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Field Trips!

Capitol Hill, Trajan Column, Colosseum… Oh my!

Hello to all of our friends and family back home! Yesterday, we took a bus tour around Rome with our fabulous tour guide, Gino Mazzone. We spent lunch in a small strip of Jewish cafés and restaurants. Here, a group of us quickly learned that 30 minutes isn’t enough time to grab a meal at an actual restaurant when Gino brought our whole group into the restaurant to share his advice and encourage us to finish up our still very full plates. A few of us passed around what we couldn’t finish to our observant classmates which helped speed up the process. Afterwards, we traveled to Capitol Hill and learned about Michelangelo’s influence in its design and execution. We continued on to take some pictures with a bird’s eye view of the Roman Forum and later saw the Trajan Column.

Today, we visited the most famous structure in Italy. Drumroll, please…. The Colosseum! It was breathtaking to walk through a structure that was built over 2,000 years ago. Gino pointed out how that the restored elements of the Colosseum were purposely made with different materials in order to preserve its authenticity. With the structural engineering concepts we have been learning, this was the perfect place to test out some of our new terminology. We had the chance to study the arches, vaults, and arcades that were integrated into the Colosseum. After grabbing a bite to eat, we visited the church of St. Clemente where we saw beautiful mosaics, ancient murals, and lots of straight arches (we were so impressed to see the variety of architecture they were able to achieve so long ago).

To finish off the day, we had the chance to surprise Chris for his birthday! We all enjoyed celebrating with some delicious cake and champagne after our long, busy day.

Ciao!

January 6, 2017 by

Field Trips!

We’re Here!

Good morning all! It is the start of Day 3 and we have finally gotten a little bit of time to connect to the wifi and update you all! After a flight to NYC, a very long layover, and another long flight, we arrived in Rome yesterday around 11:00 am local time. A little jet-lagged and very exhausted, we got checked in at the hotel and had our orientation followed by a well-deserved nap! We spent the early part of the evening on our own getting dinner (or snack, as Italians usually eat around 7 pm!) and around 7 we all walked to the Vatican and Piazza Navona- where Professor Zell treated us to some gelato! Delizioso! Today we are spending a little bit of time in the classroom for some presentations and then going on a panoramic bus tour around the city!

Ciao!

January 5, 2017 by

Field Trips!

Meet the Bloggers!

jordan-chloe

Hello! Our names are Jordan(left) and Chloe(right), and we’ll be the students writing the blog for ENGR 271: Roman Structures, Engineering, & Society this January. Unfortunately, not all of you can physically join us, but at least through this blog we can pretend! We figured we should share a little bit about ourselves before we embark on this journey together.

I grew up in Lakeville, Minnesota, and attended Lakeville South High School. I come from a family of four with a spunky, little Maltese-Yorkie named Morgan. I am a sophomore, and a Mechanical Engineering student here at the University of St. Thomas. I tend to keep myself very busy between classwork, clubs, and my three jobs – my mom tells me I’m crazy. In my few ounces of free time, I love exploring the Twin Cities for new foods and cuisines. Being twenty-five percent Italian, I’m pretty sure I was born a foodie. My favorite restaurant is a quaint Italian place called La Grolla on Selby. The Italian girl likes Italian food… shocking, huh? I have a particular weakness when it comes to board games, strawberry ice cream, tea, or videos of giggling babies on Facebook. I can’t wait to share more with all of you in January!

-Jordan Ferrazzo

I grew up in Chanhassen, Minnesota and graduated from Chanhassen High School. I am a sophomore studying both General Business Management and Mechanical Engineering, although aspiring to switch to Civil Engineering. I grew up with my parents and two sisters, of which I’m the middle. I’ve always been very actively involved in academics, sports, jobs and other extracurricular activities, and so far college has been just the same! Being an athlete, employee, a part of multiple clubs on campus, and always having plenty of schoolwork, a month in Italy is just what I need! I’m a lover of The Office, coffee, travel, and (most importantly) dogs. Like Jordan, I’m an avid fan of good food, so I can’t say I’m upset to be eating Italian for the next month!

-Chloe Weber

We hope this helps you all get a better idea of the women behind the blog. We can’t wait to share our experiences with you all!

Ciao por adesso,

Chloe & Jordan

December 5, 2016 by

Field Trips!

Gearing up

Solo un mese! Only one month remains ahead before my peers, professors and I jet off to the beautiful city of Rome! As I have been counting down the days since June, this finally seems like a reasonable amount of time. Yet, there is so much left to do before I set foot in the ancient city- and more importantly, get my hands on some gelato! I’m making lists of things I need to pack, things I need to buy, things I need to prepare, etc. Never in my life have I had a ‘to-do’ list that I actually felt motivated to get done!

My excitement is about the equivalent of when you were a kid going to Disney world for the first time. All my life I’ve heard stories, photos, and experiences about Rome from books, history classes, movies, friends and family; but in less than a month I’ll be having experiences and making memories of my own. Not only am I excited to see iconic statues and cities, eat at famous restaurants, meet new people, experience new culture, and learn about architecture, I am overjoyed at the idea that I get to spend an entire month in a place completely new to me. It’s like being handed a blank canvas and every color of paint imaginable- I can make it whatever I want it to be, and that’s pretty exciting.

I can’t wait for you to Rome with me!

-Chloe

November 23, 2016 by

Field Trips!, Rome, Travel

Can’t Wait for 2017 J-Term Trip: Roman Structures, Engineering, Society!

Ever wonder why the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans but does not fall? or, how the Colosseum was built without modern-day tools and technology? The University of St. Thomas is providing a few of us the opportunity to travel abroad in Italy this coming January to find out! We will spend just under a month traveling around Italy, visiting a total of ten different cities. We will have the opportunity to see some of the most famous Roman structures and learn about the engineering behind them all.

Twenty-eight engineering students, including myself, will be accompanied by Dr. Deborah Besser, Professor John Walker, and Professor Barbara Zell during our exciting adventure abroad. The group of us just recently met up for a meeting on November 4th to discuss the course, homework, and travel safety. But, don’t worry we had enough time to get to know each other through a few icebreakers and a dinner at Buca’s.

The countdown is on! Only a little over a month before we start a journey filled with architecture, engineering, and spaghetti!

– Jordan

November 23, 2016 by

Field Trips!

Gearing up for J-Term 2017 Roman Structures, Engineering and Society

We are starting to think about our upcoming J-Term Engineering study abroad trip in Rome!

You are welcome to join us here to follow our adventures as we learn about Roman Structures, Engineering & Society.

November 7, 2016 by kmhauser

Field Trips!, Florence

Good by from J-term 2015 – Pretty Fly For an Italian Guy

“You have five minutes to harvest all the organs.” I couldn’t have said it better, Dwight. But actually…

Welcome, one and all to what very well could be the last major installment of your favorite blog abroad! Or at least I assume it’s your favorite. It’s your favorite, right? You know it is, don’t lie. So let’s get down to business to summarize this trip. Did we spend it moving or just in Florence? It’s been busy days full of good stuff, but you can bet before we’re through, somehow I’ll make an Italian out of you. If any of you realized what I just did and managed to sing that last bit, you’re probably qualified to write this blog from now on.

Moving along the small streets of Sienna

Yesterday we took a trip to Sienna in the morning and then headed up to San Giomignano. Lucky for us the time of departure was taking a turn for the best since each day was starting progressively later. As you could have guessed, we drove a ways down to Sienna for what would be about 3 hours of touring and roaming. We met our guide by the entrance to St Dominic’s, the smaller of the churches of the city. By this point we were burnt out with all the tours we’ve been going on, so we weren’t too pleased to be given yet another headset to pin to our ear for the day. Nonetheless, we set forth for a relatively short trek. Our guide led us through the small, populated street which we discovered was the main road that led to Rome back in the day. Actually, Sienna is divided into 17 districts that all had their own horse racing teams. Each street had that district’s insignia above the street’s name so as to signify which zone people were in. The only zone that was completely neutral was the center of the city, otherwise referred to as the Campo. It’s in that square where the horse races are held, which really only lasts 75 seconds. All their rivalries depend on the outcome of that yearly race. A fun fact on top, for any of you who have seen Quantum of Solace (the James Bond movie), the horse race at the beginning is the one that occurs in the very same Campo.

Like a large zebra…

Anyways, we passed by the Campo to get straight to the Duomo. Duomo is the term Italians use for the main (and largest) church in the region. In the case of Sienna, it was positioned at the top of the hill so its dome was visible from everywhere in the city and from up there one could see practically everything. While it was a massive cathedral, it wasn’t quite St Peters massive. Still, it was pretty impressive. To save you time, I won’t go into detail about it, but rather you can admire the picture I took.

A large, spacious zebra

After perusing the cathedral, we took a route around the back to get a view of the valley. On the other side of the valley was St Dominic’s, so it was interesting to see where we had come from. Continuing around the back we came upon the baptistry of the cathedral. I’ve got to say, it seemed like a weird place to be, but oh well. That’s Italy summed up for you. Further down the hill we came back to the Campo. It was at that point the guide released us and as fast as hounds on the hunt, we ran off to find suitable meals and stores. You know how I mentioned the districts earlier? Well most of the stores in the area sold the flags of the teams and most of us bought one. The teams have flags with very strange animals on them, going from giraffes to porcupines and even to snails.

Once our time was up, we got back in the bus and journeyed north to San Giomignano (pronounced Gym – an – yano, referred to as San Jimmy John’s). It’s a terribly small city on the top of a well placed hill overlooking vast rolling fields and vineyards. As I was informed, the city used to have two powerful families that fought for dominance by building towers taller than the other’s. In its prime, it had 72 towers, but currently it has 14. Not only that, but it used to be an unknown city, but one day some guy put up an article on the internet and then tourists arrived in droves. Because of that, most of the shops lining the streets catered to tourists. Lucky for us, it was pretty much empty since this is low season, but during the summer it’s supposedly hard to move due to the packs of tourists.

A small city…

Well we spent 2 hours exploring on our own. Some people climbed the tower, others went off shopping, and others just enjoyed the view. It was a realllllllly nice view.

… with a grand view

Two hours passed by and we travelled to our nearby destination; a local vineyard where we would have a wine tasting. Our bus arrived at what looked like a gated villa, but inside the gate were vineyards and barrels upon barrels of what we could only assume was wine. We were led into the nearby house that was outfitted with a huge kitchen and large tables. I would guess they do this moderately often. But anyways we were greeted by our host, Luigi’s nephew. He explained the wines to us and instructed us in proper sniffing and drinking techniques that were quite effective. As we drank the wines they brought plate after plate of food that progressively got more amazing as time went on (not sure if because of the wine or just because it was good). Next to our plates they had a convenient note sheet where we could write down our thoughts. Even more conveniently, the other side of the note sheet was an order sheet for their wines. After that amazing tasting and meal, that order sheet was put to good use by everybody.

After tasting the wine, we all went straight to purchasing more

That wraps up yesterday, so let’s continue on to today. On this lovely Saturday we went through the Academia museum and then Florence’s Duomo. Like any other day, we met our guide in the morning and put on the headsets. We promptly set off for the Academia museum, which is the museum that houses Michelangelo’s famous David statue. There was a lot within the museum, but it was clear that the entire place revolved around that statue. David was completed when Michelangelo was 31 and it stands 17 feet tall. It’s fairly disproportionate since it was intended to be placed at the top of the building. You know how people make it out to be so super impressive? They’re right. It is.

Here we see the famous statue in its natural habitat

We spent a while admiring the statue and listening to our guide ramble, but then we got tired and left the museum. Proceeding down the street we came up to the Duomo. Like Sienna’s cathedral, Florence’s has a zebra striped pattern.

The zebra trend continues

Unlike Sienna’s, Florence’s has a supermassive, double dome made of brick. Until fairly recently, the secrets of its construction was unknown since the man behind it, Brunelleschi, was very secretive about his work. It was this very dome that we would ascend for the next hour. Its corridors and stairs were very narrow and, once at the dome’s actual bottom, forced people to share them with people traveling back down. It was a bit cramped to say the least.

A packed journey to the top

From the top, there was a spectacular view. We were lucky that the weather had cleared up after the last couple of rainy and downcast days, so we had a bright and sunny view of all of Florence. The top was fairly cramped with all sorts of people, but every now and then there was a clearing so we were able to snag some pics. All in all, we spent about 1.25 hours going up and down the dome at what seemed like a snail’s pace. It was fun but some people weren’t feeling good about those heights.

The bell tower doesn’t have anything on our height

You can see everything!

Well, that’s all folks! Tomorrow we head to the Galileo museum and then back to Rome for our flight. I might have a chance to update you all, but don’t hold your breath in case. We’re all pretty nervous about coming back because we’ll miss Italy but we’ll also be happy to return to the norm. I think most people’s list of “things to do” includes Chipotle, actually. In case this is the actual end, thank you all for following the blog! It’s been really fun all along the way. I also have to thank our professors Barbara Zell and John Walker for doing an excellent job, as well as the school and our coordinator Claudio. This trip has been an excellent time from every perspective. We’ll see you on the other side, folks!

– Chris Apfeld

January 24, 2015 by

Field Trips!

Marble. Marble Everywhere

“Expecting much gunfire in these caves?” Not exactly, but I couldn’t help but wish to see some classic dynamite mining.

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to crunch time in Italia! With very few days left, we’re packing it all in and getting oh so little sleep in the process. For example, today we took a trip to the marble quarry that Michelangelo got his materials from and then to Pisa for the famous tower.

Today started with another early expedition, and so we were all ecstatic about it. For around 1.5 hours we sat on the bus as the beautiful scenery of Tuscany flew by. It was then that we arrived at Cave Michelangelo, a massive and famous marble company. Our tour started with their cutting yards where they had massive multi-ton slabs all over the place waiting to be cut into perfect shapes. It was raining, as it often seems to do these days, so we rushed into their sculpting center.

A bit cluttered…

There were sculptures all over the place. Some of them were originals, others were replicas of famous works, but all of them were phenomenal. At the time there were a few workers happily working on their projects and packing up some to ship to customers. The building itself was fairly large and spacious, but they had art in every corner and covering every inch of the place, making it feel quite populated. Our guide led us around and explained some of the work and the processes they went through. I would repeat them to you but I’m afraid I’d mess them up and that I’ve forgotten some details since this morning. Promptly after that, the guide led us into the office where he showed us some of their sculptures locations across the world. These guys knew what they to say the least.

Since it was raining there was doubt that we would be allowed to head up into the quarry on the mountain, but we were given the go-ahead. We all expected to use some sort of off-road vehicle to get up there, but instead we discovered the bus would be our vehicle. If we thought the roads were a tight fit before, we were wrong. The mountain path was as tight as it could be, pushing our bus to the limit. At point we were doubtful the little bus could continue up the steep incline, but we were proven wrong time and again. That bus driver deserves an award for that display of skill.

So this is only one slice of their operations…

Finally we made it to the top and the view was impressive. Not only were we nearing the peak of the mountain range, but the marble cutting operations were a spectacle on their own. Layers upon layers of white marble with cutting machines and other vehicles all the way up. There’s not much I can do to express how impressive it all was. After a while of observation and some guidance, we hopped back on the bus for a bumpy ride down to get on the way to our next destination.

The main courtyard of Pisa and its tourist attractions

Some amount of time later we arrived at the outskirts of Pisa. From there we had to get on a bus that would take us right up to the main attractions. The moment we stepped off of the bus we were berated by salesmen trying to get us to buy watches, sunglasses, and handbags. We were happy to disappoint them all. Everyone made it onto the bus and over to the main square that contained a baptistry, a basilica, a graveyard, and the leaning tower itself. As per usual we received a guide who led us right to the graveyard. I must say that graveyard is probably the wrong term for what we were in. It was a spacious structure with a high ceiling and an inner courtyard. All over the walls were frescoes and in the ground were large, distinct rectangles of marble. It turns out that the Pisans were burying some of their dead in sarcophagi and others in the ground where they were marked by those large marble slabs. Each slab had some sort of inscription on it detailing who was there, and there were a ton of inscriptions all over the place. Pretty creepy…

Next came the baptistry. To be blunt, it was rather empty. It had two floors but we spent most of the time on the first floor. At one point an employee came along and gave us a demonstration of the acoustics. Every note she sung reverberated all over the building, so I’d rate it’s acoustics as super impressive. Outside the door and across some grass was the basilica. Its exterior looked like a large basilica and so did its interior. Compared to Rome’s basilicas, this was rather unimpressive to us, so it’s clear we’ve been spoiled. We took some time to meander and soon enough it was time to climb the tower.

It’s pretty impressive in person

From a distance the tilt doesn’t look like much, but up close it’s very noticeable. The tower was constructed in a couple of phases spread out by around one hundred years. It’s actually not completely straight because during the second phase the engineers tried to make it appear more straight by slanting the new floors slightly. To their dismay, the tower sank more and those efforts were all for naught. So now the tower has a banana shape to it if you look closely. For a banana tower, it was an awfully long way to the top, but we bolted up it nonetheless. Going up and down was a challenge because of the slant. Some of the steps were easier but most were more difficult to ascend. At the top there was a fantastic view of Pisa and the nearby mountains.

The view from the top of the tower was pretty impressive

We were only allowed to stay up there a short amount of time so we headed down after a half an hour. Retracing our steps we hopped back onto the bus and motored on back to Florence to prepare for tomorrow. Coming up we have our tour of Sienna and a wine tasting in the evening. It should be a particularly good day for all! Have a good one everybody!

– Chris Apfeld

January 22, 2015 by

Field Trips!

Maserati, Ducati, Lamborghini.. do Italians always end their companies with ‘I’?

Before I make this blog post, let me make a slight digression: internet has been so bad for me lately that I, and nearly everyone on this trip, has torn at least some part of their hair out and have already started the process of pre-mature balding. Don’t even ask me how Chris has been able to update the blog, I’m pretty sure he manifests internet out of thin air. Whenever we go to a hotel, us Americans like to do this thing that I call ‘hugging the router’. This, of course, sounds harmless at first, until the whole internet crashes in the entire hotel (sorry Naples). Anyway, on to what we did today!

We first got onto a bus ride that, by my standards, was driven by the best driver of all of Europe. If I stuck my hand out of my window as we passed the semi-trucks on the road, I could have easily taken whatever the other driver was eating right out of their mouth. Roads are very small, and I’ve never been so exhilarated riding a bus, it was like being at ValleyFair or Six Flags on a rollercoaster that you’ve never been on; dips and turns coming out of nowhere and you feel like you’re going to collide with an upcoming pole. Except this wasn’t a rollercoaster and we weren’t almost hitting poles, we were almost giving new paint jobs to trucks.

The exterior of their facility

Anyway, my inner engineer in me was so giddy with excitement that I made simliar noises to what I can only imagine a elementary school kid makes when he/she gets what they want for Christmas. As we pulled up to the showroom for Maserati, I hopped and skipped my way to the front door, to be greeted by very well dressed Italians who were more than happy to show me cars that I will probably never own.

Huddled around our favorite car

So here we are, in the show room! The show room contained four really cool vehicles, along with some weird off the wall paraphenelia that you probably wouldn’t guess would be in a show room. Such items consist of: Maserati headphones, Maserati belts, Maserati watches, Maserati shoes, and my favorite, the Maserati 400 Euro fountain pen. This is also where we would learn the history of Maserati and how it came to be today! After the show room, we headed to the assembly factory.

The factory produces only two models of cars: the Ghibli and the GranCabrio. Technically, this was the smaller of the two plants that Maserati actually has, but it was still a very large facility. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures, but that isn’t much different than me taking the photos and not being able to upload them at all. But what we did see was really cool! We saw, basically, the beginning of the main chassis coming into the factory, the drive-train installation, electronic installation, and the final testing of the vehicles to make sure they are actually road worthy. It was especially awesome seeing so many Maserati cars driving around as well, because you knew exactly when one was coming down the road due to the sheer symphony that the car was playing with its engine (and to be honest, I feel like Mozart and Beethoven really have some competition). It literally stopped our tour guides from giving us tours so we could just stop and listen. Ferrari, who owns Maserati, really takes pride with what their vehicle actually sounds like, so this isn’t too surprise that the noise was able to halt 20+ engineers in their path.

As the tour came to an end, we all loaded our ways back onto the bus (slightly less exhilarating this time) and made our way over to the Lamborghini headquarters. A few of us actually got to drove Lamborghinis! I know, I know, that sounds really boring, but they looked like they had a blast and I only sort of envy them forever. After our stop at Lamborghini, we made our way to what was probably our largest lunch that we’ve had yet.

Those are what some of us drove

Unfortunately I sort of dozed off, so I don’t really know how we got there, but what I do know is that it was really delicious! The restaurant that we were at was actually a very special restaurant as well. It belonged to an organization that enables disabled people to be integrated into society better; through jobs, stipends, and education, they help integrate those who are disabled into society, which was a very cool thing to be in the middle of. The way this is possible is through the proceeds in which the organization gets money through. This includes: those who eat at the organization (us), the works that the disabled make and sell, and through the Italian government. It really was a cool little spot that served us great, and I really do mean great, food. The area that we were a part of is where lasagna originated from, and our courses consisted of: lasagna (go figure), some really different noodles that I’ve never seen before mixed with a really delicious combination of spices and pork, some of the best diced potatoes I’ve had here, fried meat of some kind (I’m really no food expert), and tiramisu to end it all!

Now after gorging ourselves into oblivion, we were off to Ducati next! If you have never heard of Ducati before, they are basically the sport bike brand in Europe. They win competitions, like a lot of them, and they take extreme pride in their bikes and in their drivers. They, however, didn’t have a showroom in the beginning of the tour like Maserati, but a really awesome museum afterward of all of the things that they have won ever (which is quite a lot, seriously).

Though Ducati makes a wide variety of sport bikes, which are definitely smaller than Maserati cars, their factory was actually significantly larger than Maserati’s. It also has a different demeanor as well: the workers looked intense, and seemed full with passion on what they were doing. There was also another huge key difference between the two factories too, and that was that there were significantly more women working in the factory. At Maserati, I don’t think I saw even one woman in the factory, where at Ducati, as our tour guide said, over 30% of the workers in the factory are women, which was really awesome to see!

Ducati, though known for their SuperBike and GP success sells a lot of crossover bikes as well. The way I would describe them is sort of hybrids between a lot of bikes, something that you cannot do with many cars. It’s pretty hard to make a super car like a Lamborghini also perform similar things as a SUV or pickup truck, but Ducati can make bikes that can be a roadster/cruiser/streetbike mixture. This is all done through the mechanics of the bike, along with electonic settings that the driver of the bike can tweek in order to fit to their personal needs. This is really the pull in most of Ducati’s sales, because they sell more of these ‘hybrid’ bikes than their street bike or sport bike models.

So many motorcycles

The museum that we visited afterward was obviously pretty self-absorbed, for Ducati’s sake. In their museum they had about 30+ bikes that had all won at least one race or one large event of some sort. The craziest part of this museum is to actually see Ducati’s roots, which, before World War 2, was in the market of electronic shaving apparatuses. It was amazing to see their timeline, in which their museum was built in a literal circle around, with bikes lined up on almost every year that was marked on the wall because they won at least one thing in said year. It’s truly merit to them how great engineering and a great driver can really pull together and make a company start from selling electronic racers to one that is one of the, if not the, staple in the motorcycle world.

So today was a busy day, and tomorrow will be just as busy as well! I’m sure Chris will have lots of things to say.

Also, this computer doesn’t have spell check so please don’t get chastise me if I spelled something wrong!

– Alex Manning

January 21, 2015 by

Field Trips!, Florence, Naples, Universities

From the North to the South

When I asked for a quote to start the blog like I’ve been doing recently, do you know what I got? I got, “Merry Christmas you filthy animal.” Thanks Claire. Tons of segues I can make out of that.

Well it’s been a couple of days since you’ve heard from us, and that can be explained. Sunday, as I mentioned last time, was a free day. Some people went back to Assisi, others to the soccer game, and others still to watch the Packers game. Nothing too special to dedicate a blog post to. Yesterday was filled with Naples activities, but unfortunately the hotel wifi couldn’t handle all 21 of us logging in at the same time, and so it broke. Our fault, for sure. Today we went from Naples to Pompeii, back to Naples, and then all the way up to Florence. I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

Early in the morning (by college standards), we gathered to say our goodbyes to Francesco, the best cook around. It was heartfelt and filled with handshakes and slaps on the face. We salute you Francesco. A couple of hours later we hopped on a bus and moved on over to termini station to board our train. The train ride only took about 1 hour, so it was pretty easy. Coming into the city we could see quite a lot of housing and small streets. While I may not have believed I could get a segue out of that quote at the beginning, it actually is a bit applicable to how I would describe Naples. Dirty. Normally the stereotype with Naples is that it’s full of crime, but if that’s the case then I couldn’t see any of that crime behind broken windows, graffiti coated walls, and all around dirty roads and buildings.

Long narrow streets seems to be their trademark

Once we had made it to the hotel, we were met by our local guide whose name I don’t believe anyone can recall, so in lieu of Gino, I shall dub her Gina. Gina was another college student studying restoration and was pretty quiet (probably because she didn’t know very much english). We embarked on what should have been a guided tour of the city with plenty of explanations along the way but it ended up being far more walking and very little talking. Along the way we stopped at a couple of churches with rather unimpressive architecture, but that’s most likely because we’re spoiled from being in Rome for so long. Gina took us through some back allies that were filled with wooden craft stores that had wooden figurines of the pope right alongside their favorite soccer players. Priorities, right? That took us pretty far out of the way and we eventually made our way back. Before we reached the hotel, we decided to stop at the local castle, which happened to be practically right across the street. From the outside, it looked like a typical castle with plenty of room for a moat. Inside, it also looked like a typical castle. There was a lane marked for entry and other for exiting, so of course we headed the way it lead us. Somehow it led us up into what looked like a court room but at the center was a small wooden box and a picture of some guy with a guitar. You’ve probably guessed by now that we did indeed walk in on a wake. People were crying over this guy and we awkwardly strolled through, not knowing who it was we had walking in on. It turns out the guy was a popular Italian musician who was from Naples. It was certainly an interesting experience…

You wouldn’t expect a wake in there, right?

After that aWAKEening experience, we skipped over to the hotel (some of us literally skipped due to losing a bet) and took a quick break. We didn’t have long before we had to head out for a local pizzeria on the other side of town. Since Naples is the birthplace of pizza, we of course had to learn how to make pizza. At the pizzeria, we were greeted by the staff and escorted to a few tables prepped for what was surely going to be a cooking disaster. Each of us received an apron and hat that read “Pizza school.” We knew right then we were destined to be professionals.

We all prep ourselves for an intense session

The owner of the establishment attempted to teach us how to make dough and some people caught on quickly. As for the rest of us, it was a bit more challenging than we had anticipated. A while and several attempts later, the employees gave us a premade dough and then we all began creating for real. We flattened the dough, added sauce, cheese, and veggies, and beheld our masterpieces. They soon began cooking pizzas for those that finished first, but for the rest of us we had to get by on the restaurant’s own pizza. When all had conceded or finished, we sat down for a full meal and wine. It was all great and probably made our work look completely foolish. Each and every one of us came out of that place with a diploma in pizza making, so it looks like we’re no longer engineers.

Ground zero of the pizza-tastrophe

One night of sleep later, we arrived at today. With another early start, we departed for the University of Naples in downcast and rainy weather. It was a ways out of our area and not particularly obvious. There was a point where the bus began circling the local stadium and we thought we were lost, but apparently the school was located directly next to the arena. The place was made up of a cluster of buildings and we headed straight to the back of them. Inside we were lead to a classroom that overlooked the architecture lab. In that room, we sat through 2 big lectures with the lengthier of the two lasting 1.75 hours. While the material was interesting, sitting there for so long was brutal. The professors explained their involvements in the restoration of places like Piza and local buildings too. After the lectures we headed into the labs to look at their equipment. They had huge machines that could crush with dizzyingly high forces and shake plates to simulate an earthquake. At the moment they had an arch set up for earthquake testing, but the test wasn’t scheduled for another 2 days so we didn’t get to see it in action. Instead, we headed underground to look at the supports for the lab, and that was just as impressive. The shake plates had their own suspended concrete floor that could move separately from the rest of the building so as not to affect the entire grounds by using the machinery. Let’s just say it must have cost a fortune to make all that.

The school’s entrance

Getting back on the bus, we headed south to our next destination, Pompeii.

We arrived around 3 and met up with our tour guide. It was at this point the rain started to come down more than it had been all day. She led us into the main entrance of the city where we had two stray dogs follow us in.

All in all, the city of Pompeii is fairly large, but only 70% of the city is excavated even though the excavation originated in the late 1700s. I could describe to you for pages what we saw, but I’ll give you a brief synopsis. The brickwork was old. Like real old. Like 79 AD old. Most of the main structures survived except for roofs and some walls, so it looks like a ghost town. The roads are made with large stones and have high sidewalks so that water could flow through the streets and people didn’t have to walk in it. Most of the roads were straight, but a few were curved. The general rule was that if you couldn’t see the end of your road, there was most likely a brothel somewhere on it. They had their own mini arena for fights and a theater for shows. The forum was large and open, like you would expect for politicians. Overall, it was an ancient dead city that was incredible to be able to walk through.

Our tour ended around 5 when the park closed, so we had to high tail it out of there. We said goodbye to our guide and hopped on the bus, headed back to the Naples train station for the next leg of our journey. The next ride would take us around 3 hours to reach our final destination: Florence. It was not more than an hour ago that we arrived, hopped on another bus, and headed over to our hotel that would accommodate us for all but one of our remaining nights. It’s got larger rooms than we’ve had so far but the wifi is spotty, so it’ll be a struggle to post to the blog or do anything electronic. Sorry.

A surprising amount of green

Well, that’s all for the past couple of days. Coming up tomorrow is our big day to tour some of the supercar factories, including Lamborghini. Did I mention a couple of us get to drive the Lamborghinis? Yeah. It’s going to be amazing. Stay tuned.

– Chris Apfeld

By the way, the internet isn’t working in my favor, so I’ll try and get the pictures to this and any upcoming posts up asap, but no guarantee it’ll work. It that’s the case, I’ll rectify that as soon as we’re within good wifi or back in the states. Sorry for the inconvenience.

January 20, 2015 by

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