So my family left from Venice today while I continued on to my last adventure of my journey, Bologna. Situated between Venezia and Roma I had to make a pit stop in this medieval city known for their great food. To name a few good foods making this region known for the best food in Italy and possibly the world: Bologna, Prosciutto, Parmesan Cheese, Tortellini, and Balsamic Vinegar. I’ll get into the food more a little later. First and foremost, Bologna is a very old town and is home to the first university ever and continues to be a town dominated by a youthful college atmosphere despite the buildings dating from the 12th century. Getting off the train it started to rain but lucky for me Bologna has arcaded sidewalks that not only set a neat ... read more

So this last week has been my finals week. I’m very angry that my last week here in Rome will be one full of stress rather than last minute enjoyment. I do at least have ten days without classes to enjoy Italy and to show my family around, which I’m very much looking forward to. To scrounge some last minute enjoyment, Laura and I went around Rome to see some last minute sights in between our finals and instead of spending or afternoons studying we relied on our good friend Mr. Espresso to get us through the long nights of studying after busy days around Rome. Not going to write much more other than to tell you that finals went well and that all the included pictures are from our little pit stops around Roma. Same ... read more

So I’m sitting on a train, packed in a cabin, it's 1 am, I got a presentation to make in 9 hrs, and we’re stuck in the middle of a thunderstorm. Sounds terrible huh? Aside from my present accommodations and lack of sleep, it has been an awesome trip. Let me start by saying that it’s Laura’s and mine first trip abroad alone which has been a long time in the making. So about the trip… We arrived at Fiumincino with plenty of time to spare and ran into Simone (my ISC) who we talked to while we waited for our flight. After our short one hour flight, we arrived in Palermo and after a short bus drive later arrived in Piazza San Domenico. Navigating narrow roads branching from the Piazza we found our B&B and ... read more

14 Stations of the Cross On Friday night @ 9 pm Laura, Jordan, and I walked down to the Colosseo to see the Pope do the 14 Stations of the Cross from the Ancient Temple of Rome and Venus. There were supposedly 20,000 people there and from the looks of it I believe it. We fought our way through the crowd to a spot where we could at least make out the Pope's face and settled in for a ceremony that seemed extremely long but was probably due to the fact that it was in Italian and only understood every other word with one verse in English for each station. It was easy to get distracted by the Colosseo right behind us as you can see from my pictures. Regardless, it was was cool to feel ... read more

A simple post about a field study for my Archeology class to the Colosseo and Arch of Constantine. For those of you living in a cave, the Colosseo is an ancient amphitheater used to used Gladiatorial games and the Arch of Constantine is an triumphant arch dedicated to Emperor Constantine.... read more