Triumphant!

As some of you may already know, although I have an amazing farmers market right down the street from my apartment I have been too intimidated to go there due to my lack of Italian skills. Today I decided to just give in and go since many students have told me language knowledge was not required and the chicken was really cheap. I went, I saw, and I conquered. Now I have three large cuts of chicken breast and a little container of strawberries for the morning (all under €6!)

Rome - Part I

I am going to tell the tale of my field trip to Rome in pieces, due to the fact that I saw just about everything in 3 days. Far too many things to consider posting about at one time.

Yesterday, the last day of the trip, we got the chance to wander around one of the most beautiful gardens in the world (in my humble opinion) found in Trivoli. It was completely filled with fountains, I believe around 400 of them. The backyard was massive and used to be part of the private home, Villa d'Este. The photos probably won't do it complete justice but you will get the idea. It was fantastic to wander around in the sun for 2 hours in this place.

Art History lesson

I finally went on an infamous Helen field trip. Helen is our early renaissance and high renaissance art history professor and she is notorious for high paced compact field trips. But, a free trip is a free trip so last Saturday I found myself on a bus for a whirl wind tour of both Pisa and Lucca in one day. Helen field trips are actually pretty great, especially if you are not actually in the class and have no pressure of memorizing facts that may be on the midterm. She has a mic and headset system so you listen to the entire lecture from personal headphones. This provided two luxuries; I could hear everything and when I didn’t feel like being lectured to at the moment I could take my headphones off.

Entertaining things learned in Pisa…
The famous leaning tower is actual the bell tower of Pisa’s duomo complex (a duomo is the most important cathedral in a town or city). As of today it has about a 5 degree lean and had to under go a ton of construction and planning after a period of the tilt steadily increasing. The tower’s tilt is now under control and has been determined as stable.

The baptistery has crazy acoustics. One sung note will echo through the halls for about 5 seconds after the note is finished, making any mediocre singing sounds fabulous. They give acoustic demonstrations performed by the janitorial staff. In other words, a singing test is part of the application to become a janitor in Pisa’s baptistery.

Sinopias are fresco sketches and are named for their reddish tone. We saw an entire gallery of these sketches that are normally never seen because they are in a layer underneath the fresco plaster. After WWII some major frescos in Pisa’s cemetery complex were partially destroyed to the point that officials moved them off the outdoor walls to a safer location. The sketches were also removed from the wall at this time and now hang in a nearby gallery.

Random fun facts from Lucca…
A ton of buildings and complexes are built over layers of Roman ruins. There were two distinct points where you could easily see the different parts of history come together in the architecture.

The first location was a town square built on top of the foundation of a Roman amphitheater. The placement of the houses and the outside walls reflect this history.

The cathedral S. Giovanni and Reparata recently reopened after being completely excavated for ancient ruins. Layers of Roman, Early Christian and early medieval ruins lie underneath the floors of the church. They are opened up to the public to wander around in and look at the different areas ranging from an old Roman bathhouse to a brick studio from later in history.

Italy has been treating me pretty well recently. The weather is steadily getting better with more sunshine and warmer temperatures, which is great. I can’t wait to explore without being bogged down by winter coats or rain gear.

Carnival
My friends and I went to Carnival in Venice last weekend. During the day we could not find the magical atmosphere that everyone raved about. But as the families and mellow tourists slowly left in the evening and young people in costumes flowed in the party officially got started. We bar hopped in costume, moving from piazza to piazza. Stages with music were scattered around the city and the entire island transformed into a giant party.

Cooking
My culinary skills are slowly improving. About once a week I add a new dish to my list of options I can make. This week I attempted a lentil and vegetable soup. It turned out decent enough that I am willing to eat the massive amounts of leftovers so I consider it a victory.

Future Trips
I am heading off to Pisa on an art history field trip this weekend (for a class that isn’t mine, three cheers for tagging along on free trips!). Last time I went to Pisa, my junior year, I found it incredibly boring. But we had shown up after everything was closed for the evening and it was too dark to take cheesy photos with the tower; so I decided it was worth another attempt.

Two weekends from now I am off to Rome on another field trip. We are going to see all the big events (Vatican, major museums, etc) so I am pretty excited. After a few college level baroque art history courses I wanted another chance to see everything through newly educated eyes.