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!

Sunday, 18th

Today is a pretty quiet day so far in Frascati. It's pretty wet and sticky today, so we (the roommates and I) are just staying in town, going to the grocery store, using the internet cafe and cracking open our textbooks. Our classes officially start tomorrow, but the weather outlook for the rest of the week also predicts wet and rather dismal weather. Despite that, we'll probably still have a great time as long as we have umbrellas!

The internet cafe is also a dollar store of sorts (or rather, euro store) and they have lots of cheap and very useful items here, cleaning supplies and shampoo and Q-tips. I had bought a 4 euro hairbrush at the regular grocery store, and when I saw they were only one euro here, I was like, RATS! At the moment, there are four Russian or Hungarian boys here, in their twenties, and they're playing obnoxiously loud Lebanese music. It's kind of amusing though, it's like annoying people back at home playing really loud rap music.

This morning, we woke up a little bit late, around 9:30 AM, although most of the other people in the hotel were still dead asleep, and probably still are now even though it's noon. Sunday is breakfast buffet day, and it is a very luxurious assortment of bland, prepackaged pastries and cereal and dented fruit. Still, the coffee here in the hotel is REALLY good, even the self serve coffee. There's really no such thing as bad Italian coffee, and the roommates and I have decided it's completely unnecessary for us to go and buy coffee when the stuff at the hotel is perfectly good. A cup of coffee in town or in Rome costs about 2 or 3 euros, which is equivalent to about 4 or 5 dollars. It's actually more expensive than a generous amount of gelati, which is hysterical because we Americans fork over so much money to get ice cream from a shop. The average gelati store charges about 1.50 to 3.50 euros for varying amounts of gelati, but even a 1.50 portion is pretty decent.

Going off subject for a bit--gelati here is really seriously good. It's a lot creamier than regular ice cream, and apparently they make it fresh every single day. It's just really delicious, but it melts a lot more quickly than regular ice cream too, so you have to eat it really quickly.

Back to this morning, the person who took care of setting up the breakfast and dealing with cleaning the rooms was a woman, Julia, who is from Romania. This particular hotel hires a lot of Romanians, and they actually come from Romania and get jobs here and learn Italian. Now, Julia is in her 50s or so, and she was really sweet. She was utterly baffled at my being barefoot in the hall, and couldn't understand how I wasn't cold. The Italians here are a bit thin-skinned, they think 70 degrees is freezing weather. We did our best to converse with each other, and we were trying to tell her where we were from, that it was hot there, but this didnt translate well. So I beckoned for her to come with me to the front desk, where there is a large world map. I pointed to the approximate location of Louisiana on the map and flapped my hands, indicating how hot it is there. Even at this point, she kept looking at my feet, so I thought maybe I better put on some socks to placate her. I didn't want her to keep worrying about my bare feet. It must be some cultural thing here!

Julia was absolutely wonderful! She wrote down that she was "50 ani" (50 years old). I told her, "No!!!" and she shrugged and said, "Yes, yes." We really were genuinely interested in learning how to speak each other's languages, and she set aside her duties and sat with us in the room for about a hour, and Kate, Mica, Julia and I conversed and looked in our dictionaries and told each other how to say the name for a certain thing in Italian or English. Now I can say, piache sperce, and amo sperce, "I like your shoes!" and "I love shoes!" Bwaha. We couldn't figure out how to tell her that Louisiana has a very sort of swampy climate, so I drew a picture of a stereotypical swamp with cypress trees, alligators, storks and a Cajun shack. It just sort of went on like that and again, there was lots of body language involved. Julia was very patient with teaching me where to put the stress on a particular word--for instance, piache, "I like," the accent is on the second syllable--and it usually is for most Italian words. It's pee-AH-chay. I also picked up "buono/buona."

Running out of minutes already, so I'll just focus on having a relaxing day before our intense classes begin.

Continuing from the last post...

Yesterday, after the art store, there was just a lot of general exploring of the town of Frascati. It is so pretty and there are so many interesting little stores. I am having difficulty trying to figure out how to find the apostrophe on this Italian keyboard, so I am avoiding contractions whenever possible. Lots of different and neat little stores for all sorts of things. Stationery stores, bookstores, lots of pizzerias--a pizzeria is not always necessarily a pizza place! Sometimes it is a sit down restaurant. I had dinner at a local restaurant, had tortinelli bolognese.

Finally catching up to today... I was woken up by the other girls for breakfast. I actually had woken up at two in the morning earlier today, since my sleeping habits still werent quite adjusted to Italy yet, so I had to take two Tylonel PMs to get back to sleep. So I was pretty groggy for the first few hours this morning. This morning, after breakfast, I came to the Internet cafe and typed up the previous post. Afterwards, Kate and I (Kate came with me to the cafe as well) went back to the hotel room, and Mica, Kate and I-- and we got Natasha at the last minute-- got ready to go to Rome. We spent a considerable amount of time waiting for the bus, gave up on it and bought tickets for the train instead. We got to Termini train station, and Termini is a lot more massive than I thought- I had only seen a small part of it before! Huge and chaotic, and it apparently is the central grand station for all of Italy. We kept an eye out for gypsies here--they will do sneaky things like throw yogurt in your eyes to make you drop your stuff so they can steal your items. All of us were pretty well prepared, and we were holding onto our stuff really tightly so no one bothered us.

We got bus tickets to take us to Travestere, an older, medieval section of Rome. We really didnt know what we were doing today, and when we got there, we just mainly wandered around. We had dinner at a very nice cafe, and Mom will be shocked... I ate a gnocchi platter with mussels. Yeah, I ate mussels. Oh, and also, the other day I ate sausage and mushroom pizza. Yes, I ate mushrooms. I have decided that while I am here, I want to try new things and try not to be picky. I am avoiding tomatoes, but that is because it gives me acid problems. My lunch was a mere five euros for this fantastic mussel platter, and then after that we explored a bit until we found a bit of a piazza.

In the piazza was this old, old small cathedral called S. Maria of Travestere. It had all kinds of lovely things on the interior, solid massive granite columns with Ionic features, intricate mosaic patterns in the floor, frescos and oil paintings all over the place, a coffered ceiling with gold gilt, frescos directly on the ceiling, trompe l'oeil (paintings designed to fool the eye into thinking the item depicted is real and three dimensional), life-sized and beautifully sculpted angels in the round perching on top of windows, stained glass, small niches on the sides with their own paintings and objects -- these were all sort of shrines that you could worship. The church was really great to look at, and it by no means is the best one in Rome.

After the church, we wandered around a bit more and settled in at a coffeeshop/gelati place. I indicated that I wanted the 2.50 cup for gelati, and then he asked me if I wanted it in a glass, indicating a parfait glass. I assumed he was just going to give me the 2.50 amount in the glass, as we were eating outside at one of the tables. The waiter brought out this ENORMOUS glass of chocolate chip gelati with two wafer crackers stuck in it, and it was delicious, although I had to share some of it, there was just simply too much of it to eat. Gelati shops are everywhere, and apparently it is more or less a daily staple in the diet of Italians. But no Italians are really fat at all, they care deeply about their personal appearances. It turned out the gelati was six euros, and so that means I paid $10 for ice cream. Rats. I know now to ask for it specifically in the paper cup or the cone, but at least they brought me a large amount of it so it's not like I got ripped off or anything. I just finally found the apostrophe key! During the gelati and coffee break though, there were people smoking on either side of us, and some ash must have gotten into my eye, because it started itching like madly, and Natasha told me I actually had white stuff on my eyelashes. They actually told me I was getting hives around the corner of my eyes because I was rubbing it so much. It got better about after a hour and half of trying to leave it alone.

After the gelati and coffee, we decided to start heading back for Frascati since it was getting pretty late in the afternoon. We found the bus stop after some more wandering (after directions by a street vendor and a warning to watch out for pickpockets). We were vigilant and got back to Termini train station and back to Frascati without any problems. I took a shower while the other roommates went out to put more minutes on their phone. I came back to this Internet cafe to make this post. So in all, a pretty nice day--the most important thing about today was that we were able to start getting comfortable with knowing how to get around on public transportation.

Tomorrow I would really love to do something like go out to some smaller but famous town like Pisa or Ravenna or Assisi for one of the famous chapels there. Today, I was horrified to find out that the chapel of St. Francis in Assisi was apparently destroyed in an earthquake two years ago. This particular church was completely covered in murals by Giotto, one of the most famous artists of the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, and apparently it is completely gone now.

On the bus ride to and from Travestere, we saw all kinds of really fantastic things-crumbling thousand year old ruins, assorted archaeological sites, the Column of Trajan, a brief snatching view of the Colosseum, this ridiculously large building completely covered in all sorts of monuments (which I'll find out the name of later9, more aqueducts and so on. So today was really just a sort of introduction to how Rome feels! I'm looking forward to our organized class trips starting on Monday where we'll definitely be going to specific places.

Italians are just like they are in the movie--they talk very seriously about anything and use a lot of hand gestures and body language. It's really cute to watch. It's really easy to tell the difference between Italians and tourists. But the Italians don't really look down on tourists that are dressed badly, they apparently only care if other Italians are dressing badly. Interesting.

Also, my sinuses hate Italy. They definitely flare up whenever I'm outdoors. When we had walked into the cathedral earlier today, I had been sneezing nonstop, but after a few minutes inside, that ceased until we left. But having allergies is a small price to pay for being in this stunning area.

May 14, 15 and 16

Well, the trip started off with a startling event. Mom and I were leaving my apartment at six in the morning to head off to get some coffee and breakfast, and then go to the airport. We were turning a corner to go to the main street behind my apartment when mom spotted something on the ground. It was an unconscious, young small man, we thought he was dead at first. He was barefeet and had foam around his mouth-it was pretty shocking and we called emergency services. They got there in less than 5 minutes so we left him in good hands. It was pretty scary and alarming though. It would have been quite ominous if we found a dead person to begin my trip with!

Most of my flight went smoothly, I didnt have any trouble with my transfer in Phil. The air line attendants were really nice to me and I was one of the first ones to board the plane to venice even though I was in boarding group number 7. Two older women who happened to be sitting with me and talking to me also got to come on with me, because they happened to be with me! They were rather pleased about this. they were two really nice older ladies, both widows, and both kept referring to me as so sweet and brave (because of doing simple things like informing the airline attendants that I was deaf, so I would need to know if there were any announcements or anything else important). I didnt sleep a wink on the 8 hour flight though, because it was just darned uncomfortable, and when I did finally try to nod off to sleep, I pushed my seat back just one inch, and the boy behind me started kicking! And he was in his mid twenties at least. I turned around, gave him a hard glare, and said, rather than asked, Is there a problem? The kicking stopped after that but just couldnt get back to sleep.

We landed in Venice, and we happened to be quite late. I found this out because when I exited the plane, there was an airline woman waiting for me, she was quite friendly though. She took me on a shortcut through the airport and in a cordoned off area, scanned my bag and had me walk through a metal detector. At this time, I didnt now that I was actually being rushed through customs and immigration. She stamped my passport, but I didnt even notice. I guess they assumed I knew I was going through it quickly--its possible that they did this because I was deaf. This led to a bit of a heartache at the Rome airport though. When the smaller plane that I was on landed in Rome, we walked off the plane and onto a shuttlebus, which took us to Terminal B... and when I got there, all I saw was the luggage claim area and large signs over several doors saying, "Way Out." I was getting really confused at this point because I didnt know I had already gone through immigrations and customs, and my list of instructions indicated this was my top priority at the Rome airport.

I went through the "Way Out" doors since there was no other apparent exit, and I got even more anxious when I saw it was just an area leading to taxi pick ups, restaurants and so on. I didnt want to be an unauthorized immigrant or something and I was getting really nervous--it didnt help that I hadnt slept in over 24 hours or eaten in over 12. I went to a booth that said "Information" to ask for help, but the women there just rudely dismissed me, shouting, "No English." I was taken aback, but I wandered around the terminal a little bit, trying to find any indication of customs or immigration. Finally I went back to the information booth, the tears starting. I always wondered why it has to come to tears before anyone at a major airport will help you? I struggled to find my little book of Italian phrases in my tightly packed carry on bag, and wrote in Italian, "Please help me. I am sorry. I am deaf. I need to find immigration. I am on my own." (mi spiace, cerco dogana, sono ipoudente, viaggio da sola.") They finally seemed to get it, but they didnt understand what I meant by "sono ipoudente" until I pointed to my ears and cried. After that, there was a lot of anxiety. I think me telling them I was deaf and alone and that I was in tears made them feel really bad, and just as rightly they should! A man came to help, although he didnt speak more than a few words of English too. The women were more concerned, and made body language motions indicating, "Calm down, it is ok!" and I indicated more or less back to them that I was trying, by taking big sighs, nodding and trying to smile. I followed the man and a young lady from the information booth back to where I had gone through the way out doors, and they spent a considerable amount of time talking with the Italian police and showing them my ticket and passport. I was pretty nervous by this point.

then we went upstairs and to another part of the airport and actually found someone who spoke passable English. He had a really heavy accent though, so I found it very difficult to understand him verbally, and he had a hard time understanding me too because of my deaf accent. So we did a lot of writing of simple phrases, and there was much inspecting of my ticket and passport. I wrote down that I thought I had missed a step somewhere, that I missed going through immigration somehow. Finally they opened up to look for a stamp in my passport, and the man said, "You have the stamp from Venice!" Realization dawned, and I was like, "Ohhh..." and I wrote down, "I got confused! I did not know I got a stamp!" This was the easiest way to tell them that I didnt realize I had gone through customs and immigration already, I couldnt give them that much detail. I told the man to please tell the other people (there was an MP there too) and he did so, and everyone started cracking up. I think they were just relieved we had gotten to the root of the issue! I was really relieved that they werent angry about me causing a lot of worry for no reason. A lot of body language was used to try to communicate, and I did my best to show them my relief, there were hands patted reassuringly on arms and so on. Then I asked the first man, the one who didnt speak much English, if he would please take me to the train station (I pointed it out in my Italian-English book). He wholeheartedly and enthusiastically did so, and I said grazie about ten times to the other people involved.

I didnt want to fool with having to fork over a hundred euros to some taxi driver that I might not understand and possibly be scammed by. The train station turned out to be a breeze, and really cheap. The only possible place for concern was the Termini station, which is the midway train station between the Rome airport and Frascati, where I had to change train. I was warned there were gypsy children who engaged in scams to allow other people to steal stuff from you by distracting you with maps and so on, so as soon as I got off the train, I scowled and tried to look as unpleasant and gangster as possible. No gypsy children approached me, and I avoided anyone that even remotely looked gypsy or suspicious in the slightest bit. The ride to Frascati was absolutely lovely, saw grapevine fields and an old Roman aqueduct and rolling hills. I arrived in Frascati around 2PM, it is slightly under a hour train ride from the Rome airport. Frascati is actually on the top of a small mountain so the train kept climbing higher and higher into the Italian landscape. Really great. By the time I got there, I had to climb a thousand freaking steps with my 25 pound bag, and I found my hotel when I saw two classmates. They helped me check in, and then I ate a panini, and then I went to bed at 5 in the afternoon and woke up around six the next morning.

Yesterday was my first fully refreshed day in frascati. I found my interpreter and the teachers! They had come in around midnight after I had come in and had a terrible traveling experience. I went to the grocery store first thing in the morning and spend a good two hours in a little Italian grocery store. It was pretty fun, I actually drew pictures when I couldnt find something I needed, and that worked like a charm. There was also this little, tiny hunched over Italian woman who grabbed my arm, chattered in Italian and pointed to something at the top of a shelf, it was pretty obvious she was saying something like "Young lady, get that for me!!!" I happily obliged. I got assorted inexpensive 1 pound bags of snacks like graham crackers and toiletries and so on. I tried to use whatever snatches of Italian I could, because if you are in another country, you should try to speak their language. In the checkout counter, the woman be hind me in line was very friendly and asked me where I was from in English. We chatted, I told her her town was just absolutely beautiful, (bella). Then she leaned forward, and asked with eager anticipation, "Obama or Clinton?" McCain wasnt even a consideration here. I was like, "Wow! Well if I have to pick, Id say Obama" to satisfy her. The rest of the day was spent with my two classmates, Mica and Kate, who are also my roommates, and very good ones indeed, or my interpreter Natasha. We found a wonderful art store, and I have made friends with the woman in the art store, who insists I help her with her English if she helps me with my Italian. I purchased some nice art supplies there so I could color Italian landscapes, and when I went for a return visit with the other girls because they wanted art supplies too, I asked for scissors, and the lady gave them to me free of charge. I was shocked! She taught me to say "forbiche," (for-bee-chay) which is Italian for scissors... I have to know this for the next time I go back there!

I am at an Internet cafe, and running out of minutes. I will continue this post later! I am keeping everything written down in a journal so I can remember everything to post here.

Love to all, and ciao!!

Test post

This will be the blog I am using while in Italy. I'll be posting records of all my adventures there (or misadventures, if necessary).