March 28

This morning we left the ferry at 10:30. I had gotten up at my usual time to shower and eat my cereal. Yes, I did bring my cereal onto the ferry. I ate it in my room, not in the café. I then went out to the café to get some coffee. The coffee was pretty bad: this weird instant filter stuff. I spent the morning reading, packing my stuff, and waiting. The ferry service came and kicked us out of our rooms at 9:40. I guess they really wanted to make sure that everyone was awake. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea, as the boys in our group were still asleep when the ferry guy came and banged on their door. He could have been a little nicer to those in my room – we were all perfectly awake and just waiting for the ferry to dock.
We got straight onto the Spiros bus and headed for the Villa Virgiliana. A ride that should have taken us under 4 hours took us over 5. We stopped for a bathroom break and a quick bite at a roadside stop, but another bus full of Greek high school students also made a stop there and the little shop was packed full. So with this stop, and the fact that Spiros doesn’t really know his way around Italy (and Krentz speaks even less Italian than he does Greek), it took us a while to find the right roads to the villa. So, at 3:30 we finally pulled up to the villa, tired and hungry. Lunch was ready and waiting for us. We get full board here, including packed lunches to take with us to the sites. For this late lunch, we dined on caprese salad, bread with some sort of egg and ham baked in (I passed on this one), fish, and fruit. It was delicious!
The Villa Vigiliana is part of a society dedicated to Virgil. You can only stay here if you are a member of this society – Krentz had to get us all temporary memberships for this trip. The library is full of Virgil’s works in several different copies, and general history about Rome and Greece. It is a pretty sweet place. I love the villa. Everything about it. They even have their own chickens out in the front yard.
After lunch we had 15 mins to settle into our rooms, before we headed out to see the Sybelline Cave just up the road. In The Aeneid, this is where Aeneas goes to enter the underworld, guided by Sybil. It is just a long cave, enlarged and carved out by man. This wasn’t all that fascinating of a place and I was still pretty travel weary at this point. Krentz even told us we didn’t need to bring our notebooks to this site, so that automatically means this place won’t be on the test.
We headed back to the villa for further unpacking. I went for a run to get my blood pumping and my limbs moving after having sat down all day. The road I picked ended up being a poor choice: the sidewalk ended and I got honked at a lot, but I was glad for the exercise. After the run and icing down my shins – I am getting shin splints again – I joined the girls in the bathroom for a singing/reminiscing about middle school songs fest. At the villa, the rooms don’t have their own bathrooms. It is dorm style with a girls bathroom that has 4 sinks 2 toilettes and 2 showers, and a similar setup for the guys downstairs. So, as I showered, I belted out the words to Britney Spears hits, the ones before she went a little crazy.
Dinner was at 7:30. Our first course was a pasta dish: penne pasta and tomato sauce. Then we were served cooked carrots, breaded chicken and French fries (I will never escape there stupid fries!). They also put 3 bottles of the house white wine on the table. For dessert, we ate some sort of cake with chocolate bits and cinnamon icing. It tasted like tiramisu, but in the form of a cake.
After dinner, I got a little work done and instant messaged mom. Tomorrow is a free day, but I will be devoting most of my time to studying. We have tests on Friday and I need to start hitting the books pretty hard.
One side note about today: daylight savings time. There is a one hour time difference between Greece and Italy, so we gained an hour coming to Italy. But, daylight savings time happens tonight, so we will lose that hour tonight. It has been a very confusing day time wise. I just figured I would keep my watch on Greece time, as Italy would be changing to that time tomorrow. But it has made trying to figure out tomorrow’s schedule – namely, when breakfast will be served – particularly difficult. I think Italians have a different concept of “spring forward, fall back” as the woman who works here kept confusing us. The solution ended up: when the gong rings (they sound the gong before every meal), breakfast is served (either 8 or 9 – I’m still not sure).