Crypts and Palaces

Saturday a few of us spent the afternoon exploring the area Via di Tritone and Palazzo Barberini. Below the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini is a crypt that contains the bones of 4000 friars (1500s-1870s) artistically arranged on the walls. It was very creepy, but also really awesome to see! While viewing it, my emotions kept ranging from disgust to awe. I just couldn’t get over that someone could make something so intricate and interesting from the remains of other humans. 

All of the designs on the walls are made solely of human bones

Triton Fountain

We also decided to visit Palazzo Barberini, which used to be a palace but is now the National Museum of Art. The size of the place is just unbelievable! It is very difficult to imagine that someone could actually call the huge place home! Many of the wealthy families such as the Barberini, Medici, and Borgia would have a palace in Rome, a villa (house with large formal gardens) on the outskirts of the city, and then another home in the country. These families had great wealth, produced multiple popes, and have their names (and papal coat of arms) visible throughout the city. 

Palazzo Barberini

One of two grand staircases

Ostia Antica

On Friday we had a fieldtrip to Ostia Antica, which is a town of ancient ruins outside of Rome. It was originally a harbor town at the mouth of the Tiber River (the main river running through the center of Rome), but because of silt deposit over the years, the coast is now a few miles farther out. I’d have to say I enjoyed Hadrian’s Villa (previous week fieldtrip) more because those ruins felt more natural. It is pretty visible that Ostia Antica has a lot more than has been reconstructed than Hadrian’s Villa. It was interesting though to see how the apartment/house layouts and baths differed from Hadrian’s Villa. 

Originally a portico (with a building behind)

Theater

Huge fallen ruin

We experienced our first run in with the infamous Italian transportation strikes. Friday we had the fieldtrip and were supposed to take the metro out to Ostia Antica. However, there was a ‘scheduled strike’ so our teachers knew to move up our departure time to avoid the strike hours. Apparently the metro still runs in the morning until 8:30am and then again from 5-9pm in order to allow people to get to and from work. On the way home, we were able to catch a train around 2:30pm because they do have metro trains that come roughly every 40 mins during the strike. I was surprised to learn that the strikes are actually worked into the transit workers’ contracts. People here say that when the workers want to have a 3-day weekend they end up calling a strike on Fridays. I hope that these strikes don’t affect any of our travel plans later in the semester, but for this weekend it worked out fine.

Saying Goodbye

I can’t even begin to describe how I felt as I watched the Joe Pa memorial service in the common room of our apartment. A group of us huddled around the computer and streamed it live from PSU. It felt as though we were a unit of Penn State, but the distance from State College was evident. It felt surreal as the video and voices faded in and out, and the stories of Joe Pa sounded in the room. He will forever have made an impact in many of our lives and defined the way we view Penn State. Although gone, he will never be forgotten. 

21 Days

It’s crazy to think that I have already been here for three weeks, and yet at the same time I feel like I have always lived here! It’s impressive how quickly we can adjust to a new routine and completely different culture!

Part of my routine consists of waking up with enough time to walk to the local bakery (two minutes each way) to get fresh bread for my lunch. It is such a treat to have freshly baked bread every other day or so, and it’s fun to try all the different kinds. Although I do have to say my favorite so far is the ciabatta-which is similar to the ciabatta back home, but the quality and freshness makes it so much better here in Italy.

Going to class entails walking across the river, navigating the crazy motorists of Rome and often stopping to fill up my water bottle at one of the many nasoni. Nasoni are the drinking fountains placed all over Rome (said to be over 2,500) that constantly have ice-cold free flowing water that is said to be very pure. Most people pass by them not realizing that you can drink the water, but if you watch long enough you will see a local or an informed tourist filling up their water bottles. The water actually tastes very good and is truly ice-cold since it comes from the mountains.

Nascone

On the way home from class, there are many local produce stands and mini stores within a minute’s detour from my daily path. Fresh food is so much easier to come by here than it is at home! We also have access to all the orange and lemon trees in our courtyard that always have fresh fruit for picking. I haven’t yet taken advantage of our trees, but I probably will in the near future.

It’s interesting to me that I can already feel as though I have always been stopping at the local bakery every morning, listening to Italian chatter on the streets, and navigating cobblestone alleyways on my way to class!

The Everyday in Italy

Over the last couple days I have had quite a few new ‘everyday’ Italian experiences! Even the mundane things here, take on an interesting twist:

Completely out of clean socks and with our apartment's laundry machine broken, Melissa and I headed to a local laundromat to wash our clothes. Unlike the U.S. where you pay by the load, here you pay by the kg (as in weight). However they don’t actually weigh it... so it's more like washer size as if you had a certain weight of clothes. When we first went in we were so confused as to what to do and what it meant for 18kg, 11kg, 6kg etc! There were mountains of bags of clothes piled around the room and maybe 9 washers and 6 dryers. It was complicated figuring out when it was our turn vs. the attendant's turn for laundry that others had dropped off. Apparently its more common to leave laundry at a laundromat than do it yourself, but there were other American students also doing it themselves. Also it's very rare to have dryers, as most Italians hang their clothes outside the window to dry.

I (finally!) went for a run Wednesday morning along the Tiber River. Here you rarely see people out running- it’s just not part of the culture. However, there is a bike track along the river that people will run along. Due to the floods of the Tiber River, back in the early 1900s the city built up flood walls that completely separate the river from the street. Although completely separated, it is nice that once you go down the two flights of stairs, you can run the length of the city without stopping for cars.  As the river turns throughout the city, you can see the dome of the Vatican, the elaborately decorated bridges that span the river, and the majority of the skyline- definitely an improvement to any run back home!! I’d have to say that running here is a lot more enjoyable than back home because of all the inspirational sights along the way! 

On the left hand side the bike path is visible along the river's edge adjacent to the high river wall

Hadrian's Villa

Today we went to Hadrian’s Villa for a fieldtrip with our studio class. The site is where Emperor Hadrian took his full court (think thousands of people) and basically created this massive town-like villa because he didn’t like living in the city of Rome. The villa is absolutely immense- the grounds and buildings just keep going on and on! Even after touring for almost 4 hours we only saw a fraction of the buildings. Since it was built in the first century a.d. many of the great architects have walked through the same rooms and studied the sights that we saw today, which is hard to imagine! Our one professor Alan Ceen has an insane amount of knowledge relating to anything architecture, history or cartography, so he gave us a really informative tour of the villa. We also had a few hours to explore on our own which was really nice. It gave me the chance to just sit back, sketch, take photos, and soak up the sun in the peaceful country atmosphere. The sights of the ruins with the hilltop of Tivoli in the background were so gorgeous!

Temple of Venus

Maritime Theater

Large Baths

Ceiling of the Large Baths

Canopus

Caryatid at Canopus

At the end of the trip when we were wandering around, we happened upon an outlook with views across the countryside- an awesome surprise!

Night Wanderings

The other night Kelly and I decided to walk around and see the ancient part of Rome lit up at night. It was nice because it is the off-season and a weeknight so there were people out, but not enough to be annoying. The street vendors are a whole different story though- there is nothing to even compare them to back in the U.S! Even the littlest kids know to tell them to go away! It’s actually funny to watch the kids yell at them in Italian “that’s enough!” and “go away!” The vendors have one of two types of items- things that light up, or things that you throw/squish. I don’t understand who would want to buy any of that junk. The vendors come up and try and shine their funny little light designs on your feet, and put their lit up Colosseums in your face. Despite ignoring them the usually don’t go away until you finally tell them “BASTA!” (That’s enough!). As annoying as it is, it always provides some laughs of who they are going to target and what they do especially because you can always see them coming! But regardless of being attacked by street vendors, it was nice to see the city at night, and it certainly is lovely that ancient Rome is only a 5-10 minute walk from our apartment! 

Colosseum

Gate at the Colosseum

Campidoglio

 

A Week of Classes

So school has finally started, but the hardest part of my week is done by every Tuesday evening! We have early (and long) classes, but I’m glad that we are done fairly early each day. Monday I am taking Analysis (9am-12), which is a combination of an art history and theory class.  Then at 1pm I have studio for four hours. Tuesday is Cartography (9am-12), which is map reading and learning the history of Rome through the changes. In the afternoon I have Italian for 2 hours with only three other people. Because it’s such a small class, it’s very relaxed and informal. My teacher is absolutely hilarious, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a good class! Wednesday I only have studio, which is four hours long. On Thursdays, I have Cartography class again from 9-12 and then I am done for the week by Thursday at noon!

Being here for ten days before class started was absolutely perfect, but it was tough to remember that we’d be starting classes soon. The first week of class flew by though, and I’d have to say it was quite enjoyable!

It’s just so hard to believe that everyday I pass various ruins and the Pantheon on my way to class! (Quite different sights from McLanahans and the usual College Ave homeless man on my daily commute back home at school…) In between classes on Tuesday I didn't want to go home for the 2.5 hours break, so I had packed a lunch and just walked around before heading to Piazza Navona. Well actually, I planned on going straight to Piazza Navona, but got quite mixed up in direction and added a twenty minute stroll to my walk… Not to worry though, it was fun to see the part of the city I ended up wandering through! After looking at all the watercolors of the vendors set up in the piazza, I sat down and had lunch in the sun. From where I was sitting it was so peaceful to listen to the sounds of Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers and the indistinct chattering of multiple languages from various tourists! It felt good to be on my own and enjoying the simple peace of the city in a piazza that is two thousand years old! 

Sacred Ruins that we pass every day on our way to class (amongst many others!)

A Different Sun

1/15/12

In all, yesterday we were outside for over 6 hours. Let me remind you it’s January! Back home I wouldn’t stay out for more than 20 minutes if I didn’t have to because the weather is so gross there. Here it is always sunny (we're been here over 8 days and haven’t seen a drop of rain- not to jinx myself) and at least a high of 57. People have already gotten sun burn on their faces! Also, I’m currently writing this from our terrace where I am sitting in the sun with only a light jacket on and it’s only late January.

The sun is so different here- ok so it’s not actually possible to be different.. I think the biggest noticeable difference is that the sun is actually out and shining, unlike the cloudy winters of State College and Pittsburgh. The angle of it is what is most noticeable- at noon it is nowhere near overhead. It is so low that it never makes it past the angle where is is annoyingly in your eyes no matter which we you turn. Regardless, I’d rather be constantly blinded by the sun than not see it for months at a time!

Capodanno Cinese

1/14/12

I don’t know how these days just keep getting better! Today was the Chinese New Year (well technically it’s not until the 23^rd of January, but apparently Rome celebrates it early). We headed out to Piazza del Popolo to watch the parade. It wasn’t very long, but it was very colorful and traveled all along Via del Corso before ending up in the piazza where we were watching it. We packed lunches and sat along a wall overlooking the piazza. It was very enjoyable to people watch with such a huge crowd in the piazza! Afterwards we went to the adjacent Villa Borghese Gardens. It is the second largest park in Rome and very pretty!

Piazza del Popolo

Twin churches in Piazza del Popolo (actually veryyy different from one another inside)

Looking back on the crowd at the Piazza on our way to Borghese Gardens

Within the park there was so much to see and do! We sat and watched a group of rollerbladders who were very talented. They set up lines of small cones and did so many tricks weaving in and out, dancing around them, and speeding through. There was even a guy as old as 70 still doing it and a young boy who couldn’t have been more than five!

After a while we spotted the bike rental place and decided to rent a 4-person bike for an hour. It was definitely one of the best choices so far!! It was sooo soo much fun to explore the park on the bike as we sped around, huffed and puffed up the hills (while Dave got off and pushed), and off-roaded along dirt and gravel paths. I’ve never been on a multi-person bike, but it was sooo entertaining. We had so many good laughs were able to see a large portion of the park. Eventually we realized that the one we rented was the only one that we saw that didn’t have a motor at all! All the other bikes in the park were cruising up hills left and right and it finally made sense when we realized that they had motors on theirs and we didn’t. That definitely elicited some laughs when we finally came to that realization!

Me and Marj

Dave and Will

Villa Borghese

Once our hour was up we returned the bike and met up with the rest of our group and watched the sunset from the overlook. With still an hour left before the fireworks (for the new year), we decided to go to the piazza and watch the Chinese dancers/aerobics.

Marj, Melissa, Mike, Dan, Kelly, me and Will

Piazza del Popolo with the Chinese New Year crowd (opposite wall is where we chose to sit for the fireworks)

From the overlook we had spotted a perfect place to watch the performances and fireworks, only to get to the wall and realize it was 10 feet off the ground! Luckily we had some strong/tall guys with us who were able to get all of us up onto the wall, but only after a lot of jumping, scrambling, and climbing! Safely perched on the wall, we looked out over the thousands of people in the piazza, watched the acrobats, and had many laughs in the evening twilight. The guys went and got some wine to share, and we drank a glass (well technically out of our waterbottles…but we had to improv a little) while we were relaxing. At six thirty the fireworks started and they were so pretty. Our view was perfect, and I don’t think the evening could have been more memorable!

relaxing on the wall- (30 feet above the piazza on one side, so we climbed up the back)

Afterwards in honor of the Chinese new year we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant  called Ci Lin in Trastevere  near home. It was funny because everyone in the restaurant was either Asian or American!! I have never had a better Chinese meal- my sweet and sour chicken was the best I have ever had. It was definitely the perfect ending to the Chinese New Year. Of course on our way home we had to stop for gelato, which was as delicious as always.

Since they eat so late here, we quickly got ready and headed out for the night shortly after getting home from dinner. We decided to try Testaccio (an area near our apartment which is in Trastevere) for the night. It was the first discotheque we went to and we had an absolute blast. It’s definitely different though that the clubs don’t close down until 5am unlike the 2am of State College and Pittsburgh!! We certainly didn’t stay til close, but we had a lot of fun!!!

All in all- it was a perfect day!