HEAT

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(one of my SD cards for my camera got all crazy on me and now everytime i plug it in, it asks if I would like 'to format the car now'? Something went wrong, I know not to answer yes, but if anyone knows of programs that work well to recover SD cards with this problem, please let me know. Or any solutions you have used or heard work. From online posts I beleive I should be able to recover the photos once back in the states. So can't share any of those photos unfortunately now)

be sure to check extra Panoramics in the extra photos.

Ok so Once again I've got some time I can write a bloggy blog. This one will be more sporadic as I want to get up to date on these entries.

So I left off with our wet stop in Pisa last time. So the next day was the Colosseo tour (Colosseum) with a tour guide. Most of our guided walks thus far have been self guided by our professor. Thankfully our tour guide was not the kind to bring a bright colored flag on a rod to lead us around. You see most guides doing this so their followers can see them in the large crowds, but it screams tourist and looks silly. We did where the in ear headsets that connect to our guides microphone which did help. The Colosseo looks not that big from the outside, or not as big as I expected from seeing the movies and pictures of it, but once inside it is a rather large! We walked around listening to our guide and checking our the muesum parts and pieces. One of the more interesting things I did not know was that it was not just gladiators and slaves who participated in the bloody events. Senators and men of importance also would fight, sometimes dieing. Because the gladiators who won were glorified it was appealing to fight and win as a way to gain more public interest. Obviously this created a problem when senators who were needed to help lead the city were getting axed in the games, and therefore they had to actually create a law that forbid them from competing in the games. Also the Colosseo's construction was funded mostly from treasures and loot taken from Jerusalem during a raid/attack, which I had no idea. Another fact, about once a year the slaves of many of the families were treated as equals you could say. But what they would do is allow the slaves, who normally have to sit wayyy up in nosebleed section, to sit in the lower sections for the games. I think they throw a festival too for the slaves to enjoy. Being able to stand there in stands and see the grounds where the games wou7ld have been held really was something else. Trying to imagine 70,000 people all watching people fight and be killed in not the nicest of ways... was, well, kind of unbelievable. What a different culture that must have been to live in.

After the Colosseo it was off to the Ancient ruins of the Roman Forum. Another place where when you stand in it, and on the actual original roads, you get a sense of what life thousands of years ago would be like. One thing I couldn't believe and still boggles my mind is these roman roads. They are large stones laid about 15-20 ft wide, but extremely uneven to walk on! How the hell did they wheel carriages on these roads well?? You could even see in some of the stones where the tracks had been worn away, creating a rut that the wheels would have always followed. This allowed researchers to determine the width of the wheelbase of carriages. Cool! But what I don't get is how do these ancient romans create such perfect and straight buildings, huge domes, massive columns that line up perfectly, but can't make a level street?!?! My professor couldnt answer that either. Some other visist we've done in the past couple weeks are:

The Capitoline Hill and the museum there. This had the senate offices and two other buildings both designed by michaelangelo and he did it with a perspective trick that was pretty cool to see in person.

Ostia Antica - One of the first port cities of Rome, now all ruins

EUR - the city built by Mussolini during is Fascist dictatorship

The Baths of Diocletian, the Baths of Caracalla

Several churches, quite a few actually. San Clemente stands out in my mind right now because it was very interesting to visit. It was built on top of a more ancient church or place of worhsip, which was earlier built on top of what is thought to be a wealthy Roman family's home. And we were able to go down underground and see each one these layers in time, as it has been excavated quite a bit. At one point we were even standing on original 4th century B.C. stone floors! It was really nice to see how they used the pre-existing structure to support the new one.

One of the highlights for me was the day we took a short excursion to Villa Adriana and then Villa D'Este and The Tivoli Gardens (which we've studied in history class). So yet again it was pretty cool to be in the place I've once only seen in photos from a book. The gardens are huge and spent a few hours walking around through them and enjoying the time. The use of water is all over this place in small ways as well as impressive water features. What most impressive about the use of water here is that the fountains are all self working without any pumps, just water pressure. Some 500 water jets are used. The garden is verz axial which creates long views down corriders and off into the horizon over Rome. Just about every corner you turn provides a new stretch of views.

So as we are doing all these visits it's also time to get working on our group projects, as it is nearing 2 weeks to the end of the program. At this same time the weather also starts to be more like Rome in middle/late June: stinkin' hot and humid. We had been lucky until now with cloudy weather and nice breezes to keep us cooled off enough. But now, there is no mercy from the weather. By 10 am we are sweating down our backs, trying to pay attention and/or draw and sketch outside. It was probably around the 90 degree mark during the day, my roommates and I figured, and add high humidity. We figured this because one day as we were working ion our apartment, we were getting frustrated with all the paper sticking to our arms as we tried to draw our designs. While doing this we noticed a thermastat for our apt (for some reason we never noticed it before), and it read 28 celcius, which we checked and came out to almost 80 degrees F! This was 730 in the evening, c'mon! Oh did I mention we do NOT have air conditioning?? But we still prevailed and my partner and I produced a solid project. With this heat, during the day, it was a must to end our walking tours by noon. I constantly think about just jumping into one of the many fountains in Rome as we pass by them! It was also funny to see how the shade directly influenced where everyone would walk and take breaks from the sun.

Another garden we studied in history class was the Villa Lante, which from pictures I thought was quite amazing. When I noticed on a map the name Villa Lante was near our neighborhood, I was excited to be able to go see that one in person as well. So on one of our open days, in the heat I walked to where it was on the map. I walked and walked, the roads and the map layouts weren't matching up exactly so I kept searching assuming the map was off a bit. And finally, I found a building with it's closed gates, and on the gates it said Villa Lante. Dammit it was closed, so I thought. I walked around the building as much as possible, even jumping to look over the walls and I could notice something wrong. There was no garden back there. Confused and sweaty, I gave up and went home to let Google solve my problem. Although there IS a Villa Lante in Rome, it is not THE Villa Lante which is actually located in Bagnaia, Italy not too far from Rome. Guess I should of payed a little more attention in that class. At least I can still go see it though on a different day.

With the heat and a full day off Will and I decided to go to the beach. The beach is about 45 min west of Rome by way of subway and metro lines. So we've been to the beach once before and noticed once we got out of the metro station everyone hurried to get on some number 7 bus. Being our first time then we didn't rush. Turns out that's the bus, because that first time we ended up walking another 45 min in a straight line down the coast to find the free public beach. So this time we knew we needed to catch the 7. Sure enough we get out of the station and see the 7 drive off. F! After looking at the bus schedule we notice another bus should also run the same route, and to be sure we get on the bus going the right direction we want to go, we decided to go across the street for the bus stop that would put us in the right direction. Bus comes in like 5 min, things are looking great. We get on and bus drives one block past the station, turns, and turns again. Will and I look at each other in confusion and now we are back at the station. Dammit. So we decided to wait for the 7 bus that sems to never come by. But hey! look, here comes the 7! Sweet. OK it pulls up and the driver gets out and walks away...apparently it was his turn to take a break for a long 15 min. Once he was done we were able to cram our way in with a bus load of other beach goers on the 7. It starts in the right direction but then goes to an entirely different street we never even knew about! Ahhhh. So at least we were heading in the right direction, but with trees growing on both sides of this road we couldn't exactlly see where we were. Then the view opens up and we notice we are so not in the area we need to be. So we get off the bus to catch one going back the other way. Get on another bus and head back, and with a guess we pick a stop and start walking towards where we know the beaches are. So finallz we are on the sidewalk we know as we walked it forever the previous time here, and we were only about a 15 min walk away from the public beach entrance. That was a very unnecessary fiasco to get to the damn beach. Luckily we packed 3 bottles of wine. Which we kept "slightly" chilled by soaking a hand towel and then wrapping the bottle. The evaporative process actually cools the bottle enough that we weren't drinking sun baked wine. Sweet trick! But the sun baked black sand, holy moly that gets hot! You literally have to run across the sand after a few steps because it's so hot.

On these trips to the beach we are amongst the many young people of the Rome area, and I must say, they are interesting and I just hope their fashion sense doesn't come to the US. I really don't want guys wearing tight skinny jean shorts rolled above the knees wioth a matching jean jacket. And there is the shaved side of the head with long hair left on top, sported by both the girls and guys. Just imagine me with the ides of my head shaved and left the rest alone. Yeah, not good. There is also these parachute pants here that are interesting. Most wore by the women, and mostly looks silly. Some pull it off in a way that looks good, but for the most part it looks like a bunch of people wearing their pjs or there is some Aladin convention going on.

Once our projects were done we still had one big day left which was the visit to the Vatican City on the last weekend in Rome. Luckily we had a prearranged time to go into the museum and did not have to wait in the extremely long line, as it was a Saturday and very crowded with people and tour guides holding their 'follow the leader' flag. The museum was quite impressive with art from all corners of the world. I got to see the rooms painted by Raphael and his followers, the Sisitine Chapel (where I got whistled at for attempting to take a photo...oops), and the hallways filled with statues or large tapestries. Although, I still enjoyed other museums better like the Uffizi in Florence or the Crypta Balbi in Rome, because they provided more signage and information to read about what you were looking at. At the Vatican, with the massive amounts of people, I feel they'd rather have you move quickly through the galleries and not cause traffic jams. After the museum we all met again to discuss a time to meet for going to the top of thedome on St. Peter's church. Several of us, tired of walking, grabbed some food and went to St. Peter's square and found some steps to relax on for a bit. One interesting thing we learned the day before from a map guru of all of Rome, is that the obelisk in the center of the square, is not actually centered. If you're ever there and line yourself up, on the farside away from the church beyond the obelisk, with the exact center of the church you will notice the obelisk is off by about 4-5 meters. As architecture students we nerded out to that, haha.

the next day was our last and we met for one last supper as a group in Rome, where I tried cannelloni at a family run restaurant. After the first taste I was in food heaven. The sauce used tasted almost spot on to the sauce my Nonna uses for her lasagna, it was soooo good! Of course I bragged to my classmates that I get to eat the best lasagna that's out there. After dinner a group of us went down to the river for some drinks, where every night of the summer is a festival of sorts. Lots of restaurants and bars set up shop, music is playing, vendors selling their goods, a very lively and happening spot to be. The next morning was departure time for most of us, for me it was off to the real Villa Lante and the eastern coast of Italy, and so we said our goodbyes at the nights end. Rome study abroad is in the books and done. After a month living in Rome, I was ready to get on the move and be on my own schedule and my own walking pace.

The net morning I get to the train station with time to spare because I need to find out if the pdf on my phone of my ticket will be OK to use (it has the QR code on it to be scanned). The Italian train website is lacking in quite a few areas and mentions that you must have a printed ticket if it's not an electronic ticket. Mine looks like it could easily be scanned and therefore is an electronic ticket. I don't have a printer anyways, but I decided to ask once there early in the morning and the first customer service lady says it must be printed out. Crap. She points me in the direction and tells me I can print it out at a kiosk. Well thats what I think she said. I walked around a bit, tried a couple touchscreen kiosks, and no luck of printing my ticket. 10 min until departure. So I find another information desk and show my phone screen with the ticket and the guy says that is fine. Ooook, so two different answers, I'm going with the one I like and not printing my ticket. And so my solo travelling begins...

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Photos

Church
See that dark looking dome?? yeah not a dome, just a painted optical illusion... they were good

Bones
Bones used to create 4 separate rooms in the crypts of the Capucin Monks

Layers
this is underneath the Crypta Balbi museum. Layers of histroy

Umbrella Pines
One of the parks in Rome. Will and I found some trees to hang out in

Vatican Museum
really nice 'staircase' in the vatican

St. Peters
SEE, the obelisk does not line up with the church!

Ovieto, Italy
tuscan region

Church
Awesome colors and optical illusions on the ceiling. In person it feels the people are hanging off the ceiling

Vatican Museum
A Raphael

Vatican Museum
A Leonoardo da Vinci

Vatican Museum
Hall of statues...and people

St. Peters Square
Terrorizer of the pigeons

Vatican Museum
from the Raphael rooms

Mine
2 months of travelling right there

The beach
Kites of a vendor, who walk this up and down the beach

Comments

[Aunt Chris]

The Adventure Continues
Loved reading about your time in Rome, Jeffrey. Soak up the sights and sounds in Luxembourg.