Finally, the Colosseum!

Sorry, I've been behind my unnaturally good blogging schedule. We have the first draft of our term paper due tomorrow night by dinner, and everyone is very very stressed. So, let me tell you about the last two weeks!
Last week we had yet another day on the Palatine. This is probably the 4th time we've been there. And yet, we still saw things we've never seen. The Palatine hill, right by the Roman Forum, is just a giant mess of ruins that I will have to somehow make sense of before my final... quite intimidating. After wandering around Nero's giant house, spending more time trying to orient ourselves on our maps than actually looking at the ruins, we saw the arch of Titus, which was cool because that's where Israel got the design for the menorah that is now the seal. And then, as promised, we went to the Colosseum! ...which we only saw from outside. There was a mix-up with our tickets and reservations, so we did not actually get to go in. Instead, we had a pointlessly long lunch break, and then visited a museum by Termini, where we saw Pontifex Maximus Augustus. It was a nice 9 hour long field trip to ease us back after Sicily and spring break...

What a great guy, huh?

Wednesday, surprise surprise, we were back at the Forum/Palatine. This time we went into the (special-access!) Temple of Peace, from where we walked to the Forum of Nerva, and then, in a wonderful surprise, they decided to let us into the Forum of Augustus. We saw it a few weeks ago from outside, and it was terribly exciting to actually be inside (especially since we got to see the tourists looking on from where we had been standing last time). Oh, and we also got to go inside the Colosseum! Our professor worked it out so that 13 students were allowed to go in with our ticket, and I responded to the email in time, so I got to go! It definitely lived up to my expectations- amazing, but after 2 months in Rome I've definitely seen more amazing things. If only it wasn't full of tourists all the time. 

Yayyyy

On Thursday night we had a speaker who researches Jews in Rome, and part of her talk mentioned something very close and related to my term project. Apparently I, along with 2 other students, have a meeting with her sometime next week (not by my doing, but hey, I'll take it!) so that will be helpful for life! 

The weekend was very laid back and anti-social. I was collecting my energy for this week, which is the busiest one I've had in Rome yet.
This Tuesday we visited Portus, the ancient port city of Rome. We saw some ruins of warehouses and columns. Not the most interesting day, in my opinion. On Wednesday we had Esquiline day, wherein we walked around the entire Esquiline in the morning, seeing the Baths of Trajan, an arch, a fountain and aqueducts, among other things. And today, Thursday, we went to Isola Sacra, right by Portus, where people used to bury their family members. We had a fun scavenger hunt which involved walking around and into the tombs to find certain things. We do a lot of tomb-invading here... 

Here is tombs

Between all these field trips, I've been going to classes, eating, sleeping and WORKING ON MY PAPER. And trying to keep sane. In light of my attempt to keep my sanity, here is a list of GOOD things:

-My family is coming in 2 days!

-I booked flights to Paris and Dublin!

-I have a great lottery number for housing next year!

-Anna is back from the Pacific and I can post on her facebook without feeling bad about it.

-We had the delicious carrot pasta for dinner this week!

That's it... it's the little things...