After approximately 19 hours of travel, fortified by Chick-Fil-A and Jamba Juice. I’m still not quite ready to process my semester. So all I have is this baby step:
My last evening in Rome was made up of a series of firsts: the Cupola of St. Peter’s was conquered. Chocolate-drenched gelato from Frigidarium was digested, as was a drink at Scholar’s. Then, because my fellow gelato and drink digesters had not planned our time well, I finally ran along Via dei Fori Imperiali, right past the Colosseum In a floor length skirt. Because we were going to be late for the school-sponsored pizza dinner. Luckily, we made it, despite my purse breaking mid-flight.
After dinner, a large group of merry students made their way back up Via dei Fori Imperiali, taking silly photographs posing as famous statues we studied in Art & Architecture: everything from Bernini’s Apollo & Daphne (with help from a bystanding tree) to the classic Venus Pudica. Once we hit the bars, the group broke into bar-hoppers and cigar-seekers. Not particularly interested in spending money (or smoking a cigar, for that matter), I used my powers of persuasion on a few girlfriends to accompany me in my continued mission of firsts: a coin was tossed into the Trevi Fountain (and my camera decided to capture the moment and make it artsy-fartsy), merriment was made in Piazza Navona (read: heads were dunked in Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi), and I played my harmonica on the steps of Sant’Ignazio.
Sunday, May 5, I wandered about Rome for the last time. I teared up as I turned my back on St. Peter’s Square, prayed at St. Catherine’s tomb at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and listened to the organ at San Luigi while I admired the Caravaggios, and wondered at the Pantheon. I didn’t let my solo-ness stop me from sitting down in a sea of couples for lunch in Trastevere. “Solo?” asked the waiter. “Solo,” I confirmed. The church count for the day soared into the double digits.
Needless to say, it was a triple gelato day.
Hello, America. Hello summer jobs, Youtube, letter-writing, family, frisbee, barbecue, home cooking, and coffee with old friends. Hello organic chemistry, library books, Spotify, driving, Cardinals baseball, and making myself romesick by looking through photographs on Facebook for too long.
Climb Ev'ry Mountain 