Hello world. It is June 23, 2014 and currently it is bed time. We had an interesting day today as well as yesterday.

Yesterday we arrived around 10ish. After stepping over the plane door threshold we were greeted with a long line to customs. It took about an hour just to have someone lady stamp a mark in my passport and then rush in the next. When that was over we were so welcomingly greeted to what seemed to look like New York shoved in a small area trying to leave just as us. After counting heads and trying to stay together in the massive crowd we met our tour guide Josh and got on this coach travel bus type to take us to the hotel.

Afterwards, we went to lunch then to the Vatican. It was literally right down the block. After exploring the grounds we went inside to climb to the top. It was a total of 320 steps just to get to the dome then what seemed to be another billion steps to get all the way to the tippy top. After climbing we were face to face with the city of Rome and the lovely Vatican. When we finally reached the bottoms we talked a little about the cities ins and outs; basically what to do and what not to do, and by the time we started moving the sun was setting and it was dinner time. We went to this little restaurant where we got some authentic fried goods and the choice of pizza or pasta, or anything else but at your own risk. As we finished dinner we were released to the bedrooms where we could rest our little eyes for the night.

During our trip to the Vatican, we encountered things that pertain to our studies. For International Relations we experienced the obvious touristy view, along with observation. I find this a little surprising but since the Vatican is technically their own country we crossed a border going there. One would suspect that the border would be a tad bit hard to get through. Well it wasn’t. As we entered the Vatican we got to see a Swiss guard who is dressed like a jester and has to stand by the “official” door for what to me seems like forever. Another thing to see is all the different cultures who came just to see and learn as I did. Surprisingly there are a lot of Asian and Indian ethnicities who travel and reside here.

As for World Religions, almost 90% of what our tour guide is saying relates to this. As it is obvious, the Vatican represents this whole religion called Catholicism, but as I stated earlier, there are a lot of different ethnicities who bring different religion. All day we learned about Rome and how and why the church was built. It’s actually pretty interesting. Then as we neared the end of our journey, we got to sit in on mass IN THE VATICAN. I’m not one to say that I’m super spiritual, but I could feel and see the religion flowing through the service. Though everything was in Italian, I think people all over the world would feel some empowering emotion as the choir sang and people fell to their knees in prayer.

Now to today.

So in the wee hours of the morning, my mind seemed to want to wake up at 5 but my body was like no. So I went back to sleep and woke up around 7ish. Then down to breakfast. They served these delicious croissants with this cream in the middle and it was amazing. After that and some time we went to class which is a hop-skip-and away. We talked about conditional, liminal, and unconditional parts of religion and life, and then magic. Then for International Relations, we just talked about foreign policies. After that we went to lunch.

After lunch we got some down time and then it was travel time. We went to the Colosseum and saw the magnificent stadium where gladiators once fought glorious battles. But before that we got to see the ruins of Rome and the foundation that supported such a mighty city. I really want to talk about everything but I’m kind of exhausted so I’ll just sum it up. It was amazing….

To relate to International Relations, we learned a lot about how society worked back when Rome once was the center of the universe. Again we saw a ton of tourism with a ton of ethnicities and a ton of culture all swarming in one place at one time.

As for World Religion, we learned about the good ol’ days when psychotic emperors ruled the world and how Rome was ruthless towards others. The romans were forceful as they rejected Christianity to the fullest extent and captured Judaism in their cold hands.

So to end on a tired note, I say goodnight

Till next time, Daniella