Procrastination...

My feet hurt. I have been on them pretty much all day. I must say with regrets, at the outset of this post, that I still haven't located my USB cable yet, so no pics today. It's too bad, since I visited the Gianicolo hill and the Pantheon and Piazza Navona...but they'll have to wait.

I actually got myself out of bed this morning early enough to enjoy the cool period before the rush. I have always intended to get going early, but have never found the motivation until today. I ought to do the same thing every day. It's so nice and cool at 7 am, and the only people you encounter on the streets are the Romans going to work and the occasional kamikaze tourists power-walking to their destination, usually the already-mobbed Vatican Museum. I decided to walk to the Gianicolo hill, which is just a scenic area of Trastevere not far from my school. It's a long climb, but the city views from the top are amazing, and it's a nice area with lots of trees, and a park on top. A nice break from the craziness of the Roman streets. I ended up taking the longest possible route to the top, but fortunately I found a shortcut on the way back that didn't show up on my map. Yay for random staircases.

Afterward, I went home to go grocery shopping and then met Nancy at the Pantheon. My class is planning on visiting it next week sometime, but I wanted to take a look for myself. It was amazing, of course. I can't wait to show you the pics, which don't really capture it. Those Romans were incredible. Then Nancy and I headed to Piazza Navona, which is the site of the emperor Domitian's stadium. Although the stadium is gone, the Piazza retains the shape of the original horsetrack, and it has some fountains designed by Bernini in the middle of it. Pretty cool stuff.

And now I'm back at school, about to begin work on my 12 page research paper! Yeehaw. No really, it won't be too bad, but I'd rather be doing, um, anything else, really. Oh well. I did come here for study abroad, after all. :)