Monday April 4th

Hey, It's Monday the 4th today.  I'm in studio right now getting ready for class to start at two this afternoon. Since my last post a few things have happened.  The first was a concert that took place in our studio last Wednesday.  One of our professors for this semester who specializes in music, Miriam Zach, brought world-class opera soprano Agnes Klauder to sing in our lecture room as part of Miriam's symposium of women composers.  Agnes sang with Miriam accompanying on piano and one of our classmates played violin on a few songs.  Afterwards we were supposed to comment on whether we discerned a difference between the songs composed by men from women.  I couldn't, but the concert was really amazing.
On Thursday we took the final test in our history class, which I think went pretty well.  Afterwards Cory and I brought American rock classics to Piazza dei Santa Maria in Trastevere again, which was fun. Last Friday our class took a trip to Tivoli to see Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana.  Tivoli is a small town east of Rome.  It's about a twenty minute drive between the two towns, but our drive there lasted about an hour and a half due to a public transit strike in Rome.  Eventually we made it out of the city, but it took a little patience.
Villa d'Este is a big mansion with a huge garden out back.  It was built in the 1600's by a cardinal who nearly became pope.  The gardens are famous for their many fountains.  After that we had lunch in Tivoli.  The lunch was covered by the program costs so it was a pretty big meal.  After that we went to Villa Adriana, the old estate that was basically the personal village of the emperor Hadrian.  Hadrian built himself a palace, exercise areas, large and small baths, a theater and piazzas out in the country.  The villa was big enough to require its own fire department.  After Hadrian died the villa fell out of use and into a long period of deterioration, so not much of it stands now in its entirety.  Today it is a beautiful park, perfect for napping off a large lunch, which is what most of us did there.  After Villa Adriana we drove back to Rome.  By that time the strike had ended and the drive was much smoother than on the way out.
On Saturday a group of us went to Sperlonga beach, which is about an hour south of Rome.  It was a bright sunny day, and I did get a sunburn but not too bad.  We played volleyball against some Italians and it was close but they ended up winning.  Sorry, America.  Sunday and the morning today were spent doing homework.  The weather for the last week or so has been really sunny and warm, so hopefully it doesn't change too much from here on out.  Ok, well that brought me a little closer to the start of class.  Best wishes to everyone back in Iowa, ciao!

P.S.-  Congratulations Tim and Sara!  Dad sent me pictures of Kate, she looks great.

 Gardens at Villa d'Este

 Villa Adriana

Sperlonga.  Weird name, cool beach.