Mouth of Truth, Freak Rain Storms, and Dinner with the Teachers

Wednesday:
We got up and went to class where we had our last grammar lesson with Ruggero. Starting next week Claudio will begin teaching us for the rest of the quarter. Then we headed back home to eat lunch and work on our presentation on "Easter in Italy" that we had due today. The weather was super hot and muggy, but very sunny. Then at 3:30 Claudio was leading an informal optional tour of Rome to the Boca della Verita and Santa Maria di Cosmedin. We all met up for that and then started walking. I got picture with the mouth of truth and we toured the inside of the church and then walked up a hill in Rome to see the garden of oranges at the top. Right as we got to the top it started to sprinkle rain. It started to rain a little harder so we decided to end the tour for the day and head back to Campo de Fiori. But right as we started walking back down the hill a full on deluge of rain started. Claudio actually took cover underneath a bush and a bunch of us followed him. Then we started hearing thunder and seeing lightning so we, in all our infinite wisdom, realized the downpour wasn't going to be stopping any time soon so we decided to make a run for it back down the rest of the hill. At the bottom we took refuge in a small church with some nuns for a few minutes before deciding to keep going. I had my rain jacket on, but not my hood because it was full of water and one of the guys, not realizing it was full of water, tried to put it on my head and a ton of water just went streaming down my back. Whereas before I was relatively dry beneath my jacket then I just became soaked. The roads actually started flood as we ran across them trying to get back to Campo and finally by the time we got close the rain started to lighten up a little bit. We were all so soaked at that point that a few of us decided that "what the heck"why not go to the Pantheon to see it rain through the occulus. So me and a couple of the others kept going while everyone else went back to the boys' apartment to dry off and we ran to the Pantheon. Of course by the time we got the Pantheon it was just sprinkling rain again, but there were a ton of people inside who must have been watching it during the downpour. I bet it was really cool to see. Then three of the boys and I decided that naturally, since we were so soaked, why not go get gelato at a really great gelateria nearby? So we split off and went and got gelato. We got so many stares from people everywhere. All the tourists and Romans were either under cover or using umbrellas. Of the group, I was the only one wearing a rain jacket; the boys were just wearing thin button up shirts. We were absolutely sopping wet. The guys who sell umbrellas kept coming up to offer umbrellas and then realizing it was a lost cause since we were obviously too far gone for an umbrella to help. It was quite entertaining. After we finished our gelato we went back to the boys' apartment because the whole program (including Claudio and Ruggero) was coming over for dinner that night and we were helping to make it. Once we got there, I immediately begged for the boys to spare me some clothes which the other girls making dinner had done the same. We all looked ridiculous in the super oversized basketball shorts and t-shirts. Then we all made dinner and hung out. One of the guys tried to teach me how to play guitar and then took my iPod and put over 400 songs on it that he believes I need to listen to. By that time a bunch of other people started showing up so we girls changed back into our now warm and dry clothes from the dryer. Ruggero and Claudio showed up an hour late (typical Italians :P) and it was a really fun and entertaining dinner. We were eating off of plastic plates and of course within the first five minutes I managed to crack my first plate at the bottom so hot chicken sauce spilled all over me so then I got a second plate to put beneath it, which then broke about 20 minutes later so I had to get a third. My pants were covered in sauce by the end of the night. Then I helped one of the boys make cannoli's for everyone. Claudio and Ruggero ate their cannoli and then took their leave of us. After that we were all just hanging out until some of the guys and girls decided to go to the Irish Pub for discount night and the rest of us went home to go to bed.