Lazy Weekends

This past friday we were able to make the small but LONG trek out to Ostia Antica. This is small port town that lies along the Tiber river (its means mouth of river in Latin). It's a small town that reminds me of what a retirement town would feel like, relaxed, comfortable and a view of the water (Aunt Barbara I miss naples :(! ) This was the day that I was in charge of our group visit, I was the presenter for the topic (which is also considered my final project) I was nervous but once I got on a roll, I was golden.

The topic was the ancient Roman baths of Ostia. The ones that were open for viewing were the baths of Neptune (known for their detailed black and white mosaics and for its immense size) as well as the forum baths (much are better preserved by the tiber river floods and includes a sunbathing room). I would tell you more about the baths but its a pretty long explanation, so in short I will say it was a luxurious process. The type of place that would be a common day gym, spa, library, and business center. It was incredible and something that I wish we still had today. Its sad that they aren't visited more because the lack of funds from visits results in less care for the ruins. Some had algae growing of the mosaics and others had leaves and pines from the trees covering the designs, it was really unfortunate.

You can read my paper about it at www.nataliainrome.blogspot.com. This is my class blog. Since we don't use paper here, all projects get posted to our class blogs. I don't recommend you read anything besides the paper, its a lot of fluffy, cheesy feelings type stuff for my borders class. The paper will be posted by Wednesday though.

Today though, is a lazy day.

Maybe I'm simply not used to having nothing to do, but this is a revelation I think I'm enjoying. Today I woke up at 11:00am (thank God I have finally adjusted to the time) and I did NOTHING! It was great! I performed a few quick morning tasks, including making a batch of delicious eggs and a short trip to the SMA (a grocery store kinda like QFC but about 100x smaller) and then dropped off the goods, grabbed some bread from the Forno and sat on the statue of Bruno, in the campo.

Now do not get confused, Bruno is not the gay comedian that made a terrible American movie, but rather the free thinking, speaking teacher that was burned alive with his tongue nailed to chin. Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out but I find this a very interesting part of the place that is right outside my door. Its also interesting to know that his statue is facing directly at the vatican, which in case you didn't know is the photo at the top of my blog, AND the starting ground of the catholic religion or in other words one of the most important religious sites of the world.

Eventually I made it back to my room and discovered this incredible shield called hotspots, which actually confuses your computer and allows you to go onto US webpages, so sorry mom but I am keeping up with my shows as much as I can, granted the internet is so slow I am only allowed 70 minutes of play time and it takes about 40min to load, sooooo dumb.

This is probably one of my more boring posts, but to be honest it is a bit of a relief to get to write to all of you sometimes, not necessarily to write only about the wonders of this amazing city but to feel like I'm home for a few minutes, that I am almost just having this discussion with my roommates when they all make fun of me for doing nothing. Its nice. When I'm not busy I miss you all so much more, so trust me this blog is almost more important to my own well being then to all of yours haha.

I love you and am always thinking about you!