So, I'm going to post a few catch-up blogs, because the last two days have been hectic (more on that later) and I just can't keep up.

On Thursday instead of going to the British School Library, I went to the Keats-Shelley House. This is a museum and library right next to the Spanish steps where many English people stayed in the 17th and 18th century, and most importantly, where John Keats died in 1821 (I think).

This is a pic of me psyching myself up to go study some Romantics on the Spanish Steps. The sun was in my eyes and I took the photo of myself, but aside from that...


So, I got there at 10, as planned and got my books from a very nice Australian guy (can't remember his name at the moment) and one of the Asst. Curators, Josephine. So, they put me in the Keats room (yes, that means the room where John Keats, one of my all time favorite poets spent the last three months of his life). Wow. I mean, wow.









So, I was kind of in heaven. As it turns out, the books I'd gone to look at were both kind of rubbish and I learned very little, except that when I write academic stuff in the future, I want it to actually be of interest. The way I see it is, I really like the British Romantics. I've gone to great lengths to learn about the British Romantics. Therefore, when I read an entire book on the British Romantics and my ultimate opinion is: yawn--that means there is something wrong!

Anyway, after leaving the Keats-Shelley house around 1, I wandered over to the Villa Borghese and picnic'd under a tree. I think that the park around the villa must be a really popular lunch-time destination because there were people everywhere. It was nice, though.

The, I made my way over to the Protestant cemetery and saw some famous graves, including those of Keats and Shelley. It was a very nice spot. It's interesting, it's in the shadow of this big pyramid. Apparently there was some important Roman guy, a Christian, I think, so he was after Constantine, named Caius Cesteus (can't remember exact spelling). Anyway, when he died, they built a pyramid as his tomb. Then, in the 1730s the Catholic church said that non-Catholics, who couldn't be buried anywhere else in Rome (nor could they be buried during the day...) could be buried in the area around the Pyramid. A little less than a hundred years later Keats was buried there.


After seeing the cemetery, I decided to go the Baths of Caracalla, where Shelley began his poem "Prometheus Unbound." My sense of direction in Rome is imperfect to say the least. It turns out that the ruins I thought were the baths of Caracalla, were actually the Forum Romani and the Palatine Museum. Woops. So, i just decided to go to the Palatine Museum and grounds. Quite nice, actually. After that I returned to the hostel and took a nap. The End.