Sadness, Fear, Happiness and I'm Cooking Dinner Tonight

First the fear, mainly so those of you who skip to the pictures read this post! We have a review today, plus a test tomorrow, plus a quiz in our walking tour class... (Ominous drum roll here) And then we get ready for our field trip to Paestum, Napoli, Capri and (Pompeii?). And Happiness ensues...

My review went swimmingly despite several errors in my drawing. My idea was sound but I had a rather grievous error in my section drawing that earned me a bit of grief. Otherwise things went very well. I did like seeing other peoples projects especially in a space that is so small and intimate as the one we just designed for. It is very interesting to see how other peoples minds work with the same space in such a limited time and with such limited resources.

Today something terrible happened. Drew (my roommate from Ames last semester) had his computer stolen out of studio this morning by an unknown intruder. Someone was let in, by either the help or a student, and picked up Drew's computer bag complete with his portable hard drive and cables. Several people saw him in the building, but assumed he was a guest reviewer or a person delivering a package or something. It is a very sad occasion because Drew had a very powerful laptop that cost him a good bit of money. Needless to say he is devastated to have lost his PC as well as a great deal of his work that resides on the machine. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he will most likely have a very long week due to the events of today.

On a lighter note, I am cooking dinner tonight. Fried vegetables over small noodles with a creamy garlic butter sauce. We'll see how it goes over as a vegetarian dish. Some of the guys need to get some veggies in them!

Forgot to post some Colosseum stuff the other day.

Yeah...

This will make more sense in the next picture...

We drew quite a crowd of other people taking pictures... Field trips are fun!!!

This cat lives in the Colosseum! It also looks like my kitty Tiger!!!

My art history teacher Linda in mid lecture... On site at the Forum!

Can you spot the old parts of the building?

They took lots of things from Egypt! Those dang Romans!

More...

What a cute little stoplight!!! Narrow roads are the best!

Another obelisk...

Yup... Another obelisk..

More fat cats at Largo Argentina (where Caesar was killed.) They do have one of the most historically significant litter boxes in history...

This is a faux obelisk in Trastevere.

I really don't know anything about whoever this guy is besides the fact that he has the most ridiculously awesome statue in town!

The New Forum

Friday we toured the New Forum for our history class. This new Forum is a series of basilicas and open Forum areas that were interconnected. The seat of power of Rome moved there with the take over by the first emperors Julius, Octavian (Augustus) and Trajan. Each of these projects was built over during the Medieval and Renaissance periods or fell into ruin. They used to be massive buildings towering in the sky, but now are just a small series of walls and pediments (foundations of columns and walls) that cover the landscape. The monuments were originally unearthed during the Fascist era and have been continued to be excavated to this day.

The second set of pictures is from the reconstructed tomb of Augustus Caesar. This mausoleum was rebuilt by the Fascists to commemorate the 2000th birthday of the Roman Emperor. The modern architect Richard Meier was chosen to construct the current housing place of the monument, as the old facility was very poor.

Forum of Julius Caesar

Forum of Caesar with the Vittorio Emmanuelle Monument in the background.

Reconstruction of the Forum of Julius.

Forum of Augustus where it is attached to the Forum of Nerva

Forum of Augustus.

The top of the column of Trajan, now with a statue of St. Peter perched atop it. 

Very grimy statues on a nearby church.

Inscriptions on the column of Trajan. (More to come on this in later posts)

Reconstruction of the Mausoleum of Augustus.

On a very busy day at the Mausoleum, Adam in the foreground

Quite a juxtaposition between old and new here.

The Richard Meier building with tomb inside.

Oddities of Italy, and There Are Many...

Lots of things are weird here in the south of Europe. Today we had a train strike... Needless to say I did not know about it until like 5 trains went by (two were ridiculously full and the rest were already striking early). What a morning! I did get a lot done in studio and have included the template I have created for my final design on this first project. I have my review for that on Monday with my Italian language final on Tuesday... Lots to do so no plans for the weekend but working. We also have put off our plans for Sicily, just too dang far away from our ending point on a separate island (my goodness Capri is sooooo beautiful that our Italian language teacher is jealous).

Anyways, here is a short list of things I have noticed that are odd about Italy (and DEFINITELY comically stereotyped to the extreme):

- Every woman between the age of 30 and 50 must walk with a lit cigarette in hand.
- Older women in Italy only yell and shake their fists. Especially when crossing roads...
- Everyone languidly smokes cigarettes while waiting... for anything...
- Public restrooms? Why?
- Stores don't need to have products organized logically as long as they are inside.
- Women in Italy must wear boots. (Mainly due to dog poop)
- They have significantly fewer organizations like the FCC here to coordinate lewdness on TV and in street advertisements.
- Dogs can poop anywhere, so long as they weigh less than 15 pounds. And they must pee on at least three objects owned by the state per walk.
- If you buy a beer at a bar/restaurant you must leave the bottle in a public park or bus stop.
- You can smoke anywhere as long as you palm the cigarette while indoors.
- Stores will close at random times with no correlation throughout the week.
- You must include an expletive in front of Silvio Berlusconi's name (Prime Minister).
- "Sardine-ify" the tram and bus because Italians invented Sardines.
- You can park anywhere.
- Talk with as much arm movement as possible. Use the hand with the cigarette in it when emphasizing something.
- Scooters can drive anywhere.
- What is a speed limit?
- Horns on vehicles are meant to be abused.
- Why would you put a turn signal on a car? They are not necessary...
- Coffee can only be sold in servings less than 6 ounces.
- Never refrigerate juice, beer, fruits or vegetables.
- People under 25 must ride with a passenger of the same gender on a scooter or motorcycle.
- Everyone is in a hurry to go absolutely nowhere... Just to facilitate more standing around and smoking while talking to other people.
- Pretend not to speak English until the people bumble through loads of terrible nonsensical Italian.
- Putting scaffolding on a building means that something on it will change that decade.
- Nothing gets "fixed" just wiggled around and griped at.

Most of these aren't really true for all of Italy, but they are have happened at certain times to me and my flat mates. Most of these things also happen in other cities around the world (I have seen lots of these in New York too), but they are more noticeable here abroad.

Here is a random set of pictures to go along with a sarcastic set of pictures.

A fountain one block from studio

This is apple juice... Yes. Apple juice.

My final drawing template piece.

Scott Mead sits to my left in studio...

And Sam Mullholland to my right...

You may recognize Mike, he is across from Sam...

Anne sits in the corner across the way...

No one sits across from me...

Mike Krause sits across from Scott... (he posed for this picture)

And another Mike (Vander Ploeg) sits in the other spot next to the window.

The most random assortment of things bought at the grocery store: Green Fanta, a quarter of cheap cheese, a scented candle, a birthday cake for Matt Gaul (ISU student who lives below me who celebrated his birthday today, so we had him over for dinner), and a cheap frozen pizza. All coming in around 10 euro... Random.

I am a little busy right now catching up from being sick on Thursday and Monday, so tomorrow may be light. I will have pictures of new things from history class so tune in!

Santa Maria di Trastevere Video

Here is a little bit of some of the last church we visited today. Nothing fancy (in terms of cinematography) but it is still an intriguing video of a church from the 3rd Century.

Enjoy!

Please let me know how the old video experiment is going. Feedback is encouraged!

Brand New Day!!! (Bum Bum... I Can Go Kayaking!)

Sorry,

The parenthesis have nothing to do with anything in this post. Anyways, feeling WAY better today and good thing too! We gave our tours today on the neighborhood of Trastevere (my home sweet home, which I found I knew absolutely nothing about). Things went very well. Andrew Holcombe, Pat Davis, Drew Thorson and I lead this mini tour through the city highlighting key historic buildings and churches. Several things happened today that I never thought I would do in Rome:

- I gave a tour in the city of Rome (thought that would only happen when family would come to town)
- I lead a tour that did not get thrown out of a building (the other group got tossed from a synagogue due to their instructor video taping and taking pictures, which were against the rules)
- I convened a group of students in front of the Ministry of Education building that later had protests at it (the police just kinda got excited by us being there, they must have realized we were ignorant Americans (Our teacher was nervous about it, mainly due to the riots that supposedly happened there over Christmas break)) So technically I "started" a protest against the Italian government (though not really)
- I opened a crypt under a church that contained two saints. (St. Cecilia is a 3rd century church that was renovated several times and at one time held St Valentines head, yes Feb. 14th St. Valentine. St. Cecilia now just is predominantly a martyr site in Rome due to the martyrdom of Cecilia herself.)
- I visited my second church that is significant on St. Valentines day due to the fact that it contained his head as a relic for a certain period of time.
- I visited two old sanitariums (No. I am not losing my mind. They are a Roman University and a museum respectively.

Kalamari...

Mike and his load of mussels (get it? its a terrible pun)

Paul frying kalamari

TASTY!!!

MMMMM!!!

Oh dinner! (and possible cause of illness, but soooo goood!)

Crypt of Santa Cecilia

They new how to make things the right way back in the day...

Santa Cecilia herself

Santa Maria in Trastevere

Fascist monument to the Unification of Italy

The small fountain downhill from the big one in Trastevere