I'm not a big fan of the 4th of July. Historically my family hasn't put much stock in it, so I don't celebrate it with an intense amount of patriotic gusto. However, it was a little strange to be out of the country on the 4th this year. I think because we are immersed in another nation's culture, it made me miss good ol' American 4th of July festivities more. Early in the week we began planning a party for all of us to celebrate. We were originally going to host it at our (Campo) apartment, but our professor Lisa offered at the last minute to have us do it instead at the apartment of one of her UW professor friends in the Rome Center. This was very fortuitous because our apartment really isn't designed to hold 24 people. The day before a few of us girls ventured to the nearby butcher shop in search of ground beef for burgers. Though the butcher did not speak any English we managed, with the help of an Italian phrase book and some helpful hints from Lisa, to procure 40 patties of freshly ground meat. Other apartments were in charge of bringing salad, condiments, and watermelon. So, Saturday night, after spending the morning at the the Villa Borghese studying Bernini statues, we all descended on Doug's apartment. His place overlooks the Campo and includes a small outdoor deck with a BBQ! The food was plentiful, and music rocking, and the company superb. My favorite part was the epic dance party we had in Doug's bedroom in which we belted out some backstreet boys favorites and some more current hip hop songs and showed off our best moves. It was hilarious (and embarrassing) to realize later that that entire room is quite visable from the Campo down below, so the locals and tourists were probably quite entertained by our dancing! Towards the end of the night Lisa brought out sparklers for everyone and Doug set off a few small fireworks. (30 people+30 sparklers on very small terrace=sketchy) Definitely the best 4th of July party I've ever been to, and it was extremely satisfying to eat a hamburger! After another late night gelato run with the group on Saturday night, we got up early Sunday to catch various busses and trains to Sperlonga and the BEACH! It was SOOO nice to get out of town. The train ride to Sperlonga took us through beautiful picturesque Italian wine country, a sharp contrast to Rome. The sun was hot, and most of us got burned. But we all loved swimming and tossing a volleyball around on this beautiful, though crowded beach. All in all it was an incredible weekend spent almost entirely without studying for our test on the Gift today. But don't worry, the way Mona grades I'm confident we'll all do great on her test.
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