over two thousand years later, my Native American ancestors would not even hold a candle to my Roman ancestors.  I cannot even imagine how wonderful it was to live in Rome at that point and time.

Our Professor is an American born citizen that has been living in Rome for 5 years.  She is just awesome, super super intelligent while staying very much down to earth.  She has not one, but two P.H.D.'s.  And i thought my double major was impressive....

So we sat in class for 45 minutes, then headed off to explore Rome.  We went past much of what I already saw that first tour, but got much better information out of our professor.  Then we dove into what the tour guide never could have shown us.

These are the ruins and catacombs of an ancient Christian temple, built below the structure of 1500's church.  We are a good bit underground, it was like 50 degrees there! What you actually see in the picture is the sides of the temple and what was an ancient covered sidewalk in old times.  Like I said in days before, Rome would just build on top of old things, creating many uncovered layers of history.

Actual human bones that were found while excavating the site.












The preceding catacombs were below a beautiful church, most of the pictures though turned out blurry for some reason.  One didnt turn out so bad.

To the side is a great picture of an ancient temple that was dedicated to what they believe was actually the Port God.  As in boat port.  They did have gods for everything before Christianity.  Romans apparently were very good at recycling buildings, so the structure did not originally have anything in between those pillars.  It could have been anything from a house to a business at one point.  One significant thing about this building, is that it has the oldest original roof in Rome.  Very cool.

This is an ancient statue outside another church.  Apparently before women were to be married, they were told to come and put their hand where mine is.  They were then supposed to answer whether or not they were a virgin.  If they answered truthfully, nothing happened.  If they lied, apparently their hand was cut off.  Interesting indeed.

Beautiful church the statue was outside of.  Very very expensive materials used to build the church.











Okay and now for what I really love...the old stuff!

These are the steps leading up to what was the Roman Forum.  Everything here was not only at one point a swamp, but was under many businesses and houses at one point until it was excavated.  Not suprising, most of this dates back all the way to 500BC!  And I thought the American Civil War was a long time ago....

The pillars are what remains of the ancient Roman forum.  Everything from the emperor's speeches to elections, victory celebrations and even criminal trials were held here.  It stands far above the ground, and is very grandeur.  Definitely extremely humbling to see.

And finally we finished at one of the oldest and most well preserved churches in all of Roman history.  Churches were spared the wrath of destruction because of their religious significance.










So far having an amazing time....booked a ticket tonight for train to the Maltese Coast, Naples, and Pompeii! So exciting.  No class tomorrow(actually disappointed) but plenty left to explore.  Thanks for reading!