First day of class

So today was a pretty neat day. We had class all day at the Lay Center, which is run by the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas, which is run by a religious order of the Passionists. Catholic University rents a space there so we were able to use it. In the morning, Maria, our professor ran the class, which met from 10-12:30. Then we had lunch prepared by the staff. Salad, greens, Bowtie pasta with vegetables, and chicken served buffet style. And red and white wine at the table, for sure.

  In the afternoon, our speaker was Tobias Daniels, a German scholar working at a museum or library here. It's a German institute in Italy. He's fluent in German, Italian, and English. Basically, he told us how difficult it is to do research in Italy. Libraries and archives don't like to share their resources here. They are worried that what might be illuminated would reflect poorly on things now. It's an interesting perspective. After class we took a walk to a church called San Clemente. It is a church built on top of a church built on top of a church/pagan site. It was so cool. I don't know how far down we were, but it was FAR!! And things were so primitive down there. There were beautiful frescos that have been uncovered and preserved. I couldn't take pictures down there, but I picked up a couple of postcard pictures of the things I saw. After that we went to a park that overlooked the coliseum. It was pretty, and lots of people walking dogs. I walked around a bit, and then waited for some friends who walked a different way. Then we went for dinner at the same place as last night, li rioni, and the guys recognized us. We got a great table and yummy pizza. I had Napoleta pizza, which is pizza with anchovies, and vino rosso, of course. Then we came back to the hotel. And I came up to the room to write and reflect. Now my roommate has come home and were talking about our evenings. And our lives. I like her. Tomorrow: forum, Palatine Hill, coliseum!