after back to back weekends traveling i have to say it was a nice change of pace to spend this past weekend here in rome! after all it is my home! thrusday night the hottro quattro dressed up in matching little black dresses and headed down to the tiber river summer festival! there we managed to find a mexican restaurant - which aallllmost satisfied by cravings! friday, the roommates and i ventured out towards downtown rome to go shopping! until the end of the month rome's summer SALDI are in effect! (saldi = sale!) on our way walking there we ran into SherBear! (our nickname for one of our wonderful professors! - Sherrie) Not only did she take us to the prime shopping area but took us to get iced coffee- a little different than expected but very delicious, brought us to the Spanish Steps (unfortunately under scaffolding), and recommended a quaint restaurant that the hottro quattro made reservations at! After than we made our way from store to store, i was doing more window shopping than anything! after coming back to our apartment later than night we began studying for our exams we had coming up! (also planning our amazing adventure for saturday!) Saturday morning we rose bright and early to catch a taxi to the catacombs. we weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was quite the site to see. picture an underground cavern filled will enough groves to fit 40,000 people - adults, children and babies alike! some parts of the ceiling still had the original artwork dating back to 200sAD! after the catacombs (sorry momma - no dogacombs!) we had a few hours to kill until we had to board our train to Castel Gadolfo! (which is where the Pope's summer home is!!) We found a small park and ate at a chinese restaurant for lunch before we got on the train! about 45 minutes later we arrived at our stop, which to our surprise wasn't much of a stop at all! pretty much we were let off in the middle of the mountain overlooking a beautiful lake! an italian couple oh so nicely pointed us down the mountain in direction of Papa Francesco's summer home and off we went! made it to the bottom of the lake! still unable to find the home (thinking it would be fairly obvious, i mean, he is the pope!) we asked the guy working at the gelataria where we could find the home. just as sweet as could be he walks us outside and says alright the first thing you got to do is... "walk right back up the mountain." we couldn't help it, we burst out laughing! to make a long story short, we found the house, once again not what we were expecting but still delightful! (check it out in the pictures!) after our long and successful day we found a relaxing restaurant overlooking the huge lake! sunday morning kiersten and i enjoyed mass at St. Peter's Basilica, met Tina, a lovely lady at the gift shop who helped me practice Italian for 30 minutes, and the Pope for his angulus blessing! what a treat! after eating lunch at a place called "la mela stregata!" (which means the haunted apple!) - which was a snow white themed lunch, and flagging down a taxi the rest of the day was filled with studying for our upcoming exams! over the course of 2 days i had 4 assignments, 1 quiz, 2 mid terms, 1 final exam and a presentation! if that doesn't explain my absence on my blog and if that doesn't deserve a vacation to Ischia then i don't know what does!!