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.
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.
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.
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
