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.

Venetian weekend

So, the hostel that the other girls in our group got--turned out not to be such a great idea. The hostel itself wasn't really that bad, but it was more of a camping site rather than a hostel. There were rows of tiny little trailer-camp style cabins, and then rows of tents you could rent. There were several things that bothered me about the hostel--for one, they were dishonest in their advertising. On their website, they advertised an hourly free shuttlebus to Venice. This was not the case at all, and at the front desk they said that was just the bus from the airport to the hostel.

Secondly, everything there cost money, and when it all added up, the total cost of staying there was equivalent to staying on the islands of old Venice. We had to use a charge card to pay for anything we used at the camp, and we had to add value to the card before we could buy or use anything. For instance, we had to purchase our own towels. When I tried to remove the price tag from mine, (the tag was the sticker kind), doing so tore out a bunch of threads and essentially made a big hole in the towel. When we were getting ready for bed after we'd come back from dinner later that night, we realized that we were next to an airport--our little cabin trembled violently every time a plane took off from the runway next to us. Since I'm really sensitive to vibrations while I'm sleeping, this didn't really help me rest at all.

The biggest issue with the hostel though, was that it was far too much trouble to get from the hostel to Venice. The hostel was on the mainland, in suburbs around Venice, and it took a good 35 minutes to get there by bus (and then you have to take further transportation via water bus to get to certain areas on Venice). By the time we'd gotten settled in after arriving at the hostel, taken a shower and tried to catch a bus to Venice, we also discovered there was a curfew for the hostel. To get back from Venice to the hostel, one has to catch no later than 10:25 P.M. a bus from the main piazza in order to get to the airport, in order to catch the bus that goes from there to the hostel. Confused yet? By this point, we (Kate, Natasha and I) decided to cancel our second night at the hostel and we went ahead and got reservations at a very small but nice bed and breakfast in a rather nice little area of Venice. The difference per person? Six euros. So anyway, Friday night--we had JUST enough time to go to Venice, eat dinner there and then rush to catch a bus to go back to the hostel.

The next morning, we checked out of the hostel with great enthusiasm. After dealing with the two bus changes to Venice, we went straight to the edge of the historic part, and found a little place to eat breakfast. This turned out to be really fantastic--the owner of the breakfast bar also owns a restaurant, and a bed and breakfast. He offered us cappucinos, orange juice and assorted pastries for five euros apiece, and it seemed fair enough, so we took it.

Out on the walkway by a canal, we ate and there were several sparrows watching us eat. I decided to put a piece of bread out on the wooden fence along the edge of the walkway, but just as soon as I'd set it down, the bird swooped in and took the crumb from my finger. Before we knew it, there were a half dozen sparrows watching us, tentatively waiting for food. So when the owner came out with a photo book of Venice for us to sign--it was full of signatures from tourists over the years--in lieu of just a signature, I doodled a little drawing of a cappucino, piece of bread and a sparrow. When the man came back out and saw the drawing, he was so pleased that he went back into his bar and brought out a brand new picture book and insisted I draw something on the front page of the book. I ended up drawing a complicated cartoon of a girl eating pastries with a nervous expression on her face, surrounded by 20 or so sparrows intently watching her. The owner was so ecstatic that he hugged me, kissed me on the head and brought me a complimentary small glass of strawberry wine. When we paid for our breakfast, he insisted that if I come back with Wendel (when we are married) and our four or five children, we would get the "family room" in his bed and breakfast. It was really a nice and very charming interaction with an Italian and one of my better individual experiences here in Italy.

Afterabout a couple of hours, we managed to track down our little bed and breakfast. They provided us with towels, a nice little sink in our room, two comfortably sized beds, a television, air conditioning and a little shared bathroom out in the hall. It was all clean and very nice for the price. It was really cute, in fact, and it was within 15 minutes slow walking distance of the Piazza of San Marco (one of the major tourist areas of Venice). Kate left Natasha and I to spend time with an Air Force friend serving in Italy, and Natasha and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around slowly, looking at the beautiful canals that crisscross through the entire city, the picturesque buildings, the cliched gondola men, lots of Murano glass shops and the Piazza of San Marco.

Because we really didn't get to our hotel until 1:00 in the afternoon, we only had a good half day to explore Venice. There was really no time to do anything serious, so Natasha and I focused on the Piazza of San Marco--a large and crowded but beautiful collection of buildings which includes two great Renaissance and Gothic palaces, the magnificent cathedral of San Marco, a very large and tall bell tower (campanile), government buildings and other assorted odds and ends. We just spent time ambling around and I pointed out various interesting architectural aspects of the buildings to Natasha, who was polite enough to put up with my artistic enthusiasm. We did get to see one very neat and famous feature in the piazza--the Four Tetrarches, which I almost missed at first because it's not in a readily apparent part of the piazza. There were a lot of really famous artistic sights I wanted to see in assorted churches and museums throughout Venice, but again, just simply not enough time. But this SHALL not be my last trip to Venice.

Venice really wasn't difficult to figure out--once you orient yourself on the map in a very prominent location such as the Piazza of San Marco or the Rialto Bridge, then it's fairly easy to get around. One piece of advice we kept hearing was to allow yourself to get deliberately lost in Venice, and it's actually true. We learned quickly not to buy anything near major tourists areas--the shops in obscure back streets gave you the best deals on jewelry and glass. Venice was just really lovely and one afternoon was nowhere near enough time to explore it properly--we couldn't even go into the cathedral in San Marco Piazza because the whole place was flooded with tourists (it was Saturday, after all). There are also a bunch of islands nearby with famous sights on them--cathedrals or glass making factories, but again, there just wasn't enough time to go out and see these things. We still had an excellent time yesterday though--we at least got to taste the flavor of Venice.

In Venice

At hostel in mainland Venice. Correction to last post, Botticelli is not in Venice, rather in Florence where the class is going next week. This hostel is a bit on the dreadful side, and there's about 100000000 mosquitos swarming outside. Nevertheless it's a bed for two nights so it'll do. There are no towels here, you have to purchase them and they are terrible cheap and tiny towels at 5 euros apiece. The internet costs an absurd 2 euros for 15 minutes. So this is going to be a short post. Ciao for now.

Wednesday and Thursday

Europe is so immensely expensive here; food alone is costing a minor fortune. We've been scouting out snack bars and telling waiters "troppo caro" (too expensive!) when they try to entice us into their ristorantes for a lunch costing a mere 10 euros (tantamount to seventeen dollars USA!) This weekend, I will be headed to Venice with Kate and Natasha; along with a group of other girls from the hotel. Mica is staying behind to enjoy Rome a bit more. We're going to be staying at a hostel; it's supposed to be a "nice" hostel but I have my reservations, so I'm just bringing what I need to survive there, and my necessities (passport, cash only to pay at restaurants, etc).

Yesterday was yet another wonderful class day. We went to the Basilica of San Clemente, which is a beautiful 12th century church. However, the really cool thing about San Clemente is that it is built over another church from the fourth century, which in turn is built over a religious temple dating back to the year 100! And we actually got to go down to these subterranean levels; it was just cool beyond words, both literally and metaphorically. The second level, the former dwelling of Clemente himself, was converted into a church for very early Christians right after Christianity was legalized. The temperature dropped about 25 degrees and not because of air conditioning, but just because we were beneath street level! It was very cave like and mysterious. Then we went down an ancient, 1800 year old stone stairway down to the very first level, where a cult worshipped the god Mithras. Here's a picture that doesn't really do justice to what being in the lower levels was like:



We went to a couple of other beautiful early Christian churches (Santa Sabina and Santa Maria in Cosmedin), and then Kate, Natasha and I went to the airport to purchase our train tickets to Venice (which were a whopping amount, but still far cheaper than flying or taking a taxi). It'll take about four hours to get there. I had my advanced art history class seminar out on the terrace with the other classmates who are in it (including Kate and Mica). We had JUST barely made it in time for class back at the hotel because the line for train tickets took so long. Kate accused me of "making her" run up the stairs and I complained that it was entirely voluntary (there's 200 feet of stairs up to the hotel from the train station; I was going up them two at a time). My brain was so fried from running up the steps I was out of breath for the first quarter of class, gasping out answers when asked questions.

At dinner, we had ravioli at the restaurant that we eat at together as a class from Monday to Thursday night; but it was really strange--it was flavored with nutmeg, which kind of ruined it. Then they served french fries and slices of veal. The girls have finally found me a wine that I enjoy. It's extremely sweet, and has a very low alcohol percentage (11%). Nevertheless, a small cup and half was enough to make me quite silly and lightheaded. Natasha, friends and teachers couldn't believe what a lightweight I was and made fun of me about it (not in a mean way at all, though). I'm really glad I can get to enjoy a wine produced right here in Frascati!

Today the class went to the Palazzo Massimo in Rome for the entire morning. This museum has several levels, but one of the most significant exhibits there was a temporary exhibit on ancient wall frescos (paintings) on loan from Pompeii. There was a wide variety of frescos in amazingly good condition... seriously, damn, the Romans and Greeks could paint! We also looked at beautiful marble sculptures (including a copy of the famous discus thrower; and a beautiful feminine sculpture that turned out to have a "surprise"--you found out she was a hermaphrodite when you walked around to the other side). Then the class was free to go for the day, but the teacher recommended that on our own free time, we could go to the sister museum of the one we were in. Mica and I were the only ones who did this and it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made on this trip.

This museum, the Palazzo Altemps, was next to impossible to find, and in the middle of a very sudden and unexpected rainstorm, we asked about 10 different Italians for directions to the museum. None of us gave us accurate directions and we wandered all over the area around the Piazza Navona. Finally, it was a German who gave us precise directions to the museum and we found it, a very unimposing and unassuming building. However, it turns out to be a Renaissance palace on the inside. As soon as we walked in, the museum knocked the socks off both of us. Not only did this museum have incredibly beautiful and intact Roman marble sculptures, but the Renaissance aspects of it as well were breathtaking. There were frescos covering the walls, and amazing Renaissance interior decoration (rosettes on the ceilings, things of that nature). Many of the frescos on the walls were damaged, but the remaining portions still showed incredibly beautiful scenes and allegorical representations (like Patience, Charity and so on) and biblical narratives.

Mica and I just wandered around slowly, taking it all in and making assorted commments on the sculptures and the Renaissance rooms. If this had been during class time, we'd have absolutely been rushed through the museum, so we were glad this wasn't the case. Another wonderful thing about this is that there weren't many people in the museum on this particular day, so in some rooms we had the sculptures all to ourselves. One of the highlights of the museum was the astonishing representation of Galata Suicida, or the Gallic chief and his wife committing suicide. A picture of it that does it NO justice whatsoever:



We were in this room for about 25 minutes, just walking around this sculpture. It is very large, larger than life, and incredibly moving. And we were the only ones in the room--it was just amazing. I'm using the word amazing and beautiful too many times, but I don't know what other superlatives I can use to describe the things I'm seeing here. I'd almost come to Rome just to see this statue alone. The palazzo also had a small but astonishingly beautiful Baroque chapel decorated with frescos, marbles and gilded angels. After that, we wandered back to the Piazza Navona and we got gelati from another famous gelati bar, and sat and enjoyed the general scenery of the piazza (it is long, and has three fountains, one at either end and a rather massive one in the center, designed by Bernini). The fountain designed by Bernini was being renovated, so it was a bit disappointing because it was all covered up with platforms and metal. The chocolate gelati nevertheless made for it. By the time Mica and I made it back to the train (we barely made it on time!) we both just agreed that we were very glad we had decided to go through the trouble of finding the Palazzo Altemps.

My next post will not be until either Sunday or Monday, because I have no guarantees about having internet access in Venice! But I will be sure to take a ride in a gondola, get to see a variety of artworks such as Botticelli's Birth of Venus fresco, and just enjoy the general Venetian cityscape.

Tuesday the 27th of May

I have some pictures of the trip that I got from Kate! Click on each to see the photograph.

Pretending to be in jail--Kate took this picture of me behind the gates at Santa Maria in Travestere.
Kate in front of the villa-- I took this picture. We're standing in front of the villa that overlooks Frascati on the mountain. Our hotel is one of the buildings just to the right of Kate's shoulder. Behind the visible buildings is what our view of Rome from our hotel room looks like!
Our bathroom--this is our bathroom with all our laundry, and the bidet (second toilet used for washing one's bum). We have not used the bidet.
Our TEACHER--we have taken to calling him Dr. Jones because of his hat. He is breaking his own no-cell-phone-use-in-class rule.
The sidewalk chalk artist from Australia-- that we met last weekend.

Today started out proving to be very warm, well, really pretty hot. It's still fairly humid here from the wintertime, plus most places in Rome don't have air conditioning, so we were sweating almost as soon as we set off for Rome from the hotel. Last week, I was actually so concerned about moisture affecting my hearing aids that I made a make-shift dry-aid container for them. I got a box of dried rice from the local grocery store and put it into a tupperware container; and it worked pretty well as far as absorbing moisture from my hearing aids goes!

We were outdoors the entire time for the duration of class, but our teacher kept us moving very quickly so we were able to finish before noon to catch the train back to Frascati, and to avoid the worst of the afternoon sun. We spent a lot of time in the Roman Forum area to see the Forums of Caesar and Augustus, and then we went to another area close by, in the Campius Martus (the name denoting a geographic region of Rome containing many monuments) to see the theater of Marcellus and the Porticus of Octavia, which were right next to each other. I spent almost all my time in the sun with my umbrella to protect myself from the sun; and I might spend the rest of the trip doing that. A lot of the people in my class already have been burnt to an extent and I'm doing my best to avoid that.

So, the Forum of Julius Caesar, and the Forum of Augustus were basically additions to the Roman Forum, which at the time, was getting too crowded and not large enough to serve the many functions happening in there (shopping, business, legislative and judicial issues, etc). The next two pictures show the forums; the first is the Caesaran forum and the next is Augustus's forum.







Mostof the forum of Augustus was blocked off because it's next to a major street in Rome, and they were getting it ready for a parade (by installing bleacher seats and so on). Independence Day for the Italians is right around the corner, on June 1 or June 2. We'll see what happens with that and how it affects class! After these two forums, we were going to walk through the Jewish Ghetto to go to a section of the Campus Martius, but our way was blocked by a movie company getting ready to do filming for some Italian soap opera. So we had to take a pretty wide detour to get to our next destination, the Theater of Marcellus.



This is a theater that was constructed before the famous Colosseum. Marcellus was one of Augustus' adopted sons who was due to become his heir, so Augustus named the theater after him. However Marcellus died before Augustus. This was a problem that often happened with emperors, they would name heirs and then the heirs would die before the emperors did. But at any rate, this theater was a regular theater-- in the shape of a half circle. An amphitheater is a theater that makes a complete circle around the stage, as is the case with the Colosseum. A theater is when the theater makes a semi circle around the stage. In fact, the Greek theater at LSU is incorrectly called the Greek amphitheater, even though it doesn't form a complete circle.



Next to the theater itself is a temple, the Porticus of Octavia, who was Augustus's sister. He named the theater after her, since he had so many great monuments named after himself. People would still connect the temple with Augustus via his sister. This temple is one of the oldest temples that is still in very good condition. It has the original pediment (the triangular section on top of the structure), cornices (the decoration that sticks out on the edge of the roof), and archaeologists have recovered fragments of an enormous map of Rome that covered the walls--this gave them a lot of information about the layout of Rome in that era.

After that, most of the class hurried back to the train station via the bus, and Natasha, Kate and I went straight to our favorite pizzeria for lunch. The pizza there is excellent, and the person, a guy in his late twenties or early thirties, who usually cuts the pizza up for us, is quite possibly one of the nicest people ever. He's come to know us by sight now, and is always enthusiastic every time we get pizza from there. Yesterday, a second incidence of a pigeon entering the pizzeria occurred, and we were eating at one of the tables outside when this happened. We watched the pigeon strut into the store, pecking aimlessly at the floor. When the pizza boy came to shoo it out, the pigeon banged into the window before it could fly out of the store.

I'm going to describe a few incidents that I forgot to mention in my earlier posts. It's been really wonderful to walk around Rome with our teacher (who has a PhD. in art history, is an archaeologist, and speaks fluent Italian). He's way better than a tour guide could ever be, since he can give us so much information about the things we see, and help us in a crisis or emergency when we can't speak Italian. Yesterday, I went to meet Natasha at a local coffee shop so we could study together (Natasha was to study interpreter-related books, and myself for this art history course). When I got there, Natasha looked very distressed. It turns out that the check out boy meant to put a charge of 27.90 euros on Natasha's card, but accidentally charged her 279 euros instead, which is close to 450 American dollars! He didn't know how to fix it, and they only spoke Italian so it was a difficult situation. But Natasha was able to call our teacher, and he came and helped her sort it out with the manager of the restaurant. They were VERY sorry and deeply embarrassed about the mistake, and gave Natasha her coffee for free, and gave her a discount on the wine she purchased. I tried to purchase some water and coffee after this happened and they wouldn't let me pay for it either, even though I only got there after the mistake happened. It could have been a much worse situation, but it worked out in the end.

Last week, when we were at the Colosseum, there was that horrible thunderstorm that went on all morning. After we finally got inside the Colosseum after two hours in pouring rain, we were getting ready to listen to the teacher lecture about the Colosseum when a man, an American, came up to us and asked the teacher if we wanted a tour guide. The teacher told him no, and the man flipped out and became infuriated at the teacher's refusal. The man started cursing at our teacher, using the F-word liberally, and then tried to knock him down to the ground! We were able to avoid a nasty confrontation though, just by moving on.

Another "tour-guide" incident happened yesterday as well. We were at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and we were in the front of the building talking about the great, original bronze doors there. We were looking at a particular page in our course packet, which our teacher made specifically for us, copying various pages with lots of diagrams and photographs from assorted literature. Another man came by us and yelled at our teacher, shouting, "Why are you using a tour guide packet?!!" He thought that our teacher was lecturing from some generic tour guide booklet, which he wasn't. It was really strange.

Then today, another misunderstanding happened on the subway. Kate and Mica were a little bit of a distance away from me on the subway, so I didn't see this happen. But apparently, what happened was that this tall and very smelly, dirty man came onto the train. He was really oily and greasy and had long lank hair. When he put his arm up to grab a handhold, Kate's face was right in his reeking armpit, and she and Mica couldn't help but start laughing. Then they started a discussion about rude people in general, but it wasn't about this man in particular, just other incidents that had happened, such as with the tour guide. But the man apparently understood English, and thought they were referring to him. When it was time to exit the train, he tried to spit on Kate. However, he missed her; his spit landed on random woman who conveniently walked in front of Kate. Wild stuff. I know that in the USA, spitting is a form of assault and you can be arrested for that. I don't know if the same applies to here.

There's a saying that nothing goes right in Italy, and it's proved to be very true on a daily basis. It has NOT been boring at all so far, though, and I doubt that'll ever be the case here.

weekend, Monday

This weekend was pretty low-key; on Saturday we met the mayor of Frascati, the town we're staying in, and toured the outside of a very old Italian Renaissance villa on top of the mountain that overlooks Frascati. It was pretty hot though and it made me feel unwell, so I quit early for the day. Spent the rest of the day washing my garments, reading and going to dinner.

Sunday was also relatively unfrantic--there was a free museum exhibition in Rome about the return of looted artifacts to Italy from other museums around the world. Some of these items had never been seen before and were absolutely gorgeous and/or completely intact. Another teacher from LSU in fact met us at the museum; and I'd actually had her for one of my first art history classes a few years ago. It was really pleasant to see her again. I fell in love with one sculpture, of a clothed woman, and Kate and I actually pulled up chairs and sat there drawing her for a little bit. On the way over to the museum, we actually walked past the Trevi fountain! There were a TON of tourists there though, so we didn't spend too much time looking at the fountain. The best view of it is supposedly at night, so I'll have to make a return visit (not alone, of course!) After that, we had lunch and were pooped so we went home. But something went wrong at the train station, and we missed our train home, so we had to wait another two hours for the next train to Frascati (meaning that Natasha, Kate, I, and John who joined us later at the station, were stuck there for almost four hours). At least it was just Sunday evening.

To answer some questions in the comments from my last post, gypsies are definitely not dressed in gaudy costumes with colorful headscarves and big gold earrings. Most of them wear regular clothes, that are somewhat on the shabby side. You can almost always assume that a person is a gypsy if anyone with a dark sort of olive complexion comes up to you begging for money or tries to ask you to do a favor for them or asks you questions. Also, as far as children in Italy go--we really haven't seen so much of them. They seem to be pretty shy though. One thing that they do here, that children don't in the USA is sing. They literally do sing songs all the time out in public. It's really neat.

As far as my roommates go, Mica is a wonderful woman who lives about 30 minutes away from LSU. She's actively involved in many different activities--she is a veterinarian for all sorts of animals; grandmother to 5 children (with two more on the way soon!) and a photographer in her free time. She is studying art at LSU, loves to travel (this is her third visit to Italy) and is actively involved in her church. Kate is trying to get into the graphic design program at LSU, so hopefully when she does get in, she'll be a couple of years below me in the program. She does lots of drawing like me, and we've been spending time trying to draw in our sketchbooks during our free time. We find ourselves talking about lots of silly and fun things and I really enjoy the time that I spend with both Mica and Kate.

Today was a very exciting day... we got to see some serious churches today; early Christian churches at the very least. All but one of the churches that we saw today are not in their original 4th to 6th century state, because of constant revisions and remodelings done to them over the last 14 to 16 centuries. First, we went back to the Colosseum to inspect the Arch of Constantine, which is close by. This is another enormous triumphal arch, and there were lots of wonderful and interesting things about it.

Then we took a brief break to get some snacks before going back to the train station to go to the churches on our itinerary. Natasha got a bag of dried fruits and while we were eating outside, she accidentally spilled some of the dried fruit. There was an Italian close by who gave Natasha a dirty look, even though the fruit was biodegradable (and would most likely be eaten by birds or stray animals within the day). Italians throw cigarette butts and trash all over the place! And in fact, about five minutes later, a woman with an enormous Doberman on a leash did walk by, and the dog tried to go after the fruit on the ground (but the woman pulled him away from the healthy treat on the ground). Geez.

So, we were able to see three major early Christian churches today. They're listed below in order of oldest to the most recent, and snapshots of each one that I pulled from the Internet as usual, not being able to develop my film here at the moment.


Santa Pudenziana (4th century CE). One of the most well preserved and oldest churches in Rome, this was a little gem. It was pretty small, but absolutely beautiful. There were original mosaics in the apse from the 4th century, but also lots of artwork added over the centuries (especially in the Renaissance). There were no real churches prior to this time, because it was around 312 that the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, thus allowing Christians to come out of the underground and worship in public.


Santa Maria Maggiore (about 5th century CE for the interior)
This church was immensely impressive and had a gorgeous gilded, coffered ceiling. There were original mosaics from the time the church was first created, and then later sculptures and paintings that were just beautiful (especially a row of frescos that went all the way around the clerestory (the top of the long, middle part of the church), showing the various scenes that occurred before, during and after Christ's crucifixion. Various popes are interred here, as well as the great Baroque sculptor Bernini who created stunningly beautiful works of art such as the following representation of Apollo and Daphne (Apollo fell in love with the wood nymph, Daphne, but Daphne did not want to be taken by him, so instead of allowing Apollo to capture her, she turns herself into a tree).



Another really neat thing about this church is that they have relics; one of which are fragments from (supposedly) the True Cross.


Basilica of St. John Lateran, considered to be the most important Catholic church in the world. Popes were established here for quite a while. On the high altar, only the Pope is allowed to conduct mass here. This church is overwhelmingly huge, and the interior no longer looks like it did in the first millenium; the interior was transformed in the Baroque period and is full of enormous sculptures, richly colored marbles and all sorts of insane things. The downside of this church is that there were so many things to look at one didn't know where to start.

Today was very warm, and the trend is going to continue for the rest of this week. Also, my body really is reacting severely to the general pollution of Rome and all the pollen in the air here; my antihistamines are only just barely keeping me from getting really sick. Cross your fingers for me that my general health holds out until the end of the trip!

Friday

Yesterday was our first day off from class. Mica went out of town for the weekend, so it was just me and Kate, plus the fourth roommate. Kate and I got up, before everyone else as usual (around 8:00 or so) and went out onto the terrace for breakfast and coffee. Christiana came and sat with us, since she can't get any cleaning done until people wake up and leave their rooms (which with some of the girls, doesn't happen until after noon). We conversed and had a nice time, teaching each other more words in English and Italian (bionda capeli (blonde hair); buona colazione (good breakfast); fine settimana (end of the weekend). The same thing happened for this morning (Saturday), she came out onto the terrace and sat with us and we discussed Mickey Mouse (Italians apparently love Mickey Mouse), Romanian discrimination, our studies at college, boyfriends and news from home.

After breakfast yesterday, Natasha, Kate and I went and hit the street where Italians do most of their shopping. This street is really cool. We went down a side street and found a neat Mona Lisa store that Kate really liked; it had lots of paintings spoofing Mona Lisa. We had lunch at a cafe where the waiter was terribly rude to us for speaking Italian badly (until I showed him my hearing aid and made him feel bad!) and then went all the way down the via to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is just one of the coolest buildings in the world, and it's one of the few truly intact and ancient structures from the classical world. A picture of what the interior looks like (that I pulled from the Internet, I didn't take this picture).



The Pantheon was mind blowing as soon as you walked in. The coffered dome is literally perfection, and there are no pictures that can give you an accurate sense of how HUGE it is on the inside. It's still used as a church today. All around, there were assorted niches with various beautiful sculptures and artwork, but one of the most amazing things was Raphael's tomb. Like, seriously, the tomb of the Great Raphael of the Renaissance! We spent some time in there, and then on our way back, we ate gelati from one of the more famous gelati stores in Rome (Giolitti's), wandered into various clothing stores (Natasha bought me a bag that was meant for me--it says "A" on one side and "I (heart) bags" on the other). I dared Kate to go pet a horse, but she wouldn't unless I went with her. We did pet a horsey in the piazza in front of the Pantheon, and it actually started falling asleep when we were scratching his neck.

On the way back to the subway, we had a conversation with a sidewalk muralist from Australia. This guy was pretty interesting, and we guarded his money box and his artwork while he went off to get something to drink. He was attempting to do a reproduction of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" on the sidewalk. We showed him some of our sketches. Next to his artwork (which he had only gotten started on, it typically takes him four weeks to finish a complete sidewalk mural) he had chalked up a sign for "lost tourists." This was hilarious. Some excerpts from this sign:

"Every day, lost tourists keep asking me the same questions; so here are the answers..."
... "Colosseum--it's too difficult to explain so go to the Pantheon instead."
... "St. Peter's and the Vatican--walk down the street until you reach the river, and follow it to your left. Cross te bridge with the statues on it and then simply follow the trail of African guys selling fake Prada handbags.
..."Nearest McDonald's: So... you travel to a new country to experience a different culture, famous all over the world for its food, wine and all you want to do is eat at McDonald's..."

The last bit was particularly hilarious because Natasha had indeed eaten at McDonald's earlier this week at the Termini train station.

Oh! We figured out why the gypsy man on the train was trying to bait Natasha with an one euro coin. This is part of a scam, where when they put the coin in your hand, they will slide any rings that you have on as they take away their hand! They're apparently so adept at doing this you don't even feel them taking off your rings. Natasha had actually gotten a very expensive ring for her recent wedding, one that her husband took out a second mortgage on their home so they could afford it. When getting ready to come here, she considered bringing it, but then ended up deciding to leave the ring at home even though they had insurance on it. She got a very small, thin, silver toned ring for the trip instead, and even with just that, the gypsies still tried to go after it! Crazy stuff.

May 21 and May 22

Yesterday, the weather in Rome was absolutely the pits. As soon as we left the hotel, it was already raining and gloomy. By the time we got to Rome, the weather had lightened up somewhat though, and stopped raining, so the teacher decided to go ahead and take us to the Palatine Hill first (it would be considerably a terrible place to visit in the rain because of all the mud and lack of concrete walkways). The Palatine Hill was much more than I expected.

Even from a distance, you can see the remains of the once immense palace of Diocletian. This emperor decided to build the largest and most lavish palace that he possibly could, and spared no expenses in getting all sorts of costly materials for his home (various marbles from around the world, rare woods from Lebanon, etc). After Diocletian, every emperor lived in this palace for about four more centuries. This palace really was spectacular in its prime with ceilings four stories high, marbled floors, multiple courtyards and fountains with running water. Currently, the place is a pale shadow of what it used to be, but when we got to the top of the hill, you could see even from the ruins how immensely impressive the size and extent and complexity of the palace was. Here and there you could see original items from its heyday, such as shattered yellow marble columns, mosaics here and there, intact apartments, etc. From the top of the hill, there's an incredible 360 degree view.

The weather decided to turn on us though when we climbed back the 3 zillion steps down the hill to go over to the Colosseum. As soon as we got into line for the Colosseum, it started pouring rain, and there were a lot of people who wanted to get in. We spent almost two miserable hours in pouring rain, which was made even worse by all the people huddling together in umbrellas. The rainwater was pouring off the edges of the umbrellas and onto everyone else, so everyone pretty much got soaked to the bone from neck down. We were supposed to go to two other places after the Colosseum, but the teacher called it quits after the Colosseum. We did eventually get inside, and he gave a brief lecture on the bloody history of the building. It was really neat to be in there, and to get to see the inside (sort of reminded me of Tiger Stadium) but it almost really wasn't worth the two hours standing in pouring rain. After this, we all made a beeline for the train station and went home.

Now, so far, some of my classmates have already been pickpocketed! One had a pack of cigarettes stolen from her back pocket, and another had his umbrella lifted. People in Italy will steal anything you don't have a good grip on... and then one girl got pushed down by a man on the bus, who then grabbed all her money. Crazy stuff.

Now... the gypsies. They're really working the system at the train station. Two days ago, a gypsy woman came up to Mica, me, and Natasha while we were waiting for Kate to return from the restrooms. She said something to all of us but we dutifully ignored her, as you're supposed to do with gypsies, and just said "No" to anything she said. I asked after she left what she'd said and I was informed she was asking for money for her baby. It sort of burns me that she'd use her baby to try to get money from people. Then yesterday, I saw the exact same woman with the baby coming in our direction, but she apparently recognized us, sort of went around us and went looking for another unwitting person to scam.

Then later, when we got on the train to go home (after the Colosseum disaster) two other gypsies were walking up and down the train. What they did was really ODD. One, a woman, was passing out photocopied pieces of paper to people (while they ignored her, of course). I picked it up after she'd left and read it, and I could understand enough root words to get the basic gist of the note: "I have no home, my baby needs food, my family is suffering, please give me money!" Then the woman came back to see if anyone would give her money. Then, the man who was with her came by where we were sitting, and did something even stranger: Natasha was sitting next to me, and the dirty gypsy man tried to "give" her an euro coin, but when she confusingly held out her hand, he took it back, like he was trying to bait a fish or something. It was REALLY odd, and we knew this was some sort of scam, so we ignored him and told him to go away. Eventually he did go away. I never knew that gypsies were this much of a problem. I just thought they were another ethnic group of people.

Today, we got up even earlier than usual to try to get to get to the Museum of the Ara Pacis, when it opened at 9 A.M. I had a bit of bad luck this morning though; I had conflicting medicines in my system when I took my antihistamine and my acid reflux mediction and some generic tylonel (there was some Tylonel PM still left in my system from last night). When we were going down into the subway system at the Termini train station, I suddenly felt really weak and dizzy. By the time we came out of the subway system to the surface where we were going to start walking to the museum, I felt really awful--completely weakened, short of breath, even dizzier than before and I felt like my arms and feet were really heavy. I didn't think I was in any real danger though; the antihistamine and the Tylonel PM from last night was just too much for me.

My roommates and interpreters were definitely concerned. They said I was even paler than I usually am and not looking at all well. The teacher was thankfully understanding about it; he let me sit to eat my apple while he lectured the class. He's also been very accomodating about my ankle issues, although so far, I have yet to have trouble keeping up with him even though he walks pretty quickly. I figured the best thing I could do was let my system work the medication issue out, and try to eat something filling; all I'd had for breakfast were two slices of bread with butter and some coffee. The apple helped me tremendously, and then Natasha gave me her apple as well. We walked down the street, and it turns out that we were pretty early for our destination, so the teacher gave us time for a coffee break, and I scarfed down a cream filled pastry and some juice and by the time we got to the museum, I felt more or less back to my normal self. Food can do wonders for you!

The museum containing the Ara Pacis is a very contemporary and new building, only constructed a few years ago. But the building itself wasn't so much important as what was inside it, the Ara Pacis, or the Altar of Peace, built during the reign of Augustus to celebrate the peace he brought to the city of Rome. The Altar of Peace was something I'd already learned about in my art history classes in the past, and I was really excited to see this, both for its historical significance and its wonderful artistry. It was even better in person, pictures do it no justice. The whole thing is almost entirely intact. Although there are some sections of it that have been lost, those missing pieces have been replaced with plaster restorations. The whole thing was just utterly beautiful.

Here is a picture of the Ara Pacis from the internet:


After that, we walked along a long street of interesting shops with clothes, to which Natasha, perhaps Kate and I will be returning to tomorrow to browse around. We are being given the honor of an official reception by the town of Frascati this weekend, so we need a couple of nice outfits for this event this weekend! We walked through the Piazza Colonna, where the office of the Prime Minister is, as the Parliament! There was actually a protest getting ready to protest the Prime Minister for something as we walked by, so there were LOTS of Italian policemen and security detail there. Then we went to the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina, which is an ancient site containing four temples. This whole area is sunken about 10 or 15 feet into the ground beneath the surrounding modern city. This area is also apparently home to all the feral cats in Italy--we could see literally dozens of them padding around in the overgrown grass around broken and ancient column shafts. The teacher actually informed us that there's a law saying you cannot touch, hurt or displace any stray cats that take up residence in Rome. Yay for Roma, cat-loving city!

Then we padded on through to the Jewish Ghetto/Slums, where the Jews were forced to reside during the Renaissance. They were quite persecuted throughout time in Rome, and then during the War, were rounded up by Nazis out of the slumbs to be taken away to the death camps. It's amazing the reach that the Nazis had, how they went out of their way to round up all of these people to send them to concentration camps.

Then we found ourselves by the Tiber, which was swollen and flowing very quickly. It was full of eddies and swirling whirlpools, and we could see how this was a river that could defend Rome--no invading army could easily cross this. We saw some more ancient temples, including the city's most intact and well preserved (although not really important) temple and then it was home for us after that, since there were threatening clouds in the sky. Sure enough, as soon as our train left the station, it started pouring down SHEETS.

At the hotel, the advanced art survey class (which included me) had our first discussion meeting, which was about slums, sanitation and mortality in ancient Roman times. This was a very interesting conversation which grossed out half the girls in the group (there are no guys in the advanced art survey group). I was not one of these girls. Meno, my dear little pet turtle, even played an integral part in the group! We were discussing water quality, which is an issue even today. I related to them how when Wendel and I had brought down Meno with us for Mardi Gras one time, his eyes became extremely swollen and red on contact with New Orleans tap water (post-Katrina). We had to go to the store to buy distilled water for him. Anyway, the discussion lasted about a hour and it was pretty fun, although it was pretty obvious a few of the girls didn't thoroughly do their reading for the class. Oh well. C'est la vie.

Natasha and I were starving after the class discussion so we went down to our favorite pizza place, the Pizzeria! This is down a little side street and is run by the nicest pizza boy ever. He knows us by sight now and is very friendly. This little pizzeria has all these pizzas with interesting toppings. The pizzas here are squares or rectangles, not circles, and have more interesting and flavorful toppings than in the United States. The crust is also much thinner and crispier, and it's just so much better tasting than any pizza I've had back home. I'll never think of pizza the same way ever again.

At any rate, we got our usual pizza, coke for Natasha, and Fanta for me, and sat to eat. We were the only customers in the place, when all of a sudden, I noticed a pigeon had walked into the restaurant and was coming up to our table. This was totally out of the blue, and I called the pizza boy, saying, "Scusi! Scusi!" He came out of the back and I indicated the pigeon on the floor, who was looking for pieces of food to peck at. The pizza boy tried to chase the pigeon out of the store, but it was quite clever and elusive, and ended up hiding under the table that Natasha and I was sitting at. I noticed then that the pigeon was lame, with a stunted wing. He went to the back to get a broom, and I decided to give a shot at shooing the pigeon out of the store. I made "boop boop!" noises and successfully herded the pigeon out for the pizza boy. It was pretty hilarious at the moment.

The rest of my evening was just about getting clean, tidying up, looking for a dry cleaner to take care of some of my clothes, and getting gelati/coffee with Mica. I don't know what this weekend will be like, but the reception event should be pretty fun, and I'll post about it afterwards!

Tuesday

Just to answer my mother's question in my last post, I don't think I'll be able to put any pictures in this blog (not unless it's from the Internet or something). I probably won't even develop any of my film until I get home. I may pull certain pictures from the Internet to illustrate some of the more famous things I've seen though.

So! Today the weather was indeed horribly wet and dismal. But before I get to that, I'll write about a few more observations of Italian culture.

Italians are big fans of PDAs (public displays of affections), especially with younger people. Teenage couples grope at each other and exchange quite a bit of saliva, so it's a little embarrassing to look at. But the older couples, in their twenties, are a bit cuter about it. They do these sort of looooong hugs in public, especially when it's obvious each one of them has to go in a different direction for work or wherever their destination is. They act like they can't let each other go. Today, at the Termini train station, there was this one particular couple that kept doing these really cute smooches--not making out or anything, but they kept pecking each other on the lips. I'd take a picture if I could, but I don't really want to invade their personal moments.

Italian men are supposedly "more romantic" than American men, but this really isn't the case for most of them. In fact, quite a few of them are pretty vulgar and not so subtle when they're checking a woman out. Every day, it's been pretty obvious that at least one or two random Italians--mostly young men in their teens and twenties--have been gawking at me. They do it everywhere to women everywhere--in the piazza, on the train, on the bus, in restaurants, in Internet cafes. Italian men think it's a turn-on to stare at you intently, but it's really quite uncomfortable. They're not threatening you in the least bit at all, as would be the case if a random man was staring at you in public in the United States. It's just what they do here, and the best way to deal with is to ignore them completely. If you make eye-contact with them for more than a split second, then it's an affirmation that you're responding to their staring. It's pretty irritating. For instance, there were two guys staring at me the entire time from their computer while I was using my computer at the Internet cafe the other day.

I forgot to post about this the other day, but apparently on Sunday, from approximately two to four in the morning, there was a band of four drunk, bawdy Italian musicians, wandering around on the streets by our hotel, playing the guitar and singing love songs off-key. In fact, I was informed that they were singing off key so badly that they were more screaming rather than singing love songs. This kept nearly everyone in the hotel awake, as we all had our windows open to let in fresh air. Everyone was bleary eyed and joking about it in the morning.

Dinner for the first time together as a class was really nice. We got arrangements to eat in the same restaurant every night during the school week, and they'll make something different for everyone each night. The restaurant was "family-style," which is to say NOT the same as family style is in America. This was a very cozy nice little restaurant, not too fancy but not dirty or cheap either. Just a nice little restaurant. We were served two courses of food, which for me is an incredible amount. The first course was penne pasta with red sauce and pork, and the penne pasta, sauce and pork were all freshly prepared on site, not from dried or canned products. Oh no.

I quickly asked Mica, who was sitting across from me if it was rude to turn down the Italians if they offered you more food and she confirmed it. So I stuffed down two plates of said pasta. Then the next course had two slices of veal and a side of potatoes lightly fried in olive oil and seasoned with rosemary. I was pretty close to exploding when we were done, but really, it wasn't that much food, and we had walked a lot earlier that day. Really darned good. I decided to get up and go with a few other people back to the hotel, and not a moment too soon. The skies opened up (it was about nine thirty at night) a few minutes after I got into my room and started pouring down rain. I watched the light show from my window; I could see enormous bolts of lightning striking down over Rome, which was twinkling in the distance.

Today, we woke up to wet, dismal and gloomy weather. As soon as we boarded the train to Rome, it started pouring sheets of rain outside. We went to the Roman Forum again, and by the time we got there, the rain had let up a bit and the sun was even out for a little bit. In the middle of the teacher's lecture, it started pouring again, and we fled for cover under the arch of Septimus Severus. I noticed a few more details on the Triumphal Arch that I hadn't before, and took a few more photos. We wandered around the forum some more, discussing various aspects of it.

After that, we climbed a few billion steps up to the Capitoline hill, which is the most important hill in Rome. You know the saying, "Seven hills of Rome..." well, there are only three hills that are generally agreed upon to be part of the original hills, but no one else agrees on which constitute the remaining original hills. The fact is that Rome was established in a very hilly area around a river that allowed them access to the Mediterranean.The Capitoline hill, or the Capitol hill, is where the most important places were (e.g., the Temple of Jupiter).

Straying from topic again... the official name of the Temple of Jupiter is the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, which literally translates to "Jupiter the Best and the Greatest." The Greek equivalent of Jupiter is Zeus, just so you know. Now, my roommates and I think that this description is very funny, because the idea of Jupiter being the "best and the greatest" is pretty pompous and egostical, even though he's the most important god for the Romans.

On the Capitoline hill, there's the Palazzo Nuovo, which is a museum that was designed by Michaelangelo. It contains all sorts of fantastic treasures. The first thing we saw almost made me jump up and down to see it, but I didn't because of my bad ankles (which were doing really well today, so I didn't want to mess them up!) This was a collection of the remaining fragments of a colossal statue of Constantine, the emperor who legalized Christianity and eventually was the first Christian Roman emperor (he converted on his deathbed). This statue was originally fifty feet high, painted in realistic colors and even dressed in real clothes, and could be seen from a long distance. The only surviving parts of it are the face, the hands, parts of his arms and his feet. The feet even have the toenails carved out on them, and the smallest toe was about the size of a cantalope. Really exciting. Then our teacher led us on a whirlwind tour through the museum, there were too many things to look at for us to sit still in any one room.

The most important things we got to see included the original bronze representation of the She-Wolf that nutured Remus and Romulus, (the founders of Rome); the gigantic and original equestrian bronze sculpture of Marcus Aurelius on his horse (this towered over you and was immensely impressive); a life sized marble sculpture of a Gallic trumpeter dying from a stab wound to his chest; and the sole surviving fragment of the once colossal Temple of Jupiter. The surviving portion of the temple was a good 50 feet long and about twelve feet thick, but represented only a tiny fraction of the original size of the temple. There were also incredibly moving and beautifully sculpted marble reliefs and heartbreaking frescos covering entire walls and too many other things to list.

The teacher said that we were free to stay at the museum after the tour was done, and this was our original plan. But the weather got pretty ugly, and we decided to try to go back to the train station to figure out what to do from there. However, the walk back to the train station was absolutely miserable; we went down a very steep hill from the top of the Capitoline, and then they had blocked off the sides of the streets for some political or religious procession; so we had to detour onto the street itself, and eventually all of us had our pants soaked up to our thighs, even with umbrellas. That decided it for me, and I went home with my interpreter and Kate. Mica stayed behind to find a filter for her camera, but sheforgot that siesta was about to start and all the stores would be closed for three hours. By the time I'm done with this post, she should be back here, (each train to Frascati only runs once a hour).

The teacher walks like a maniac, and he says that this is HIS going slow. This is like Roman boot camp. By the time I return home, I will be quite fit from climbing billions of steps.

Monday 20th

So, this morning, I got up at six, fifteen minutes before my alarm clock went off. I actually purchased a special alarm clock that attaches to your pillow and shakes when the alarm goes off. I haven't needed to use it yet, I was just so intent on making sure I wouldnt miss class that I got up early anyway. Plus the natural dawn outside the window was as stimulating to me as coffee. Our room has a really stunning, gorgeous view of all of Rome, from the hill you can actually see from the top of the mountain where we are all the way down to the whole of the valley that Rome sits in. But there's no air conditioning in the hotel at all, so keeping the window open is crucial to keeping the room from not getting stuffy. So the fresh air woke me up too.

I padded around for about a hour and slowly got dressed and read books with the other two roommates (the fourth roommate finally came in yesterday, but was still asleep). The coffee was brought out at the last minute before we had to get ready to go on the train to Rome, so we quickly chugged it down. The train was packed on the way to Rome; the Italians really utilize public transportation here. It's really neat and pretty efficient, the trains are never more than a few minutes late. Termini Train Station on a business morning on Monday was utter madness, and our teacher walked a little bit too quickly for us, we had a hard time keeping him in sight with all the people walking back and forth in the train station. The train station is almost mall-like in construction (with the exception of the trains in the background, of course!) Right outside the train station was the best preserved example of the original city walls that the Romans built in response to the horror and humiliation of the Gallic invasion after the Gauls sacked and burnt all of Rome (except for the Capitol). The wall was just a fragment of what it used to be, about maybe 15 feet high and 45 feet wide, and made of a sort of yellowish volcanic stone called tufa. It was pretty incredible to see something that was at least 2,300 years old in the middle of such modern surroundings (the 1950s train station, and a 1930s office building behind it).

After that, it was on to the metro, which was yet another terrifying but thrilling adventure! Pickpockets are also a danger on the metro (subway system) but we all did well. It was only two quick stops to the Colosseum, and as soon as we emerged from the Colosseum, there it was, to our left, in all of its immense glory. We didn't go there today, instead we turned to our right. It started sprinkling rain here and then, but this wasn't really a damper on things (ha ha, bit of a joke there). My ankle was inflamed today, but the braces I put on my feet today definitely allowed me to get around and keep up (and ironically, even though I was limping and my ankle was inflamed, I was still able to keep up with the teacher better than most of the class!) Our first destination was a pretty new archaeological site, where they're still continuing to discover new things. He indicated several layers of excavations--the teacher pointed out the uncovering of original ancient Roman pavement, and then a drain on another level of the area being uncovered. It was pretty neat.

Then it was on to the Roman Forum! This place is just really big, and it has all sorts of old, crumbling ruins from the years before Christ. It cost to go in, but definitely well worth it. It was funny because we were waiting for the rest of the class to catch up, and I pointed at some random flowers and said they were pretty to the teacher, and he said he was going to talk about that next. The specific plants I pointed out were actually the inspiration for the acanthus decorations on many Corinthian capitals and other Roman columns and architectural devices. Neat! I took a picture of these flowers.

Then we just spent the next couple of hours going around the fourm. The rain stopped, although it was still cloudy. this was actually perfect because I didnt have to get so concerned with being sunburnt and it made it easier to see my interpreter. The teacher showed us patches on the ground where they actually buried people after cremating them and inserting them into little hut-shaped urns. We saw the enormous Arch of Septimus Severus, which had been recently cleaned so it was bright white. It had originally almost been black since it had been exposed to the grime and pollution of over two millenia. It was just really cool. The Roman forum is full of crumbling old things and broken columns, almost nothing is in its original state except for the two major arches on either side of the forum. We saw the original temple of Julius Caesar, which they built after his assassination. We saw the sites of where the Senate of Rome met. One is actually under another church, but the other was still standing although somewhat partially rebuilt over the century.

We saw the remains of the building where the Vestal Virgins (the chaste women who spent their lives dedicated to religious service). There were lots of broken remains of the original buildings that were there strewn all over the walking paths and you could actually sit on these 2000 year old hunks of carved marble and granite. The last thing we saw was the Arch of Titus, which was one I wanted to see particularly, as it has a frieze (a shallow relief) of the ransacking of one of the last of the great Jewish temples. In the relief, you can see them carrying off a great menorah from the Jewish temple, and even though it shows ransacking and looting, it's still a beautiful work of art.

During all of this, I avoided trying to take pictures of the major monuments, since there were too many people there, and I could get perfectly good postcards of said monuments. Rather I focused on getting small details that stood out to me--the beautiful red poppies that were everywhere, carvings on the broken columns that were laying around, and so on.

After this, the class was free to do whatever we wanted. Natasha, Mica, Kate and I went back to Termini, ate lunch there, browsed about a bit in the stores and then decided to come back to Frascati because the shopping in Termini wasn't that hot. And there'd be plenty of shopping to do later on at any rate.

Tonight will be just keeping up with the readings, going to our first official dinner together as a class at the owner of our hotel's restaurant, and strolling around Frascati. Tomorrow, back to Rome, and then another post!