Alone...

Hey everyone! Today has been a somewhat quiet day for me, since all of my four roommates are out of the city on trips. Courtney is in Florence and Nancy, Molly, and Claudia are in Pompeii today. I actually could have signed up for the Pompeii trip as well, but I didn't think I could afford both it and the Tuscany trip, and for some reason I wanted to go to Tuscany more than Pompeii. It's kind of odd, when you consider that I have been planning to see Pompeii since I started planning this trip...but for some reason, once I got here, I decided that I would have quite enough archaeological stuff here in Rome (and in books), and I wanted to see more of what modern Italy is like. So anyway, no Pompeii for me. I've been left to my own devices today.

Last night was lovely--a storm came blowing in. Since I am living in a sort of valley between two ridges, one of which is in this picture (hence the long climb up the Mordor stairs every day), the thunder rumbles and echoes back and forth between the two hills. It sounds really cool. I probably spent about an hour on the terrace last night just watching the lightning and hearing the thunder. (Ah, the joy of having nothing in particular to do. Some call it boredom, I call it rest and relaxation. A little boredom never hurt anybody.)

Then, after the storm, at about 11:00, there were fireworks on the hill, in the same place that they had World Cup celebration fireworks. These were also the green, white, red, and blue...but I haven't the faintest clue why they set them off last night. Italia doesn't play until tomorrow night. Kind of random, but whatever.

Today I decided to do a little exploring. This morning after my usual morning cappuccino I hopped on the metro down to Piazza Barberini and walked a few blocks to the Chiesa Santa Maria della Vittoria (Church of Saint Mary of the Victory). This church is lavishly decorated like every other church here in Rome, but the real draw of Santa Maria is the Bernini statue of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. (Again, Blogger hates me, so Google it if you want to see what I'm talking about.) Bernini is the same guy who designed the square at St. Peter's, and the Baroque façade of the basilica itself (although Michelangelo designed the dome, etc.). Sculptures amaze me, and they are especially incredible when you can see them in person, walking around to see them from every angle. The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is kind of creepy in subject matter (an angel is stabbing her with an arrow), but it's an incredible sculpture.

In keeping with my sacred sculpture theme, I hopped back on the metro to go to Chiesa di San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter-In-Chains). This other St. Peter's (not to be confused with the monstrosity across the river) is yet another lavishly decorated church, but its major draw is Michelangelo's Moses:

Interesting in a photo, but intimidating in real life. Moses has just come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments in his arms, and he's just caught sight of the naughty Israelites worshipping the golden calf. He's just about to jump off his chair and go set them straight. The statue's pretty big; if Moses stood up, he'd be 13 feet tall. The bulging muscles and even veins, plus the incredible long flowing beard (this is stone Michelangelo was working with), make this sculpture pretty much unbelievable. In my opinion, anyway. St. Peter-In-Chains also houses 2 sets of chains that they claim held Peter: one set from when he and Paul were in the Mamertine prison in Rome, the other set from the story in Acts 12 where the angel leads Peter, who thinks he's dreaming, out of Herod's prison in Jerusalem. I suppose it goes without saying that this girl is not at all convinced of their validity, but that's what they say.

Incidentally, while I was there, I noticed another interesting sculpture on the wall:

I don't know about you, but if my church put up life-size sculptures of winged skeletons with sickles, I'd be a little creeped out. Of course, I'd also think it was pretty creepy if the former preacher's dead body was on display, like the dead popes in St. Peter's...there's some wacky stuff in these old churches.

So anyway, after being thoroughly creeped out in the churches, I went home for lunch and to hang up my laundry, then rode the bus over to Largo Argentina, because my next class meeting is there and I wanted to make sure I could find the place. Once I found it, I saw a big book/music store across the street and couldn't resist doing a little shopping. I've been wanting to shop for Italian music since I got here, and this is pretty much the only music store I've seen in my wanderings. It was like a really big Borders. I had a lot of fun browsing around and listening to samples of crazy Italian pop. Italians actually listen to a lot of American music, I'd noticed. I've heard lots of American stuff playing on the radio, like Evanescence, Shakira, Dido, Coldplay (well, they're British, but whatever), Cher, LeeAnn Rimes...the list goes on and on. In the store, the rock/pop section is almost entirely English-language stuff, and they keep their Italian music in an "Italiana" section, which is significantly smaller, although still decent. It's kind of weird. You can buy pretty much any CD here that you could in the States. I could have bought that Collective Soul CD I haven't gotten around to buying yet. But because it's imported, it's much more expensive. 26€ for a CD works out to about $34 U.S. Yikes.

I ran around listening to various things and eventually settled on this one by Piero Pelù:

In Faccia, as far as I can tell, means something like, "In Your Face." Lol. He's kind of like an Italian version of Scott Stapp or something. I like it. :)

Well, I think the computer lab is about to close, and in any case I need to go eat something. So I'll wrap this up and update again later, probably Monday (tomorrow I'm gone to Tuscany!). Love you all!