Thursday Night

Thursday night seems like a good night to blog.  Things have been pretty calm since we got back to Rome.  We're starting a new project in studio, writing a program for a school of music and picking a site for it within a given neighborhood.  This is a group project and I think I have a good group so I feel good about it.  It's also a competition project, so for our final project we'll have to design the music school according to the program of the winning team.  Excitement!
Other than that not much is new.  Our survival crash course in Italian has come to an end, though some of us students who want to continue taking Italian classes are talking to one of the teachers about continuing class once a week.  In place of Italian we have started our drawing class, which is really fun because the class currently consists of going around the city and drawing.  We're practicing different methods of drawing so we can develop our own style to drawing ideas quickly.  It's really fun.  In the next few days I'll scan some sketches to post, but I haven't done that yet so you'll have that to look forward to.
Mom and Dad arrive in Rome tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that.  It'll be good to see them and hopefully they won't mind taking me out to some nice Italian restaurants.  I love you Mom and Dad!  Seriously, though, it's gonna be fun.  Ok, hope everyone back home is doing well, love to hear from you guys.  I'm about ready for bed now.  Buonasera

Back from the Mediterranean

Ciao tutti!  So Adam and I got back into Rome last night around six after a weekend in the Mediterranean.  The first place we went to was Baia, where we visited the ancient baths.  My favorite thing there was the echo chamber, a big dome where people took baths and everything you said echoed at least four times.  My second favorite thing there was the pizzeria where we ate lunch.  I got a Ulysse pizza, which had tuna, onions and tomato and was delicious.  That pretty much set the tone for eating awesome pizza the rest of the weekend.  That night we arrived in Paestum and the hotel served us a seafood dinner and then we hung out on the beach.  Friday morning we saw the ruins at Paestum, three of the oldest Greek temples and what remains of the original city.

After Paestum we went to Pompeii, one of two cities that was simply erased by Mt. Vesuvius.  Pompeii was the first site we went to that still felt like a city.  The city was so well preserved under the explosion that some of the frescoes are still on the walls.  That night we spent in Naples, well-known to be the birthplace of pizza.  What is less well-known about Napoli, is that it is also the birth-place of "The Bomba," a 4 euro burger that has egg, olives, tomatoes, a hot dog, prosciutto, cheese and comes with French fries.  The Bomba can be found at Napoli's famous "Black Out Pub."

Ok, so that brings us to Friday, which was entirely spent wandering up and down Capri.  That was also the day when the weather turned from cloudy and windy to bright and sunny, which was nice.  After that Adam and I went to Sorrento, where "off-season" means "no one else in town and all the scooter rental places are closed."  Still it was a beautiful town and we took the bus down to the Amalfi coast and wandered around those towns, which were also beautiful.  Then Sunday we left to come back to Rome, and on the way took a taxi up Mt. Vesuvius.  So that's our weekend in the Mediterranean!  Oh, I almost forgot, while we were site-seeing, we kept seeing this strange horse image.  It showed up under rocks, in gardens, and along walkways.  Not sure what it means, but it made the trip a little more interesting.

 What a find!

Fun fact, the 8th dwarf in this garden, is a horse!

Parting for Napoli

So tomorrow we embark on our first studio field trip.  I won't be bringing my laptop on this trip so I wanted to make sure I put a post up before I left, because I won't be back until Sunday and don't want to keep everyone waiting again.  Our bus departs at the impossibly early hour of 8 in the morning, our first destination is Baiae, where we will tour an archeological wonderland and eat lunch.  Then we depart for Paestum, site of many ancient Greek temples and some of the finest seafood in Italy (I hope).  We will then visit the ruins of Pompeii, Italy's sexiest ancient city (that's actually true) and end our travels in Napoli on Thursday and Friday.  Weather permitting, they may take us to Capri, and I really hope the weather permits because the alternative is to spend the day in museums.  On Friday we are released from class and from there Adam and I are going to Sorrento for the weekend, not sure what we'll do but we heard it was nice.  If scooter rental turns out to be affordable we'll probably do that.
In other news, Adam and I have self-appointed ourselves as the official wine critics of the apartment.  Our credentials are Adam's semester in a "Beer, Wine and Spirits" class and my being friends with Adam.  Actually I was inspired when, upon discovery that our bottle collection shelf was completely full, the apartment agreed to only keep unique bottles.  I decided to try as many types of wine as I could while spending as little on each bottle as possible.  That decision being made, it seemed like something that I had to include in my blog and I requested Adam's help to lend some legitimacy to my critiques.  Also, no one wants to drink alone.
So, this wine is a chianti, it cost 2.50 euro, and falls into the DOCG wine category.  Adam assures me that this means something, but not necessarily anything, from what I gathered.  In any event, this wine was a medium red with some fruity flavors, we guessed cherry, or some other dark berry.  It was definitely lacking in herbaceousness.  All in all, we concluded that it was a mediocre wine in every sense, smooothness, heaviness, brightness and economy.  Not a bad wine, but not good enough to warrant the expense when 1 euro bottles are available.  Ok, that's all for tonight, I'll get back to you on Sunday! or Monday!...one of those days.

Can you believe some people use these for books? 

The Roman Boonies

Hey, sorry for the big delay in posting, I don't know how far back I'll be able to remember to write about, but there is a lot that happened in the last few days that I can write about.  In last Friday's history tour class we saw the Imperial Forum, where the we saw lots of old ruins, including the remains of a temple to Rome's coolest-named god, Mars Ultor.  We also looked at Trajan's column and the remains of his old basilica.  We ended that class looking at the Ara Pacis, the altar of peace which is the stone box inside of a glass box seen below.  That was where Romans would sacrifice bulls to the goddess of Peace.  Then on Saturday, John, Adam and I went out to Appia Antica to visit the old catacombs.  Unfortunately both of the catacombs were closed when we got there, so we walked down the road a bit and found the old Circus Maxentius, which I'm going to go ahead and say was my favorite historical site I've seen so far.  Today its basically a big open field, but its easy to imagine Ben Hur charging around that big field.  Near the entrance there was an old twisted tree that was really good for pictures, but I think Adam might have gotten a more dramatic shot.  We also went to the huge castle-looking building which turned out to be a mausoleum, but it was kind of a disappointment inside.

So when we were at the castle the lady at the entrance indicated, in a mix of English and Italian, that our ticket for the castle was also good for another museum, which was just down the road a bit.  Or that's what we thought, but after walking down the old Appian highway for over an hour, we decided that it was certainly farther away than we thought, so we found ourselves out in the middle of the country, without knowing how to really get home.  So that began another journey of bus hopping which was very tiring, but at least ended with our learning how read the bus route signs.  On a side note, whenever I see the old Roman road, I wonder what Thoreau would think of them, "The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the Highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"  

The last thing I want to write about is a bar we found last night called Spazio Sociale Incantiere, which we think means "Singer's Social Space."  Anyways we went in last night and saw a show which was some weird mix of open mic and interpretive performance theater.  In the picture below, the woman is reading, the drummer is drumming and the piano player is tuning the piano.  We don't know if the reading had anything to do with either of the other two, but it was really cool to watch.  After that a guitar player did a one-man show which made me think of Leo Kottke if Kottke had a day job pouring concrete.  We'll probably go back there.  

So, today is Sunday and tomorrow is our first review so I'll be spending most of today finishing drawings for that.  Then on Wednesday we take our first field trip, south to Napoli, Pompeii and some other places.  I'll be sure to put some stuff up from there, best wishes to everyone back home.  Ciao!

Sushi in Rome

Hey!  So since the last post I haven't been taking much pictures, partly because I keep forgetting my camera.  In one of our classes we visited a museum that was an old power plant, so there were ancient sculptures with gigantic diesel engines behind them.  It was pretty cool, sorry I can't portray it better here.  It's called the Montemartini museum, so look it up if you feel cheated.  We also visited an old Italian port city called Ostia Antica, or really we visited its ruins.  I did get some pictures there.  The biggest attraction there is the Roman theater, seen below with Mikesch at center stage.  Other developments were we went to an Italian Chinese restaurant that also served sushi, so Adam and I got some, it was delicious.  Also I figured out how to make my camera take artistic extreme close-up photos, so get ready for more of those.  

Jan 14

 Hello!  Ok, day and post number two on the blog.  Today we took our first walking tour class, we looked at the Forum Boarium, Rome's original cattle market.  We also saw a church built on the site where Hercules killed a sheep-stealing giant.  That Hercules was a pretty cool guy in his day.  After class I walked around Rome and found the shop where all the most fashionable clergy buy their holy threads.  Then Cory and I played some music out in the streets.  I have some pictures!  First, Cory and my guitar at our first "outdoor practice location."  After that is a picture Cory took of my playing Golden at a fountain.  The next two show the edge of ecclesiastical fashion, followed by the Temple of Hercules, thus far one of my favorite monuments.  It's been a good day in Rome, hopefully it has been in Iowa as well.  Best!

First Blog

Bongiorno!  I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog while I'm here.  This will be a short post, but I'll put some pictures up.  You are looking at, respectively, the view from our balcony, a street in Rome, Rome skyline, another street in Rome, and the tempietto, a Renaissance building we found but couldn't get close to.  The picture was taken through an iron gate, if I go back when it's open I'll take a better picture.  Ok, that's all for today.  Arrivederci