i love my weekends starting on wednesdays

Another week of classes has come and gone. It's been a pretty busy week! Monday I woke up early for yoga-time (I had missed it so much over the weekend), then headed to the market to get some new fresh fruit and veggies. I forgot how much I LOVE the market. This time I went alone but ran into Tara on the way there - she was headed back after her early morning market excursion. I decided to try the fresh market bread this go round, so I got a huge loaf of fresh Italian bread for 3 euro. Yes. Then headed to the fresh fruit/veggies stand and stocked up. My favorite purchase: the strawberries. Literally the best strawberries ever - and I love strawberries so that's saying a lot (Brett don't make fun of me, at least it isn't coffee this time).

Came home, made a fresh sandwhich with my new tomatoes, lettuce, and bread, then headed to JCU for my first time teaching yoga in Rome. The class is really short, on Mondays from 1:15 - 2:05. It's hard because I'm used to teaching for over an hour! But I have class at 2:15 so it's a little baby class. There was a great turnout, about 7 or 8 girls. My friend Lo, who went on the Veneto trip with me last weekend, tried out yoga for the first time! :)

Roma Atearna class at the Capitoline Museum

I finished up yoga then had photography. I adore this class. The professor is just so awesome. He gave me a sick camera that I get to use the whole semester! He said it was one of his nicest ones and to be careful. Hopefully I can make it through without hurting it! I'm SO excited to take it to Prague this weekend to test it out. We spent the class learning how to develop film, which was sweet. It's way more specific and chemically than I expected (if that's an adjective..). I love it though! I can't wait to get started!! Our professor is just so passionate about photography, you can tell by the way he talks about it. He gets so happy and excited haha. Yay photo! Monday night consisted of trying to get through my reading for my honors class. BOO.

For my on-site class on Tuesday we met at Capitoline Hill. We explored the Capitoline Museum and learned about sooo many cool things. I was just in awe. Museums are my favorite. I couldn't believe this was my class - walking around a museum in Rome looking at thousands and thousands of years in history. Wow. Here's a picture from one of the frescoed rooms we went into, and a class picture on top of the Capitoline Museum building. This view was incredible - you could see the Spanish Steps, Pantheon, St. Peter's Basilica, Villa Borghese, and so many more exciting things. It was nice to see the location of everything because it helped me orient myself to the different places - I'd seen them all separately but was still a little confused on where they were in relation with each other. Visitors beware: that's a definite stop when I'm taking you around!

My class! / classroom!

As we were walking through the museum, I looked over and saw the Leonardo da Vinci painting that I was supposed to write a paper on for my honors class - perfect! So after class I went back to the museum (luckily I didn't have to buy another ticket to get back in) and observed and took notes on "Il Musico". It was incredible. So surreal to see such a famous artist's work right there in front of me. It was really cool because even though I've been complaining about all my reading for that class, I could really pick out lots of his techniques and could understand the painting on a deeper level because of all that I knew about him. I think I know everything there is to know about Leonardo now.

Headed back towards campus for some lunch and to make my way towards painting. I had some time to spare, so I mozied back towards school, wandering in and out of churches to check out the gorgeous art and statues. Every church is like a mini museum, it's awesome. Grabbed a slice of pizza to go and headed to painting. Painting was interesting, we worked on colors some more, set up our still lifes, and sketched out our still life pictures. We start painting next week! I stayed after class to do a layer of background paint. Apparently it was supposed to be a dull color to decrease the light value, but I accidently made a bright blue. My professor made fun of me and tried to help me fix it with not much success. He said it would be okay, so I painted the under-layer then headed home.

The plan for the night was to go to the ice bar (since last time failed), but I still had so much reading and writing to do for my honors class. SO I got into ultimate study mode and worked for 2 or 3 hours straight. When I took a break to make dinner, Kaylie forced me back to my bed to finish studying and made my dinner for me so I could go with them! It was a great dinner, by the way:) I (finally) finished everything, so it was time to celebrate! Tara, Kaylie, Debbie, and I headed out to find the ice bar. It was a nice night, a little chilly but not too bad. I should have brought gloves though! We finally found the bar after a little lost-ness.

crazy ice bar capes!

It was so cool!! We got these huge harry-potter-esque robes that were supposed to keep us warm. The rule was that you could stay in as long as you want but once you left the cold room you weren't allowed in again. BRR! It was -5 degrees celcius ah! Luckily, we quickly realized that the bathrooms were not made of ice (thank heavens) and were in a warmer part of the building so that was a good escape when our fingers were too cold! Everything was made of ice, the cups, tables, drinks, walls, seats..so crazy. It was really fun, though!

Tara inside the igloo

Woke up early today with way less than a sufficient amount of sleep. I had my long honors art history class but it was actually really cool. Honestly, all the work sucks, but I'm learning a lot. It's so in-depth that it's sticking in my brain, which is good! After lots of coffe at the coffee vending machine (35 cents for a capuccino yesss) and some "pocket coffees" (these little chocolates we found that are filled with a shot of expresso. SO GOOD), I made it through the 3 hour class. I had a little break so I grabbed lunch then headed to fresco painting!

On the way to class I was walking, deep in thought, not really looking around at all. I semi-noticed someone passing me and saying "Ciaooo" - I thought it was another annoying Italian boy catcalling so I ignored them. Since they didn't get a response the unknown man said "Hello? Ciao? Kelsey?" I turned around and looked up - my photography professor was standing there looking at me like I was crazy! I felt so bad that I didn't respond at first, so I said, "Oh, ciao, me dispiace! Bueno sera!" So he laughed at me and went on his way. I love my art professors here.

The goal was to finish our first layer of the wall, which I already did since mine had a head start from the beginning. Mara, the girl who's wall was on the other side of mine, had finished hers, too, so we helped Claudia (who still had a ways to go). With the 3 of us working together, we finished here wall so quickly! So we measured out our walls, cleaned up, then learned about the rest of the fresco process. It was so cool, I can't wait to start painting! Our teacher kept calling the 3 of us the "superstars" because we were so speedy haha. Working together definitely was more efficient than doing it alone - it took me 2 hours to do 1/2 my wall and we finished Claudia's whole wall in an hour. Yesss.

SO this is the general fresco-making instructions: After this layer, there's another one that you put on that's thinner and made with finer sand and more lime. When that is semi-dry you put the final limeyest and finest layer on top of THAT, then you paint really quick before the wall dries. You have to paint on a wet wall so that the paint absorbs into the plaster-like substance. That's why some frescos still exist from thousands of years ago! Dry-fresco painting doesn't last nearly as long because the paint is on the surface, not actually bonded with the wall.

Debbie and I walked home from fresco, stopped by the international food store for peanut butter. THEY DON'T HAVE PEANUT BUTTER HERE EXCEPT IN THIS STORE. Not okay. I'm asking my dad and India to bring me a huge jug of JIF pb when they come visit. This is not a joke.

Read a little bit this evening, tried to get ahead on my work before my weekend away with Ashley. Exciting news! I have another visitor coming to Rome! Zach booked his flight this morning yay!! I can't believe people are coming to visit so soon. I also can't believe I've already been here a month. Time is going by so quickly already ah!! slowdownplease.