And so Spring Break begins...

After a week of studying like crazy, barely sleeping, eating a lot of chocolate cornetti, and taking dreadfully difficult midterms, we are ready to depart on our vacation! We leave tomorrow morning for Athens, Greece and will return on Tuesday. Tuesday evening we leave for Venice and will return on Friday evening. Throughout break I have a research paper to be working on and must do a sketch a day for Rome Sketchbook. It's also supposed to rain in Greece. Despite those downers, however, we are hoping to have a wonderful time, see a lot of ancient ruins and a lot of art. Be prepared for some really long posts upon our return!

No Hablo Español!

This past weekend my roommates and I traveled to Madrid, Spain for a fun little trip. As my title suggests, we didn't know much Spanish other than the typical "Hola," "Gracias," and "Adios!" Sara had taken Spanish in high school, but lately we've had Italian on the brain and it wasn't coming back very easily. The German Jenn and I know didn't really help. Interestingly enough, we learned that Spaniards pronounce their "C's" like "TH." Therefore, "gracias" sounds a little more like "gra-thee-as." Anyway, enough about linguistics.

We left our apartment at 3 a.m. for the airport and arrived at 3:45. Unfortunately, the airport doesn't open until 4:30 a.m. We were more than a little early! After freezing outside for 45 minutes, we got checked in, flew, and landed around 9 a.m. in Madrid. Another unfortunate moment taught us that our hostel was really far outside the center of the city. Thank goodness Madrid has an excellent transportation system! For instance, Rome has 2 metro lines, some intra-city train lines, and buses. Madrid has about 10 metro lines, a huge train line system, and buses.

Our first adventure was to the Prado where we saw many famous works of art by Velasquez, Goya, El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt, and a special show of Renoir pieces. Sara, the art history major, was absolutely delighted and I enjoyed myself as well. Sometimes it's hard for me to understand why certain pieces are so celebrated, but that's probably just my lack of art history knowledge.

Following the Prado, we decided to walk to Puerto del Sol (a large famous plaza) and stopped at Museo del Jamon (literally "Museum of Ham") for dinner. It's not actually a museum, but a little restaurant/bar that represents one of the famous foods of either Madrid or Spain as a whole...I'm not sure which. After Puerto del Sol, we traveled to Plaza de Espana and got hot chocolate. It's absolutely nothing like the Swiss Miss we drink at home. In fact, the most similar thing would be to melt down a semi-sweet chocolate bar, put a little milk and sugar in it, and drink it. Oh my goodness it was so wonderful! That evening we went to see an incrdible flamenco show.

Not very good, but you get the idea...they moved FAST!

On Saturday, we toured the Royal Palace...

...had chocolate and churros...

...and went to the Renia Sofia museum quickly to see some Picasso before going to see a Spanish Operetta at Teatro Zarzuela.

Sunday morning we got up early and checked out of our hostel before going to Museo del Traje, a clothing museum. It was pretty interesting and followed the clothing styles of Spain from the 18th century onward.

In the afternoon we shopped at a Flea Market, had Argentinian ice cream (which was delicious!), and spent a little bit of time in Retiro Park before returning to the airport.

Overall, it was a fantastic experience and we had a wonderful time. But...we were so glad to be back home in Rome! No city compares to the beauty that is Rome. :)

Weekend Excursion for Roman History

I didn’t die this past weekend and I’m quite proud of that. It was another weekend spent with Professor Jan Gadeyne (the Wall Walk leader), and he prepped us with words similar to, “Some of you may die on this weekend’s Death March.” But we all survived! My Roman History class went on a three day excursion to the cities and ruins of Terracina, Minturnae, Cuma, Boscoreale, Pompeii, Paestum, and Naples. I will try to make the following post as concise as possible, but I’m warning you that it may be long and that the history nerd in me will most definitely surface. Here we go!

On Friday we left Rome at 6:45 a.m. and arrived in Terracina a couple of hours later. We learned that Terracina became a Roman colony after shuffling between Roman and other groups’ control for a few centuries. The function of a Roman colony was to act as a base for further conquering and to allow Roman influence to spread. We learned how the forum was the center of public Roman activity and about the Appian Way, the Roman road that actually ran straight through Terracina. There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t want to bore you all to death. 

Temple of Anxur

After Terracina we followed the coast down to Minturnae. Here we learned about veteran colonies. These were colonies the Romans created in order to have places for veteran soldiers to live. We walked inside the ancient theater and learned about the Capitolium. Each city had one of these in the forum area and modeled them after the temple to Jupiter that was on the Capitoline hill in Rome.

Appian Way

Following Minturnae we stopped for lunch and I had a Caprese sandwich (mozzarella and tomato). Our journey took us to Cuma next, where we learned about its’ Greek origins. In fact, it was one of the most important Greek settlements for trade and commerce and is located in a strategic place along the Bay of Naples. It later became inhabited by the Samnites and finally the Romans. This is also the city where it is thought that the cave of the Sybil in the Aeneid is located. Cuma was the last stop for the day with the exception of traveling to Paestum to get to our hotel. It was a really quaint place right on the beach that fed us pretty well. We had a very traditional Italian dinner that included pasta as the first course and pork and potatoes as the second course. Salad and fruit always follows the first and second course in order to "cleanse the palate."

On Saturday we got up to have breakfast and then journeyed to Boscoreale to have a look inside an antiquarium. We saw remains from Pompeii and an excavated farmhouse, but everyone’s favorite was the molds of dead people. Giuseppe Fiorelli invented a recreation technique by filling in the voids of decayed items with plaster, so it is possible to see shapes of people who died during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. This then led us five minutes down the road to Pompeii where we spent the entire day. I’ll spare you the entire lecture and just put up my pictures.

Mt. Vesuvius

Forum

Temple to Apollo

Ancient Graffiti

Cast of a dog from the explosion

When we returned to Paestum for the night we had another traditional Italian meal, only this time it was a lot more…coastal. After the first course of pasta they brought out a second course of calamari in red sauce. My first encounter with this dish will hopefully be my last! While I am always willing to try anything and I didn’t really have a choice without being impolite, I did leave the tentacles on my plate and only the rings of the body were eaten. Dessert was a traditional Neapolitan sfogliatella.

Sunday morning we visited the city of Paestum where we saw very well preserved Greek temples. Paestum was originally Greek and was actually called Poseidonia. The following are pictures of these temples, dedicated to Zeus, Hera, and Apollo. Eventually Rome conquered this city. 

Professor Gadeyne in front of Temple to Athena

At the conclusion of our trip we went to Naples, a place where I have no desire to return. Professor Gadeyne kept telling us that the beauty of Naples is behind everything you see, but since I was only there for a few hours I just saw what I saw. And that was a bunch of trash and crazy insane drivers. I believe I nearly died ten times! While in Naples we learned about the history for a little and then went in search of lunch. Naples is the capital of the margherita pizza, so we went in search of a pizza shop. After lunch we left for home and returned around 6 p.m. It was certainly an exhausting trip, but I have never learned more in one weekend than I did this time! 

La Bella e la Bestia

On Tuesday night I went with my two roommates and a friend to the theater to see a production of La Bella e la Bestia (Beauty and the Beast). It was a fantastic performance and was so good that it was easy to forget it was in Italian. The “Be Our Guest” scene was by far the best scene in my opinion. This was also the first day that we could begin using our monthly bus/metro passes, so we took advantage of that. Unfortunately the metro is not working after 9 pm until April of 2012 because they are making a Line C, so we had to catch a night bus back to the Residence. While we did not have a choice that time, it will be rare to find us on a night bus again! There are some really interesting characters that ride that bus. Overall, though, it was certainly a lovely evening. Sorry for so few pictures - we were not allowed to use our cameras in the theater.

Me, Sara, Rhiannon, and Jenn in front...all very excited!