Our second week in Italy has been an incredibly busy, yet incredibly rewarding week.  We started out the week with our first Italian cooking lesson with Mary Lou (who we all adore).  We made cachio e pepe, a type of pasta with cheese and pepper, and it was DIVINE!  Then, for dessert she had us make a delicious English strawberry cake – safe to say this was the highlight of my week.
Wednesday started our 4-day adventure to Rome… and that is exactly what it was – an adventure.  On our first day we got the incredible privilege of seeing The Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, Capitoline Museum, and Via Condotti.  It was a packed day, but I have learned to love that about this program because in just two weeks I have seen so much of Castelli Romani and Rome, an opportunity so many don’t have the chance to do.
On Thursday, our second long day started with another trip to Rome to see the non-Catholic cemetery where poets such as Keats and Shelley were buried, as well as Santa Maria del Popolo (a beautiful church), and to conclude the day, a visit to the Vatican to see St. Peter’s square and Basillica.  There is so much history and so much to see in one day in Rome, so we even went back on Friday to defeat our infamous scavenger hunt all around the city.  Such beautiful sights to see! We loved it so much that we all decided to spend the first part of our weekend there as a group as well.
In just two short but long weeks, it has been great to see how well all of the girls on this trip have gotten to know each other and watch friendships form that will surely have a long history to follow.  This week was much easier in terms of acclimating, and we are all looking forward to sharing the opportunity of a lifetime together over the next 10 weeks!