Europe Trip: Day 29, June 18th

I woke up at 6:30am, ate breakfast with Lubna, and then took my shower. I was completely ready by 7:25am and we headed out the door.

We made it to Francesca's office around 8:55am. Lubna and I then headed off towards her university, stopping at a Print/Copy shop to pick up something that had been printed for her exam. Then we met up with her two team members, Rosi and Silvia, and waited...and waited. They were the first of four groups to go that day and they started around 10:10am.

The final exam was quite interesting, because unlike ours it was one-on-one with the professor asking them questions, looking over their drawings, and then asking some questions about other material covered in the class (oral exam). All in all it was around half an hour long, but the professor wouldn't tell them how they did until after all four groups had gone. So we waited until about 12:30pm to find out the results -- which was once again 30/30. Apparently I am good luck for her exams :P

For the rest of the evening she showed me around, finally free from the weight of her exams. We picked something up for Francesca, some sort of candied fruit cake from Sicily, and dropped off some of Lubna's bags at her mom's office. Then we headed to a gellato shop, where I had something akin to a ice cream sandwich (also from Sicily).

Then we took a bus to a neighborhood near Termini station and visited a few churches created by Bernini and Borromini, who were contemporaries and rivals. Personally I preferred the churches created by Borromini, they seemed to have more vision in them. Since Lubna is an architecture student, she gave commentary and explained many things that I would have missed -- much better than visiting churches alone.

Then we headed over to Quinale, which is where the Italian President lives, to watch the changing of the guard. Apparently they rotate different groups of military and police. The group that was leaving was from the Navy, and the new group was a type of prison police (the name looked like Penitentuary). I got to hear the Italian anthem as well (they had a band playing). It was quite the experience.

After that we walked to Piazza Republica, which used to be the site of a giant bath complex in Roman times. Some of the ruins had been turned into a church by Michelangelo, which we visited. The red columns and vaulted ceiling both dated back to the ancient Roman baths! Lubna then explained to me about different types of columns and Greek/Roman temples, some of which was review and some of which was completely new.

We headed back to Piazza Venezia, to see if it was still open so that I could finally climb up the big Vittorio Emanuelle monument. Unfortunately it was closed. So we tried to go to walk in the Roman Forum a bit, but alas that was also closed. So we could only look at some of the Forum from above. Eventually we decided to head over to the Pantheon, walking through some small streets.

Near the Pantheon we ate a piece of pizza (and I got a Fanta) and then she wanted me to try the most famous coffee in Rome. Coffee in Italy, and I suppose maybe Europe in general, is much stronger than in the USA. It is usually drank as a straight shot of espresso, only palatable (in my opinion) with sugar.

We finished the day off with a walk through some more small streets to meet up with Francesca near her office at about 8pm. All day it had been hot as hell, maybe more than any other day I had been walking around Rome -- at 8:30pm it was still 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit). Francesca thought it got up to 35-37 degrees Celsius (95-99 degrees Fahrenheit), and adding humidity to that, I was pouring sweat all day. We had a running joke that I drank stuff all the time, but never had to go to the bathroom, while Lubna was always having to go.

At home they cooked Carbonara again, and I had a peach as usual -- I think I'm going to have to buy a lot more fruit when I get home, especially peaches.