Thoughts of a Traveler: Day Two

Its Sunday, so I got up early to go to church with a group of fellow architecture students. We attended mass at Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, which is one of the oldest churches in Rome, and is considered the first in Rome to openly celebrate mass. Surprisingly mass was very informal, with no real entrance hynm, no alter servers, and people coming in and out of the church openly. Perhaps the most surprising part, however, was the it became a free-for-all at communion. There was no order, people simply jumped out of their pews and crouded towards the front. This surprised me, because I was expecting it to be extremely strict and orderly. However, I went back later to take pictures of the church and found a completely different situation, as the mass that was being celebrated in the evening seemed to have a more serious air about it. So perhaps it was simply the mass that we attended.

After mass, we went down to the local flea-market, which is held every Sunday. It was packed with street vendors and interested buyers. Finding the streets almost too crowded for our comfort, we headed back home to grab a quick lunch. I'm definately going to loose weight during this simply because going to the grocery store is so stressful. All I wanted for lunch was a peanut butter sandwich!! I instead settled for a yogurt.

After lunch, a group of us decided to do some more site seeing. My favorite part about this city is that you can head out in really no particular direction, and end up in ancient ruins. I'll let the pictures do the talking to reveal what we ran into.