roofies, the ghetto, and break ins.

Sooo I should probably wait awhile before I bitch and complain about a given day! Turns out this weekend was GORGEOUS! I can definitely smell spring in the air!

When I woke up on Friday morning it was absolutely pouring out, but by 11 it had stopped raining and the sun was starting to poke out! I met up with a group of people from AUR to go on a tour of the Jewish ghetto in Rome. Highlights were the synagogue, the ancient fish market, Teatro di Marcello, and the bakery! I got a cranberry muffin and a chocolate chip cookie!! Soooooo good!!! After the ghetto tour we went to an "interactive" exhibit on Leonardo Da Vinci. They took a bunch of Leonardo's sketches for inventions and re-created them. It was an interesting exhibit, but the most interactive it got was turning a few cranks.

I really enjoyed Leo's bicycle. :]

After that we decided to make some lunch. We went to Campo di Fiori to go to the market to get fresh ingredients as well as a local supermarket. We ended up making mozzarella stuffed zucchini in a tomato sauce served over rice! It was really really good! After that we started to plan out some more possible weekend trips, I'll keep you updated as they get confirmed! :]

That night Vivi, Clara and I ended up going to an exhibition opening at an art gallery in Trastevere. It was for British artist Tracey Emin. Her work included a lot of embroidery, one painting, and a piece of video art. It was a very interesting collection, I definitely wouldn't want to purchase the art I saw, but I was glad we went.

After we got done we decided to find some food. Since it was still super nice out we got some pizza and just sat in the main piazza on a fountain and enjoyed the scenery.

The fountain that we were sitting on for dinner.

We then decided that dessert was a must! :) The previous night we found a gelateria right by my apartment that has the greatest assortment of pastries EVER! So naturally we had to go back for round two! I think I might be a regular by the end of the semester! :) Right as we were getting ready to bite into our desserts we got a call from a friend asking if we wanted free dinner. A group of people we knew had made reservations for 13 people but only 5 showed up. Thus we got the call and free food! It was at the restaurant that I ate at my second weekend here, Le Fate. Dinner was soooo good! Thankfully the pizza we had had before wasn't all that big because La Fate treated us really good! For appetizers we got bruschetta, another bread thing like bruschetta, soup, a cheese plate, a meat plate, and a plate of steamed vegetables. Then for the main course there were three different types of pasta, a penne, a spaghetti, and a carbonara. Then after all that we got tiramisu! And of course there was abundant amounts of wine and coffee and tea afterward! To say I was stuffed would be an understatement.

Saturday I slept in and did some cleaning around the apartment. Then for the afternoon I met up with people from school again and went on a tour of Aventine Hill. We got to see an orange garden which had a beautiful view of the city as well as two churches. We also got to look through the keyhole which had a perfect view of St. Peter's through it. I'm going to try to get a good picture of it eventually, but there was a line when we were there! After the tour Stephen took us to see St. Johns. It's a gorgeous church that is actually the oldest basilica and ranks number one in importance in Rome. When we went there was mass going on, so I'm definitely going to have to go back and take pictures there as well.

Outer facade of St. John's.

That night all my cravings were answered and we got Chinese food!! I was extremely happy! I will say that the food definitely is different here. The chicken fried rice, had significantly less fry to it, and the sweet and sour sauce had a lot more vegetables. Nonetheless, it was a good change in food!

Sunday was a pretty relaxed day. We went to Bocca della Verita, or the mouth of truth. The legend is that if you are a liar and place your hand in the mouth it will get bitten off. It got popularized in the movie Roman Holiday. Lucky for me I'm not a liar and still have both hands! :]

We then went again to Porta Portese flea market where I got a calculator that I needed for my class. We decided to grab lunch and stroll through the park that's right across from our school. It was really pretty and the weather was simply fantastic! The rest of the day I spent doing homework, cleaning, and enjoying a little downtime.

This is the front gate to my school. Our campus is really small and only consists of 5 buildings.

Also, very typical of me, I slept through a ton of commotion at our apartment last night. I went to bed early because I'm trying to shake a cold before I head off to Austria. Just after I went to sleep my roommates came home from the weekend and thought that someone had broken into the apartment, because their door was blocked. They ran upstairs and called the AUR emergency line. So then the AUR people and the police came to the apartment and checked everything out. Turns out the small closet door to their room had opened causing the door to not open. So everything was fine, and clearly no one had broken in because I was home all weekend. In true Lindsey fashion I didn't even find out until noon today. EPIC FAIL.

That's all for now!

Love and miss you all!