Hadrian, you were a strange emperor.

Today is our fourth day in the beautiful city of Rome and the first day that it rained on us! And it wasn't normal rain, but big fat drops that would attack you for thirty seconds or so and then mysteriously disappear for another few minutes. We were walking from our apartment to the UW Rome Center when this was happening and it took us about twice as long as usual because we had to keep running into shops or under overhangs to avoid getting drenched in our sundresses. Tomorrow we're going to the Colosseum and the Forum so I'm really hoping that it doesn't rain anymore because that would be completely unnecessary.

Anyways, since I didn't blog yesterday, I guess I'll go back in time to yesterday morning. My roommates and I got up early to explore our monuments that we have to give our presentations on. My presentation is on the Pantheon, basically one of the coolest things in existence. I've had to do a lot of learning about Hadrian, the emperor responsible for the current one, and he was pretty much one of the most ridiculous people EVER. I mean, he had sexual relations with a 13 year old Greek boy then had him sacrificed. And he gave parts of the Roman empire that the previous emperor had conquered back to the people he had conquered it from because it was just too much for him to handle. And he was in love with the previous emperor's wife. So basically he was ridiculous. Regardless of that, we went to go see the Pantheon so I could figure out what I want to say to about it and admire its fantasticness (that thing has been standing there for almost 2000 years! and is still completely intact! let's be real people, that's pretty fantastic). After that, we wandered up to the Capitoline Hill and the Campodoglio and to Trajan's Column and Markets and Forum, my roommates' monuments.

We were wandering around for a while and then decided to head back to the Campo and get some lunch, after which we just hung out with other people in our program for a while. It was a pretty exciting day, overall, and I got lots of pictures to use in my paper on the Pantheon! So it was successful, I would say.

This morning we got up ridiculously early to meet one of our professors and head to a flea market in this super sketchy neighborhood of Rome. I was expecting random antiques and things that you'd find in a normal flea market but this was basically like a Good Will exploded over multiple blocks of Rome. There were people selling shower heads mixed in with naked Barbies along with chainsaw vendors and quite a few places selling cheese. It was a bit overwhelming so a few of us left after only about an hour there. Most of the rest of the day has been devoted to homework (class starts tomorrow!), the group presentation I have tomorrow, and just hanging out with the rest of the program. And surviving the rainstorm. We did watch the Italy-New Zealand soccer game and, even though soccer is maybe not that cool at all, the atmosphere was really exciting because the Italians were really into it.

After making dinner tonight, I still have a bit more to do before my presentation tomorrow and my other presentation on Wednesday so I really should stop blogging and get to work so I can actually sleep well before our first day of class!

So, goodnight everyone, and happy father's day, dad!