Day 21

Third Monday = third laundry day. Everything went smoothly again this time! I saw the same old cleaning ladies in the hall as usual, and we exchanged our "ciaos" in passing. For some weird reason, they/their cleaning supplies kind of smelled like gelato to me. I'm probably just losing it. Or I just love gelato that much.

I spent much of the day doing schoolwork. For one, I had to study a little bit for the City of Rome midterm I had in the afternoon. I also needed to start reading the five papal encyclicals I'll have to write a 5-page paper over for my Theology class (due next Thursday). And lastly, later in the evening, Katie, Gina, and I started working on our presentation over St. Peter's Square that we're giving on our class trip there this upcoming Thursday.

The mandatory Monday meeting was fine. Some representatives from the graduate programs offered here came and talked to us, we were warned about our upcoming health and safety room inspections, I signed up for a group trip to some catacombs this Friday, and I found out I can't sign up for the fancy cooking class because I'll be in my Theology class. Finally, of course, we got our meal tickets for the week.

We put the tickets to use pretty quickly. Katie, Gina, and I had lunch at the yummy restaurant across the street, Ai Villini, that is supposed to take tickets all day but apparently only does at lunch time. This time I got ricotta and spinach-stuffed ravioli in a walnut cream sauce. It was divine! We wanted to order tiramisu, but they weirdly brought us the check before we could even ask. We were in kind of a time crunch anyway, though.

Our midterm was at 2 pm, and I was done with it by 2:20. Piece of cake! Love that class.

After spending a few hours on homework, the three of us went out to do some shopping. Gina was looking for a sweatshirt, a blanket, and a pillow. She found a sweatshirt at H&M on Via del Corso, and then we did some shopping around there (Fossil, Desigual, and some Italian stores). We headed back towards campus to go to Tiger, aka the best store ever. (That's where I heard Only You last week--and today, I heard I Feel Fine there! And some Elvis and Rolling Stones! It's the best!) Gina found a cute blanket, pillow, and some other fun things; I got a really cool little coloring book and some colored pencils, which I'm pretty excited about.

We then hit the grocery store for a couple things and then headed back to school. Katie and I dropped off our purchases before going to dinner at Good, where we had pizza with the church crowd last night. It's amazing! And we get a 15% St. John's student discount there. They had a pizza that was just mozzarella and sliced zucchini, so that's what I got (still kind of trying to avoid tomatoes/tomato sauce when I can). So, so yummy.

The rest of the evening was spent working on our presentation, both in the 4th floor lounge and then in the 3rd floor kitchen where Gina cooked herself dinner. Now my clothes smell like the kitchen, though, which is not exactly desirable for bedtime. Oh well. I'm pretty tired (Forrest Gump voice)...and we're getting up early-ish (well, honestly, late by our standards lately) to hit the national museums of Rome. Should have some good pics on tomorrow's post!