March 29

Today was a free day and the villa was a perfect place to just chill out and relax all day. Breakfast was served until 9 (they can serve the breakfast at anytime, but we only going to have those of the female variety and Krentz at breakfast if we ate before 9am on a free day), so I slept in a little this morning. The beds are super soft. You actually sink in quite a bit when you sit down on the bed, almost to the point of tipping over backwards. It made for a very comfortable night’s sleep – normally, hotels have really hard beds and I end up with an achy neck, but not here! Louisa and I tried to go down to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee before breakfast was served, but she handed us two shot glasses’ worth of coffee and kindly (and in Italian) indicated that breakfast was at 9. We got the message and tried to be very gracious to her. Breakfast was fried eggs (probably from the chickens in the front yard, corn flakes, yogurt, and really good coffee.
After breakfast I finished The Aeneid – after travelling for so long the past couple of days, I only had 15 pages left. After that milestone, I went for a run. This run was much better than last time as I was able to find a sidewalk. After that, it was laundry time and then lunch. They served us homemade pizza, ricotta cheese balls (fried) salad and fruit. The pizza was awesome! The morning flew by pretty quickly. The rest of the day I devoted to studying. There is just so much to go over, that I need to be in the books all week if I am going to be ready by Friday to take these monstrosities. I got a lot done and there is plenty of nice places to study here. I picked the long table on the first floor.
A few more things about the villa: There are 3 floors. The first floor is the main hangout area with a tv, and lined with couches. There is also a library in this floor (all books devoted to Virgil and ancient Rome, of course) and a long dining room table, though we don’t eat here. We eat in the basement. It too has a long table and fits us all very nicely. The second floor has the bedrooms and shared bathrooms. Each room has its own balcony and mine overlooks the excavation of an amphitheater, right on their own property! You have to admit this is a pretty cool place, how many hotels can say that their property includes an archaeological excavation?
Dinner was at 7:30. Tonight we had pasta for our first course – penne and a tomato sauce with vegetables – beef, mashed potatoes, and eggplant. I dove into the eggplant like my life depended on it. It was fabulous. Then for dessert, we had tiramisu! This place will make you gain 20 pounds if you aren’t careful! After dinner, I studied some more and then went to bed.
All in all, it was a nice, productive day. I needed it!