A Day of Bees

Hello all!! It’s finally my turn to tell you about our day. Just sit back, keep your feet and arms inside the ride at all times, and enjoy the ride.

This morning began with our immigration class. Of course, this meant getting up about 30 minutes before it started to slowly meander our way into class. Today was the first day of immigration presentations. Geoff, Erin and Steve regaled us with tales of the Chinese immigrants here in Rome - their plight as immigrants and one woman’s anger at the group for not ordering enough food in her restaurant. Following this presentation, Risa, Julie, Julia, and Shannon presented on the Eastern European immigrants. They had an abundance of personal stories to tell making the presentation very entertaining and personal.
After immigration it was time for lunch!! I found a wonderful slice of focaccia with tomatoes on it at a large forno just off the Campo. Mmm, mmm, good! I came back to find that half of the Rome Center apartment girls were sleeping, in addition to about a quarter of the class throughout the 1st floor classrooms and apartments.

Geoff fell asleep in the chair next to me, finally able to relax after finishing his presentation.
Eventually we were roused from our sleep to meet with Lisa at the Portone in order to make the long trek to Palazzo Barberini.




It turned out, however, that she was taking the bus so a few of us decided to walk it instead. We managed to make it to the palace with 5 minutes to spare. Lisa wasn’t at the entrance so we thought that we had beat the bus… unfortunately, this was not so, we later found out that she was waiting with a group in front of the palace itself. Lisa gave us a quick tour of “her house”, paying close attention to the room that she did a lot of her work on and the salone, the more famous room in the house.




After the palace we made our way to Piazza del Popolo where Johanna presented on the role of the piazza as the main entrance into the city. After snapping a shot of Johanna between the twin churches, we made our way down the Via del Corso to the Trevi Founatin for gelato at San Crispino’s, stopping on the way for much window shopping. We eventually made our way back to the UW Rome Center and, sadly, parted ways for the day.
And so, our journey has concluded. I hope you enjoyed a look into our world here in Rome.

Teresa