Catacombs

Today, 12, we went to breakfast across the street from the Residence. We had cappuccinos, a donut, and fruit juice (I had pear!) and we ate it outside! Very pleasant! Then we rode the train and then a bus to the catacombs S. Callisto! This was so amazing and our tour guide was soo cute and sweet! These catacombs were established around 200 AD. They are 75 feet deep and they were four floors. There were 500,000 tombs and they cover 51 acres (but we only saw 2% of it)!! So crazy! This is when I realized how old Rome really is. There are holes in the walls and this is where the tombs were. The bodies were wrapped in sheets and then their family members placed a marble sheet on top of them; however all of the marble had been stolen when people raided the tombs. Also in the catacombs they have mass to honor the martyrs! I was really floored by these! But we all kept thinking what if someone were to pop out of the tombs like in a scary maze!  Then we walked along the side of the road to another set of catacombs. But along the way, we stopped to figure out where we were going and this man comes out of his restaurant and tells us to check out his tombs....so we went into his cute outdoor restaurant which was surrounded by tombs! Very cool but also a little strange!  These were the catacombs of St. Sebastiano. When we went on a tour of these catacombs, the man talked with no breath in between his sentences and so basically everything blended together and it was so hard to concentrate on what he was saying. So I didn't really get too much out of him! :( But we did see a foot print of Jesus' feet! So that was really cool! and we saw the tomb of St. Sebastian (hence the name). After our tour...we had an adventure figuring out the buses to get home. We had to take a total of three! Then after the second one we all split up for lunch! The restaurant I went to I had Bruschetta and saute zucchini! It was all very good! But once again...they hand out bread and then charge you for it! So we need to remember to say that we don't want the bread! Then we walked  through Rome back to our apartment! It was a long walk but it was so worth it! I am trying to figure out how to navigate throughout the city! and it is beautiful out! Tonight we are going to do a pub crawl! So I will let ya know how it goes!