Friends and Family! 

I will be honest, I had this post completely done and the webpage deleted it all…So, I will do my best to remember everything that was typed. 

We have had an amazing couple of days in one of the greatest cities in the world! It is literally breathtaking to walk down the streets and our tour guide say “that building is not very old,” and it is actually 1700 years old! 

I will start off by expounding a little bit on what we saw on Monday. When we got here we went to the hotel, grabbed some lunch, and then got on the hop on/hop off tour bus. It was a great experience for us to just get to ride around and listen to the history in this great city. We got to see pretty much everything in the city, but we didn’t actually go in any of the historical sites until Tuesday (more on that later). One of the places that we did get to see on Monday was the Circus Maximus. This is the place where the chariot races (like the movie Ben Hur) happened. It is also the place in Rome where the most Christians were martyred. The area is so big that at one time it could fit upwards of 300,000 Romans in it. We finished Monday off by grabbing some gelato and trying to get some rest. 

Tuesday we got up early, jumped on the worlds most crowded subway, and headed to meet our tour guide Stefano (steph-ahhh-no…not stefeno…he made sure we knew that) at the Roman Forum. We began our 8+hour walking tour at the Roman Forum, it was awesome to see the old “city center” of Rome. We then got to peak at 2 different archeological digs that are still going on at the Roman Forum. 

After the Forum we walked over to the Colosseum. This is the place that I was most looking forward to. I was not disappointed. At all. It was simply amazing. I stood in one of the walkways and just looked out over the place where gladiators used to do battles to the death. We get so many aspects of our modern stadiums from the Colosseum: numbered sections, rows, seats, ticket entrance requirements, and the ability to vacate a massive amount of people in a relatively short amount of time. The Colosseum could at one time fit 50,000+ Romans in it, and they could completely empty it in less than a half hour. 

We left the Colosseum, jumped back on the subway, and headed to the Vatican. It is crazy to me that the vatican is actually a city/state unto itself. When in Vatican city you are not in Rome and not even in Italy anymore. I probably could have spent a solid week just in the Vatican soaking up all of the history that resides within its walls. The 2 main highlights of that part of the tour are the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters Basilica. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is where Michealangelo painted probably his most famous fresco. It was unbelievable to hear all that went in to his work, and it is far too much info for this blog post. After the Sistine Chapel we walked over to the Sistine Chapel, which is actually the largest church (in length and width) in the world. In this church all the popes are laid to rest. 

After the Vatican we took the subway over to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. I still cant believe that I just typed that sentence. We said goodbye to our phenomenal tour guide at the Pantheon, and headed over to the Piazzo Navarro. There we bought any last souvenirs, ate dinner, and enjoyed our very last gelato. 

Finally, after a long, amazing, exhausting day, we got to the hotel and tried to get some rest before waking up early to head home. I took a ton of pictures over the last 2 days, and I will try to get all of those thrown into a slideshow for everyone to see, but it probably wont happen before Sunday. Also, I have told all of the students this, but just so you know, I will be making a cd of all of the pictures that everyone took during the trip and giving it to everyone that went. 

I know we have given you all of this information already, but I thought I would go ahead and give you the last minute information about today. Here are the estimated times of arrival at Beltway for our groups: 

Group #1 - ETA at Beltway is 7pm

Geoffrey Turner, Kerri Kirby, Kaci St. John, Josh Dodderer, David Setser, Jabril Jackson, Jordan Cosper, Brianna West, Allison Keenum, Kimber Beam, Kristy Beam, Ashlee Justice 

Group #2- ETA at Beltway is 2am 

Leighton Lockett, Josh McQueen, Taylor Grant, Maitlyn Yarbrough, Tesney Ake, Rachel Stovall, Paige Parks, Sam Gomez 

If you have any questions, I land in the states around 2:30pm your time, so feel free to call me and I will try to get you any information you need. My cell number once again is (325) 668-5601. Cant wait to see all of you! Thank you for all your prayers and support over the last couple of weeks. Please pray for a safe travel day, on time flights, and a safe drive home. 

See you in a few hours! 

-Geoffrey