In Which We Become Wedding Crashers

Today, we visited two sites: San Crisogono and Santa Cecilia. We went down under the churches where there were, of course, more churches. And former domi. And former insulae. I spent most of my time just trying to imagine what it would be like to live there.

Which, by the way, we were supposed to research those for today and I TOTALLY GOTERDONE!!! WOOHOO!!! I AM READY. BRING IT ON.

Most of what I saw is going to be reflected in pictures (which I'll post tonight). But in San Crisogono, we saw pieces of floors and old paintings. Apparently red and yellow denoted early Christian artwork. I'm not really sure why that is. I'm going to ask. There were a lot of sarcophagi and Greek and things that I didn't understand, and a lot of times here, I feel like I don't know what's going on. I was a Latin kid in high school for two years before I abandoned it for journalism and singing (btw: Italian arias--best thing ever), and I don't know that much about Church history. I hope that goes okay.

We had a much lighter day today. We spent about half a day going through the churches, and we saw Blessed Maria Taigi's remains. She died about a hundred fifty years ago, and her body was incorruptible. I'd heard about incorruptibles but never seen them before. I know it was the first time for most people to see or hear about them too, and it was very interesting, watching their responses. They weren't really sure what to think.

We went to Santa Cecilia and ended up crashing a wedding (and I saw a sign that said "No Matrimoni," so I'm not sure why they were getting married there, but yeah). Anyway, we went under there (it's a convent now, I think), to see what used to be St. Cecilia's house. She was found incorrupt in 1599, but I don't think the church has her body. They have a statue in the exact same position that they found her in, and it's still very striking even though it's not the real thing. The church is beautiful, and the part under the church is beautiful. There are plenty of Christian symbols down there that have integrated with Roman symbols (pagan stuff).

Today was also our first day of class with Dr. Sebastian. He gave us a lot of background about Jacopone (I can't wait to read more about him--he seems like such an interesting guy, and his writing is very adorable, because Italian seems to translate into English in a very adorable manner--I have no idea why). But yeah, our afternoon class was very relaxing, and after, Antonia and I got gelato. We hung out with Dr. Sebastian and some of the other girls and just laughed for a really long time, which was nice because I was feeling very stressed about this study abroad.

Anyway, in the middle of eating my gelato, a stupid bird flies over and POOPS in my gelato. But it's only on the edge, right? So I scrape it off (like, a significant piece, okay?), throw it away, and Dr. Sebastian's like I WILL BUY YOU A NEW ONE IF YOU DON'T KEEP EATING IT), but I was so tired and didn't want to go back and have to speak bad Italian in front of a bunch of Italians again, so I kept eating it. He was totally grossed out and left and was like, "SE-BASS OUT." And we laughed FOREVER.

The gelato was good, by the way.

Oy. All of you think I'm gross now.

Later that night, in the process of looking for an adapter, I got free dinner from Michelle, Jeff, and Chris (I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU), ran into a bunch of other people, and essentially had one of those New Orleans-esque type experiences where you end up in the right place at the right time and have a lot of fun. Antonia and I hung out and did some homework (except I fell asleep in the middle of us Skyping a friend back in the US), and yeah. Good day. Hope we have a another one!