So this first week (well, now last week) in Rome has been a whirlwind; I can't believe I'm already a quarter way through this program. Tuesday (6/2) was Festa della Repubblica so we had the day off. AIRC had an awesome breakfast spread laid out for us and we watched the parade from the windows because it's on the fourth floor and is right across the Imperial Fora. We all caught a train to Tivoli afterward and went to Villa d'Este, which was gorgeousss. It was like being dropped in the middle of an Alice in Wonderland garden, because it's a huge estate with hedges and gardens and tons of ornate fountains everywhere. I spent like an hour sitting on this ledge over what must have been a 50 foot drop, overlooking the countryside and journaling.
Wednesday was what I consider our first real class day, I guess, because we got rained out Monday and didn't have class Tuesday. I don't think I'd ever been as excited about a class as I was that day; Albert taught our class on the Imperial Fora while we were IN the Imperial Fora. I was geeking out pretty hardcore about things like being able to learn about the Temple of Minerva while looking at the actual remnants of the Temple.
Thursday, we took a long bus ride to Tarquinia and Ceverteri to look at Etruscan tombs. I keep getting blown away by how breathtaking the Italian countryside is. Even in the middle of what was essentially a giant cemetery, everything was sooo pretty. Apparently one of the tombs, the Tomb of the Leopard, is really famous in art history (all the tombs are painted inside). I'm not much of an art history buff, but I just think it's so cool that I get to learn about all these things at the actual sites and not out of a textbook.
Friday was our first class with Darius at the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum but to be honest, I have no idea what we talked about at all because I felt like absolute shit for some reason. A bunch of us went over to the Colosseum afterward because our tickets for the Roman Forum got us into the Colosseum, too, and I felt really guilty because the group just hung around worrying about me. I made them go ahead, but Shyam stayed with me while I was like, hyperventilating. I still have no idea what was wrong, but I just walked really slowly, breathed, had some water, and was a little better when we got to the Colosseum. It's really cool that the hypogeum is exposed in the Colosseum, so you can see all the underground chambers and stuff.
But since we had a long weekend (we had today off!), we took a trip to Florence! We went in groups, so ten of us went Friday and then the other five went Saturday. The first group of the ten of us had a ridiculously ritzy dinner in Florence that night andddd I probs really couldn't afford to, but OMG Florentine bistecca and chianti, it was SO good. I'm one of those gimme-my-steak-still-bleeding people, so I really liked it, haha. Looking for a club afterward was kind of a bust, BUT we defs saw some drunk dude's junk because he was just peeing in the middle of the street, haha. He wasn't even trying to be subtle about it, his friends were all laughing their heads off and it was just like, "O hai, yr waving at with your OHHH!"
So I got put with the Shyam, Christopher and Stephen in a 6-person mixed dorm in our hostel because the private girls room was only for five, and Chris drew straws when he was planning. Our two random roommates were okay, minus the part where they came back at 4:30 AM and woke us up, and then again at like 6:30 AM because the dude was snoring SO loudly. I was greeted by a tubby, half naked, snoring Canadian dude when I woke up, it was great. We actually got really lucky while we were in Florence, though, because there was supposed to be like a 70% chance of rain and it barelyyy rained at all.
We all split up Saturday because we wanted to do different things, so Stephen, Ashley, Apu (Apoorva) and I went to the Galleria degli Uffizi first. There was a lot of really amazing stuff there, like Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi. After that, and lunch, we climbed the Duomo which was 493 steps of misery, but the view at the top was SO worth it, you could see absolutely ALL of Florence. Then we went to Santa Croce, and saw the tombs of Rossini, Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli (although his was being restored and covered in scaffolding, boo). It was a lot like being in Westminster and geeking out about the historical significance, haha. We wandered down Ponte Vecchio, which is one of three bridges in the world that has shops and apartments on it, and then Apu and I really wanted to go to Il Bovaro (Florence's microbrewery) but it was closed, SO lame. We went back to the hostel, though, and went swimming in the awesome pool (the lights in it changed color, so it looked like the entire pool changed color) and sat around in the steam room and stuff. We were all going to go to Piazzale Michelangelo that night because it's supposed to have an amazing panoramic view of Florence, but it started pouring so we just stayed in at the hostel because they have this downstairs bar/dancefloor area, and a couple pool tables. We met some guys from Maine, and played a few rounds of Never Have I Ever. I don't remember any of what people said, but I just remember getting out of those games quick, haha.
Waking up on Sunday was painful because me, Stephen, Apu, Ashley, and Shyam had to be out of the hostel by 7:15 to pick up Royce from his hotel and catch our train to Cinque Terre. We all PTFO on the train and I was kind of cranky and disoriented when we got there but that changed as soon as we got to Cinque Terre because it was goddamn GORGEOUS. We arrived in the first town, Riomaggiore, and the train station was basically right on the side of a mountain, overlooking the ocean. We had lunch on the way on our "hike" (mostly just a scenic walk, haha) to Manorola, the second town. We just sat at a scenic outlook and squee-ed about being in Cinque Terre while waiting for our train to Vernazza, the fourth town (we skipped Corniglia because it's quiet and inland). Vernazza is "the jewel of Cinque Terre," at least according to Rick Steves, so we hiked a little and then got cappuccinos while waiting for the rain to stop (we got SUPER lucky with the weather again. Despite a 30% chance of rain, it only rained for like the 10 minutes we were inside getting cappuccinos). We spend the most time in Monterosso, the fifth town. It's the one with the biggest and sandiest beach, although it's still a little rocky, but it's SO pretty. It was kind of scary, though, because going into the water was really rocky, which hurt, and then there was this huge drop-off, so your feet suddenly wouldn't be able to touch the ground. And because of the drop-off, the waves got HUGE right there. I wasn't prepared for it, and got knocked off my feet and dragged under while was mildly terrifying o.O
OH, and then we had a tragic train mishap, haha. We missed the transfer on the way to Pisa, so we got stuck in S. Stefano Magra for like an hour, which meant our entire itinerary got fucked up. The last train from Pisa to Rome was at 7:56 PM or then 2:19 AM, so we were just going to skip doing anything in Pisa so we could get back, but then we were like, "Fuck it, we're in Italy, it'll be an adventure!" and decided to see Pisa and just take the overnight train back to Rome. So we had like six hours in Pisa, and spent about two hours having a photoshoot in front of the Leaning Tower. It was SO much fun, haha. We were just being total little kids, running around shoe-less in the grass around the Tower and taking silly pictures. I only managed to get a few before my camera battery died (I'm impressed/glad it survived for so long, considering I hadn't charged it since before we left Rome) so I'm going to have to steal everyone else's pictures. We were utterly delirious by the time we got on the train (like, dancing and karaoke-ing to Disney music at the train station at 1 AM while everyone else probs thought we were drunk). Royce had a liter of Absolut with him but we decided drinking would have been totes disastrous, given how exhausted and weird we all were from already traveling so much and being sleep deprived, haha. The overnight train was actually kind of terrifying, haha, everyone was like, "OMG, this is just like Harry Potter!" We slept in shifts so we wouldn't miss our stop in Rome, anddd I basically wanted to kill myself by the time we got in at 5:51 AM or whatever. I got back to our apartment and just PTFO hardcore, nevermind still being friggin' salty from swimming in Monterosso.
I got back up at like noon to shower and head to the AIRC to attempt writing these papers. Not having internet in our apartments is seriously a pain in the ass. The boys get sketchy internet, but it's really slow and disconnects randomly or doesn't work at all, so it's barely worth trying. Most of the time that I spent at the AIRC today was actually spent catching up with people and starting to get my pictures onto Facebook , and staring wistfully out the windows because it was so pretty outside today. The underclassmen have been freaking out about these papers since like last Thursday, which I utterly fail to understand. They're still so young and unlearned, presh. The papers are only five pages each and it's like 11 PM now. I've only written three pages, but I figure I don't reallyyy have to worry until like 1 AM, haha.
Oh yeah, and I talked to my brother today. I'd talked to my dad last week, because he sent me an email saying my grandfather was hospitalized and they found a tumor near his liver. They're still not 100% sure if it's malignant, but either way, my dad told my mom and brother to fly back ASAP anyway, just to spend as much time with family as possible. I didn't know things were set yet, but I guess they got on the ball quick; my brother says they're flying to Taipei on Wednesday and my dad's following a week after. It's not critical, so I'm staying because of second session summer classes, and will probably go back over winter break. Regardless, I'm basically going to be all alone in Austin for like a month after I get back because my entire family will be in Taiwan... o.O
So if I could crank out papers the way I write blogs/emails, man, I'd be golden. Time to actually write these papers!
[back-posted from 6/11/2009]
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