Tons of Travel: First Stop, Northern Italy

Baptistery, cathedral, tower, and Duomo

It has been a little while since I've blogged. For the past two weeks, we've essentially been constantly traveling with limited wifi/computer access. The first week of travel, from the 14th to the 18th, was our Northern Field Trip, which included visiting Florence, Verona, San Vito di Altivole, and Venice. Our first stop was Florence for the first two days of our trip. The first church we went to was called Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, which was a combination of medieval and Renaissance architecture. The inside was based upon the concept of heaven, hell, and purgatory, and it had some nice stained glass windows. Florence is actually a lot smaller than I thought it was; its like a tenth of the size of Rome. There wasn't as much there as I originally assumed. However, there was still a lot of Renaissance architecture there, and a lot of it we have learned about in our art history classes. It was nice to finally be able to see some of it. The Medici family was the main source of money for most of the architecture built in Florence, and you can tell because their crest is everywhere.

Florence from above

The main attraction in Florence is the Duomo, designed by Michelangelo. The church, tower, dome, and baptistery were all in the same area of town, right by our hotel. The inside was pretty awesome, especially the dome. Its a huge egg shape, and can be seen everywhere in Florence. We went up in the tower, and saw the Dome and the rest of Florence from above. It was beautiful, and it was also really interesting seeing the density of Florence. All of the buildings are fairly low to the ground other than the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, and a few other churches. Its really easy to see the important monuments. In the two days we were there, we also saw the Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio. Palazzo Vecchio is essentially Florence's city hall, and we've learned about both buildings extensively in our classes. We also were able to see all of our Jamie Cooper drawings in real life. We were also able to go to the Galleria all'Academia, which houses the famous David, among other interesting paintings and sculptures. The David was a much larger sculpture than I was expecting, and the level of detail was pretty phenomenal. It was good to finally be able to see it, even if I wasn't able to take a picture.

Cemetary of Santa Croce with Florence in background

Later at night, Florence as a city seemed pretty quiet as a whole. The first night Cait, Clarissa, Rose, Naeemah, Kyle, Justin and I all went to a little bar far from the city center with a friend of Kyle's that lives in Florence. It was called Kitsch American Bar, though apparently not a lot of Americans go there (a bit misleading, if you ask me). They had a pretty cheap aperitivo dinner that was better than any typical bar food I've ever eaten. We also got a free drink with it, and we discovered the existence of Aperol sours (Aperol + blood orange juice), Europe's version of triple sec and orange juice. On our second night, we found a little panini place that sold really unique sandwiches. The first sandwich I had was pumpkin cream and ricotta cheese - absolutely delicious! It was such a strange combination, but it was delicious. The five of us - Clarissa, Kyle, Justin, Cait, and I - all got a different sandwich, twice. We literally ordered ten paninis in total at this place, and used the rest of the guy's bread. It was entertaining, and so delicious. We also had scotch with our director, Romolo, while in Florence to talk about the awful situation going on at Penn State. He gave us some perspective in regards to the situation, and it was actually really comforting talking to him.

We also visited both Santa Croce and the "first" Santa Croce that was all the way on top of a hill away from the city center of Florence. Romolo's wife, Helena, took us up there, and we were able to see the interior of the church and its extensive cemetary. Though it seems a bit morbid to be fascinated by a cemetary, each of the graves, tombs, or whatever were so different, and were clearly individual according to the family. It was really interesting looking through them and being able to understand parts of a person's life even after they've already passed. The cemetary and church also offered a gorgeous view of Florence, which happened to be when the sun was setting.

Museo Castelvecchio

After our few days in Florence, we hopped on a bus to Verona. Once we got there, we all had tickets to the Museo Castelvecchio, which is the only museum in Verona. We weren't really there to see what was in the museum, but to look at the design of the museum itself. The museum had additions that were designed by Carlo Scarpa, which essentially were a juxtaposition to the much older existing structure. Some of the details were pretty cool really, especially since his color and material choice started to blend with the existing building. We spent some time in the museum, and after that, we ended up just wandering around Verona. Verona isn't very large, and we only had a few hours there. We saw their "colosseum," which is essentially very similar in design to Rome's Colosseum, but its of Verona's pink marble and is much smaller. Its concerned the Colosseum's baby sister. We had some of the tourist-y gladiator guys following us, and the one quacked in my face (I know, random, right?) while the others just tried to get us to pose with them. Then Becca, Naeemah and I decided that we wanted to see Juliet's house (Casa di Giulietta), as in from Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet aren't actually real people, but apparently they're based on actual people, and the town of Verona is renowned for bloody family feuds. Shakespeare was truly a genius, I guess.

We walked further into Verona, mostly through the shopping streets. We also saw the Piazza Erbe on the way, which is one of the larger piazze in Verona, and it has a pretty cool looking clock tower. Just down the road, there was Juliet's house. It was small, and started with an archway that had writings from people who have visited, most of them wishing for love, relationships, etc. The actual house was a museum, but we didn't really have enough time or money to go in. You could see her balcony, which was really quite small, and a statue of Juliet. The rumor/legend is that if you hold her right hand and touch her boob, you'll have good luck in life and love. Of course, being tourists and silly, we all did it and took pictures. There was also a door behind the statue (can be seen in the picture) that was covered in locks, all from couples who have "locked their love" in Juliet's house. Very cheesy, but also very cute. There was also a gift shop that was filled with Romeo and Juliet merchandise. All of it was very cheesy, but it was fun to look. It was fun to see Verona, even if it was only for a little bit. I've always wondered if the scenery in plays and stories we read was actually anything like the actual place. In this case, it seemed to be. Later, we went to a place called Hippopotamus (ippopatami) which sold essentially what I would consider American food. I got some nice curly fries (missed these so much!) and a burger. Rachel and some of the boys all got crowns with their pizza, so for the rest of the day we were all having fun crowning people.

Before going to Venice, we made a stop in San Vito in Altivole, which is where the Brion Cemetary is. The actual cemetary itself was pretty ordinary, but Carlo Scarpa designed an addition in the back which is what we were there to see. He is also buried there because the town is where he grew up. Scarpa is very good with interesting and unique architectural details, like rolling stone doors and movable windows. Even the graves themselves (of the people who asked him to design it) were designed, even down to the Murano glass tiling and lettering all throughout the tomb. It was interesting to see something that can be so depressing transformed into something that can be experienced in a different way. I've also never seen an Italian town that wasn't a main tourist attraction. Altivole was kind of the opposite though - it was essentially a ghost town. It was a really small town, and there was no one around at all. The main attraction of the town seemed to be the cemetary. Big difference than in Rome.

Piazza San Marco

After an hour or so of bus travel, we arrived in Venice, our final destination for our Northern Field Trip. We had to take a tram over the water to get into the actual city, as there is no vehicular traffic in the city of Venice. It was really interesting seeing all of the canals, gondolas, and water taxis (yes, that's what they're called) all around in the everyday life of the city. Venice was very confusing to navigate because of the waterways, but we got around. The only piazza in the entire city is Piazza San Marco, while the rest of the open spaces are designated as Campo or other titles. Most of the buildings in Venice are very horizontal instead of vertical because of the type of soil in Venice, and they are all constructed so the individual members have room to move because of the instability of the soil. It was really interesting being in Venice because it is a truly different city than anywhere else we've been in Italy, and its one of the more famous tourist destinations that you hear about and see.

Murano - a glassblower's studio

There aren't a lot of people who live in Venice; most are tourists visiting or the rich coming to go shopping. A lot of the stores are very expensive items, like clothing and glassware. Venice is especially known for Venetian masks, usually handmade out of porcelain or papier mache right in Venice, and glassblowing, made at their own island dedicated to glassblowing called Murano. We went searching for a real Venetian mask, apparently those with a stamp or sticker on the back, and finally found some. They're all really beautiful, and it would be awesome to visit Venice for Carnivale when people are actually wearing them.
We also visited Murano, which is about a 15-minute water taxi ride to the island. We passed by Venice's only cemetary, as they have trouble with traditional burials because of the soil. Murano was a very small island, but we were able to see one of the shops still making glass in their shop. It was really amazing watching them mold the glass, and watching how many times they have to heat and cool it to get it to the shape they want. It was truly awesome to watch, especially since some of the pieces only took them minutes to make.

The rest of our time in Venice included us visiting Romolo's favorite pizza place, where I had pizza carbonara, which is just ham and egg. It was pretty delicious, almost like breakfast pizza. Most of Friday, our last day in Venice, was spent shopping and preparing for the our next week of traveling - to Dublin and London. We took a train out of Venice around 6pm that night to Bergamo, and 12 hours later, finally, a plane to Dublin.

I will be blogging later about Dublin and London, as this post is already extremely long. I think I'll also talk about the possible collapse of the euro and European Union, but we'll get to that later. I have a lot to talk about, and very little time as we now have tons of assignments due in the next two weeks. I'll eventually get to it, I promise. Its only 17 (almost 16 in Rome time) days left until I'm back in America. Ciao for now, everyone.

Genève, Suisse: le vin, fromage, et chocolat

It's been a long week, and only another day until I'll be traveling for two straight weeks. This week we've mainly been doing work to make our lives a little bit easier when we come back. I finally have a working battery and battery board in my computer, and I may actually bring it with me to our Northern Field Trip and Dublin. We'll see.

Jet d'eau and waterfront

Last weekend, we went to Geneva, Switzerland, which is in western Switzerland, right on the French border. We ended up leaving Friday morning because of some reservation issues. We got there around 4pm, and checked into our hotel, Hotel Capitole. It was right near the train station, and our room was actually very nice. We had a real bathtub, not to mention a minibar and tea. After we got settled in, we headed over to the United Nations Building, even though we weren't able to go inside. Its really quite inspiring, to see all of the flags of the world in front of one building, signifying their union. There is debate as to how useful the U.N. is, but its still inspiring anyway. After we walked along the waterfront, we decided to find some dinner. On the waterfront, there is a huge jet of water (Jet d'eau) that is approximately 140 meters high, but changes according to the wind. Its a really beautiful site. We found a small cafe near the cathedral that served fondue, which is pretty much the reason why we decided on that restaurant (and it wasn't 40+ swiss francs like most of them). We had cheese fondue and omelettes. They were delicious, and the fondue was amazing. I've never actually had fondue, but I suppose having Swiss fondue as my first will give me unreal expectations. It was at this restaurant that we discovered chocolat chaud suchard, which is Swiss hot chocolate. Friday night, we mainly walked around the area around the cathedral to see everything lit up at night.

Saint-Pierre Cathedral

Saturday morning, we started the day with breakfast at our hotel. We had croissants, fruit, Swiss hot chocolate, creamy cheese with rolls, and even eggs and bacon. It was delicious. We headed over to the cathedral area early to see the museum, archeological site underneath the cathedral, and the cathedral and towers. We went into the museum first, which was all about the history of Protestantism, Calvinism, and Lutheranism. Geneva is one of the more prominent Protestant capitals of Europe. The museum was very interactive with a complimentary audioguide and talking portraits of Calvin and Luther on the wall. It was very informative, and I usually don't enjoy museums. After that, we went into the archeological site, essentially the crypt, of the cathedral. What was most fascinating about the cathedral was how many parts it had, and how it had changed so much over the centuries. In the archeological site, you can see three different plans, all different churches built in different centuries. Even the existing cathedral has a Gothic spire, Romanesque nave, and neo-Greco Roman portico on the back. It was very intriguing. You could even see the layers of earth signifying when there was human life and what was built when. There was also a pile of human bones which was a bit unnerving.

North Tower

We went into the cathedral next, which had some pretty impressive stained glass. The cathedral in Prague is still my favorite, though. We went into both the North and South towers. We able to see the bell in the bell tower, and we were able to see the timber construction as well. On the top of the North Tower, we could see most of Geneva. It was beautiful. We could also see the Alps in the background. Unfortunately the clouds didn't clear until we were already back down on the ground, but it was still pretty awesome.
Next, we went to the Reformation Wall, which signified Swiss history in religion and in unification. The United States made the wall. The Mayflower was engraved there. It was pretty impressive. After that, we just walked around. There was some type of protest going on, though we still don't know what it was for. In Switzerland, the trees were actually fall colors and losing their leaves. Its the first time in Europe that I've really seen this, especially not in Rome. Switzerland has some nice parks, which we're not used to in Rome at all.

Playing large chess

In the park, we found large chess boards that people were using to play chess. It reminded us of Harry Potter. It was interesting though, and we had some fun with the large chess pieces. We wandered around the area for a while and saw the opera house in Switzerland. We also wandered around the city going to several chocolate stores, and of course, we tried several types of chocolate. Swiss chocolate is amazing. Its much smoother, and its just delicious. I got some in the shape of a mouse and its cheese. Its adorable. We also went into a store dedicated to the Bible and they were selling Christmas things. I bought a German advent calendar there. Its cute and miniature. We also saw the Russian church, which is known for its gold onion domes and excessive decoration. We could even see the Jet d'eau from the church. You could see it from most of the places in Geneva. We went down to the waterfront, which was full of swans. They're not nice birds, but they're very pretty. There were all of these boats docked, and you could see the Alps from the lake as well. We didn't go all the way up to the jet, as we would have been soaked. We did go close to it, and were able to see the lake, jet, and mountains.

Waterfront at sunset

After buying some more chocolate and souvenirs, we went to dinner right by our hotel. We had more fondue (of course), this time with bacon in it. We also had white wine with it, which was a very good choice. For dessert, I had sorbet framboise (raspberry sorbet) even though I was really much too full to be eating more food. Our waiter was really sweet, and even offered to take our picture. Clarissa and I were doing pretty well with speaking French, at least when it came to ordering most things. Swiss French is different, but its close enough to be able to get by with some knowledge. The food in Switzerland is so good, and I believe its because they produce very good milk. Probably the reason why Swiss chocolate is so creamy and sweet.

United Nations building

 Before our train on Sunday morning, we headed out to the United Nations building again to see it in daylight. It feels pretty cool standing there in front of the sign and in front of all of those flags. You don't realize how many countries are a part of the U.N. until you see all of those flags. We also walked around and saw a lot of cool modern architecture. Most of the buildings in Switzerland seem to be very clean and modern looking. There isn't the variety there is in Rome. We also saw an architectural district called the "Smurf" houses (pictured below) that were really quite eccentric. They all had crazy colors and designs. They had very irregular details, like curtains and railings, and odd-shaped windows and walls. They were really intriguing to look at, and I can see where they get their name from. I'd love to live there, so I get the feeling they're expensive despite the fact that they look so odd.

"Smurf" houses

 They all had little porches and eclectic little cubbyholes. Whoever designed these complexes must have designed every little detail down to the windowsills. Its pretty incredible, really. We never get to that level of development in our projects.
We essentially had to leave Switzerland after looking at the Smurf houses. We did spent the rest of our Swiss francs on chocolate and wine at a grocery store in the train station, though. Good spend if you ask me. Swiss currency is very pretty looking. Its colorful, not to mention the 10 franc note has Le Corbusier on it. Us architecture nerds thought that was cool, and each of us kept one. On the train back, we actually witnessed someone's bag getting stolen. It was frightening. There was a man who got on the train (they don't check your ticket until you're already moving usually) with no bags, who seemed to be checking everyone out by our observations. Then we hear the woman behind us screaming "My bag! My bag!" and see her running out of the train. I saw a guy running, that she seemed to be chasing. Apparently he just took her bag from right under her chair when she wasn't watching. I don't think she did give it back; I don't think there was anything the people at the train station could do. It truly was frightening though; I didn't really believe that could happen until I saw that. Other than that, our train ride home was long and a bit delayed. We got home and essentially had to work on homework.

Back in Rome, we've been doing a lot of work for both studio and analysis to prepare for our upcoming travels. Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has been booted out thanks to the European Union threatening to remove both Italy and Greece from the Union. Currently Italy has no formal government and has about twelve political parties all vying for a majority. Just today we saw a huge protest on Via del Corso and right outside of where Berlusconi lives (which I'd like to add is right next to our studio, real safe, I know). Italians really hate him. I'm not even really sure what type of government Italy is formally considered. They still have Fascist and Communist parties here (though not formally called that). It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next month that we're here.

Well, we have basically a month left here in Europe. As of Monday, we'll be in Florence, Verona, and Venice. As of Saturday, I will be flying to Dublin for a week, with a day and a half in London. I'm very excited. It'll be nice to be back home too, especially with everything thats currently happening at Penn State. I kinda wish I was there right now, especially for the candlelit vigil for the Sandusky victims and to be able to see Joe Paterno on his last days as head coach.
We also have a mold infestation on the first floor of our complex. There's a ton of black mold in all of the bathrooms, and no one realized what it was until everyone started getting sick. We have a bit on our floor too, but its nothing compared to what they have. Hopefully they'll take it out soon, or it will at least be safe by the time everyone returns from traveling. We also had no water at all on Wednesday until later at night because of a pipe problem in Trastevere. Talk about a bad day all around.
Well, that's all for now. Hopefully a lot of blogging to come. Ciao for new, a presto. Traveling, here I come.

Mac is Back!

My Macbook has been healed - at least partially. It seems that not only is the battery in poor condition, but the i/o board on my computer also died. Essentially, the part of my computer that supplies power from the charger to the battery fried. That's been replaced, and a battery replacement is needed in the near future. However, I can now use my computer. Yay!

To anyone thinking of visiting Rome with a Macbook, or those of you who will be studying abroad here in the future, the place to go for purchasing accessories and for Mac repairs is definitely Flaminia Computer. They're all very nice, and they speak good English as well. They're very experienced; the guy told me everything I need to do to be able to keep my computer's battery situation in check. They're all the way down Via Flaminia, past Piazza del Popolo, so they definitely aren't close, but if you have a studio deadline or just really want a functioning computer, they're the people to call. Just my advice for everyone.

A blog post about actual Roman experiences will be appearing shortly. This weekend I go to Switzerland with Clarissa and Rachel! After that, we have a week of classes, and then our Northern Field Trip to Florence, Verona, and Venice, Dublin for Thanksgiving, and Paris in December. Sounds like a fun time to me. :)

Ciao for now!

I Miss You, Macbook...

As Rome seems to be cursed when it comes to electronics, my Macbook's battery has died as this Wednesday. It doesn't charge, and I'm about 95% sure that it needs a replacement. I took it to one of the Apple service centers in Rome, and it should be getting fixed as we speak. The public Italian holiday, All Saints Day, may be delaying my plans and my reunion with my beloved computer.

Regardless, I am thankful that there is a reliable service center here in Rome. Additional blog posts will be delayed for at least a few days, as will most communication other than through my iPod and the studio lab computers.

Thankfully, some nights Naeemah lets me borrow her computer to do some homework and to catch up. I appreciate it greatly. Hopefully I won't have to mooch off of people for too much longer.

Oh, and happy Halloween to all of those in the United States! Halloween isn't really popular here other than in clubs and bars, and with some of the children. All Saints Day and All Souls Day are a much bigger deal here (yet we still have class?).
Hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend. Hopefully I'll be reunited soon.

Into the Movies and Back to the Past

This past weekend we stayed within Italy. On Friday, for our Italian Studies class, we went to Cinécittà, Rome's equivalent to Hollywood. It took us about an hour by metro to get there as its basically on the outskirts of Rome. When we got there, we had a short tour of the current sets they had and are using. The first set we saw were the sets of Gangs of New York, the American movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. We weren't supposed to take pictures of them since they're using them for another film that has yet to be released, but I did anyway (mainly because they told me I couldn't). We also saw the sets that were used for a documentary on Rome and for the movie, Cleopatra. We went inside an exhibition that went through how some of the films were made and displayed props and costumes from famous American and Italian films that were made right in Cinécittà. I didn't realize that quite a few American movies were filmed mostly in Cinécittà, including Gangs of New York and Nine. It was an interesting place to see, though I wish we had been allowed to see more of it. I think all of the most interesting sets are hidden away from tourists and ordinary people.

One of the residential streets in Pompeii

Most of the past weekend and week have been spent doing studio, our own individual projects and our collective site model. We did have a field trip to Pompeii and Paestum this weekend for all Pantheon Institute students. On Saturday morning, at 7:45am all CIS and Penn State Architecture and Landscape Architecture students were on a bus to Pompeii. Of course I didn't end up waking up until 7:30, so I ended up throwing half my stuff into my backpack and running out the door. It's a great way to start the day. It took us about three hours to get there, and there really isn't much between here and Pompeii. Once we got there, it was actually better and a lot cooler than I was expecting. We've already seen Ostia Antica and Hadrian's Villa, which are essentially just ruins, and we've all grown a bit tired of them. Pompeii was partially preserved under volcanic rock, so there was more that was still standing. We walked along the residential areas where most of the impluviums were still there, though there was no longer water in them. There were grape vines growing in several areas, including a still-stnaidng vineyard that had grapes growing to simulate what it would have looked like when Pompeii was a functioning town.

Ancient Vineyard

We saw the amphitheater, which I'm fairly sure couldn't keep lions from attacking the people, nor was I convinced that it could hold 80,000 people. I suppose I wouldn't know, though. Maybe people back then were a lot smaller.
We also saw the House of the Fawn. We basically had to, given how much we've learned about it thanks to Jamie Cooper. We saw the view corridor, and a lot of it was still existing. We also saw a German shepherd there that was just lying there. Apparently Pompeii welcomes dogs, and there were dogs laying around everywhere. It was refreshing, and if I could, I'd consider adopting one. They're all so cute.
The one thing that was probably the coolest, yet also most disturbing, was seeing some of the bodies that are still encased and preserved in volcanic ash from Vesuvius. We saw two in glass cases in one of the rooms in the main Forum area. They were cool, but parts of their bones were still preserved, and most of the positions they were frozen in were mainly positions of pain and suffering. Most were holding their noses or crouching. It was really kinda sad. They apparently used to be everywhere in Pompeii, but they've since removed them to museums to preserve them. I think it would be interesting to see the original positions of all of the bodies, but at the same time, I think it might be depressing.

We stayed in Pompeii for about three hours, and then we had to head to Paestum, which is about an hour south of Pompeii. We were staying overnight and having dinner there before exploring the archeological sites on Sunday. I've honestly never even heard of Paestum until we had this field trip, and it's not a very large town. It's a coastal town, and its main attractions are resorts, amusement parks, and summer activities. Basically, the town was pretty dead as its now the end of October. We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Sogaris, which looked a lot nicer on the website than it did in person. It wasn't a bad place, but the pool was full of leaves and it didn't look nearly as extravagant. It was right on the beach though, so we did get to see the sunset on the beach. It was nice, though it was a bit cold to be swimming.

Paestum beach at sunset

We all had dinner together at the Hotel Calypso restaurant, including the director and his wife. It was a bit far from our hotel, not to mention some of the streets seemed pretty sketchy. We had a reserved section of tables. Cait, Justin, Clarissa, and Kyle were at my table. The food at the hotel was amazing. We had four courses, including dessert. The menu consisted of a small piece of pizza, pepper fritters, a potato pasta, pork with roasted potatoes, and a mint cannoli. The meal was probably pretty expensive, but it was included in our fees for studying abroad. We also had some wine with dinner and exchanged childhood horror stories. We met "Jyle," Kyle's apparent childhood altar ego. Later that night, basically everyone decided to bring wine from Rome because there wasn't much to do at night in Paestum. A group of us all played cards in Simon's room accompanied by several bottles of wine. It was a good night.

Early on Sunday, we headed to the archeological site of Paestum. There were two main temples, the Temple of Neptune and the Temple of Athena, whereas most of the other areas were small ruins. There was a small amphitheater, which was mainly just low stone rings in the ground. The temples were pretty magnificent though. They were mostly intact, especially the Temple of Neptune. The columns were so thick, and the temples were so tall. I can't imagine just going there to pray and having that be part of everyday life. The ruins there were really kind of beautiful. The weather was also perfect and the sky and mountains were quite the backdrop. We also went to the museum in Paestum as well. I don't really like museums much, but it was interesting seeing some of the frescos and pottery. They had some very pretty handcrafted jewelry on display in there as well. We left Paestum by mid afternoon, and were back in Rome by evening.

Despite our increasing studio course load, I'm glad they took us to Pompeii and Paestum. Up until this point, I was disliking most ruins we have seen as I couldn't really get much out of them. The history of Pompeii and Paestum was much easier to see, and I think that's why I enjoyed seeing it. The mountain scapes in southern Italy are also quite something to behold, and you don't see that in a dense city like Rome.

This week should be consumed mostly by studio work, as we have our midterm reviews on Friday... for probably about seven hours. No joke. Our studio project is interesting, but I've never lacked motivation so much in my college career. Rome (and my computer... and now Doctor Who) are really quite distracting. I'll pull through somehow. I am really starting to enjoy our cartography class though. We'll be walking the papal route (or at least most of it) on Thursday, and I think that's a really interesting thing to see. Our professor is one of those people who just seems to know everything, and he's pretty enjoyable to listen to, even at 9 in the morning.
That's all for now. Plans for Dublin and Paris are now official, and a trip to Switzerland and possibly Austria may happen as well. This upcoming weekend will probably be spent here in Rome, though. All should be great experiences. Ciao for now, as I really should be designing a building right now.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

This morning we were woken up by one of the most intense thunderstorms I've ever seen. Its rarely rained for us here in Rome. We've had maybe three days of rain since we've arrived in August. It started around 4am our time, and continued until around 11am. Our entire complex was flooded, and it was absolutely downpouring. There was pretty intense thunder and lightning too, which is what woke us up. Our window decided to open itself (the windows here are probably around thousand years old, so I guess I can't blame them), so I was also getting slightly rained on along with all of my drying laundry. It looked like an old horror movie. When they say that when it rains in Rome, it really rains, they weren't kidding. There were also flocks of black birds flying. They've been around on other days too, but in addition to the rain, thunder and everything else, it looked like the world was about to end.

Our complex is definitely not meant for flooding. The entire courtyard had at least an inch of water, and the entire ground floor pathway was flooded because of the poor drainage and water spilling from above. Apparently our complex used to be a church and convent, so I'd assume it wasn't designed to handle a lot of rain. It was scary though, seeing water just pouring everywhere. We had water leaking in the building too, from the ceilings and windows. Our entire main area and kitchen were soaked because the window was left slightly ajar. I've rarely seen it rain that hard for that long.
Our cartography walk was cancelled, though I'm legitimately surprised that Allan Ceen cancelled anything. The rain did let up around 10:30 in the morning, and the day was decent after that. The Tiber was overflowing for the entire day, and was brown from all of the drainage. We learned about the river walls that were installed in 1870, and I can see why they need them now.
All in all, its refreshing to see different weather, but this storm was actually pretty scary. It was a really intense thunderstorm with a lot of rain and hail. I don't really feel as safe in buildings here as I do at home. We have no screens here, and we aren't sealed from the outside as well either. I guess I'll appreciate American construction when I'm back.

Political Instability

While we were on our flight back from Prague, there was a (supposedly) peaceful demonstration near the Colosseum here in Rome. It was one of the Occupy demonstrations, which have been happening all over the world, including the United States. It turned very violent, ending with police tear gassing some of the protestors and a car catching fire. I've never seen that kind of violence in the United States, and its kinda scary that it was so close to where we've living. I've noticed that the economy and government here are really unstable, and I keep seeing signs for various protests and seminars for various political parties. The violent demonstration on Saturday is probably just the beginning. I've also been hearing rumors about the euro being unstable, and the possibility of it completely collapsing (or of Italy and Greece being kicked out of the EU) because all of the economies of Europe are so inconsistent. Eesh. You don't realize how other countries function until living there. I don't really believe that America is as stable as it seems either, but I'm positive that we're better off there than here. The value of the euro has been dropping steadily since we've been here. Its gone from about a $1.50 to a $1.30. As much as I'm enjoying not losing tons of money in money conversions, I don't think that's really supposed to happen in such a short amount of time.
Find out more information and photos here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/15/501364/main20120893.shtml?tag=cbsContent%3BcbsCarousel
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/16/501364/main20121114.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;2

To anyone concerned, we're all fine. We're at least a twenty minute walk away from the Colosseum and most major landmarks where they would protest. Most of us weren't even in Italy when the protests on Saturday happened.

Also, blog post about Prague is below. I just split into two blog posts because it was getting ridiculously long. Yes, I know I talk too much. Enjoy.