So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

So this is it, the end of the Italian tour. I left Boston about a month ago and five cities later I'm ready to call it a trip. There was a big shift around the time of Milan, from the rush of the first few weeks into the more relaxed and personal pace of the last couple. The switch couldn't have come at a better time. It's not like I've done less each day, but it became not as focused on the individual places visited and more about what I wanted to explore or see one last time. The relaxed attitude probably lead to the slacking in updates (sorry guys), but the terrible wifi also played a part. Anyway, I digress. Venice. Venice has been amazing. We've been here about four days; the first few scheduled with island tours and a trip to the Doge palace but activities have been less frequent with more time to burn in between lectures. This lack of structure has really allowed me to explore the alleys and bridges so unique to the floating city and in a sense...make Venice my own. Well, as much as one can own a city in four days. I have a favorite cheap pasta place, a favorite coffee shop, a favorite restaurant. I only ever experienced this same sort of pull from Florence but to put it one way; if I were dropped into Venice without so much as a map I could formulate a pretty fantastic daily routine.

Yesterday we went island hopping to Murano, famous for its glass, and saw a glass master at work using a long metal pipe to shape molten glass into a chandelier. The amount of craftsmanship that must go into every handmade glass set is staggering. That was our last official activity, which we ended by presenting Professor Rappaport with a Hawaiian shirt and a round of applause. Grace, William, John and I ended up following the Professor for the rest of the day while others went to the beach as he entranced us with tales of a beautiful mosaic on a neighboring island in a forgotten church. Torcello. Grandma I know no other way to describe the scenery and beauty of this island than the farms around Chichester if they were twenty degrees warmer. It was beautiful and besides the main drag absolutely untouched. The church was beautiful but the island really stole the show. From there we moved on to Burano, home of multicolor everything before the storms kicked in and we headed home.

Today the rains continued, and after a real late start I hit the markets for some last minute trinkets before saying goodbye to the city in the Lagoon.

I'll probably touch up this blog when I get home, fix grammar and all those things as well as upload a lot of pictures to really flesh it out but for now I think this is goodnight. See you next time Italy. OH! One last thing. I was able to find the place where Emma was roped into singing with those random tourists in Venice and the weapons stand I saw two years ago! Whether that's related to the trinket I found...anyway I'll be home soon!

 

Land of the Boats

We arrived in Venice yesterday, a little weary from our long journey but certainly excited to see the floating city first-hand. Let me say the view from the train station is simply gorgeous. As far as first impressions go, Venice knows what it's doing. That being said, lugging around suitcases certainly isn't the best way to enjoy any city so our first stop was the hotel. For the first two nights, I'm staying in this cozy little converted house with all the small, cramped staircases required for authenticity. My room has a chandelier and a polished mosaic floor. I feel like a royalty.

After settling in John, William, a couple others, and I decided to go find lunch and do a little exploring. This including walking up and down Strata Nova and eventually running into another group of people from the trip AND finding the largest grocery store I've seen in Italy. Seriously. I wish I could say we then decided to roam further, but we were still pretty knackered and headed back for a siesta.

Dinner was the driving factor in getting us up again. John, William, Grace and I found this amazing pasta place right on Strata Nova with the highest prices I have yet paid for pasta, but well worth the extra few euros. I think one of my biggest fears when I go home will be trying to enjoy pasta that isn't cooked to perfection…The dinner was accompanied by a couple guitar players who showed up and started playing through the meal and really added to the atmosphere and feel of Venice.

Today was our first official day in Venice...so we all slept in. First movement occurred around 10:00 after some light reading when William and I found a coffee shop for some cappuccino and croissants. An hour or so later we realized that wasn't nearly a decent enough breakfast so we rounded up some compatriots and stormed the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. This was a minor let-down to say the least, the only saving grace being delicious dumplings.

FINALLY! We saw the city. At two, a guide named Mose showed us around Venice from the southern to northern lagoon (it's not a very big city), he explained the various islands surrounding the city, the churches, the fountains...easily one of our best guides yet. Mose was articulate enough and good humored to answer all questions and explain places like the square of St. Mark in fascinating detail. At four we parted ways until tomorrow. Now, William and I are preparing to work on our final presentation due Tuesday and what to do to cap off a day of mediocre meals. It should be a fun one!

 

Milan and stuff

So Milan has been a bit of an experience. It's certainly not a Florence or a Rome, or it hasn't been presented to us in the same way: exploring the history of the city as a primary point of contact. Milan was probably our first fully modern experience of a city in Italy. Starting with a guided tour through a few of the main streets on Wednesday hitting the Duomo and the major galleria before turning to a hole-in-the wall sandwich shop and then headed back to the hotel for lectures in the afternoon. I never recall the lectures as well as I do the cities or the experiences...which is probably a bad thing. Anyway that was the day of our second set of lectures which went alright, just far too many in a row. This was done to open up Friday which I'm eternally grateful for now, just not at the time. The night was capped by going back into Milan for a group dinner in a small family restaurant that we really dominated the top floor of with our antics. A wonderful, if busy, day making the food taste probably three times as good.

Thursday began with two amazing marketing talks: the first focused on coffee and the second a more broad discussion on Italy design tactics. They were probably my favorite lectures of the trip. Focusing in on what coffee companies are doing to expand the market and push to the far east where coffee is seen as a sign of wealth and when a nation like China suddenly develops a middle class...well the possibilities are endless. What really surprised me was the relationship to increase in income and increase in coffee consumption being almost 1:1! To cap off the morning Professor Rappaport talked about wave harmonics and then we were let loose upon the city. William, Grace, and I along with a few others decided to do the typical thing one does in Milan and go shopping. Some for a blazer, others for a purse, but I really had no intentions of buying anything. Of course that's before I found a tropical bucket hat and an English soccer jersey, so I guess Milan caught another in its web of fashion. After a long day on our feet we headed home to relax before dinner and take care of things like laundry. Grace got me hooked on Smallville which took up an embarrassing amount of time last night, only justifiable because we didn't have class today…

...So I took full advantage of that and did not arise until around 10:30. Grace, John, and I started what remained of the day with some pool before heading into Milan searching for this aquarium we'd discovered online, the third oldest in Europe! We took a relatively long way exploring the parts of the city outside the general scope of fashion and dense cobble-stone streets. The aquarium was relatively small but well worth the small entry fee. It had this amazing outdoors turtle exhibit where we spent far too much time watching as the turtles tried to climb on a sunken log. After that we strolled through the nearby park and got some, wait for it, Italian Ice which we consumed at the base of a statue of Napoleon III. At this point we were all a little tired but decided to check out the rest of the park and see what we could. The end result being that we found the hokiest American restaurant known to man and couldn't resist the call of burgers and fries. Horrendous food. Absolutely horrendous. In fact I'm starting to feel a little funny….

 

The long road to Milan, and a lack of sleep along the way

Today we explored the wonderful world of food. Starting off at a family farm learning about cheese production on the small scale and learning from one very interesting individual about sausage making and flour production in a very scary little barn with far too many dolls than necessary for general farm activities. After that we went to a larger production facility with an incredibly vast cheese store room worth over 10 million Euro...quite cheesy if you ask me.What really struck me is I didn't know enzyme from a cow's stomach had to be added to milk in order to make cheese...like so many other things we feel comfortable eating, who came up with this first? And why?

We had a wonderful lunch to follow all the cheese complete with copious amounts of cheese and a cheesy ravioli. I think I'll be good without cheese for a few days.

Following that we went to a wine museum and did some science experiments! I'm not kidding, flashbacks to my 4^th grade science fair project using red cabbage as a pH indicator. I'm not really sure what the intent behind playing with red cabbage juice was, but I was entertained.

This was our final day in “Parma” as we were to set out for Milan the next day.

We took some detours on the trip to the capital of high fashion. Along the way we stopped at this amazing automobile museum in Torino that explained the entire history of cars from conception to modern supercars with a healthy excess of Fiat and Ferrari. This was followed by an unfortunately brief trip to a film museum where I could have easily have spent an entire day. Starting with pre-cinema techniques of shadow puppets and optical illusions this museum took us through the entire process of the first films, amazing sets, and all the things that go into making a movie showing clips from almost every classic. After all that, we were royally fried and finally made it to our hotel in the suburbs of Milan.

Today we finally took to the streets of the big city. Beginning early with croissant, we high-tailed it out of the suburbs and into the city proper where we had a 2:30 hour tour of Milan's main castle, galleria, and Duomo. It was a fantastic tour and I really can't wait to dive back into the city for the rest of the week. Alas, that was the only taste we were given today before being whisked back to the hotel for some wonderful presentations that took around 3 and a half hours to finish. This ate up our afternoon but in return gives us a free Friday so in the end...well worth it. We ended today with our group dinner in this fantastic little restaurant with probably the best olive oil of the trip. I ate way too much but I mean, when else am I going to be able to eat so much fantastic food?

 

Deep Space Parma

Captain's log...stardate 69871.6 We have successfully set up base in Parma, a quaint little city away from the crowds of Florence and Rome but with some of the best food I've had this trip. Yesterday on our way from Tuscany we stopped by the Bologna train station, the Ducati factory and the Lamborghini museum. Starting with Bologna, we were able to see the control room for what seemed to be all of Italy's high speed trains. It was a fantastic opportunity to see a rail system fully committed to getting people where they need to go and in quick order, especially all those amazing screens filled with every train line and the massive work stations of all the technicians. There wasn't much else to the visit besides walking into the nearby station to look at a train stop…seemed like an odd diversion, but I suppose the train did stop nicely!

After that, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed off to the factory. Besides walking through Plug Power and General Electric I'd never been on a factory floor before and it was pretty awesome. Ducati assembles all their bikes by hand on site so we were able to see the stages from engine assembly to the final product testing. We were told about the six models of bikes Ducati produces and their practice of worker accountability by attaching a piece of paper with the ID number of the guy who completed each part so they can track him/her down if it has a flaw. If it does...retraining must be done. Definitely not my ideal work environment in constant fear of...retraining...but for someone more into mechanics or physical creation it's probably quite enjoyable.

The Lamborghini museum was more of a showroom for the rich and powerful, but I still had fun. There were some awesome concept cars I was able to take pictures of, but overall it was more fun watching professor Rappaport looking like a kid in a toy store and listening to him talk about the cars with such glowing enthusiasm.

Today we started our learning with Guglielmo Marconi's villa and the start of wireless communication. We had an awesome tour of his lab and this video of the first successful wireless telegraphy broadcast over the Atlantic Ocean, one of Marconi's fantastic achievements...done while he casually sipped on hot cocoa in the ripping winds of Newfoundland.

This was followed by a trip to Northern Cross Radiotelescope near Bologna which was absolutely breath taking. The sheer scope of the dish arrays and the various setups for looking into deep space was one of the most fantastic views I've ever had. I'll see if I have a photo…

Anyway that's all for now! On to food tasting tomorrow...

This is the End (Of Florence)

Yesterday, we went to Pisa. The first thing I learned is that the town is not spelled with a “z.” The second is that Pisa is a university town housing one of the best technical schools in all of Italy, so I have new ideas for study abroad…

We met our guide at the train station and were given a small tour of the quaint-ish town with its single main street and small little shops, that is of course until we crossed the river into the tourist district where their architecturally unsound tower is located. Coming out from a typically crowded Italian street the world seems to open up into this magnificent courtyard with the tower, church, and baptistry. These three structures were all designed around the same time to create one of the most beautiful areas in all of Italy. Problem was they didn't factor in underground water sources. Not only does the tower tilt, but a slight dip is also noticeable in the front of the church AND the baptistry. No building is safe from the wrath of mother earth. But perhaps the best part is they realized the tilt of the tower before construction was completed, so they actually tried to correct it! The end result being that the top of the tower tilts in the opposite direction making it more the banana tower of Pisa.

Everything is done in marble, and on this beautiful day it hurt to even look in the buildings' direction! We quickly scurried into the baptistry with perhaps the best sound engineering this side of an Opera hall, and then into the church before climbing that which cannot stand straight. Apparently most people have to wait in a massive line to climb the leaning tower of Pisa but thanks to advance reservations we were up and climbing in minutes. The stairs were a bit off and disconcerting but the view at the top was fantastic! (Don't worry, I got pictures; including typical tourist-y ones trying to hold the tower up.) After all that we headed to this awesome museum on the history of computing devices starting with mechanical contraptions from the early 1900s that were far more accurate than the first vacuum-tube computers. The only thing these early model computers had on calculators was speed. Probably the coolest exhibit was this detailed history on personal computers with such devices lost in history such as the Apple II and Commadore 64. I even got to try out some “ancient” computer games on the latter, and got my name on the high-score list. So, kind of a big deal.There was a big focus on Olivetti at the museum too, an Italian computer manufacturer responsible for the first desktop computer and for creating magnetic strip memory, the precursor to the floppy disk.

We had to run to the train station after that, since very few trains were running during the railroad strike, but we made it in the nick of time.

Today was a big day for walking. We started bright and early with a trip up the Duomo to probably one of the most fantastic views of the city of Florence. The only requirement for entry being the decrepit 500 year-old staircase to the tippy top. Well worth the hike, especially the part that runs around the inside of the church giving a view at this massive painting representing heaven and hell. Freaky, but really cool. After that Grace, Calvin, and I joined Professor Rappaport, his wife, and Lauren for lunch at this secluded little panini shop near Ponte Vecchio. The menu was in Italian...so I was adventurous and picked a sandwich with the coolest name. After that, we hiked up the bell tower of the Duomo to another stunning city view and stayed almost above the clouds for as long as we could. Not much can really be said about the view besides an entire sea of red roofs that stretches to the mountains in the distance. Our day was that, and stairs.

Florence came to a close this evening with a wonderful group dinner of ravioli and potatoes. Bittersweet, considering we get to see the Lamborghini factory tomorrow, but I'll certainly miss the city of the Medicis. Off to Parma in the morning!

 

Dog Days in Florence

What better thing to do on a free day than sleep in? So sleep in I did...until of course Florence roused me into leaving my comfortable bunk. The day was spent being wonderfully lazy with my new book Shantaram through most of the afternoon hanging with friends on the back patio. This was of course until the time came to head out to the symphony! A group of us went to see a performance at the Opera Firenze which was absolutely beautiful (while I was awake).

Monday we went to see the museum of Galileo to explore topics for our second technology presentation. While the anatomically correct birth problems were tempting William, Grace, and I decided to focus on telescopes. Luckily the museum had an entire collection of ones designed by Galileo himself of both refractive and reflective designs. After that, the three of us headed out to lunch in the Piazza Uffizi and a wonderful afternoon in at the hostel. I haven't gotten lazy, I swear! The afternoons off have been greatly appreciated and my legs have never been so happy.

I know I said I would update more and that's still a goal. There's so much to say about every day in this beautiful city but I feel bad about making posts too long…Anyway, today we had an incredibly long tour of the Museo Uffizi with a guide explaining the various stages of Renaissance art and the wonderful Roman busts present in the palace. Quite ironic they had so many busts of Marcus Aurelius...this was followed by a scurrying back to the hostel for two presentations on essentially food copyrights and navigational instruments. The food copyright lecture was really about what "made in Italy" means, talking about the special restrictions that the EU recognizes for Italian made products that are special to particular regions and cannot be replicated anywhere else. The French follow a similar process with their wines and call the special attributes of the location "terroir." Perhaps it's really just a marketing scheme, or is there something to it? The big takeaway was while the European Union respects these labels, the United States doesn't and it's caused quite its share of trade disputes. Anyway that's all for now!

Florence, home of the Ninja Turtles

We arrived in Florence on Friday, straight off of the high speed train and straight into the arms of a beautiful hostel. Rooms are cramped but it definitely keeps us out and about in the city which is fine by me.

A tour guide brought us around some of the major sites in Florence such as the Duomo and Uffizi Piazza before leaving us on the Ponte Vecchio and releasing us into the streets. (Possibly because the tour had already gone on for two hours and we were quite starved). Dinner was found in an Asian fusion restaurant with incredibly amazing Japanese ramen noodles that had me crying for a solid hour. After all that, a group of kids decided to stay in while another few took to the cobblestone alleys discovering Piazza Santo Spirito; a remarkable square on the far side of the river with all the youth and livelihood you could possibly imagine. While the walk began to seem a little sketchy on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, all of a sudden everything opened into the beautiful Piazza with a church on one end and a wonderful green space in the middle with dancing of all varieties.

Yesterday the group was taken to an art restoration facility focused primarily on inlaid stone pieces. Taking beautiful paintings and recreating them out of pieces of stone cut with what looked to be a longbow with a sharp metal draw-string. It reminded me a lot of the inlaid wood workshop I visited last year except maybe a bit more impressive...the stone came in all shapes and sizes of various colors, some such as Lapis Lazuli coming all the way from Afghanistan. We also saw doors from the Duomo's Baptistry being restored for the first time in centuries! This was followed by a wonderful panini lunch and a lecture on the Medici family. The lecture focused on their rise to power from the humble beginnings as a banking family.

I decided I would cave and see what an Italian Burger King is actually like, (I can feel my Dad cringing as he reads this part) so last night I partook in a Whopper with a Strawberry smoothie. Far from the vanilla milkshake I had originally tried to order but I don't think even delicious vanilla goodness could have saved that burger. An experience? Yes. Worth repeating? No. We ended the night at an Irish pub singing karaoke which went about as well as one can imagine, I certainly did some terrible things to some wonderful songs.

Today we have off, so I think I'll go explore this city's laundromats and maybe attend a symphony. Common stuff.

 

Road so far

So it's been a couple days...last I wrote we had just visited the Vatican city on Monday so we've got four days to catch up on! The highlights of course are Herculaneum, where we spent the last two nights...finally made it back to the ruins with no time restraints!


This Tuesday Grace and I had our presentation on the plant life in the Colosseum, (which of course we did incredibly awesome on, in no part due to the fact we went first and had no standard to uphold.). We began by focusing in on the transportation of animals and the spores they brought to Rome from all over the world. This gave a great introduction to Grace leading into some incredible slides on Founder's theory and other parts of population biology. In short, we killed it. A few other groups went before we broke for lunch and headed to St. Clemente in the afternoon.


St. Clemente is a church that really didn't take "no" for an answer. It was once a Roman apartment complex with a Mithral cult building in the back. That was leveled sometime in the first few centuries C.E. when the land then became home to a beautiful Catholic church which was razed by the Normans in the 12th Century. The final building is the Church visible above ground. Here's the thing, all three stages of life for this site are preserved, one on top of the other. The "modern" church has a back staircase that leads to the ancient church...and the apartments underneath it! I think my favorite part was once you descend into the lowest level, you can hear the rushing water of an underground river which the Romans piped and diverted to be a continuously flowing source of water to their buildings. That, and these arches are capable of holding two more structures on top of the first!

We finished our last night in Rome in a wonderful little restaurant near the St. Clemente with perhaps the best spaghetti carbornara of the trip and we found some gelato for dessert down the street. In fact, it's the shop Laura treated us to gelato at last year when we finished visited the Colosseum!

Wednesday we left for Herculaneum at 7:30 in the morning, stopping to visit Mt. Vesuvius along the way. We took the bus up most of the trail but made the final ascent ourselves, overlooking the entire bay of Naples on one side and the deep crater of Vesuvius on the other. Come to think of it, the mountain was smoking a little...Giana did some death-defying poses atop the smoldering peak but I was pretty happy standing on two feet and enjoying the crater from there.

After the volcano, we ended up in a small vineyard for lunch with a magnificent feast all grown on the slopes of Vesuvius. The best food I've had this trip so far. Between courses the owner of the property even took us to the winery his family has been maintaining for over two-hundred years!
Finally, stuffed and content, we ended up in Herculaneum and were given a few hours before a massive dinner and almost dying of stuffage.

Yesterday we made it to the ruins of the old Roman town destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 A.D. I’d actually been there last year but circumstances compressed our time in the ancient city which luckily was not the case this time around. Stemming off of the main group Grace and I were able to find the old baths, the theater, the temple dedicated to Augustus, and so much more! Our trip adviser also got us into some buildings that are generally not open to the public. This included places like the house of the Stag which was amazing and covered in wall paintings from floor to ceiling, and a viewing room for an ancient Roman boat.

That afternoon, we were introduced to the blend of pagan beliefs and Catholicism that has sprung up in the Naples region and borders somewhat on the hilarious with rituals that seem out of place in both cultures. These include barefoot treks through the streets of the city and a strange interpretation of age. This was followed by a gentle night in and a midnight walk in the garden of the hotel.

That about brings us up to now where I'm writing on a high-speed train en route to Florence! Hopefully my next post will come sooner so I can get into a little more detail, and more pictures!

 

Vatican City

Today was the official trip to the Vatican. After a couple lectures on Ground Penetrating Radar and its effect on Archaeology we headed to the Vatican City Museum with the lecturer on Art Restoration we had earlier in the week. Like last year, it was magnificent.

There are pluses and minuses to having a Renaissance Art historian for a tour guide in the Vatican museum; on the one hand, you learn all you could ever want to about tapestries and painting techniques used on frescoes and oil paintings. On the other, any kind of ancient statue or mosaic is rushed passed and never mentioned. Being a fan of ancient Rome, while this focus on the Renaissance was different from last year and mildly interesting the fact we completely skipped half the material to spend more time on the paintings was slightly annoying. I'll definitely want to go back without a tour group at some point in my life. While the extra info is nice, being on no ones schedule but your own will be immensely refreshing. Grace and I followed Professor Rappaport and Lauren back through the museum after we reached the Sistine Chapel to catch up on a few last exhibits before getting into St. Peter's Basilica. Apparently there were whole wings to the museum we never even came into contact with! On the way back through the museum, we came across a long hallway full of jewelry and maps which was...an interesting combination but naturally the Vatican was able to pull it off in style. Afterwards we stumbled into another hall full of early medieval sculptures and paintings which seemed Roman yet were extremely catholic focused. This could easily be chalked up to Rome being a Christian empire in its later years but something definitely seemed different in the design from general Roman fare...From there Grace and I went to St. Peter's Basilica where we spent the better part of an hour just staring. From the statues to the perspective tricks making it seem like the church goes on for miles, the whole experience was truly beyond words.

After that, a couple of us learned of the magical English-speaking paradises in many European cities: Irish Pubs. With a wonderful bar atmosphere and soccer on the televisions it was a welcome reprieve from the educated and the classical. Two plates of nachos were eaten in celebration of the discovery of "Scholoar's Pub" and it was a fantastic night.

This is the beginning of my last few days on this terrible wifi so hopefully picture upload will become a real possibility soon. I have a presentation tomorrow on botany in the Colosseum so wish me luck!

 

Assault on Hadrian's Keep

Today was an interesting one. Technically our day off, a large percentage of us thought that idea ridiculous when it comes to visiting a city as magnificent as Rome and set our alarms for eight in order to get to Vatican City and see the Pope. While we probably didn't have to arrive at 9:30 for a noon blessing the wait wasn't especially bad standing outside St. Peter's Basilica when it turned out the mass happening inside was televised. When the clock did finally strike noon the Pope appeared at the window of his apartment far off to the right of the square and it was magnificent. He addressed the crowd in Spanish much to the joy of the Spanish tourists who every so often would cheer louder than the Pope's microphone. It was definitely worth the early rise.

We split up after that with a few of us going off in search of an interesting church with a giant stone sun-dial, others made lunch a priority, and the last few decided to go check out a12th century castle that used to be the home of the Popes and was built on top of Hadrian's mausoleum. I ran off in search for the castle. Exploring the six floors of Castel Sant'Angelo was an enormous undertaking when you take into account all the views from balconies, the inner rooms full of mythological paintings, and works of art worthy of any museum.  In addition to the deep history of the Castle, the hours became a blur and before long it was late into the afternoon.

After a long walk along the Tiber, I promptly fell asleep when I arrived back at the apartment, only to be rudely reminded of an actual assignment I needed to get done. Sleep was pushed off in favor of completing a presentation on the biology present in the Colosseum from all the different seeds brought in by exotic animals in Roman times. Grace and I present on Tuesday, should be fun!

I'll try and work on getting pictures back up with each post, the wireless is quite terrible so trying to upload anything is a tremendous task. I'll also try to start incorporating Crowley into more of the shots for fun. On to my last few days in Rome! A city I'll never forget.

Modern Physics

These past two days have been spent in the realm of modern technologies, taking a step away from the ancient and more towards the future of mankind...but don't worry, we still managed to sneak in another view at some ancient ruins.

It started Friday with a trip to an observatory where we had lectures on the movements of planets, space debris, and touched on the idea of dark matter. These were accompanied by a 3D movie so obviously we were all pretty enthralled. Shortly after we walked around the various exhibits of the observatory open to the public which included relics of ancient star gazing, illustrations of various planetary movement beliefs over time, and this scale that would display your weight as if you were on countless other planetary bodies. Clearly the highlight.

After that we traveled deep under the Gran Sasso to a research station built into the tunnel that passes under the mountain, one of the only subterranean laboratories in the world. The underground location is a necessity to stop as many other particles and waves as possible interfering with the readings besides the elusive neutrino. In a sense, it's a giant clean room to the Sun's rays and various other radiations present in the atmosphere and less so at 3400 mwe (3400 meters of water equivalent of radiation shielding). The lab is set up with three research tunnels allowing three different experiments to be run at once. Currently, the tubes are mostly in states of transition, however there was one experiment being conducted on dark matter where the scientists were attempting to cut out every possible interaction a sample material could could have with the outside world...and see if they could detect a change in the material. Perhaps this is the way we will catch the substance that makes up 90% of the known universe? The lab was very bond villain-esque and definitely worth the lengthy drive. It took us out of the Renaissance and deep into the topics a lot of the technical students are interested in.

The three-hour bus ride returned us home by 8:45, after the grocery store had closed so while most went out for dinner Quan and I decided to cook some pasta and save a couple Euros. The day ended with a late-night walk through Rome that was really quite amazing.


Today was a far simpler affair....in terms of schedule. We started off with a guest lecture on painting techniques of the 1600s and various restorations of famous works around Italy. The guest professor approached these topics from a technical side too which was fantastic as she explained the different types of dyes and binders used in paint back before there were really tried and true tactics to getting the colors you love. She likened the process of making just the right mixtures to alchemy more than actual science, and explored recent efforts to expand on these techniques as well. It was also the first lecture everyone stayed awake for! I'm excited she'll be our tour guide at the Vatican as well, but I hope her knowledge on sculptures is just as vast.

The rain kicked in shortly before noon and we were cut loose in the city. Grace, Zach, and I found a wonderful little restaurant just off of the Piazza that houses the Pantheon where I tried fried quail for lunch! I'm certainly no food critic though, really it tasted no different from chicken. In the afternoon the three of us went off in search of the Roman baths, beautiful ruins I missed my last time in town.

After a long hike to the outskirts of the city, we found ruins and they did not disappoint. Massive arches and buildings some of the largest I've seen with wonderful displays explaining each room and the different mosaics that have survived the millennia.The ruins were set in a nice little park setup, it was the perfect way to end a day of touring before grabbing a quick dinner and spending the evening with friends.

On the way back we passed the Circus Maximus and I got this beautiful picture of the clouds above the ancient race course!

 

The Kings of Old

Yesterday, the main destination was the Palatine Hill and the Colosseum. We met our tour guide Tom at the entrance to the archaeological park that houses the palaces of Augustus and Domitian along with the ancient forum. We even were able to see the site of Romulus's hut which the Romans apparently kept in good condition next to the home of the Emperor. Perhaps the biggest points of the tour discussed how the palaces of the Emperors changed with each dynasty or individual ruler trying to leave his mark in marble. The hill is also where Mussolini decided to camp out, maybe as an attempt to liken himself to the ancient dictators? Since then his mansion has been turned into a museum of the ancient ages that houses busts discovered at the site and beautiful models of the different buildings that were built on the hill during the different ages of Ancient Rome. This wonderful tour ended with a walk through the Renaissance gardens before we headed to the Colosseum. Unfortunately the Colosseum section of the talk was quite short and not too informative, but that might be due to my fairly decent background in Roman goings on. Anna gave a better tour for free last year.While some major points were hit, some of the nuances that really bring magic to the ancient structure were lost. With such an awe-inspiring monument, one might hope a tour comes with that same sort of marvel.

The group dispersed after that and somehow Grace and I ended up separated from the rest so we wandered around and eventually ended up at the Ducati cafe! Wonderful atmosphere and fantastic service but alas, Italian burgers just don't stand up to American beef. The place was decorated with old bikes and racing gear with black wall paint and a decent alternative soundtrack. Overall, probably a 3/5.

Roman Catholicism's impact on Italy was the lecture of the day and quite honestly...I fell asleep. I was up for questions! But after a day on my feet, my brain decided to throw in the towel. I certainly enjoyed the back-and-forth discussing the differences in culture between Italy and the United States and the inevitable intertwining of church and state. Obviously it's a lot different when the Pope is next door but it seems like Italy has really tried to separate itself from the Papal state where it makes sense to and is modernizing appropriately.

Today we went to Enea research labs to learn about fusion and furthering the human races' separation from natural gas and oil. The lab itself was amazing, especially when we received a personal lecture on the electromagnetics of a tokomak fusion reactor. The tour ended with a glimpse at the reactor and the war games-esque super computer that powers simulations and tests of the reactor.

Finally, we stopped by the aqueduct park with our tour guide from yesterday and learned about the Roman practices of water filtration and the rebuilding that went on during the Renaissance. Since some aqueducts still were reasonably operational from Roman times many Renaissance engineers realized it'd be easier to just refurbish and reuse. We also talked about the particulars of the aqueducts and their maintenance. The walk through the park was quite calming an nice, with just the right amount of information and discussion for a hot afternoon.

Tonight we plan to head to a restaurant near a mountain of olive oil pottery, an ancient landfill!

Rome In a Day

Today was the official "first day" in Rome. A group of us had forgotten to visit the grocery store the night before for breakfast food so we all met up at a quaint little cafe for cappuccino and pastries. After meeting the rest of the group we spent a good part of the day walking through Rome and just taking in the sights, our end destination being a museum dedicated to Leonardo Da Vinci just down the street from the Spanish Steps. The museum focused on physical models molded after Da Vinci's designs, each illustrating a key concept of Renaissance engineering. Professor Rappaport told us to keep our eyes open for potential project ideas...but honestly I'm not seeing much I enjoy about the man. True, there are some very interesting ideas but most certainly seem like stretches considering none were actually built by the man in question. Perhaps I'm being a bit judgemental...

After that, we climbed a small hill at the back of the Piazza and ended up on a small lookout point from which we could see almost all of Rome in a single gaze. From there we went to the Trevi fountain where we were let loose for a couple hours to get lunch and explore a bit before an afternoon lecture on Roman Emperors. All of the guys ended up at a small pizza and pasta place enjoying the Italian classics before finding ourselves on a quest for gelato. We did not end our search empty handed.

Before long it was time to enter this strange academic building just down the road from these wonderful Etruscan ruins and found ourselves at the Italian home of the University of Iowa, Northeastern's Italian partner. The talk on Emperors featured some interesting opinions of Nero and Caligula, the guest speaker took these two long considered to be mad men and spun their rules likening them to the Kings and rulers of Asia. Rulers who pined after absolute control and flaunted this control. Unlike the rule of Augustus who tried to hide his power and maintain a popularity with the people, Caligula and Nero cared little for that opinion focused far more on their own divinity. This opinion of God-kings really wasn't shared by the Roman people who disposed of both rather violently. Considering Nero went into his rule with any type of plan is definitely an opinion I had not heard before, and I continued to be flabbergasted by his relative dislike of Augustus. The horror! Anyway the Roman tilt of this adventure continues tomorrow at the Colosseum followed by a lecture on Particle Physics. Should be fun!

The Arrival

Since our arrival we've really been moving on all cylinders. A crazy schedule, but not an unwelcome one. We began our activities in Rome with a tour of the Trastevere neighborhood (across the Tiber from Rome proper and where we'll be living for the next nine days), learning the history of this Rome-outside-Rome which eventually lead us to a group dinner and stumbling across the Pantheon close to 11:00 PM, I haven't had a chance to catch my breath. Maybe some of the jumble is jet-lag related so we'll see how that goes tomorrow when we visit the Leonardo Da Vinci museum in the Piazza del Popolo.

Our apartment in Rome is far more spacious than I had anticipated, three reasonably-sized bedrooms with a common area and a kitchen! Should be a good setup for group dinners and the like! It also allows us to have a pleasant home base from which to continue our explorations of the ancient city.

I could go on for a little bit about the wonderful 5-course meal that still has me reeling or maybe touch on the change in goods sold by those people who continuously pester you with flashy lights and toothy grins but I simply don't have the strength. I'll check back in tomorrow! For now, enjoy the Pantheon...