An end and a beginning

The Pantheon

The Trevi Fountain at night.

Sorry for the delay in posting about the end of Rome but life got in the way, per usual.  Essentially, Rome had a lot of walking involved.  That first walking tour, according to the plan, took us through the streets of Rome to see different Piazzas and monuments and ruins in the evening.  The highlight?  The Trevi Fountain.  Here, we met some other Americans from Nebraska and just hung out for about an hour outside one of the most beautiful pieces of art.  Obviously, I tossed a coin into the fountain to ensure my return to Rome.  We finished the night in the Piazza Republica, the home of a massive fountain at the center of a round-about.  It was beautiful.  We eventually made it back to our hotel, exhausted, and with not much of a plan for the next day.  But, regardless, we dutifully woke up early checked out of the hotel and headed back into the city.  We wanted to see the Roman Baths, but couldn't find them.  Instead, we found ourselves inside a church in the Piazza Republica that housed a Newtonian exhibit.  It was really interesting how Rome, what one could argue is the heart of Western Civilization, has such a strong mixture of art, religion, politics, science, and history.  Everything that we deem important as a civilization is woven together into a tight fabric in a living museum.  Rome is essentially a chronicle of man's greatest achievements, and it's in places like that church where religion and science meet and are bound together by art and history that everything we've been taught in school, everything we've been told is important comes together in a tangible sense.

Meanwhile, we peaced out of the church and headed to a crypt that was decorated with the bones of 4000 monks, some of which still had tissue attached...it was uncomfortable to say the least.  Once we escaped the creepy pit, we essentially did the walking tour from the night before again, but backwards.  It was an awesome opportunity to see the sights both at night and in the day, but my feet hated it.  We made it to a market in the Campo di Fiori, where I mastered my haggling skills.  I bought 20 key chains for my friends back at home.  The set price? 2 euro each.  The final price?  1.50.  Not much, but whatever, I was proud.  We later found ourselves in a war memorial museum thing.  Interesting, but seemingly out of place.  It's easy to forget that Rome has modern history as well.

We had some final time to kill and decided to check out the island in the middle of the tiber that runs through Rome.  In the past, walls were built around the island and decorated to make it look like a giant boat.  It has served as some form of a hospital for over 1000 years.  And that about wraps up Rome.

The Tiber River.

In the week following, I made bread and strawberry/pineapple jam as my final project for my class.  On our final full day in Italy, a group of us headed out to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Mediterranean.  Again, there was a solid plan with some wiggle room but very specific directions of how to get from place to place.  Did that stop us from getting lost?  Nope.  But, our being lost did lead to my ego being inflated even more.  I went to ask a police officer directions in Italian and, instead of responding in English as had happened many times at the beginning of the trip, this guy responds in rapid Italian.  Unfortunately, that was completely unhelpful and my look of bewilderment gave me away and he said "Oh?  You speak English?" and then proceeded to give me the directions in English. The tower was amazing.  It turns out that it isn't the only thing in Pisa or even the only thing on the grounds.  It was built as a clocktower for the church right next to it.  It started leaning by the time the second story was completed, so the architects simply made the leaning side taller to compensate.  The added weight only accelerated the leaning.  In 2002 an effort was made to restore the tower to its original leaning angle and to anchor it there.  So, no worries about it falling in the future.  A hilarious part of this experience, though, is after having taken your own cheesy picture holding up the tower, you look around and see another 50 people doing similar poses, and just looking completely idiotic.  It's great, big fun.

By the time we made it to the Mediterranean, the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  Which, was fine, since the beach was actually more just a network of giant rock and a small patch of sand.  It was beautiful, though, with the rain clouds coming in and the island visible off in the distance.  I dutifully touched the water and we headed home.

The remnants of the wall used to make the island look like a boat.

The following day, we show up in the Rome airport to discover our flight has been delayed 6 hours and that we would be forced to stay overnight in Chicago.  So we spent the next 4 hours drinking wine, playing cards, and eating.  There was also some window shopping since the Rome airport is actually a giant mall of high end stores.  Gucci, Prada, Armani, etc. all had stores there.  We finally made it to Chicago and were put up in amazing hotel rooms.  It felt great to be back in the states.  Needless to say, I passed out immediately.

A bridge to the island.

Somehow, after all of these adventures, I made it home safely, in one piece.  I have a new found appreciation for the beauty of Little Lexington, VA and the United States in general.  I love this country and I am looking forward to my newest adventures in NYC starting next week.  So stay tuned, and cheers to the daily adventure (and the leaning tower of Pisa pics).



PS  I actually just moved in to NYC and there's a bunch to talk about...I've been intending to post this for about a week and I just got the time/internet connection.

Inspired

It is 2 minutes after midnight on the last full day I will spend in Siena, Italy for a long time, potentially forever.  What a thought.  I have mixed feelings.  While Italy has been everything I had dreamed of and more, including, but not limited to: pizza, pasta, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Christmas lights strung outside, vineyards, rolling Tuscan hills, markets; I still miss home, though I'm not entirely sure where my home is (Lexington, VA?  Littleton, CO? Rio Rancho, NM?).  I miss being able to complete simple tasks such as grocery shopping without feeling like a bumbling idiot.  I also miss a dollar being worth a dollar instead of 67% of a euro.  So, with that in mind, and with a little inspiration from a blog written by a talented friend of mine that holds similar values, I decided to push through, speak a little bit more about Rome (THERE'S JUST SO MUCH!) and hopefully catch you up to my current adventures, after all, in just over 48 hours, I will be leaving this country for about a year.

OK, so THE Vatican City!  The smallest country in the world, with a population around 1000 people.  Did you know, you can only live in The Vatican City if you work for the Church?  Also, inside the walls of the Vatican, there are no taxes, but there are (oddly enough) bars.  The Vatican City has the greatest fortune of any country (or so our tour guide said, I think).  So I guess we should start with meeting our lovely tour guide outside the foot locker on a corner near the Vatican, just moments after an attempted (and failed) pickpocketing experience.  See, our group had to pay the fee for the tour in cash, which we were all short on.  So naturally, we meander on over to potentially the sketchiest pair of ATMs in Rome to withdraw large amounts of cash.  But, this bold young group of Americans did have the foresight to create a wall of bodies around the person withdrawing money so no one could rob, mug, or take them.  However, that didn't really stop this one pair of people (a co-ed team) from trying.  They sketchily stood next to us for a few minutes, and then when we said that there was a nearby ATM open, they meandered on over there, to be followed, seconds later, by complaints from a person about being pick pocketed.

So, in one of our less thought out moves, we offered to pay our tour guide up front.  She seemed friendly enough.  But, she was too smart for that, as her mother told her "never take cash on a street corner."  Granted, her motherly was likely warning against other behaviour, but it served us well just the same.  We were shortly joined by about 20 other people, a few were buddy groups from different countries out to experience Rome, a few were couples on Romantic get-aways, but none were going to stop me from being right next to our tour-guide who we will call Maggie, since we never did get her real name.  (Also, just know that as I type this, I am thinking it with a British accent since Maggie's was so thick, that it was contagious.  Seriously, this whole paragraph, British.  Colour!  See, it's even spreading to my spelling). 

This is the piece, Mikey signed.

Flash-forward to inside the Vatican walls.  We first visited the art gallery.  Built by Pope something in 1937, it houses some of the greatest works of art.  We got to walk through the halls, in chronological order (the only thing on the tour that actually went in order).  First, we saw a statue that Michael Angelo carved when he was 19.  It is the only piece of art he signed.   Why did he sign this one?  Because when it was debuted, noone believed he did it.  It was attributed to some other guy from Niece.  So Mikey snuck in to the Vatican and carved his name into the statue so people would know it was his.  He was in such a hurry, he misspelled his own name!  He had to go back and carve a tiny N inside the G (granted that doesn't exactly spell it right, but hey points for trying).  We saw some Medieval art (it's terrible, even Maggie thinks so).  We saw how art evolved, slowly people brought back techniques from Ancient Rome, drawing stairs in 3D, drawing people in 3D.  Drawing people dynamically.  Using fresco!  Now let me tell you, Fresco sounds miserable!  You have to layer on some plaster, then really quickly paint it before it dries (which in the summer could be a mere 20 minutes or so).  But, if it didn't dry for a long time, as was the case the first time Mikey attempted the Sistene Chapel, it can grow moldy and you have to start all over again.  Tradeoff is, though, that it's much more permanent and looks really good for much longer, except when people try and remove the fresco from the building to put it in a museum, then it cracks.

Forgive the poor quality, I was still figuring out how to work the camera.

  This is the wrong arm.

Moving from the hall of art, we moved to a statue garden.  Some of the greatest statues of history are kept here (they, along with many other great pieces of art, were typically rescued from stupid places like from being a work bench, or the bottom of a stool, etc).  One statue was rescued, but the right arm was never found, so some Pope said hey you two (Mikey and some other guy) build me another arm for this statue, I want it whole.  So the other guy sculpts the arm stretched out, but Mikey sculpts it in this rather odd position, angled back to the head.  And, surprise!  A few hundred years later when the real arm is recovered, guess who was right?!  Our boy Mikey!  Fortunately he was dead when this was discovered because otherwise his ego would grow so large he'd be stuck in the Sistene Chapel, which, by the way, is named after Pope Sixus. 

This is the original arm.

Poor quality pic of Raphael's awesome piece.  But notice the light and dark.

And as much as everyone loves Mikey, I must say, I'm partial to Raphael (and no, I'm not just naming of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  Raphael was a contemporary of Mikeys, but was a few decades younger.  They met, at one point, when the Pope called them both to the Vatican to compete for title of best artist in the history of the universe (OK, not the actual name of the competition, but it was a competition).  So Mikey goes off and does the Sistene chapel, reluctantly, and Raphy goes and does the beautiful piece of art.
He dies, shortly thereafter due to syphilis and poor medicine (he came home one night after "partying" too much and after he didn't wake for a day or so, his buddies called the doctor, who decided to cure his exhaustion by blood letting, which only fatigued him more, i.e. killed him).  The general consensus it that the Sistene chapel is way cooler than this painting, but I'm not so sure.  If Raphael hadn't been such a playboy, I think he would have out done Mikey.

We saw a bunch of other stuff that was wroth insane amounts of money, some type of red marble that is, pound for pound, worth more than gold, 80% of which is owned by The Vatican.  Nero's tub which is stupidly large.  And then, we nervously entered the Sistene Chapel.  We were instructed to not take pictures because: "The Sistene Chapel was a functioning church for hundreds of years.  After centuries of burning candles, the ceiling and walls were covered in wax and soot.  Restorations needed to be made, and in order to finance these, the Catholic Church sold the copyrights to the Sistene Chapel, and all the images therein, to NBC.  Yes, that's right, you get yelled at by the Vatican camera nazis if you're taking pictures, not because it's bad for the art, but because the National Broadcasting Company has the rights.  Granted, that didn't stop people.  I wanted to punch those people, but whatever.  You're also not supposed to talk inside the Sistene chapel but that also didn't stop people.  I swear, people suck.  I'm sorry were the 20 signs in like 5 different languages and very clear pictures not enough for you? Or, do you think you're above rules?  Whatever.  It was gorgeous.  My neck still kind of hurts from looking at it.  It's actually a pretty interesting story.  So a few centuries ago, before the pilgrims had hunkered down with the Indians over popcorn and poultry, Pope Sixtus ordered the Sistene chapel built.  So it's built.  Later, some other Pope held another competition (it's a Pope thing) open to 16 different artists.  They were all invited to come and paint the walls of the Sistene chapel, half with stories about Jesus and half with stories about Moses.  Mikey wasn't one of them, he was only two at the time.  30 or so years later, another pope calls on Mikey to fresco the rather boring ceiling of the chapel.  Mikey says no.  "I'm a sculptor, not a painter, I can't and won't fresco the Sistene Chapel."  So the Pope pulls, the "umm, but I'm the Pope" card and Mikey has to do it.  So as we've discussed, fresco is hard.  Mikey has NEVER done fresco before.  So he argues with the Pope (who is this guy) about which stories will be on the ceiling that will "inspire people to believe in God again" but also offer a story about how it's ok if Mikey is bad at frescoes (which he's not).  He gets "The Drunkenness of Noah" in there, to mention how even the best people mess up sometimes.  It takes him four years, but he does it.  He works his way from the back of the Chapel to the front, getting better with time, learning more about fresco.  He walks away satisfied at a job well done, and goes back to sculpting.  Another 30 or so years later, another Pope calls on Mikey to paint the back? wall.  "Mikey, my man, people are pretty terrible.  No one is living a Christian lifestyle, I need you to paint something that will strike the fear of God into people's hearts."  So, in what Mikey thought was going to be his last great piece of art (he wasn't expecting to live to 89) he paints the back wall of the Sistene Chapel.  By this time he's very accomplished at fresco.  He has mastered drawing/sculpting/painting the male form (he didn't use female models (Raphy used female prostitutes, he wasn't very popular with the Vatican)).  There are over 300 individual forms in this painting, in which angels are reading from two books: a small one, of names of people who are going to Heaven (some with the help of their rosaries), and a large one, of names of people going to Hell.  Mikey didn't have a lot of faith in people.  There are some saints in there, like the one who was grilled alive, skinned alive, tortured on a wheel, etc.  So he finishes, and some bishop has the audacity to say "I don't like it.  Too many naked people."  So Mikey gets pissed (as he's apt to do) breaks in to the Vatican one night (as he's also apt to do) and paints this bishop in Hell, naked, with donkey ears and snake wrapped around him biting his man-junk.  The next morning the Bishop sees the picture, runs to the Pope (who was a fan of Mikey's work) and says "Look!  Father, Look!  Look what Michael did" and the Pope says "Nothing I can do.  Had he painted you in Heaven, then maybe I could have done something, but the Pope has no say in Hell." 

Moving out of the Sistene chapel, we entered St. Peters Basilica.  The largest church in the world.  It was amazing.  I've never felt closer to God, and I'm not even Catholic.  I'm excited to return next year to sing mass with the WnL Choir.  Instead of describing this place, let me just post a video of, what I hope, is a great approximation of my best experience in the church.

OK, so it's on the wrong side for now,  It's a little after one, so I'll fix it as soon as I can.  Also, in case you didn't get it, there were these two very distinct and clear beams of light coming in through the dome in the Basilica down to the ground in the middle of the Isle.  Naturally, I walked into one, looked into the light, was blinded by said light, took a few steps forward to see the glory of the Alter and the church appear around me out of nowhere.  And naturally,  I took a few steps back, pulled out my camera and did it again (I'm always thinking of my readers).   Meanwhile, here is a picture of the gang and Aunt Maggie.  And a panorama of St. Peter's Basilica.

Us, and the ex-chem teacher, tour-guide by day, Irish Pub bartender by night.

Bonus artsy pic for making it this far.  THE CROSS IS IN THE SUN!  I'M AWESOME!

 Cheers to the daily adventure!  (Tomorrow, 2 walking tours through Rome.  And an Island!)

A Push Through Rome

OK, where were we?  Oh yes, the Roman Forums, the political, artistic, and religious center of civilization for over 1400 years.  We trudged along to buy tickets to see the ruins (which was quite a feat, since we got a little lost and the forums are HUGE! so we had to walk around nearly half of them to try and buy tickets).  Finally getting into the Forums, we began meandering around, directed by the audioguide that we bought.  I'm not a big believer in the audioguides or the tour guides, but I am so happy that I bought the audioguide. 

The Forums from the outside.

The Forums, also from the outside/the old entrance.

 The forums without an audio guide:  "Oh cool look at those columns.  I wonder what this was.  Man this place is pretty dusty.  I wonder how old these things are.  Do we have to walk all around this?  OK that was fun.  Colosseum?"  

The Forums with an audio guide:  "NO WAY!  This was a temple to Saturn.  And this used to be a platform where orators would entertain crowds.  Oh, this was the house of the Vestel Virgins that watched over religious ceremonies for the city.  They apparently buried some urns when the Guals were invading Rome. etc."  Definitely worth the investment.  Granted, this audiotour only covered about 1/4th of the Forums.  We were left on our own to explore the rest (and typically make up what they were ruins of).  But, we managed to find ourselves in a gardeny area overlooking the Forums, while still being in the Forums, I think... Here, we heard English.  And, as is now customary for us to do, we immediately walked towards it.  Some British lady was giving a tour, and we decided to tag along to learn some new things about the forums.  She was sitting on a wall at the edge of the gardens, on top of a cliff above the Forums.  She was so excited about what she was saying that she kept bouncing around, I was sure she was going to fall over and die in the Forums.  She didn't, and in fact, she was just finishing up her tour.  When she finished, she gave a shameless plug for her tour at the Vatican tomorrow and invited all of us, even the ones that jumped on at the very end.  She also reassured us that it was a free tour anyways so it was no big deal.  We took her card and promised to let her know by 10 that evening if we were going to do it.

The sun was beginning to go down, and we had to get to the metro station and get home.  We walked to what we thought was the metro station, in fact it was just a bus station.  We stood around for about ten minutes re-reading the signs and trying to figure out why our stop wasn't mentioned.  Then we looked across the street to the the giant entrance to the metro station.  Oh.  We headed down, purchased three-day passes for 11 dollars and found where our train would be coming in.  We realized that this whole strike thing was really going to mess with us getting on the train, when there was already a crowd of people lining the entire stop about 4 or 5 people deep.  Fortunately, we have training.  There's a bus that carries students home from parties at our school, and getting on is generally much worse of an experience than this metro stop was shaping up to be.  What we didn't expect, however, was for the train to come screeching to a halt in the station literally packed with people.  No one was getting off and even more people were squeezing on.  People talk about how bad the buses are in India, I feel like this was probably worse.  Two of the seven of us got on.  The rest of us had to wait for the next one, and develop a game plan.  When the next train came into the station, a few people actually got off and we bustled on.  Some old lady who was getting off threw an elbow into the face of one of the girls in the group as she was getting on.  Other than that, no casualties and we all made it on with literally no room to spare.  I kept expecting people to get off at the next stop, but they never did.  At one point, I was stuck on one foot.  Everyone was sweating since the car didn't have air conditioning (everything they say about Italians not believing in deodorant is true).  We eventually got off the train at the very last stop to find our two friends who had a similar experience on their train.  Laughing about it, we searched for our hotel which was theoretically only 3 minutes away.  We eventually found it and my only prayer was that it was clean and had beds.  I was held in a limbo for quite some time worrying about what it was going to look like because splitting a bill into 6 parts for seven people in his second language proved to be a bit too much for the guy at the front desk. But, after about 20 minutes we figured it all out, got the keys to our rooms and found that the rooms were, in fact, clean and also had beds!  Success!

We showered off the grease and sweat from the days events (in an incredibly powerful jet of water that also flooded the bathroom...) and headed down to dinner in the hotel.  We were the only customers and the chef/server/manager treated us very well.  So well, in fact, that she earned family status as grandma.  The matriarch of our Italian family gave us free appetizers and desserts and laughed when we tried to eat a salad with our hands because 1) they didn't give us utensils and 2) we were delirious from exhaustion. 

The next morning, we headed out, back into Rome on the no-longer-on-strike metro.  We had a plan, and stuck to it pretty well.  First, we headed to Palantine hill.  The ancient home of the Who's Who of Rome.  It over looks the Forums and Circus Maximus.  It was interesting but without an audioguide, a little lack-lustre.  Then, on to the Colosseum (thank God for spellcheck, I haven't spelled that right once).  I was so excited, I could barely contain myself.  This WAS Rome.  Of all of the famous things things in the world, the Colosseum was right up there, and I was about to walk inside.  Not to mention, it was HUGE and really old.  We breezed the line (since, following the tour book's suggestions, we already had our tickets and instead of waiting an hour and change, we waited maybe 30 seconds).  Then we were there!  Inside an ancient stadium.  I felt like I was inside Invesco Field at Mile High all over again.  I could totally see an ancient Roman high school hosting prom here.  Walking into the stands of the Colosseum was an amazing experience.  I could just feel the history, how many gladiators had fought there, the staged naval battles, etc.  It was also sad, though, to think that such an amazing piece of architecture fell to such ruin.  Though, fortunately, it still stands because some theory says "Rome stands as long as the Colosseum stands.  And when Rome falls, so does the world."

This is poorly stitched together, but it gets the idea across.  This place is huge!

After the Colosseum, we headed to The Vatican City, capitol of the Catholic world.  But, that is a story for tomorrow.  Cheers to the daily adventure.

As Much As I Can

Back in Siena after an exhausting and yet thrilling weekend in the Eternal City, Rome.  My body is achy and I'm barely awake but I feel that I must start blogging about this weekend so I can try and get it all down.  There was just so much to see/do and we did just about everything.  So here's the plan:  I'm going to start writing about this weekend and keep going till I just about pass out, I'll post it and then follow up with the rest of the story and pictures.  I hope this be cohesive and up to whatever standard I've already set for myself, not that that's a very high bar.  So, here goes.

I had a very small set of goals for this past trip to Rome.  I wanted to see the Colosseum (because of the movie Jumper/because it's the Colosseum), I wanted to see the Tevi Fountain (because of the Lizzie McGuire Movie, feel free to judge), and I wanted to see St. Peter's Basilica (because of Angels and Demons).  Check, Check, and Check.  I also wanted to avoid getting taken, pick-pocketed, or mugged.  Check, check, and check.  Other than that, I figured I'd role with the punches, Rome wasn't built in a day and it certainly wasn't designed to be seen in one or two, so I wasn't going to stress about it...False.  But, I suppose if I'm going to give you a cohesive narrative about this weekend, I should really go back to the beginning.  Thursday.

This past Thursday, we had between 1 and 3 field trips (depending on how you count).  We began in a cookie factory.  This place was absolutely huge!  But, before we got to see it, we had to slip into a hairnet, a gauze jacket, and booties.  Apparently, because they ship their cookies internationally, they're held to different standards of health and need to ensure that we look ridiculous before viewing their magic machines.  And, while I didn't forget my camera, as evidenced by this picture of the outfit, I couldn't get any pictures of plethora of magic machines because it was forbidden.  The guy never really explained why, but I heard grumblings about labels and copyright. It was insane though, there was a machine for everything, but they all needed human help.  I felt like I was in Willy Wanka's factory and I was an oompa loompa, so naturally I started humming/singing the theme song while we saw all the different ways to make cookies and cakes etc. 

It's hard to look thug as an oompa loompa, but I tried my best.

Later, we stopped for lunch in a random town, during which they played only the Beatles.  I was confused.  Though, while I'm not a particularly big Beatles fan when I'm in the US, I was so happy to hear English, that the Beatles were literally music to my ears.  The view from outside the restaurant was absolutely amazing.

One of the courses at lunch.

After lunch, we went to a brewery.  I'm not sure how many of you have been inside the brewery part of a brewery, but it smells terrible.  There are more magic machines, but these ones excrete all sorts of smells, and it's loud, and wet for some reason.  The people working there were all guys.  It was a very different experience than the pristine vineyard where we had the wine tasting.  We had to drive another 4 minutes after seeing the brewery to get to the tasting room.  During which, I was surrounded by girls who didn't want to finish their half glasses of beer that they were tasting, so they'd pour it in my glass.  Somehow, a simple beer tasting turned into around 5 or so glasses of beer, the first of which was really foamy; the second smelled like mangoes, tasted like mangoes, but had a horrible after taste; the third tasted like all of the awesome parts of a water park and had a slightly better after taste, the fourth was a chestnut beer and was actually pretty good, and the last was an aged chestnut beer.  I left the tasting unpleasantly full of beer.  Our teacher really needs to consider people's drinking habits before she allows them on the trip. Each person should be able to abide by the cardinal rule: no wounded soldiers in Italy. 

Later that night, as it was someone on the trip's birthday, we went to El Gringo for dinner and tequila and sangria.  Surprisingly, and upsettingly, the Mexican food in Siena, Italy is better than the mexican food in Lexington, Virginia.  Granted, I avoided the meats, but either way, I was in heaven.  Something other than basil, tomatoes, and olive oil!  We then moved to a coffee bar, then an Irish pub (we were trying to be as cultural as possible) and finally to the most hopping bar in Siena.  I'm not one to party, so I just watched my friends do a few rounds of shots at the last bar as they decided that it was finally time to get to know the locals.  It was 11:45 at night.  By 12:45 we had met a man who had been in the Italian army as a parachuter (he was 34) and one of our girls had decided that she was going to fulfill her goal of kissing an Italian man.  But she got stage fright around the parachuter and decided to ask someone closer to her own age for advice.  Mind you, our train to Rome left in just under 9 hours and was a 45 minute walk away and none of us were packed.  She begged to have 10 more minutes to find a wing woman and spit some game, and challenged the rest of the group to beat her.  No one ended up kissing Italians.  One person did end up getting followed by a lesbian and making out with a guy from Lousiana.  Granted that cannot be confirmed because it happened at 3:30 in the morning, long after I'd gone home.  Unfortunately, at 1:40 when I decided it really was time to go home, I didn't have my key.  When we were leaving early in the night I thought to myself, "hmm, Keaton, should you grab your key?  No, things haven't gone past 1 here ever, and no one has gotten out of hand.  It'll be fine."  False.  The roommie brought his key, but decided to stay out a tad bit later than I would have liked, by roughly 2 hours and change.  I finally managed to get his key on the condition that I let him in when he got home.  So I get home at 1:45, and start to do things to keep myself busy and awake while I wait for him.  I packed and pulled my laundry in off of the clothes line.  While doing that, I dropped some of my shorts onto the clothes line of the floor below me, but I couldn't reach them from the ground.  I ended up trying to knock them down using a bag of recyclable plastic that was from our downstairs neighbors (the ones who's clothes line my shorts were now on).  Instead, I just ended up hitting their window a lot, waking them up, getting laughed at, and having them hand them to me. It was an uncomfortable interaction for any time of day, let alone 2 AM. I ended up falling asleep at 2:30, waking up at 3:30 just before the roommie got home.  I let him in, and tried to fall back asleep.  It wasn't until around 4:30 that I could fall back asleep.  About 4 hours later, I woke up, finished packing and headed on the way to Rome.  The roomie did the same, but at a much slower pace, for obvious reasons.

I was shocked at how tired I wasn't.  I was equally shocked at how easily we managed to get into Rome.  A swift transition from bus to train and boom ROME!  I was so excited.  All we had to do was take the metro to our hotel, check in, drop our bags off, come back into the city and start site seeing.  But, as the saying goes, even the best laid plans can be ruined by European unions.  The Italian metro workers were on strike.  But not for the whole day, just from 5-8 AM, 10 AM-5 PM, and 8 PM to the end of the day.  So we had a 3 hour window during which we could actually get to the hotel (which we still weren't sure would be a decent hotel).  But, even 5 PM was still 3.5 hours away.  So what were we to do but wander around Rome carrying our back packs?  In fact, we happened to wander to the Roman Forums!  And here is where I think the story has to stop because my eyes are closed and I'm just typing, assuming that words are coming out right.  Cheers to the daily adventure.

A touch of history and racism

Today I intended on sleeping in a little later than usual since class didn't start until 4 but I was rudely awaken by the cacophony of the church bells from just down the block at 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30, 8, 8:30 and 9, at which point I angrily rolled out of bed to start my day.  One of my friends and I headed to the campo (basically the town square) to climb the tower that overlooks Siena.  Little did we know that climbing this tower required that you essentially crawl up two flights of stairs because the roof is too low and the walls are too close together for you to stand tall or face fully forward.  I'm not claustrophobic, but I could see the need for the panic buttons that were installed in this part of the stairwell.  Moreover, these stairs were used by people going up and down...poor planning medieval sienese, poor planning. Fortunately, that lasted only two flights and the rest was relatively manageable facing forward and standing up straight.  When we got to the top, I was awestruck.  I really can't describe how beautiful it was, so I'll let pictures do the talking. 

The Duomo and part of Siena

The Campo

My attempt to be artsy with the bell at the top of the tower

We also enjoyed the museum which had some pretty awesome frescos from relatively recent times (late 1880's) and older periods (1400's) and some pretty sweet modern art from the past ten years.  It was a trippy combination of art but it was manageable.

Later, in cooking class, we found out that our teacher dislikes chinese, black, and polish people.  But hey she's momeryl whatever.  I think she also bashed the french a bit.  She was on quite the roll.

Moving on to some fun history about Siena.  Every year in may and august (16th) Siena hosts this crazy no-rules horse race in the campo.  People have been known to drug the horses, kidnap the jockeys, etc.  It's called the palio.  Well there are 17 sienese neighborhoods that are represented at the palio, and have been since 1729 (before that, dating back to the medieval times there were as many as 59 contrada represented).  Each contrada has it's own flag, mascot, and history and the rivalry between contrada runs deep.  It's like ManU and whatever other soccer team ManU has a rivalry with combined with Britney Spears and Christina Agulara, with a little USA UK rivalry thrown in there.  It's intense.  Some contrada even have their lamp posts sculpted to look like their mascots (they're pretty cool).  I'm staying in Selva.  Here is a wikipedia description of my contrada:

Selva (Forest)

Selva runs west from the Piazza del Campo in the centre of the city. Traditionally, its residents were weavers, but when the contrade were mainly military they had a reputation for being excellent archers.
Selva's symbol is a rhinoceros at the base of an oak tree hung with hunting tools. Its colours are green and orange, bordered with white.
Winner of the Palio, on August 16, 2006, with Salasso on Caro Amico. Won the Palio last on July 2, 2010, to much upset from Nicchio (favored to win).

So that's some fun facts about my contrada.  Here are some fun cooking facts:

1. In the middle ages, bakers specialized in white or brown bread.  They had separate guilds.
2.  Adding butter, margarine, or oil shortens gluten strands in the dough, hence the name of shortening.
3. Bleaching flour is done by allowing the flour to age, turning from yellow to white as it oxidizes.  This can also be achieved by using vitamin c (ascorbic acid), azotic carbamide, or peroxide.
4. You need steam when baking bread to prevent the surface from drying out, to aid in heating dough faster, and to increase the rate of expansion of gas pockets.  You can through in ice cubs once the oven is pre-heated (professional bakers, pump in steam).
5. Bread will go stale even if there is no moisture loss.
6. San Fransisco is associated with sour dough since the bacteria needed to start the process is common in the air there.
7. Biscotti means twice cooked in Italian.
8. Most cakes were pound cakes until the 20th century.
9. Pasta means paste or dough in Italian.
10. Noodle is a German word that refers to any pasta like preparations made outside the Italian tradition.
11.  It is a myth that Marco Polo brough noodles from China to Italy.  Pastas were in Italy by the 6th century.  Marco Polo did his thing in the 14th century.  But, there is evidence that China has had noodles since 200 BC.
12. Naples, Italy had the ideal climate for pasta preparation, leading to pasta becoming a common street food in the 19th century, which, in turn, led to shorter cooking times and the popularization of cooking pasta al dente (to the tooth) by the late 19th century.
13. You can improve cooking water and reduce stickiness of pasta by adding a splash of lemon juice
14. Sauce comes from the roman word "jus" (an ancesetor of juice and "jus" as in "a jus") and latin "salsus" meaning "salted"/
15. Gravey came from the french word grane meaning "made with grains"
16. Sauce should taste too strong on its own since the food dilutes it.

See that wasn't too bad.  OK off to bed.  Cheers to the daily adventure.

Post office and Pizza

I have failed you as a blogger.  I forgot to bring my camera on our most recent excursion to a bakery.  There were SO MANY magic machines that spat forth pasta, and dough, and similar things.  I'm sorry.  Now that that's over with, on to the fun stories.  For those of you that don't know, I spent about 2.5 years working for one of the largest pizza chains in the world.  I was a cook, a server, a phone guy, a driver...pretty much every job except manager.  When Momeryl went to make pizza in our cooking class yesterday, all I could think was "I'd do this better."  Which was absolutely justified.  Certainly her dough and sauce were better, the pizza tasted better hands down, but when it comes down to technique, given the same starting materials of pre-made dough and sauce, I'd win.  I simply have experience on her.  She's made maybe 1000 pizzas in her life.  No more than 1 a week, every week of every year for the past 20 years.  I've made that many pizzas in a week.  There were nights at this pizza place when we'd top 200 orders, with an average of 2 pizzas per order.  But, upon tasting the product, I realized that my place of employment was doing it wrong because this pizza was amazing.

This morning we went into what appeared to be a tiny bakery.  We were greeted by a man who is almost certainly in the mafia and spoke no English.  He took us into the back room which turned out to be at least twice as large as the store front. There was a wall of ovens, literally 10 feet high and ten feet wide of ovens.  The next room which was also very large where they were making, of all things, pizza.  I felt an immediate kinship with the guy working there.  Granted, there was a little PTSD being in a kitchen where they were making pizza.  I swore once I left, I'd never return.  Then I swore it again and meant it the second time I left.  And here I was, half-way around the world and faced with pizza-making again. 

So we get to leave the pizza-making room and get taken through this series of hallways to yet another room where we met Uncle Johnny Stickano.  This guy was making pastries, chewing a toothpick, but was clearly called to be a comedian.  He had a captive audience.  He did some "magic" for us.  He used one of those magic machines, to get some dough, used cookie cutters to put them on a platter, then used TV network magic and pulled out a rack of already done cookies.  It was cheap humor but well-appreciated because it ended in cookies.  Even when we left his room to go to another room (seriously?  So many rooms in this tiny bakery!  More magic!) where they were making croissants, Uncle Johnny Stickano followed us and cracked jokes.  At one point he imitated shooting up heroin with his toothpick and said that most people aren't like him.  He's happy and loves his life unlike his boss (mafia guy) who is sad.  He also joked with the girl who doesn't like fat in her milk that he knew that she must have recently been to the beach because he was psychic/she had a tan.  All in all, the magic bakery was awesome.

Also, the ancient house we stayed in this weekend had a key.  I had it for the entire weekend and didn't want to leave it in my room in the tower so I put it in my pocket to put it downstairs with the other key.  Whoops...brought it home to Siena.  So we had to mail it back to the house.  Which meant that we had to figure out the Italian post office system.  SO STRESSFUL.  We had the key.  So that was good.  We didn't have an envelope so that was bad.  We found one and were about to take it when we decided we should probably clarify if we needed to pay for it, we did.  But when I went to give the woman money, she shook her head and said something in Italian.  So we tried again but with smaller denominations, she picked the 50 cent coin out of what I was holding in my hand and gave us change.  OK!  Key in envelope. Check.  Now how to mail it.  We were warned by our guide that you have to take a number.  What she didn't tell us was that you have three options of numbers.  P, E, and A.  We took one of each and decided to roll with the one that was called first.  Our E was called first but we weren't sure how to claim our spot, or which spot was ours anyways.  So we stood there, looking at all of the lines, watching as our number got replaced.  We were down to P and A.  So we looked around for the woman who took our change for the envelope.  We had to follow her around the room a little bit, but eventually we got her to stop and we held out our two tickets and our package, she took one, crumpled it up and pointed at the other.  So, we needed the P ticket, presumably for package, or priority, or something.  We had some time to kill because we were P30 and they were on P24.  We looked around for everyone else with a P ticket to make sure we weren't missing anything.  EVERYONE ELSE HAD A FORM!  We go to one of the racks of forms and grab one of each that we had seen people carrying with them.  Some had instructions in Italian, some in Italian and French, none in English.  Back to the lady.  In probably what was the best bastardization of any language, I held up the package and all the different forms and said "Per ca necessary?"  So Italian, French, and English in one sentence, but it got the point across.  Thankfully, we didn't need a form.  What we also noticed, from observing people while waiting for P30 to be called was that you RAN when they called your number.  Even this old lady, who was hunched over and probably had been for the past 30 years booked it across the room when her number was called.  So dutifully when P30 was called we ran up, pridefully showed the guy our ticket and handed him the package.  He said something in Italian, which I'm pretty sure was "normal" and I said yes, because I didn't care if he was asking me if I wanted the most expensive option because I just wanted to be done.  I was prepared to pay 40 euro just to leave, but fortunately only had to pay 1.  DONE!  We made it!  What an adventure!  After which, we promptly laughed at a group of German tourists who were breaking all sorts of rules trying to figure out how to work the Italian post office.   Anyways, sorry for the long post.  Here are some pictures to make up for it.  Cheers to the daily adventure.

Careful what you wish for

While I was working on that last post, I stopped to get some food with friends which requires a 20 minute walk into town.  Food was good.  It starts pouring though.  We are umbrellaless mostly in flip-flops, I was in Tacky Shirt (TS).  We started jogging back to the house with rain just soaking us.  Finally we get home (which was uphill the whole time) I look down and the backs of my legs are COVERED in mud.  There were spots of mud up to the bottom of TS!  It literally looked like I had just given up and sat down in a pile of mud.  HOW?!  Anyways I figured that I had to post about that little adventure since I was just mentioning how few adventures have been going on in the past few days.  Cheers to the daily adventure!  And cudos to anyone who actually made it through the entire last post!

The one with all the facts

Let's start this off with the understanding that this post will not be about adventure.  It's been all of 12 hours since my last post what more do you want from me?!  I'm in this awesome house that's about a 20 minute walk from the nearest town which is about a half hour drive from Florence.  We tried!  We tried to go to Pisa/the Mediterranean yesterday but we missed the bus and we were going to try again today, but the time tables on Sundays are pretty crappy so the timing wouldn't work out.  So the most adventuring I've had since the last post (now that I'm finally caught up on all of the other adventures) was a little tennis.  Sorry, I'm slacking, I know.  So the plan now is to give you a story about our time at the gelato factory, all the fun facts about food from the past few lectures, a few pictures, and a video from the gelato and chocolate factories.  Hopefully that's sufficient.

Gelato factory: this place was pretty tiny so our group of 16 had to break up into two groups, one waiting outside under the tuscan sun (boom! movie reference) and the other one inside enjoying this Italian ice cream.  Once inside, you're greeted by a man who speaks pretty solid English, which is nice, it makes everything go faster.  So instead of hearing someone rambling on in what sounds like that language that sims speak and then getting the translation, you just skip straight to the real language.  So gelato guy (not cool enough to be an Uncle) explained that all of his ingredients are natural, that he makes his gelato for that day and the next and that's it.  In fact, he has to come in at 4 AM to start making all the gelato.  Also, I'm pretty sure he said that all of his gelato comes from the same cream base which tastes kind of like a milk shake (we got samples and I had to finish everyone's since the girls weren't down with the idea of chugging liquid fat and sugar...go figure.)  Also, pistachios, we learned, should make your ice cream this baby-poop-green color instead of that bright mint green color.

Alright!  On to the facts!

1. peanuts are technically not a nut...they're a legume!
2. Rye first arose as a weed in wheat and barley crops.
3. Ergot (also known as Holy fire or St. Anthony's fire) is a fungus (that grows on rye) that generates alkyloids that stimulate uterine muscles and hallucinations (because those go together?) and is similar to LSD (Lysurgic acid diethylamide) which was discovered in 1943 by Albert Hofmann.
4. In 1755 some English reference source described oats as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
5. Rice is the principle food for about 50% of the world's population, which is good since there are over 100,000 distinct varieties.
6. Sticky rice is sometimes called waxy, sweet, or glutinous rice.  It is not sweet and doesn't contain gluten...
7. Wild rice is not actually rice.
8. Raw rice carries bacteria which can produce gastrointestinal toxins and can survive cooking temperatures.  They can germinate in leftover rice that is not refrigerated.   
9. Dent corn is used to make grits...and horse feed.
10. Popcorn pops best at 380 degrees Fahrenheit.
11. Rice krispies are esentially glassy networks of rice that when placed in cold milk, experience stress fractures and breaks due to uneven contraction across the krispie.  This gives them their distinct sound.  Oh snap!...krackle and pop...
12. Everyone produces 1 quart of gas per day. Some of this is due to bean intake, there's a specific bacteria that breaks beans down into carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases.
13. Peanut butter was originally developed in 1890.
14. Brazil nuts contain high levels of selenium.  They are anti-cancer agents, but when consumed in large quantities (more than 5 ounces a day) it is toxic.
15. Harvesters of brazil nuts have to carry shields so they don't get concussions from nuts dropping out of the trees.  Seriously.
16. Cashews are never sold in their shells since the shell has properties similar to poison ivy.
17. Macadamia nuts are named in honor of John macadamia, a Scottish scientist, and close friend of the man who discovered the nuts.
18. To make beer or rice alcohols, you have to let the starchy grains sprout a bit or mold a bit before cooked, so the starch can be broken into sugars.
19. Flaming dishes are usually fueled by brandy or rum.  The food isn't actually burnt, the energy from the combustion of the alcohol is absorbed by the water in the brandy/rum.
20. Yeast producing alcohols can tolerate 20% alcohol concentration in their environment.  
21. Alcohol provides 5% of calories in the average American diet.
22. Your stomach absorbs alcohol before it can reach your intestines to be absorbed into your blood stream.  In men, about 30% of the alcohol is lost to the stomach while in women only 10% is lost to the stomach.  Yet another reason men can drink more than women.
23. Hypersensitivity to sound and light (during a hangover) may be leftover compensation for the depression of the nervous system.
24. Dry mouth and headache (during a hangover) are caused by dehydration.  Drinking coffee counteracts the constriction of cranial blood vessels, thereby helping with the headache. 
25. Long simmered stews retain 5% of the cooking alcohol, briefly cooked dishes retain 10-50%, flambes can retain up to 75%.
26. Grapes are the worlds largest fruit crop, 70% of them are used for wine making.
27. Cork, coming from the bark of a tree, can spoil, and in turn spoil the wine.  5% of all wine bottles are spoiled due to tainted cork.
28. Champagne bottles have a gas pressure of about 3-4 atmospheres.  That's about the same pressure as car tires.  It contains six times its volume in carbon dioxide.
29. Less than 10% of the world's sparking wine is true champagne.
30. Lipstick, oils from food, traces of dish soap all reduce the bubbliness.
31. Champagne is best served at 40 degrees F in tall, narrow glasses so the bubbles are smaller and last longer.
32. The aroma of a wine changes from the first sip to the last due to the contact with the air.
33. If wine is cloudy and contains particles that don't settle, it's spoiled don't drink it.  If the particles to settle, its indicative of more acid in the wine which makes it taste better.
34. Darker wine tends to be older.
35. Lager comes from the German word lagrin which means to store.
36. Fresh beer is called "green beer."  It has little carbon dioxide, is cloudy with dead yeast cells, and has a harsh sulfrous flavor.
37. Some british and Belgian beers should be aged to improve over 1-2 years.
38. Bear foam should cling to the glass as the level of liquid drops, this is called lacing.
39. Stouts can have nitrogen gas instead of carbon dioxide. 
40. in 1876, Henri Nestle was the first to produce milk powder.
41. The Swiss eat about twice as much chocolate as Americans.
42. Swiss and German chocolate is ground smoother than English or American Chocolate.
43. White chocolate, invented in 1930, is technically not a chocolate.  It is a mixture of purified cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar
44. Chocolate cools your mouth as it melts, which feels cool.
45. Chocolate contains a specific type of saturated fat that can be converted into oleic acid (a healthy fat).
46. One ounce of chocolate contains as much caffeine as a third of a cup of coffee.
47. Theobromine, a relative of caffeine in chocolate, increases feeling of well being, is a mild anti-depressant, stimulates muscular system, stimulate the kidneys.  It's also what's bad for dogs.
48. Chocolate does contain cannabinoid chemicals.

That's condensed down from 33 pages of notes.

Here are the pictures promised:

The clock tower in Siena at night...Sorry my camera doesn't do night pictures well

San Domingio (or something like that) from the vineyard

A close of of San Domingio...SO MANY TOWERS!

A view...

Another view...from the tower in Sandomingingio

ME!

And the videos as promised:

This is gelato coming out of the magic gelato machine...

And this is chocolate coming out of the magic chocolate machine!  I appreciate how all the food in Italy comes out of magic machines in a pretty awesome fashion.

Don't judge me...

Sorry about the lack of posts over the past few days, we actually had homework for my class, so I actually had to do something other than explore and blog.  So much has happened so this will be a pretty scattered post.  Also, there are a lot of fun facts about food and such that I think might just get their own post.

OK, so jumping back to last weekend in Florence, I had an adventure with haggling.  I actually failed pretty hard at haggling.  I really wanted a brown leather belt, since when I go to the Vatican next weekend, I have to wear dress shoes (which are brown) and I don't have a brown belt.  We went to this market in some random part of Florence which, if you are claustrophobic, would be a terrible experience.  There were so many people in these tiny isles between racks of colorful purses and scarves and statues and flags and all these other random assortments of items that people associate with Italy.  Deep in the heart of this market, we found this stand that was selling belts and I picked this one that was 18 euro, with the intention of toughing it out and bargaining my way down to 15 at least.  I hate bargaining, so much so that when I bought my car, I called my dad and gave the phone to the dealer so they could haggle over the price.  I decided it was about time for me to face this fear and haggle.  I had these images in my head of being picky and bidding low and slowly accepting the real price I want.  What really happened?  I got to the counter where a woman spoke very little english and muttered "uhh...so...will you take less for this?"  "No."  "Oh.  OK.  That's fine."   So after that great success, as I'm shamefully pulling out 18 euros to pay, the woman grabs the belt, drops down into a squat in front of me, and reaches behind my back.  I was pretty surprised, but she was just testing to see if it would fit.  It was too big.  So she pops back up unscrews the hook thing at one end and just cuts some off.  I guess I looked pretty terrified that my new 18 Euro belt was being cut, especially since I couldn't event get her to cut the price.  She said "You Americans are always so afraid.  To us, this is normal.  If belt doesn't fit, you cut!"  Then she starts shouting "Marco!  Marco!"  I was thinking, oh God, what did I do and why does she think my name is Marco.  Then Marco, who easily could have just walked off the set of the Jersey Shore, appears and punches a whole in the belt and walks away.  Then she screwed the buckle back on, dropped down to a squat again, tested the belt.  Satisfied, she bagged it and sent me on my way.  That was fun...

Me in my tacky shirt.

Back in Siena, I had another market experience.  Every Wednesday a market appears out of nowhere.  It's like an outdoor walmart.  Even the people who go are like walmart people!  I was at home.  The group that went shopping was comprised of me, another guy, and three girls.  In a surprising twist, me and the other guy were more into shopping for clothes than any of the girls and they all just wanted food.  The market does strange things to people...  I found a 90's blue shirt with black material sewed into it to look like a vest and iron on necklaces for only 5 euro.  I bought it, it was made for me after all.  I was now a proud owner of "the tacky shirt"  which now has a song and dance. 

I was mistaken for an Italian!  Boom!  Mission accomplished!  Some tourist (I'm so over tourists at this point, standing and taking pictures, blocking the streets when I just want to get to where I'm going) comes up to me and says "Pardon...Uhh..Plaza Basilico?" in an American accent but in an attempt to speak Italian that landed closer to French.  I chuckled a bit and said "I'm American too.  Now what are you looking for?"  It turns out he was looking for a bus station that I could have walked him to but had trouble explaining where it was, so our poor confused friend had to bumble through asking a real Italian, in poor French, where the bus station was.

 Yesterday, we toured a Vineyard/saffron farm and a chocolate factory.  This meant that we started drinking wine and grappa (which is a type of alcohol similar to vodka made from the skins and stems of wine grapes) at roughly 10:30 in the morning.  Aggressive.  There is also a new rule, no wounded soldiers in Italy, meaning that any food or drink given to the group must be consumed.  Typically, the responsibility falls to me and another guy.  So, brunch was quite an experience.  As was the chocolate factory afterwards.  It was a little hard to focus with close to a bottle and a half of wine metabolizing.  But!  The chocolate was good!  I found, and purchased this chocolate bar.  Sorry for the graphic nature, Italians are weird.

A view from the Vineyard.

The town we meandered after the wine tasting and before the chocolate factory.

Last night, we headed out to our haunt for the weekend.  It is a 7500 sq foot villa built in the 1500's with a sitting room in it's tower, a pool, a tennis court, and a reading garden.  UHH-MAY-ZING.  We continued the days activities well into the night, playing taboo and singing and dancing in the tower, that was likely a bell tower that has been converted. 

Views from the tower.

At some point, I began serenading this girl (the one who is very concerned about the amount of fat in her milk).  The issue is, I thought I was being really smooth.  Upon reflection, the scene looked a little more like this.  She was cowering in the corner of a couch (in the tower) in the fetal position, as I circled her like a vulture, occasionally dropping to one knee, the entire time "singing" (shouting the wrong lyrics to the song that was playing, which was likely some Fall Out Boy song).  This went on for roughly 20 minutes while my "friends" looked on in sympathy and amusement, much like watching cars crash, over and over and over again.  Eventually, the girl found an opening in my circling and scurried off to bed.  I was heartbroken.  But, such is life. 

The Location of The Event.

Today we were going to go to Pisa, but missed our bus by 2 minutes.  Adventure failed.  The plan is to do it tomorrow so hopefully there will be some fun stories about that.  Cheers to the daily adventure.