Dear mom, today I went to the Necropolis!

So far this week has been exhausting! We all had a huge paper that was due this afternoon...so finally things are beginning to settle down. Right after we handed in our paper we went on a trip to the Necropolis at St. Peters. The Necropolis is the area right under the basilica where St. Peter was buried. The tour was really amazing. The area isn't advertised because they don't want the site to be destroyed by too many visitors so they limit the number of people allowed to enter the site a day to about 200. On top of that, we were sadly not allowed to take any photos of the site, so I will try to describe it as best as I can.
We entered the Vatican City and went through a side door to the church. There was a small staircase that seemed like it would just go down into any basement, but as it turns out St. Peters doesn't just have a basement, it has a catacomb. We were suddenly walking down what had once been a street lined with mausoleums, but the street was leveled and filled in to build the original church. We saw many ornate mosaics that were very old and cool to look at, and then we were taken up into the area with all of the smaller chapels. Every wednesday the Pope has a viewing so the chapel area was quite crowded. We were able to see the monuments to the Popes and get a sense for the beauty of the place.
All in all it was a great tour, but I am really excited to go back to the Vatican to see the museums and just to explore the church itself. Hopefully I will get pictures for those entries!

Dear mom, today my good friend Charlie turned 21.

Today was a great day. We all went on a tour this morning of the Palazzo Massimo, another branch of the National Museums of Rome. I've thrown in a few pictures of my favorites from this museum. I did not particularly like the layout of this museum compared to the other ones we have visited, but the art was beautiful. There were a ton of mosaics and frescos which must have been stunning when they were first completed.
After the museum a bunch of us picked up pizzas and headed home, and by the time we got home we were so exausted from the heat that almost all of us took naps.
After our luxurious nap Danya and I spent the afternoon/early evening playing music and then we got ready for our friend Charlie's birthday party. I suppose turning 21 in Italy is not quite as exciting as it is in the U.S. but we decided to throw Charlie a party anyway. 16 of us went out to dinner at this wonderful little family restaurant in Trastevere, and that is what the photo is of. The food was delicious and the owner was very appreciative of our business. It was a great end to a lovely day. We came home and played music for a little while longer. Danya and I have been trying to perfect one of the songs from the F&W string band book. Its a lot of fun and everyone seemed to appreciate hearing it. Well, I think this weekend is going to be very busy work wise so I think I am going to head to bed.

Dear mom, oggi siamo andati ai Musei Capitolini Centrale Montemartini

Translation: today we went to the Capitoline Museum's "Centrale Montemartini."
Last weekend we went to the Capitoline Museum, but the collection we saw today is housed at a separate site. This museum is in what was once the first public electric plant in Rome. As you can see from the photos they have taken the old industrial building and transformed it into a beautiful exhibition space. The collection of pieces housed in the museum were all excavated in the same area at the turn of the nineteenth century when the main train station in Rome was built. They are all beautiful representations of Roman art from the Republic up until the Late Empire, and the museum itself creates such an interesting contrast to the pieces.
For some reason it seems like you have to know about this museum in order to visit it, its not just something people talk about. On the outskirts of the city I didn't expect to find such an amazing collection of art housed in an old industrial building, but it was beautifully organized. The exhibition makes you question your definition of art when you begin to notice how detailed an ornate the 40 ft high machines are. I couldn't help from wondering: who was the genius behind that machine?
As the first public electric plant in Rome the building holds a bit of precious Roman history. When the plant opened in the 1890s Rome was lit up for the first time, a night that I imagine would be totally unforgettable to those who experienced it. Although now I don't imagine power plants to be the most elegant places this power plant turned museum is just that. The machines and sculptures display great Roman achievement from different time periods. This thought brought me right back to the idea of the eternal city.
After seeing the museum I went home and started reading a book for class called "The Fires of Vesuvius." We are visiting Pompeii in about two weeks which will be the first time I have left Rome since I've arrived. I am very excited, especially because so far the book is fabulous. So many good adventures to come...

Dear mom, yesterday I saw my first catacombs.

Here is an image of the outside of the church of St. Sebastian. The church is on the outskirts of Rome, along the appian way which is a beautiful old road which is now surrounded by some very expensive villas. There is a course being offered here all about St. Peters and the Vatican which I am not taking, but luckily all of their field trips are open to other students. This was the first one, the catacombs of San Sabastiano. According to the professor, this church/catacomb is particularly important because after the deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul their bodies were taking to this site temporarily for worship.
That story set aside, the catacombs were really cool! Although quite dark, small, and even a little scary at first, there were many beautifully painted rooms and ornate sarcophagi. We even got to see the ruins of a beautiful house which had been at the site around the 4th century. The walls of the house were covered in frescos and some of them even had stuccos. We ended the tour by seeing entrances to a few family mausoleums which looked quite similar to the family burial sites that you see in Romeo and Juliet.
All in all it was quite the excursion. I plan on taking advantage of all the field trips of this class as often as I can, espeically because my knowledge of St. Peters and the Vatican is virtually non-exisistant, and it just gives me even more of an opportunity to really get to know Rome.

Dear mom, I had a taste of New York tonight.

Tonight we went to an art opening at the museum of contemporary art in Rome. The show was called "New York Minute" and featured 60 contemporary artists from New York. It was a an adventure that ended up being well worth it. The museum is on the southeast side of the city so it took us a while to get there, and upon arrival we realized that the event was more like a zoo. There were people flooding the piazza and cars desperately trying to get through. After waiting on line for about an hour we managed to push our way in.
The photos, one of the advertisement for the show and one of a painting i liked, only give a tiny glimpse into what I saw tonight. There was art of all mediums in various shapes and sizes, and considering the work of 60 artists was on display there seemed to be art everywhere. The museum space is a converted slaughter house, which sounds quite gruesome, and kind of is. There are still large hooks and pulley systems set up in the various galleries and the animal shelters are still intact. Although that gave the place a creepy vibe, they transformed it beautifully.
After walking through the galleries we went to hear the music and had a chance to dance. It was a long and fun night but we were all exhausted by the end of it. Well, it is 12:40 am so I should head to bed...but in my part of the world it is already Sept. 20th. Happy birthday mom! Love you!

Dear mom, today we went to the beach!

Today was a great day! We went on a tour of the Capitoline Museum this morning and these are a few pictures from that. The Capitoline Museum is on the Capitoline Hill which is one of the seven hills of Rome. It is right next to the Palatine Hill where Rome was founded, and the image of the ruins is the view of the Palatine Hill from the Capitoline Hill. The museum itself was fabulous, definitely a must-do when in Rome. Although our tour guide was not the best, the museum had one amazing room after another. We all loved it.
From there we went to the beach! I think today was our last opportunity because the weather is slowing cooling down, so I am glad we took the chance. 10 of us hopped on the train which takes you about 30 minutes outside of the city. The beach was absolutely beautiful. Because it was a Friday we almost had the place to ourselves. We all hoped that we would be able to get a lot of reading done while we were there, but of course we couldn't resist the water and just a general break from the busy city. We headed back to Rome a little bit earlier than we would've liked because the weather started to look stormy, and then we all realized just how much work we have this weekend! Surprisingly enough almost everyone is staying in tonight to work while Romans are outside our window partying the night away.
Today was great because we all just decided to take it easy for a day. It was a much needed opportunity to relax, and where better to relax than on a beach in Italy?

Dear mom, In the original Pinocchio...

The character that we know as Jiminy Cricket only lasts for about three pages! How sad!

Well, the blogging has been slow lately because we have had a poor internet connection and the work has started to pile on, but here I am again. Other than my routine classes, the thing that has been taking up the most of my time is planning trips! Danya and I are officially going on two trips together. The first to Bratislava with our friends Margaret and Hilary. Margaret's God family lives there so we will stay with them and just hop over to Vienna for a day. The second trip is to Morocco! Danya and I booked our tickets from the 23rd to the 31st of October during our break and we are very excited. Two of our other friends may decide to join us, but so far the plan goes as follows: we fly into Casablanca and immediately take a short train ride to Rabat. Our friend Shakira is currently studying abroad there so we will hang out with her for the weekend and hopefully learn a thing or two from her about how to make the most of our trip. Then we will head up to this small town in Northern Morocco called Chefchaouen for two nights. The town has a great reputation for being a beautiful tourist friendly spot in the mountains where they speak a lot of Spanish as well as Arabic. Danya speaks spanish and we both really wanted to see more of the country so we figured this would be a great stop. From there we will head to Fez for about three nights, then back to Casablanca for one night and then head home. We have hotels and hostles picked out and tomorrow we will make arrangements with all of them, which is so exciting!
On top of those trips the we have so many smaller adventures to go on in Rome and in Italy in general. Between now and next weekend we have plans to go to the following sites: The Capitoline Museum, the Catacombs of San Sabastiano, the Jewish Museum, the Necropolis at St. Peters, the National Museum of Rome, and Centrale Montemartini. I am busy but having a blast, and very glad that it is almost the weekend.

Dear mom, did you know...

"About 17,000 tons of parmesan cheese lie in the vaults of Credito Emiliano, a regional bank that accepts the cheese as collateral for loans." This is just one fun fact I found out today while reading recent NY Times articles about Italy.
So, today is officially our second Monday in Rome, pretty exciting! Classes today went well although we were all still a little tired from our weekend. But, what I really wanted to update you on was yesterday. Danya and I read up on various local markets so Sunday morning we woke up at 8 and headed to Porta Portese, a market known for antiques. It was about a 30 minute walk away so when we arrived we were already pretty tired, and the section that we came across first (it is a HUGE outdoor market) was pretty terrible. It didn't have any antiques, instead it was full of poorly made kitchen supplies and fake leather products. After walking through that section for a while we were exausted and kind of disappointed. We stopped for coffee and magically found the antique section. It was so wonderful! There were rows and rows of art, instruments, pottery, jewerly, and various other fun things. We didn't end up staying long because the weather started to take a turn for the worst, so we hopped on the tram and headed home. Despite all of trouble we went through to find the good part of the market, it was totally worth it, and we bought four tiny cacti for our room!
Well, it was a great adventure for a Sunday morning and got us excited to explore other markets around the city. We spent the rest of the day doing work and had our first group dinner last night. We call our Sunday night dinner "fam din" for family dinner. It was a lot of fun and quite filling.

Dear mom, today we explored Trastevere.

Trastevere is the neighborhood in Rome across the Tiber river. Danya, Avery, Ellie, and I wandered through the streets without any particular plan. We happened upon various outdoor fruit and vegetable markets, international markets, and really delicious pizza places. Just when were were thinking about sitting down to lunch we wound up at a park with fabulous views of Rome. I believe we were on the Janiculum Hill which is known for its amazing views of the city.
After taking a ton of photos and trying to cool off in the shade we wandered back down the hill into Trastevere and sat down at a restaurant. The experience in the restaurant was great because it was the first time we were eating outside of our touristy neighborhood. It seemed like the kind of place where the waiters knew all the patrons because they kept turning the music up loudly and people would get really excited and sing along. At first we all felt very out of our element, but it was obvious that everyone in the place was having a great time, so we did too. We also had an interesting cultural experience in the restaurant. When we were ordering our food we each ordered a different pasta dish. For some reason it seemed like it annoyed the waiter, and when I asked him why he said it was because his chef would be unhappy. We were all kind of shocked. The waiter was very friendly about the whole thing and happily brought us what we asked for, but then we started noticing that big groups of people were all ordering the same dish. It was very un-American. We ended up having a fine time and the waiter even gave us a discounted price, so we might go back once we are pros at eating like the Italians do.
Anyway, it was a lovely day which ended with our first thunder storm in Rome. It was really nice to have a break from the heat and also nice to just have some rain.

Dear mom, the weekend finally started!

We don't usually have class on Friday unless we have a planned trip or museum visit, so today was free. Our professor did strongly recommend that we visit the Ara Pacis so that is what we decided to do. The small museum/building that holds the Ara Pacis is the only building I have seen in Rome that looks like it could be in New York. Apparently the building caused a lot of controversy among Romans in 1996 when it first opened. The Ara Pacis itself was beautiful. We were able to walk around the inside and closely examine all of its walls. We also found out that the museum is holding a 50 year anniversary celebration of the Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue" next week, so we might try to go see that!
This afternoon Danya and I walked around planning our various trips outside of Rome and reading guide books. It was fun, especially because we felt like we just had the world at our feet! When we walked home we stopped at a coffee shop right by the Pantheon which had a dessert called "Granita di caffe con panna." It was a delicious coffee flavored icy with fresh whipped cream. The only bad side to it is that it is right by the building where we have class, so we might find ourselves ordering them more often than not.
Well, orginally I had many high hopes for this weekend, like going to the beach or to a small town outside of Rome, but now I just want to explore the neighborhood and get some reading done. I can't believe I have only been here for a week!

Dear mom, Today we went to our first museum.

Today we went to the Villa Giulia which is the National Museum for Etruscan Art. The Villa Giulia was the summer home of Pope Julius the 3rd, so the setting itself was beautiful. There were huge courtyards with gardens and paintings on all the walls. I guess life as a Pope can't be too bad.
The art we saw was amazing. The museum has a huge collection of Greek pottery which I could have looked at for hours. Of course it made me want to study classics, but I guess that will have to be for another trip.
My favorite part of this trip was seeing the Apollo of Veii. I studied this piece in my Survey of Art History course so it was really neat to see it in real life. The statue is a life sized one of Apollo that would've been on the top of an Etruscan temple. The Gallery which had the Apollo also had pieces of the temple which is belonged to so we were able to get a complete image in our heads. We also got to see the Euphronius Vase which was only recently returned to Italy from the Met. I don't think I ever saw the vase in the Met, but it was so beautiful. It was in a room with many other vases that have been repatriated, so it was a great opportunity to see a giant collection of them. After seeing a few key peices the museum had we were given an opportunity to wander through the various galleries. It was definitly a museum worth visitng even if just to see the collection of items from Etruscan daily life.
After the morning adventure, and it was sort of an adventure finding our way to the museum, I had most of the day to myself. Tomorrow I am going to design my syllabus for the Italian independent study, so I have to choose three novels to read. I am excited and nervous and definitly looking forward to my first full weekend in Rome.

Dear mom, they call Rome the eternal city...

So far we have been given two basic tours of Rome but I think I am only starting to understand why they call it the eternal city. Not only am I living in a building that was built in the year 800, but the foundation for this building was built on the ruins of an ancient Roman circus. Walking around the city is just so cool. Everywhere you turn there is an artifact that represents another part of history. Living in New York I don't walk around everyday finding connections to the people who lived there before me, because their traces have been erased. In Rome I find connections to the Etruscan people, the ancient Romans, the people who lived under fascism, and the modern Romans just by walking through the city.
I had two of my classes for the first time today and so far they seem like they will be wonderful. The Political Science class only has four people in it which is a little surprising, but also fun. The professor seems nice and quite passionate about what she does. We spent the first day talking about the course and reviewing the government that existed in Italy before the country was unified. It was fascinating and made me want to take an Italian history course. Our professor wanted us to have a background in the history of politics in Italy so that we could understand why things are the way they are today, especially because the system here is so different from that of the United States. She has also planned a visit to the Italian Senate and a major Italian political party, which is very exciting. The other course that I had today was the art history course about Rome. This class seems like it will be fabulous. Every Monday we have a lecture class and every Wednesday we go to museums. The list of required museums and sites combined with the suggested list must include something like 50 museums and sites. On top of that this course takes us to Pompeii and Florence for weekend trips which I am thrilled about.
Now that we have our classes we are thinking about starting to plan various trips that we want to take. Danya and I have come up with a ton of ideas but nothing is set in stone yet. It is exciting that everything is just starting but I am also looking forward to being a little further into the trip and feeling more comfortable with my surroundings.

Dear mom, Orientation....

.....was today! We started off with a typical Italian breakfast, a small, sweet pastry and juice. Somehow I still have not had a cup of coffee, and I am not entirely sure why but I was definitely tired for the start of orientation. We went over the basic details, important dates and phone numbers, and ways to avoid getting kicked out, and then we were given a safety talk about Rome. Although it was informative I felt like they were trying to scare us, and I am pretty sure I am right. The program director demonstrated different ways pick-pockets manage to trick you, and the women were given a separate talk on ways to be careful and avoid men who think they have power over you.
We had a lunch break, talked more, and then registered for classes. On top of the required Kenyon Classes, ("Eternal Glories: Monuments, Museums, and Churches of Rome" and "Rome and Its Culture: Rome in the American Imagination") I am taking a 400 level independent study of Italian which I will design with a professor and a Italian political science course called "The Government and Politics of Contemporary Italy." I am excited for all of them although I don't know much about the courses yet. Tomorrow Danya and I will go on adventure to find the "Anglo-American bookstore" where we buy our course books and then I will probably be able to explain more about my courses.
This afternoon we were given a tour of our neighborhood. It just so happens that our dorms are in a building that is an old Monastery and an ex-convent. The building itself was built in 800 A.D. The front of the building is a church and it is connected to our building on the left. The church is called "Chiesa di Sant'Agnese" and it is the church in front of which St. Agnes was beheaded. Apparently her skull is still inside on display, although I don't think I will go see it. Our neighborhood includes quite a few old architectual glories and ruins. Our tour of the neighborhood took us to the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, The Spanish Steps, and Piazza Venezia. We are also close to the Coloseum and all the surrounding ruins however we didn't visit them on this tour as we will have many opportunities.
Then, Jae, Lucy, Dan, and I decided that we would cook ourselves dinner tonight and so around 9 we headed to il supermercato and picked up pasta, tomatoes, cheese, bread, and some zucchinis. We managed to make a pretty delicious meal. Afterwards Danya and I went out to have a glass of wine around Piazza Navona and figure out what we have to get done tomorrow. It was a great end to the day although when we were walking home we realized that not only was it 2 in the morning, but the Romans were out and about as though it was 8 in the evening. There are so many small differences in our two cultures like that which make such a HUGE difference in lifestyle. Oh well, I guess I will learn everything eventually. Anyway, it is time to get ready for bed and ready for errands tomorrow.

p.s. I wanted to include photos in this post but the internet is going slowly and I can't get them up. Hopefully I will figure that part out soon!

Dear mom, I arrived.....finally.

After a 5 hour delay at JFK our plane took off and smoothly took us to Italy. We arrived and went through customs with a surprising amount of ease, but then had to wait another 3 hours for our bus to take us into Rome. The driver spoke very little English and seemed shocked and slightly annoyed with the amount of luggage the nine of us had, but it all fit! He dropped us off a five minute walk from our door and so we proceeded to our new home. The building itself is beautiful. There is a garden in the center, Piazza Navona on one side, and a touristy street on the other. Danya snagged what is supposedly the best room of them all. The room is oddly shaped with two beautiful windows although it overlooks the touristy street so it is a bit noisy. The view is what makes the room so special. We can see St. Peters right from the window and it is lit up at night similarly to the Empire State Building (cool)!
So, we moved in and then almost immediately were taken to our first dinner...and oh what a dinner it was. They started us off with a red wine and a platter of various cured meats and mozzarella. Then they followed with a pasta, eggplant, and marinara sauce that was perfectly cooked. Just when we thought we were done they brought out fried lamb chops, potatoes, and salad, and finally ended with tiramisu. Although it was so delicious we were so exhausted by the end that we almost fell asleep at our table. Danya and I were confident enough that we could find our way home so we led the way and now we are trying to stay awake while we prepare for our orientation tomorrow.
I still can't believe I am actually here, but I think maybe a good nights sleep will help.