Take Me to Trastevere

This week flew by. Really. Just flew. Most of it was pretty average, but Tuesday had a couple extra gems. Before class, Lindsey, Abbie, and I set out to find an English bookstore that some of our roommates had found beforehand. It was in Trastevere just off the Tiber and (supposedly) right by a tram stop. As it happens, we ended up getting a bit lost, but getting lost in Trastevere is one of the most enjoyable things you can do in Rome. Thankfully we did find it and it was nice! After classes that day, I had my second Interscambio with Marco. We walked through Villa Pamphili, which is a huge park, all the way back over to my neighborhood. It was so enjoyable just to walk along, enjoy such a beautiful park and work on my Italian! The week was rounded off with my first Italian test in my last class on Thursday, after which was the start of a very happy and relaxing weekend. Emphasis on relaxing. Checking on my calendar, this weekend is the last weekend I have free for quite some time. If you want to peek at my future exploits, just think Sorrento, Capri, Venice, Cinque Terre, Paris, London, Dublin, Florence, Switzerland. I'm drooling.

Today, we met with some of the ISA staff and some other students to go on a Mideaval walking tour of Rome and of course we started no where other than the lovely Trastevere. The tour consisted mostly of churches and a few old buildings. At one church, it was arranged for us to be taken up into the nun's choir loft by one of the nuns! Walking around Rome you see your fair share of nuns, but this one was just so classic - a little old lady in the traditional black and white, who only spoke Italian! I wanted a picture with her but figured that would be disrespectful. WOMP. Oh well. There were only about eight of us so it was a really nice, small, and relaxing tour. About an hour in we stopped for a cappuccino to warm up from the rainy weather. One of the churches we saw (the same one with the choir loft) was the church dedicated to Saint Cecilia. She has a really great story, which you can read about here. 

the first church we visited

the courtyard of St. Cecilia's church

St. Cecilia's church, all set up for a wedding 

A sculpture of St. Cecilia in the position in which Bishops found her remains in the catacombs, after which her remains were moved to the church. The sculpture now marks her crypt.

After the tour ended, we decided to backtrack into Trastevere to drop by a couple places we had seen. We found our way back to a precious secondhand English bookstore. I absolutely adored it and will most certainly be going back again soon. I came away with a Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. And they were cheap too! Just next door was an equally precious little bakery overflowing with delicious smells and goodies. So naturally we dropped in a picked up some little Italian dolci and thus concluded our morning. We headed back to the apartment to get some work done, relax and (at least for me) write on our blogs. 

The Open Door Bookshop

the bakery

Tomorrow and Sunday will be filled with much of the same, relaxing, working, and possibly some more exploring too! As for now, I'm going to enjoy my night in, start reading my new books, and work on the plans for when family comes to visit! 

Ciao!