Global Learning Week 6!

     I cannot believe it once again, but we have come to the end of another week here in Rome. This week was a very eventful one and one that I thoroughly enjoyed being apart of. We went to the Vatican City twice this week and it was a blast! On Monday, we climbed the Dome of St. Peter's Basillica. It was almost 600 stairs to get to the top of the Dome. By the end of the climb to the top, we were all dying and very out of breath, but the sight at the top was more than I could have every imagined. It was crazy to think that we had climbed up to the top and had such an amazing view of Rome from the top of that place so high up. The walk down from the top was a little less tiring but it was scarier for me since you could see the stairs and see yourself going round and round to the bottom. It was an experience of a lifetime and I am glad that I got to see that!
     On Tuesday, we went into the Vatican City! We had to go through security and then we went underground to below St. Peter's Basillica. We were very appreciative to be let underground since they only let 100 people a day underground! We got to see the underneath of St. Peter's Basillica and the remains of St. Peter! I could not catch my breath thinking about what I had seen that day. The remains of St. Peter, he is the most influential person in the Catholic history behind Jesus of course...I couldn't believe that we had actually gotten to see that with our own eyes. After we saw this amazing tomb, we had a student-led tour of St. Peter's Basillica by Brandon and Katie. They did a great job and we were very pleased with what we got to see. After the tour, we got lunch at a little pizza place just outside the city, it was delicious! We then had class in St. Peter's Square.
     On Wednesday, we had a free day and I am gonna be honest I used it to catch up on sleep and do some homework. Then, we had movie night and watched Home Alone, classic! Thursday, we had American breakfast!! It was made by our very own Professor and Mike! It was delicious, I think it was extra delicious because we haven't had real American breakfast in so long! Thank you Professor for all your hard work to prepare that for us! Then, we hopped on the train to Rome to go to San Lorenzo Market to do our healthcare interviews. We had to interview people in Italian! It was kind of difficult to just go up to people and ask them if they wanted to fill out a survey but we got the hang of it.
     On Friday, we left for Sorrento. We had to take a lot of transportation to get there but it was worth it once we finally got there. We took the fast train and then a train from Naples to Sorrento. It was so beautiful and I could not believe that we were there in such a beautiful place and it was surreal that it was our last weekend together as a group. We enjoyed our weekend so much and did not want it to end. Naples was kind of sketchy though, it was kind of dirty and we were pretty excited to leave that place to go back to our temporary home in Rome! This week in class we started to read The Talented Mr. Ripley. It is a very good book about a young man who is sent on a journey to a city just South of Naples to find another young man and bring him back to America. It is beginning to be a very good book and we are getting very into it. I realized when we were in Naples and I was reading the book, that we had waited to read the book until we were in Naples, so that we were familiar with the territory. I cannot wait to continue to get into the book further and finish it before class the last week!