Facciamo alla Romana!

Buon weekend!  I hope you all had a fabulous thanksgiving full of family, friends & foods.  The big three!  Niente di speciale here in Roma but that's ok, I do my fair share of being thankful for foods for sure.

Here are photos from a recent visit to the Palatine hill.  The TRUE birthplace of Rome!!  It is one of the 7 original hills of Rome & it has been inhabited since something crazy like, 1000 BC!  It is where Faustulus supposedly found those infamous twins suckled by the she wolf, good old Romulus & Remus.  Lots of wealthy Romans have lived on this hill throughout the golden age of Rome.  One of the most well preserved structures is the house of Augustus & Livia, a lot of beautiful frescoes & mosaics from the villa are now in the national museum.  

I enjoyed Il Palatino, here you will find a lot of nice green space & a respite from the tourist crowds.  Here is a photo of an ancient sporting arena of some type & some lovely umbrella pines.  

here is detail of some cool marble(?) floor mosaic work.

this is Ganymede, aka Zeus' "little boyfriend"

AHA!  the original caves where Rom & Rem were said to have been found!  

there was some low budget film being shot.  

yet another lovely city view!

And now you will find some quasi nature shots!  The colors have been changing providing some high nature moments!

this staircase of this old villa was covered in colored leaves, it was really pretty!

and I was obsessing about taking cool photos of these fish!

those colors were so nice, very impressionistic!

dad, look!  western redbuds in Roma!  (nerd alert)

vista of the forum & vittoriano

 One of my favorite spots in Rome is the Aventine Hill, another one of the "original 7 hills" of the city. It is a peaceful spot to take a passiaggata.  The Aventine was mentioned in myth by Vergil in the Aeneid.  A monster named Cacus lived there & Hercules killed him for terrorizing people & stealing cattle & such.

There are some quaint old churches, orange groves, views & nice homes.  In particular, there is this keyhole that you come to look into for a surprise.  The two times I've been there it has been a popular spot.  Once there were about 20 people lined up to peep into the keyhole & the second time, while I was there 2 separate cars full of Italians cruised up just to pop out of the car & take a quick peek into the keyhole.  What do you see??  A sweet view of St. Peter's!  It is a pretty special little spot.  I'll take you there when you come to visit!

If you want to watch a nice Italian movie I would recommend Pane e Tulipani, a really cute & funny movie I watched in school last week.  Also, in the theater I went to a really sweet Italian film that was just released, Il cuore grande delle ragazza.  Even though I couldn't understand everything, I loved it!  Check it out. 

On the job front...  GOOD PROGRESS!  A couple of people are visiting Roma this very weekend to help set up my office & Xray system & whatnot.  I believe that now I have all the equipment in place that I need to start up real soon!  There are some unexpected issues like, having a proper computer & remote storage for patient xrays & figuring out the proper way to transfer images & things of this nature.  Sure makes me wish I were more tech savvy.  Some part of my brain really shuts off when it comes to computers.  Thank goodness for this happy, user friendly macbook useful in internetting & photo manipulation!  Anyway, hopefully without too much more stress things will come together for work.  I am feeling better than ever about things.  (do I write this every time?  perhaps!)

Funny though, about work.  Now that I am actually going to start & am going to have to speak in Italian & miraculously heal these people I am having anxiety about it.  So, I am excited as well as nervous.

I have to work closely with an Italian Xray technician because technically I'm not able to take films solo.  He is a really great, like a little grandpa!  At first I couldn't understand a thing the guy said because he speaks real fast & with a lot of Roman slang but, now we are able to communicate pretty well!  Slowly but surely people, progress is being made.

I am thinking about going to Florence next weekend.  I am also thinking about buying tix to see some opera (madame butterfly) & ballet (coppelia) coming up.  I have my FINAL EXAM in my medio level italian class on Tuesday.  Wish me luck!  I think I'll have to stop taking intensive classes & switch to evening classes just 2x/week.  We'll see.

And, that's all she wrote!  Bacissimo!

xx

dov'e la mezza staggione?

pretty day today!

"Non abbiamo di piu la mezza stagione".  This, I've heard, is a common topic of convo, meaning we no longer have the "half season".  As far as I understand, the idea can be used literally to mean that in recent years the seasons change very quickly, suddenly winter is here & it is cold!  A reference to global warming, I think.  Or, you can think of the mezza stagione (half season) as more of a transitional period of any type.  What happened to the mezza stagione??   Right now I am sitting in my room, listening to David Bowie, drinking a mint tea & thinking about... the mezza stagione as a transitional period in my own life!  I am in the mezza stagione.  Very deep, my friends. :)

I always hope that in my writing you are getting my sense of humor.  Dry & only funny to me! 

Recently, I went to a cool museum, the national museum of Roma, Montemartini.  It is out of city center in an industrial zone, housed in an old steam power plant (or something like that).  The collection  consists of a bunch of nice marble statues (my favorite!!) & one nice mosaic floor.  The contrast between these ancient statues & the more modern power plant equipment is visually interesting.  A nice change from a stuffy old building.  To be honest, this was a couple weeks ago & I am catching up.  I figure you hadn't seen any marble in a while.  

This museum was "molto particolare", one of my favorite Italian descriptions meaning unique, different, unusual.  You can use it to describe something good or bad and it's best to really draw it out, mooolto particolaaare.

athena, probably due to the helmet

great torso!

nice struggle!

there was some type of music going on there that evening, cool setting!

Also, a couple of weekends ago I took a nice day trip to Umbria with my Irish pal.  We hopped on a train up to Orvieto, which we had heard was a quaint Umbrian hill town.  It didn't disappoint!  You may have heard of Orvieto, it is commonly known for producing a nice, white wine.  I had heard somewhere that Orvieto is "perched on a volcanic plug" & this phrase has stuck in my head.

From the train station you can take a charming old funicular up the hill to the center of town.  (do you know what a funicular is?  a big cart that goes up the side of a steep hill, kind of like a tram that is pulled up)  We wandered around checking out the sights in the small town.  There are several lovely churches, including this one below with an usually decagonal (?) bell tower.  The inside of some of the older churches are very plain compared to the baroque decorations commonly seen in Roma.  Plain in a nice, rustic way.

pretty stained glass inside

the token laundry shot!

And then, you are walking through the narrow streets looking for the main cathedral, the Duomo of Orvieto...  you follow the flow of the people as the street opens up to... this!   

the breathtaking Duomo!

It really blows you away!  It is difficult to get a good photo because it is so huge!  It is perhaps the most incredibly ornate structure I have seen yet!  The exterior is covered in mosaics & intricacies!  Absolutely covered.  You pay to go in & view even more spectacular intricacies & some very fine art.  My friend & I marveled that there was no surface that was not embellished or decorated in some way.
If I recall correctly, this cathedral took... 300 years!!! to build.  I believe it.  

Another striking thing was the striped exterior.  This effect was created with contrasting bands of travertine & basalt.  I found it fascinating.  

striped!

Oh my, this was so cute!  All these kitties hanging out with a fabulous view of the umbrian countryside.  When I first got to this spot there were only two kitties & while I stood here a few more showed up!  I think one more came over by the time I left.  So sweet :)  I miss my cat!

Orvieto was a success!  We also had a delicious lunch, I had the most exquisite black truffle pasta ever.  I have really enjoyed what I've seen of Umbria!

In other news of my life in Italia...  things seem to be looking up on the job front!  Turns out that I won't have to go home for visa purposes as I thought I might have to.  This is a relief!  It would have been nice to see family & friends & collect some purple pants that I wish I would have brought along... :)  but, overall I am happy I'll be staying because I think I need that continuity for my sanity at this point.  I wasn't looking forward to speaking English for a few weeks either.  Even though I still speak Italian like a 7 year old, I try diligently.  

Also, I will tentatively state that I will be starting work in December!  I am keeping my fingers crossed that the stress vacation will be ending shortly!

This weekend I had gone to an art show, una mostra!  Displaying art by Botticelli & Lippi, from Firenze.  You are probably familiar with Botticelli's "spring" or "birth of venus", right?  (below) During college we had a poster of "spring" in our house to oversee our debauchery!  The mostra was great, I went with some friends who restore art & they are a huge wealth of knowledge!  These paintings weren't at the show but...  I wanted to put them in here.  Because they are beautiful!!

My roomie is so great, she asks me today.  Anni, what do you think about christmas decorations??  She is all jazzed to decorate the place, it is her first christmas in the apt.  She said, you are american, you really like it, right???  I do like it.  Hopefully, amica Elysia will be able to make a visit over the holidays!  I am getting pre-excited for her visit & prepping to have some good laughs & good gelatos.  

Il ringraziamento is just around the corner, I wish you all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!  Enjoy yourselves some tachino!  I will be thinking of you & giving thanks for everyone who has touched my life.  I feel lucky to have such great friends & family & to have such wonderful memories of times spent.  Grazie mille a tutti! 

xoxo  

Il Colosseo e Il Foro Romano! Belissima!

The colosseum!  A must see & usually the top spot to visit on everyone's list of places to visit in Roma! I had been putting it off mainly because of the crowds but, had actually been dying to go.  So, this past weekend on a beautiful & crisp day I braved the throngs of tourists & cued up.  Honestly, I am still absolutely blown away by the history of this place!  Imagine thousands of Romans in this very colosseum watching gladiators fight or people getting chased around by a lion or some other exotic animal.  It happened!  Right here!

You can now see the underground warren of passageways but in the olden day it was covered, where you can see a stage constructed in the back there.  It wasn't always a brutal scene, they also used to hold plays & such here.  Through the many openings on the playing field various wild animals would be released.  I took a little guided tour to skip some of the massive cue & we learned that despite popular belief, the fighting done here was not always a means of torture.  Sometimes rulers & patricians would fight as gladiators simply for sport & fun.  

After the fall of ancient Rome the colosseum housed a church & then was sort of derelict for a while.  At some point it was scavenged & all the original marble & travertine was hauled off to build things such as St. Peters & San Giovanni in Laterano (churches).  That is why the interior just looks like a bunch of bricks now.  There were 3 tiers of seating, special boxes for emperors & vestal virgins, plebs up top.

There is always a lot of talk about the columns here.  All the classical column styles are used, the lower tier are ionic, the middle doric & the top corinthian.  Remember these from school?  I do.  Columns were a huge breakthrough in structural engineering.  As well as arches, which could bear a huge load.  All seen here in the amazing work of roman architecture... il colosseo!  Apparently just 1/3 of the original structure is still standing.  

listening to my little tour guide thingy & taking long arm photo.

the arco di constantine

corinthian capitol

guys dressed up as gladiators & staging a scene for tourists.  here they have someone's child dressed up & sitting with them.  then they will charge you 20 euro.  

map of the extent of the ancient roman empire at it's peak.  pretty impressive!!

Then I took a stroll through il foro Romano, the ancient Roman forum & really the birthplace of ancient Rome!  

the shell of a HUGE old basilica built by Constantine

here you can see it from above & see how big it is!  that is just one side of it, the other was destroyed

temple of Romulus

the temple of Romulus, I was most interested in the bronze door.  this could be the oldest bronze door... ever!

i'm not sure why i found this door so interesting.   just imagine all that's gone on behind it!

here is where Caesar was cremated.  beware the ides of March!

remnant of the vestal temple.  if a vestal virgin betrayed her vow of celibacy she was buried alive!!

that square building on the right has been rebuilt but, once housed the roman senate!

From this view you can imagine Marc Antony saying... friends, Romans, countrymen... lend me your ear.  (i think that was really only shakespeare though).  You can also envision ancient Romans walking around in togas and such.

a view of the forum with Palatine hill in the background

house of the vestals

I hope you have enjoyed this trip through ancient Roma.  I find it completely fascinating & I'm glad I can share it with you!

Enjoy le rose rosse! xo