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!