Thanksgiving break

I feel like this semester has blown by. Where has all the time gone?  One minute, I was getting ready for fall break, and now suddenly it is December and I’m leaving in 2 and a half weeks. Wow. I’ve gotten adjusted to living here, I’ve finally made Italian friends, I have a routine. And now it’s changing. But that’s life, always changing.

Last weekend was awful in terms of trying to get work done- I couldn’t focus and hated that I couldn’t. Really annoying when there is a looming deadline. But our pin-up on Tuesday wasn’t bad- we just had to have floor plans and some perspectives of our building to show and talk about. That night Claire, one of the other girls in my program, and I hung out with our Italian friends. Unfortunately for her, she had to get up early in the morning to leave. Wednesday started our break for Thanksgiving- a lot of people left between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I and about 9 other people stayed here for the break, instead of going places. While I love traveling, we’ve also done quite a bit of it recently and it was nice to have a break and just relax here and be able to sleep in.

Wednesday I actually did some work for my classes and then a bunch of us went out shopping for Thanksgiving food. We filled two American-sized grocery carts full of food! Flour, milk, sugar, and butter were our main ingredients. Thursday was a day spent full of cooking (and eating). We had got a 9.8 kilo (20 lb) turkey from the butcher, and had all the staples of a thanksgiving feast: mashed and sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. It was a huge success and everyone was very satiated by the end of the meal. Derek, Karrah, Andrew, and I walked over to the Vatican in an attempt to burn off some of the calories we had consumed- I think we were marginally successful. It was Derek’s first time going over there, and I got to show them where we sat for the canonization. And while the walk was good, our run the next morning definitely went a long way towards making me feel better.

Yesterday we all went to the Capuchin Monk church- officially the Santa Maria della Concezione Cappuccini near Piazza Barberini. It’s where the word cappuccino is derived from. It is a normal church, but what makes it special is a fascinating crypt. It is decorated with the bones of 4,000 people. Cool, right?! The use the different bones for different patterns, like using femurs to create a strong border, or placing two ribs together to make a heart. Some of my friends were a little grossed out, but I think it was really creative. Messing with living organs grosses me out, but I like bones. And this morning Derek, Mira, and I made a trek out to the Catacombe San Callisto. We got a little turned around on the way out, but we made it there before the noon closing. And you have to go down into the catacombs with a guide, because otherwise you would get lost! Our guide was from Australia, and gave us a brief history and “orientation” before we went down. There are 20 km of tunnels underground that belong to this set of catacombs. WOW. They dug through all the tufa stone, which is porous and absorbs rain so that it doesn’t flood. And this place is so sectionally awesome. I probably sound like a huge architecture nerd, but that’s what this semester has done to me. It is 4 levels deep and at various points there are light shafts to bring light down to the bottom levels. And sometimes a light shaft would be shared by two different rooms that were separated by an arch or wall. And there were at least 4 tombs stacked on top of each other in one level. In this particular catacomb, there exist the tombs of several popes, and Saint Cecilia and other martyrs. It was so neat and historically fascinating. And also very cold.