Lost

I am absolutely loving Italy despite a few bumps in the road. Of course there was the luggage episode, and then there was the separation from the group, yesterday. It was kinda a bummer, but everything turned out fine. We were in a church designed by Borromini. After we were lectured about it, we were given time to look around. Most of the group just stayed in the main chapel, and a few went out to the courtyard. I went with Rachelle and Amanda and found a spiral staircase that went up and down. I figured it would be blocked off, but wandered up anyways. The top was blocked by a gate, but going down led to an open basement area. It was probably once filled with dead bodies. Kinda creepy. Anyways, it was really intriguing. In my opinion, we were doing what good art history students would do...explore instead of sit in the chapel on a bench. We were only down there for a few minutes, but when we came up, the group was gone. Later we found out that the professor checked the courtyard before leaving and didn't see anyone so figured we were all there. He had no idea about this cool basement area. Anyways, once we realized they were gone, we started to look for them. When we couldn't see them, we pulled out a map to see where they would prob head next. Of course MJ had changed his plans, so we didn't get back to the group until they came back to the apartments. But, we went and explored a few churches on our own that were on the list and they didn't see. It was kinda fun to go see this stuff without a time schedule and a huge group. The sad part is that while Rachelle pulled out her map, she thinks she set her camera down on the steps outside the church. When she went to pick it up, it was gone. We looked around for about 20 minutes, but remained empty handed. Very sad.
After exploring some other churches, we ended up going back to the apartments. The others showed up about 20 minutes later. They said we really didn't miss much. Personally, I think we saw better things than the group did. I think it was worth being lost just to see that basement. Too bad MJ and the other girls didn't notice we were gone when they hurried to jump on a bus. Oh well.
Today is our last day in Rome and we head to Sorrento tomorrow. I am so excited for that. I have heard the pizza is phenomenal, because that is where it all began. I will let you know. :) CIAO!