School Begins

Musei Capitolini, Piranesi awards ceremony

Well, the Piranesi Prix di Rome competition is officially over. We had presentations last Friday, and we had the awards ceremony at the Musei Capitolini at Capitoline Hill on Saturday. The museum was beautiful, though we didn't get to see much of it. We also had to go through security to get in, which was interesting. Made us feel official.

The awards ceremony was interesting. It was mostly in Italian, which wasn't too helpful. I was able to understand bits and pieces. It was nice being able to see all of the participants in one room, and apparently more international students (American, Romanian, and Russian) participated than national, aka Italian students. I thought that was pretty neat, having so many nationalities designing together. Despite some organizational issues with my group, the experience overall was nice. It was refreshing knowing how other design students around the world work, as its fairly different from how we think in America. My group actually did win some sort of prize, but as the awards were given in Italian, I'm not actually sure what we won. It was probably an honorable mention of some kind, though.

On Saturday night, a group of us decided to try to find a bar that was showing the Penn State vs. Alabama game (9:30pm our time). We found a place called La Bonticella that is an American Pennsylvania sports bar. They had all kinds of Pennsylvania sports paraphernalia, and it was a nice, cozy space. We had some Peroni drafts and free peanuts (the container of which said 'Giovanni's nuts'). Though we lost rather badly, it was still a nice night and the bar had a really nice atmosphere. Not to mention we ran into newlyweds and a one-year anniversary couple. It was too cute. It was also nice to spend a night with some other Americans and chat about your experiences in Rome.

We went to a Sunday flea market in Trastevere as well. Its at least 3 kilometers long, and a lot of the stuff they sell is pretty reasonable. I got a pair of shoes for 4 euro, and I plan to go back again. Some of the shop venders do try to rip you off and most of them don't respect personal space, but that's really just how it is here. We're just not really accustomed to that in America.

Allan Ceen's Studio Urbis

The past two days we have officially started a normal class schedule. We've now had each of our classes at least once. They all seem really interesting. Our analysis class seems to tie into our studio. In our studio, we're doing a French competition. At first I freaked out at the thought of another competition, but this one seems much better. I think we're designing a university, and our site is in Via Trinitatis near the Spanish Steps in Rome. We should be having a site visit sometime this week, so there will be more pictures to come with that. Our cartography professor, Allan Ceen, is a real character. He's a great professor though, and you can tell he's quite knowledgeable. Our first assignment was to find his studio (Studio Urbis) from our studio at Via della Gatta (yes, that translates to Street of the Cat). He gave us a map and an assignment paper and basically told us to go, avoiding all main traffic roads (which I suspect was to make the assignment a bit harder, honestly) and drawing our path as we go. It was actually quite fun, exploring Rome alone and being able to take everything in. A lot of the back streets are quaint, even if you do run the risk of being hit by a Vespa. Given the nature of the class, it seemed like a fit assignment to start with.
Allan Ceen brought another interesting fact to our attention that I really hadn't given much thought to. He gave us a brief history of Rome during the first class, and a lot of the core ideas of Roman government (Republic, Senate, etc) are all used in American government. I feel like I really should have already known that, but I didn't. Rome, an ancient city, has tons of similarities with our country. He was saying how Rome has lost some of these ideals since the Roman Empire, as it fell over a thousand years ago, and how it is refreshing to see the United States operating with similar ideas. As Americans, we usually feel isolated from most of Europe since we are such a new country, but that connection was pretty meaningful to me.

Well, that is all we've really been up to. Our travel plans for this weekend are uncertain, but we're considering going to somewhere else in Italy. Next weekend we will be venturing to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest with bus2alps. It should be a great time, and I am excited for Bavarian pretzels and some German beer steins.

I'll be sure to keep this updated (yes, I'm talking to you, Julie) once we have more experiences. Living in Italy finally doesn't seem so strange. I really enjoy cooking with fresh food, especially handmade pastas, fresh fruit and vegetables, and fresh meats. American preservatives will not be a nice change when we go home. I'm trying to speak a bit more Italian, though I usually panic when it actually comes to speaking to Italians. I know most of the basic language, I just need to make myself use it. I'm sure I will in time. I don't think I'll ever get used to the traffic, though.
Well, ciao for now. I'll leave you all with a nice photo of my group (gruppo 14) from Piranesi in the Italian students' apartment in Tivoli.