Presentations and Salsa

Our week was shortened due to the National Labor Day on Thursday, so today was our last day of class for the week, and our presentation day.

Here is the space where we worked. Brandi seems...excited about something...

Later that night, (from right: Lyndsey, Denis, me, Lindsey, and Lyndsey's sister who came in town for the long weekend) decided to go out salsa dancing, apparently, wed. are the big salsa nights here in Rome. It was fun, there are a LOT of good salsa dancers here, at least there were more good salsa dancers in the one club we went to than there are in the entirety of Columbus.

Study Tuesday

Today was a work day. Brandi, Kendrae and I had to finish our presentation of the Baths of the Diocletian for Wednesday, so that's what happened. No exciting monuments today, but I did stop by the Market, our Sunday tradition, to get some stuff. Basta.

Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine

After spending the day getting oriented in our new studio space for Rome, thanks to Iowa State, we (Alex, Adam, Lindsey and I) had a day as tourists, going to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We don't go to see these things as a group because they cost too much, and they are always too flooded with tourists.

The poppies are blooming in Rome (and I'm probably allergic to them). This is in front of Teatro Romano

Outside of the Colosseum, you can pay to get your photo taken with the gladiators, we did not.



Inside the Colosseum, people from all over the world are crowded together to see the ruins...meanwhile I have a panic attack...

A view of the Roman Forum from the Colosseum

The Colosseum Museum. The writing on the back wall says:

"Having made the triomphator mount a chariot, with his face smeared with red dye or cinnabar in the place of blood to conceal his healthy glow, they deck him with bracelets, they encircle his head with a laurel wreath and give him a laurel branch to hold up in his right hand. They also place a crown of some sort of material on his head, on which are incised his achievements and his experiences."

-Tzetzes Letters 97, p. 142, 1ff. Leone

A view of the Museum installation

something cool that was somewhere at one point in time...this is the most descriptive I can be...

Bust of Julius Caesar

Lindsey and I fight to the death in the Colosseum

Then we made our way over to the Palatine

Augustus' home in the Palatine...not too shabby to have your own mini-Colosseum, horse track, and stage in your backyard that overlooks Circus Maximus

The dwelling for Augustus' wife

Circus Maximus (what is now a big green space)

Down in the Roman Forum (Foro Romano)

If we lived back in the day of the Foro Roman, we would look sophisticated...like this.

Roman Forum and Colosseum. Note how the Cyprus trees on the other side of the sidewalk mimic the columns in the forum.

Another Sunday in Roma

Sundays are generally catch up work days with a little bit of fun. The market is every Sunday, and I had a photo up from our balcony of the market last week. We usually stop down there for an hour or so to check out what they have for sale. Today I bought, a top, some beads, an extension cord, and some other things I can't list, because they will probably be gifts.

Adam and Alex bought outfits at the market for the Rome soccer game that a bunch of our group went to see.

Lindsey got a phone call from back home, a good interruption form her theory studying out on our patio.

The streets after market. Basically, a huge, noisy cleaning crew plows through the city to get rid of the mess.

Our room! I might get a better picture up here, this one is kinda dark. We have 2 dressers, 2 twin beds, a desk with 2 chairs, 2 nightstands, and a big blue comfy chair. There are 4 rooms in our apartment, and ours is one of 2 of them with a patio.

Beach Bums

Question: how to spend a beautiful, sunny, hot Saturday in Rome?

Answer: Go to the beach!

So, Lyndsey, Lyndsey's friend Julie, Trevor, Mary, Dan, and I hop on a train that headed for the coast, and spent a few hours on the beautiful sandy beach (spaggia) of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

By the way, if you didn't know, the sea is FREEZING here. As Trevor explained it to me: The Mediterranean countries have beautiful weather because the sea is warm in the winter, and warms the land, and cool in the summer, to cool the land. It was like jumping in Mirror Lake all over again, except it was sunny outside.

Feet in the sand :)

There aren't rolling waves here like in California, it seems more like a giant, very salty, lake with a beach shore.





We can never resist an O-H-I-O

There were some interesting fashions on the shore, and some people not wearing fashion...or anything for that matter.

Julie guarding our sheets. About every 10-20 minutes guys selling sunglasses, jewelry, towels, etc. would come by our tanning session and bug us in a variety of languages.

Beach Bums.

Tiber River Bike Tour

Tiber River tour by bikes? Sure!

First stop: Villa Giulia, sadly we weren't able to go in...but we could look at it from the lobby.

More of Villa Giulia



Grabbing our bikes to continue on our way

Pit stop at Renzo Piano's opera house

Home of the 1960 Olympic games: Rome! Here are some of the pavilions

The Olympic track, surrounded by a bunch of naked sautes, doing various Olympic activities

Imitating one of the statues...such a tourist.

Stopping to look at something that Beatrice is explaining

The Ara Pacis in Museo dell' Ara Pacis

The museum also happens to host some modern art exhibits

oooo...modern.

The Museum, built by Richard Meier Architects, the first modern building in some huge-odd number of years to be built in Rome

Fountains in front of the museum. They were great to be by on such a hot day

An artist (insert name here when I figure it out) power-washed the banks of the Tiber River, in the form of 12 giant she wolves. Here is one of them; they have been fading over time, not helped by the flooding of the Tiber River.

Riding bikes is tiring...gelato anyone? Oh, when we were getting gelato, this woman (American) came up to us and asked where she could get some "good ice cream...like the kind they have at McDonalds." I'll let you be the judge of that statement.

The Bike Gang. Fierce. (me, Lindsey, and Lyndsey)

For your viewing/listening pleasure: inside of the modern art exhibit at the Ara Pacis museum. There were some cool sound installations- that's the weird murmer in the background.

Gianicolo Walk

Beautiful days in Rome are my favorite. Here is one of them:

We met up at the Pantheon at 8:30am to start our walk for the day. We always get up early to walk, to avoid all of the tourists. Later in the day, the streets are flooded with them, and so looking at architecture becomes a chore. Here we are crowded around the most famous oculus, the Pantheon.

and again without people

Pantheon floor/wall, its huge by the way.

Morning sun coming through the Pantheon columns

Bernini's St. Ivo

We were all standing in the courtyards, admiring the church and Beatrice was telling us how maybe we can come back on our own on Sunday to go inside, when a man who worked there (or something of the sort) decided to let us all in. Very nice of him. So, this is the dome from the inside.

The interior of the church, it was really tiny, and white, and beautiful.

Then we ran into the mid-day market in Piazza Farnese

Galleria Spada, it looks like you are looking at it from a perspective, so it looks really long. In reality its about 30 feet to the end. Pretty nifty.

Can we get a gardener out here, the plants are taking over!?!

Basilica Santa Maria in Trastevere, if you look at the columns flanking the nave, you see they are all different; stolen/taken from different eras and different places to make this church.

Study break!!!

The kids playing were trying to knock us (the too-big-kids) off the jungle gym. One of the little Italian kids was going around kicking our guys in the shins. Funny stuff.

THE Tempietto, by Bramante. It is said to be the hardest building to draw. I believe it. I tried. We had to climb up a hill to get here, I was pretty worn out from the day, but it was worth it.

So, the Tempietto is usually closed, or under some kind of construction/renovation. However, on this very special day, we were allowed to go inside. Beatrice told us that she has been trying to get inside the Tempietto for 30 years, and never has been able to. We were incredibly lucky.

The statue/alter inside. The building is so small, that we could probably only fit about 10 people inside at once.

The crypt under the Tempietto

After the Tempietto, we were done walking for the day, and went and sat in a park to do our last Architecture theory discussion. Lindsey and Alex decided to trade sunglasses on the way down to the park. I think the trade benefited Lindsey more...

That night, surprise surprise, we blew out our electricity again. Its a fun reoccurring theme, really...

And for your viewing pleasure: the Pantheon