South Trip

Okay finally the south trip.


I believe the last week of February the class took a 3 day trip to the southern part of Italy. We saw Herculaneum, Pompeii, Villa Oplantis, and then Caserta on the way back. The majority of the sites we saw were Roman archeological sites, mostly kept in its original state thanks to Mt. Vesuvius erupting around 80 AD. Caserta on the other hand is an Italian palace that was occupied with southern Italian royalty during the late 18th and mid 19th centuries.

We took a large bus early Wednesday morning and traveled on down to the Naples area. No one seemed to be too excited about Naples as Marco, our Italian professor wasn't keen on the city itself, not to mention that it's known for its poverty, overly forward men, and organized crime in the city, cough cough Mafia. Herculaneum was located on the edge of Naples, so we didn't have to drive through much of it. The size of Herculaneum was fairly large but most likely only a quarter of the city is exposed while the rest is under feet of rock of which many Naples’s neighborhoods are built on top of. Herculaneum was pretty interesting, and was the perfect first stop for the archeological sites. It gave us an idea of what a Roman city would have looked in the 8 century. We could see the road that carts would have been towed thru the town on, we saw many small cantinas, as well as many domuses (or houses). For the most part all that exists now is the stone structure of the buildings, which in those days was the majority of material anyways. However, some items that survived was petrified wood, as well as a few human remains completely preserved by the lava from Vesuvius, as well as some paintings and tile mosaic in the Roman domuses. We had an hour or two to explore and got to really understand how these people lived, and perhaps better understand how they handled animals, and water supply cisterns, and waste removal.

We stayed in Pompeii for the night so that we would have easy access to the ruins there the following day. Maggie and I shared a room and that evening we decided to go and explore the city of Pompeii and find some dinner. Unfortunately, the hotel is much removed from the city and it was a long poorly lit walk to the city center. We quickly found out that Pompeii consists of one main street and a bunch of creepy side streets, through our own exploration. We found ourselves at the little restaurant Don and Carlo recommended. Maggie and I perused the menu for what seemed like an eternity. We weren't sure what to get as we were one of their first customers for the night. We thought seafood of some sort would be a good choice as we were right off the coast. I ordered a simple pasta with cheese filling and Maggie ordered a pasta with mussels. First course was excellent. For the second, Maggie choose calamari with prawns and I last minutes decided to go crazy and tried the fried fish plate. I looked at Maggie and said "as long as it doesn't come with a head on it, I'm good." Well about 15 minutes later my plate shows up with not a fried fish fillet but a huge plate of 6 different whole fish that looked as if they had been mistakenly thrown into the fryer than the fish bowl. I was beside myself, and looked at Maggie and her plate, the calamari looked pretty normal but she had the whole bodies of prawns sitting on her plate staring at her. We looked at each other and about busted out laughing. Maggie looks at me and says" you going to be able to eat that" I of course say that I am at least willing to try. I try a small prawn on my plate and clearly eat it wrong as all I ended up eating was like the head of it, and it was straight up crunch and not very good. So then I moved to one of the 6 fish on my plate. I accidently squashed the eye ball and green stuff is oozing out everywhere. So I just move on the next one. At this point Maggie and I are in stitches as to how we ended up in this situation. Maggie covers her prawn with lettuce so they stop looking at her as I take a big bite of fish. Its full of the tiny bones, and I sit there with a mouth full unable to even swallow. I spit it out politely into my napkin and spend another five minutes trying to get all the small fish bones out of my mouth. I was pretty much done after that and just hit the remainder under leaves of lettuce. We decided to not venture and get desert there for fear of what we would end up with. We ventured to a little cafe where we listened to the lady sing Celine Dion with her radio. At that point Maggie and I had crossed the point of no return for the night. Our walk back involved two guys stopping in their car and trying to pick us up. Finally they drove away. And before we knew it we were back at the hotel for the night. I chose to take a shower that night and it ended up being the finally for the night. I ended up covering the whole bath room in water and there was probably a half an inch of water on the floor. The shower had a hand held shower head and there was no shower curtain. I must have dropped that thing a million times, and I would face it one direction and I would spray all my clothes or the other way and soak my towels. And by the end of it I just gave up and even the toilets got soaked.

Fortunately, that was the craziest time we had on our trip. Maggie said the bath room was still soaked in the morning despite my attempts to dry it the night before with a floor towel the size of a wash cloth. Pompeii was great, we were there the second it opened and were the only people in the complex for about an hour. We all got to appreciate the ruins and take excellent photos without tons of people in the way. Pompeii for the most part had the same things that Herculaneum had just on a much larger scale. I believe all of Pompeii is excavated. We spent at least 5 hours there to see the majority of the building ruins, many domus (houses), some cool shops, a few gardens, and the amphitheater which was pretty impressive, as well as some very well preserved roman baths. Following Pompeii we also visited Villa Oplantis which was a roman ruin as well, however, it was a private villa located outside the roman cities. The villa was huge and was partially reconstructed and really helped provided a sense of feel of the space. But at the same time, after seeing hour’s worth of roman ruins in two days, it wasn't all that exciting.

The following day we visited the Caserta Palace. It was a nice change of scenery, but unfortunately the weather was not real cooperative, as it was down pouring rain. The palace was very interesting, it had paintings and furniture that I absolutely loved from 18th century Italian royalty. We explored all the rooms of the king’s apartment and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only downer is that we didn't get to explore the gardens there due to the rain, that is unless you were crazy and didn't mind being wet the reminder of the day. I chose to just stay dry for the 6 hour bus ride home. As a whole, it was a great trip. Pompeii would be something I would recommend every one see at some point!

Ciao for now!

Playing Catch Up!

Hey all- Happy April 1st,

Sorry I have not keep up with my blog this past month. I can't believe March has passed in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, I have been keeping busy. My parents visted the first week of March followed by a week long trip to Northern Italy visiting Verona, Vicenza, and Venice. Following the north trip I quite litterally hopped the next train to the Rome airport to fly to Portugal to see Rocky for Spring Break. The week after spring break was filled with a lots of school work including preparing for a mid-crit in Carol's seminar, as well as, a final design and drawings due for Cinzia's Bed and Breakfast mentioned in a previous blog. So I suppose it is no suprise I have yet to sit down and get my thoughts together. However, I wanted to also fill you in on my South trip to Herculaneum, Pompeii, Villa Lante, and Cascerta that finished a week prior to my parents trip to Italy.

Don and Carols Abode: Civita

Buonesera,

Two mondays ago the class went on a trip to see the out skirts of Orvieto, as well as, visit our client for our project, and then visited the home of our beloved professors Don and Carol. The views outside Orvieto were spectaular with buildings designed to frame views of Orveito, especially the Duomo when it was possible. The weather was clear, after a rainy day and the brisk, northwind clearing the skies. Don was certian to make sure everyone had enough time to get the perfect photo as he is a huge supporter of lighing and framing in photogarphy although he was never a profesional photographer himself.

Later we made it out to Cinzia's place after waling up the step sloped drive way, the "mini" bus could not make it up. She has little house with original stone out front and timber beam stucture inside. Its a lovely little cottage for two and adjacent to it is the remnants of an old stable. Our project is to redesign the space into a Bed & Breakfast for a few people to stay durring the warm months. The design process has been interesting as everything gets recycled here. The stone last forever as well as terracotta roofing tiles. The rules seem to be constantly changing as far as maintining original design vs. a new imprint of a building it the same location. After several pictures finding an old cave for wine storage, realizing she has a whole walls worth of bay leaves, and walking thru what might have been the leach field, we bumbled back down the hill to head to Civita where Don and Carol live.

A little bit about Don and Carol before I continue. Don and Carol are both architects and professors who teach at K-State. Carol was our history of architeture teacher for three semesters and usually filled the class time with interesting stories and little Carol-like comments about the architecture that casued many of us to become regualr attenders. Don also teaches but does mostly studio. The two are an addorable older couple, with children married off. Carol is definately full of knowledge and always has an extra tid bit of information for you about the site, she very energetic and probably holds up better on some of these trips than my mother would. She is a trooper. Don on the other hand is the other half of Carol, he is very relaxed about things and sees the other side of things, he is ususally the one who heads up the back and enjoys spending individual time with his students and always full of witty comments and enjoys our class's humor. The two of them together is wonderful, Don always has a comment and Carol finishes it before he probably even thinks it, lol. Truely they have been a complete joy to have as professores. And now we were getting to see their house here in Civita!

Carol bought the little two stort cottage when she was in college, she was studying archiological ruins and her professor lived in Civita. Her professor encouraged her too look into the real estatate there and a few months later she bought a run-down old cottage, no electric, no plumming. Civita is a hilltop town that is actually called "The Dead City", right now Don and Carol are 2 of 10 residents in Civita, I don't even think the priest of the local church lives in the town. One of the reasons it is so unoccupied is becasue of the cliff edges falling off, but also the only way to get to Civita is by taking a huge steap bridge across the valley, and not by car, it is pedestrian only. The area is starting to grow now as it is becoming a popular destination for tourists.

So after we missed the bus we walked thru the town next to Civita to reach the bridge. We were all ready for a break when we finaly reached the bridge. The view is amazing. After the 15 min hike and I do mean HIKE across the foot bridge we enterd the gate into the little city. The place was mostly inhabited by cats an the only other people we saw were at the resturaunt we ate at for lunch. Carol showed us the house. It has a small little entry with an old working fireplace. Rounding the corner you climed some steap stairs to enter the main space. There was a little eat in kitchen with a pitched roof with two adjacent bedrooms. One door was so short that only 5' 1" Carol to enter the room without ducking. Both rooms had small windows and a slanted ceiling. The few steps up lead to a little outdoor patio, just big enough for two chairs and a gril. Forchunately, across the street Don and Carol had another space which was just recently turned into their living room. They put $10,000 worth of windows in to allow for amazing views off the cliff edge. The bathroom had a view to kill for. Right outside the little living space was a terraced garden and caves from the medieval age that they are using. They have a lovely little trelace with vines growing on it and flowers and trees fully green. The place was amazing. Not too bad to have a town to your self with spectacular views out over the hillside, especially when you compare it to my loud, thin floored apartment with 10,000 other occupants in town to keep you up at night.

As a whole the trip was great, we got to know a little bit more about Don and Carol when we vistied Civita and got some great views of Orvieto as well.

Florence

Buena sera,

Sorry it has been so long since I have last blogged. This past week I was in southern Italy for three days getting several large doses of Roman ruins, but I will save that for later. I figured it best to start from where I last left off which was Florence. I went to Florence for two consecutive Fridays a few weeks back. It was mostly rainy and to say the least no one really wanted to be wet all day, forchunately I was hoping to fall in love with Florence.

Our first stop was the Duomo of course. It is not too far from the train station but relatively speaking nothing it that far from the train station. The Duomo was grand with the baptestry directly across from it in the piazza. They both have the same style or zebra stiping layers but they were built in completly differnt time periods by different artists. Our guide and teacher Marco was certian to point it out the doors of the Baptesty which are famous in the architecture world, solid bronze doors with 8 Biblical stories depicted on it. Also the Baptestry had 8 sides and Marco was certian to point out that 8 was a very important number for Christains, which I always thought was reserved for the number 7, anyone know the real anwser? In side the church was rather empty but had some points of interest, the rose window, and of course the dome itself. The dome was designed by Brunellesci and was an engineering feat and took decades if not a century to fully complete. The dome has now been painted with frescos of the end times if I recall correctly. However, you have to pay a few euros to see the frescos and climb the Dome. There is also the option of the bell tower or Campinille for the Duomo that has only a few over 400 stairs for a cheaper price. I have yet to do either, but intend on it next time it is actually sunny in Florence.

After that stop we stoped by Donte's Chaple and residence. If you dont know who Donte is he was a writer who was very much against the politics of religion and wrote "The Divine Comedy". Following Dante we walked the Courso and arrived at the Piazza della Signoria which is the heart of the city and know as the piazza of the people. On the square is the Pallazo vechio which is the Town Hall and the Uffizi gallery.

The Uffizi gallery was visited the following Friday, also known as the COLDEST day of winter. The gallery was beautiful it had all kinds of wonderful paintings from different periods. The majority of the early paintings were of Mother Mary and Jesus. I do think I have ever seen so many Jesus's before. As the paintings progressed the improtance of the art or what was depicted changed to the improtance of the artist themselves as is with Michalengelo, Giotto, Raphael, or Leonardo da Vinci. It was very intersting non the less, but lots of naked people, lol.

In addition to the Uffizi gallery I have seen Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, unforchunately after awhile all the churches seem to blend together especially in Florence because all the churches are predominately Renaissance style and look alike in design. But someting interesting about Santa Croce is that it is the largest chruch in Florence and that many famous families are burried there becasue they could bribe the clergy to let them be burried there. Well I thought it was interesting at least, the "holy" men being bribed.

After that I wondered to Ponte Vechio which is a bridge with shops on it over the river, the concept was really cool but all the shops were jewelry so I found it a bit disappointing.

Overall, I still did not love Florence, mostly because of the weather. I will be going several more times I imagine over the semester to see all the sites and hope to like it the more I am there.

Ciao,
Renae

Internet

Hey just to let you all know, I have very crappy internet here, I do not have it at my apartment and the student center is only open till 6pm italian time. Also, the speed of the internet is slow, about 5.2 megabites split between at least 21 people- that is pretty slow. So for now I can not get pictures up, I tried to get two pictures up today and it took over an hour, and even photobucket was slow, I tried to download 30 pictures and it took over two hours to be only 21% complete, so for now no pictures.........sorry.

Cooking with Chef Lorenzo

Buonasera,

Today we had our cooking class with Chef Lorenzo from Zepplin's. The twelve of us showed up at 8:30 am to go to the market and pick up some fresh food. On our way we stoped at what we call a "drug store" but actually they sold wine and chocolates. We got a sweet grappa to start the day and choloclate hearts, since it is close to Valentine's day. As a side note, I would like to inform you that Valentine's day is an improtant holiday here as it is where it originated from, i.e. St.Valentine was Italian. Anyways, after some sweets we went to the market and tired 3 types of cheese, local small apples, blood oranges (they have a red color inside them) , and some amazing dried figs, all organic too! To say the least all the local farmers know Lorenzo. After that we ran into a little cafe and got some cappucinos and some pasteries made particularlly for carnivale, which is the multi-week celebration before lent. Eventually we made it back to Zepplin's and were greeted by the other chefs, most of them are studying under him for few months. My favorite two are Doug and Ryan, Doug from North Carolina and Ryan from California. Both of the guys remebered me from a few weeks ago when they invited me in one everning after freezing outside trying to get internet across the street. Anyways, the twelve of us got divided into goups: bread, pasta, ragu (meat), wild boar, potatoe flan, fried artichokes, and doci (dessert). I of course volunteered to make dessert. I made 4 cakes with a lemon, vanilla flavor then I cut the cakes into three layers and put a hazulneut custard cream in between each layer. It turned out amazing! I also got to cut the fresh pasta and kneed some bread. By 1:00 we were finally eating. We had about 5 courses, all of which we prepared that morning, followed by a wine tasting. Mind you that when you cook in Italy wine is always around. Now everyone is trying to keep from passing out from a food coma. I had a great time with all the people there and the memories will be remebered forever. And perhaps now I can make my own three layer cakes and perhaps my own pasta. :)

Ciao!

Renae

Rome

This past friday, our group took a train to Rome for the day. We hit some of the main sites of Rome with our Italian History Professor and Native Italian, Marco. He can be pretty aggressive when it comes to tours, he doesn't stop for anything. With bags locked and protected we boarded the 6:55 am train to Rome and met Marco there at the station.

We first visted the Colosseum, we actually didn't walk through it but just viewed its exterior, as well as put Rome into context with the rest of the area. We walked by the Roman forum. The Roman forum was originally a swampy area that people disposed of remains. Later on the Romans turned the area into a market place for trade. Unforchunately, a busy street runs through the Forum and ruins effect. However, the ruins are impressive, even tho they are mere pieces to a once dominering facade. We visited Palatine Hill, the detailing was beautiful and the lighting enphasised the space. We got a history lesson of Rome on our walk and learned a bit about the familes that "founded" Rome. We later visited the Pantheon which was breath taking and followed by St. Peter's , or the Vatican Church. The detail was impressive. Chris and I climbed to the top of the dome of St. Peter's we paid 5 euro to climb 512 stairs. Half way up we cross a catwalk along the base of the dome, there you can see all the mosaic detailing. Reaching the top of the dome, required overcoming fear of heights and claustrophobia for the last 200 steps, but after a few heavy breaths, I got to enjoy the view. I hadnt realize that the Vatican, is its own state and has its own property surrounding the Church. After St. Peter's it started to rain so we called it a day and headed back for the trainstation.

As a whole, Rome is too busy even in Feruary for me to enjoy the city. There truely is so much architectualy history in Rome it is overwhelming in itself, but the congestedness of it just ruins the atmosphere. I imagine I will return to visit the last few important sites: Vatican Museum, Spanish Steps, and Sisten Chapel, and the Trevy Fountian. Otherwise, Rome is to crazy, much like New York City.

Well that is it for now, I am headed to Florence this friday and hope to love it a bit more than Rome.

Ciao!

Renae