The End of the First Week

Hard to believe that tomorrow I will have lived in Rome for a week, it actually feels like much longer. Bridget and I have been counting nuns and priests, so far we've seen 75 nuns and 20 priests. So the nuns definitely have the upper-hand. Its really interesting to see all of their different habits, the priests are less distinguishable from each other.

For our history/sketching class Thursday we went to the Roman Forum. The forum was interesting to see, although I have to admit a lot of the ruins start to look the same after a while. While at the Forum we went to the Mamertine Prison which is where St. Peter and St. Paul were held during their imprisonment in Rome. The prison cell was a lot smaller than I was expecting and was very cave like. There was a marker where legend has it Paul's head was smashed against the wall, which killed him. On the ceiling above was a hole where they would lower the prisoners into the cell, they wouldn't even allow them to go down the stairs.


On Friday we explored modern facist Rome when we went to EUR which was going to be the site of Italy's World Fair, it never happened though because of WWII. There were a couple of famous buildings there as well as a museum which had a giant 1:250 scale model of the city of Rome, as well as plaster casts of Trajan's column. Trajan's column depicts Trajan's battle with another people (i forget who), and the scenes wind up to the top of the column, and are thus not readily acceptable. My favorite cast was a scene where the warriors are fighting each other and one of the Roman's has an opponents head in his teeth as he continues to fight.


Saturday I spent the day mostly wandering Rome on my own. I had to go to the Via Guilia in the morning. It is the subject of my research paper and so I went to make some initial observations, we have a one page proposal due thursday so I thought I would get the site visit out of the way while I had a big chunk of time. I am mainly focusing on the churches of the street and how the interact with it, and two were open so I was able to wander in. The first was rather small and there were two nuns there cleaning up after mass. A few people came in and out but for the most part I was alone. One of the nuns was singing while she cleaned and had a beautiful voice. The second church was a lot bigger, but one of the coolest features was the automatic glass doors. They weren't like department store automatic doors, they were just a sheet of glass with minimal hardware, I wish I had a picture of it. Below is a shot of the second church San Giovanni.


After the Via Guilia I got some Pizza Bianca which is my new favorite food. Its basically cooked pizza dough with some olive oil and salt..mmm its so good. After eating I headed to the Piazza Navona which has 3 huge fountains. I didn't take any pictures, because I figured I should practice my sketching skills, which need some help. I went back to my apartment to drop off a few things and then took a better shot out my window, I figured it would be a little easier to see during the day.


After stopping home I headed to Santa Maria in Trastevere, which has some gorgeous and incredibly intricate mosaics. It was stunning to see, everything seemed to be gold, and just glowed in the light. I then walked up to the Tempietto which supposedly marks the spot where St.Peter was martyred. I went to sketch but once I got there realized I didn't have my pen, so I just walked around it a bit and resolved to go back.

On my way out it started raining, so I stopped at home and grabbed my raincoat and then head to the Pantheon. Rain does in fact come into the building, but they rope off the spot so you can't get close, there are two little drains on the floor under the oculus. I was hoping you could see a column of rain coming through but you could just see droplets hitting the puddle in the floor. I left after taking a picture because it was packed with people.



This morning (Sunday) Bridget and I went to mass at the Vatican. St. Peter's Basilica is beautiful and hearing mass there was rather breath taking. We plan to go back sometime to see the Sistine Chapel which is closed Sundays, so we'll have to hop back into the Basilica to look at all the statues in more detail. On our way out we realized St.Peter's square was packed with people and then heard tons of cheering. Turns out the Pope was just about to address the crowd. We tried to make our way out, but it was really packed tight with people. It probably took us a good 10 minutes to get through the crowd. We did get to see the Pope though, which was unexpected. He doesn't do the Sunday masses in St. Peter's but apparently addresses the crowds periodically. He's in the second picture at the window with the banner.



Then we walked up to the Gianicolo which is a hill in Trastevere, it has a great panorama of Rome. We sat on a bench for a while and enjoyed the breeze and the scenery. Then we made our way down to the Tempietto for some sketching, this time I had my pen. Ironically we ended up seeing two Australian guys that we had seen at St.Peters. We talked to them for a few minutes, apparently their friend had just been ordained a few days ago in St. Peters. They also tried to speak to us in Italian, so Bridget and I were happy that we don't seem blatantly American. We then ate a late lunch in Trastevere, and then made our way back to school.