Author Archives: djm5287

The North Trip

I’ve written a lot about the trip, but I still have much more to write — I decided though instead of keeping it in a word document, I would just keep editing it in here so that you guys can finally read some stuff about the trip. I promise I’ll get pictures up here soon too! So, you can read what I have here, but check back because I’ll edit it and fill in the cities that I haven’t written about yet.

SUNDAY, JUNE 13th

Today we got back from a long field trip up to a bunch of cities in Northern Italy. There’s a lot to talk about, so I guess I’ll talk about them in chronological order:

Florence:

Florence is best known as a Renaissance city, which is partially true and partially not. Florence is actually an ancient Roman city, established by merchants and soldiers that travelled north from Rome constantly. There were a lot of other settlements like this, but Florence was one of the more successful ones because its location in a valley situated near a river. Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, Florence continued to succeed on its own because the city was set up so richly in trade. I find it interesting because, unlike Rome, Florence never had a severe decline. During the Middle Ages, Rome decreased heavily in population – almost to the point of being uninhabited. This had a lot of consequences on the city of Rome, and the “gap” in architecture is actually visible in the city fabric. Since Florence never went through such a decline, that gap doesn’t exist there, so a more linear progression of architecture is seen through this city.

Florence peaked during the early Renaissance era, and it’s probably true that the Renaissance actually began in Florence. So many of the prominent artists and architects of the Renaissance came from Florence, and it’s clear that Florence architecture started to use Renaissance ideas before anybody else had. In terms of architecture, the most important person to come out of Florence during this time was Michelangelo, who did a lot of important works in Florence before moving to Rome as the main Renaissance influence shifted to Rome. After moving to Rome, Michelangelo did most of his famous works (The Sistine Chapel, for example).

The heart of Florence is situated in the area where the Renaissance architecture is most prominent, and that’s what makes it a Renaissance city, in a sense. However, the original layout of the ancient Roman city is still the main grid of the city, so it’s important to remember the influence from antiquity.

On my own time, I got to meet up with my friend Micky, who is studying abroad in Florence! She’s doing something very similar to me – studying abroad for 6 weeks. It was great to finally see her again. I brought a couple of my friends in my program, and we met up with her and a few others from hers. We hung out and went to a night club when they finally opened and danced for the rest of the night!

Verona:

Verona is supposedly the place where Romeo and Juliet takes place. It definitely lived up to the expectations that I inevitably placed when I heard that this was the place where the mots famous story took place. We got to explore this town for a good bit on our own, which was a lot of fun since we were all kind of itching to have some free time after the long field trip days in Florence. An awesome part of this town was the shopping that was there. I’d even say I liked it more than the shopping in Milan because I could actually afford the things in these stores haha. Anyway, a bunch of the guys went on a little shopping excursion, and we all got Italian jackets in one of the department stores. It was kind of fun goofing off and modeling for ourselves in the basement of this place. Another key hot-spot of this town was the statue of Juliet next to where her home supposedly was in the story. Apparently, if you rub her exposed breast, you will have good luck in love affairs. Also, on the walls leading up the statue were thousands of “love notes” to Romeo and Juliet. We only stayed here for one full day, but it was a great spot to relax a little bit and let loose on the North Trip.

Como:

Besides Cinque Terre, Lake Como is the most beautiful place in the world. I could see why all the celebrities like George Clooney all houses on the lake here. Everybody at home can see the beauty of Lake Como by watching Star Wars: Episode II. Lake Como is where George Lucas filmed Anakin and Padme’s marriage in the movie (The landscape was beautiful, even if that was easily the worst star wars movie made). In terms of architecture, we visited a few important buildings designed by the Italian architect Terragni, a much more modern architect than the material we’ve been studying this whole trip. It was relieving to finally learn about something other than a church or Roman temple. Terragni’s style was very simple and a lot of sense, while still being very unique in his own way. 

Milan:

It was rather unfortunate, but we were only able to spend 3 � hours in Milan. We woke up early in our hotel in Como, and got on a bus to head to Milan. After we got there, we toured for about an hour, where we were able to see the Milan Cathedral and a few other important buildings. We were given some free time afterwards, which I used to check out all the shopping in the area. I didn’t buy much – I only got the most legitimate pasta cookbook from a big bookstore I found. I thought it would be a good gift for my Dad for Father’s Day. It’s all in Italian, so we’re going to have to translate it, but the recipes look delicious, and it tells you how to make literally every kind of homemade pasta.

Anyway, I found the Milan Cathedral really interesting, especially since it was a huge topic of discussion in our Structures class here. It is a great example of a medieval church and other than Saint Peter’s at the Vatican, it is definitely the biggest I have seen. The Cathedral was such a big topic in our structures class because of the construction process that it went through. The Cathedral was mostly designed by a group of local Lombardi architects, but it had a lot of influence from Gothic Architecture from the North (whether or not the Lombardi were willing to admit it). There were a lot of bumps along the way, and it was doubted whether or not the Milanese could actually build the biggest Cathedral known to date. In fact, they didn’t succeed in my opinion, since it took the Milanese over 400 years to build it, by which time Saint Peter’s had already been completed and took the reign as the largest Cathedral in the world.

Venice:

Venice was truly an awesome experience. We stayed for a good 3 nights in Venice, and I’m glad we were given that chance to explore this city more than some of the others. It is truly the most unique city that has ever been built. Venice sits on a group of some 300 small islands, which are connected by a large series of footbridges. Cars are only allowed on one of the larger islands, and have to be parked there if you wish to continue deeper into Venice. It is the same situation with trains — There is a train station on one of the islands, but there doesn’t exist a local train system or metro throughout the rest of Venice. The style of life that they have created though, is actually preferable to the ones that exist with cars. It was so nice walking along the streets of Venice and not have to worry about getting run over by 200 Vespas driving at 200 mph. Instead of cars and trucks, the Venetians have to resort to these push carts that carry all the goods that they want to transport. It was funny watching all of these cart pushers running all over the city. The city also prides itself on being the longest running republican government, which the Venetian Republic lasted over 800 years.

The architecture in Venice was actually very well planned out for being such a crazy city design. Each island was very similar in nature in terms of streets and alleyways, so it was easy to make your way around each island, even if you had never stepped foot on that specific island.

Naturally, a few of my friends and I just had to take a gondola ride. It was necessary to get the full Venice experience, even if it was fairly expensive. Our gondola driver didn’t sing to us, but he commented on some of the important buildings that we passed as we made our way through the complex web of rivers. It was an awesome experience, and one that I believe everybody should experience before they die. Unfortunately, the gondola ride was over in about 45 minutes, and like the rest of the North field trip, came to an abrupt end on Thursday.

Back to Florence:

After the field trip up north was over on Thursday, we quite literally got dumped in Venice and were told to get back to Rome on our own however we liked. I was happy with that, since it presented a nice opportunity to see more of the northern cities that we weren’t quite so used to. A bunch of friends and I decided to stay in Venice for one more night, and then head back to Florence for the weekend, since we loved that city so much.

In Florence, since we didn’t have any class or field trips, we were excited to have some free time to do what we wanted. The most obvious thing to do was shop. I made only one large purchase while I was there – I got a nice leather over-the-shoulder briefcase that I’ve already used to carry my books to class every day. I started off shopping for this thing in one of the market stands outside, and as I was looking through them and talking with the guy, he realized that I was actually looking to buy something, and told me to follow him. He took me behind the stands to his store where he kept his entire inventory – He must have had over 300 briefcases in this store. I basically just looked through a ton of them and finally found my favorite one which I proceeded to buy. It was a fun experience since the custom is to negotiate prices at these markets. The price tag on the bag said 210 Euro, but I just laughed at him and he immediately dropped it to 160. I then made it seem like I was uninterested in the bag for that ridiculous price (even though I would have paid it), and he dropped it again to 120. I then countered and told him 100, which he accepted. I have no clue how much he actually paid for the bag, but I feel like I did an alright job considering it was my first time really bartering in a market like that.

I got all my other shopping done in the market too – mostly just gifts and stuff like that. It was really relaxing just walking around and having all day for personal stuff. I’m certainly not used to that amount of personal time with the amount of class and work that we have every day.

Next Weekend:

This upcoming Friday, I will be going to a villa in Tuscany for one night. I hope it will be a very relaxing and fun last weekend to the program! Well, hopefully I’ll be able to post one more time soon before I leave for good so I can tell you about Tuscany next weekend!

Ciao!


Location: Venice, Italy

Sorry for the Delay

Hey Guys,

So I must apologize it has been about 2 weeks since my last post. I have a good reason though — I’ve been all across Northern Italy in the past 10 days or so and have not had a steady source of internet. Don’t worry though — I have a ridiculously long post coming up, one that will probably double the length of the entire blog. During this field trip, we’ve been to Florence, Verona, Como, Milan, and Venice. I have so much to tell you about all of these cities, but I can’t get the full length post up yet — I’ll probably have it up on Sunday night?

So, sorry for the delay, and get excited about hearing about all the awesome places I’ve been lately!


Location: Florence, Italy

The Second Full Week

SUNDAY, MAY 23rd

I’ve been here for a little over two weeks now, and the days are already starting to blur. I haven’t had too much free time lately (hence the spacing between my blog posts) because all of my classes kicked in to full gear this week – they’re really going to make us work for the 12 credits. I have class on Monday through Thursday from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM, and we’re given a half an hour lunch break around noon. It’s a long day, and it’s even longer if I have homework to do afterwards.

The most intense class I’m taking here by far is the Architecture Studio. We have one project for that class that’s due at the end of the program. The project is to design an art gallery for a “client” that inherited a huge collection of modern art. Each group was assigned a small piazza somewhere in Rome where that group’s art gallery must be located. My group was assigned Piazza di Pietra, a somewhat secondary piazza located just northeast of the Pantheon. We haven’t started designing the actual art gallery yet, but this whole week we had to create a lot of site analysis drawings and diagrams. All of them have to be hand-drafted, which is the complete opposite of what I, as an engineering major, am used to. I am used to using computer modeling and drafting software like AutoCAD and Revit, which in my opinion, make it exponentially easier. I do have to admit, however, that the final product of hand-drafted documents is much more satisfying. They look much more appealing, and I actually feel proud of the drawing that I completed, no matter how long it took.

 

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This drawing alone was about 9 hours of work. It’s 3/4 of the way done in this photo, but I finished it this afternoon. It is a bird’s eye perspective view of our assigned piazza that we need to insert our art gallery into. I’ve already learned a ton about hand sketching and drafting since I’ve gotten here. Our studio teacher Jamie is awesome. This drawing is about 3 feet wide and 1 1/2 feet all to give you some perspective. It was one of many drawings that we finished this weekend.

 

 

On a more random note, I have fallen in love with cappuccinos. Every morning on my way to class, I stop to get some breakfast at a random caf� along the way and get a cappuccino and a cornetta, which is somewhat of an Italian version of a croissant, but have random flavorings to them. They’re really good. But anyway, during the first 10 days or so, I purposefully tried a different caf� each day so that I could find the best place. I think I have succeeded. This morning I went to a caf� that I haven’t been to yet in Piazza di San Eustachio, and it was SO far above the rest of the caf�s that I have tried. I got a good first impression of the place when I first walked in because it was completely filled with local Romans, which is a very good sign. The place was slightly more expensive than the rest of them, but it was definitely worth it because the pastry that I had tasted really fresh and the cappuccino was AMAZING. They made it perfectly. It was the kind of place where they knew their coffee was the best because they didn’t let me put my own sugar in it. The barista was afraid that I would ruin the balance of flavors if I did it myself. They were probably right though because he did put the absolute perfect amount of sugar in it. It was awesome, I can’t say enough about it.

This leads me to a big culture difference that I’ve noticed in here. Being from the United States, I am completely used to the “customer is always right” model of customer service. When I go into a store, I expect that the people working there will wait on me promptly and politely. Having a few years of retail store work experience myself, I understand that it is terrible to lose customers through bad service. Sub-consciously, I brought those expectations about customer service to Rome. However, the customs here are completely the opposite. Here in Rome, each customer is treated more like a guest of the store owner. While the owner will definitely wait on you IF you are polite, he certainly does not feel obliged to do so, and is not scared of losing your business. So, in a lot of the interactions I’ve had at stores and caf�s, I came out of it thinking the owner/employees were quite rude and downright lazy. For example, every cashier in this city is grossly bothered by the customer not paying with exact change. It doesn’t matter how small the bill is. I once handed the cashier a $5.00 bill to pay a gelato that cost $3.00. Mind you, Europe has a $2.00 coin, and is in normal regulation unlike the U.S.’s $2.00 bill. So the change for this transaction was exactly 1 coin, and he rolled his eyes at me like I was seriously inconveniencing him. I understand that this is one of the many examples of how our cultures are different, but if I owned a store, I would never treat a customer that way. It might also add to it that I’m an American tourist to the country, but nevertheless, I wouldn’t treat an Italian tourist to the United States in that way.  I’m not going back to that gelato place.

On the other hand, I’ve had a ton of positive experiences with the different culture as well. The entire culture seems much more relaxed about everything that they do. I find it nice that people feel comfortable walking around the city at night without anything bad happening to them. I actually feel safer here than I do at State College at night. There are a lot more petty crimes here, like theft, but as long as I pay attention to my surroundings, I don’t feel like I am in any potential harm. When I’m walking home late from studio, there are still a lot of local people just taking a stroll before they go to bed. I could also feel safer because the Carabinieri (the Italian state police force) are the scariest police force I have ever seen. Our classrooms and studio are directly behind the Italian Prime Minister’s office, so at all times there is at least 1 Carabinieri guard, fully equipped with a loaded Uzi machine gun, right outside our door. If something bad were to happen there, it wouldn’t last long. I wouldn’t want to start something there.

On a different note, I’m really enjoying the housing deal that we have here. All 35 of the AE’s here are living on the same floor of a former convent in the Church of Saint Agnes. The church fa�ade faces the Piazza Navona, and I got lucky that the window to my room is on that fa�ade, so I look out into the center of the piazza. We have 2 fully equipped kitchens on the floor, and about 6 bathrooms. It’s a really great deal. Often times, there are a lot of events that go on in the Piazza, like mini opera concerts and festivals that I can watch from my window. It’s definitely a once in a lifetime situation, because it would cost millions for a private apartment with this kind of view.

I finally got to the Vatican yesterday morning, because our trip to Siena got cancelled. That place is out of this world. We went to the Vatican museum first, and I was blown away. The line wasn’t terrible, we waited for about an hour to get in, which I hear is pretty good and it can get much longer. As soon as you walk into this place, it is a non-stop barrage of famous artwork, sculptures, and architecture. It is truly amazing that the Catholic Church has been able to collect this kind of value. I couldn’t even comprehend what the total worth of all of it was. Anyway, they flowed the traffic through the museum by posting tons of signs that read, “Sistine Chapel this way” because that’s what everybody wanted to see in the first place. It turned out that those signs winded you around the ENTIRE museum before they dumped you in the Sistine Chapel in the end. It was huge tease, but it was a good way to view the whole museum. It took about 2 hours to walk through – I didn’t really stop for too long of a time at any given piece of artwork, but if I did it would take about a week straight to get through it all. My life was completed when I finally saw the Sistine Chapel, and realized that no man will ever live again and be as good an artist as Michelangelo. He deserves all the credit he gets. Raphael’s artworks in the Vatican were very close behind.

 

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Next we went into the basilica of San Pietro. Now, I thought Notre Dame in Paris was an impressive church, but it’s not even in the same league as San Pietro. It was an experience. We walked through the nave, but didn’t stay too long after we saw the entire thing.

 

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So, I’m about to crash because it has been a long week, so I apologize for the huge spacing between the posts, but I’ll make sure each post I write has some juicy stuff in it. Ciao!


Location: Vatican City

A Fantastic Weekend in Cinque Terre

SUNDAY, MAY 15th,

This past weekend, we went on a weekend trip to Cinque Terre. It was very easy getting there, since there was a train that took us from Rome pretty much directly to the Cinque Terre region. The weekend was so much fun! I have found my future home. Seriously, I am going to start studying Italian now so that I can speak it when I get the money to retire here or something. It was the most beautiful place that I have ever been to.

 Cinque Terre is a group of 5 fishing villages that are connected by walking paths, hiking trails, and trains. Unfortunately, most of the walking trails and hiking paths were closed because the weather was so bad that day, but the trains between the towns worked out perfectly for us. Each village had its own unique persona even though they were so closely grouped together. Due to the timing, we only had a chance to really see 3 of the towns in full, but I guess that means I’ll have to go back in the future!

We left very early in the morning on Saturday to get the train station in Rome. We all slept on the 4 hour train ride. We got to our hotel in La Spezia around noon, and from there, hopped on a quick 10 minute train into the Cinque Terre region. We got off the train in the first town, Riomaggiore. We didn’t stay too long in this town because we were anxious to get on the only walking path that was open that connected Riomaggiore with the second town, Manarola. The path winded around the cliffs against the ocean, and offered beautiful views of both towns and the Mediterranean Ocean. Here’s pictures of the path and the views from it:

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These are all locks that husbands and wives carved their names in and locked to the railings. They were all over the place on this path. I thought it was a really neat and cute alternative to the grafitti which I see all over Italy.

 

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The houses on the hillside were exactly what I wanted to see from Italy. It was almost too perfect.

The path left us in the town of Manarola, which was a very cute residential town that had a few touristy shops and a bunch of good looking restaurants. We didn’t stop to eat here, though, because we weren’t hungry just yet (but keep reading for the most epic meal I’ve ever had). Anyway, Manarola was really sweet and it looked like the most habitable one. So, this could be my pick for my future home. Here are some pictures of Manarola:

 

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We took the train from Manarola to the third town, Corniglia. After getting off the train, however, we learned that we needed to walk up 364 steps in order to actually get to the town. We braved it out, and we all made it up the cliff. It was definitely worth the effort because the views from this town were definitely the best in the three towns that we got to see. This town was pretty awesome, and the houses and apartments here seemed to be a little nicer and the views out all the windows were worth $1 million each. Anyway, it will probably be best to just show the pictures of the views instead of trying to describe them:

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Rome 3 106.JPGAfter we spent some time in Corniglia, we got back on the train to the fourth town, Vernazza. This was a beautiful place also, but it seemed to be the most touristy. HOWEVER, I had the best meal of my life in this town. After walking around all of these towns, we finally got to Vernazza around 5:30 and we were STARVING. Since this was kind of like our vacation from all the schoolwork and stuff that we have all week, we were really looking for a relaxing, authentic Italian meal. Since we’ve come to Rome, we haven’t really gotten the “authentic” Italian cuisine since we’ve either been eating at a bunch of restaurants in the center of Rome that have been tourist-ized, or we’ve just cooked our own meals. We decided that since we were on the path less traveled (Robert Frost, anyone?), the restaurants in Cinque Terre would be much more authentic and awesome.

We were right. All of the restaurants didn’t open until 7 because Italians eat dinner later than Americans do, so we had to wait. We looked around Vernazza for about an hour, while in the mean time we asked all of the local shop owners where the best restaurant in the area was. There was a unanimous decision on this one restaurant in Vernazza called Belforte Ristorante. We decided to try it out. Since it was the best restaurant, it was completely booked, but they didn’t book the outside deck because it was raining and kind of cold outside. It was covered, however, so we were fine with sitting outside. Besides, we weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to eat at the best restaurant in the area. So, we ended up getting our own private outdoor seating deck!

Now let me tell you about my meal. The restaurant owner spoke very good English, and he waited on us the entire time (which was 2 � hours). We asked him to bring out some good local wine, and we all had a glass or two of wine from an area slightly north of Tuscany. My first course was spaghetti “Bruno” style which was spaghetti and mussels in a homemade marinara sauce. The spaghetti was homemade of course and the mussels seemed like they were caught that morning. My second course was a plate of straight up mussels. Again, they were definitely caught that morning. My main course was shrimp scampi, which was FOR SURE the best part of the meal. The menu said that the scampi was their specialty, so I figured I would go for that since the specialty of the best restaurant of the area would have to be pretty damn good. And it was. I was in heaven for about 20 minutes. Then, for dessert, I had caramelized strauberries (that’s how the menu spelled strawberries), in vanilla gelato. SUCCESS. So, 4 courses – 70 Euro. But, totally worth it. I would have paid quadruple that to tell you the truth.

 

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I caught Pat stealing Abby’s food while she was looking at the camera haha.

After that, we just got on the train back to the hotel, and we were all so satisfied with food that we just all passed out in our beds immediately after a hot shower for each of us. It was the most amazing day. I swear that I will be back to Cinque Terre sometime in my life, and I will definitely go back to that exact restaurant too.


Location: Vernazza, Italy

Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este

FRIDAY, MAY 14th,

Today, the program took us on a day trip to the two villas listed in the title. I’ll talk about the Hadrian’s Villa first:

This place was HUGE. The villa was made by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, which was originally designed as a place for him to get away from Rome for a break from governmental affairs. The outcome was much greater than he anticipated, however, and it eventually turned into an architectural “testing ground”, if you will. Design and construction of the villa started in the year 117 A.D., and was not fully completed when Hadrian died in 134 A.D. The villa covers about 300 acres and became a secondary government location during the later years of Hadrian’s life. Hadrian himself was an amateur architect, and helped design a lot of the pieces of the entire villa. Unfortunately, today the villa is in ruins, which is severely disappointing because it would have been on the scale of Versailles had it still been intact. However, the ruins give us a very good impression of what the villa was like in its prime.

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Villa d’Este:

Villa d’Este, though it was smaller than Hadrian’s, was definitely not inferior. This villa is much newer than Hadrian’s, and therefore is still intact. We were only able to tour this villa for about 45 minutes, so I don’t have as much knowledge on the history of it as Hadrian’s, but I’ll share with you what I do know about it: The villa was built by a Cardinal that only barely missed the Papacy (He actually came in second place in the vote). In consolation, the Cardinal that did win the Papacy appointed him as the Cardinal of Tivoli. This essentially rendered him the governor of the town, so he built himself a villa on the nicest piece of real estate in the town (Does this sound anything like our politicians today?). The villa is built against the hillside, and while the house itself is very impressive, the best part of the villa is the garden and fountains in front of the main entrance. It was referred to as the first Italian water park.

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Pat and I copied these two random girls that did this picture right before us. I think they were a little offended.

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Well, I’m exhausted after walking all day, so I’m going to get to bed — CINQUE TERRE TOMORROW!


Location: Tivoli, Italy

The Beauty of the City

I know I posted earlier today, but I have too many pictures right now that need to be shown immediately. As I walked around this past weekend, I was clicking my camera basically non-stop because everything I have seen so far was too beautful NOT to take a picture of it. So, I think I’m just going to keep the words on this entry short and let the pictures do the talking:

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Location: Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy

First Few Days in Rome!!

MONDAY, MAY 10th,

We checked into our permanent room today. We have the most fantastic view from our front window! We look out over the Piazza Navona, and we have a fairly good aerial view of the surrounding Rome area. Check it out:

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This is the view from my window. That’s right, be jealous.

So, I’m pretty excited about the room because of the view and the set-up. We got hooked up here! Anyway, I probably won’t be able to post like everyday, but I’ve been keeping a journal of a sort in a word document saved on my computer, so I’ll just post a lot of days all in one entry. Tonight, we’re planning on going to the Spanish Steps, which I’ll write about in the next entry. Below is everything that I did this past weekend:

SUNDAY, MAY 9TH

Today I experienced my first European soccer game! We saw online that there was an AS Roma game today at 3, and we decided to go for it, despite not having tickets, despite not knowing how to get to the stadium, despite never using the Rome public transport system before, despite not speaking Italian…But we were successful!! It was a long journey, we walked to about 5 different bus stops in order to find the correct one that would take us to the stadium, but we finally found a bunch of other kids with AS Roma jerseys on, so we decided to follow them to the stadium! We had to scalp tickets from some guy outside the stadium, and we weren’t sure if they were real tickets or not, but it turned out that he did in fact sell us legitimate tickets, and we got in! Let me say, IT WAS AWESOME. The game was the most intense sporting event I had ever been to. I think it came mostly from the crowd – American sports fans should take notes from these European soccer fans. They screamed literally the entire time – It was just as loud as a Penn State football game, but for the entire time, even during the half. And, not once did they ever boo their own team. When the team wasn’t playing well, the fans only screamed louder and even more supportive of their guys.

 

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The game was played in the Olympic Stadium slightly outside the city, and the place was packed! There were a lot of AS Roma fans. After the game had ended, all of the fans stayed and sang a bunch of songs, and almost nobody left the stadium immediately. It was a much different experience than any American sports game that I had been to.

After the game, we grabbed some dinner at an Irish pub (Yes, I know I’m in Italy, give me a break) on the way back to our hotel. We also stopped for gelato (Again!), which I think I’m going to have every day while I’m here. Tomorrow, I check in to my permanent place, so I think I’m going to get some sleep now.

 

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Ciao!

SATURDAY, MAY 8TH

Today was the first day of our adventure in Rome. And oh, what an adventure we had today! We landed in slightly late, but the drivers we had arranged to pick us up at the airport had waited for us! So, we met up with them easily enough – nobody had any baggage problems, and we left with a very good impression of the Rome airport. Our driver, Francesco, was quite humorous, and even though he did not speak too much English, he made us laugh the entire way into the city. Francesco dropped us off at where our “hotel” was supposed to be, so we paid him and he went on his way. After we went through the door that he pointed to us, inside was another gated door, which looked like it housed residential housing? So, we were very confused for about a half an hour, before we figured it all out. We had to check the addresses of the letters inside the mailbox to make sure we were at the right place. It matched the addresses we had for the bed and breakfast we had booked, so we decided to just knock on some doors. It turned out that the bed and breakfast was just owned by some woman who lived on the floor above, and she just rented out the rooms for some side profit. It was somewhat of a shady deal, but we FINALLY got into the room and the room, even though it wasn’t large by any means, was alright for what we intended on using it for. I was staying with my friends Devon, Nick, Matt, Abby, and Amanda. The room was kind of split up into 2 rooms, so the girls are going to stay in one room tonight, while the guys get to split the bigger room 4 ways. It will certainly be tight, but manageable.

 

Rome 1 047.JPGAfter we booked in and dropped off our bags, Rome was ours for the taking! We met up with our friends Pat and Mike, and we got some Pizza for lunch! It was somewhat of a touristy place, so it wasn’t too great, but we were all starving from the plane ride, so it tasted good enough! We then went on a HUGE walking tour of Rome. And I mean HUGE. I can’t name all of the places that we went today, partly because I literally can’t (I don’t really know what a lot of these places are called), and partly because we went to too many places to list. You can see a lot of the places we went today by the pictures that I posted in this entry. Today we did a lot of silly things, and I guess we truly were the “dumb, ignorant American tourists”. However, we’ll get that out of our system eventually, and I have faith that we’ll be able to blend right into the culture by the end of the trip.

 

Rome 1 056.JPGI already noticed a lot of differences between Rome and American cities. The first difference is what I would call a city. When I think of city, I immediately think of skyscrapers and busy streets. Rome has busy streets, but the tallest buildings here are only about 5 stories tall. The difference originates from the building materials that were used in building each city. Roman buildings, which are much older than any city building made in the States, are almost entirely made out of load-bearing masonry walls. This limits their height if the walls are to remain a reasonable width. The newer steel buildings that we see in America can support much more weight without getting too much thicker.

At the end of the night we went out and found the BEST gelato place ever. They had literally every flavor you could dream of, and we knew it was the best gelato place because we asked our cab driver which place was the best. I had an orange gelato, and it was delicious. I think I’m going to set a goal to try every flavor in that store by the time I leave.

So now I am SO beat from the jet lag (I have been awake for 48 hours now) and walking around in Rome. It was a great first day, and I have already found out that I AM GOING TO HAVE AN AWESOME TIME IN ROME THIS SUMMER. So I’m going to bed now, and I’ll write again tomorrow!

 

 


Location: Via del Pantheon 57, Rome, Italy

2 DAYS TO GO

So, I leave in less than 48 hours! I still haven’t packed or done anything yet, though. I’ve been much too preoccupied with finals. However, as soon as my Physics final exam is over tomorrow afternoon, it’s packing time!

I’ll be arriving in Rome on Saturday, May 8th around 8:45 AM local time — I’m then going to get a ride over to my hotel, which is DIRECTLY across the street from the Pantheon. That will be sweet. The hotel is called Al Pantheon con Thomas Mann. I’ve heard that it’s not that nice of a hotel, but it was fairly cheap, and it’s very close to the place where I’ll be permanently living. We have that whole weekend free for the most part, in which I guess my friends and I will go exploring! I’m hoping to see a lot of Rome before my classes really start. I definitely want to check out a lot of the famous buildings and get them out of the way, because tourist season starts in June, so all of the really touristy places will be less crowded early in May.

Anyway, I will be permanently living in a former convent on the Piazza Navona. If any of you have read or saw Angels and Demons, It’s the plaza where the Cardinal almost gets drowned in the fountain, but gets saved by Langdon. (People seem to know exactly where I’m talking about when I add that description to it) I heard that the place is basically like a very small dorm room, which is totally fine because the window is going to look over the Piazza, so don’t pity me at all. I don’t plan on spending any time in the room anyway, since I’ll have so much to do while I’m over there!

My parents got me a digital camera, so I’ll be able to take a lot of pictures when I get over there. I’ll try to post them directly in this blog, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll figure something else out. It seems like the other Geobloggers were able to figure out how to get pictures on their blogs, so I bet I can do it.

Well, that’s all that I have for you guys for now! I’ll try to post another entry a few days after I get there and get settled in — and I’ll have much more cool stuff to talk about, so check back then!

Ciao!


Location: 520 E Calder Way, State College, PA 16801

Still in the States…

Hey Everyone,

My Name is Daniel McGee and I am going to Rome this summer through the Architectural Engineering Rome Program. I am a second year AE and I am looking forward to a great time this summer! These past few weeks have been filled with packing and planning for the summer abroad, as well as finishing up my current semester. I find it is getting harder to concentrate in school right now since I am getting excited for it to end because that will mean the start of my stay in Rome!

I am leaving for Rome on May 7, the friday of final exams week, and I have a ton to do before that! I am hosting a dinner on Monday night to finalize our plans and preparations for the trip with a few of my friends. It will be fun to collect as a group to talk about everything that we all want to do and experince while we are over there. We have a ton of plans for the 7 weeks — Venice, Pompeii, Florence…The list seems endless. I hope I will have time to post everything I do!

I just got back from the first Geoblog meeting where we learned how all of this works — Afterwards I met a lot of cool people with great study abroad plans. I really look forward to reading about their adventures abroad, so I can see what some other cultures are like. So far, this Geoblog sounds like a great program. Even though I will be going through my own adventure in Rome, I will get to chat with other Penn State students each on their own adventures. It will be cool to swap stories and experiences with all of them.

Anyway, I have some goals for the future posts of my GeoBlog —

1. Discuss the Architecture of Rome. Since I am an Architectural Engineering major, in my opinion there is no better place to study abroad than Rome because of the rich architecture that I will find there. All of my classes involve architecture in some way, so I will be fully immersed in the architecture aspect of the culture. I hope to discuss with my blog readers some of the things that I learn about the architecture here as I go.

2. Share the foods that I will eat. I am planning on gaining about 20 pounds (or should I say kilos?) while I am over there since I am expecting that I will have some of the best food that I will have eaten thus far in my life. I plan on sharing some of these dishes with all of you in hopes that I can convince everybody to come to Rome.

3. Create a guide for future AE’s going on this same program. I hope to write about some daily activities and schoolwork that I will do while I am here. Hopefully I can create a good guide to what is expected and what kinds of things future AE’s will experience on this trip. I will write about great places to visit, great restaurants to eat at, and so forth.

4. Learn from other Geobloggers. Even though I will be having a great time in Italy, I hope to use this Geoblog as a tool to connect to other study abroad students across the globe. As I said earlier, I met a bunch of other people today who have great trips adventures planned. I look forward to reading about those adventures.

Well, that’s all I have for now — I will probably write another blog post before I leave for Rome when it gets closer to the departure date. So for now, Ciao!


Location: 520 E Calder Way, State College PA 16801