Hello, again!

Today was a more relaxed day than the past few, seeing as we technically had the day off.  We still wanted to get out money's worth so we decided to check out a whole bunch of stuff that we wouldn't be able to see tomorrow and thursday.  We started off by walking from our hotel to the Basilica of St. John Lateran.  It was another beautiful church, which incorporated fantastic architecture and decoration from the high classical and baroque periods.  This is the church that the pope conducts mass in.  Some notable elements include enormous marble statues of each apostle, and gold statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, each containing pieces of the deceased saints' heads (kind of eerie), above the altar.

Afterwards, we visited the holy steps, which were the steps that resided in Pontius Pilate's residence.  Jesus walked up these stairs on the day that he was condemned to crucifixion, so the stairs are a major target of Catholic pilgrims visiting Rome.  The tradition is to climb the stairs on your knees while praying on each step.

After that we started to walk towards the Trevi Fountain, and we stopped along the way to take random pictures and gaze at the incredible monuments.  I'll admit, I've become jaded to the fact that the Coliseum is on the side of a road that I've walked down a whole bunch of times.  We stopped in a few more beautiful churches.  It's crazy that every church I've seen in Rome is more beautiful than those I'm used to.  They really are a lot to behold.  We then visited the Spanish steps, and tried to do some shopping.  It failed for me because everything was insanely expensive. 

Once we were done shopping (walking into a store, looking at a price tag, walking out of the store) a few of us took the metro back to the hotel to get ready for our class dinners.  The freshman class (consisting of 17 girls and 2 guys) went to a nice little restaurant down the road from the hotel.  I got ravioli, and met the few freshman who I hadn't met already.  Afterwards, we got gelato and went to sing Tollite in front of the Pantheon at midnight.

I just took a drunk kid back to the hotel (tenors can't hold their liquor) and I'm about to go to bed for my 7 a.m. wake-up call.  Fun stuff.  Tomorrow is our last performance of the trip, a mass at St. Peter's Basilica.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how beautiful the inside of the largest church in the world is.

Once again, I love you all, and Goodnight! 

Danny