Italian and Obama- Cami Jared

Today we had our third Italian class. While our first couple were pretty stressful, we're all starting to get used to trying to figure out what Paola expects us to do. After correcting our homework, we spent our two hour class practicing ordering off of menus and memorizing food words. Yum. I am starting to get a lot more comfortable with interacting in Italian which is a major improvement from when I first arrived.

(A picture of our Italian classroom)

After a short lunch break we headed back to class, this time with Mary to learn about the Franciscans and Dominicans. We had some pretty intense readings about the life of St Francis, but it seems like we all have a pretty good handle on what his life was about and what he stood for. There was a short discussion about the Catharism in Orvieto and then we jumped right into St. Francis and his founding of a monastic movement. Mary also showed us some slides with paintings by Giotto and we learned about Peter Martyr for the first time. He is always depicted with an axe in his head...gross.

(Peter Martyr and his typical depiction)

The UW Rome Center put together an inaguration party tonight. They streamed it live over the internet on a huge screen and invited people to bring food pot-luck style. The event officially started at 5:30 but students started arriving as early as 1 hour early to get good seats. I would say that almost everyone from the University was there, including the faculty members. Everyone was in high spirits, many were dressed in red, white and blue, and everyone came ready to watch as our 44th president got sworn into office. When President Obama finally took the stage to take his oath, the crowded room errupted in cheers and clapping. Another major highlight was the ending convocation which made many laugh with phrases like, "the red man will get ahead man" and "the yellow man will be mellow". Interesting. Many of my classmates were inspired by Obama's speech and American patriotism was running thick. It was quite the celebration.

(President Barack Obama)

Overall, it was another great day in ROME!