Today was a national holiday in Italy, so natrually Sister Bednarz, who is trying really hard to acclamate us to the city(she must love it here because she is very passionate about it), decided it would be best to start class on friday and allow us to join in with the rest of Italy in celebrating the Anniversary of the Italian Republic (it was the 65th Anniversary, which is weird to think, because there was so much life in Rome before that. I mean 65 years is nothing to compared to how long the colliseum has been standing!)
Anyway, we got up early and walked to Piazza del Popolo and then straight down Via del Corso, one the bigger main streets, which ends at the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument. Because it was a national holiday a lot of stores were closed and there was a flood of people all walking on the street. It was so cute to see all the Italians walking together to try and reach the parade because there were young kids and their families, as well as little old italian ladies hobbling along with her friends. Everyone was wearing red, green or blue (blue is the color of the italians soccer team's jersey's.) Once we got to the Monument we just waited for the parade to start. While waiting I people watched and saw some interesting stuff. First there was an old man selling italian memorablia, (flags, etc.), he was on a bicycle with huge wheels that were painted red and green and he was wearing an unbrella hat that was in italian flag coloring (red, green and white.) It was so funny! He was not your typical, run of the mill street vendor. Then I saw this woman with an old-fashnioned type baby carriage the kind that that little babies can lay down in, and it was reppin' the italian flag as well, with three big stripes of red, green and white! Lastly I saw a lot of men in uniform (who knew that they were cute, no matter the country?) We ended up giving up on the parade because it was getting way to hot to stand in the sun for that long and all we saw pass by were some very fancily dressed men on horses.
From there we started walking towards the vatican, because we were going to be on the today show at 1:00pm. On the way we took a little detour through Capo di Fuori and got big panini's to go. Then we continued on and reached the Tevere, thinking we were closer to the vatican than we really were...we walked along the Tevere for a while, but eventually reached the Vatican and the area where the Today Show was setting up.
After waiting for awhile we got to go up to the little filming area they set up right in middle of the Piazza de San Pietro. Even though, I thought it was really touristy and silly to be standing in the hot sun waiting to possibly get on an american morning talk show, I did it anyway and it was kinda cool to say that I got on T.V. while in Rome, on my third day in Rome non the less.
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