Day 5 - Rome IV

Today was our day where we had what amounts to a “free day!” At 8:30am Dr. Erdogmus had us do a photo scavenger hunt throughout Rome to kind of test us over what she had been teaching us about the different places we went. She had a sheet of riddles that she made up with things that she had talked about on our visits, and we had to go find the place and take a picture of it.

My roommates Brian, Cameron, Erik, and I decided to be a team for the scavenger hunt. The activity was supposed to be a race/competition to see who could do it the fastest, but since Brian’s ankles were pretty sore and swollen from all our walking the past few days, we decided to just go at a nice easy pace and get it done. We first had to go the Pantheon and take a picture of the pediment of it. This was simple since it was right next to our hotel. Then we had to go to the church we visited yesterday that had the Gothic style vaults in the ceiling. This was right next to the Pantheon, so we were already close. The next riddle had us go to the forum that had the cat shelter, and so we had to get a picture of one of the cats wandering around in the ruins. Our next location was the farthest one away, the Colosseum. We had to remember the different styles of column capitals and capture a picture of a Doric column capital on the Colosseum. 

While we were walking over to it, we saw 2 of the other groups coming back from it, running. We knew we made the right decision to take it nice and easy if other groups were going to be running. Once we had the photo of the Colosseum, we had to get a picture of SPQR somewhere, which I mentioned before on here. It is kind of a motto or something for Rome, so it is printed on a ton of things: manhole covers, sewer cover plates, posters, lamp poles, statues, trash cans, and much more. We decided since we weren’t really trying to go fast, we would just have some fun, so naturally, we took a photo of every SPQR that we could find in between the last two destinations. Our last location we needed to take a photo was Trajan’s Column, so I took all the photos between the Colosseum and Trajan’s Column. It is about a 10 minute walk, I would guess, and I took photos of 101 different SPQR’s! Then once we arrived at Trajan’s Column, we decided to have even a little more fun with it and take a photo of us each spelling out SPQR with our bodies in front of the column. Then we got our group photo required for the scavenger hunt and headed back to the hotel.

We were the last ones to arrive at the hotel, but the other groups said they were surprised that we even got back as fast as we did since we were walking. We went and showed our pictures to Dr. Erdogmus, and she thought it was funny that we took all those pictures, and she even gave us extra credit! I was a fun little activity.

After we were done with that activity, we had a free day the rest of the day, and it was only about 10am, so we rested up for a little while. Then most of our group, 17 out of the 20 students, went back to go see St. Peter’s Basilica again since we only got to spend about 30 minutes there the first time, and we didn’t get to go up to the top of the dome. Before we left for the basilica, we decided to go to the market to get lunch so we could eat it while we were waiting in line. We went there and got some really good food. I got a freshly sliced pork sandwich and we split some really good cheese so we put that on there as well, and I also bought a fresh peach from one of the fruit stands. After everyone had bought all the food they wanted, we headed over to the basilica. On the way over there, we thought that we should play some pitch while we waited in line, since I had brought my deck of cards along with me, so older Nate, Kyle, Keith, and I got in line and ready to play a hand of pitch. We had younger Nate as the “table” and one of the other guys as the “discard pile.” The line was actually moving a lot faster than we thought it would, so we were literally walking and playing the hand at the same time. I was also holding and eating my pork sandwich with my other hand. We were only able to get through two hands by the time we had to go through the turnstiles. Then we made it up to the line we needed to be in to walk up the stairs to the top of the dome. We had a good time chatting while in this line, which took a lot longer, and then we went through some really interesting hallways and some difficult slanted steps for our sore and swollen bodies. 

Then we finally made it up to the top area and it was an amazing view and extremely windy. We all got some really good pictures and then after being up at the very top, we made our way down to the area below where the gift shop was and the statues atop the façade. We chilled out there for a while waiting for people to buy a few things and then we headed back to the hotel.

After we arrived back at the hotel, I figured out the location of a church, Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, so that we could go see the crypt that they have there. I found the address and the hours, so Kate, Jen, and I went to go find it before it closed for the day. We kinda went the wrong direction at first, but then we were able to figure it out. It was a very interesting place, and unfortunately, they did not allow us to take any photographs. It was a crypt down in the basement of the church where everything was decorated with skeletons and human bones. There were light fixtures made out of bones, patterns on the walls made with bones, and decorations of bones. It was a little creepy, thinking that they were human bones and skulls. There were even full skeletons dressed in monk robes sitting there on the alter type areas, and also a full skeleton on the ceiling of the last area with a scythe and a weighing scale made of bones in each of his hands. After we had seen all of those, we headed back towards the hotel. We made a quick stop by Trevi Fountain, so that I could take pictures of it, since I hadn’t yet, and then we made it back to the hotel. We just relaxed and I tried to keep up on my pictures and blogging/journaling before we went out for dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and got some drinks and watched a movie before heading off to bed. It was a really fun, good day.