Olivia's 3rd catching up journal entry (and STILL not done)

Procrastination seems great when you have something better to do but when you have to play catch up, it's not so great. Oh well. At least I'm not a week behind. The day after the Papal Basilicas we went to the bus stop and tried again to catch the 118 to get to the catacombs. It didn't come and after waiting for an hour in the hot sun we decided instead to go to Museo Capitolini. We saw a huge amount of sculptures and other art. One thing I was completely amazed by were the huge sculptures of Emperor Constantine. There were quite a few. The only conclusion I can draw from that is he was either very loved by his people or he was a dictator who only cared about himself and demanded lots of statues be created. The other statue I enjoyed was Marsyas. It was a statue of a man from Roman mythology who told Apollo (the God of music) that he was better than Apollo was. Marsyas challenged Apollo to a competition and, naturally, Apollo won. Apollo then tied Marsyas up and began to peel off his skin. The statue of Marsyas is made of both white and purple marble. The purple marble is where his skin had been peeled away and the white was the skin that had yet to be pulled away. It was just a story but it sounded very painful. The last event I enjoyed most was the stories I told to Meredith. I told her stories about the Roman Gods and Goddesses and she was fascinated. Once we got home I got her to start reading Percy Jackson and she was hooked. The next day we went and again waited for bus 118 and were again disappointed. We then decided to go visit the churches around our house. We saw St. Frances and Santa Cecilia. St. Frances was nice but looked a lot like all the other churches in Rome. The real treat was when we got to Santa Cecilia. A nun was playing the organ and it sounded just beautiful. We sat in the pews and just listened until she was done. It was very much fitting as Santa Cecilia was the patron saint of music. Afterwards we bought a pizza margarita and came back home. Dad headed out to go pick up Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill. They got home without anything happening and we all went to bed.