This weekend we left for Rome. We left on Thursday night on the train. I think it was the first time I’ve ever ridden on a train. We arrived at the terminal and it was like a shopping mall. We had drivers come and pick us up to take us to the apartment we were staying in. We called it an apartment, the landlady called it a dorm, but it might have been a hostel because all 10 of us students were in the same section with 4 different rooms, 2 bathrooms, and a small kitchen. By the time we got settled it was 10:00 and we walked across the street to eat dinner. The landlady set it up so that we could all eat there that late. I had spaghetti. It was pretty good but I was very thankful to get to bed that evening. The train ride took about 2 and a half hours and we had a long day of classes before that. The bed was hard as a rock yet it was surprisingly comfortable.



Me at the Pantheon



Friday we got up early and headed over to the Vatican so we could know where to meet up later in the afternoon. Afterwards we went to breakfast. I had a muffin and fruit. We had free time until 2:00 so we walked over to the Pantheon. It took us a while to find it but it was worth the walk. It was beautiful! We went inside and saw the tombs of the first two kings of Italy and of Raphael.

"Laocoon and Sons" in the Vatican Museum

Then we grabbed lunch and met back at the Vatican. Our group had a tour of the Vatican museum which included the famous "School of Athens" by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel. I was so excited to see some of the sculptures. It is absolutely stunning! No words can express the magnificent art there. I was a bit worried about seeing the Sistine Chapel because I thought that it would be an eye sore after the restoration. All of the photographs have been so bright and it does not fit into the original ideal I had set up for Michelangelo. I was very pleased when I walked in to see that was a misconception. Since it was so high up the light didn’t really hit it like it would have in the pictures. I could not take my eyes off the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. I wish we would have had more time in there. I could not speak for at least 10 minutes after because I was in such awe of it. The only disappointing thing about the Sistine Chapel is that you can't take pictures of it and people were talking--which you're not supposed to do! After ou

Me at the Trevi Fountain

r tour we had dinner. Then all of us did the Rick Steve’s walking tour of Rome to see all of the sights. We walked to the Piazza Navona which is the location of Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers and then back past the Pantheon. Then we walked to the Trevi Fountain which was beautiful. I threw a coin in over my shoulder and made a wish!! Finally, we walked to the Spanish Steps where we thought we would take the metro back to our apartment but it was closed. So we just took a taxi back which was an unplanned adventure…haha. It is estimated that we walked at least 10 miles that day. 

Saturday we got up early again and took taxis to the Villa Borghese museum which I have not heard of before (at least in my recollection). It was in the mansion of a "nephew" of one of the popes. The nephews were actually sons of the popes and it is where we get the world nepotism according to our tour guide Elizabetta the previous day. This particular nephew commissioned art and so a lot of the art he had asked to be made was in the house. There were nice tiled patterns on the floor, fresco on the ceilings, paintings hanging on the walls, and statues everywhere. He was a patron of Bernini so the majority of the sculptures are by him. They were absolutely amazing. I have honestly never seen anything more beautiful in my life. I was glad that I took mythology in high school because I was able to walk through the museum and tell my classmates about the stories behind the statues. The one of the Rape of Persephone was amazing. The details! You could see the indentions of Hades fingers in her thigh and a tear on her cheek. I also appreciated the detail in the sculpture of Apollo and Diana. After the museum we walked back to the Spanish Steps, had a quick lunch, and got extremely lost trying to take the metro back to the Vatican to meet up with another tour guide named Isabella. She took us into St. Peter's Basilica. It was so stunning. I was awe-struck. I can imagine what it would have been like for a Catholic to see it. But Michelangelo’s Pieta was in there as well and I squealed. It was behind glass though because a crazy guy came in and chipped of one of Jesus’s toes and Mary’s nose. So that was a bit disappointing.  Afterwards, our professors took our group out to an Italian restaurant for a 4 course meal. The dinner for everyone else included: bruschetta and meat, then Carbonara pasta, next salad, lamb, and pork chop. However I had bruschetta, tomato pasta and grilled veggies because I don’t eat pork products. Dessert was tiramisu! Delicious!!! It was another great day--of course, throbbing feet again.

Sunday we got to sleep in a little because there was nothing planned until the train back. So we took the metro to go see the Colosseum. Awesome!!!!!!!!!!! We had breakfast at a cafe looking at the Colosseum. We got tickets to go inside too which was pretty cool! Then we walked around the Forum, which are the ruins of the old part of Roma. It was incredible! Then we went back to the apartment, got on the train, and arrived back in Perugia around 9:00. Despite my love for art and the art in Roma I was so happy to be back in Perugia. I missed my little Italian town :)





Whitney, Caitlin, Hannah, Me and Courtney inside the Colosseum







The Rape of Persephone detailed

Rome makes me want to roam around the world...

I am now in Rome! It is my second night here. We have great Internet service (unlike Perugia) which I did not know until after I got here...which means i left my computer. So because I am typing this on my iPod I am just going to list what I did today and go into further detail at a later date:
1. Awake and take a freezing cold shower
2. Walk to Vatican city
3. Eat breakfast; fruit and a muffin
4. Walk to the pantheon
5. Eat lunch
6. Tour Vatican museum which includes bot Raphael's "school of Athens" and michelangelo's Sistine chapel :D
7. Eat dinner
8. Walk to piazza navona
9. Walk back to pantheon
10. Find the Trevi fountain :D
11. Make a wish
12. Find the Spanish steps
13. Realize metro is closed
14. Decide to take taxi back to apartment
15. Arrive home

9 am to 11 pm spent walking around Rome. All in all one of the best ways to spend a Friday

First Day of Classes = Awful.

Classes started today. I was quite unimpressed with the institute’s organizational skills. My schedule said I was in room 1 for my Italian course. The full schedule on the back of mine said the class was in room 6. I asked one of the employees there and he asked someone else and they said it was in the photo lab. So I wait there for 15 minutes and no one enters. So I go in search of them again only to find out that they had stepped out for coffee. So I waited another 10 minutes for the right person to come back. So 30 minutes late to class she points me to the right room (room 5). However halfway through the professor reading the syllabus she asked my name and when I told her she said “Oh you are supposed to be in the other class we switched you so we could each have even numbers.” During the class break the other professor came and found me and told me where his class was located. I get in there and realize that he had actually been teaching during this time while the first class I was in had just read the syllabus. Therefore I am already behind. Also it didn’t even out the class room numbers! I made it an odd number in the second class. So lord knows where I am going to be tomorrow. On the bright side I think I like the second professor better. He is comical and he has a way of keeping the class engaged. After a break and lunch (yogurt, strawberries and a peach) I went to the GWU class. We just got a brief overview of the renaissance and the layout of the course. We leave for Rome on Thursday so that is pretty exciting. Kathy (one of the 2 instructors) informed us that something on the Trevi fountain is a fake. I am going to have to keep my eye out for that. For dinner, Tara cooked chicken in a tomato sauce with pasta. We all sat around and eventually broke out into a hysterical laughing fit about face mountains and the way that Caitlin laughs. This seems to happen often at the dinner table. Kathy and Earl are our neighbors and they said they heard the giggle fit. I don’t know how they put up with 4 crazy girls living next to them but more power to them. Whitney, Caitlin and I met up with Cedric, Matthew and their roommate Joe to go see the sunset up on the top of the hill. However there were too many trees in the way. But we sang musical tunes and took pictures and just enjoyed the scenery. I think I am going to bed at 11 which is the earliest that I have been to sleep since the first night. Bonna Sera!

Monday Metro

Today we went grocery shopping so we could prepare food on our own. We got to ride on the mini metro it was so tiny and cute! But it was also a hassle because tickets only last an hour and it is really confusing. We cooked dinner when we got back; chicken with pesto. It was delicious. We went out after in search of coffee and gelato. In our walk around the city, Whitney found a street performer playing the flute. She danced along with to the music he was playing. It was a really cool moment because there were people watching her and the flautist gave her an appreciative hug after. We found our coffee and went and sat on the steps of the church. The steps are always so crowded with the Italian teens and college age students. We (Whitney, Caitlin, Tara, Cedric and I) just sat there in conversation whilst sipping our coffee. Afterwards we came back to our apartment. It was around 11 o’clock when we got back. There is a bar right below our windows and the people there were being really loud. Whitney and Caitlin were creeping outside of our shutters at the bar-goers and one guy saw them. He continued to look up at our window for a solid 10 minutes while Whitney and Caitlin giggled back and forth between narrations of what he was doing to seeing if he was still doing it. It was a funny moment.

Sunday

After unpacking and going to the open house the group decided that we would meet up for dinner. We went to this outdoor sitting area of a restaurant and all had wine and good Italian food (note: I did not drink a full glass). I had pizza that had basil, mozzarella and tomatoes on it. It was pretty delicious. Afterwards a few of us tried to find a popular place to dance but stumbled upon a house party instead. The music was shockingly loud. We were taught that the Italians had a set quiet hours’ time and we could hear the music from above the street it was on (hence why we thought it was the dancing location). We quickly got out of that situation after asking for better directions. After not finding the club the group split up, some looking for more nighttime entertainment while others (myself included) just came back to the apartment and talked. The Italians obviously do not sleep at night because there is a bar right below our window. No one was in said bar when we came back around 11 but by 1 the place was crazy crowded. And loud! I do not know when they have a chance to go to bed because it seems as if they were out there forever.

Day One...and Two

I left for italy on the 20th of May and arrived at the Italian Airport in Rome at 10:25 (that includes going through customs). The plane ride over was about 9 hours long and I barely slept. The woman sitting in front of me would slowly lower her seat back until it was squishing me to death. And the nice lady sitting to my left would ask her to put it up during meals but she would only sit it up for like 10 minutes before she would start the lowering process all over again. The couple sitting to my right were also very nice! This was their 6th trip to Italy. They are a retired couple (Dawn and Ed were their names). They talked to me about my trip and were very reassuring about how much fun we were going to have. On the plane I watched the tv (hello Big Bang Theory episode!) and a movie (Narnia: the Voyage of the Dawn Treader). I also listened to Adele's new cd. After we left the airport we got on a bus from Rome to Perugia. I slept pretty much the whole 2 - 3 hours. We stayed at the Gio Hotel. A group of us girls went out to find food but everything was closed! I ended up getting yogurt and an apple from a grocery store but yogurt is different here. It tasted very sour. The hotel served us dinner at 8. We had pasta, salad, a turkey leg (maybe), potatos and mousse for dessert. It was wayyy too much food! I went to sleep at 10:30 probably.


This morning I woke up and the hotel served us crossiants for breakfast. Then the three other girls I am living with and myself got into a taxi and went to our apartments. It is wonderful! It is the closest one to the university and we have a washing machine and a stove (which was not promised). Pictures shall be up soon!


Love,
Emily :)
also if any of this is misspelled...ignore it. spell check is in italian :X

And so it Begins.

Hello person reading this blog!
My name is Emily and this site is going to be the location in which I chronicle my trip and studies in that lovely, boot-shaped country called Italy. May 20th through June 29th I will be travelling with my fellow students to Perugia where we will be studying the Italian Renaissance as well as the Italian language. I am an Art History and Studio Art minor so this class is right up my alley. I am so excited to start this trip! All I have left to do is pack...everything. Attempting to stuff 5 weeks of clothing into a suitcase that is only allowed to be 50 pounds will prove to be quite difficult. Hence the reason I haven't started yet. Below is a photo of the town that I will call home for this class. Stunning, right?

As a class we will also be going to visit Rome which means seeing the Coliseum, the Pantheon and other architectural and artistic works that I used to only see in text books. Now I am going to be living within those pages. I shall also be making a wish in the Trevi Fountain a la The Lizzy McGuire Movie or When In Rome (both the Olsen Twins and Kristen Bell's version) or any other film where the characters end up in Rome. We will also be going to Florence, Italy and Assisi. It is also in my hopes to travel to Venice and Verona while I am there during one of the free weekends. Hopefully that will work out.  
Well, this is a pretty basic and brief introduction to my trip. I shall be posting photos and journal-like entries daily so be sure to visit again to see where in the world I am and what in the world I am doing.

Much love,
Emily