A visit to Rome

Rome. What can I say?

I headed up to the Eternal City for the weekend to visit my friend and fellow Buckman Scholar Michelle. After successfully navigating airports and trains, I made it into Rome late Friday night with enough time to briefly meet up with Michelle to plan for the next day's adventures and then crash in my hostel room. After field trips on both Thursday and Friday and a busy day in Rome ahead, I really needed some sleep! An extra bonus, the hostel manager gave me a private single room with attached bathroom instead of the shared double I had booked. This was especially nice because people were coming in at all hours of the night and early morning.

The Forum

Another view of the Forum

Saturday I woke up early and explored the city. Because we saw so much, I'm not quite sure in which order we saw everything, but I will try my best.














First we headed to the Roman Forum. 












We wandered around there for a while and saw so many things!







 

The huts of Romulus, many temples, triumphal arches, the navel of Rome, a really We also wandered around the Palatine and saw some awesome views of the city. big sewer, the ancient rostrum, a monument to Julius Caesar, and all sorts of other columns, stones, and inscriptions.

















We also wandered around the Palatine and saw some awesome views of the city.

Trajan's Column in the back

After that I saw Trajan's Column (definitely not where I expected it to be!) and we passed by the massive monument to Victor Emmanuel II topped with large sculptures of horses (later we also saw his tomb).

Temple to Portunus

Round Temple (really?)

We climbed up and down the Capitoline hill then made it to the Forum Boarium to see the Round Temple by the Tiber and the Temple to Portunus and then wandered around the Tiber Island to visit the remains of the Temple of Aesculapius.

Piazza Navona

We walked over to the Piazza Navona, a square that still has the shape of the preceding ancient stadium, and saw Bernini's fountain of the four rivers (with a giant obelisk on top!).

The Pantheon

Inside the Pantheon

Then we saw the Pantheon! Though this whole trip was very awesome in that I was able to visit so many sites I had previously studied in classes, this one was one of my favorites.

Because we were doing so well in time, we then decided to walk past the Castel Sant'Angelo and briefly explored the Vatican.


Our last stop Saturday was an incredible overlook of Rome, gelato, and then dinner (it was a bit backwards, yes).

The Colosseum

On Sunday morning we saw the Colosseum (you were waiting for it!), the Arch of Constantine, and a very ruined bath complex.

the Arch of Constantine

I discovered the panoramic setting on my camera somewhere around the Pantheon and took many pictures of the structure - it was perfect for panoramas (see below)!

 

I had to dash back to the train station to catch the train for my flight back home. The timing was less than ideal, and after running through the airport like you see in the movies I made it to my check in with 5 minutes to spare. The rest flight was uneventful, however, the bus ride back was not. I bought an interbus ticket with plenty of time to catch it but when the bus finally arrived, it promptly went right on by without even  stopping! The next one was two hours later! So for two hours I chatted with a French family who were also trying to catch the bus to Syracuse until the bus came again. It turns out they were staying on Ortigia, so I showed them where to find their hotel and then staggered into my apartment, quite worn out, and not quite ready for classes again the next day.


The rest of the week flew by. Monday was mostly devoted to writing a paper, and Tuesday was spent recovering from the paper and all the trips, and we had Pizza at MCAS that night. Wednesday night I watched a Soccer game  in the American Bar (Inter Milan vs. Bayern Munich - Munich won with a truly last minute goal!), and Thursday night I ate Ethiopian food with a friend. Yesterday I cooked an awesome bowl of potato soup for lunch and at night I made awesome homemade ravioli (stuffed with spinach, tomatoes, and cheese) with a friend. Then, stuffed, we went to a social gathering at MCAS where I found room for my first taste of real Italian homemade tiramisu (divine!) and I got to know a man from Algeria after conversing for an hour or so in a mix of English, Italian, and Arabic.

Michelle and I in the Colosseum

Midterms are next week so I will have my study hat on for the rest of the weekend. Then Malta and Spring Break! However, there is much more to see in Rome, so I hope to return later this semester.

Syracuse and Catania

What a weekend!

Next week is mid term exams already, and I must say - where has the time gone? I marked my first month anniversary while in Rome and this time next week I will be in Malta! Since last weekend was so exciting (quite opposite from this one), I split it up into two posts.

Thursday MCAS had a field trip to see the Archaeological Park in Syracuse.

The Roman amphitheater - gladiators fought here.

We first looked at the Roman amphitheater, tombs, and sarcophagi. This amphitheater was interesting because half of it was carved into the rock and the rest of it was built on top. Stones from almost all of Syracuse's ancient monuments were used to construct later buildings and fortifications.

Altar of Hiron (way bigger than it looks here)

The next stop was the stone quarries and the very large altar of Hiron, which was dedicated to Zeus! Quite a few bulls (100 at a time) were slaughtered here every year.

The Ear

Then we headed to the Ear of Dionysus, a large man-made cave where prisoners were kept. Supposedly, from above the cave Dionysus could listen in on all the prisoners there and hear what they were plotting. *Cue evil laugh*

The huge theater

The Greek theater was the most impressive monument here. On the right (if you are facing the orchestra), archaeologists discovered the remains of an older, even larger theater!

An action shot!

Of course, we couldn't visit the theater without a few theatrics of our own. Live on the Greek theater we performed part of Prometheus Bound, a play that we know had been preformed in this very spot in ancient times. I was Hephaestus, the smith god who, despite feeling sorry for poor Prometheus, bound him to a rock.

All the cast!

On the top of the theater stands more of the Roman necropolis, and you can see a pool which is part of the ancient system of aqueducts around Syracuse.

Etna's southeast crater was erupting.

Stromboli on the thermal cam!

Etna!

Friday we went to Catania in the pouring rain. We experienced the simulated bombing of an Italian square (I was one of few who got to hide in the bomb shelter and so survived) and then toured the rest of the museum, seeing battle diagrams, uniforms, weapons, and other artifacts. After the museum part of the group split off to go shopping while my Volcanology class headed to the Istituto Nazionale di Geosifica e Vulcanologia to check out a volcano monitoring station. Both Stromboli and Etna were erupting while we were there! This was only the second time Etna has erupted this year. Sadly, we couldn't see anything on the cameras while we were there due to the weather, but we watched instruments that were recording earthquakes and saw the eruptions with a thermal camera.

The main control center

(The pictures are from the INGV website. These are the eruptions that were happening as I was in Catania - note the date stamp!)

After I was dropped off at the Catania airport for my evening flight to Rome, the others went somewhere and learned how to bake bread - sea creature style!

In other news, I am finally starting to figure out the bus system, had my first Elvis sighting in Italy, and saw a Cincinnati Bell sign (fancy that!) in a bar. Arabic lessons are going well and I am enjoying my time volunteering at the Archives. I am starting to understand a bit more Italian, although I am very glad for my drawing skills which have been quite helpful!

Next up - Rome.

The whole gang by the waterfall! I'm second to the right.

A visit to Mount Etna!

A new Italian friend

Much of this past weekend was pretty quiet, except for Sunday. Sunday we spent the whole day with a group of Italians sledding down Mount Etna and then we headed off to Naxos, a beautiful ancient harbor, for a stroll along the water and dinner.

Here are some pictures from the trip!

The volcano!

Above the clouds!

Mount Etna was clear though still covered in snow. Catania was cloudy and gray, but up top it was bright, sunny, and warm! It reminded me of skiing in the alps - before long we were cooking!

See the volcanic landform? We sledded down that!

Etna's top is covered by volcanic rocks sticking out of the snow

 

We seven girls from MCAS got up at 6 Sunday morning and rolled onto the bus with about 40 other people - all Italians! Thankfully we found one guy who spoke a decent amount of English and some others who had a bit more English than we did Italian. Despite the language barrier, we all got along just fine!

A crater (rather large, too)

The volcanic rock where we were was porous and crumbly. In places it was quite red but over all it was grayish brown. My coat was quite heavy when I left - full of volcanic pebbles for Dad.

Doesn't this look fun!

Here and there on the road side going down the mountain I saw a house that had been taken over by lava.






The cheapest sleds available looked like squat shovels. Molded from one piece of plastic, they had a place to sit in the back and a handle in front. I plan to take the sled back home and test it out if I am there when we get some snow. The nice thing about its design was how easy it was to carry! However, many times we found out that you could slide down the volcano just fine with no sled at all.

The hill was so steep that it was almost impossible to climb once you got higher up - especially in my case because I was walking with borrowed boots a bit too large for me. The snow was icy and slick - great for sledding if you managed to get far enough up!

:Lots of people out and about!

Sledding Italian style is a bit dangerous - it is easy to get going and quite hard to stop. The preferred method seems to be to have a buddy brace himself below who physically stands in your way and stops you if you are out of control or in danger of hitting rocks or other people.We saw several collisions and many more near misses. Regardless, overall sledding was great fun.

All the girls from MCAS who went sledding, and one Italian guy!

And these two are Naxos. A few of us explored and kept to the beach while others danced the evening away at the disco.

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A closing remark: For all you skeptics out there, I successfully rode, climbed, slid, and fell all over the top of a very active volcano yet somehow made it back safely to my apartment in Ortigia to tell everyone about. 

So there - I managed not to fall into the volcano! One more Etna trip to go!