Class Trip II and Florence

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Hello all!

In the past week and a half i have had the chance to go to Naples/Pompei/Sorrento/Almalfi Coast with my class for a study of archiology at Pompei and the Arch. museum in Naples. In our free time we made sure to make it to the Almafi Coast! Pompei was great and the arch. museum had a lot of interesting stuff. I still cannot believe that ash rained down up to 15 feet there! It is amazing to know that it could cover everything that was there. I really enjoyed the South of Italy. It has such a different feel from the central area and the north...the coasts at Positano (Part of the Almalfi Coast) were brilliant! I could have stayed there forever.

This past week I was lucky enough to be able to spend some qulity time with some friends from my church in KC (Ascension)! I saw them in Rome and then went to Florence with them to see the Uffizi and Acadamia. I had a great time catching up with Fr. Gary and Fr. Tom as well as seeing the Gress' and meeting some new friends. On top of it all, I finally went to see Michaelangelo's David, which is one of the neatest things that I have ever seen. I also enjoyed the Bottacelli Room in the Uffizi. It was a very Renaissance weekend. I even get a little bit of a Rennaissance lesson in Fr. Tom's/Gary's homilies (that makes up for the two classes that i skipped!) So I have had a really fun and relaxing past week or so.

Things here in Rome though pick up a bit! Friends from Benedictine College are in town so I will be spending some time with them in the next week and Kelly Manning is in town visiting. This all will make for another fun week. I just need to find time to work on my philosophy paper on modernism (a tricky paper!) as well as work on my paper for theology on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. I only have three weeks of classes left before my trip to London/Paris/Ireland with Ben. We still dont have a clue what we are doing! (Is anyone suprised that we will plan it all last minute?)

So things are good here. I cannot believe that the semester is coming to a close, I am still trying to see different things in Rome on top of everything else! I miss you all and cannot wait to see you when i get back to the states.

God Bless and ci vediamo,

Jonathan

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Photos

Sorrento
The view from our hotel room! Dont ask me how we ended up staying there.

Pompei
The main forum of Pompei.

Pompei
Apparently when they escavated they were able to fill hollow places below with plaster and thus have the plaster molds of bodies that were found like that. Most died from exfixiation.

Pompei
Typical road with origional everything. Meters of ash preserves things pretty well I guess!

Pompei
The entry way to a roman bath house. The shelves in there are precisely that, lockers where people set thier things when they were in the baths. So much of what we have is just like ancient rome!

Pompei
Roman bath. This is one of the many baths they had. This is the fridgidarium, aka, the cold water place. They would move from hot to warm to cold.

Pompei
Field where they would work out lifting weights, moving things, throwing things, etc.

Pompei
Stage on the left, ampetheatre on the right.

Possitano
View from the bus as we wind down scarry roads where I feel like I may fall off the edge!

Possitano
Part of the town and beach from the top of the other side.

Possitano
The purple tree framed the church and sea nicely!

Possitano
CUA on the beach!

Possitano
I loved how the homes stacked so nicely on the mountain like that!

Possitano
Sunset 1

Possitano
Sunset 2

Possitano
Sunset 3

Possitano
Sunset 4

Possitano
Sunset 5...So I got a little sunset crazy, but everytime I looked at it, the sky looked better than the last time so I figured I would pass it on. I do think that there is an appreciable difference.

Sorrento
One night we went to some crazy 'history of Italy via dance and song' show. It was REAL wierd, but slightly interesting.

Moooo
We went to a mozarella factory on our way back to Rome. The food was great, what was even better was that all of the city slickers were spazzing out when they saw the buffelo and thier stalls and smells! Ironically, I was by far the most country one there (this is when anyone who knows me laughs).

Comments

[John Trecker]

Barbam paliumque video; nondum philosiphum
JMJ. Jonathan long-shanks Lewis! I love the beard; a bunch of us are growing out our beards (as best we can) from Advent to Easter but it looks like the Spirit's moving you to start early. We love you and miss man. Have fun in Ireland!