Day Seven

I woke up early this morning and went to an open air market. They sell all kinds of good, cheap crap there. Clothes, hairdryers, antiques, jewelry, appliances, leather goods, shoes, household items. It's the kind of place that you have to haggle to get any kind of fair price. Then I spent the afternoon in the studio working on tomorrow's assignment. After that we all went to the larger of the girls' apartments and had a potluck dinner. Their apartment is absolutely incredible, no holes in the walls, no broken light fixtures, and most importantly, no bees in the ceiling. The food was amazing and plentiful, oh, and also all made by our group. Spaghetti carbonara, bruschetta, pizza, salad and, of course, vino. I brought the pesto I made yesterday. I cooked it at the house and then carried it in the pot eight blocks to the girls' apartment. It was probably a bad idea because I had accumulated a following of a few homeless Italians along the way who were quite mad at me for not handing out my pesto....What could I do though, let them just reach in and grab a handful?!?! I felt kind of bad, but it is what it is, right? After dinner I went back to the studio and mostly finished up my first project, besides a few tweaks here and there. 

Day Four

Another busy day, we visited a really cool marketplace in the morning with tons of fresh produce and fish. I chased a gypsy down the street trying to take her photograph and then thought to myself, isn't it supposed to be the other way around, with the gypsy harassing the tourist? We then went to the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli which is so named because an apparition, thought to be an angel, once appeared above the church. This is also how the Castel Sant'Angelo we visited yesterday was named, and how dozens of other buildings in the city were named. I chalk up all the apparition sightings to heat exhaustion....it is so damn hot here. We are all coping quite well though, scurrying from shady patch to shady patch at all the monuments. We also visited the Baths of Diocletian, a 34 acre complex that could hold up to 3,000 bathers at once! A couple photos from today:

I couldn't help admiring her melons:

A friendly old nun sat across from me on the bus: