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Rome

Villas and Aqueducts Abound!

Coo koo kachoo, what’s new with you? Why, thank you for asking! Yesterday we had been to the complete outskirts of Rome and back. First we went to a large, ancient Roman estate called the Villa Quintili and then followed it up with aqueducts and a massive food market. Sorry this is going up a tad bit late, I was one step away from completing the post last night and then the internet cut out on me. But anyways, let’s get to it.

The Villa Quintili is a large estate that contains everything a Roman could want like baths, personal water supplies, and their very own circus for racing. Sure, it may not sound like much to us today, but back then that was the top of the top and only the elite could own something like that. In fact, one of the emperors killed to obtain the property. Oh, what rascals those Romans were. So the villa sits right off of the main road, Via Appia, or at least the ancient portion of it. It’s on top of a small hill overlooking vast fields of wheat. From a distance, it doesn’t look any more impressive than, let’s say, everything else in Rome.

An interesting backdrop at least

Going up to the estate is a nice, brick and concrete pathway at a slant for small carriages and horses, which would be quite convenient to the wealthy. Up close inside the structure you can still see the mosaics and rooms that the main building of the estate covered. You could very easily get lost in it if you didn’t know where you were going. Since only a few rooms still existed somewhat in tact, there was little to no chance of actually getting lost since we could see across most of the area, but just humor my imagination, will you? I would have been able to paint a better picture for you if not for a certain photobomber *cough Cole cough*.

This would have been a great picture…

Anyways, the next portion of the villa was a distance aways since the estate was super spread out. The remains of the circus could no longer be seen, but the area set out for it was fairly clear. Trekking across the first large, open, grassy space we’ve encountered, we came upon the water storage. There were about 4 large stone “tanks” that an aqueduct poured into. They were each about 1.75 times the height of us and about as wide as jeep or so. Continuing further, there was a modern fence that guided us to Via Appia which was on the other side of a large set of bushes and a gate. Swerving to the right, the paths branched off, but in reality we could just see both directions to a loop that went through some building which for the life of me I cannot remember its purpose. I most likely can’t remember the purpose of that building because of a furry companion. While most of the group trekked ahead following Gino, another student and myself kept behind to get some attention from a local german shepherd. It was a shy dog, but eventually we got it to tag along with our group and play some fetch. I think sometime in the middle of our dog endeavors the tour ended and people started heading back.

Our furry companion in action

One brief bus ride and a coffee stop later, we arrived at a local park. It was relatively long, but short in depth with a strange concrete bump going through the middle. That bump happened to be one of the remaining working aqueducts and we promptly climbed it to discover the looming broken aqueduct in the distance. We had to reach it. Clambering down from the relatively small one, we hustled over to the massive one in hopes of scaling it. Alas, we could find no easy way to the top. But still, it was good looking.

Watery wonderland

Somehow in the midst of our adventure, Gino managed to find an ancient nail, mosaic piece, and some brick, or so he claimed. Good on you, Gino. We all marched on back to the bus and it was at that point Gino mentioned the affinity for drugs that park notoriously has. Some details are best left out my good man. Whatever, that couldn’t spoil our fun. The bus took us onward and upward to our next stop, Eatily! No, I didn’t spell that wrong. It’s really a play on Italy by using the english word for eat. It obviously catered to the english tourists. From a distance you would have thought it was a shopping mall because it was four stories tall and was more window than supporting structure. Well, it kind of was a mall, but everything inside was food! It was heavenly. On one floor they had breads and deserts, the next beers and pasta, the third fine drinks and spices, and at the top cooking schools and the fanciest of restaurants. In total, we spent an hour and a half exploring and eating our way through the building, but we could have easily spent far more time there.

Being done with the scheduled stuff, we trucked on back, had a small break, and then had our class. Mission accomplished. That’s all for yesterday my faithful readers! We’ll be back later today (or tomorrow depending on how late we’re out) with more chronicles on the adventures of our squad.

– Chris Apfeld

January 17, 2015 by

Rome

A Quick Check-In

Well, I warned you folks that today would be short. Today was purely presentation after presentation. In the morning, a presentation on Rome’s history ala Claudio. The afternoon, group presentations from our entire class. Topics covered included police, beer, foods, and main culture differences. I don’t mean to brag, but our professors declared each and every presentation as “excellent.” Those ended around 3, so we had the entire afternoon to ourselves. Everybody went off their separate ways and the blog-worthy day pretty much ended there.

I’ll be sure to have more to say tomorrow!

– Chris Apfeld

January 15, 2015 by

Field Trips!, Rome, Universities

Moving and Grooving

For not having traveled a very long distance, we sure did a lot of walking and standing today. The subject of today was, as some of you may know, the Vatican Museum and the John Cabot University. Luckily, the museum was about 100 yards from the door of our hotel, but the university was a mile south.

Around 10:30 in the morning, we all stumbled into the hotel lobby to away our infamous guide, Gino. Unlike usually, we did not receive headsets because we were required to use the Vatican’s brand. Out the door and up some steps across the street, we arrived at our destination. Directly ahead is a large, white, decorated entrance to the museum, but that’s not for the public. To the left of that pearly entrance was a set of glass doors and tons of line separators. Usually, those lines are filled all the way around the corner and then some, but today they were barren. Good omens, right? Well the inside was still full of people. To enter, we had to pass through a small security station like when entering the other sections of the Vatican. We then got our headsets and set off for the museum. Actually, that’s sort of a lie. Rather than going straight up the stairs into the museum, Gino led us behind the information desk to two stray statues to explain how they used to all be painted. Surely nobody ever looks at those statues because we received strange looks from the workers at the info desk.

A great view from within the museum grounds

Finally we made it into the museum plaza which had a plethora of branches and directions to go that were filled with rich pieces of history. Guess which one we went into? None of them. Since we only had about 2 hours and Gino liked to talk a lot, we headed straight towards the Sistine Chapel. Along the way we stopped in one side room where Gino took his time to discuss the marble. Yeah, pretty much just the marble. The passage to the Sistine Chapel is long and a bit crazy. It begins with a large, arched hallway that stretches forward for what seems like forever. That corridor is divided into sections covering art like sculptures, maps, tapestries, and more. Do you remember how I mentioned there were a ton of people inside the museum? Well 99% of them were in this segment, all on their way to the chapel. Most of the time spent moving through that corridor is just getting funneled along with the crowd. If you’re lucky you can jump out of the stream to the side of a door. Gino relied on our ability to do so a little too much, so soon enough our group was divided and conquered. Eventually we regrouped and moved forward through the crowd. After the corridor were a handful of papal residence rooms which had paintings from top to bottom that were quite impressive. We were still a ways away from the chapel. Members of the group got caught in the undertow of the tourists and so had to press on and hope for the best. I was among those poor souls.

Trust me, the crowds I mentioned showed up a minute later

After the papal residence, tourists are forced into the modern art section which, all in all, is about 30 rooms of content. Our focus was the chapel so I powered through those rooms. Along the way I noticed strange works of art with obscured faces and others made of some simple shapes. I don’t understand modern art. Finally, I made it to the Sistine Chapel, and soon afterwards the rest of the group made it in. Inside the chapel, tourists aren’t supposed to talk or take photos so there’s a handful of guards going around enforcing the rules. Ironically, those guards are the main sources of noise as they constantly shout out “No photo!” The Sistine Chapel, while not humongous, is impressive for it’s masterpieces of art covering every inch of the walls and ceiling. While the walls were painted by a handful of unmentioned artists, the ceiling and altar wall were painted by Michelangelo himself. His altar wall depicts the end of the world and the ceiling has various scenes from the beginning of the bible. It’s very hard to describe, so below I’ve included a link to a virtual view of the chapel (copy and paste it into your browser address bar).

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm

About a half an hour later, we exited the chapel and too the Vatican, broke off for lunch, and then reassembled in the square an hour later. Nearly one mile southwards along the Tiber in the Trastevere region was the John Cabot University, a small private college that caters to foreigners like ourselves. The entrance isn’t very recognizable among the surrounding buildings, but once inside it feels very college-like. It’s a multi-level, more or less modern school. Rather than it all being in one location, it has two campuses, the northern one (where we arrived) and a southern one not more than 1/4 mile away. Upon arrival we were led to a classroom where we were greeted by the president of the university. Previously we had been told he wouldn’t be able to make it because of some emergency, but apparently he had come back just in time. I don’t recall exactly what he said about where he had been, but I’m pretty sure he said the Italian president had just quit. Anyways, he gave us a riveting presentation on Italian politics. He covered politics from World War II up to present day, and it was all quite interesting. He even gave us an insider tip that around the 2oth, the Italians may be attempting an American strategy to boost their economy which may effect the value of the euro, bringing it down close to a 1:1 ratio with the US dollar. No guarantees though.

At the center behind the blinding light is the university’s president

Afterwards, we were split into three groups and given tours of the campuses by some students. Our tour was somewhat awkward since our guide began under the assumption we were incoming students and not just tourists. Whoops. That issue quickly became evident and we cleared the air. The two sites were nice buildings and the University looked like a great school, both sharing similar setups. We had arrived at a pretty fortunate time since they were setting up for the coming semester but had not yet begun class. Once all was said and done, the group split up and some students headed back while others visited the local microbrewery. The beer there was some of the best we’ve ever had, so we’ll be headed back.

That’s all for now! Tomorrow’s post will be short since we’re giving some class presentations after a lecture in the morning. Thanks for reading!

– Chris Apfeld

p.s. We’ve had t-shirt/light jacket weather here and after seeing weather reports for back home have no regrets about leaving the country.

January 14, 2015 by

Rome

Technical Difficulties

You know how we said we’d be punctual? Believe me, we were and still are trying, but the odds have not been in our favor lately. Currently we’re having some technical difficulties so we’ll do our best to get you content amidst it. Anyways, here’s a summation of the past two days, and we’ll have the summary of Venice sometime soon.

We may as well be gladiators

Yesterday began with a revisit of the Colosseum but instead of the same content as last time we got to see some more exclusive content. Not only did we get down inside the Hypogeum, but we also got up to the third level of the stadium. The Hypogeum, as some of you may know, is the underground portion of the Colosseum. It’s organized like a maze at a brief glance but in reality it had a brilliant purpose. Down there is where the Romans stored wild animals and sometimes gladiators. Using pulley systems, powered by animals or slaves, the ancient Romans were able to lift combatants in either cages or on platforms up into the middle of the field where battles were no doubt raging already.

Underneath where we made our grand entrance

There wasn’t a whole lot of the Hypogeum we could explore, so not long afterwards we went up up up to the highest safe point. From there we had a great view of the Colosseum and surrounding areas, so the only thing new I’ve got for you is this picture.

One does not simply walk around up there

Next came a bus tour. A bus tour? So late into the trip? Our thoughts exactly. Unlike the routes we had taken on the bus previously, we were taken around the outskirts of the Colosseum area. More specifically, we travelled down the Via Appia, the first Roman road. Seriously, the first. We had a chance to take a look at the aqueducts and baths, which were colossal, but not Colosseum colossal.

Water. Water everywhere

Our next stop took us to the Domus Romane, another excavation similar to the Scavi, but 100% more spacious and not a necropolis. The Domus in general is a large, luxurious home, owned by the wealthier members of the Roman society. This Domus had a sauna, pool, cold pool, and a large outdoor plaza as far as we could tell by what had been excavated. The site was under a renaissance house that had dug out parts of the house to lay its foundation. Like other excavations, we were not allowed to take pictures, so I’ll paint the scene. We go down a flight and enter an underground tunnel. From the tunnel branches off a dark room. Upon entering said dark room, we notice that the entire floor is glass and under the glass is the ruins of the Domus. The employee in charge of our squad initiates an electronic tour in a convenient english-language-with-a-british-accent announce voice. As the announcer talks, multiple projectors light up the areas referred to projects simulations of how the Domus used to look. It was rather cool. The tour continued like that for a bunch of rooms and lasted around 1.5 hours. All in all, it definitely painted the picture better than the Scavi did.

And that, besides some free roaming, brings us to today. Near noon, we gathered to head to the nearby Castel St. Angelo. Originally, the castle had the purpose of being the tomb of the family of emperor Hadrian. Not long afterwards it was converted into a barracks and then into the residence and defensive castle of the popes. Needless to say there was quite a lot of history there.

Here you can see the group in it’s natural, touristy environment

So we had the tour with Gino, our favorite. It had a huge entryway that spiraled up a couple of flights and opened onto a grotto. Going up further than the grotto there were the papal apartments, which are not used currently. As could be expected, they had tons of artwork across every surface and plenty of rooms to boot. One of those rooms included a humongous chest for storing gold and loot. I kid you not, this chest was tall and wide enough to fit 10 or more people from our group. Ascending even more stairs, we came to the tip top, which had an excellent view of the city. From there we could pick out every major landmark and even a natural gas refinery in the distance.

Wouldn’t want to attack this fortress

After a half an hour of time to ourselves, we gathered at the bridge and crossed the Tiber on our way to the Pantheon. Gino took us through many back streets, explaining countless details along the way. We spent around a half an hour meandering those streets without reaching anything notable, and even then we took a break for lunch and reconnoitered at the Piazza Navona. At the Piazza Navona, one is probably 200 yards away from the Pantheon, but we could have been a mile away for all we knew with the pace and path Gino took us along on.

Doesn’t look so large out here…

Finally, FINALLY we reached the Pantheon, the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world. As suggested by the name, it’s brilliant. Its height is the same as the diameter of the dome, and that height would be approximately 150 feet. Within the dome are square shapes cut out of the concrete in a neat pattern. Actually, the building we were seeing was not the original structure, but rather the third iteration on that site. You may now be wondering, what was the purpose of this megastructure? Well… the original purpose is actually unknown, but currently it’s used as a Christian church. Following a quick lecture by Gino, we headed out, did some more walking, and then enjoyed some gelato. A fulfilling day indeed.

Nevermind. It’s massive

That’s all for now, folks! We’ll be back with more content, so stay tuned. Ciao!

– Chris Apfeld

January 13, 2015 by

Field Trips!, Rome, Universities

A University, a Scavi, and a Basilica Enter a Bar…

So about getting back to you soon…

We’ve done quite a bit the past two days, so let me start with the shorter of the two, which incidentally happens to be yesterday.

Yesterday our class had our lectures at the University of La Sapienza, which as we were told is the best university in Rome. The school is located about halfway between Rome’s major bus and train terminal “Termini” and the colosseum, so we did some subway riding and some walking to get there. Some of you may understand the basics of the subway if you’ve used it in the states, but let me tell you, this is different. You thought the ones back home were crowded? Italians have no sense of personal space, and so these were crowded beyond belief. There’s no way the subway was rated for having so many people per vehicle safely. Getting on with that type of crowd is another thing since nobody seems willing to move, so a designated leader of the group has to literally create a wedge with themselves and lead the train of boarders through the sea of people. I would say it’s like the parting of the red sea, but there was no parting that happens. As for cleanliness, the stations have a fair amount of trash all over the place, but the highlights are the trains themselves. They are absolutely covered in graffiti to the point where one of the trains had no original metal visible. I noticed another train had its graffiti half finished as if it rode off while somebody was working on it.

So after a stressful ten minutes or so of riding the subway we came to termini, the busiest of the subway stops. It’s at that point where 99% of the subway passengers disembark so traversing the crowds is another fun aspect. Once we made it out, we had a fair distance to walk to the campus. Along the way there were a fair amount of small restaurants and tourist shops and, as I’ve been informed, a craft beer store which will most likely be frequented in the future. Fifteen minutes of stumbling on cobblestone later we arrived at a somewhat dark, steep tunnel. It was probably 100 feet of escalation which we all got up without a problem, but we all shared the same thoughts of “Who would want to do this every day??” That dark tunnel opened onto a small grotto in which was the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli, which translates to Saint Peter in Chains. Going a bit past that grotto was the actual university. Going up a few more stains was a main lobby which had a small courtyard to the left with a well in the center. Just a bit past that was our classroom where we spent the next 3 hours listening to Italian professors and students making a good effort at presenting Roman architecture in english. The topics they covered varied across bridges, roads, pilgrimages, and more. It was interesting and all but everyone seemed to be freeing in the room. Halfway through all the lectures, we noticed to our surprise a neatly cut hole in the window which was the culprit of the breeze. Upon further inspection they had similar holes in many of the windows in the buildings. We never had the chance to ask about them, so we’re not sure what their purposes were other than discomfort. Following the lectures we had a quick lunch break where we split off to look at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. We all spent about an hour looking around and then headed back for more university stuff.

After getting the group together, we were given a tour of the grounds by the students and faculty. We first saw one of their larger classrooms which supposedly held about 100 students at maximum capacity, but I wouldn’t have guessed more than 50 or so. Italians really must be significantly smaller I guess. Next we headed up to the library, which, as many people put it, looked like something out of the Harry Potter series. It was dank with the smell of old books and had huge bookshelves which went up two levels. I asked the student guide about how often books from way up there were used and she confirmed my suspicions that really, they were just for show. Finally, we headed way downstairs to look at their civil engineering road lab. The lab was placed almost directly under the courtyard and had a plethora of intense machines and shrapnel from road materials. In summation of that lab, they seemed to be working on creating better road concretes and ground materials.

Now some of you may have noticed the lack of pictures so far which I must apologize for. For some reason that I seem to lack an excuse for we did not have any usable photos from that day, so I am sorry. Anyways, onto the next day, today.

Today was spent mostly within the Vatican but also at the Bernardi Campus, a St Thomas owned campus in the northwest section of Rome. Early in the morning there was a primary tour of St Peter’s Basilica with our favorite, Gino. A couple of students went to that but alas I did not, so I don’t have much to say about it. All I was told was that Gino described the architecture as being from the “Barrack period,” which we assumed was an accented pronunciation of “Baroque.” At about midday we all met up and headed east down Via Candia, which for simplicity I will call “Candy Street.” Down Candy Street were a ton of shops and American classics, like McDonald’s and Burger King. Running down the center of the road was a train rail, but it didn’t seem like that tram ran anywhere often enough to be efficient, but that’s Italy I guess. All in all, it took about 20 minutes to walk all the way there, but it was a relief to be in the midst of fellow midwesterners who understood everything.

Crossing boundaries, making history

So let’s get this straight; Bernardi Campus isn’t a campus. It’s a communal living space. It’s a single building dedicated to the semester long living quarters for Catholic studies majors. It’s about 5 stories high if we include the roof, so it’s a fair size. We weren’t sure how many people lived in there but it’s fair to assume no more than 70. Since it was small we split into two groups for a quick tour and went from top to bottom, checking out living spaces, common rooms, a small church, and a nifty kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad place to live, but it for sure caters to the Catholic studies crowd.

From the top of the building the view isn’t bad

After the quick almost 30 minute visit, we turned around and changed that 20 minute walk into a 15 minute stride to huff it back to the Vatican for our Scavi tours. For those who don’t know, the Scavi (which translates into excavation) is the excavation of the necropolis underneath St Peter’s Baslilca which happens to include the bones of St Peter himself. Since the necropolis dates back 1700 years, the Scavi is under high security and temperature controlled. For ruins like the excavation, temperature controlled environments are really only super humid and warm tunnels. For our guide we had a priest in his second year of study who happened to be from Milwaukee (Go Packers!) so communication was simple. To keep clutter and damage to a minimum, our group had to be split in two and separated by about a half an hour. After a brief intro, we dove right into the site and began the tour. Pictures weren’t allowed so I’ll have to do my best to briefly describe it. It’s a ways down underground, and actually under two churches. First is the visible basilica and then the Constantine church that was built in the 300s. Finally at the bottom is the necropolis which was originally like an open air city filled with sarcophogi and urns. The excavation couldn’t make it very open, so space was an issue. Let’s just say that someone with claustrophobia wouldn’t enjoy it but it would be tolerable. Our explorable area consisted of a long hall with some branches of rooms that were decorated with some artwork and had coffins piled in. I was informed that every body had been removed from the dig site, so no need to worry about spooky skeletons. It wasn’t all that long before we emerged into the remnants of the Constantinian church, still under the Basilica and with that the tour was over.

After a bit both groups had finished their tours and had emerged outside. Right away we met with our tourguide for St Peter’s basilica. Like before, he was a priest in his second year, but I didn’t catch where he was from. He talked for a while about the basilica’s construction and the external features and then we got in a line to reenter the Basilica territory. To get into the church, visitors have to go through metal detectors and send their personal items through a small scanner like you would find at an airport. They take their security seriously but I don’t know how long they’ve been doing that for. Five minutes went by before we were all through security and we finally got to the meat of the tour.

The students huddle around their guide

The guide talked about the outside a bit, led us inside, and within 5 minutes was told he needed to leave. That’s right, the basilica guards were telling a priest he couldn’t stay there. It may sound a bit odd, but let me explain. Apparently, there is supposed to be no talking within the basilica past 4:15, which we had barely exceeded. This meant no guides could be inside no matter the sound level. We could have been speaking at less than 1 decibel and they still would have kicked him out even though every other tourist there could be heard well above our whispering priest. We tried to ignore their request to leave and carry on the tour but five minutes later they were back with one more guard so we caved and stepped outside for the rest of the tour. Out there the priest tried to do his best to describe the rest of the material he had planned to talk about, but of course it just wasn’t the same as if we had been inside. For about 40 minutes he talked about the major points of the basilica but I won’t go into all that detail since I couldn’t do it justice and since I probably don’t remember a lot of it due to exhaustion from the day. That time went by and we went back in for a quick drive by of everything he had told us, but we were all so tired and it was 5 already so we didn’t spend as much time there as it deserved. We’ll surely be back like in the great words of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It looks huge, doesn’t it? That’s because it is

Fun fact about the dome, it’s really quite tall. As told by our guide, there’s a few comparisons we could make. You know the size of space ships with booster rockets and all? Two of those stacked tip to tail wouldn’t reach the top. You know how tall the Statue of Liberty is? Not as tall as the dome. As I said, it’s realllllllllly tall.

It sure is a long way up…

Anyways, that was it for the past two days. This weekend will be free for everyone to do what they will, and so we have some people sticking around Rome but most leaving for Venice or Assisi. We’ll be sure to get back to you on how all that goes as soon as we hear about it. To those of you who stuck out this entire post, I salute you.

– Chris Apfeld

January 9, 2015 by

Rome

Did That Really Happen?

As you probably could have guessed, we’ve been hiking all over Rome non-stop for days now and haven’t had much of a chance to update the blog, but rest assured that we’ll keep on top of it henceforth. How have we been busy you might ask? Well let me explain.

Two days ago we covered the many major hills of Rome, as described in the previous post.

Yesterday we had our papal audience and almost too much time to explore on our own.

A papal audience you say? Did we personally meet Pope Francis and talk with him? No, not exactly, unless you count being 24 within a couple thousand a personal experience. That’s right. It was a literal sea of people.

Shall we play “Where’s Francis”?

It took place inside their designated Pope-cosmodrome and had separate segments for people who wanted to pay least, more, and probably a section for donors (so the really high rollers). Prior to the event, we were told to go for the aisle seats so we would have a chance to shake his hand if he came walking through, so we planned to arrive about two hours early. When we arrived, you know what seats were taken? Every aisle seat and the twenty next to them. Of course. We decided we could make do with other seats, so we headed as comfortably close to the front as we could. An hour and a half of sitting goes by and then to our surprise, a circus comes onto stage.

Just… what?

Yeah, I’m not kidding. I know if I didn’t have pictures to back this up none of you would believe me but it’s true. Clowns, acrobats, what looked like a barbershop quartet, it had it all. They performed their individual acts for around 20 minutes and then departed. It turns out that they were part of a circus that was trying to imitate Cirque du Soleil. It was a decent attempt at being weird, but Cirque du Soleil did it first, just saying. Not long afterwards the large tv screen at the front lit up with live video of the pope headed into the front of the building we were in, and as soon as people saw it, they mobbed the aisle. That wouldn’t have been a big deal but the people began to get up on their seats for better views and so everyone behind them could see nothing until the pope had reached the stage and even that took quite a while. It took around 10 minutes to travel the approximate length of a football field since he kept shaking hands, holding babies, and at one point he took a drink of something from a fan (not sure if he actually did but I’m sure that cup now has its own pedestal at the guy’s house).

A Pope and His Throne

When he was up there, he greeted everyone and went through a speech in Italian and then every individual translator (there were about 6) got up, translated the speech, and then rotated back to their seat. Following that routine was another, shorter speech where the pope blessed everyone in the room and their families, which had to be translated 6 more times. Some of you may be doing the math right now, figuring out that yes, the vast majority of the time was translation of the same thing, over and over and over. Still, it was pretty neato. After the speeches, the circus came out to perform for the pope. It all seemed like a king and his jesters at that moment, but with less certainty of death upon failure. Once they had jested to completion, the pope gave yet another short speech, but it wasn’t translated since it was a completely spontaneous speech. I believe the jist of it was it’s good to have fun and be weird if I’m not mistaken.

Anyways, the next time our group had to meet to do anything was in around 6 hours, so we all split off to do separate activities. The group I ended up with went southwest on an exploration journey that totaled about 8 miles if my calculations were correct. We ended up heading south along the Tiber, going all over what I shall dub “west bank,” taking a journey all around the Vittorio Emanuel and cat sanctuary (yes, it’s actually a sanctuary for cats), and then heading back to the hotel via the Pantheon. Quite a full day, but that wasn’t the end of it.

Some call it fascist. Others call it extremely fascist

After a break since our feet were about ready to fall off, our entire class had a meal in a small restaurant called the Piacere Molise just a block away from the hotel. We had appetizers galore, a pasta sampler, wine, and tiramasu. The general consensus was utter satisfaction. And finally, the day was over.

Keep watch for the next update coming soon!

– Chris Apfeld

January 8, 2015 by

Rome

Forums, Hills, and Romans, Oh My!

Please pardon the delay on this, but we’ve been terribly busy. This post is actually about 1/6/15 .

Being on top of Palatine Hill started to make me realize why the emperors thought of themselves as gods. If I owned a city like this, in which I overlooked something as gorgeous as this everyday, I would probably think of myself as a god as well.

This was our last stop of the hill for the day, and what a conclusion it was. Palatine Hill was a center for a ton of different commotion within the city of Rome, but one of the most important features of Palatine Hill was its ownership to the Roman Forum. The Roman Forum was the place to be in Rome, where a ton of different trading, entertainment, and emperor addresses had taken place. It truly was one of the most important areas for those in ancient Rome, and it showed with the scale of space in which the forum took up.

Another really cool part of the Palatine Hill was its ancient structures (obviously), but one that stood out to me was the Arch of Titus! The Arch of Titus is an arch built by the Roman Emperor Domitian, after the death of his brother, Titus (go figure). But I personally think the most interesting part of the arch is its more modern history. Up until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, Jews refused to walk under the arch due to the carving within the walls that depicted Jewish diaspora. The Jews, after the establishment of the state, would then walk backwards under the arch, signifying their redemption from exile from Rome.

Finally, after the day was over, the engineers had a night to themselves to explore Rome and to hopefully avoid being parked on (you should see the parking here, picture to come within the next couple of days). Rome really is super special at night, and walking down the strip that leads to St. Peter’s Square is something extremely magnificent that all of us get to enjoy for the next month.

This upcoming weekend we have a lot of engineers going to Venice, and some going to Assisi! So hopefully we can get some great pictures and stories to share with all of you on our brief stays there!

– Alex Manning

January 8, 2015 by

Rome

“Are you not entertained?”

With jet lag on the decline, our brave students set out on their daily academic journey filled with lecturing, documentaries, excruciatingly talkative guides, and the world famous Colosseum.

We managed to get the group together for once

For starters, today we received our first dose of Francesco, the highly energetic cook that prepares the breakfasts at the hotel. Francesco works in the corner of the room preparing most of the food and cleaning the dishes. He greets everyone with a smile (sometimes a handshake in addition) and will gladly take any special requests. While he’ll clear your table for you, if you bring your dishes straight to him, you may receive another handshake or even a pinch on the cheek. After hours, it’s possible to find him around the hotel, and if you make eye contact, you’ll surely be berated with questions about how the meal was. Breakfasts actually are served on the top floor of the hotel in a room filled with small, four person tables and windows galore to get a superb view of the Vatican Museum roof, surrounding apartments, and the other branch of the Hotel Alimandi. Food is served like a small buffet, ranging from scrambled eggs to extremely floppy bacon and then to yogurt and small pastries. There’s nothing distinctly Italian about breakfasts here, but we’re positive the pasta will emerge sooner or later. It may not sound like the best, but it’s all quite appetizing despite the sarcasm.

Directly following breakfast was our first lecture, which was about the sites we would be visiting during the day. Those sites included the Arch of Constantine and the main section of the Colosseum (we will be visiting the highest and lowest levels in a week). After a bit of lecture we watched a brief documentary on the Colosseum and then split off for lunch. Around an hour later, we returned to be introduced to Gino (nickname for Luigi). As I can best describe, he was a short, elderly, and highly opinionated Italian man who came recommended from our coordinator as the best guide in Rome. While he knew his material very well, Gino liked to talk, and talk he did. There was never a quiet moment with him since we all had headsets transmitting his rants to us from wherever he was. Gino will be our continuing guide throughout our journeys in Rome, so we’ve surely only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his ramblings.

Following the “brief” introduction to Gino, we hopped on a tour bus and took off for the Colosseum. Along the way, Gino pointed out countless ruins and buildings. That would have been great if not for the blinding sun, which completely prevented anyone on the wrong side of the bus without high-quality sunglasses from looking directly outside. Fifteen minutes later we arrived at the site. The Colosseum, properly known as the Flavian Amphitheater, is surrounded by a plethora of other ruins and structures, including the Palatine hill and Roman forum among other things. Immediately, there is the Arch of Constantine, which was built in 315 AD to commemorate – you guessed it – Constantine. As can be seen in the picture above, it’s actually got 3 arches and is pretty large in scale. For the arch, I use the phrase “large in scale” pretty loosely since next door is the Colosseum, an absolutely massive amphitheater with a dimensions of 617 feet long, 512 feet wide, and 157 feet tall. It was designed to hold 50,000 Romans (about 5% of the population at the time) but could hold around 87,000 when packed to the brim. Not only that, but it’s estimated the stadium could empty in 30 minutes by utilizing its 76 entrances. Let’s not forget it’s the site of the infamous gladiator fights and, as some would argue, one of the highlights of Russell Crowe’s acting career. Quite impressive, no?

A panoramic view of shadows. Oh yeah and the Colosseum

Well enough of the details. After Gino’s detailed discussion of the Arch of Constantine, we were set free for a while so we had a chance to explore before entering the main attraction. While we had seen plenty of street vendors before, nothing seems to compare to the amount of guys walking around selling “selfie sticks” at the Colosseum. At one point we witnessed a gaggle of 8 of them and as soon as some police came around every single salesman bolted as if they were in a parkour race with Usain Bolt. It was spectacular. After the free roaming, we rejoined at the entrance and went through another Gino-riffic lecture. Again we were set free like the caged animals that were at the Colosseum back in the day, minus the deadly combat. It had two levels to look through with the upper level containing a mini museum. Every angle only seemed to make the structure seem even larger, and since the actual floor where gladiators fought was not present, you could see into the lover levels, also called the Hypogeum. Our exploration had a relatively strict deadline, and all but two students emerged on time. While it was unfortunate, we did manage to run into another American student group during our wait for the stragglers.

Panoramas just capture it all, don’t they?

With the day’s scheduled touring out of the way, we hopped back on the bus and headed straight back to the hotel for a bit more lecture on the upcoming activities. Tomorrow we will be visiting the Roman Forums, Palatine hill, and some other stuff, but I’ll save that as a surprise for those of you who don’t already have a copy of our schedule.

– Chris Apfeld

January 5, 2015 by

Rome

We made it!

After a somewhat uncomfortable 18 hour travel day, the young, great looking, and extremely intelligent engineers of the University of St. Thomas have finally landed in Rome! Though some of us have caught a mild bug, which I will deem the ‘traveler’s plague,’ we seem to be making it, and enjoying every second that we’ve already spent here.

The events that really followed up after landing in this beautiful city have consisted of: not understanding really what anyone is saying, being unable to extract euros out of ATMs due to banks not realizing that we’re traveling, and being somewhat off-put by a slightly too smug customs officer. But none-the-less, once we made it to our hotel, we actually have already had some fun!

Now I can’t really figure out how to properly put in the pictures of what I’ve taken whilst being here, but I’ll link the instagram account that I will be uploading most of the photos to. The pictures uploaded right now is that super clichè airplane photo above the ocean that’s supposed to represent some sort of deep introspection, while the other is a view from a room that we are staying in that shows part of vatican city from the window (how cool!).

That night of our arrival was spent wandering around the city and seeing different landmarks along the way. We waited until the evening to wander around because our professors told us it might look a lot more special (spoiler: it did). A lot of us would agree that our final destination, St. Peter’s Square, was our favorite out of all the places we went to see. The best way to describe the places we’ve saw is that we’re all kind of living in a literal dream: it seems to be that these buildings are way too beautiful to exist in real life.

Anyway, our trip today consists of visiting the colosseum, so hopefully I’ll be able to take some pictures that truly give the landmark its justice! But until then, ciao!

-Alex Manning

January 5, 2015 by

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