Das Baroque

Today I'm just going to focus on what we saw of the Baroque in Rome last Thursday. The Baroque is the next major artistic period that follows the Renaissance (there's a brief period in between called Mannerism, but it doesn't last very long). The Baroque is really extravagant, and before, I would always have described it as looking "heavy" in terms of all the different materials and mediums you see in Baroque architecture. Now I've learned that although my sense of the richness of material wasn't off the mark, "heavy" would be a somewhat incorrect description of the Baroque. Rather, it's just characterized by extremely lavish opulence, dazzling splendor and grandeur, and use of nearly dizzying theatrical effects. There's actually an effort in Baroque to make otherwise extremely heavy materials look nearly weightless, as with the bronze baldacchino at St. Peter's--even though it's just about two million pounds, it still has a graceful and delicate and soaring appearance. So we went to a few places in Rome that really emphasize the ideals of the Baroque.

First, we went to Santa Maria del Vittoria, which isn't far from the main train station (Termini). It's just a short walk away, and the cathedral itself is small but extremely opulent in terms of interior decoration. You could really describe Baroque architecture as "gaudy," just because it uses so many different materials in such an overpowering manner--all sorts of different colored marbles, stones such as alabaster and lapis lazuli, gold gilding on everything, stucco (plaster) angels tacked up onto the vaulted ceiling overhead, and all sorts of other crazy devices. But this church is most well known for being home to the most famous of Bernini's sculptural works, the Ecstasy of St. Theresa. Now, Bernini is arguably the most famous architect of the Baroque period (some say that his rival Borromini deserves this spot) and he's considered the best of the Baroque sculptors as well. In the photo beneath, you can see the Ecstasy and some of the surrounding architecture--which should give you a good idea of what Baroque interior decoration looks like.



Now, the Ecstasy is a pretty controversial work of Bernini's because it's viewed by many to have sexual overtones. Bernini sculpted the work after reading the writings of St. Theresa, a saint who frequently had divine visions from God. In one of her writings, she writes about a vision in which she is overcome by the divine love of God, and the manner in which she writes about this, how she experiences this love of God is considerably erotic. Bernini translates this writing very literally into this particular work of his, and we can see this in the languid expression on her face, the limp posture of her body, and the angel standing over her, readying to stab St. Theresa with "arrows of divine love." You can get my drift, and it's enough to make one blush to look at this particular sculpture. Despite all this, it's still considered one of the most beautiful sculptures of the Baroque, and I was quite moved by it. As I mentioned earlier, in the Baroque, they liked to play with theatrical effect, so this work is actually positioned underneath a hidden window that Bernini (I think) installed, so when the sun hits that side of the building, it causes the entire area with the golden sunbeams behind St. Theresa and the angel to glow. The photograph beneath shows a better, close-up view of the sculpture. It was really beautiful and very exciting to see as I've studied this particular work in at least two of my art history classes at LSU.



Not far from Santa Maria del Vittoria are two other famous Baroque churches by Bernini and Borromini (great rivals), San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and San Andrea al Quirinale. The first, St. Carl of the Four Fountains, is designed by Borromini. The exterior, the first thing you see, is very interesting because the Baroque jumps into a period where buildings are no longer consisted of just straight edges (e.g., rectangles, squares) but actually start adopting the use of convex and concave lines to add drama and excitement to a building. So you can see beneath, the rippling and curving facade of San Carlo:



And, wow, when you walk into this church, it completely knocks you off your feet. Even though it's Baroque, it avoids the overwhelming feeling that comes from using lots of different colored marbles and materials. The church is actually tiny, and could only hold about 30 to 40 people for a Mass. But the entirety of the interior is white, and all the detail is in the architectural framework--the curving edges of the room, columns and pilasters, and the coffers that make up the oval dome overhead (note that the coffers have three shapes: hexagons, octagons and cruciform [cross-shaped]). See a somewhat inadequate photograph of the interior beneath:



After San Carlo, we went to the small church designed by Bernini, which is more or less right down the street. It has a totally different look both interior and exterior-wise, because Bernini loves his multi-colored marbles and stucco angels. San Andrea also has an oval domed roof, but this dome is oriented in a different direction than the first one. Bernini also put in yellow glass into the panes of the small window that sits on the very top of the dome, so that the structure over your head would always be filled with a soft, golden light even if the weather outside is dull and gloomy. San Carlo, on the other hand, is filled with a cooler, white light. I tried to look for a picture of San Andrea on the internet, but couldn't really find any good examples. Here's a picture anyway to give you just a vague idea of what the dome with the yellow glow from the window looks like:



After that, we saw a motorcade containing President Bush zip by on the street, proceeded to the Piazza Quirinale where we briefly discussed the headquarters of the Italian prime minister, and then headed down to the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is one of those places that became more famous just for being a famous tourist destination than for what it actually is, but it's still really beautiful and impressive to look at. The idea of theatrics is present here at the Trevi fountain, in the sense that it appears to be emerging from the building behind it, which takes up the entire block of the street. This, however, is another horribly crowded tourist destination, and full of irritating people trying sell you roses and bubble-producing toy guns. Trevi Fountain beneath...



The people who sell you roses (and other assorted crap) are usually Romanians or Indians, and some of what they do (selling the various items they do) is in fact illegal, because most of them are illegal immigrants. The problem of illegal immigrants though is a minor one, compared with some of the other issue that the country faces, so authorities don't really do anything about this. So there's an influx of these people hawking all sort of products on the streets (from roses to weird rubbery things to bubble guns for kids and more), and they can actually be pretty aggressive. In Frascati, a rose man tried to get friendly with me in order to sell me a rose, and so tried to put his hand on my back. I yelled at him very loudly, "NO!" and walked away swiftly. They are not dangerous, nor do they have devious aims in mind, but if you aren't firm in telling them to leave you alone, then they'll really try to push their shite on you. I've almost had my eye poked out twice by rose people sticking flowers into my face on this trip. I mean, I do pity them because there's really no other way for them to make money, but at the same time, they're pretty annoying. In Frascati, when we have dinner together as a class at night, they'll actually come into the restaurant up to your table and bug you to buy a rose. And often, two or three of the same people come to our table every single night, and we tell them NO every single time. So an interesting side detail for those of you who're ever interested in coming here. A picture of a typical rose guy:



The illegal immigrants also extend to the gypsies, and so that creates a secondary problem for the Romanians and Indians who do migrate here legally. They face discrimination because of the bad reputation generated by gypsies and illegal immigrants, so it's quite difficult for them to find good job opportunities here. Christiana, one of the ladies who work at the hotel, has had to deal with discrimination simply because she's Romanian, even though she's incredibly smart, one of the most beautiful people I've met, and has two B.A.'s under her belt. The Internet cafe that I always go to to type up my blog posts is owned by a family of Indians, who are all very nice people. The father, who is obviously the "boss," always makes sure I have a chair to sit down at when I come in here to use a computer, because there are clusters of Romanian teenagers who come in here and hog all the chairs for one computer. So he'll make them give up a chair when that does happen.

All About Vatican City

Back to Tuesday: More about the Vatican City. We set off for Rome bright and early because the line to get into the Vatican museums always starts early, and usually ends up becoming blocks long at the very least. By the time we got there after getting off the Metro, there was already a line down the street from the entrance to the museums, but it wasn't too bad, about a half block long. There were all kinds of really irritating people hawking badly made products along the line though, such as awful Chinese-style hats ("to protect yourself from the sun"), fans (the man selling these was badgering an elderly lady in front of us for about 20 minutes to buy a fan because she was too nice to tell him to go away) and overpriced, cheaply made and flimsy scarves (because you're not allowed into the Vatican with your shoulders bared). You have to tell these people very loudly and rudely "No!" or "GO AWAY," or they'll never leave you alone.

It probably took about 20 or 30 minutes in line before we were able to get through the front doors. We got our tickets and then set off. There is a designated route for tourists throughout the entire Vatican museum (which basically takes you throughout the assorted famous buildings containing the four Stanze di Raffaello, the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's frescos, galleries of famous classical sculptures, etc). The entire Vatican museum is beautiful, but horribly overcrowded, and because we were only seeing a few specific things, our teacher was power walking in front of us to get to our various destinations. He had said we must absolutely keep together since it's terribly easy to get lost there, but we had considerable difficulty managing to follow him through the thick and slow-moving crowds gawking at everything in sight. The Vatican Museum made my heart race, but not because of beautiful artwork or anything, but just because of all the damn running I did!

Nevertheless, it was still a great experience--we got to see the Stanza della segnatura (the famous rooms with Raphael's frescos in the public papal apartments, including that of the School of Athens). This was a surprising experience, since in all the prints I've seen of the School of Athens, it always looks impossibly detailed. But the fresco is very large in reality, spanning the entire size of the wall that it is painted on, and it's really quite beautiful to look at. You can see Aristotle and Plato in the center and you can also see portraits of Michelangelo and Raphael--in fact, Raphael painted his own image onto the side of the fresco, and this self-portrait of himself looks back out at you. It's almost a moving experience to lock gazes with this master of painting from over 500 years ago. See beneath:



The other important part of the Vatican Museum we got to look at was the Sistine Chapel. This is the most horribly crowded part of the Vatican though, and so it's not entirely the most pleasant viewing experience. The Sistine chapel is perhaps one and a half times the size of a good sized basketball stadium, but filled almost shoulder-to-shoulder with tourists with their heads bent over backwards. Also, there were various very stern museum attendants chewing anyone out for taking pictures--even without the flash on. I snubbed this rule and discreetly took pictures anyway by hiding Natasha's camera in my purse, and holding it so the lens faced the ceiling while I depressed the shutter button. I got some fairly excellent pictures of the ceiling by using the timer on the camera with the flash off, although assorted body parts of mine occasionally protrude into the corner of some of the photos--an direct view of the underneath of my nostrils, for instance.

We were only given about 8 minutes to look at the ceiling before moving on to a gallery of classical sculpture--where we saw the famous Laocoon sculpture that was discovered in someone's backyard in the year 1506, and consequently served as the inspiration for newly dramatic, spiraling and theatrical Renaissance and Baroque sculpture. It was very exciting to see this particular sculpture. It represents the moment when the goddess Minerva sends two sea serpents to strangle Laocoon and his two sons as a form of punishment, and the three of them all die a horrible death. You can see where one of the serpents is biting Laocoon on his side. Pretty grisly stuff, but still beautiful!



After that, we left the Vatican Museums, went back out onto the street and walked down some ways to get to the grand Piazza S. Pietro, the enormous space in front of St. Peter's Basilica designed by Bernini (the greatest sculptor and arguably the greatest architect of the Baroque period). This piazza has three parts--a rectangular space directly in front of St. Peter that opens up into an enormous oval surrounded on both sides by a mighty, swinging double colonnade of Tuscan columns, and then an area that extends out onto a modern street that Mussolini installed during his rule (and consequently completely screwing up the original look of the piazza). See the picture below of the set up--the view is from the top of St. Peter's looking out to the other side of the piazza where the modern street begins.



In the center is an enormous ancient Egyptian obelisk that was moved there from another location in the Renaissance, and there's an amusing story behind the event. During the raising of the obelisk, in 1586, this was such a fragile and delicate operation, because if the obelisk fell, then it would obviously break. The sitting Pope at the time threatened that anyone watching or involved in the event who made a sound would be immediately executed, for fear of distracting the workers raising the obelisk. There were even gallows erected on site to execute anyone who did utter a sound. So the entire crowd that turned out to watch this ambitious undertaking was breathless and silent. But one worker bravely disobeyed the Pope's commands when he saw the ropes holding the obelisk were burning and about to catch on fire from the friction--he called out, "Water to the ropes!" The pope afterwards commended the worker for his bravery and gave him a reward (anything he wanted). The obelisk itself is 500 tons, which is basically a million pounds! So again, an incredible undertaking back in the late 1500s!

Finally we went into St. Peter's. They really are extremely strict about appropriate clothing when you go into the church, and there's a passageway where there are men in suits looking for anyone violating the dress code (shorts that are too shorts, bare shoulders for both men and women). They actually turn back people who don't meet the requirements. The interior of St. Peter's is so large that even with the vast amounts of tourists there, there's still plenty of space to move around. To one side is Michelangelo's sculpture of the Pieta, showing Mary holding her dead Christ adult child in her lap. This famous sculpture is in a side chapel, but completely blocked off with a wall of plexiglass to protect it. The plexiglass was scratched and pretty dingy, so one couldn't really get a good view of the Pieta, which was a bit of a let down. There was also a massive crowd of tourists in front of the plexiglass, so I just went, took a picture and left that area.

There is an immense amount of space inside St. Peter's--the height and width of it is almost dizzying. There's plenty of things to see here--Bernini's famous and massive bronze Baldacchino that sits over the high altar, which in turn sits atop the final resting place of St. Peter himself (the rock upon which the Catholic church is built), various tombs of various Popes and other important individuals, beautiful Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, and just, really, too many things to list. The Baldacchino is of special note here because it is deceptively massive--three stories high and crushingly heavy, 927 tons. While building this, they actually had to dig beneath the pavement of St. Peter's to make the proper foundations for the baldacchino, and in order to do so, they disturbed the resting places of holy relics and tombs of saints. The columns of the baldacchino that you see extend deeply into the pavement beneath the church. It was a pretty controversial undertaking at the time. See the baldacchino beneath:



There's much more I could say about St. Peter's--Michelangelo's Dome, the marbled patterns in the floor, but there's just too much to look at there. Overall, there's a sense of overpowering grandeur and opulence here, not that that's necessarily a bad thing. St. Peter's Basilica is essentially the symbol of the power of the Catholic Church, and an impressive symbol at that.

On the way out of the Vatican, along the street are many touristy stores hawking many products relating to Vatican City. There's all kinds of absolutely bizarre things that one can purchase from these stores--bottles in the shape of the Virgin Mary to hold holy water, holographic pictures of Jesus on the cross where he opens and closes his eyes (extremely creepy and deeply disturbing), and bottle-openers that are shaped like the Pope's head.

Tired

Tuesday: Went to Vatican City. Rushed through Vatican Palaces, got to see the Sistine Chapel (with Michelangelo's ceiling frescos) and the Papal Apartments, and then we spent some time in St. Peter's Basilica and the large piazza in front of it. Actually went into the Basilica and got to see the great baldachinno sitting over the tomb of St. Peter himself.

Wednesday: More Ancient Rome. Went to the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla (absolutely enormous); an ancient Christian catacomb from the 2nd century and a famous tomb on the Appian Way.

Thursday: Lots of Baroque churches in Rome. Beautiful architecture and sculpture by Bernini and Borromini. Saw President Bush drive by in a whatdoyacallit, motorcade thingy with a police car in front, the car containing the president in the middle, and the police car in behind. Windows were black so we didn't see Bush, but it was him in the car zipping by. No one else on the street, it just was a random incident that the motorcade drove by where we happened to be.

Lots of drama, high stress and roommate strife for everyone this week; people are starting to get to the point where they're ready to go back home. I'm ready to stop paying for ice and ketchup (they don't come free), being able to cook my own food and having more than one pillow to sleep on at night. Nevertheless, don't get me wrong--this is a fantastic place. But for such a length of time, it's nice to spend it with people you know and love well.

More details on what I did this week tomorrow (which is a free day); this is just a marker post until I can write up a more descriptive entry.

I saw Tom Hanks

Yesterday, I was supposed to meet Katie and Mica in Rome, but we ended up in completely different areas, so I wandered around for a while on my own. I drifted over to the Pantheon and saw they were filming a movie there, so I decided to sit there and watch. They were shooting the same scene several times in a row, and the two obvious stars of the movie were walking across the piazza in the Pantheon. One of the stars was a gentleman actor, who I thought looked a lot like Tom Hanks, but I didn't think it was possibly him because he looked a little older than I thought he'd be, and the other person was a young, very pretty Italian brunette. I watched them film for about a hour, and then it turns out a couple had just gotten married in the Pantheon. The bride was blonde, beautiful and sparkling, and when she came out, everyone in the entire piazza clapped for them (an Italian custom whenever anyone gets married). The two actors came up to the bride and groom, and the gentleman actor gave the bride a kiss on both cheeks. I thought it was overall really neat, and after a little bit more of this, I went off and wandered some more down the Corso.

So today I did a search to find out what movies are currently filming in Rome, and Angels and Demons is one of them. I click on that link, and I find photos of the man and woman that I saw on set, and the man WAS TOM HANKS after all. I also recognized the woman in the photo. I watched Tom Hanks for a hour, and never realized it was him! HOLY NUTS. I am KICKING myself so hard now for not taking any pictures! I did actually take one picture of the scene in front of the Pantheon, but I think it was a picture of the extras because they were using broad stereotypes for a typical "Italian crowd" (with groups of friars, nuns, children playing with bubble guns, Indians hawking roses, Asian tourists with their cameras and so on) and I thought that was funny.

Basically who I got to see yesterday on set (photo ganked from Internet, of them at another location in Rome):



Geez.

Firenze, part two

To "w", who posted a question to the last post regarding my ability to remember details, I do actually jot down things occasionally throughout the day in this manner to help jog my memory later on as to what I've done earlier: "Arch. museum; Holy Cross (2nd church); Duomo: Neato, gaudy facade but awesome view; excellent dinner at end of day," but all the additional details about my activities throughout the day come straight from my memory. It's really not that difficult for me to recall what I've seen throughout the day; I tend to retain visual details really well.

So anyway, on to our second day in Florence, last Friday! We spent most of the day at two of the major museums in Florence, the Uffizi Museum and the Accademia. We went to the Uffizi first, and were greeted by a colleague and friend of our professor's, Liliana. She is a professor as well, and an expert on Renaissance painting, and she had generously offered to lecture us on Renaissance art as we went through the museums throughout the day. In the Uffizi, she took us all on a whirlwind tour of art from the late Medieval period to Mannerism. We were all dazzled by the works of Botticelli, Paolo Uccello, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, etc. We more or less started off in a room filled with very large, beautifully intact altarpieces by Giotto, Cimabue and Duccio respectively, and I actually burst into tears upon being surrounded by these works of art that I'd studied for several semesters in the past. As we moved through the museum, we saw major icons of Renaissance art--Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring, Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo and many more lovely works of art that I could keep listing on for quite some time. Throughout the Uffizi, I had to keep fanning myself with my tacky souvenir fan to keep my eyes dry. Below-- some of the paintings listed above, and the photos do them no justice whatsoever.









One thing that annoyed me in particular was that there were large panels of plexiglass over some of the more famous pieces, due to recent incidents in which individuals have punched holes, defaced or otherwise mutilated well known works of art for no reason. There's a definite glare on the plexiglass that keeps one from being able to see details such as the patina on the surface of a painting, the quality of the paint, brush marks, smaller details being blocked out where the light hits the glass, that sort of thing. So that alone irked me, but I can understand why museums have to take such drastic action these days to protect paintings. There's no knowing what kind of person is going to come through the doors of a museum, and if that person has vandalism in mind or not.

After the Uffizi (we didn't even get to see half of the important works of art there, so I'll just need to make a return trip there someday); we headed off to the Accademia, skipped all the galleries of less important paintings and went straight to the hall containing Michelangelo's most well known sculpture, the David. Yeah, the David. The sculpture of David was immensely impressive, and towered some seventeen feet high. In the hall were also Michelangelo's unfinished Prisoners/Slaves sculptures, which are really fascinating to look at. They're very large, rough blocks of marble with only partially completed sculptures of men in varying poses. Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to work on these sculptures for another project (he was supposed to do a series of forty of these massive sculptures to adorn a tomb), but then Pope Julius II changed his mind and had Michelangelo paint the Sistine chapel instead. The fascinating aspect of these sculptures is that the men look like they're struggling to free themselves from the prison of marble holding them, and they also give us an insight into Michelangelo's process work. An example of one of the Prisoners/Slaves, of which there were a whole bunch of in the hall:



After the Accademia, we had some free time until midafternoon, visited yet another beautiful cathedral (Santa Maria Novella), had gelato together as a class, and then were released for the weekend. I spent the rest of Friday evening with my roommates and we all went to bed early, utterly worn out. The rest of the following morning was spent checking out of the hotel and exploring the nearby artisan market for gifts for family and friends. I made a purchase of an inexpensive leather jacket at a leather store, and I had haggled over the price of the jacket for some time. The salesman at the end, kissed me on both cheeks, but then overstepped his boundaries and tried to go straight for my mouth. He had a clear intent to kiss me passionately, probably thinking he had nothing to lose. I very sternly and loudly said, "Oh, no, no, NO!" Fortunately, he stopped as soon as I protested, but I felt really weird about the incident for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, we headed home for Rome and Frascati.

Firenze!

So, a detailed account of our class trip to Firenze Thursday through Saturday of last week! We took an early train out of Frascati, at 7:30 AM Thursday, and it turns out on that particular day, the transportation authorities were doing a crackdown on ticket checks. See, when you get a ticket for the train or bus or metro (subway), you don't have your ticket checked when you go on. But despite this, you can't take the chance of getting onto one of these modes of transportation without a ticket, because if they catch you during random ticket checks, you'll be fined anywhere from 50 to 150 euros. If you don't have the money on you in cold, hard cash, then they'll either drag you forcibly to the police station or, better yet even, to an ATM machine so you can withdraw the necessary amount to pay the fine.

So, this is the one day that poor Katie, our roommate, forgets her monthly train pass. She left it by accident in the back pocket of her jeans in the hotel room. So along comes the ticket lady, and Katie just gets ready to pay the fine (which was 50 euros, equivalent to about 80 or 90 dollars). This is looking like it'll be a really bad start to our class trip to Florence, and the ticket lady looks at her and tells her to come up to the front to pay the fine. So Katie leaves us to go to several cars in front of us, and Natasha, Mica and I just give each other anxious glances. But when she comes back, she informs us that she only had to pay the equivalent of a train ticket to Rome, 1 euro and ten cents, and that the lady believed that she really did forget her ticket. Blessings abound!

From Rome, we took the fast train (EuroStar) to Florence, and the landscape zipped by in a mere hour and half. The regular (slow) train takes about four hours to get there. We got to Florence around 10:30 in the morning, but we couldn't check into the hotel until 1:00. So we were free to wander around, get food and relax a bit before class officially started in the afternoon. We went to the archaeological museum of Florence first, saw some nice ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery and sculpture, and then visited two really nice cathedrals afterwards. The first was S. Croce, or the Holy Cross. This is an enormous Gothic cathedral, and the interior was spectacular--the tombs of many famous Florentines are there, including that of Michelangelo. Picture below (pulled from Internet search.



Next, we went to the Duomo, the largest and arguably the most important cathedral in Florence. This is basically the center of religious life there, and the interior of the cathedral is colossal. The distinguishing characteristic of the Duomo is its enormous cupola (the dome). After this, the class was done for the day, but we had the option of climbing up to the Duomo. But only three people went--my two roommates and myself. There was an admission charge to climb to the top, and we climbed some 460 extremely treacherous spiraling steps up to the top of the cathedral. See photo of what the stairs were like:



On the way, we were able to get a close up look on the interior of the dome, which is covered by staggeringly enormous and beautiful frescos of heaven and hell. See photo below of interior of dome:



And then we finally got to the top and were able to enjoy the highest view possible in Florence. One is literally surrounded by a sea of red-bricked roofs, and mountains fading away into the distance. It was absolutely beautiful and we stayed up there for perhaps just under a half hour before making the equally treacherous descent to the bottom. The next photo shows the Duomo, and we are precisely where the red brick of the dome ends toward the top, on the platform above that. It was just amazing.



Next post, all about Friday and Saturday!

Monday through Wednesday, June 2-4

Only just catching up after a very busy week. I've just returned from a 2-night class trip to Florence and will be making a post about said trip tomorrow. The rest of this post will focus simply on my relatively low-key activities prior to our Florentine trip. The beginning of the week was pretty rainy, although that failed to dampen my enthusiasm. On Monday, we focused on Renaissance Rome, which really doesn't amount to that much outside of the Vatican, which has the majority of Renaissance art in Rome. We saw a couple of beautiful Gothic cathedrals with lovely Caravaggio paintings (i.e., The Calling of St. Matthew, Crucifixion of St. Peter). We also visited some nice Renaissance palaces and villas, but they were all closed since it was a national holiday. We finished up with a visit to the San Pietro in Montoro. Our interest was not in the cathedral itself, but in the courtyard next to it, which contains the Tempietto, one of the most famous masterpieces of high Renaissance architecture (see photo below, pulled from Internet as usual).



Tuesday focused on classical Rome, with visits to the forums of Trajan and Hadrian, the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, the Pantheon and the Temple of Hadrian. It rained the entire time and, of course, the rain ceased as soon as class was finished. On Wednesday, we took a day trip to Ostia Antica, an entire ancient ruined port town of Rome. This place was really fantastic, and really gave you a sense of what a classical Roman city would look like. It's often referred to as a poor man's Pompeii, which I think is because it's accessible by a mere short train trip from Rome. A photo that gives you some idea of what Ostica Antica looked like--just a sprawling mass of ruined apartments, temples, and assorted other ancient structures. We were actually able to climb up onto some of the ancient apartment complexes up to the third story, and this gave us a really fantastic view of our surroundings.



One of the places of interest we came across (other than a theater, marketplace, baths, etc.) was an ancient Roman latrine. I knew immediately what this room was, so I turned to our professor and articulated a very highly intelligent, critical statement on the purpose of the latrine:

"Poop!"

While saying this, I also made the corresponding ASL hand sign. He almost collapsed (either from amusement or dismay), and then had me repeat it for the class. They all chorused "Ohhhhhhh!" and were most intrigued by the ancient latrine, demonstrating this by posing for pictures, squatting over the holes and the like.

After we were done with our tour of Ostia Antica, we went to the cafeteria for lunch before heading back to the train. This cafeteria turned out to be the most expensive meal for any one of us since we'd arrived to Italy--we all pretty much got ripped off. I paid 15.5 euros, or $26.04, for a bowl of pasta with red sauce, a Fanta (orange soda) and a plate of cut up hot dogs and potatoes. Once we'd put the food on our tray, we had to pay for it so there wasn't really any way to back out of the cost of the meal. Everyone was pretty annoyed about our overly costly lunch, and the food I ate actually gave me severe acid reflux several hours later.

There were several signs outside the cafeteria in the Ostia Antica complex, one of which was: "Do not pet the dogs!" The complex has several large dogs that sort of lounge around with a deceptively placid manner. The signs are definitely meant to be obeyed, and this became evident when a German tourist bent over and tried to put his hand on the head of a large, reclining yellow labrador. The dog immediately looked up, started snarling and snapped at the German tourist, who was so taken aback that he started fussing at the dog. Mica and I gave each other an "Oh, lord" look, and then we both tapped the man on the shoulder and pointed out the sign to the man, who got a look of comprehension.

After our dreadful lunch, we hurried back to the train station, but most of the class lagged behind except for several girls and myself. The girls and I ran onto the train, and as I stood on the threshold of the door, waiting for the rest of the class to join, the teacher made a gesture for me to come back onto the platform. Just as he did this, the doors on the train slammed shut, and the train started moving. I tried to open the doors (this failed) and thought, "Oh, $%&£!!" (I thought a very naughty word). It turns out that the teacher and my roommates, etc., thought I was alone, which is why they tried to call me off the train. But the three other girls who came onto the train with me and I managed to make our way back to Termini station without any problems, and the rest of the class showed up shortly afterwards on the next train in.

Tomorrow, I'll be posting about our class trip to Florence and the fabulous examples of art and architecture we saw, a particularly exhausting climb to the top of the Duomo, and a much friendlier encounter with an Italian salesman than I ever would have liked.