As We Descend Into the Tomb

Nov 22

This morning Sam headed out to find a printer near a hotel in the neighborhood that Andrea recommended to us.  How handy!  The place we looked for before was clear out near the Piazza Navona.  Anyway, all went well with that, we didn't even have to pay, I was so relieved.  While Sam was gone I got ready and threw in a little more laundry.  It is drying on the couch now.  I wish we had a clothes line.  Nobody uses driers here as you may know.

Anyway, we had a train to catch to Tarquinia at 10am, so we ran up to Termini and got there a few minutes before the hour.  The couple ahead of us was taking dang forever (Americans.  Ugh.) and this dumb kid kept trying to push buttons on the biglietteria for us so we would tip him.  I literally waved my hand in his face to get him to go away.  Silly boy.

Anyway, we got our tickets, which indicated we still had a few minutes, so we walked over to the binaria (track), which was clear on the other side of the station, so it's a good thing it wasn't leaving right at 10.  We remembered to validate the ticket, then hopped on and sat down for the 1h15m ride.  It was nice to be able to just sit for a while.

The countryside was pretty, but actually reminded me of the stretch the Amtrak takes from Oceanside to LA.  There was even a part that looked like Camp Pendleton, with the sea on the left and a bunch of Mediterranean (obv) houses.  Anyway.

So we got to Tarquinia (pronounced here, not "Tar-kin-ee-uh" but "Tar-kween-yah," which I actually like better, it sounds cute).  The directions I'd gotten said you had the option of taking the bus right from the station or walking into town.  We decided to save the money and walk.  So walk we did.

There weren't any signs for ruins or anything, just a signpost with an arrow for the town, so we headed in that direction.  Only a couple other people had gotten off the train when we did, and they'd all taken the bus.  Absolutely no one else was around.  It felt a little like getting off the train at Thirsk and having to figure out which way to walk on your own.

There were no sidewalks, and the road was turning into a pretty busy highway, with speeds at somewhere above 50kmh, whatever Italians see that as.  We were fording through tallish grass and weeds, and heading towards a hill with a medieval tower, which we assumed was the town (after Etruscan times, the next major settlement was a medieval one).  After trudging for about 20-25 minutes, we realized we were never going to make it, because not only was the hill pretty far away, it was a pretty steep hill.  Sam thought we could make it if we moved more quickly (we also had to allow enough time to check out the museum and the necropolis, and make it back to the train station before 4:30, when the train back left, and it was already almost one o'clock) so we walked a little faster.

I was starting to wonder how in Hades' name these people with the directions had ever made it to the museum in 20 minutes from the train station, when we ran into a barriered part of the highway, with the other side being some kind of irrigation ditch.  We pushed through it for a bit until the weeds were knee-high and we were slipping on some unseen trash or other into deeper holes.  I'd had enough.  So we decided that maybe the bus would be back soon ("but it only comes every 1-2 hours!  And it might not even be running that frequently today!") and walked back to a less weedy area and looked it up on the phone (I am becoming ever more grateful we bought that temporary international data plan).  By the way, nearly every driver on the road was craning necks to look at those odd people high-stepping through weeds on the side of the highway.  Hm.

Turns out the dummies meant it was a 20-minute walk from the museum to the necropolis.  Fantastico.  So we walked back to the train station.  We figured out which bus we needed to take and stood there at the dinky station with no one around and no bus coming for ages.  Fortunately, since our excursion had taken so long, we were back at the station only 10-15 minutes before the next bus was supposed to arrive.  A few wrong-buses and conversations on hooded crows later, the bus came, we hopped on (€.60/each too!) and rode it up to the gates of the medieval wall.

Tarquinia is a cute town.  Like I said, it's a medieval battlement on top of a hill, and you can see from one side to the sea, and from the other to a valley and rolling hills (I'll get to that later).  The roads are narrow and the buildings old and tall.  There were dog-walkers, locals conversing in the street, and a whole road had been closed down (the main one, even) just so they could paint a wall.  We thought about eating something, but we decided instead to tackle the museum first, since it was right by the town gate.

Tarquinia's Medieval walls

Streets of Tarquinia

The Museum of Etruscan Antiquities of Tarquinia (or whatever it was called) was in an amazing old building.  It had a courtyard with a little colonnade and I believe four floors.  The objects in the galleries were nearly all from the necropolis.  There were (possibly) hundreds of sarcophogi or partials.  All the labels were in Italian, but a few of the rooms had interpretive cards you could carry around printed in English.  We were absolutely the only patrons in the whole building.  And it was huge.  There were other cool things, gold jewelry, crematory vases, all kinds of ceramics (apparently the Etruscans went through the Orientalizing Period at the same time as the Greeks because they were in such constant trade for metals.  I didn't know that!).  There were many other awesome objects that I can't recall all of at the moment, but we took a lot of pictures.

They had some frescoes recreated from the tombs, but we only quickly glanced at those because we were obviously on our way up to see the real thing, and we were short on time.  There were also some neat winged horse statues that someone claimed were alone worth the trip from Rome.  I disagree, but they were still impressive.

After browsing the whole building (most of it quickly, I admit), and an "Arrivederci!" from half the staff, we were on our way to the necropolis.  It was a brief-ish walk mostly uphill, but it was, like I said, through cool narrow cobbled streets lined by old buildings.  Everyone was closed for the afternoon break, so again, no snacks.  Or lunch, for that matter.

Medieval churchlet

Eventually we came to the necropolis, got in, and walked around.  The way it works there is the excavated tombs in the grassy field have cement and tiled roofs over a long underground passage to the tomb entrance.  There is a plexiglass window to look through, and it is completely dark down in the pit until you press a button at the bottom of the stairs, and it briefly lights up the tomb so you can see the frescoes.

Crematory urn field

We started by going down into every tomb, but soon realized that we'd never make it with all the dozens of tombs there are.  A few of them that I wanted to see were closed today, which was sad, but most of the ones I was eager to see were open.  It was amazing to be sitting there in the musty darkness looking at the vibrant colors painting scenes from elite Etruscan life from over 2,000 years ago.  I loved it.

A two-roomed tomb (say that ten times fast)

This is a very famous fresco.  Take it all in.

At the edge of the hillside there was a giant map display board that showed where Ancient Tarquinia was in relation to the necropolis.  It was located on another large plateau across the valley, surprisingly quite far away.  Apparently back in those days, an enormous temple to someone or other (Reggina?) stood on the town hilltop and could be seen for miles.  I wish I could see it from back then.

That hilltop to the left of the middle there is the one in question.

After a while, the sun began to get lower in the sky and it was time to head back to the bus stop since we didn't know when it left, so we headed back down the hill.  We waited for a while at the bus stop and talked about where to eat for dinner in Rome.  The bus came a little before 4pm, so we were glad we hadn't dilly-dallied any longer at the necropolis.  It dropped us off and we waited at the station with a bunch of old Italian couples waiting for the train (we imagined they were going on some kind of group vacation-- they had suitcases and were all chatting with one another).  An announcement declared the train was very late (that would never happen if Mussolini was around), so I was glad I knew at least my numbers and a few travel verbs.  Even if I didn't though, the lively old folks sighed and whined and (finally) cheered in unison with every announcement about the train.  We all piled on and were on our way.

The ride back was uneventful, besides the beggarwoman and the non-existant ticket collector.  Oh well.

In Rome we decided to head out to a pizzeria we read about in one of those travel magazines.  I'm so glad we did.  It was amazing.  It was called "Pizzarium" and had Sicilian/Roman style pizza by the slice, and priced by weight.  We got about 3/4kg total of four different kinds and tried them all.  It was delicious.  We got a sun-dried tomato, sweet onion and rosemary, mozarella and potato, and basil and buffalo (cheese).  I like the onion one best, I think.  Sam's was the sun-dried tomato, although he agrees that the onion one was very good.

Bonci's Pizzarium

They use a gas oven, but they make a first-rate pizza

After dinner, we went in search of gelato.  We were looking for recommendations from the same food/travel magazine, but the one we tried first didn't actually exist at the address they printed, and we had walked all over looking for it, so we headed back to the metro to try another, when we spotted a random gelateria and decided to stop there instead.  We tried hazelnut, chocolate truffle, cream, and melting chocolate.  I was disappointed in all of them besides the melting chocolate.  Sam agreed that one was indeed the best, but he was nice enough to let me eat the rest of it.  I don't think we will be returning to that gelateria.

After that we thought about finding a bakery, but most everyone was closing up shop by that point, so we just came home instead.  It was a long, crowded metro ride and there were these women taking up several seats with giants boxes of celery stalks and wine.  Party in the making?

Thanks Be to Robin Hood

Nov 21

Sort of a mixed bag today, but I would say overall quite enjoyable.  We ignored the alarm this morning as we normally do, but this time, when we woke up, it was exactly 11am.  Yikes!  So much for an early start!  We ate breakfast for early lunch (I believe the term for this event is "brunch"...) and I showered and put in some laundry to run while we were gone.  We then hopped onto the metro at Termini and rode it to the end of the line, then hopped onto an urban train and rode it down to Ostia Antica, which is a few stops before the coast.  We got there around 1:30pm.

In ancient Roman times, Ostia was a port town started by the military, and then later turned over to primarily economic function (mostly milling grain, but imports and exports too).  The walk to the ruins from the train station was brief and pretty.  Everything is so green and wet here, and it's beautiful and vegetated everywhere.  Anyway, we got into the ruins for free (thank you Roma Pass!) and wandered around.  I printed off a little easy tour guide thing from Rick Steeves before we came, so we used that to guide us as we walked around.

We wandered through the extensive necropolis first, which was really cool.  There were broken sarcophagi littering the whole area, and partial urns sticking out of the ground (from cremated bodies, you know), and what I loved was that we could walk in and around and through and jump over walls and walk through lower areas and everything (carefully, keeping preservation in mind; we are archaeologists after all).  It was great.  Also, there were only a handful of people at the site the whole time, so we mostly had the place to ourselves.

Look!  Body slots!

Sometimes things are thorny.

We kept walking down the old Roman road through the town and saw the ruined city gate, and several old shops lining the way.  At first I was a little disappointed because I remembered the buildings being significantly taller when we learned about it in one of our classes (by the way, the town layout grid plan was one of or the first instance of implication by the Romans when making new towns, and other town plans that came after followed this pattern.  Also, Ostia was the first Roman colony, and it says/honors that in the inscription on the city gate).  But soon we walked into the greater part of town, and saw that the buildings were much taller, about 60 feet high (Ostia building code).  The sun started going down (I told you it goes down a little before 5-- today it was scheduled for 4:44 exactly) and I got really nervous because archaeological sites here close about an hour before sunset, so we started to rush a little, which was frustrating because there was a lot of cool stuff.  One other disappointing thing was that several of the mosaics, especially at that supposedly sensational Baths of Neptune were covered in weighed-down tarps for the rainy winter.  Quelle dommage.  But there was one great one of Amphititre (that's Neptune/Poseidon's wife) that was uncovered.

Amphititre.  Fishy.

Just a mosaic on a wall in a grassy field, nbd.

We then spent some time in the Square of the guilds, which had some cool mosaics of the different things the various guilds did or sold back in the day (mostly covered in tarps).  Next to that was the main Fora.  There were also several single-family homes and middle-lower class apartment buildings.  That's one other reason that made me want to come to this site instead of Pompeii-- Pompeii is mostly the life of fat comfortable rich people and Ostia, being an industrial port town, is more indicative of how life for "real" Romans was.  There were a few apartment buildings with stairs intact enough for you still to be able to climb, so we went up to the second/top floor of one and had a great view of the whole site and surrounding area.  It was beautiful.

Stitched up?

Near that building there was a pretty well-preserved tavern, with cool mosaics (you could even walk on these ones, uncovered), frescoes on the walls (there were several partial frescoes all throughout the town, even in the necropolis), a marble bar (Sam pretended to serve drinks), and a cool built-in shelving unit with frescoes above it of wares for sale that would've been shelved there for purchase. It was pretty neat.

It comes in pints??

Down the road a bit was a gigantor building known as the Capitolium or something, that was the main temple dedicated I think to the gods that protect the Caesar.  I think?  Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.  Anyway, it was a hugely important building back in the day, and although the marble facing was all gone (carted off as a prize in the Medieval days), it was still an impressive building.  Romans sure knew how to build huge things with brick, let me tell you.  We got to walk up all the stairs to the top and see the main altar, which was neat.

I sat on the bottom step and my feet were almost dangling, fyi.

Across the street from that was an old temple to Roma and Augusta.  A few of the statues were still there, and a couple of them were nearly complete (no heads though).  Near that were the Fora baths, which were the main baths for the area (I think the ones earlier were primarily for wrestlers?).  We walked through the caldarium and saw exposed piping in some degraded walls.  We wandered into a courtyard with some huge Corinthian columns stacked on top of each other, as well as a headless statue of some Imperial dude (headless) in the middle of a meadow.  Around the corner from that were the toilets. In the doorways you could still see the post hole where the pivot for the spinning doors would've been.  Cool!  The toilets were cool too.  I guess when Rick Steeves was there, you could sit on them, but today they were fenced off with chicken wire.

Ostia, Ostia, wherefore art thou Ostia?

We dodged a small group of archaeology students mapping part of the site (for practice, I assume) and went around to a grassy side path and saw stairs leading down into a tunnel.  We went down in there and realized we were inside an old under-floor heating system.  It was really neat.  We went pretty far, but then the vault roof became more solid and it was incredibly dark, so we went back, so as to avoid dead bodies and creepy vermin.  Anyway, it was neat.

We walked back down the main road toward the exit, and just in time, because the park was closed and they were about to start herding people out.  In case you're wondering, I have absolutely no reservations about skipping Pompeii for Ostia.  It was a better experience as far as learning about Roman life, as well as being able to interact with the ruins.  My only thought was that Pompeii may not last much longer because it is disintegrating from too much exposure to tourists and that I might miss it before we get to come back to Italy one day.

Oh!  I totally forgot, there was an awesome theatre before the Fora that I think could seat 4,000 people!  Apparently they still sometimes hold concerts there.  Pretty neat.  We were going to walk up to the top, but there was a woman sitting there sketching it, so we refrained.  As we were coming out of the amphitheatre, a guy approached us, speaking Italian, and when we looked at him blankly, he switched to French.  I told him we spoke English, and he was quite taken aback.  He explained in French that he worked for the "house" (assuming he meant the people that own the site) and was looking for people that spoke either Italian or French (Sam thinks he might've been a tour guide.  My automatic assumption was that he was telling us it was time to get off the property).  He apparently gathered that I comprehended his explanation, so he was like "Are you sure you don't speak French?"  I told him I only spoke a little, so he asked Sam what he spoke, and Sam was like "Ingles.  Solo." (and apparently a little Spanitaliano).  The guy said, in English, that he didn't speak English, we all had a funny laugh, and he walked away.  The end.

Anyway, so the original plan was to hop back on the train and go down to the beach (in modern Ostia, or Ostia Lido) to watch the sunset, so we did that.  We walked in the general direction of the sun, but felt no closer to the sea, and it also appeared that the sun had gone down already, and were about to turn back to the train and go home, but felt instead that we should go up a huge set of stairs to look at this random giant church, and directly down the street from the top of the stairs, we saw the water.  So we kept going.

On the way, we were about to pass a couple of guys sitting on a bench, and just as we passed in front of them, they glanced at each other and hopped up.  My immediate reaction was my heart stopping and grabbing tightly to Sam, ready to run.  Sam's reaction was his stomach sinking, his arm half-way to hitting someone and the urge to yell "Aiuto!" which means "help," which he learned last night while he was watching an old Robin Hood movie on tv while I was writing yesterday's email (I can't stop laughing about that).  Anyway, turns out they were just jumping up to get on the bus, which was pulling up right as we passed.  Sam and I had a funny laugh for several minutes.  Mugging averted.

Anyway, we got down to the end of the road, but there was no way down to the water, just a huge long line of changing huts blocking the view behind a locked fence.  Eventually we walked far enough that we came to a little pedestrian plaza where some teenagers were playing street futbol or whatever.  Sticking out of that was a short little stone pier.  We walked down that and paused in a little outlet.  The sun had already gone down, but the clouds were lit up bright reddish pink.  An old man busker was playing his guitar a ways away, and it was melodious, romantic, Italian-sounding music.  He played the song on a continuous loop for several minutes, to my liking.  A steady cool breeze was coming in off the sea, the waves were low and gentle, and men stood on small boats, presumably fishing, a few hundred yards away.  It was incredibly quaint.  Sam was equally interested in some algae growing on a rock and the graffiti on the railing, and an assortment of other things that were not the sea, the sunset, the breeze, me, or the fact that we were in Italy,  watching a Mediterranean sunset.  I reminded him of this.  He said the graffiti was really interesting.  I looked down and saw a drawing of a person picking his nose.  Very interesting.  Anyway, we had a romantic Italian sunset smooch (Sam diverted his interests) and walked back to the station in the semi-darkness.

Sunset over the Mediterranean, or probably Tyrrhenian Sea.  Beautimous.

It was nice to be able to sit down for a good while as we rode our way back to Rome.  Eventually we made it back to the apartment, did the dishes, switched out the laundry from the washer, and made dinner: fresh fettucine with pomodoro-romano sauce.  It was extremely delicious.  I may never buy dry fettucine ever again.

We then went out again to look for the cyber cafe with a printer that we'd looked up (near the Piazza Navona).  It was closed permanently.  Grand.  So instead we grabbed gelato at a place in the Piazza we'd spotted a couple days ago and ate it by one of the fountains.

Gelato.  My first time.  It was amazing.  Just like a very rich chocolate ice cream, and soft without being melty.  It was very, very good.  I was not disappointed.  I've decided that one thing that differentiates gelato from American ice cream is the way people lick it: down to up, instead of circular around the edges.

Anyway, we came home and now it is time to end the day.  I've emailed Andrea to see if he has a suggestion of where we can print off our train tickets.  I've told him we are desperate in hopes that he will take pity on us and perhaps offer a personal printer.  Hm...

PS Tomorrow is Tarquinia and a lot of eating, in honor of the holiday.  And more gelato.

Rats With Wings

Nov 20

In the morning we had breakfast at home (the orange juice here has a guava-y aftertaste, it's kind of weird.  Sam loves it though).  Then got all packed up (brought some cookies as a snack this time--dark chocolate tear-shaped cookies we got at the store last night) and headed out to Termini.  We could've taken the metro from the stop closer to the apartment but we needed to get the sandwiches for lunch, which are at the Despar in Termini, so we took the train from there.  Rush hour.  Very warm in the car.  No seats.  Many stops.  All these things make an unhappy Shannon.

So we got off and braved the (almost literally) crowds of "tour guides," souvenir sellers, and who knows what else.  I'm trying not to pay attention anymore.  I was approached in French.  Awesome.  First time I haven't been mistaken (well...) for an American so far.  Anyway, so as part of our OMNIA passes, we got free entrance to everything at the Vatican.  Well, we thought we did.  After getting through security and taking some pictures of/in St Peter's Square, we saw an offshoot line for the Cupola, and we thought "Hey that'll be cool" so we got in it, but they didn't honor the Vatican Pass for this particular "activity."  Oh well, it was only €5 apiece.  Anyway, so we climbed a bunch of stairs to an overlook on top of the basilica, took some pictures, it was cool, la di da.  I felt a little gypped.  Then we noticed people were disappearing through a little door in a small dome, so we followed them and found another set of spiral stairs!  So we went up it, and it took about ten thousand years, and people were all breathing heavily.  Eventually we popped out inside the duomo of the basilica (sort of like the Whispering Gallery at St Paul's in London if you recall).  It was very high.  I don't know if it's higher than the Whispering Gallery, I'll have to look it up to see how the churches compare in height.  We had a cool view of all the branches of the basilica, and took a lot of pictures of the dome and the mosaics on the walls, and everything else.  Then we went through the "Uscita" door and there were MORE stairs!  Yay...  I did mention that I wore my legs into the ground yesterday, right?  Well, I spoke too soon.  So we kept going, having to stop periodically to breathe.  The stairs got narrower and shallower and the ceiling leaned in and the spiral got tighter and it was rough.  We finally got to a landing and saw that there was yet another teeny spiral staircase with a rope coming down the center for people to hold onto (it was sticky and gross).  We paused in a tiny niche for a breather and laughed as we heard peoples' reactions as they saw it, which were similar in reaction to ours: "Mon Dieu!" "BELLa donna!" etc.  It was pretty funny.

Stopping for a breather.  No end in sight.

So we went up the narrow tower (not really) steps for about a million years or so and finally FINALLY made it to the top and we were spit out onto a landing that surrounded the top of the duomo.  But it was a beautiful view.  We could see all the way to the/some mountains, where rain clouds were congregating.  We could see all of the Vatican gardens and what I assume is all of Rome.  It was great.  We took lots of pictures, of course.  Eventually, we gritted our teeth and headed back down.  It was a little quicker, being downhill and skipping the middle gallery, but it was still steep and rough.  The couple we were stuck behind we're pretty sure were a young awkward American Mormon couple.  Like us!  We didn't ask.  It's more fun to speculate.

Finally made it.  Worth the view!

Finally we made it back down to a huge porch type thing at the same level as the one after the first set of stairs that we thought was the top.  We were right behind the giant statues of Christ and the Apostles that line the top of the basilica and right next to the bell tower's top, or at least the place where they keep the bell.  And right as we were walking up to it, it rang noon!  It was loud, but it was fun mostly watch the bell itself ringing, which you could see if you stood on your tip-toes and peeked into the shaft.

On top of the basilica

We took the opportunity to wash our hands of all the greasy grime of tourists through the ages and the dust of a thousand popes.  The sinks were cool/weird, in order to get the water in the faucet running, you stepped on a small pedal on the floor beneath the sink.

The stairs from that area put us in the line to go into the Basilica.  They didn't ask for tickets.  In fact, I didn't even see an area that sold or collected them.  OMNIA pass again disappointing me.  We spent a while inside and tried to get as many pictures as we could, but obviously the light was bad.  We saw the Pietà, which was cool of course, and I marveled over it.  Ah-mazing.  There were a bunch of other cool statues, and everyone was standing in line to touch the feet of one of Christ with holy water.  Or just regular water.  It was interesting to see people symbolically washing the feet of Christ, and I was annoyed by the dumb tourists who skipped the water and just posed for a photo with their hand on the foot of the statue.  Oh well.

There was some kind of liturgical reading or prayer (I think it started with one and ended with the other) in one chapel, so we watched part of it, and I really wanted to take pictures, because it was near a window, and because the Priest's vestments (his chasuble?) were pretty and green, and he was standing with his arms raised and his back to the crowd, and it would've made for an awesome photograph, and I know some people don't mind, but there was a guard chastising anyone who even brought the camera up from hip level, so I stayed back and got really bad pictures of it instead.  I wish I could capture people and what they do and how they feel on camera.  There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.

Anyway, there are a lot of statues in there.  It got tiring.  Some of them were really neat, others were kind of generic or even silly.  So we moved on outside, plus I was about to die if I didn't get to sit down after all that hiking.

There was a carving of some saint being hanged on the door we went out of.  Also his (anatomical) heart was below it, in deep relief.  Creepy.

We pulled out the sandwiches from the Despar and ate them on the steps around the colonnade.  They were not nearly as good as before, probably because they were squished and warm.  Mine made me gaggy after a while, so we experimented with the local pigeons and grumpy/snatchy seagulls.  We coaxed them close and tried to see how near we could get them to come to us.  It was really funny to see them a few inches from my shoe sort of dancing around trying to get up the courage to got between my legs.  Finally they did, so I gave out rewards and pretty soon almost every pigeon in the Vatican was deeply interested in us.  They started walking across my feet, so that was enough.  Fortunately, a little kid with his mom had pulled out some bread and they lost interest in us.

We walked around the Vatican wall to go into the vatican museum entrance, and got through security, then tried to figure out how to use the omnia passes to get in.  We asked three people (all grumpy eye-rollers that tell you the obvious and then tell you nothing helpful at all--sadly a majority of people we ask for help are this way, but primarily at the vatican...maybe they are underpaid.  Or overpaid.) before finding out that normally you can find a person to show your passes to to get tickets waiting underneath a tv screen by a column by security.  But there was no one there.  So we sat around confused, then made good use of that emergency data plan and looked up how to use them.  It said you had to call to make an appointment a day in advance to get someone to meet you there and give you the tickets.  What the haystack.

So we basically couldn't get in for free like we were supposed to.  That means about €120 wasted.  Compounded with the fact that I realized yesterday I hadn't actually printed our Eurail passes for Friday, I felt like a complete fool and got very sad, especially since Sam thought I was mad at him and was getting very animated.  Eventually we decided to pay the €15 apiece and go in anyway.  The museum maps were smelly and inaccurate.  We skipped most of the stuff, because it was all about the imperialist agenda impressed on other cultures in attempts to convert them to catholicism ("ethnographic missionary work"), and looked at the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan collections.  We had a good time talking symbolic theory in classical statuary.  I'm so glad we can do that.  I told Sam about the Djed symbol, and the origins of Hermes through the installation of herms, and a little bit about chthonicism.  It was fun.  

We noted a bunch of negative things about the museum (hard not to do when you have to take so many classes on museum theory), such as the allowing of flash photography everywhere but in the tapestry room (still not enforced), and the random placement of a papal calendar painted on some shutters as the center focus in a room full of Etruscan pottery.  Relevance?  None.  Also hardly anything had labels.  BUT they did have the Laocoon Group statue, so that was really fun to see!

The museum is attached to the Sistine Chapel, so we went in there.  It was a lot smaller than I expected, and while it was neat to see the paintings I've learned about in person, it was a bit of a disappointment. 

It had begun to rain while we were in the museum, so we walked to the metro station in the rain.  I had a couple of cookies and ignored some annoyed scarf-sellers.

We finally got home and I decided I could not walk another step today.  We still had some errands to run (ie finding an ATM that took our card, getting more juice at the grocery store, etc), so I lay down while Sam went out on his own to get stuff done.  I didn't want him to go alone because I'm paranoid and I can't protect him (ha!) when I'm not there, but it all went well, and he finished everything in 45 minutes.  A few people even approached him for help, speaking in Italian, and no eye-rolling happened when he was strutting the streets of Rome.  Apparently I'm the one who makes us look like a tourist.  Boo.  Of course, the whole Oh-I-mistook-you-for-a-native-Mediterranean thing is nothing new for Sam (look at what happened in Turkey), but still.  I feel dumb.

While he was gone, I finished reading "Bellwether" by Connie Willis, which was very funny and fun and even though a lot of it didn't make sense, it all came together in the end in ways that had me going "OH that's what that meant!"  It felt a little like the writing style mimicked the mention of chaos theory in the book.  I decided I will recommend it to other people along with "To Say Nothing of the Dog."  Connie Willis is a great author.

Anyway, we just finished a dinner of fresh ricotta and spinach tortellini with disappointing "puttanesca" sauce (really just bland marinara with about a thousand sour green olives-- I guess it's possible to have cheapo brands of Italian food even in Italy).

Tomorrow we go to Ostia, and I am excited, because the ruins are supposed to be amazing, and hopefully no one will be there.  We might eat lunch in town.

Ok, Sam wants to watch a movie before we go to bed, so I'm off.  Write tomorrow!

The Incredible Journey

Day Two - Nov 19

Today was a very long and exhausting day.  We woke up a little later than planned and headed out (still no groceries yet) to get our OMNIA passes, to get more money, and find something for breakfast.  We couldn't find the cafe where they had the OMNIA passes for like maybe an hour (OMNIA passes allow free entrance to 2 sites and musems in Rome-- reduced price to the rest, free public transportation, and free everything at the Vatican, for three days).  We got some cash and bought a few small loaves of wheat bread and a few little juice boxes.  We ate the bread and juice and headed out to the Campo de Fiori.  It was a very long walk, but we wanted to walk to see more of the city.

We passed a Roman ruin with a lot of cute stray cats.  There was a public basketball court next to it.  We were the only ones interested in the ruin, I'm more than sure.  It was an ancient water distribution center that used to have two beautiful statues (known as the "jewels" of somebody or other) on top.

Column cats

We kept walking for a while and went past more random ruins/walls, and eventually came to the Colosseum.  We were really tempted to do that first because it was right there and awesome and such, but we wanted to get to the market at the Campo before it ended.  So we clenched our teeth and kept walking.  We passed all the other ruins we wanted to see and I seriously considered doing them first, but we stayed steadfast.

Eventually we got the historic center and walked through quaint little streets and finally got to the Campo de (di?) Fiori market.  It had mostly fruits and vegetables and some silly tourist stuff, but also large parmesan cheese wheels and lumps/blocks of other delicious-looking cheeses.  There were also large hanks of ham thighs/legs (complete with hoof!) that I seriously considered buying (the prosciutto here is amazing), but didn't know if I could justify taking it on the plane.  There was also a guy selling spices and oils.

Ham and cheese shop to the nth power

Browsing the goods

Anyway, the market was cute and fun, but a lot smaller than I imagined, so we were done with it pretty quickly.  I took some stalkery pictures of cute Italian people.  I don't think they minded.  I didn't ask.

Roman lunchtime

After the market, we went back towards the Colosseum and such, but stopped at the Temple of Apollo and some other partial theatre and some quadriporch or other.  I was incredibly weary and hungry, so I had the last little loaf of bread and the last little box of juice.  Sam wasn't hungry for some reason.  Anyway, then we kept on a-trekking.  We passed the Circus Maximus and went down to walk in it.  We picked up a little stone for my friend and a piece of (illegal) pottery and went on down the road to the Colosseum.  Our OMNIA passes were awesome here, we didn't have to wait in line at all.  I'd say the Col. is exactly how you imagine it.  It's the same size and everything.  The only difference is the color.  I thought it was more whitish grey, but it was actually more reddish brown and grey.  Anyway.  It was cool just to be there, but not really surprising because I've seen ten million pictures of it in my lifetime.  There was a neat little display inside one of the side tunnel jigs (like where you might buy hotdogs at a baseball game) that had some museum-y displays.  My favorite was a collection of animal bones they found, which included bear, boar, horse, and several big cats, as well as wolves and deer and other things.  And there were lots of very steep stairs.

Colo-colo-what-now?

After the Col. we took on the Fora.  Holy cow.  We definitely underestimated its size.  It took a good long while and was pretty hilly (it is the Capitoline Hill after all).  I started to feel exhausted and sick and grumpy and that made Sam maddish, which made me feel bad, but we sat down for a while and then pushed through.  There were a couple spots being excavated.  One was an area by a thing and while we were watching the professor started yelling at one of his students (in Italian) for standing on the profile wall.  It made us laugh.  Archaeology professors are the same everywhere.

Dig 'em up, oh oh...

We saw a cool Byzantine church with awesome mosaics, the House of Vestal Virgins, Temple of Saturn, Arches of all kinds of dudes, and a million other things.  We were hunting particularly for the Trajan Markets, but we kept not finding them.  After a while we realized that they were in a completely different set of Fora, so we left to go find them, and find them we did.  Next to them was the Trajan Column, which was awesome and a lot bigger than I imagined.  The markets were cool too.  Right then it started to rain, but not too hard.  We avoided about 30,000 umbrella vendors with success.

We then walked back to the historic center to find the Pantheon.  It was about 4:30 and starting to get dark (especially with the clouds), so we tried to be fast.  We got there and it was really neat.  I liked the outside better than the inside though.  It's been converted to a church/basilica/shrine to some martyred saints, so people kept (uselessly) shushing everyone, and some doofus took a picture with flash and a few people thought it was me and gave me the Italian "glare" (as in they look at your like you're a fool and hopeless at that).  Boo.

This picture makes me smile: I was there!!

After that it was a quickish walk to the Piazza Navona, where we planned to eat dinner (our first real/full meal since I think Friday).  We walked around the Piazza and compared prices at the restaurants and finally decided on one with the novel name "Navona" because the lasagne was cheapest.

The seating guy gave us a little table facing the Piazza (which actually wasn't all that attractive since they were packing up from a carnival and there were trucks and boxes and tarps everywhere) and called it "romantico."  Our waiter came out, he spoke a little English but obviously wasn't all that comfortable with it.  I felt kind of bad so I made sure to say "grazie" a lot.  We got a sort of bruschetta on steroids for antipasto.  It was toasted bread with piles (upon piles) of tomatoes I think marinated in a vaguely spicy oil (maybe pepperocini olive oil, I saw that at the market), with rocket leaves all over and bits of mozarella and a few olives.  Sam convinced me to try an olive.  I was reminded why I don't like olives.

Dinner was amazingly delicious, I really like the real Italian lasagne.  After dinner we walked around the Piazza again and thought about gelato, but it was actually very cold, so we skipped it and headed to the Trevi Fountain.  It was super crowded but we got lots of (dim) pictures and Sam convinced me to throw a coin in.  La.

THEN we walked (more!) to the Spanish steps.  They were boring and lame and this guy selling flowers wouldn't leave us alone.  It was annoying except that he kept trying to convince Sam of how beautiful I was.  Ha!

Then we got on the metro and headed to the stop near our apartment.  Man oh man am I impressed with the Roman metro.  It's super clean and not really smelly at all.  I'd venture to say it's cleaner than the Tube.

Anyway, so we walked from the metro (can you tell am I never going to be able to walk again?) to the grocery store, which is kiddy corner from Santa Maria Maggiore that I posted a picture of on Instagram yesterday.  We got stuff for the next two nights of dinner and some bread and jam and juice for breakfast.  We decided we will get those yummy baguette sandwiches we had for dinner yesterday for lunches this week.

Uscitimato Destro

Sam and I are currently braving the land of Italy on our very belated honeymoon/whatever trip.  I've been keeping a travelogue of sorts and sending them to my parents so they can feel equal parts unconcerned for our safety and insanely jealous.  So starting today, the backlogged journeys of yours truly in Italy-- truthful, boring, typo-full, and mouth-watering (probably. not.)  Keep checking back every day for the next 14-ish days for more exploits!

Day One - Nov 18

So we got in around 8ish this morning.  The airport was pretty dead, plus we were near the front of the plane and didn't have checked bags, so we got through customs and everything really fast.  Our plan was to use an ATM to get cash to pay for the apartment, but we tried several ATMs and none of them would take our card.  We decided to wait until we got to Termini to try the ATMs there, but it was still frustrating.  All the train ticket booths were cash only but we found a kiosk ticket dispenser thing and got our tickets to Termini.  We didn't validate our tickets properly (meaning not at all) but the lady was nice and just said to be sure to validate next time, so we didn't get fined.  That was really nice.

When we got to Termini, we tried like three more ATMs but none of them worked for our cards (one of them even broke after our many attempts...ha!) so we finally asked a tourist info desk where we could get cash (there were change stations at the airport but we wanted to avoid the exorbitant fees if we could) and they pointed out a hidden change window so we went there and got just enough to pay for the apartment.  We should've gotten more.  When we went there, the machine wouldn't read our card again, but they tried a different reader and it worked, so we learned that only certain ATMs and card readers will read american cards, even though it's regular Visa/Mastercard.  Frustrating.

Anyway, so we walked to the apartment but the guy wasn't there, so we had to call him and he was like "Five minutes!" and ran over.  He was very nice and showed us around the apartment (which is tiny but cute).  We had to fill out some forms and he kept saying "Bellisimo!" and stuff, it was funny.  There is a giant painting of Revolutionary War (as in USA) soldier toys above the dining table.  Very odd.

Peculiar decor

Anyway, so we had plans to go to the catacombs today, but we were so exhausted we lay down and woke up a few hours later, but then I felt like barfing and Sam had a headache, so we made some risotti with vegetable bouillon that we found in the cupboards.  Then we went back to sleep.  We woke up again around 5pm and I took a shower, then we looked up an ATM that would take our card and decided to purchase a temporary international data plan for my phone in case we get lost or have an emergency or something.  

We couldn't find the ATM but we found a grocery store and we had 10€ leftover from France that I brought, so we bought prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches and some water and took it home to eat.

We are going to have to get more cash tomorrow if we can't find that ATM but it's expensive at the change place which is a bummer.  But we will start also looking at sites too, which will be fun.  The Colosseum is within walking distance.

I think we are now going to go look at a basilica down the street before we go to bed.  It got dark a little before 5pm, very early.

Santa Maria Maggiore, across the street from the grocery store.  Crazy!

So far people have been understanding and helpful, except the cashier at the grocery store, but that's ok.

Sam and I are both regretting not studying more Italian.

Ridiculous Thoughts

People do kind of ridiculous things in college.  Like dress as Pacman and wander all over campus.  Or light couches on fire in the backyard.  Or crawl through flooded underground tunnels.  Or have impromptu dance parties to a certain Men Without Hats song in the library at 2am (school sanctioned, don't you fret).

This picture is irrelevant.  But it's funny.

Anyway.  I didn't do half of those things (although I was friends with the unfortunate furniture).  But when songs by Chromeo or Calvin Harris or whoever randomly shuffle up when I'm jammin' (imagine awesome head bobs while I sit in the car or on my computer looking at endless pages of boring things), I am reminded of the bizarre weekend mobile dance parties our neighbors and we used to do.  Granted, I think I only went with them two or three times and they did it nearly every weekend (16 degree weather in the middle of the night has nothing on a bunch of sweaty, over-hyped 20-somethings).

There was a boombox powered by an mp3 player.  There was a lot of fluorescent spandex.  There were wigs.  Hats.  Weird sunglasses. Once even a pretty good impersonation of the Careless Whisper Saxophone Guy.  In a frozen yogurt place.  Awkward.  And a lot of electrofunk.  We'd just wander around the most populated part of Provo south of campus and see if we could get people to dance with us, or just let us into their apartments to give them a little pep.

Most people hated it.  Usually all the guys we came across.  Party poopers.

I'm sure it was really annoying.  I probably only loved it because I was with my friends and dancing around and hoping that no one I knew would see me.  And it was good exercise?

But really...it was probably dumb.  We had dirty diapers thrown at us.  Sketchy girls would proclaim their desire to marry and/or have the babies of certain guys in our group.  And grumpy people would tell us to shut up, go home, get out of their apartment (but your roommate said...), yada yada yada.  At the time though, I could not think of a better way to have fun.

What's the point of this?  No idea.  I guess I have this unquenchable curiosity now...were we the only ones?  I know my neighborhood was crazy, but there has to be others out there that did things as a single or college-age or whatever type of person that were ridiculous...?

ANYBODY??

Somewhere there is a picture of me wearing leather pants for this thing.  I can't find it.  Instead, a gif that makes me laugh:

Bond 23

I kind of like the numbered Bond movie titles.  They're fun for some reason.  Anyhoo, in case you are oblivious to the cinema world, last weekend "Skyfall," the new James Bond movie, came out.  Saturday afternoon Sam and I were driving along in the car with the radio on (a rare happenstance lately, but my ipod was frozen-- in more ways than one I think) and lo came on a new song by Adele that I didn't recognize.  I started singing along (that's one of my weird talents...I can pretty much sing along to any song after hearing it for about 30 seconds.  Music is predictable.) and then realized...wait a minute...she's singing about Skyfall!

My eyes widened and chills ran through me and tears came to my eyes with excitement (sometimes I cry when I'm excited.  Please don't ask me why.) and Sam looked at me and I started screeching "ooooooo it came out yesterday we NEEEEED to go see it!  Can we have an expensive date tonight, please please PLEASE??" (nevermind that I'm kind of in charge of the money and budgeting for stuff). It didn't take much convincing because Sam loves James Bond, so we bought the tickets for that night right then and there.

Anyway, we got to see it.  I was really excited for the previews because Winter Mega Movie Season is coming up in a few weeks, but I was disappointed to see only action flix.  Just imagine Les Miserables, The Hobbit, and whatever else you want.  It's going to be awesome.

The movie was fantastic.  I love Daniel Craig as James Bond.  Casino Royale was my favorite JB movie (although it may now be tied).  Some may say Daniel Craig isn't as debonair as other Bonds.  Like maybe Sean Connery.  Or they throw a fit about the fact that he's blond Oh Hurt Me!  I don't care if his hair is blue.  I like Daniel Craig.  And the Daniel Craig Bond movies seem a lot more personal (most big-ticket movies nowadays are...I rather prefer it) and less frivolous with the "Bond Girls" and all that.  Not that they aren't devoid of it.  But you know what I mean.

And HELLO Scotland scenery!  Or northern England.  It sort of blends together.  Misty moors and haunting (or haunted...) old stone houses with stone stags guarding the entrance (get in my bag).  It's awesome.

On another note, the opening credit sequences are always one of my favorite parts.  And I loved the one for Skyfall.  Adele is classy, and therefore perfect for it.  My new song obsession:



Not to mention she has an amazing voice.  I feel like this (I'm too lazy to make a gif, and anyway it's really the voice you need to hear...skip to about 55 seconds on the video):



Anyway, I highly recommend it.  It's a terrific film.  I'm telling everyone they need to go TODAY.

Only Six Words

I saw something interesting this morning on one of the design blogs I follow.  It was a post that mentioned an "intense" writing workshop led by a man named Wade Rouse in Chicago.  This guy gives all kinds of advice for being able to write what you really want to, namely "Write as if your parents are dead."  Personally, I don't think that's entirely applicable to me.  If my parents were dead, no one would read what I wrote (haha!).

Anyway, one of his exercises I found very intriguing.  Using only six words, describe your life.  A six-word autobiography...hm...

Naturally, I began obsessing over what I would say if I had to describe my life in six words.  And I naturally couldn't think of anything, because I was torn simultaneously between wanting to tell a totally serious part of a secret life, and wanting to be totally witty and impress everyone that reads this blog (hi Mom!), and actually being honest.  Plus I change every day, well, every hour really.  I'm so...changeable.

I came up with lots of nahhhs:

I heart animacules so very moshe.

Why am I always so tired?

I'm afraid to take chances.

Etc etc etc etc etc etc

But finally, I think that this will have to do:

Trying to be a better me.

Sappy, maybe.  But honest.

So, friends, what are your six words?  I'm very interested to know.  Tell-all in the comments, GO!

It Came From the Deep

Guys, I think I'm turning into one of those blog people.  Like a bog person, only with more direction in life.  I hope.

In real life cattails don't resemble corn.  And my nose is much bigger.  But I do my best.

For me, blogging is a way for me to write about the random things that come to my brain.  I need to put them down with pictures and share them with people so you know how crazy I really am, instead of that quiet girl who is probably boring and totally judgemental because she never says anything.  I'm not boring.  But I am judgemental OH WELL...it's not my problem if you do stupid things like drive around with the hood of your car open.

I'm just afraid I may be going a little overboard during my lack of employment here.  I am still applying for stuff though, I promise.  Am I all over the place right now?  I'm listening to some electronic/bass stuff on youtube and people are arguing in the comments about whether or not the Illuminati is a real thing.

Anyway, so despite the three blogs that I already have/participate in, I have to mention that there are also a couple other projects in the works.  One of them will be my own deal, and the other is one I'll be a contributor on.  I'm actually really really excited about them.  Right now we're tweaking some stuff and writing out content for the latter one.  And the former I have pretty much all my starting content for, but I'm having trouble with the construction...ie I can't think of the best title/name for this thing.

SO I'm asking for a little help.  I need you to give me two words.  The first word should be an object that you feel describes the best things in your life/the world/our culture/whatever.  Just one object.  The second should be an adjective that describes the stuff I mentioned before.  I need words.  I can't think of the right ones.  Maybe I won't end up using any of the ideas, but it'll help with the brainstorm.

In any case, once everything gets sorted, I'll let you in on the secret, and then (hopefully) you can be excited with me :)

THANK YOU LOVERS

PS can I say how weirded out I am sometimes by my schizophrenic choice in music?  Apparently I can go straight from blowing out my speakers with Bass Nectar to singing along with Harry Nilsson.  That happened today.  It was a weird realization.

A Small Confession

I feel like I've been neglecting this blog a little bit.  Maybe I haven't been.  But it's primarily because I've been focusing by bloggy/writing attention into reviving my contribution the past week or more to the third blog I participate in, a style-ish-related blog called All This Knavery (it's a Shakespeare reference, no surprise).  We've been going for over three years now, which is a huge feat to me, considering some difficulties and slow patches we've had.  Anyway, I'm talking about it now because I feel like we (well, me at least) will be more motivated to continue if we have more than ourselves, our mom, and one cousin reading it so I don't feel like I'm just talking to myself.  Once upon a time it was a bigger deal...heck, we were invited to a Utah Blogger Meetup a couple years ago!  If that means anything.

Anyway, so today's post here is going to actually be one I wrote for ATK a few days ago, but I realized that the audience I wanted to reach probably wouldn't see it, so I'm reposting it here too.  Again, I realize it may not be relevant to very many of you, but I thought it would be fun anyway, even though it's maybe pretty different from what I normally blog about (which is why ATK is a separate blog in the first place).

Styling a Wedding


When I was planning my wedding last year, I had a lot of restrictions financially, so there were some things that I didn’t get to go all out on.  However, I did have a specific idea for what I wanted that I didn’t want to compromise on, and that was the overall “style” of my wedding.  I then had to make it work based on monetary restrictions.

“Style,” especially in the context of a wedding, can include everything from the venue to the centerpieces to the food.  I suppose you could also call it a theme.  Our theme was something along the lines of “Victorian-ish Conservatory.”  But I mostly want to talk about the clothes here.

I think the one thing I really want to stress is that when you have a wedding, you don’t have to turn away from who you are or what you’re comfortable with just to fit the expected mold.  You don’t need a glittery ball gown if you don’t like glittery ball gowns.  You don’t need every groomsman in a matching neon tie if you don’t want that.  Just because people do it that way normally doesn’t mean that YOU HAVE TO do it too!

My main concern (aside from affordability) was comfort.  For one thing, I don’t like constricting dresses, especially short-sleeved ones that cut into my armpit and rub me raw.  I’m also not a fan of poofy dresses. I wore one to my junior prom and I felt ridiculous all night long.  Also, I got married in the middle of December.  It was 14 degrees when we got married.  So I wanted to be sure it was possible to stay warm, even a little bit.

SO.  I looked for a dress that fit my bill.  I couldn’t find one that really did, so I turned to the option of having the dress designed and made from scratch!  I used this company, which was actually just a girl in the area.  She worked with me closely as we talked extensively about fabrics (I have never seen so many types of lace in all my life) and measurements and everything else.  She got it done insanely quick, and I paid all of $715 for it.  And it was comfortable enough for me to wear it all night while I danced away!

This is the picture I used as design reference:

And this is the final product:

I loved all the little details, and I loved the longer sleeves (no chaffing, yay!)

To address the warmth issue, I got a coat (the aforementioned gnome coat) to wear when I could.

As for Sam, he got a tailored three-piece wool suit that was supposed to be reminiscent of a vintage era.  His tie was a dark blue paisley, instead of anything solid.  Again, anywhere I could remind people of a vintage-y feel, I took advantage.

I also didn’t want everyone to be too matchy-matchy.  Except that I was worried a little that the dresses for bridesmaids would be too different, so I made them match.  I wish now that I hadn’t.  It would’ve felt more authentic.  The groomsmen had matching blue paisley ties (different from Sam’s) and were free to wear a grey suit of whatever they had.

Anyway, my advice to anyone planning a wedding (so…none of you) is to remember three things:

1. Personal Style

2. Comfort

3. Theme (if you are into that…it’s fine if you’re not, but it gives you some direction)

Things to avoid:

1. Pleasing other people

2. Expensive things

3. Things you feel you “need” to have because “everybody” does

And there you have it.  Here are a couple of pictures of my friend’s wedding that show the “style” of her wedding.  She had a theme, which was something along the lines of “Summer Country/Cowboy Chic” or something.

Every bridesmaid wore a cream or white lace-ish dress of her choice and a pale yellow cardigan.  Plus I love those yellow bachelor's buttons!

Bonus: she made her wedding dress all by herself!  With the help of her mom.  And her grandma. ;)  Also, it was not white, but sort of cream.  Yet another example of going with what you want and what you’re comfortable with.  If everyone tells you you need white and you want cream, go for it.

I didn’t have a good picture of the whole look together, so I stole this from their Facebook…Mel, if you ever see this, don’t freak out!