Well, I'm now entering into week 5 of my stay here in Rome and have had plenty of adventures the past couple weeks here in Italy.

To start, I'm absolutely loving my archaeology class. The days are long and I have yet to get use to all the walking but it's well worth it. During week 3, we spent our days exploring what was left of the Campus Martius, Forum Boarium, and the Forum Holitorium of ancient Rome. While not much remains of these once busy markets, it allowed us to wonder through some of the most cultured sites of modern Rome, including the Jewish Ghetto. And, as a last treat, our professor took us to Monte Testaccio - "The hill of sherds." This hill, which was gigantic I might add, was made up of nothing but ancient pottery sherds. Literally. It felt wrong to be walking around on top of ancient pottery fragments but there I was, and it was amazing. Talk about a nice surprise to the end of a long week.

That weekend, to escape homework and the hustle and bustle of Rome, a group of us decided to make a day trip up to Assisi, Italy - home to the Basilica of St. Francis. The church was beautiful and was spread across a good portion of the hill the city sat on. After a visit through the grounds, we hiked up to the top of the hill to spend the afternoon playing among the remains of a medieval castle and enjoying the beautiful weather. Assisi sits at the base of Apennine mountain range and, while the hike from the train station was murder, the weather was gorgeous. It was cool but warm in the sun, with a slight breeze and even some remnants of their last snow fall remained on the ground.

What I learned during week 4 of my archaeology class can be summed up with three words: "people gotta eat." We spend both field-trip days in Ostia Antica, the ancient port city of Rome. Some of the things I saw were incredible - including an ancient hotel with the vaulted ceiling perfectly preserved with the frescos still intact! The mosaics were beautiful, used both as decoration and advertisements back in antiquity. I would go into more details, but then I would just sound nerdy. And as much as I would like to share with all of you my knowledge of the ancient economy, it would probably bore you to tears. Just know I felt like a kid in a candy store. I kept wanting to go play hide-and-seek (which has been the favorite past-time of many children, and adults, who have visited the site). But alas, our time in Ostia was up before I knew it.

This weekend was a pretty laid back weekend. I spent a majority of my time catching up on homework and enjoying the beautiful weather. However, on Saturday, a couple of us decided to make a visit to the Villa Borghese Gardens and to the museum there. After goggling at some of Bernini's best works for a couple hours, I (very happily) laid down in the grass under a tree to enjoy the relative quiet that the gardens offered. Then, with my tummy grumbling, I went in search of an afternoon snack and returned home to once more, dive into my mountain of accumulating work.

That's about it for now. My next update may not be for a while as our trip to Tunisia (Yippie!) and midterms (Ugh.) are right around the corner. Just know that more wondrous new tales are on their way. Ciao!