Ciao!

Hey guys! We're back at the hotel after another long and lovely day. It's going so fast and we often break out randomly into song more often than in the movie The Sound of Music.

Today we started out the morning sleepily gathering for breakfast. The girls are pretty good-natured (are they like this at home?! Maybe it's the Italian air? Or maybe it's Nelson, our lavender shirt wearing bus driver who is super cool and reminds us of George Clooney). Our group leader, Cristina, is also a bright point of our morning. She is so helpful and bubbly and suggests very cute shoe stores (which I'm pretty sure everyone coincidently met up in today).

Anyway! Getting ahead of myself. So this morning was the Colosseo and the Roman Forum. So incredible to be ACTUALLY WALKING THROUGH THEM! Our tour guide-Paulo (insert Lizzie Maguire reference here) was so knowledgable and told us so many interesting things that we could hardly keep track of all of the information. I can't believe that the girls are so lucky to experience all of this history and culture in high school. It's truly a wonderful opportunity.

After the tour in the morning we had free time and everyone ate (panini, tortellini, fettuccine, GELATO!!) and everyone SHOPPED! This was the day to get all of our souvenirs because we've been completely busy with tours. It was nice to meet back up for dinner with all of the groups and share what we had seen and bought. Cristina even introduced us to the game, "What did you buy?"

We had a delicious dinner at... ? I can't even keep track. But it was great! Pasta, chicken with mushrooms, and creative tiramisu (lady fingers instead of cake- but incredible. Everything's incredible).

Tonight was our last concert - which was entitled Floods of Love for Duquesne University Rome Program student Christina Flood who suffered an accident while studying in Rome. It was at the Generalate of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (they treated us like we were home- Nazareth is really a family. No matter what country or continent).

The orchestra and chorale sounded gorgeous and the Sisters were proud.

Buona Notte tutti!