Roma

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I have not written in some time; things have been a little busy here, what with traveling and our school working picking up a bit. Thankfully, even our busy days here, however, would have been our easiest back in Bristol.

Two weekends ago Bryan and I went to Rome. We left on a Saturday afternoon, as we had a field trip to this famous monastary on Friday with our Architecture in Context class. We went to the train station, and found the first train leaving from Firenze. We thought, yeah, maybe the trip with take 2 hours or so. Well, it took almost 4. The non-express train stops at every little town along the way to Rome, so it never gets up to full speed, it the trip is always puncuated with these little stops. We were stir crazy by the time we got there, but we got there nonetheless.

We headed straight towards the Campidoglio. What hit me instantly was the scale change from Florence. Rome was huge... big streets, big buildings, lots of cars and not so many vespas. People say that Rome is dirty. It's not dirty, it's just a big city. It's no dirtier than New York or Boston.

On the way towards the Campidoglio, we passed a small side street. We saw this hulking building in the distance, silhouetted by the evening sky. Bryan was like, oh my is that the Coloseum? I said, no way, but it was. We took a slight detour, and checked it out. It was incredible, enormous. I just stared at it and couldn't believe that this got built so long ago, just with a ton of elbow grease, so to speak. And the Coloseum was just there, like everything in Rome. By 'there' I mean, the Romans just learned to live around and adapt to this ancient thing in their city. The Colseum is now a giant rotary. They are so used to living with ancientness, that it gets absorbed into their daily lives.

We continued on, and crossed a road that went over a sea of ruins. Lots of old columns and foundations and arches... a field of ancient Roman ruins that were roped off. After this, we came upon the Monument to Emmanuel Victor, the first king of unified Itlay. It sat on this giant hill, let's call it a minimountain. It was just a structure of all white columns, all white stone, with exceptional lighting. I took lots of photos, as was everyone else, but I kept hacking because I've had this terrible cold. Everyone and their grandma kept staring.

Beyond the monument, we finally came upon the Campodoglio by Michaelangelo. It is up on this minimountain as well, and you have to climb lots of shallow stairs to get to the top. At the top, there are three buildings. Two flank either side of a piazza, and are at slight angles, so that they screw with the perspective. The third building faces the entire piazza, and it has a fountain and it's own set of glorfifeid steps. The whole thing is absolutely stunning, with pale yellowish stone and intricate tile inlays all over the piazza. There was a wedding taking place when we got there, and we were able to watch the bride descend the steps and come down back into Rome.

We stayed here for awhile, sketching and wondering around. I kept complaining that my butt was cold from sitting on the stone. We decided to head to our hostel at this point.

Our hostel was in a seedy area, near the trainstation. I think it was Rome's China Town. The hostel was called 'hostel beautiful', which it was anything but, but we got our own room and bath, which was essential. We ate some delcious chicken scallopene from a nearby restaurant, and called it an early night. We woke up early, and moved on to find the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and the Spanish Steps.

On the way, we snagged some croissants and San Pelligrino orange drinks for breakfast. Of course, the drinks had tops where you need an opener. Bryan tried hitting them against all the ancient buildings we passed, to no avail. We had these drinks and no way to drink them. Finally we had to stop and buy a cheap souvenir opener. It worked, but barely. Just when we openened them, we stumbled upon the four fountains. Once again, the ancient stuff here just appears like whammo! Ancientness!

We ate lunch outside the church, and waited for them to open. It was so tiny inside, but the ceiling is so intricate and scuplted and perfectly white. I was so inspired, I figured out how to work the video setting on my camera and yes, I caught the gorgeousness on camera. Stay tuned.

Afterwards, we finally found the Spanish Steps. They were alot of them, and we ran down and back up. Bryan made me take a picture of him next to a palm tree. It's warmer there so they are all over the place. As we were running back up the steps, I kept coughing up phelgm, and so I had to spit. So I spat all over the Spanish Steps. I can immagine what this looked like to people who saw me.

The whole area of the Steps is really nice. The higher part, the top of the steps, has this boulevard running along it -- lined with trees and gorgeous views of the entire city. You can see the Vatican, and it's enormo -- we plan to come back and see that again. I think this was my favorite part. My favorite part besides seeing the nuns. I love seeing nuns. I see them in Florence sometimes too. I don't really see nuns at home. Here, they walk around arm-in-arm, chatting and moving slowly. I like that about them. They are very historic part of this historic city.

After this, we decided we wanted to go home. We payed extra for an express train, and boarded. It was so nice... no one was on it, and we got free newspapers that we couldn't read, free candies, drink offers. Bryan asked me why no one was on the train, and I said, Oh well, it's a Sunday people must not travel on Sundays. Idiot. Turns out we were on a First Class train for half the trip, and when the ticket man came, we got the boot to the much more crowed, hotter, plebian second class train. Anyway, we got home in 1.5 hours all in one piece.

Since then, we've been to Milan, but I'll write that in a different entry. I write these long winded accounts, and writing about one city tuckers me out.

At home we had an episode today. We awoke to find a dead pigeon on the floor of our pigeon-poop coated lightwell patio thingy. It was very sad. Mayo took the dead thing outside and put it in a dumpster and Meredith got upset because she wanted to take a picture of it. Today is Valentine's day, and Bryan got me a gorgeous bouquet of roses and white lillys... i love them both alot, as well as a box of italian chococlates. He's such a good boy. Tonight is a girls night, all 8 of us are going to trek in our stilettos to a little trattoria for dinner. I'm suped, and I'm getting dessert god damn it.

Okay, I'm out. I've got some trip planning to do.

Rachel