Italian Adventures

Well, sadly, my week of warmer weather is now over as I'm back in freezing Berlin. At least it's not snowing...

Since our accommodations in Rome had little or no internet, I decided to just wait till I returned to Berlin to blog about the Italian adventures my buddy, James, and I had over the past few days. Warning: this will be a long update with lots of pictures. I'll start off with Wednesday, our first full day in Rome.

The weather in Rome was dreadfully rainy that day, but we decided to head over to the Vatican City to visit St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. In between, we'd be meeting up with some of James' contacts at the Pontifical North American College. 

In contrast to my previous trip to Rome in August 2008, the cooler weather also seems to bring out fewer tourists, although there were still plenty around. We made our way through the church and sadly I could not share much history with James since I did not have my handy Rick Steves book this time.

Inside St. Peter's, there was this one wall covered in colorful artwork. At first, I thought it was a painting, but upon reading the caption, I discovered it's a freaking mosaic! I don't know if you can see all the little tiny tiles that make up this masterpiece, but that just blows my mind.

Because of the rain and because of the absurd prices, we decided to skip climbing the dome and instead went down into the tombs of the popes (which was free). I couldn't take pictures, but I saw many tombs of former popes, from older and more recent times alike. In fact, Pope John Paul II is entombed below there as well.

Afterwards, we headed over to the seminary, which is on the hill just next to St. Peter's. It's pretty neat. There we met up with James' contact, James, who gave us a tour of the college and invited us to lunch with the seminarians. These were all students from mostly the United States but also Canada and Australia, each studying to become a priest. They have some pretty prime real estate, and boy, that lunch was a real feast.

Later that afternoon, we headed over to the Vatican Museum, which is one of my favorite museums in the world. Plenty of good art history there. One thing I noticed this time though was the centerpiece in the courtyard that is pretty much the exact same thing that's in a courtyard at Trinity College in Dublin.

As we strolled through the museum, I remembered that the last time I was here my camera battery had been low. So I only took a few pictures that day. This time I was able to snap a few pictures of other cool parts of the museum as well.

One of my favorites of all time: Raphael's School of Athens, which I can never seem to get enough of. Amazing.

From there, we entered the Sistine Chapel, which is just gorgeous. I didn't appreciate it as much last time, I think, so this time I really took it in. On the far end, there was Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, and on the ceiling, his frescoes from the Book of Genesis. 

On one of the walls was a fresco by Perugino of Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter. Another AP Art History highlight.

As we were leaving the Vatican Museum, the skies were starting to clear up, and we could see St. Peter's Basilica over the courtyard, so we snapped a few pictures.

Then as we walked back toward the UW Rome Center, we passed Castel Sant'Angelo, which looked really cool with the moon above the angel with a sword, which is supposed to be the Archangel Michael, I guess.

For dinner, we met up with my friend from UW, Kelsey, and some of her classmates from the UW Honors Winter in Rome program. We cooked pasta!

On Thursday, I spent the morning walking around the Colosseum with James. Unfortunately, even though we're both technically EU students, we couldn't get the reduced fair because it's reserved for EU citizens. Lame. Sadly, I again could not tell James much about the Colosseum without some help from Rick Steves. 

After the Colosseum, we headed over to the Palatine Hill, since it's also included in the 12€ ticket. Thankfully, it had been fairly sunny all morning. We strolled around and then headed down to the Roman Forum, which is the last third of the Colosseum ticket.

By the time, we reached the Forum, the rain had returned, so we walked fairly quickly through. Since the ticket lasts for two days, James decided he'd download the free Rick Steves' podcast tours and walk through again the next day.

We headed from there to the Capitoline Hill museum, which is also one of my favorites in the world. I've blogged about this museum before, but apparently I didn't post many pictures, so here you go.

Later that night, after eating leftover pasta at Kelsey's, we took a stroll to some Roman highlights at night. We saw the Pantheon.

Then headed to the Trevi Fountain.

And finally to the Spanish Steps.

Before checking out the Spanish Steps though, James and I stopped by McDonald's there, which is supposed to be one of the largest ones in the world. Something like that. Rick Steves recommended that in my book, but I never checked it out until this year.

On Friday, James decided to hit up the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and St. Peter's again, armed with free Rick Steves' podcasts. Kelsey and I decided to check out something I had not gotten to visit last time around—Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. 

The trek out to Tivoli, which is located about 20 miles out of Rome, required a number of buses, the metro, and some luck. The bus driver in Tivoli did not speak English, so in very broken Italian, we managed to ask where Villa Adriana was, and he was able to point it out—if only after having to drive us there on a return ride as he had forgotten to tell us to get off the first time around.

Honestly, I thought it was a bit underwhelming, and I was again disappointed that I could not get the reduced price since it's just for EU citizens. Nevertheless, Kelsey and I saw some pretty neat old ruins, and I saw where some of the pictures from my old AP Art History book came from.

That night, Kelsey and some of her classmates made some amazing food. I also spent some time speaking with my old Honors mentor, Julie, and a graduate student in education about her own interests in education. We talked about my Fulbright project and potential Fulbright ideas for her as well. Always inspiring to talk about education with other passionate people.

Later that evening we walked around and got some gelato, which we ate in front of the Pantheon. I had an opportunity to chat with Brenda, one of the students in the program. I am always happy to hear when people are enjoying their study abroad experiences and want to do more. They also showed us Bernini's Fountain of Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, which had been under renovation when I was last here. It's awesome!

On Saturday, James and I tried to head to the Catacombs, but we didn't make it early enough. Plus I was trying to get back to the Rome Center in time to meet Ed Taylor, the Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs at UW. He had arrived earlier that morning, and we had made plans for lunch. Since James wanted to see more of the Appian Way, we split up with him heading into aqueduct country and me heading back to the Rome Center.

I ended up meeting Ed in the Campo, where we then started to just take a stroll around the city. It was really great to see him again, and he asked me to show him around a bit since he'd never been to Rome before. I can't say I'm a very good tour guide, and I'm even worse without all the bits of history from Rick Steves' guide book. We walked through Piazza Navona and saw the Fountain in the daylight. Gorgeous.

Nevertheless, we had a good stroll and chatted in depth about my Fulbright project, plans for the next few years and beyond, and also some updates from UW. I can't tell you how helpful it is to pick the brain of someone as insightful and brilliant as Ed when you're struggling to make sense of your own research.

We walked over to the Pantheon, where I made Ed pose for a photo. He didn't really want many photos, but I figured he'd need at least a few to show he was actually in Rome.

On our way to the Trevi Fountain, we stopped by a pizzeria for a few slices of pizza. Delicious. Of course, we chatted about education and other related topics the whole time. He also told me a bit about the lecture he has coming up this week at the Rome Center. It's interesting because we talked about how an American audience might understand his lecture topic differently from Europeans (talking about race, ethnicity, identity, etc.). Regardless, I think it will be a great discussion.

After lunch, we walked briefly over to the Trevi, which was looking quite lovely as always.

Soon after, we headed back and bought some groceries as I invited Ed to join me, Kelsey, and James for dinner. Kelsey's classmate, Souvonnah, joined us as well and made a great bruschetta. Ed had a pretty nice place in the Rome Center, and the view was spectacular. 

The kitchen may have also been the nicest one I've cooked in during all my times in Europe.

Dinner was fabulous, and Julie and her friend, Mirjam, joined us for a short bit later as well. We ended up heading out for gelato again, and then we watched Angels and Demons back at the Rome Center afterwards. It was a pretty late night.

This morning, we spent our last day in Rome heading back to St. Peter's with Ed, Julie, Mirjam, and Kelsey. We figured we might as well try and see the Pope. As we waited, we took pictures.

Amidst the crowd, we spied Richard Quest from CNN. We tried getting a picture of him sneakily, but eventually James just went up to him and said, "Hi, I'm James, and I'm a big fan of your show." Hilarious, considering we only saw his show for about 2 minutes during one of our first nights in Rome.

Luckily, the Pope happened to be in his papal apartment today, so we were able to see him when he greeted everyone at noon for 10 minutes. He spoke in so many languages I lost count, but they included Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish. Crazy.

After the Pope's address, we walked toward Trastevere for lunch. It's a nice neighborhood, which I never actually visited during my first time in Rome, even though some of our students stayed in apartments there. We saw some nice buildings on the way over, and we took a walk along the Tiber River as well.

I realized that I had never gone to any restaurants in Rome before, except for the ones we visited as a group in 2008. So today was sort of a first in going to a nice restaurant. I had homemade lasagna, which was delicious. Sadly, James and I had to leave a bit early to go to the airport for our flight back to Germany, so we said our goodbyes to Ed, Julie, and Mirjam there.

It seemed like ages ago when James and I visited Pisa last week and hiked along the Cinque Terre, but overall, I think we had a great time in Rome. Not only was I able to get some fresh thoughts on my Fulbright research, but it was a fantastic opportunity to get away from it shortly as well. Now I've got plenty of work in the coming weeks as I expect my interviews to really pick up in the next few weeks.

We've got our Fulbright Conference in Berlin in late-March, and then James, our fellow Fulbrighter Nick, and I will be heading to Turkey for a few days. Hard to believe it, but I've only got about five months left before I have to head back to Seattle. 

Until the next adventure,

Sam