Day 9

**Written May 16th, 2009 about the day before, while on my study abroad in Italy**

I've been waking up pretty early all week long. Yesterday Nancy asked me if she could borrow my notes to compare with hers, she said she'd wake up around 5:45am to go over them but when I woke up at 6:30am she was still sleeping. I tried waking her but she wanted to sleep in til 7am so I let her be. :)

I went outside to check on the laundry that I had laid out the night before and it was all wet! I had forgotten about the morning dew so I'm going to have to leave them out again today so that they re-dry. 

 ***

Steve's nephew met us in Barberini Piazzo after breakfast and continued on with us to Santa Susanna and Santa Maria, two churches with huge facades. Inside the churches were amazing (overdone of course, but never the less beautiful)! One of the girls, Tempest, had a report on the Vittoria so we all sat down in the pew as she told us of the story of Saint Theresa (the statue that resides to the left of the altar).

Just in case you were wondering, St. Theresa had a "vision" in which an angel (who apparently was very beautiful, and high-ranking as angels go) came at her with an iron-tipped arrow and stabbed her repeatedly in the heart. After the vision occurred she later wrote in an journal that it was agonizing, but at the same time, ecstasy itself. 

Any how.... The next building we went to was the San Carlo. 

A totally Baroque building that has got to be one of the coolest places I have ever been!). It was constructed with ablsolutely NO right angles! It's completely made up of concave and convex-es. 

The next building we went to was the San Pietro in Vincoli. It had some eerie tombstones, one had two skeletons holding up a portrait of the dead guy, while the other had the grim reaper. Also in the church was the tomb of Pope Julius II. It was designed by Michelangelo and was one of the few pieces of artwork that Michelangelo both started and "finished". It took him over 40 years to complete because he was also commissioned to do 50 other works of art at the same time.

After leaving the church everyone went around the corner to get a bite to eat and then we split into two groups: one that went to the catacombs and the other (the one I was in) to Villa Borghese and the Soccer Stadium. However, by the time we got off the metro at Flaminio Piazza it was raining so we decided to skip the Villa Borghese and move on to the Olympic Soccer Stadium, Stadio Olimpico. However, when we got there it was all locked up so we went to a small park instead and listened to some music.