Quasi il fine settimana!!

The school week is almost over...only one more class tonight and one more in the morning......and then I'm off to Firenze! I'm so excited for my first real weekend trip outside of Roma. Don't get me wrong, I love Roma, but it will be nice to explore other parts of Italia as well. We are leaving tomorrow evening after Hank's class, and we get into Firenze around 9pm...just in time for a glass of wine and dessert!! We're staying in a hostel with some other girls from St. Mary's, called Plus Florence (creative name!) , but we have a private room for the 3 of us with a bathroom for only 15,20 euro a night. Not too bad for booking a day before. Unfortunately, we don't have train tickets because the website won't take our credit cards, and the travel agency is ridiculous and has not had internet for two days! Can you imagine something like that at home....losing 2+ days of business because of internet?! It doesn't make sense to me. So we'll just buy tickets at the station tomorrow.

We're spending all day Saturday in Firenze, and then Sunday morning we are taking the train to Siena (just an hour south of Firenze). In order to get to Siena by train, you have to always go through Firenze, so we decided to combine the trips. Siena is home to Italia's patron saint and my Confirmation saint, Catherine of Siena. So I'm excited to see her sanctuary and house (Santuario e Casa di Santa Caterina) as well as Basilica di San Domenico, where a chapel is dedicated to her and her head is buried. Myth says that when she died in Roma of a stroke at a young age, the people of Siena wanted her body, but they didn't think they could get past the Roman guards with her entire body. So, they just took her head and carried it in a bag. The guards still stopped them, so the people prayed to St. Catherine; when the guards opened the bag, all they saw were rose petals. When the people arrived in Siena, her head reappeared in the bag. Kinda spooky! So anyway, Siena is where her head was buried. Her body is buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva - near the Pantheon. I haven't been there yet, but its on my ever-growing list of places to visit. Anyway, it should be a great weekend. Sam isn't coming because she left today with her boyfriend Brett for a weekend in Capri. We'll all be visiting southern Italia as a class in a week and half.

The week here in Roma has been good, but busy. Everyone is still sick and I am trying to fight a cold. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, because there is so much I want to see and do here, but sometimes I just want to relax and rest during the day. Its the constant balancing act, that after 3 weeks I'm still trying to master. Its like my mom said the other day....Its as if you were trying to go to school and work hard at Notre Dame, while also trying to explore South Bend....only this is on a much bigger scale!!! I just have to take it day by day.

So, tonight I'm hopefully going to go out for a few drinks and enjoy myself since I've been staying in most of the week getting work done. I saw a friend, Melissa, from ND who is in the Architecture program and we're hopefully going to try to meet up later. The girls in my program are hooked on this bar Scholars (an Irish pub...but really just your average American bar) where you will only find the American college students who are studying in Rome. I feel like I can get that same experience back in South Bend at Corby's or the Backer....so why limit myself to that here. Most of the girls in the program are only 18 or 19, so this is their first real experience at a bar. For me, I rather go to Italian bars, sip vino rosso and prova a parlare con gli italiani!!

OK, well I'll write more after my Firenze adventure!! Ciao Ciao