The Pope Made Me Late for Mass

It's true. Because he adresses crowds of people at 12 noon on Sundays, I had to wait in a long line to pass through the security checkpoint to get into the Basillica to get to 12:15 Mass. I didn't have my camera on me, but he was awfully small-looking from his window.

In other news, I succeeded in making the best home-made dinner for myself as of yet in Rome. It started with some Romanesco Broccoli, which tastes like a cross between cauliflower and broccoli, and looks like a 3D Sierpinski Triangle. Then I had pan seared steak, fresh from the local open-air market. Of course, i had to sear it in olive oil, because that's really the only option I had. And garlic. After the pan was cleared from the steak, I put on my home fries (also fried in olive oil), which came out very crispy and very good. And while that would've been plenty, I ended the meal with nutella covered strawberries, also fresh from the market. This culinary contraption only further supports the research that nutella can make any dessert 100x better.

So, I'll go ahead and say that nutella will definitely be on my list of "Things I Miss from Rome". That and walking a good 5 minutes in the Basillica to get to the front portion that's celebrating Mass.

Another Week in Rome

Well, the second week of classes are now complete, with the exception of the mini trip to the Treve Fountain for some print viewing. Some miscellaneous stuff to start off with: I got my Metro pass for the month of February, which will come in handy when meeting on location for Art History, Rome Sketchbook and Digital Imaging. Laundry was a pain because everyone's just starting to realize that they no longer have clean clothes, which was the indirect result of me finishing the last of the non-school related books I brought to read. But that's alright, since I now fill my free time with watching the D-Town podcast- a podcast by he same guys who do PhotoshopUser TV, but for Nikon camera users. It's given me a lot of good tips for litle-known settings on my D90, and a pretty good idea about what lenses and flashes are out there, should I ever want to get something like that.

So the week in review:
Monday wasn't too eventful. I spent most of the day at school working on my linoleum print, and of curse Italian class where we learned that the Italian word for gypsy is in fact "zingaro".
In a very rainy Rome Sketchbook on Tuesday, we were drawing inside a church courtyard, and then in St. Augustino's, working in conte and focusing primarily on perspective. fortunately my school schedule Tuesdaykeeps me inside the dry Temple Rome building until 9 PM, when the rain had stopped. On the way home, me and a few fellow classmates I know from Tyler stopped off at the 24 HR bakery, where I got a fresh panino (sandwich) and un canolo (you're probably more familiar with the plural "canoli".)
Wednesday started off with a nice trip to one of he first churches erected in thonor of Mary as the mother of God, and St. Cicilia's Church, the final resting place fo the incorrupt (and out-of-view) St. Cicilia. It also had some well preserved frescos by Cavalini. This brings us to Thursday, where in Digital Imaging, we went to the digital camera shop, and the Vatican for some depth of field and lighting shots. I also ad my first Italian test/quiz on some basic question phrases, definite / indefinite articles, and the verbs to be and to have.
With the exception of a tiny bit of a sore throat and a stuffy nose today, this trip has been going quite well. I even had time to draw the picture at the bottom. It's a study of a comic style for a personal graphic novel work-in-progress that I will reveal more as I get more done. But for now you have that, and the link to the photos from this week that include shots from today's digital imaging class. At some point I'll get around to posting artwork from printmaking and rome sketchbook.
Photo Link

Classes and Tuscania

Well, week one of classes has gone by, and I'm still here. Monday was a light day, just having Italian 2-3 with the fabulous Chrisitano Gentili- an eccentric Italian man with long silver hair. With only one class Monday, I decided that it should double as laundry day. Our washers and dryers here at The Residence aren't the top of the line, but they still operate.

Tuesday is super marathon day, starting at 8AM with Katherine Krizek for Rome Sketchbook, and ending at 9PM with Frank Dabell for Early Renaissance Art History. In between is Italian at 2, and Survey of Printmaking with Mario Teleri Biason. Rome Sketchbook is a bit more dictated and structured than I had imagined, but she had reassured us that this is only the case for the first few classes. Survey of Printmaking isn't too bad; we'll be going through serveral different printmaking techniques, one of which involves using the 100+ year-old printing press. And the Art History is entertaining, or rather, Professor Dabell is entertaining as he explains the subject matter with his English accent and habit of making sure what he says has no way of being misinterpreted. (i.e. he wanted to assure us that when he uses the term "pagan" that he's not commenting that the art is worth any less than that with religious themes.) It's better Wednesday mornings when we're out and looking at various landmarks and not in the classroom looking at slides on his archaic slide projection devices. (circa 1970s).

Wednesday starts off with Art History at 9 AM, as I mentioned, but outside, basically doing a fancier guided tour that we'll be tested on later. And with an English tour guide, it makes it all the better. For the first go-around, we started at the Pantheon and then made our way to one of the museums that overlook the Roman Forum, looking at the classic architecture, to give the context of the interest the Renaissance had in it. Then is Italian at 2- the last class of the day.

Thursday starts bright and early with Digital Imaging, where I learned all about my SLR camera's manual mode and how to properly set the Aperture, shutter speed, and exposure. I got a few neat shots, that I will put up on the web at some point. Then I have Italian at 2 and Survey of Printmaking at 7:30 again.

Friday is typically a free day, but this week it was filled with a Rome Sketchbook specific trip to Tuscania, a small town in the Lazio province, and NOT Tuscany. It had some nice Medieval architecture to draw, until it became extremely windy and cold. But aside from all that it was very beautiful.

Saturday I used as a day to go to the Italian Market, and get some of my artwork done- specifically Printmaking, since I have to use the special Lino cutting tools that are only at school. I also went to Mas in english at Santa Susanna, using the walk back to take care of some Digital Imaging homework which involved taking a picture every 11 steps until I reach 20 pics. I then had a panini, canoli and gelato for dinner as I walked down the Spanish Steps to get back to school to finish up a little bit more of my linoleum print. Tomorrow I will be walking along the outer walls of Rome with other students.

So let's recap: two of my classes involve walking around Rome taking pictures or drawing, I'm learning Italian from a real, live, Roman, I'll be using a printing press that's over a century old and we had Art History class in the Pantheon. And that's leaving out the home life of going to an Italian Market to get fresh prosciutto and salami for my lunch, and the occasional "Non lo so" ("I don't know") uttered in response the the Roman native asking me where something is. Yeah, I think I can handle this for another 3 months...

Photos

Todi Excursion / Complete First Week on Facebook

With the exception of some select panoramas, my first week in Rome can be seen here.

The Todi excursion was fantastic. It reminded me a lot of Assisi; hilly, narrow streets, and prett much nothing but churches. (Fortunately one of those churches had a service.) The best part was the lunch at the Titignano Manor. It was a truly wonderful Italian start off for the next tree and a half months.

Markets, Parks, and Experimenting in the Kitchen

Today was a learning day. I learned Italy does, in fact, have Grocery Stores. I learned that it's all the rage for young Romans to make out obnoxiously in public parks. And I learned that I can make a steak dinner with no more than a fork and knife, a pan, and a small gas stove with only two burners.

So, first lesson: Grocery Stores.
There are two places I have gone as of yet to gain the various supplies to keep myself from falling into the clutches of starvation. The first is the Italian Market, which is basically an open-air warehouse of Italians selling and buying Italian salty cheeses, fatty meats, and fancy breads. Very busy and very Italian. And by very Italian, I mean nobody forms lines. But the Market is for another day. I want to expose the possibly lesser-known Italian-style ACME. It has a name: GS, which, from what I can tell simply stands for Grocery Store. They have carts, baskets and everything you would expect to see in a standard grocery store; with two exceptions. Exception #1: the aisles are designed to resemble the floor plan of the garden maze from the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Aisles are not all neat in a row; they dead-end, they intersect at strange angles, and they have no detectable system of food organization. They are there and if you can find what you are looking for, then YOU WIN!! Exception #2: The produce is to be labeled by the customer. This exception is something I believe that US stores can adapt. In the produce section there are little scale stations, where you put on what you want, press the numbered button and the little bar code label prints out. Of course I figured this out AFTER I had waited in "line" (remember, Italians don't form lines) for 20 minutes.

Second lesson: it's okay to makeout in public in Rome.
After getting our cell phones, Jeremy, Cal and I went to Villa Bourgese; Rome's equivalent to Central Park. While it was nice to see people enjoying the park's many acivites such as the dog park, the bike rental, and the views of the Piazza del Popolo (pictures to come later), some people were enjoying the open grass fields and park benches a little too much. Regardless, the Villa Bourgese is one of the nicest and greenest spots I've found that's in the Roman city.

Last lesson: I can cook steak!
While it wasn't quite as successful as my Penne experiment last night, it was still edible. Of course given that our apartment has no stove, and only two gas burners, it's a miacle we eat anything remotely warm at all. I was also short on seasonings, so I worked with what we had: Olive Oil, Salt and Crushed white Pepper. Fortunately I also had a garlic I could slice up. To compliment my seared olive oil steak, I boiled up some broccoli, and fried up some home fries. Of course I had to wait until the steak was done to start the home fries, since we have only one pan.

We're off to Todi tomorrow. Hopefully they'll have some sort of Catholic sevice going on when I'm there.

Out on the Town

Yesterday I went on a walking tour with one of the Temple Rome Staffers. We ended up doing about 9 miles (14.5 km) total, from The Residence and back and hit up most of the local tourist spots. Here's the google maps rough estimation of our trip that I worked out: link And you can see all the photos I took here: photos


We started out at Temple Rome, which is right on the Tiber River, and after exploring some of the local neighborhood, we made it to the Piazza del Popolo. After a short rest, we headed onward to the Piazza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps). From there we checked out the Anglo-American Bookstore where I'll be getting my books for class, and continued down to Area Sacra, a Roman ruins site where stray cats live and are fed by old Italian women. The stairway to go down was closed off, but there was a cat up by street level who was basking in the sun. We then came up behind the Pantheon, and took a peek inside to visit the remains of great artist (and later Ninja Turtle) Rafael. We then set out to Piazza Novona, and then to Piazza Campo de Fiori- an open market by day and American bar hangout by night. Our tour guide then left us off at Ponte Sisto, where the majority of students went with herto the Metro, while Cal and I joined three girls from Tyler (Tina, Jo Anne, and Melissa) to explore some more residential Rome in the area. We ended up in Garibaldi, giving us a chance to take in the incredible view of Rome below. After a bit of walking around mapless, we got back on track and found our way to the front of the Vatican, where Cal and I left the other three t their apartment, and headed back to The Residence.

It was a great trip, I got 179 pictures, including about 8 panorama shots. It was also nice to get off the beaten tourist path, and see some of the lesser exposed areas of Roma.

Photopost: The Room

Well, I've survived Rome for three and a half days. Classes still haven't started, so we've been able to get out and see a lot. So for this first week, I'll try to post something everyday, but once classes start up, I'll try for once a week / whenever I feel like it.

So in my first Photopost, I shall show off our humble living quarters for the next 4 months.
We (that would be me and my two roomates Jeremy and Cal), are in "The Residence", the typical housing complex Temple Rome uses for it's students. It's not all bad, but you can judge for yourself:

This is what you see when you walk in, nothing major: a small kitchenette and rather spacious living room. Of course more space also means more space to heat, which apparently is not a priority here at The Residence. (I'd also like to add that we all agree that these shots make the room look A LOT better than it actually is...)





Next is the obnoxiously large bathroom, complete with a shower/tub, sink, toilet, and the legendary "bidet". (aka a sink for the tush) Where the room lacks in heat, it makes up in hot water. And by hot water I mean "an uncontrollable stream of boiling, liquid fire". But once you note that "C" indicates "caldo" for hot, and get used to the shower's EXTREMELY sensitive nature, it's not bad at all.

Last, and probably least, is our sleeping room. As you can see we have to put up with
some bunk action (I got bottom), and a floor-to ceiling, double-door, two-sectioned, closet with extremely shallow drawers. But so far we've been able to handle the challenge, since apprently we're "lucky" to have a bunk bed that Temple Rome convinced The Residence to purchase for their rooms (as opposed to sentencing a roomate to the couch/bed.) Whatever.



That about takes care of The Residence for now. I'll try to get the 90+ photos from today's excursions about Rome organized for a post tomorrow. Until then, Ciao!

In Rome

I've been in Rome now for almost two days. So far its been really great. My first plane ride alone wasn't too bad, I met some other Temple students who were also Rome-bound (despite the heavy Syracuse presence). Long plane rides never really bothered me, reading, sudoku, even a little drawing:
We arrived, and the fellow temple students and I stuck together, got our luggage, and were driven to "The Residence" were I and the rest of Temple Rome's students are staying. The appartment isn't much, but it fits me and my other two roomates (Jeremy and Col) and is very cold. (prompting this picture)
But so far, the 30 minute walk to campus isn't too bad. There's a lot of bars (as in tiny cafe-like shops that have snacks) on the way as well as the market, featuring many booths of fresh Italian veggies, fruit, cheese, bakeries, meat, everything good. Campus itself is rather reminiscent of the old Tyler School of Art at Elkins park as far as renovated old buildings for Temple's schools go. Tomorrow they're taking students out into the city on mini staff/students-who-were-here-in-the fall hosted tours, and I plan on going, since it's really rainy and bland today. We (roomates and I) did stop off at the market to buy some break-fast stuff for tomorrow today, on the way home from the Orientation. I'll be posting more pictures and maybe sketches later, but for now it's time for a nap and some lunch.

A Semester in Italy

Just updating to inform anyone reading that this blog will be mostly used to report back home my adventures in studying abroad. I hope to maintain it at least once a week with photos and fun stories.

See everyone on the other side of the internets!