May 22, 2012

Today was pretty unproductive up until 4.30.  I slept in pretty good until about 11.30 – 12.00.  I woke up and Morgan (my roommate for Roma) and I went down to a little corner restaurant and got lunch.  We both had the pasta plate and it was really good.  It had mushrooms, peas, beans, cheese, and some other things that I am not sure of.  We finished lunch and came back to the hotel to work on our blogs.  I think everyone pretty much had a slow day today, just taking it easy and getting caught up on some work.  We were informed that we have to make a 100 word comment on every person’s blog by the 27^th of May, so I worked on that a little today so I don’t have to worry about it in Cinque Terre.  I got an email back from Clive Turner with Zero Carbon Hub in Vienna, Austria but he was just inquiring more about my thesis, hopefully this turns into an interview because I need to get some more.  We met back up in the lobby at 4.30 and had a scavenger hunt around Rome.  There were 4 people responsible for getting a map of Rome and they were also responsible for getting us to and from different locations.  Needless to say this turned into a fiasco.  We wandered around a little but eventually figured everything out.  We started out going to the Spanish steps, we walked up and down them which were pretty tough, and there are a lot of steps.  Next we went to a museum of modern art; it is one of the more modern buildings in Rome.  Outside the museum there was this really cool water fountain and a water wall that had water seeping through pores in the wall, check out the pictures.  Next we went to the Trevi Fountain; everyone knows what that is so I’ll just post pictures for that.  It was really crowded at the fountain.  We then went to Piazza de Navona; this is apparently a big American hangout.  There were bars and restaurants; this is where ‘The Drunken Ship’ is located.  Anoop gave us a twenty minute break because some of the group wanted to go get a beer at ‘The Drunken Ship’.  We met back up and went to view Tiber Island.  Tiber Island is the only island on the Tiber River, there are residential and commercial buildings located on it.  The water around the island is extremely dirty; I got a picture to show how dirty.  We proceeded to go to the other side of the river; this is where Anoop said some of the best restaurants in Rome are located.  We walked a little ways and found a restaurant called La Spagetteria; it was really good… and really expensive.  Anoop mentioned that we should try and eat like Italians at least once while we were here so we did tonight.  We got two courses, both of which were huge.  The first course I had some kind of red pasta, it was really good.  The second course I had a steak, it was also very good.  I ended up spending 30 euros on dinner, that’s why I haven’t been eating like an Italian, it’s expensive.  We went back to ‘The Drunken Ship’ for a couple of beers and then called it a night.  

T