Parents in Rome!

Today is Friday, the last day of a rather "mixed" week here in Rome. Even though my parents have been here since Tuesday, it hasn't been as easy as I would've liked it to be. My first and foremost issue has been my migraines/cluster headaches/HELL that have happened to me (sometimes multiple times per day) for the entire week since Sunday. I know this is a cyclical occurrence (the same thing happened around this time last October) but these have been way more frequent, intense, and unfortunately very debilitating while living in this loud and very active city. Though they initially were very treatable with my 800 mg ibuprofen, I am beginning to worry that I have developed some sort of tolerance beginning with last night (I seem to have had some sort of pain all night and throughout today). It is very unnerving knowing that a migraine could be coming at any moment of my day.

On the bright side, it has been great having my parents in Rome; I've loved showing around my familiar areas (my neighborhood around my apartment and school) and going out to eat in some really great restaurants. That said, it has been a bit stressful coordinating our meetings mainly because of their horrible phones which I have virtually lost all faith in. They can not seem to send or receive any texts and have a lot of trouble just answering my calls. But I am overall really happy that they've been able to see so much of Rome in such a short amount of time.

One of my favorite days of the week was yesterday when I went with my parents to the Villa Borghese and got to see the famous Galleria Borghese that I have been waiting so long to see. The highlight of the Villa (of all the amazing art we got to see) was Bernini's sculpture-work that was the main focus of the downstairs gallery. His three freestanding main sculptures, David, The Rape of Proserpina and Apollo and Daphnae were amazing. I couldn't believe these things were carved out of marble by human hands almost 400 years ago. They looked so absolutely real and dramatic that the scenes had to have been made out of real people frozen in time. It truly gave me real visual evidence of what it means to be Baroque. The Caravaggio section of the gallery was equally impressive; I loved that it took only seconds to realize that a work was done by his hands. The dramatic lighting and realism was so innovative and characteristic of Caravaggio and was accomplished by nobody before his time and probably anyone else to this day.  Again I have loved spending time with my parents and hopefully impressing them with what I remember from my art history classes.

So my parents are leaving Sunday so that gives us one more day (Saturday) to hang out before they go and I won't see them for two months. As timing has it, tomorrow is supposed to be a day of political demonstration throughout Rome and it could get violent. Apparently the same thing happened last year and I've read some stories about mobs of people and police cars lit on fire so this could get interesting...Hopefully it won't ruin their last day here and will only add to the excitement. We'll have to wait and see.