At the start of this semester aboard, midterm break seemed like it was so far off, but as it approached, the time seemed to have gone by so fast. For most of us our parents visited over the break and it was a whole new experience to get to show our parents around the continent that has made this semester abroad such a fabulous one. My midterm break was spent showing my parents around Rome and seeing again the amazing places as well as the breathtaking architecture that Italy has to offer. Before the break had begun I thought about how I might regret not being able to explore more cities and countries I hadn’t already visited, but looking back, revisiting the various cities in Italy was the best decision I could have made for the break.
Of course as a group we have gone to Rome many times throughout the semester, but over midterm it was nice to just be able to slowly explore the city when I didn’t already have an agenda for the day planned out. By walking through the city, I saw and explored many new areas and actually experienced a side of Rome that most tourists don’t even get to see. One of my favorite parts of the break was watching how my parents reacted to every new place we went.
The thing that stuck out to me the most from midterm break was how, even though we visit many churches during the duration of our study abroad, my mother wanted to walk into any and all churches we passed while walking around Rome together. Of course Rome alone has 1000 Catholic churches in its city limits and not all of them are well known. This was one of my favorite things we did mainly, because no matter how big or small or insignificant the church seemed from the outside almost all of them were breathtaking on the inside. This week when I was just supposed to be bored, I got to experience something entirely new about Rome that I didn’t ever think about doing and it ended up being one of my favorite things to do. The biggest lesson I learned this week was to never think that visiting a place twice is a disadvantage, because you’ll always find new things to do, see, and experience.
 
Kayla Russian

The breathtaking interior of an unknown church my family and I found while walking through the small side streets of Rome.