Family Week

Ciao Ragazzi,

Yesterday marked the end of family week here in Rome! Now my daddy actually visited me two weeks ago for our own little adventures around Rome and Florence (SOO much fun!), so this past week I got to spend with friends joining on to the various activities the program hosted around here for other student families. The week began last Saturday with a day trip to Assisi (see next post) and ended yesterday with a day trip to Florence :)

Monday: Visit to the Vatican Museums. Made up of 12 separate museums and 13 'palaces' including the Sistine Chapel, Borgia Apartments, and numerous galleries, info from their website ( http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-Info/MV_Info_Settori.html )
Our program director got us all headsets and gave the mini-tour himself...I say mini because we got through 'only' 5 or 6 of the museums and the Sistine Chapel. This is one of those places that would literally take days to see. These are the a few of the pictures I was allowed to get:

Vatican Gardens

Laocoon and His Sons

Transfiguration, by Raphael

Tuesday: Inside the Colosseum! I've seen the outside of this thing about a hundred times since getting to Rome and was SO excited to finally see the interior! Again we got headsets for the 70+ students/family and the history and tour given jointly by my Roman History and Roman Art and Architecture professors

Even Ancient Romans were big on graffiti..these are etches on the colosseum walls made 2000 years ago

Wednesday: PAPAL AUDIENCE. Enough said :)

Thursday/Friday: No major events such as the above. Thursday we visited the Baths of Caracalla in the morning with Roman Art and Architecture (no family attended, it was a regular class), and we did the Ara Pacis in the afternoon with some classics friends for Greek. Friday my Christology class went to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (still cannot pronounce) to look at some Baroque Art.

All in all...very, VERY busy week, but no complaints here :)