Countdown??

View from the top of Hadrian's Mausoleum

It’s World Cup season, and Rome is a hub of soccer… er, football. Everywhere you go there’s a sign for this or that football team, or an ad featuring a Roma player. So of course for the games we had to check out a local hotspot. There’s an official Fifa viewing screen set up at the Villa Borghese park in north central Rome, about a 5 to 10-minute walk from us at the Ercoli. It is AWESOME. We’ve been to about 5 games there, but the most epic game has definitely been the Italy//Paraguay game. There were thousands of people there last night, and all of them were cheering for Italy (the Paraguay fans wisely chose to stay home, I guess). The crowd though- that was the real fun for me. Everyone was so pumped up and so invested in their country doing well that it was difficult not to get swept up into the fever. When Paraguay scored their goal, I have never felt so much frustration and anger from so many people at once. But that just made Italy’s goal that much sweeter and fulfilling. Even though it ended in a tie, it was more than worth it.

As far as classes go, there are less than two weeks left and it’s starting to hit everyone that this may be the last time they see so-and-so’s monument, or the last time they have to eat green tomatoes for dinner. So these last two weeks are definitely going to be milked for all they are worth. Yesterday we headed to Ostia (the port of Ancient Rome) to check out the ruins there, then today we spent quite a few hours walking around the southern Campus Martius. The Pantheon was one of our stops during the day, and it took me quite by surprise. I was not expecting what I walked in to see: a modern church in a giant round building. I was disappointed yet again that another ancient monument was taken over by the Catholic Church, but on the other hand grateful because if it were not for the Church (and Pope Pious IX), then much of ancient Rome would not still be available to us. But it was beautiful nonetheless, and the oculus was really neat. Hadrian’s Mausoleum (called Castel San’Angelo by Romans) was our last stop for today’s class. Originally built to be Hadrian’s final resting place, Castel San’Angelo was actually turned into a castle during the 10^th cCE. It also housed all of the remains of the emperors until Caracalla in the mid-3^rd cCE, but none of these still remain. The only thing left of the burials is the burial chamber itself, which you can’t actually go into. But we faithfully climbed up the ridiculous Roman stairs (really just a steep winding terraced ramp) to the top and got a gorgeous panoramic view of the city.

Only 1.5 weeks left… mama, mia!