How Dare You Play That Song!

40 pages of Italian high Renaissance reading later, I am dying for a decent light, or a super nifty piece of technology that allows me to zoom in on details and appreciate the actual colors. But alas, the rest of this might have to wait until morning.

Speaking of morning (what a snazzy transition), Erica and I had an early one today. We decided that because we were both in photography classes, we would take a trip up a hill to catch dawn shining on the city of Rome.  So 5:15 comes, and I manage to roll myself out of bed, grab breakfast, and putz around facebook until Erica needed to "rise and greet the day" (that's a Kate phrase, incase you didn't recognize it).  So by 6 am we were strolling out the door, cameras in hand, and rubbing sleep from our eyes. Honestly, the last time I think I was up that early was at a speech tournament....  NFA? Anyone? Of course there, we hadn't actually gone to bed, considering we were driving....  details. But we managed to hike all the way up the hill, noticed some of the early morning life of Rome (buses and trams still running and fairly full, vendors getting newspapers, taxis looking at us strangely-the usual). This was actually the hill crowned by the Tempietto and San Pietro in Montorio.  Both of the places were things my Italian High Renaissance class visited on Wednesday.  And although the view of Rome is relatively extensive, there are these things called 'trees' that have a strange tendency to get in the way.  Secondarily, there are similar things called 'shrubs' that we short people have issues seeing over as well. And no, I do not want a shrubbery. NI! Moving on. So we took what pictures we could, walked back to the apartment and promptly went back to sleep.

Zs-ville.

Now for those of you who know me well enough to realize how much I enjoy sleeping will not be shocked to know that we got home at 7, and I slept soundly until 11. The trouble is that I could have slept until about 2 or 3pm without another thought. But alas, I felt some sort of remorse that the rest of my roommates were most assuredly awake by this time. So I dragged my poor sleepy body out of bed for the second time today to investigate what the crew was up to.

By this point, plans were being tossed around discussing an afternoon of shopping. Shopping? But Kelsey always ends up finding the funny things to look at and try one.  And today was no different. I did end up trying on a lovely antiqued gold blazer-but Kate said I looked like Elvis.  Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I thought it was lovely. We wandered around Rome, me pointing at beautiful things like feathered dresses, and reflective pants, but Erica and Kate didn't like them. For shame. We also managed to eat Chinese food on this little extravaganza.  If you would like a culture shock, please consider the following: Chinese food, in Italy, listening to an accordion player play "La vie en Rose" and "Yesterday" (yes, the Beatles version)(side note, he also played 'That's Amore' which cheapened the entire situation. Really dude? You're going to be 'That' guy, playing 'That' song? Boo. Hiss.), and speaking in English. Enjoy every aspect of that would you? It was beautiful.

We shopped for a while, looking here, looking there. Found that magical grapefruit gelato again, saw the Disney store (This one is for Phil-miss you!!!)

Eventually, we made our way over to the GAP store in Rome. If this isn't on your "to do list" in Rome, you're just not Kate, and otherwise you are perfectly normal. For being a new store there were many confusing aspects, like the return policy. Now I won't go into all of the nitty-gritty details and just suffice to say that while in the Gap, I managed to read the following books while waiting for this little fiasco to go down: The Allure of Women in Hollywood, the Allure of Men in Hollywood (which was significantly worse than the female version, I recognized maybe 4 people in that entire 250 page book), The Fashion of Dogs (not enough real dogs in sweaters pictures. Disappointment), Rebel Style, American Style (this was was an interesting one), and the T-Shirt book.  Consider me well read.

We then made it all the way home, only recognizing this guy I met in my Philosophy class on the tram (awkward encounter: 1), and eventually ate dinner. And that, is a wrap.