GL350 Blog Week 7

In one week from today, I will be at my house in the U.S. It's a crazy thought, the time flew by so quickly and it was an experience of a life time. I am so excited to go home and see my friends and family and tell them all about my trip and the life long memories that I made. Everyone in our group is amazing and I am so glad that I really got to know them all.

This week, Katie Dodds and Katie Bell lead us on a tour of Esquiline Hill. It was very interesting and they both did a great job. We also learned how to make Tiramisu by Danilo that we had for dinner the next night and it was amazing! That is one recipe I'll for sure have to take home with me.

On Wednesday, we all woke up very early to go see the Pope. It was such an amazing experience to be able to sit as close as we did to go see him.  We got there a few hours early so Sydney and I went around the auditorium asking people to take our survey for our heritage project. We had the same nervousness when we went into the market, but once we got used to it, it became much easier. The main issue that we came about was that people were from all over the world, and we only had our survey in English and Italian. Once the clock hit 10 am, we decided to go back to our seats and get ready for the Pope. Although it was in many different languages and the English translation was pretty difficult to understand, I still had a wonderful time.

Then on Thursday, we went to Nettuno to visit the American Cemetery. I thought that was so cool because I went to the one in Washington D.C. and they both are so similar. After the cemetery, we had some free time to get lunch and wander the city a little. Danielle, Dave and I walked around and found the beach and it was beautiful. The weather that day was perfect and I had a great time. As we were walking, we saw that they had an out door slate of ice to skate on, so Danielle and I went ice skating. It was so much fun!

This week, we had to finish reading The Talented Mr. Ripley. I personally loved the book and the ending too. I thought it was crazy how easily the police and Marge was able to find Tom/Dickie even when he would travel from city to city and stay in different hotels and apartments. I know people have different opinions but all through out the story, I was rooting for Tom to not get caught. It amazed me how in less than a year, Tom went from a poor man in New York into a man who had a lot of money, had a house in the U.S. and in Europe. I enjoyed the book so much that Danielle and I watched the movie afterwards but I did not really like the movie that much, I didn't think the characters were portrait ed like the characters in the book.