Temple Has Influence over the Italian Government

Rome has a law about soccer games. Only Roman residents can purchase tickets. This way hideous riots can be avoided. In order to allow students to attend the game, Temple petitioned to have the law changed. Now only Roman residents and foreigners can go to soccer games and buy their 4 Euro hot dogs, as the Roma fans constantly wave their big obnoxious flags and sing their long obnoxious Roma Roma song all game long.
Those Cantania fans sure missed out.

(Side Note: Facebook is being stupid and making it impossible for me to upload new photos. At some point int the future I will have weeks 6-7 up.)

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

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.

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.