Ottava Giorno - A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum.

Today was an eventful day. I woke up and saw my roommate still in the room on her computer. Then I realized that it was 8:27am, which was 27 minutes after we were supposed to have left. I woke Antonia up and we both flew into a frenzy trying to get ready and decide what to do! When we went to sleep the plan had been to go to forum, so we figured that if we took the subway we would be able to meet them in time. Somehow though, me and Antonia got split up and I ended up taking the subway by myself to the forum, without a phone to contact people or any real idea where to meet them.

I got off at the coliseum and then walked around trying to find the group to no avail. I started walking around the edge of the forum in hopes that I catch them on there way in or walking, alas, I did not. So, I ended up walking all the way around the forum. Even though at some point I had no idea where I was, it was a fun adventure. I ended up walking parallel to circus maximus, then I turned up a street and found myself in a piazza in the middle of a protest. I snuck around it and continued up the hill on a smaller, less populated street. I walked all the way to the top and found myself with a nice view of the whole forum. After stopping and looking out on the forum(and trying to look for my group in the forum), I continued up another street and found myself at the top of the capitoline hill, where the capitoline museum is. Here I sat and wrote in my journal for a little bit, because I was very discouraged. I had been walking around for a hour and still hadn't found my group. I continued down a street which was on the otherside of the hill and found myself at the entrance to the forum. I looked around for a minute and then decided to go inside and look for the group inside. Once inside I just walked and walked all around searching. I found out a few things about the forum.

• It is HUGE.


• It is really interesting, but I had no idea what any of the structures were.


• There was no hope of finding anyone

So, once walking at least a mile and a half inside the forum, I decided to give up and just enjoy myself. I felt like a little explorer, because there were so many little paths to take and each lead to a different field or structure. Then as I was standing looking out over on the many different fields. I heard someone say " Hey look, it's Kristen Himmie." I turned around and saw the whole group. Apparently they had stayed and had class in the morning and were given the option to come to the forum afterwards.

But as fate goes, I just wasn't meant to be with the group this day, because only a little while later I got separated from the group again. After that I just gave up and walked back. I wandered around the area near the trevi, but stayed on streets that were not crowded, somehow I found my way to the spanish steps. I sat down on the steps and eat my sandwich that I had made for the day and wrote in my journal for a long time. Though it was really frustrating being lost from the group, I did like having sometime alone just to ponder the experience and be able to process everything that has been happening these past few days.