Emperor Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana)

First week of classes- DONE! On top of having to go to class, (and getting assignments... what's with that?) it rained literally all week here. not so pleasant to walk around in all day, but on friday we had beautiful weather for our first class trip. Friday we headed east to the Dolomite mountains to visit Villa Adriana. This was the "villa" (more like an incredible city) Emperor Hadrian built for himself (yes himself) during the 2nd century. All day long we walked around, climbed through, photographed, diagramed, and sketched every inch of the massive site! The ruins were really unbelievable- to think that something built just before the bible was written could still be intact was hard to imagine. 

The most infamous thing about the construction though, was that Hadrian constantly experimented with architecture and engineering from examples he'd seen around the world on his years of travel. He had really advanced sewage systems, bathrooms, bath houses, fountains, waterfalls, and so on. A complex like this has not been topped by any built form to date, and has been studied by most of the great architects of our time!

Oh and for those of you who don't know the story of Emperor Hadrian, this guy inherited the position of emperor of from from his mentor (not even a blood relationship). During his reign in the 2nd century Rome had conquered literally every desirable kingdom, land, and power in the entire world. His reign was more powerful than any one person in history- as close as we've come to ever having one single world ruler. Everything/ anything Hadrian wanted was at his fingertips, and he used that power to it's fullest in developing the unbelievable grounds of Villa Adriana. 

Another fun fact: archeologists believe that they've only uncovered 50% of the villa- the other half of it could still be buried under the surrounding farmlands! In my photos on Flickr (link below) i have a photo taken of a model built of the reconstructed site, to give you a better idea of how massive this complex really is.

So to get the full effect of my day's adventures i uploaded quite a few (haha) photos of the day! Click HERE to check them out!

Hope all is well!

sunday, a week later...

Buonasera! (Buongiorno for you guys) 

so last sunday, for those of you who weren't there, we were standing around my gram's table getting ready to pray when someone in my family mentioned where i'd be the following sunday (rome). at that time i never imagined that i'd actually be standing in Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican with tens of thousands of other people while the Pope himself blessed us and sang the ave maria!! It was so amazing... I hear that he comes out and blesses the crowd every sunday at noon, but this sunday happened to be the day of Jesus' baptism so the Pope spoke for about 15 minutes in five different languages. I have a video clip of him speaking to, haha. 

We then took a long walk through Vatican city, across the river up to the Spanish Steps and hung out there in the warm sunshine for a while. It was a really peaceful and beautiful day- i can't wait until it gets warmer here so we dont have to wear so many layers. It was about 50 today, much warmer in the sun and colder in the shade. But the sky gets so blue, its great for picture taking. So for some shots of the day click HERE and check them out!

Love you all!

More Roaming

hello all! so today we had our first cartography class, and it was an adventure. we started off by meeting at our studio in the Collegio Romano and there were handed ancient maps (Nolli maps) of Rome. We were then told where our cartography class would be held (on the other side of the city) and after being asked to pencil in a route to take, we were sent off individually to find our way through the streets to the little studio (door #24) on the other side. Needless to say it took us about an hour for everyone to get there- but getting lost was so much fun. Rome is endlessly dense and amazing. 

For the afternoon and evening, Adam, Laura, and I decided to go for a walk which luckily for us included exploring the Jewish Ghetto to the south, and seeing the Theatro di Marcello, the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon! Words really can't describe all we saw today... it's so surreal. I'll just post all my pictures on my flickr site, so click HERE to see my favorite pictures of the day!

love you all!

Adventures of Day 1

hey everyone!! yay the weather is SOO beautiful here today! we've been exploring all morning. We also went grocery shopping which was an adventure unto itself. There are really only a few people here who speak english! I made friends with an old Italian guy at the deli though who sold me "dolci formaggio per una dolci regazza" (sweet cheese for a sweet lady). We're friends now, and this Asiago is to die for, so i'll definitely be back. 

I can't figure out how to write about each picture specifically on here, so i'll just talk about some of them and the text may or may not match up... sorry

i'm starting to feel like living in rome is like living in a really old and detailed ant farm. there's absolutely no order to this city- we just get around by orienting ourselves with the sun. you cant see anything big for way finding. 

the streets are amazing- they're all so unique. the cobble stones are taking some getting used to though.

here's adam standing by one of the largest cars we've seen on the streets. it's not about gas mileage here, it's about who can get the smallest car to be able to go the most places. 

susie laura and mike and i stopped for cappucinos :-)

haha this is my apartment building!

we're attached to the Chiesa Di San Agnese in Agony catheral, which as you can imagine is unbelievable from the inside. our rooms are the third floor windows in the top left of these two pictures. 

dad, i took the picture of the little man on the bike for you- this guy's using his bike to spin a stone where he's sharpening knives, haha.

The big black door susie is opening in that picture is our front door! it's on Via di Santa Maria Dell' Anime, to the back of the Piazza Navona. It's so big and heavy, i love it. And right inside is a beautiful courtyard that's full of trees (and a shrine to mary)

we came upon several new churches today too such as the central nave of Sopra Minerva. the blue in the vaulted ceiling is incredible.

and oh the pantheon! i'll probably have taken like five hundred pictures of it by the end so here's just the corner. it really is something you have to see to believe.

ok that's all for now! we don't have much going on this weekend and the weather is supposed to be great so i'll have a lot more adventures to show you! love you all!

Arrival!

wow that was a long flight.... but it was so worth it! none of us slept more than an hour. the rest of the time we stared out the window pretending and hoping we could see a shoreline somwhere. I really dont like flying... the turbulence was rough, especially with the cloud cover we kept going in and out of. 

BUT at about 1am your time, 7am our time we met the sunrise coming up over southern france and it was AMAZING. This picture doesn't do it justice of course, but the colors were incredible all bouncing off of the top of the cloud cover. 

and then when the sun was almost up we started to notice shapes within the clouds... mountains! the snowy white peaks of the Pyrenees range on the boarder between france and spain. it was really amazing to see the little villages suck in between the cracks in the mountains, i had to wonder how they arrived there and what, besides scenery caused them to stay? 

Flying over the Italian country side was so cool too. It made me so excited for you mom! the horizon was full of the Dolomiti Mountains and little lakes spotted the rolling hills of tree lines farms. Every so often you'd see a little cluster of an ancient hill town with these amazing terra cotta roofs and impossibly winding roads.

all this excitement just from the plane!

so first impressions of the city: 

(disclaimer: it was freezing and wet all day so i didn't have the best first experience)

rome is a mess! i'm convinced there are no traffic laws, or at least no enforced traffic laws. You'd be insane to attempt driving anywhere around... even the highways leading to and from can be anywhere from 2-5 cars wide. 

and i have yet to meet a friendly roman. They seem pretty rude, but we are tourists in their home and probably seem way too outgoing and interested in the streets they see everyday. 

but the streets, oh my goodness the streets! we walked for hours (yes, in the rain) just exploring the streets. so tight at times we'd have to squeeze up against the walls of the buildings to let little electric cars go by. but every little turn you'd make was like a postcard- so old and picturesque. 

We also stopped into the pantheon on our way to see our studio- amazing. dad, i can't wait for you to see the concrete.... and the bricks... the bricks are amazing! 

and then we have my dorm... i'll post pictures of it sometime when the sun is out and i can get a good shot- it's incredible. the rooms themselves are really old and nasty though, but we'll be fine. There's a giant courtyard inbetween with gardens and planters.... so beautiful. the ceilings are so high with arched doorways and a huge old granite spiral staircase that takes you up right off the streets of rome! its really wonderful... minus the grimey rooms. 

so anyway, i'll put more pictures up when the weather is nicer. Hopefully in the next day or two! For now, i hope you're all well and thanks for checking up on the blog!