Weekends

Since it's the weekend for us, not much has happened--it's been a very chill couple of days. Yesterday was fairly uneventful, and today was more of the same. It's a welcome break from the daily outings and the classes. Most of the group has gone to Florence for the weekend, so it's been pretty quiet around here (and I have the bed to myself!). Today my friend Summer and I took a walk to the north of Rome to the Villa Borghese gardens--a park of sorts. We did a little studying there and then headed back. It was quite a hike, so we were pretty tired when all was said and done. I had calzone for dinner at the place that serves that pumpkin risotto. It was lovely. We did some wandering after that, and Travis showed us a fantastic gelato place tucked way into a tiny corner on one of the backstreets. I had tiramisu and coffee (one of my favorite combinations)--and the tiramisu was legit tiramisu. I think they just make it and then keep it cold. Delicious. They also sold a raspberry gelato there that had sage in it? It was a little strange, and when I tasted some of Summer's, it made me think of Christmas. We weren't sure how we felt about it.
After two weeks, everyone's having a little spell of homesickness, which will pass, I'm sure. I think it's worse on the weekends, when we have nothing to distract us. I'm missing the Seattle lindy scene, other people are missing girlfriends or boyfriends, and all of us are missing clean Seattle air. :) Yep, and talking to the parentals on skype tonight was really nice.
Tomorrow is the last day of our weekend, and when everyone comes back from Florence, so everything will liven up very soon.

Saint Peter's

We got to sleep in (a little) today! Our tour of the Vatican was a little later in the day, so we left at 10am this morning instead of 8:30. We got to do an underground tour of the Vatican, which took us under the foundations of Constantine's church through the Necropolis (city of the dead) where a good number of mausoleums are being excavated. We got to see a few mausoleums and one Christian tomb with lots of beautiful symbolism in it. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but it probably wouldn't have turned out anyway, since it was so dark. It was hot and stifling down there, since they have to keep everything the right temperature and humidity to preserve the frescoes and mosaics down under the Vatican. It was pretty exhausting. We saw Peter's tomb, and all the layers that had been built over it. First was the trophy of Gaius, which was built over the tomb to protect and mark the grave. Then Constantine, a couple hundred years later, built a church around it and stuck his altar above Peter's tomb. The basilica today still has its altar above the tomb. We got to go very close to the original tomb--which not everybody gets to do--and saw the bones of Saint Peter inside. Most of the relics we hear about in Rome are laughable at best (the cradle Christ laid in, the post he was chained to during his flogging, etc.), but the information surrounding these bones' location and surroundings sems pretty legit. It was a little crazy to think that those were probably the remains of someone we read about in the New Testament all the time.
When we were finally able to see the church itself, we were exhausted, and all of the ornamentation inside was a little overwhelming. There were so many tourists there, it was a little like a zoo. I don't think we appreciated that part of the visit so very much. We were definitely ready to get out of there to get something to eat. We found a little place across the river that had a painting on one wall of Snow White's cottage and all of the little Disney animals. It was a little weird, and there was the witch on the menu. Aside from that, the food was really good. I had lasagna for lunch, and linguine al pesto for dinner. Both good choices. Gelato from this really amazing place by the Pantheon (the kiwi stuff tasted like real kiwi. It was phenomenal!), and then home. We have a three-day weekend this week, and I'm really looking forward to sleeping in.

A few pictures...

PS...

We had Chinese food tonight! So good. I had chicken in orange sauce on rice, which was wonderful. We were all dying for some food that wasn't pasta or salad, and this place is really close--near the bus stop and the cat sanctuary.

Yum.
That is all.

Basilica ad infinitum

We did the early pilgrimage churches today. The first two we visited were dedicated to two sisters who risked their lives to give Christian martyrs a proper burial. They later became martyrs themselves, and their remains are supposedly buried in the second church we visited. The last one we visited was on the top of the Esquiline hill in Rome, very large, and covered in a Baroque facade. It was massive on the inside. All of the basilicas today had amazing mosaics on the apse and triumphal arch in either the early Christian or Byzantinian style. It was a lot of gold and sparklies. The intense opulence of these churches is starting to wear on me. It's like trying to eat something really good after you're already really really full. It makes me wonder how much of that money could have been used to feed the people on the streets or house the homeless.
Tomorrow we go to Saint Peter's, which I'm really excited about. There are going to be so many people there. We have a guided tour, though, so I'm sure we'll learn more than if we were just one of the herd.
A few of us were talking today about how much we miss Mexican food. And Chinese food. And Thai food. Basically American food. It's very strange being in such an ethnically undiluted place, as opposed to the crazy patchwork of people that is the US. You can definitely tell that there is very strong Italian blood in many of these people--there's a look. That's taken some getting used to; I guess in Seattle, we're used to just seeing people. But here it's very easy to tell who's Italian, who's German, etc. Really weird.

Anyway, just a couple pictures from today!

Sorry about the blur. No flash, and I had nothing to stabilize with. This was the mosaic on the apse of the San Maggiore church that we went to last.

Second church--the one that held the bodies of the saint sisters.

The first church of the morning. We met a really nice guy there who took us around and told us lots of stuff about its history. On the floor of this church in the stone is the pattern of the walls of the church this one is built on top of. Pretty cool. This church had a beautiful mosaic on the apse, too, and we actually got to go upstairs and see it up close.

And here it is, up close. Only 10 apostles because the person who restored this church in the 16th century had his own design in mind and just cropped the original mosaic.

Big ol' chunk of reading to do and a nap.

"Ciao bella"

Today started off slow. We went to a few churches this morning and walked around. The first was a church where Constantine was supposedly baptized, according to legend. Another was the Saint John Lateran, which was the pope's home church before Saint Peter's. It's huge, and was built after the second sack of Rome. There was mass going on when we entered, and the choir's singing just echoed off the walls forever. It was so beautiful, I could have stayed there all day. It was really amazing to think about how common belief has united thousands of people in that building for hundreds of years. The third one all of us went to had three layers of churches underneath it, but we couldn't take pictures inside the church at all, which was disappointing. It was my favorite one of the day. The layers of churches underneath were a lot like the catacombs; very humid and cool. We got to see the old early Christian church one layer down, and then underneath that was the Roman house-church where Christians used to meet back in the day. It was so interesting. There were beautiful frescoes over the ceiling here, too.
After we were done for the day, a few of us went with Dr. Kresser to another church that was the first to be put on the Roman Forum. It was very small, and kind of hot, but it looked over into the temple of Romulus in the Forum through a window.
First quiz tonight. I think we all did pretty well, but it was weird taking care of "school stuff" while we're in Rome. These days are flying by. In a couple more days we'll have been here for two weeks. What? Really?
Had my first Calzone here tonight! We ate at a restaurant on the Campo de Fiori. We had a couple street performers come up and ask for money (actually, that's a really normal thing around here. We see beggars on church steps all the time, and street musicians and vendors are pretty agressive. I feel bad saying no, since Italy's unemployment rate is so hideous, but you know. Can't give money to everybody. Plus, I hardly ever carry change.) Anyway. The calzone, it was really good, but Roman prosciutto is very salty. I'm so baffled how little water they drink here, and yet all of their food has so much salt in it. Their insides must be well-preserved, by now. Hm. Went to the store for lunch today, and people started speaking Italian to me. It's funny how you instantly lose tourist status when you explore by yourself or with just one other person (well, so long as you're not wearing sandals with socks and a big floppy hat and a camera strung around your neck). I found peanut butter! Bottom shelf, behind the Nutella. I had peanut butter sandwiches and yogurt for lunch. Beautiful. Tonight we went back to this really amazing gelato place we found by the Pantheon: 3 flavors for 2.20 Euro. Pretty amazing. Coffee, tiramisu, and chocolate together is the stuff of legend. We hung out at the Piazza Nuvona for a while, and this old man came up to us and started to sing to us. It was pretty hilarious. He talked with us for a while, practiced his English. He had a really hard time saying "month" and "Mexico," which was slightly amusing. Then he told us all about how much he loved his mother and when he looked up at the stars, he thought of her. Or something. He liked his mom a lot, I'll just paraphrase. He was trying to be such a charmer, and talked our ears off. We finally managed to leave, but he still had to say "Ciao bella" to me and give me a traditional Italian goodbye. It was funny.
Some pictures from today (they're backwards from the order we went there):

Looking down into the temple of Romulus from a window in the Cosmos and Damien church.

The inside of the church of Cosmos and Damien, built in the Roman Forum.

The San Clemente courtyard.

Outside of San Clemente--where the layers of churches were.

The dome of one of the chapels in Saint John Lateran.

We visited the church during Mass. We were still able to look at the church when we walked through the ambulatory, which is how I got this really quick, blurry picture.

The ceiling of Saint John Lateran, the church Constantine built as the pope's home church. It was the pope's home church for quite a while. It's called Lateran because the church was built on property confiscated from a treasonous family with the name Laterus (sp?).

Outside the pope's old palace. This was an apse (rounded end of a room) that would have been part of the old triclinium (dining room). This mosaic shows Jesus blessing the pope and Constantine and Peter blessing another pope and Charlemagne. Intense church-state statements, here.

The dome of the small church where Constantine was supposedly baptized.

The tub thing where, according to legend, Constantine was baptized.

"We met you at the cat sanctuary!"

Today felt very long, but we really were only out for four hours-ish. The bus ride there and back took up a lot of the trip. I was standing for most of the way there and both buses back in Rome. But I think that was one of the most interesting parts of the outing. On our way there, I was standing next to a young businessman who was learning--of all things--Spanish in a workbook. That got me thinking about how much easier things would be if everyone was speaking Spanish and not Italian in this city. 3 years is a long time to be studying a language--well, relatively speaking. Relative to my knowlege of Italian, that is. It would be so nice to be able to communicate properly! Walking around with Italian swirling around you is like "beautiful white noise," according to one of my friends, and I would agree. Most of the time I just tune it out, because they're talking so fast there's no way I'd understand any of it. But being here is like walking around in the UN: I've heard Spanish, French and German (frequently), Russian, Japanese, and some others I've probably forgotten. It's cool being able to recognize the sounds of these languages--it makes Rome a wonderful culture clash.
So when we got off the bus after riding past the old city walls (Aurelian walls built by Aurelian, not Marcus Aurelius), we walked a few blocks to the Saint Priscilla catacombs. The top part is now a monastery, so it was felt peaceful and small while we were waiting to go underground. Tidbit of awesome: the catacombs in Rome (or outside of Rome during the time of the early Christians) were not where Christians "hid" to escape persecution, contrary to popular belief. They were built to house the bodies of Christians who had died; it was considered unclean in the city to be around dead bodies. So most of these catacombs are outside the city walls. The catacombs themselves were just--there's hardly words. We were forbidden to take pictures or video at all, so I'll just have to describe it. We walked through this intense metal door which our guide shut behind us, and then down some narrow, spiraling stairs. You could already smell the sort of underground, cave-like smell before we had even entered the catacombs. The catacombs themselves were dark, narrow, and filled floor to ceiling with spaces for the dead. It was a little cooler down there, but very humid (90% humidity, our guide said). The ceilings still had the marks where the original creators of these tunnels had scraped the rock and clay away, and the bricks that were holding up the ceiling were just as old. Our tour guide kept saying, "17 hundred years old" about everything, and it was true. Most of the things that we saw underground were the original carvings, paintings, etc. We were able to see original frescoes (paintings that were created while the plaster was still wet) that had decorated the family tombs (mausoleums)--they were paintings that ancient Christians put up there with their own hands! Pictures of Lazarus, Jonah, Noah, the Wise Men who came to see Jesus, and other well-known stories were still on the ceiling in much brighter colors than we expected. One of the most well-preserved rooms had bright red paint on the ceiling--it was beautiful. The coolest frescoe we got to see was the oldest known depiction of Mary with baby Jesus. It was on the ceiling as a part of a larger painting, but in the corner is one of the first ever Madonna and Child paintings. It was--for lack of a better phrase--really cool.
First thing I noticed when we got down there was how small the spaces for the bodies were. They looked like Navy barracks carved out of stone, but shorter in length. Turns out that people's bodies would have actually fit in those; they were literally smaller and shorter in those days. Most people attribute the size difference to nutritional things. It was really interesting. None of the open spaces had any bones, because they had been removed. Outside of the tourist path, however (in the spaces unlit by electric lamps and roped off from guided tours), our guide told us that there were still the bones and bodies of those buried there. There were a few tombs still unopened where we were walking: tiles covered the opening and then were sealed with Roman cement--very strong. And there were so many tombs: 40,000, all told. We only went through a very small section of the tunnels, but there were so many more that would have been easy to get lost in.
It was such a weird and cool experience to walk through the tunnels where early Christians had been, look at the paintings they had created, and read the names of people they had loved. It was like coming home, in a non-creepy sort of way. And even the graffiti (because there was a lot of it in places, with the names and dates of people who had come through in years past) was a little ironically beautiful, becuase this place has seen so many people come and go. I saw graffiti from 1869 and 1954. It was awesome.
Then we left and went to a few small churches. The first one was a mausoleum attached to the ruins of the first official church building (built by Constantine). The mausoleum was for Constantine's daughter, and has been converted into a church now. The second church was dedicated to Saint Agnes, who was a martyr revered for her purity. Under the altar of this church we got to see her sarcophagus, where her actual body still lies. Her head is elsewhere (she was beheaded, so I'm sure the churches wanted to get the most out of their holy relics...).

Some pictures from the day:

Mosaic in the chuch of Saint Agnes by the altar.

Ceiling of the Saint Agnes church.

Mausoleum of Constantine's daughter. It was actually pretty small in there, and dark.

Ceiling around the dome. Those designs you see are mosaics.

Dome in the Mausoleum with frescoes.

The sarcophagus would have sat right where the altar is today.

The site of the earliest building created expressly for Christian purposes.

Outside of the mausoleum.

The atrium-type place where we waited for our catacomb tour.

It had a nice view.

On the bus back, a couple people in our group recognized someone they'd met at the cat sancutary, and they called to him from across the bus, "Hey, we met you at the cat place!" It was really rather amusing. We stopped at a restaurant that specialized in salads, and I had one with avocado and salmon and corn. And then we all took 2 hour naps. It was glorious. I think we're going to get food, now. I want risotto! :)

Morning sun and white sheets

First day that I didn't go out at all today. I woke up real early to talk to the family on Skype and then did homework until kingdom come. I wasn't feeling 100%, probably just because we'd been eating nothing but pasta and sandwiches for a week. I had a salad for lunch and I think things are returning to normal. We got a really chill dinner at the grocery store down the street, Di per Di, and now we're hanging out in our room. It's been a very sleepy day--maybe that's a good thing, since tomorrow we start another week of class. I think all of us are going to bed early. that sounds like the best thing ever--we're such a wild bunch, I know.
Last night we had a really good dinner at another relatively inexpensive restaurant last night--I got some pretty awesome salmon pasta. Mmm.
Tomorrow we go to the catacombs in way north Rome. I think it'll be really interesting. Look for pictures tomorrow!

Potato pizza

So yesterday was my first legit meal at a sit-down restaurant in Italy. We're poor college students, and we usually get breakfast, lunch, and dinner at little cafes and cheap places. But last night we had dinner at a restaurant with "pumpkin" in the name. I had pumpkin risotto, and it was quite possibly the best stuff ever. I thought it would taste weirder, but it really didn't. It made me think of the risotto we eat at home--only orange. It was SO good. It made me want to eat like that the whole time we were here. And it was relatively cheap, too. Only 8,50 euro.
Today was an uber lazy day, too. I woke up briefly this morning to thunder and rain. We slept in for the first time in a week and then headed to the nearby Piazza to study. There was this little baby there with his parents that kept staring at me and waving. I finally got a smile out of him--he looked so serious. So cute! It's been grey and a little chilly all day, and I hear big thunder now. It might rain again, soon.

We left when the sky started looking like this.

A building by the fountain.

One of the Bernini fountains in the piazza two seconds away from our hotel.

We went to VIP for lunch today (Very Italian Pizza--haha, that sounds real authentic). I had something with some salty sausage things on it and there were mashed potatoes on top of the crust? It was a really strange texture. But I mean it was really good, just odd. I have no idea what we're going to do tonight, because I imagine it's going to be pretty cold. Tomorrow is the last day of our weekend (we have weird weekends--Sunday and Monday off), so I'll probably head over to the Villa Borghese to do homework. I have never been less motivated to do schoolwork in my life. Bleh.

Frigidarium

Lazy day today. Us lower division students don't have class this evening, so we're free as birds. We might go to another museum tonight that's in an old castle, if we get ourselves together.
We did see the old Diocletian baths today. We took the 64 bus all the way uptown--it was really jerky, because I was standing up and at a really awkward angle; I had to reach up for my handle, so it was almost like getting my sea legs. The subways are actually much smoother (even if they're more crowded, and you have some guy's armpit in your face). Anyway, Diocletian built these baths so that the people would like him, way back when, and now it's been converted into a church. The calderium (the hot baths) were no longer intact, and the entrance to the church was were they would have been, and then the entry way was the place where the room temperature baths were. The frigiderium (the cold baths) took up the most room, and that's where the bulk of the church was. It was beautiful. We also went to a museum that had some rare original Greek sculpture in it, but they made us check our bags and we weren't sure if we could bring cameras--turns out we could, but by then it was too late and we had an assignment to concentrate on anyway. It was fine, I figure it wouldn't have been very exciting photography. Lots of half-intact sculpture. The only one I wish I could have taken of photo of was the Seated Boxer. It was intense and majorly detailed--some of the finest bronze work to come out of the Greek arts.

The altar at the church.

Dome in the entryway of the church.

Outside the church, where a huge fountain sat in a massive square (the buildings are probably 19th century--they do look very French).

Oh--weirdest part about today: it rained! Not for very long at all. Actually probably less than a few minutes, but it was funny how all of us got a little homesick. It was a lot cooler today, with a nice breeze blowing. It almost felt cold, compared to what we've been walking around in for the past week. I guess rain in Rome in the summer is very rare, so that was pretty cool.

"Bene!"

We got up this morning for breakfast and found a fun little place by the old racetrack square. The guy who gave us coffee was nice and smiley--his name was Aurelio (kind of like the emperor).
So there's a common rule I noticed by the middle of our first day: when you order food at a restaurant, they do not expect you to pay right away--in fact, they don't want you to. Generally, you order, sit down, and they bring you your food (or you go and get it when it's ready). When you're done, you head up to the counter and pay, then leave. Even fast food places--it's like a sit-down restaurant mostly wherever you go. Except gelato. Anyway, I guess that's where most of our cultural education is coming from, at the moment. We're forced to interact when we go get food. I'm becoming painfully aware that my limited Italian vocabulary isn't serviceable. I think I'll study some more phrases tonight so I can communicate a little better. Unfortunately, some people aren't trying at all, really, which I think is kind of funny, since we're in their country, not ours.
Today we rode the bus to the Colosseum and went through a guided tour through the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Pantheon. Our tour guide was wonderful and very nice--she was originally from Switzerland, came to Italy when she was 9, and then came to Rome to teach. It was very hot and a long way to walk, but there were cold water fountains at regular intervals, so we filled up our water bottles frequently. The funny thing we're noticing is that we hardly ever need to go to the bathroom, even with the massive amounts of water we're consuming, because we're sweating it all out. It's pretty funny, actually.

Some pictures from today:

Part of the Imperial residence, a little ways from the Colosseum.

Entrance to the Imperial residences.

Most of the brick wall in the Colosseum had tons of names carved in them from all over. I saw lots of Italian names, but some people from England, the US, and Canada, too.

More ruins from the Imperial residences.

Inside the Colosseum.

We had to wear these earpieces and little radio receivers for the tour so we could hear our tourguide. We were the ultimate tourists. Which led to this picture.

Might go to a performance of Mozart's requiem in a church tonight, but I need to do homework now. And take a nap.

Museum

Headed over to the museum today on Capitoline Hill. Lots of statues and beautiful paintings. Stopped off for lunch at a panini place and then ducked into a few shops, where we were not treated well, let me tell you. I'm beginning to have a healthy appreciation for American "diversity awareness," or whatever we want to call it. Anyway. I hope that's not going to be the case everywhere we go.

A few pictures from the museum:

Permesso

What's this? Internet after ten? I feel like Vittorio or whatever his name is forgot to turn off the network. Well, it works for me. [EDIT: just kidding. It cut me off at 10:30 last night.]

Today (yesterday) had the feeling of Epic Day from Leadership Conference 08 at SPU. Whoever knows what I'm talking about will understand me when I say that this was just like that...Rome style. No joke.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, we did a scavenger hunt today, ALL OVER Rome. We had clues and locations and had to find the locations and match up what clue we thought might go with whatever thing we found. It was a bit like finding beads in sand. But. It was a good learning experience. Our group started out a little directionless, stumbling onto our first clue, but then we stopped in a garden, got our bearings, and followed a system for the rest of the hunt.

Most of what we found was unimpressive compared to the churches and other little places we found on accident. Like this church (sort of near our hotel):







And this one (Saint John Lateran church in the south of Rome):








All sorts of other random places



On our way out of the Villa Borghese--a park in the North of Rome.


The view from the top of the hill. We got so many pictures like this, I'm only sticking one up.



Colusseum! We came at it from the back end, through a little bit of the residential area.

Okay. This is really weird. It's a cat sanctuary in the middle of the city. Cats live there. The end.



Yep, that was yesterday. Incredibly exhausting, but pretty fun. We learned something valuable, too. When the subway doors close, get out of the WAY. And the little green button opens them again. Yes.