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!