I can’t actually believe it’s been nearly a month since I last wrote. Wtf happened to my good intentions of posting regular updates from Rome? Rome, that’s what happened. And its aftermath (extreme exhaustion and withdrawal symptoms). So there is quite a lot to catch up on. But I’m not going to bore on about every single tiny detail of my time there. Suffice to say that it was a lot of fun, and has strengthened my resolve to actually move there (ideally by the New Year). But of course some things stick in my mind more than others, so here goes:
Art. Architecture. History. Three things you find pretty much on every street corner. On the corner of my street, for example (the Via Capo D’Africa), was the Colosseum. Just sitting there. In all its over-awing, ancient magnificence. Of course I got a bit bored of seeing it every day in the end, but for the first couple of days I got a kick out of walking past it on my way to school, whereas normally I have to bypass a Post Office, a Woolworths and a kebab shop on my daily journey to work. I plunged into a gallery-going frenzy, using afternoons off to wander round the Galleria Borghese (which contains the sexiest David I’ve ever seen. Sorry, Uffizi), the Palazzo Barberini (which contains a couple of pretty good Caravaggios, including possibly the most graphic and barbaric I’ve seen, Judith and Holofernes), and the Museo Del Corso (which was holding an exhibition called Forbidden China). I also made it round the Castel Sant’Angelo (which has magnificent views over to the Basilica, which I didn’t bother visiting as I went last year, and pretty amazing it was too).
