Florence, Italy: Rome Day 3 (The Ancients)

I’m writing this during the return trip from Rome, a city I now love. This morning we did the tour of many of the ancient Roman sites in the city. I’d already seen most of these during the first night we were there, but seeing them in the daylight with Jeremy explaining how they all related was better. They look more impressive at night, but the daytime visit was necessary.

We walked through the Roman forum and then went up into the Coliseum. For some reason, I wasn’t as thrilled with it as I had been during my night visit. More generally, I’ve noticed, I liked the ecclesial sites more than I liked the ancients. I’m taking it as a good sign that I’m a Religion major and only a Classical Studies minor.

I’m leaving Rome for a pile of laundry and homework that I have to do when I get back to the apartment. Why do we have to have traditional classes? It’d be SO much easier to just read at night and spend every day in the museums and actual places. Part of me is relenting the homework I have ahead: art history readings, political science readings, Italian review, Aristotle’s Rhetoric for my classical rhetoric course. I feel kind of guilty about letting it pile up; then again, I am living in Italy — oh well!