The End is Near

I might have mentioned that it's almost December. As I face that fact and make my list of things to do this weekend and wonder whether to go on the art history field trip (more churches!) in spite of the massive transportation strike planned for tomorrow (I will probably go.. how many times in your life do you get the option to walk across Rome to hear Tags lecture at you?), and as I watch my friends take the links off their ever-shortening paper chains, I know that the end is at hand.

And I know it's kind of melodramatic, to phrase it that way, but I'm facing it pretty calmly. So far. It's the last set of readings before the last Monday lecture. It's the last week of ceaseless trips. It isn't that we're any less tourists than the people we see whenever we're in front of the Pantheon. It's more like we've become supertourists. We've seen more and probed much more intently at the ancient sites than your average tourists. We know where we're going and what bus will get us there fastest (or not, in the case of the pan-Italia seriously no kidding airplanes and everything else included).

We aren't your average tourists. But we're not native ragazzi either.

My to-do list is absolutely massive. Several of the items have a lot to do with getting my blog back up to speed and repopulated with the photos it deserves. Others are the assigned readings. And things like Greek, and homemade cards.

Usually by the time the semester is ending, I'm pretty burned out. I'm excited to pack up and get back to Georgia because I know I'll be back to school in a few short weeks to tackle it all again. But there's something more to lose here. It isn't that I won't come back to Rome ever again. I'm certainly intending to return. And it isn't that I'll never see my Centro friends again. We'll visit one another, at least the ones we want to see the most. In a lot of ways it's like GHP, except that I can't expect to go and work here in a few years. What I stand to lose is the combination of it all.

The huge Pamphili park up the street. Being a parking lot away from gelato. Maria who calls me a snail, and knocking on the doors in the hallway of this redone convent. Staying up too late playing Scrabble, wondering if we'll get special permission to climb Trajan's column tomorrow. Making classics jokes that everyone gets.

Roma aeterna will always be here. When I get to Nashville, I'll have my friends back (or at least some of them), and I can still see Carla and Derek. And I can always visit Emily, Kirsten, and Vinnie in Boston and Emily in Baltimore, and anyone else. But I won't always have them all at the same time, here. It's precious to us because it is limited. By now, very limited. A lot of people really are ready to get out of here. Some people have said very often how much they longed to go. They miss too much that is in the U.S. I know I am too, ready for a break that is. It's good to go away, especially to something like this. It's good to come home too. It's just that for the first time in my college career, I wish the semester had a few more weeks than it does. Not because I need more time to prepare, but just want more time to love it here.

Still Fall in Rome

Today we went to Monte Testaccio and the Vatican Museums. Overall, a very good half-day field trip. Monte Testaccio is a huge pile of busted amphorae which were mostly used to get olive oil from Spain to Rome. We climbed it briefly and the paths were paved with pottery fragments. I was skeptical about our ability to get into the Vatican on time, but when we got there, the line was jaw-droppingly nonexistant, so we walked right in and got our tickets. There’s way too much amazingness in that place. The concentrated nature of it all seems like the universe might implode into that spot.

We saw the real Prima Porta Augustus, and some famous statues of other emperors and gods, and emperors as gods, and the Cancellaria reliefs, and the reliefs from the Haterii tomb, all of which I studied last year so I was particularly excited. We also saw the awesome and famous Laocoön. Then we were free to roam the place for a couple of hours, so I followed some other people who had been there before (I, though having lived in Rome for three months, had been to the Vatican area only once, to send mail, and had never entered the basilica or the museum, which is a shameful thing to admit) and we fought the crowds to look at the Sistine Chapel, which is just freaking breathtaking, and the Raffaelo room which has the real School of Athens on the wall, and some other really famous painted rooms that even people who don’t know anything about art like me have heard of.

I stuck with Liz because she had gone to these places for class with the exceptionally intense Art History teacher, “Tags,” who lectures nonstop and totally from memory at the sites. She explained the ceiling work of the Sistine Chapel and how the place would have worked. It’s really cool to me how much the works of art are influenced by where they are placed and what the space is used for. School of Athens is supposed to inspire people to look in the bookshelves for knowledge. The Sistine Chapel was divided between laypeople who took Communion beneath a painting of the Fall of Man, and the clergy who got to sit under paintings of a time before original sin.

It was a gorgeous day, so all of this was great. Yesterday was absolutely beautiful too. We went out to Tivoli, to Hadrian’s pleasure villa, which is ridiculously large, and was amazing to explore in the warm late-November sunshine. We followed that up with a visit to a pair of temples on top of a hill, and then to the Villa D’Este, which has sweet wall paintings but even sweeter gardens with amazing fountains. The idea is that Hadrian’s Villa would have had water features like the Villa D’Este, and there were fountains everywhere. In the hallways of the villa itself all along this one wall, and all over the garden. It was like a look-but-don’t-swim water park. I took lots of pictures, but we spent a good two hours roaming the gardens looking at the various fountain features. It was stunning beautiful, and I thought it would be the best thing ever to be invited to a garden party at a place like that. I could just see knots of people chatting in the alcoves, and the couples making out in the fountained corners.

It’s almost December, but it’s still fall in Rome, and I love it!

Lupercal Cave

This has been in the news recently, because they've just published photos from inside the cave where they sent a camera-probe.

And the consensus is.. they've found the freaking Lupercal Cave!

That link has some photos from inside the cave, showing its mosaics and marble and stonework inside. What's significant about the cave is not that it was actually the place where the she-wolf saved the twins Romy and Remy, but that the Romans kept it as a shrine, believing that it was. And, that Augustus, master of propaganda, built his home right next to it. The finding of the cave is awesome and huge, and I'm excited to see how the excavation turns out.

It doesn't prove that the myth is true (as the article seems to suggest) but it does give us a lot more information about Roman civilization!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not an Italian holiday, but yesterday was quite wonderful. We did have class, but it was an easy day. I didn't even bring my notebook, since we didn't have lectures on site, just some staring. We went to the Ara Pacis first, since it was closed the first time, and stared at it in awe for a while. It was pretty awesome. In the basement part of the building I dropped my camera and two museum people came running. I guess they thought I busted a statue or something.

I may add photos later. But the Ara Pacis is definitely amazing. I spent a lot of time studying it for my class last year, but there's nothing quite like being next to it, picking out the lizards and frogs carved into the relief on the bottom half of the outer wall.

After that, we went to another museum. This was the EUR Museum of Romanness.. or something like that. It was full of only copies of things, so I was skeptical at first, but it turned out to be really awesome. Tons of models and plaster casts. Every inch of Trajan's column (which we climbed!) in relief down a long hallway. Lots of models of the city, certain buildings, areas in different places. All very cool. Schematics for how things worked. Roman armies. Roman games. Sweet. I looove scale models.

The day was bright and not even that cold, which makes things easier as well. I had a lovely time. Dinner was absolutely awesome. The cooking ladies went all-out for a holiday that isn't even theirs; we had two huge birds, after the first course of ravioli of course.. pumpkin soup, green beans, mashed potatoes, nuts and stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn... It was wonderful! Dessert was also fabulous, as you can imagine. There were about eighteen and I tried them all. The cheesecake was like.. whipped cheesecake. The pumpkin pie made my Prof. Wally's wife was freakin' awesome and I'm getting the recipe.

This morning, like any good conscientious American, it was shopping day. I went on the art history field trip again, and got to see some more realyl cool churches, as well as the Doria Pamphili Galleria (or some of it, anyway).. got some more stuff to decorate my room (I'm shifting from anime to classical art.. it's a totally fair trade).

From there, Captain Cook and I went off to shop. We looked in some clothes stores (which were, thankfully, not packed with any more Italians than usual) and they were all pricey, but then we got lost when we used a different exit from the mall onto a different street. We walked along it for a while, then came to a sign with arrows pointing to different attractions. We hadn't bought anything yet, and I read off the attractions, one of which was "Museo paste alimentari" or something, and I laughingly suggested we go find the pasta museum. We set off in that direction and stumbled upon some great little stores. Once I found an item that was my sucker price, some kind of dam broke and I bought Christmas presents for a whole bunch of people. After throwing down tens of euro, Emily and I cheerfully picked our way back to the Corso and got a bus home. This whole excursion took about three hours (the field trip was like 9 to 1:30, and then we were out until about 5) but was well worth it. It was even warmer today than yesterday, with no need even for a jacket, only a sweater!

It's been absolutely lovely!

A Full-Time Job

So I’m going to have to go way back. I guess one good indication of my not writing is the old adage that no news is good news. I've been too busy living it to write it down! Let’s start with the end of October.

Before that, we’d gone through the Aqua Claudia aquaduct, though. THAT was really cool.

Yeah, in an aquaduct, no big deal.

Our field trips at that time were mostly within the city of Rome, so we saw things like the Theater of Marcellus and the nearby Temple of Apollo and Portico of Octavia.. stuff we see every day on the bus, you know? And then we went into the Forum of Augustus.

This was cool because it meant we got to go somewhere special that regular tourists do not have access. This will be a theme. The Forum of Augustus, like most of the fora, is today cut up by the “Road of the Imperial Fora” which Moussolini set up back in the day. It was awesome nonetheless to be in the place I’d read so much about. We were also let into Caesar’s Forum before that.

Just hanging out in Caesar's forum

We also visited Augustus’ home on the Palatine (it was Augustus week) which was freaking awesome. We were taken down in small groups to see the excavated area, right next to the Romulus Hut which may not have actually contained Romulus, but which the Romans kept up as if it had. There was another temple to Apollo nearby, in which the terracotta plaques used to be. I used this plaque in a paper I wrote for Latin class, so I was way excited to see it in person.

It's Apollo and Hercules fighting over Apollo's tripod. But we know who will win. And guess who they symbolize!! Augustus = Apollo, and Hercules = Antony!

After that (still on the 30^th of October) we went to the Palazzo Massimo Museum which is right next to Termini train station. I had already been there with the Emilys to look it over and prepare for my presentation on the Fasti (Roman calendars),

Genuinely excited.

so after giving my presentation (which was fine, although at the end of the day, so I don’t blame Vinny for falling asleep) and seeing Emily G’s, we cruised around once and went home. The museum has a full reconstruction of Livia’s wall-painted dining room, though. Sweet. And a mummy child in the basement. And some original bronzes from Greece, and some awesome sculptures. Including PIOUS AUGUSTUS, on which Emily gave her presentation.

At the feet of the master

The next week, we went to see the Ara Pacis and Mausoleum of Augustus in the rain. The Ara was closed and the Mausoleum is kind of decrepit by now. But it was a short day.

We went to Ostia on November first and we saw a lot of stuff. It was cold and rainy, though, so mostly what I remember is that I wore boots (excellent protection from water but not comfortable for trekking across a whole ancient city, which we pretty much did) but not a proper coat, so I was cold the whole time.

This is how we have class in Ostia

But, there was an underground tunnel in the baths, and we discovered bats inside it. That was really sweet. We followed the sounds of bats until we found a whole bunch of them, the disturbed them with camera flashes and flashlight beams until they swooped around us. One narrowly missed my head. I could only think “I wish I had Achilles with me.” Achilles was the name of my MagLite this summer.

Bats! Bats bats bats! Bats bats bats! Bats bats baaaats...

We did see a lot of cool stuff, and Ostia is an awesome place to visit. It’s a nice one-stop site for everything from forum to temples to vigiles, sort of like Pompeii except that it lasted longer, and a lot closer to Rome. In the baths near the forum I accidentally said something that could be wrongly interpreted, and Vinny actually sprinted away from me laughing, to prevent me from explaining myself. I also got really excited when I found wall tubulae.

TUBULAE!!!

The teachers were feeling it too, by the end. We got to the “Round Temple” and Prof C said “Three things to remember about the Round Temple. It’s a temple. It’s round. It was the last major public work built in Ostia.” I don’t think we’ll ever forget. Then, we got to go home.

Friday immediately following this (that week we had two all-day field trips, of which Ostia was the second, Thursday.. we always have them on Tuesday) I hadn’t had enough field-tripping for one week, so I went along on the art history field trip to some churches. We went to St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore, and also St. Nicholas in Chains, where they have the Moses carved by Michelangelo.

Moses.

All of the churches were amazing and impressive and just awe-inspiring. I love looking at the marblework for some reason, I just think it’s so pretty. I had lunch with Captain Cook outside of the Lateran (which is the head of the churches in Rome, we found out) and it was a lovely day.

And, since that obviously wasn’t enough yet, I joined up for the optional Saturday morning field trip to the Horologium of Augustus. The gnomon of this sundial is a big obelisk that now stands in a public square (my dad and I found it at night while they were here), but the actual ground part which charts the passing shadow is all underground. So we went into the basement of some shop that had some Greek writing down under the floor under a few inches of water. Yeeeaah. It was really, really awesome.

This is the line between Virgo and Taurus

Total hours spent on field trips that week: 32. Yeah, buddy; add that to the hours spent in class and doing homework and don’t ask me how I got sick shortly thereafter. G-Unit had a cold. There are only a couple of ways for me to get sick: short myself on sleep, spend copious amounts of time with someone who is sick, or stress out and try to do way too much stuff in a small amount of time. I did all three.

Gone missing

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything! I have an Italian quiz this evening. I'll be sure to post after that, since I'll have more time. Campania was amazing! I have lots to tell since I last wrote.

Happy Birthday!

Since my birthday fell within the bounds of “hell week” it was relatively low-key and unassuming. Everyone is presented with cake, though, on their birthday or on the nearest weekday. Angela has called me a snail, because I am always the last to finish eating. I’m used to being last, though. On the 29^th, Franco was sort of hovering waiting to take my plate away so they could bring in the cake. I was aware of this and still the following was allowed to occur.

When I was finally done, I still had a piece of bread sitting on the table about the size of two bites. Carla tried to toss it into the bowl that was moving away from me at that moment, but I screamed “NO!” at her and snatched it from her hand quite greedily. It was only two bites. I could finish it. I still had the last of the green beans in my mouth at this point. I looked around fiendishly and then partly just for laughs, I shoved the rest of the bread into my mouth. The lights immediately turned off and I began to crack up laughing because they were bringing in the lit cake.

The Centro sang “happy birthday” and I was falling apart the whole time, my mouth too full to speak, but too busy laughing to chew. I knew I was running out of time and would soon be expected to extinguish the candles. I waved them out with my hands, still laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

All in all, it made my day.

Halloween was fun. I didn’t have as much time to spend on my costume as some people who looked amazing, but I did put together a quick rendition of Iris, the rainbow goddess who does Juno’s bidding. The party on the fourth floor became a dance party and I went completely wild there, too, singing and dancing my heart out until I went downstairs and promptly fell asleep.

Left to right: Zombie, Iris, Diana, Love-a-lot bear, Minerva, a Spartan, a Gaul

Between that and the thirty-odd hours of field trip each week, I’ve worn myself out enough that I caught Emily G’s cold (Emily C got it too) so we’re all sicky-faced Emilys together today.

Otherwise the weather has been alternating between beautifully sunny and cool, and chilly-wet cloudy. We have no field trip today, which is a good thing, because I think it will help me to not fall behind so much because I go at a much slower pace with a cold.

Not to mention the fact that I have to sign up for classes for next semester. Which means I have to figure out what I’m doing after next semester since some of my classes depend on my plans.

I’ve been using my “spare” time to try to gather information and make those plans. I have been quite content knowing I had ‘options,’ but now I guess I have to have more than that. Had to happen sometime.