Samahn a Roma

Travels Around Roma Part XI: Tivoli Villa D'este

2010-04-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

Well here is the rest of Villa D'este, the actual Villa itself that is.

First off we start with the internal courtyard, which looks like this. I have been lazy on my blogging so I actually don't remember this because it was so long ago (about 4 months ago as of now), but I'll pretend like I know what I'm talking about.

Here is a closeup of the middle carving. Quite beautiful. What it is I have no idea but it still is pretty cool.

Here we see the internal chapel. The chapel was in a room but it still had windows and a door leading to it for privacy and to imitate a stand-alone church. Its pretty well done I must say...

After I walked down one hallway (there is a hallway for each floor) I got to a corner room. You can see the door on the left. The carpets on the walls are pretty exquisite as well...

Like this one, a better view of the one above. There are tons of these on all the walls, and knowing that they are all hand made with the finest quality and craftmenship just makes me want to be a rich Italian...

Here we enter the room of Socrates. And all of this is painting designed to look three-dimensional, which it does a decent job of doing.

Even though every part of all the walls is painted, the roof is usually the best part and this doesn't disappoint. Here we have the incarnations of liberty, nobility, and generosity all sitting on clouds doing what they do.

Here is another room I went into. The detail on every inch of every wall is just something that I actually got used to. But now as I sit in my college apartment on Nobel Drive I see literally plane undecorated white everywhere and not an inch of decoration on any wall. Literally nothing because nobody cares. Why not just one fresco or just one fine painting of some flying angel in my apartment? Oh well...

Here is another roof of another room in the long hallway. The detail of this is actually more intricate that probably the last room if that's possible. But as they say, when in Rome... (never mind we're in Tivoli)

Here is one of the paintings on a wall that I really liked. Simple yet elegant with the man walking his donkey up the hill to the barn/mill. And the colors flow really nicely.

These hallways all have a view of the garden, and this is one view from a window. Remember this balcony, because you can spot it in the pictures from the garden.

Here is another room I saw.

And here is still another room. The roof is painted to look like it has columns, but it is actually flat. Even looking at it from underneath it still looked like it had columns.

Now we enter the Room of Moses, with various paintings about Moses featuring this one where he extracts water from the rock while wandering in the desert for 40 years. After this are the life and times of Moses collection, all in the orange colors below.

Below is a series of pictures of the Manica Lunga, which is designed to echo the pleasant sound of water dripping from the fountains built into the walls. That and the mosiacs and skylights make this a winner. That's it for Tivoli. Ciao!

Travels Around Roma Part XX: Il Papa!

2010-04-05T02:17:00.000-07:00

Its fitting that I have 20 sections for being around Roma, because I was 20 when I was there and it has been the highlight of my twenties so far. So far I have shown you pretty much everything about Roma except for one thing, or should I say one man. The head honcho or Roma himself that is, Pope Benedict XVI. I took a Science and Religion class and our professor was a Catholic priest, and he told us that this pope is very quite, introverted, and likes to read and study a lot. This is a polarized juxtaposition from the last pope, John Paul II, who was crazy and invited random people over to the Vatican and liked to go alpine skiing a lot, making everyone nervous about his safety all the time. Well it turns out the pope speaks every Wednesday morning, and while I was walking to school during my last week before finals, I happened to catch a glimpse of him. I stayed for a while, so much so that I was late to my Modern Italy Culture and Identity class by about 10 min (I ended up getting an A in that class anyways, so it doesn't matter). And for some reason I happened to have my camera on me so I was in luck. I stood in one place (you had to pass through security to get into the piazza, which I didn't feel like doing) and zoomed on at various times to see il Papa.

Here is the view I saw, typical of St. Peter's but with a crowd. So I zoomed in with my camera to see more.

There is Benny himself on the big screen, but where is he in person?

Ecco!!! (Here it is!) He's right in the middle under this little tent surrounded by two cardinals. And his guards (the Swiss guards I assume) surround that with their funny red hats. They also embarrass themselves with clown shoes, but that must be seen in person.

I zoomed out a little more...

And I returned to normal view of the usual St. Peter's Basilica. I literally walked by this everyday on the way to school, so I actually got tired to seeing it. But I really liked how it changed colors and looked different depending on the lighting of the sky/time of day. The roof is copper green at nighttime, which I loved.

Well that about concluded it for this blog. I had finals week and then I left on December 12th, 2009 back to Los Angeles. Our flight was scheduled to go to Heathrow with British Airways, but the London fog cancelled our flight (for like 30 people in my program too). There was a lot of hassle and arguing with airport officials at the airport, but we eventually got rerouted to Munich and then from Munich to LAX through Luftanza Air, which is smaller than British Air and not as nice. I ordered multiple glasses of champagne from them to make up for this difference. (Relax people, I was fine). When we finally got to Munich we literally had around 10 minutes from when our flight landed to when the next flight left. There was someone from the airport waiting for us and taking us exactly to our terminal really quickly so we could make the flight, which we did. The flight to LAX was really really long (around 14 hours) and I watched Pelham 123, The Time Traveler's Wife, Arabic Music videos, an episode of Frasier, and episode of Everybody Hates Chris, and anything else that would kill time. And I was flying with all my friends but we all got random seating on the new flight, so needless to say it was a looooooong flight. Eventually we all got to LAX and got picked up from the international flight waiting center that still looks like it does when it was made in the '80s. And after not driving for 4 months, I immediately drove on the 405 freeway from LAX back home. I did the math since my original flight was around noon and I woke up at 8am to get ready and leave for Fiumicino airport at 9am, it took me 24 hours of real time to go from my bed in Via Candia to my bed back home in L.A. Soon after I got back I had vivid flashbacks of Roma but they are now subsiding more or less. And that's where my story ends. Now I am back to my normal life but my life abroad will always live on in this blog forever. Ciao!

Travels Around Roma Part XVI: Vista Atop the V.E. II Monument

2010-04-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

When I got back from Florence on a Sunday about noon, I had a whole day to myself. After I went to the Surrealist Museum I went to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument. I visited the National Museum dedicated to the Risorgimento, or the Reunification of Italy in 1870 when the power was taken away from the papacy and put in the hands of King Vittorio Emmanuele I. That really wasn't too interesting, so then I paid to take the elevator on top of the monument to get a pretty good view of Roma. The museum itself just has a bunch of swords and flags that are supposed to be important, but at the end of the day they really aren't.

First I walked up the stairs of the monument pictured at the right to get a good view. I actually did that before I entered the museum but lets not get into details here. They had a series of posters showing you a picture of the view you were seeing and then labeling the important buildings. And then after that I went to the roof, where the winged chariots are.

Here is the poster, which you should keep in mind for a vista picture below. Zoom in on this if you want.

This is Trajan's Market, from the ancient Roman times. The thing I like about Roma is the different historical levels all at one. This includes ancient Roman Imperial times, the Medieval times, the Renaissance, the Counter-Reformation, the Baroque period, the Fascist period, and finally modern Italy (good luck finding that one, because there are no skyscrapers in Rome). According to the internet,is Trajan's Market is a large complex of warehouses, offices, and shops, build between 107 and 110 AD where Romans would meet to purchase goods, conduct business, and generally have a good time. It was built by Emperor Trajan's favorite architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, who designed the Forum which borders the market as well.

Also, here's a bird standing right above the sign shown earlier, with Trajan's market in the background barely.

And of course a closeup of the bird. It wasn't scared of me so I got kind of close and took this picture and another one just like it. You can see Trajan's Market behind him, where his ancestors probably flew as well.

After this I actually went up to the elevator to the roof the monument, or the "Wedding Cake" as the Romans affectionately call it. These are some of the best pictures of Roma that I took because I could literally see the whole city. These views are not as good as those from the top of Villa Borghese and on the hills atop Trastevere (sorry, no pictures) because those are clear unobstructed views... Andiamo! (Here we go!)

Here is one of the two Winged Chariots put in by (guess who?) Mussolini, who put in everything in Rome because he was obsessed with Rome. However the feelings were not mutual and Mussolini was eventually executed. Nevertheless, a lot of his stuff lives in, especially right here in the heart of Rome. However we are also looking in the Northwest direction, which is the direction of the Vatican and where I lived while I was in Rome. You can see the dome of St. Peter's (however you can't see Residence Candia unfortunately) and if you follow the straight path called Viale Della Conciliazione (made by Mussolini, which leveled numerous historic buildings, including Raphael's palace), you can see Castel Sant'Angelo at the right edge just below the horizon. Its the cylinder castle building. Look back to one of the first posts to see what that looks like.

Here is the view shifted slightly to the right. Lets follow along now, don't get lost.

The main street leading down is Via del Corso I believe. The grass right before that on the right is Piazza Venezia, one of the biggest piazzas in Roma. It is a roundabout for traffic and a tourist herding spot.

This is Via del Corso which leads to Piazza del Popolo which has an obelisk. As mentioned earlier, the model capitol hill leading to an obelisk in a straight rode in Washington D.C. came from this.

We shift to the right (east) a little more to see more of Roma. It is worth noting that Mussolini tore down everything surrounding this monument to make it stand out. By that I mean that all the open road and space you see besides Via Del Corso was all buildings after building. All gone.

A view of the Colosseum and the straight road from that to the Campidoglio, the Via dei Fori Imperiali. When you see a straight road in Rome that connects major monuments, you know it was created by Mussolini. So yeah, yay fascism...

Another similar view. I can never get enough...

Here is a view of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum ruins. Caesar, Augustus, and all the Senators lived here on the Capitolino. All the buildings were very tall back in the day so imagine grand marble buildings all at least 10 stories long with all the riches of the entire empire being funneled here.

Here is a closeup of where I lived with the dome of St. Peter's and Castel Sant'Angelo. Of course there is a straight road connecting them, the Viale della Conciliazone, so I'm sure you can guess who made that.

Here is a (slightly blurry) view of this road from the street providing the il colosseo as the strada con fondale, or the road with a backdrop. It reminds me a bit of Paris.

Moving rightward from the Forum ruins we come across another familiar aspect of Roma. This of course is the Theatre of Marcellus (the mini Colosseum) and the rione Ebraico. You can see the synagogue of Roma right under the glare.

Well this bird is telling us that this post is over... ciao!

Travels Around Roma Part XVII: I Musei Vaticani Finisci

2010-04-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

Now we end our Vatican Museum travels, with the best for last. As I kept going through the Museum I saw more frescoes like this. When it comes to Italian frescoes, every inch of every wall is always covered. Nothing is left white ever. So to think how much time and effort was spent painting this all by hand, especially on the angles, is pretty cool.

This is another fresco, but the picture is rotated so the frescoes make sense visually. The roof is on the left.

And here is another picture of some judgement or something. I don't exactly know what it is but I'm sure its significant.

And now on to the most famous part of the Museum, the Sistene Chapel itself. They actually don't allow people to take pictures there, but everybody does. One guard even put his hand in front of my lens and then told me "no pictures." That coupled with my camera faltering meant I only got a few pictures, and half of those were blurry. But I still got some good pictures.

Here is a hall leading to the Sistine Chapel. Believe it or not the art is actually getting finer as we go along.

Here is the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. Notice the topmost frame. All of these are scenes from the Bible, with Creation being the first one.

Here is a closeup of the famous frame of Adam being given life. But how did Michaelangelo get my features so perfectly in his fresco. We will never know...

I have to admit this was the only thing I knew about the Sistine Chapel was the Creation fresco. I was really surprised when I saw frescoes of Moses. That's right! The life of Moses is a series of paintings inside the Sistine Chapel. I tried really hard to get all of these pictures, but this is the only good one I could get.

The rest of the pictures are, in order: the Garden of Eden in some huge painting, some gold goblet or big cup, some painting with gods and goddesses, a carpet depicting the Last Supper, and two sarcophagi from ancient Rome. Well, thats all for this museum. Ciao e a presto!! (bye and see you later)...

Travels Around Roma Part XV: I Musei Vaticani Continued

2010-04-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

This is the Vatican Museum continued. After the Nile Rive statue I continued on through the museum and I got to this internal courtyard. But there's more to see here than is in this picture.

Here are some more statues in this courtyard.

You can see by this alternate view all the statues that line the courtyard. Some of these are the best statues in the Vatican Museum. What else is there?

According to the Internet, "The founding of the Vatican Museums can be traced back to 1503 when the newly- elected Pope, Julius II Della Rovere, placed a statue of Apollo in the internal courtyard of the Belvedere Palace built by Innocent VIII; he brought the statue from the garden of his titular church of st. Peter in Chains. In 1506 the Laocoön was added to the collection, after its discovery on the Esquiline Hill before the eyes of Giuliano da Sangallo and Michelangelo Buonarotti. Scores of artifacts were added throughout the next two centuries and the collections were eventually reorganized under Benedict XIV (1740-1758) and Clement XIII (1758-1769). They founded the Apostolic Library Museums: the Sacred (Museo Sacro - 1756) and the Profane (Museo Profano - 1767) Museum". This statue in particular is, according to the Internet, "One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was found in Rome in 1506 in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid(Book 2). The Trojan priest Laocoön was strangled by sea snakes, sent by the gods who favored the Greeks, while he was sacrificing at the altar of Neptune. Because Laocoön had tried to warn the Trojan citizens of the danger of bringing in the wooden horse, he incurred the wrath of the gods." Notice that this is the same as found in Versailles in Paris.

There are other statues in the courtyard, like this of the god Tigris and a guard dog.

And then the Museum continued indoors again. This is where all the good stuff is and why are there herds of tourists that I had to walk by on my way to school each day (especially on Monday when the line is the longest). What's here? Let's go and see...

The cielings are a work of art as well, and you always have to look up at every room you go into to see some amazing sites. As I look at my ceiling and walls now, they are all plain white paint and not even the modern art kind, just the kind that comes from no decorating/frescos/fine art on them.

And of course some more statues. There are so many that these are just some of the best ones I took pictures of. I don't know if there is anywhere with more marble statues per foot like the Vatican Museum.

Now onto my favorite room in the Vatican Museum. We've all seen statues of mythical gods and goddesses, but what about our animal friends. Well they have their own room as well. Now as usual my camera was dying of battery almost immediately this whole time so in fact each picture I took I had to plan out exactly and turn my camera on, quickly take it, then turn my camera off again. It was kind of annoying but it helps me get good pictures. But anyways, on to the animal room. These are two slightly different views of the same room. This was the room on the right side and I wasn't able to take a pic of the room on the left side because of my camera.

Here is the statue of the Emperor Galba, which I literally took standing right next to it. He's important.

Now we're getting back to the ceilings. Some of them are pretty amazing considering how they are painted perfectly even on an angle.

Now we are entering the map room. It has maps of all the regions of Italy. But the ceiling frescoes are pretty amazing. This picture is rotated upside down so the frescoes make sense visually.

And here are some of the maps. They all look pretty much the same so I moved pretty quickly through this room.

Travels Around Roma Part XIV: A.S. Roma vs. Basel

2010-02-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is my second and final A.S. Roma soccer game that I went to. This time it was some Swiss, and this time I had better seats. I remember it was like the last week of my program (these posts are close to chronological order but not exact) and it was a lot of fun. Practically everyone from my program was there so it was a lot of fun. And we all know who won the game of course!

Here is the pre-game view, and this time I arrived early and I didn't miss two goals by Totti like last time. I mean at the time A.S. Roma was like 11/20 in its group standings so the seats arent exactly full, but the games are still fun to go to and cheer and chant and see Totti (I'm wearing his National team jersey now) so that is priceless to me. I got a sticker from this random guy there that says ULTRAS NO PROFIT and its still on my laptop.

They are getting ready to start the game! The field is almost ready! Someone in front of me is already waving their A.S. Roma-colored flag.

The game has started. Its only the third minute as you can see from the scoreboard so no score yet. But that's about to change. And what you see is the visitor's section, which is empty. The A.S. Roma section is full of course with screaming fans. I don't really know what those security guards in the green vests are doing since there are no people, but a job is a job.

What's that, the score has changed! Roma fell down 0-1 but then Totti scored on a penalty kick to even things up. But will Roma win and get the full 3 points are stay tied and only get 1 point? Stay tuned...

Here is a view of the crowd cheering and celebrating. They have their own Roma chant, and one for Totti, but I didn't really learn the words. I just know it went... "Roma, Roma, Roma," then something else.

And just to prove I was there, here is a picture of me before the game in my Roma shirt. I've been told I should put in more pictures of myself so here. Enjoy...

What's that! A.S. Roma is ahead. Some guy Vucinic scored in the 58th minute to put A.S. Roma ahead for good. Mark another win for A.S. Roma, and even though back then they were in the middle of the standings now (Feb 22nd, 2010) they are actually ahead of AC Milan and Juventus and are second in their division, as seen in the standings here.

Well that's it for this post. Stay tuned for more posts and always remember, Forza Roma!!! (go Roma) and Lazio Merda!!! (I'm not translating that one). Lazio, our hated rival, is a horrible team as you can see in the standings. They will never be better than Roma. Roma sempre per la vida!!!

My Spanish Vacation Part V: Barcelona Por El Último Tiempo

2010-02-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

Well this about rounds out Barcelona. The Barcelona zoo is the main focus here, because it is awesome and I felt like a kid again while I was there. The zoo is in the main park of Barcelona, and despite the 16 euro was well worth the visit for me. Some of these pictures are kind of random, but oh well. First off is the dolphin show. Forget Sea World, go to Barcelona!

And to get these aerial shots I had to just guess when the dolphins would jump and hope to get lucky. I got some pictures of just splashing water after the dolphin went back in, but these pictures aren't too bad.

Next up is some random animals. We have of course our ostrich and zebra in the same pen.

And then there are the peacocks of course, although I couldn't get a picture of them like an NBC logo.

And what would a zoo be without a grizzly bear? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Now on to the primates. We start out with the many monkeys I saw. I don't remember their exact species, but monkeys are monkeys generally speaking.

And what would primates be without your Gorillas. As a side note, I read about how the Barcelona Zoo once housed Snowflake, the world's only known albino Gorilla. For 40 years Snowflake lived in the Barcelona Zoo, lucky to escape poachers from Africa because he literally was the rarest gorilla possible, being the only known albino. However due to his albinism he died from skin cancer in the Fall of 2003, but is always remembered throughout Barcelona and the zoo in particular.

And here is my friend who is 98% the same genetically as me, none other than the chimpanzee. He kind of ignored me and kept playing with his toy, so I didn't want to be one of those people who tap on the glass and annoy him just to get a look, so I just left after I realized he didn't know I was there.

In every zoo you need your flamingos of course. Its always good to see the full spectrum of colors.

Now we get to the good stuff. Namely, lions. Here is a lion couple, or a lion and lioness. They are quite majestic animals, and are Nature's true hunters (well at least the lioness, because she does all the hunting).

Do you notice anything out of the ordinary in this picture?

Why of course its a Sumatran Tiger, with about 500 of them left in the world. Hopefully they don't go instinct and survive many generations. These are indeed some of the more beautiful animals I've ever seen.

Here is a herd of deer grazing and eating some leaves. The zoo is wide open as seen in the picture with animal pens all next to each other organized by type of animal.

And here is a close up view of the deer. Deer never fail to disappoint.

And among other animals we have an elk I believe.You can also see its young calf without antlers on the right.

The last section right next to the entrance/exit is the bird cages section. They had some exotic birds such as (sorry, these aren't exactly the best photos where the animals are staring right at you)...

Travels Around Roma Part XIII: I Musei Vaticani

2010-02-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

This is my journey through the Vatican Museums, or i Musei Vaticani. It was the last couple of weeks before my program ended and I realized that I hadn't been to the Vatican Museum yet. The irony is that I lived literally a one minute walk from the entrance of the museum. Its just down Via Candia like 2 blocks and the around the corner on the right, but I kept putting it off. So one day I just went in. It wasn't that busy and I think I did this in between classes or something like that. You go from the old-looking yet massive Vatican walls to a modern museum inside in one second, and its really cool. This museum has full handicap access and looks completely modern (mostly because it is). The weird thing is that was my first time really inside the Vatican even though I lived right next to it. The tall walls make it difficult to see inside, so there's definitely an intrigue into walking by something everyday but not knowing what's inside. So anyways I bought my ticket on a student discount of course, and since its all tourists there they are guaranteed to have someone speak english. Mondays always have the longest lines for that museum, and I saw tons and tons of tourists in lines for that museum all the time, and I even had to battle through them on my way to school. Sometimes the line got over a kilometer long, but when I went there was no line really so that was cool. Well I bought my ticket and off I went...

Here is a scale model of the Vatican, its own country of course. They also have parts of their country scattered around Roma, but this is the jist of it. I lived next to the Vatican of course in a place called Residence Candia on Via Candia and in reality its just a little bit off the right side of this model. The Pope was my neighbor. We laughed, cryed, became good friends, shared old stories, and truly bonded. Fun times (I barely saw him speaking once in Piazza di San Pietro on that little stage you see in the piazza).

Here it is finally! Finalmente! A view of the dome from INSIDE the Vatican. No more walking outside of the Vatican seeing the same old view again and again. I actually got tired of seeing the same piazza again and again, and yet I would love to go back there right now rather than be in San Diego. And the view is pretty much the same but with trees, since there are barely any trees in Roma outside of Villa Borghese (the city park thats huge and in a previous post).

I always walked on the other side of this entrance guarded by funny-dressed Swiss Guards, and now I finally see where it leads to. I was hoping for a little more than a single driving lane with parked cars, but oh well.

The view above is right when go outside from inside the museum. When you go to the right you hit this...

And this the side of the courtyard you can't see in this picture...

Along the right wall there is a sphinx but he looks really nice and friendly. And like everything else its marble.

Here he is again. A nice pet to have if he were real, but I'm not quite sure why he's in the Vatican Museum. This is probably really old and significant and valuable or something like that, and you notice by the Obelisks around Roma and in St. Peter's Piazza itself that the Vatican always has a connection to when the Roman Empire conquered Egypt long ago.

These pictures told me what to expect once I continued my journey. Apparently some guy named Michaelangelo scribbled some stuff with crayon on some wall.

Here is another view of the main end of the internal courtyard. I'm not sure what the giant pine cone is doing but I definitely want those black cats and that fountain is pretty cool too. As far as the peacocks and the giant pine cone goes, I'm just confused.

And here is another view of the full hemisphere roof. Why this is like this is a guess to me, but shapes in buildigs are always a winner and there are plenty of those in Roma, especially Piazza di San Lorenzo with the buildings imitating a ribbon flow (sorry no picture, but I was there for my Urban History class; it's near the pantheon).

If you look at the first courtyard picture, you can see a door. In that door is the hallway at runs along the wall of the courtyard. It is known as the hall of marble because it has more marble statues than you can imagine. This first statue is a statue of Marcus Aurelius (a slight guess), and the whole hallway is filled with these excavated from all over Italy and brought here. Sorry I cut off the head but this is all have for this one (usually I redo a bad shot but my camera was dying on me again like usual).

Here is a statue of Hercules himself. You can always tell its him because he mythologically slayed a lion and now carries the carcass with him at all times. That and the club he carries around are always the sign that you're dealing with Hercules.

This is dedicated to the Roman emperor Tiberius. Romans believe that Romulus and Remus are the descendants of the gods Mars and Venus, among others, so the mythological people and the Roman emperors are all Roman to them. And just note that this was all carved by hand with expensive colored marble a really long time ago. Pretty impressive.

This of course is Base With Dedication to Caius Vedennius Moderatus carved from 81-96 AD. Vedennius Moderatus was of course a seminal military engineer and this statue honors that.

This was the one picture I took of the hall itself. Marble everywhere on both sides all the way down the hall.

Here is a statue of Caesar Augustus, or just Augustus as he's known. He always has a battle scene on his body armor and is doing an imperial pose. You can see the level of detail on this statue thats probably around 2000 years old. I want one of these in my house. I wonder how much they are...

When I look down at the floor of my apartment now, I see a slightly stained beige carpet. In the Vatican Museum, the floor is a mosaic in the middle of marble. I was impressed enough to take a picture...

Here is a description of what is to come. It's basically a giant metaphorical description of the Nile River.

And here it is. It has a cornucopia, a sphinx, angels, exotic animals; the whole enchilada. No description is really needed, if you want one look at the picture above.

Well that does it for this post. To be continued soon...

Travels Around Roma Part XII: I Musei Capitolini

2010-02-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

This post is about my visit to the Capitoline Museum, or I Musei Capitolini. This museum is located on the Capitoline Hill, the same hill as the big white national monument and one of the seven hills of ancient Roma with the Palatine Hill down the street with the Roman Forum being where Roma was founded. Needless to say, this is a pretty significant national museum then. A street called Via Del Corso (where Burlesconi lives, among others) starts from the Campidoglio in front of the Vittorio Monument and goes straight (a rarity in Roma) to Piazza del Popolo, which is a major piazza with one of 4 ancient Egyptian obelisks around Roma. Where else do you see a Capitoline Hill that leads to an obelisk? Hmm, where could it be???...

Yes people, our very own Washington D.C. is modeled after Roma, a modern capitol city modeled after the ancient one. The Founding Fathers were really fond of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and America itself still follows the lead. And of course we get Capitol Hill from the Capitoline Hill in Roma. I was really surprised when I learned this in my Urban History class one day during lecture, and seeing this picture really confirms it. To learn about America I guess its essential to go to Roma. You can kind of see it from a picture I took on the roof of the Vittoria Emmanuele Monument (future post) but just know that there's an obelisk at

the end of the road. You can kinda see the grass of Piazza Venezia in the foreground and then you can see Corso (as its called in Roma, you dont need the Via del...) running all the way straight to Piazza del Popolo, which has many protests and rallies all the time since it is the piazza of the populace. This picture is looking north, so to the left or west is the Vatican while the Forum ruins are down the street to the right. You really can't see the obelisk but its at the end of the road in front of what appears to be a pointy church facade. And by the way to make a straight road like this that runs right through the city requires massive demolition and money for eminent domain payments, so this road is really important.

Well besides the Capitoline Hill there is the actual museum as well. Located next to the Monument and up the street from the Theatre of Marcellus, we first go to the Piazza del Campidoglio right in front of the museum. What do we see here? Why yes, its a sign saying that Roma Wants Its Citizen Gilad Shalit Free. There is another one of these in the Jewish Neighborhood, but I didn't know that this was here until I saw it. Definitely a pleasant surprise.

Here is the rest of the Piazza del Campidoglio. This significant space was designed by Michaelangelo and now is the home of Renaissance Palaces that have been converted to the museum. You can see a statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback right in the middle of the piazza, with a clock with an Italian flag in front of it. The inscription on the base of the statue says it was put in by pope Paul III (who basically rebuilt Rome after it was sacked the second time in the 1530's) and in fact the statue was put erected in the year MDXXXVIII or 1538. Going to Rome made me sharpen up on my roman numeral reading and I can even get a little bit of Latin down too. Of course by a little I mean very little.

Here is someone making a big mistake (like other people I've seen). Don't do it! Since he's balding now he's probably made the same mistake already but he probably is rich if he's getting married here. Mistake.

Well now on to the actual museum. There are a lot of marble statues and ancient Roman artifacts. There are also a lot of papal statues and at the end of the museum you can get a perfect view of the Roman forum. As they say in Italian... andiamo! (here we go!)

Here is Pope Innocent X followed by various other things I saw...

According to a tour guide I overheard at the Vatican Museum (future post!) all figures that have a lion's skin on them are of Hercules because he slayed a lion. So here he is, Hercules himself. Even though my picture is a little blurry its good enough. Watch out for more of Hercules with the lion carcass around him in the future.

Why what's this? Whom is it? The next picture will tell us...

Why of course! Its the one and only Marcus Aurelius, who also made the Aurelian walls that surround Rome.

Here is another view of this huge statue (Marcus Aurelius could step on my head). I want one of these, but instead its me riding the horse and its in diamonds and platinum and silver and gold. One day...

My Spanish Vacation Part IV: Barcelona Otra Vez

2010-02-13T02:15:00.000-08:00

Well this is a the continuing story of my Barcelona trip. I stayed in Barcelona for 5 days, so I got to know the city pretty well and I still remember where things are because I walked a lot of it. I got this tourist map from my hostel and I made them circle the stuff I should go see, so with my trusty map (which was practically torn apart by the end of the week) I walked to all the cool sites to see in Barcelona. Barcelona is a tourist city because a lot of people speak English, but I still managed to speak some Spanish, even with a lisp like they do.

Now we continue in the church. I walk to the altar but I look underground and I see an underground room where they probably do stuff, but what they do I don't know.

Now we and up at a park in Barcelona on the east side of the city. In the background you can see a statue and a big red thing. But what is that red thing? Have we seen something like that in Rome?

Why just like Paris Barcelona copied Rome with an triumphal arch, or as its known The Arch de Triomf. I liked this one because of the unique color and prime location. Although not as good as the ancient Roman ones in the Roman Forum this is still a winner in my book.

This is part of the eastern Barcelona where the major park is. So after I naturally went to the park, where I saw some beautiful sights and bought a toy puppet that you put over your arm and squeeze it for the tongue to come out for 1 Euro. Here is the main fountain of the park.

Here is a more vertical view to capture the sky better.

And I zoomed in on the golden horses on top because those were pretty cool.

The creatures spitting out the water of the fountain are a good resting point for many birds.

Here is the magnified view of this creature (I forget the specific name)...

This Triton statue is a million times better than the one we have at UCSD. The perfect shadow is an added bonus.

I went to a side balcony and the view from up there is well worth it.

Travels Around Roma Part X: Tivoli Gardens

2010-02-07T21:44:00.000-08:00

Okay this really is pushing the "around Roma" thing because Tivoli is its own city, but its still the most popular daytrip destination from Roma. And I went. It really cheap too, just 20 minutes by bus for like 2 Euro each way and they don't even check the tickets anyways. Now that I think about it my memory from Tivoli is kinda hazy except for the gardens of Villa D'este, or Summer Villa. I have 143 pictures from Tivoli so I'll just choose the best ones like always (a lot of the pictures are just multiples of the same stuff anyways). I'm surprised now that I got that many pictures; I had mastered using my camera by then, and this was mid November so pretty much like 2 or 3 weeks until the program ended.

Basically when I got there I went straight to Villa D'este because after a short walk it is close to the main city center square area, and I don't remember going to anything else so that had to be the only place. Only later when I read a tour book did it say to just rush through the actual Villa and stay for the magnificent gardens. I took my time through the rooms of the Villa and I might have rushed the gardens. But since I had to shell out like 14 Euro for that I was going to take my time. Well here we go (at least the gardens only)...

Well it turns out I'm actually doing this in reverse order because the palace comes before the gardens. So after I exited the palace there was a walkway and this set of stairs (and another one to the left too) that led down to the garden. Down there in a small room is a water fountain with l'acqua non potable, or non-drinkable water. The sound of running water is really pleasing so that was cool. But where to next?

When it turns out that before I went down the stairs there was a view of the garden from the horizontal pathway and I saw this. What mysteries await us in the gardens? Is it like Alice in Wonderland? Is it filled with profound surprises and mystical sights? There's only one way to find out...

Well when you go to the left of the horizontal pathway that exits the palace you get this view from a small cafe area. There is a partial garden down there, and remember where that is because we might visit it again. But now onto this mysterious garden, which is one of the most luxurious and beautiful gardens in all of Italia...

Here's a nice little fountain that barely has any water in it. I was expecting more than this even though it is a mosaic, which is kinda cool. But is that all there is to it? Looks can be deceiving at first...

Now THIS is the actual fountain after I walked up to it. From the the downstairs view it looks like...

BAM!!! (a la Emeril). Its pretty huge but not even the nicest fountain here. I sat in the rim too; its pretty cool.

Now downstairs is another horizontal pathway that connects the two sides of the garden. this one has water on all different levels, which is something you don't see everyday.

The thing with this blogger program is that they updated it so the big pictures above are from the new version and the smaller pictures below and on previous blogs are from the old program, but it won't allow you to change the old ones with their maximum size below to the new ones with the larger sizes. So thats why all the pictures are now smaller. Oh, and this is another fountain, more specifically the fontana di Tivoli, or Tivoli Fountain itself. Kinda big and kinda important, and really well done especially since the green with the slits behind them is a room that goes around and behind the fountain. The fountain was built between 1566 and 1570 and designed by Pirro Ligorio. Its part of the larger network of fountains in this garden that metaphorically represents the nearby landscape. How exactly? Practice your Italiano and go ask Pirro, although he might be dead by now...

This is another picture I took of the fountain that looks cool with the foliage as a foreground. With all these pictures you naturally try different things at least when you're taking tourist pictures of stuff and not of friends. According to the sign on the statue "The structure consists of a large oval pool housed in an ample exhedra with arches and niches in which ten statues of nymphs in peperino support vases from which jets of water escape". I couldn't have said it better myself.

Well how did this picture come about you might say. It doesn't look like anything shown previously. Well you're right then. Let's see where this comes from...

And what's this? Is it related to the previous picture? As with many things here, you have to look at it from a far angle and see it from more than one story...

Now this impressed me. And you can see the mini towers right next to the large water columns shooting up. Well when you go there on a sunny day in November 2009 you get these pics upcoming (no need to caption the upcoming pictures because that would ruin the pictures)...

And here we go, like a ride at Magic Mountain...

And when you go upstairs to the top of the fountain there's a room with as shell thing that is its own water fountain. Quite a peaceful and tranquil sound in a secluded room. And a cool picture too...

And while I was walking there was a nice view back of the palace, with some fruit in the foreground...

This is the last set of fountains all the way to the left where the path earlier led to and where it looks out at the landscape. This one represented how the Tiber goes into Rome or something like that. I really don't remember but I think the pathway with the different levels of water leads is the Tiber River leading to Roma, or this garden. I think...

Well here it is complete with a headless statue too. You don't see this in your backyard in a family barbecue.

And here is some ship thing that has been turned into a fountain. Shiver me timbers...

And this is the pathway that leads to the view of the landscape. Not bad for a standard run-of-the-mill garden...

Well thats all for Tivoli this post. The sun setting means its time to go...

Travels Around Roma Part IX: Firenze Di Nuovo

2010-01-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

In case you're wondering, Di Nuovo means again in Italian. So this is the continued story of my Florentine travels. I left off at the point in time when I exited the bus. I was in a general bus area and they guys pointed me in a general direction. Well it turned out that they gave me good directions because I saw some shops open and activity and people walking around. I followed the road and to my surprise I saw this...

La Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is purposely designed to take you on by surprise. You see it all at once and you don't see it coming up ahead. Also it is designed so that you can't take a full picture of it or see it fully easily. It's kind of a facade because like many churches in Italy its not as tall as it appears from the front. Thus I have different pictures from different angles. But for good pictures of the full front and the inside (which I couldn't go into) go here.

The Golden Door is directly in line with the front door of the Duomo and you cant really go far enough to get a good view. But I got some good views like these. This is the front but you can't see how far wide the Duomo extends...

This is the view to the left of the door. And by the way the level of detail and decoration is not done justice by these pictures. Each of the statues was hand-carved and placed really high up, for example, and everything else was done by hand. It's a lot to think about all at once.

Here is a view of the middle portion again but magnified. The Duomo was completed in 1436 after 16 years of construction and its really amazing literally how they built a huge cathedral like this. I couldn't do it now without power equipment, especially the frescos and statues that are really high up.

And here is a view from the right side. Notice the bell tower and dome behind the main entrance. I regret not being able to go inside because it looks amazing from pictures, but then again nobody could go in. And seeing the exterior was good enough. I'm not complaining...

Firenze is a cool city because this is where the Renaissance was born, and it has almost as much history as Roma itself. The Duomo rivals Roma's best churches in sheer beauty.

If you remember I said the Golden Doors were blocking you from getting a good view. Well at the time I had no idea what the Golden Doors were. All I saw were people gathering around and taking pictures, so I did the same. As usual I got a slightly blurry picture but just squint your eyes and it's clear...

After doing some nifty research (just now) I now know that these doors are the gates of paradise.

For an actual clear picture you can see this, which I took off the internet from the website www.HawkeBackpacking.com. Pretty clear, no? This door has David beheading Goliath (after he beat him), Noah and his family emerging from the Ark after the flood, the creation of Eve, Moses recieving the 10 Comandments on Mt. Sinai, and basically the whole shabang of significant holy art. And its gold. Thats a winner in my book.

One regret I have is not having a better camera during my trip. My camera ran out of batteries if it was turned on too long. Literally all of these pictures were a struggle because the camera would shut down if it was on for like 30 seconds. It was fine during the beginning but as the trip went on it got bad and then it just stayed that way. There are some pictures of me floating around on other people's cameras but they're lost in the ether right now. I don't know where they are. And once it shut down once I had to wait a while before it would muster enough battery power to take another picture. Literally thats how EVERY picture was made. I didn't really get to take spontaneous pictures but instead I had to plan out each picture and sometimes if I screwed up (like the Golden Door above) I just couldn't take another picture and I just had to go with it. Needless to say I threw my camera in my room and I haven't used it since I got back. Damn that thing. The only good thing is that it was free.

Well after wandering around I went here. This is Palazzo Vecchio, or Old Palace.

But first I believe I actually got to Piazza San Lorenzo. I bought some souvenirs and presents for people and then I saw a certain statue. It had this inscription. As you can see it is dedicated to San Lorenzo, and it was restored in the year 1850 (look for the Roman numerals). My Italiano isnt that good but it also says that he was the leader of the black parties. If I can translate more of it I will update this post.

And after the drama here is the statue itself. Sorry but its not that great, especially for Italia. But it has history so thats cool.

This is Piazza della Signoria, or the Piazza of his Lordship as it translates out. This is really cool because its also an open air museum (more on that below) which was a surprise because you don't get those for free as nice as it was in Firenze.

Here is more of the same, but a different building. You can already see some statues and the museum is just to the left. This also has various historic coats of arms of Florentine families of the past (the same ones Jupiter's moons are named after) so thats cool. And yeah Galileo was from Florence so when he discovered Jupiter's moons he connected them to his hometown and named one of them Io, which of course is the word "I" in Italian like "yo" in Spanish.

Firenze was buzzing that night. Lots of people were on the street. Among them were protesters, specifically a pro-Palestinian protest, and a quadrilingual protest at that. The translation is the same except that va means go and distrutto means destroyed.

And here is more of the protest. The words aren't clear enough for me to translate, but its more of the same. Of course when I saw this protest I went up to this man who was holding a sign and talked to him, and he spoke enough English that we could communicate effectively. About 20 min later I really got nowhere, I got yelled at by some random woman with a sign who found out I was American and accused Obama of being corrupt and deceitful, and it was basically the same conversation that I've had in the USA; it seems that abroad some things don't change. I won't exactly get into the details of the speech though. It wasn't pretty but the guy was friendly (I called il mio amico, or my friend, to make sure there was no tension) and ultimately nothing happened, although I was careful not to tell him too much.

Finally I got to the open-air museum. Here it is. Pretty cool for a free museum. You don't get that everyday.

Here is some guy beating up a centaur. As I recently learned this is a statue of Hercules beating up the centaur Nessus, as according to mythology.

More statues. I really have nothing to add other than I like the shadows. I only really remember seeing the centaur and these images are practically new to me. Yay centaur!

Here is a replica of the David statue by Michaelangelo. When I heard there was a free replica of the statue and I didn't have to pay out 15 euro to see some statue, I got really excited at the opportunity not to spend money in another museum. Score!!!!

Here is another parade, this time of the musical variety. The music was pretty good from what I remember. As quickly as they came as left so I got a picture of them before they left.

This is a picture of the Arno River, or il fiume Arno. It apparently looks a lot better at daytime, and it would a look better if the picture wasn't blurry. I actually didn't know Florence had a river until I took this picture.

And of course the Louis Vutton shop. I checked out the Puma store and it was really nice and two stories. Ditto for the Nike store.

Well thats all for Firenze. I might have missed my train but I'm not going to relive that here. Ciao and a presto!!!

Travels Around Roma Part VIII: Firenze

2010-01-18T02:55:00.001-08:00

Okay this doesn't really qualify as "around" Roma but whatever. Due to certain circumstances I had to go to Florence, or Firenze kinda impromptly. As the story goes, it was about three weeks before my program and my stay in Rome ended and I was out Friday night with my roommates like usual. Then I remembered that I had to get a purse for my sister or else she would kill me. I had already been asking girls where the best places to get purses are and they all said Firenze since they actually make leather there. Thus you have the best quality and cheapest prices. Florence is also a cool place to so I realized that I had to go tomorrow early. Since you can't really get someone to go with you with a night's before notice, I decided to go solo.

Now keep in mind I knew nothing about Florence and I only knew that trains from Termini, the main train station in Rome, went there. So I woke up early and took the metro to Termini. I only had a backpack with some food, some water, and a jacket and a class reader to read on the train, an Italy guide book from my roommate and of course my camera. That and my handy Italian skills. Oh and my wallet and cell phone and keys. I also had my handy gloves because of course it was winter time in the middle of November 2009 and it got kinda cold. My flight home was December 12th.

So I woke up around 8:30 and I got to Termini around 9:30 with time to eat breakfast and get ready since it takes about 20 min to get to Termini on the metro. I just generally made my way to the trains and I asked people Come vado a Firenze? (How do I go to Florence?) and I eventually made my way to machines that sold the tickets. The machines all have an English feature so that wasn't a problem. They were probably tired to tourists who only speak English trying to buy tickets so they stuck the machines right next to i binari (train platforms). I saw that there were two options, a €16 option that took like 3 or 4 hours and a €32 euro ticket that only took an hour and a half. Also the earliest train had left like 15 min ago so the next train left at 11.15 (remember, no am or pm here). So of course I got the cheaper ticket and I waited. Eventually the train came, I got on, and then I'm pretty sure I tried to read but I fell asleep (with my backpack in hand of course). But I set my cell phone (I bought one for Rome, not my normal one) alarm to wake me up before the train got to Florence. My next memory is at the train station is Florence after I got off. No tourist section. No maps. Practically nobody there. I was kinda screwed. The guidebook didn't really help, and come to think of it I only had the guidebook in Tivoli and not even in Florence. So scratch that. No guidebook or map or anything in some random city. All I have is my Italian and my intellect. I remember by the time I got there it was 14.00 (2 pm) so I had some time before I could catch the late train back to Rome that day because I didn't book a hostel or any sleeping accommodations. I just wanted to make it a day trip. Umm that didn't quite happen...

But first things first. I get out of the train station and its a standard neighborhood. Not in the middle of the city or the tourist district or anything like that. And of course nobody is there. Since I was taking Urban History class in Rome I noticed that one road was kind of wide and was the main road leading away from the train station; I walked down that road. Since it was Saturday at around 14.00 many things were closed and not too many people were on the streets. Or so I thought. As I continued walking I saw a bus stop with two guys. The guys were around my age so I asked them "Come vado al Duomo"? The Duomo is of course one of the main attractions in Florence and I wanted to go there and see it and probably get a purse from around there also. I actually don't remember what I first said them but that was probably it. A lesson to be learned it to blog soon after something happens and not on Jan 19th 2010 like I'm doing now. But oh well. Well anyways it turns out that they spoke English (well at least enough) and one of them wanted to practice so it was all good. But the bus came pretty quickly and they said this was the bus that went to the Duomo and they were going on it too so I got on with them in the rear entrance. I said that I had a buss pass, but it was my Roma buss pass which was invalid here. They said I should go to the bus driver and buy a ticket for around €3 or something like that. It was funny because the guys (especially the one guy who wanted to practice his English) wanted to use his bus vernacular with me. He kept saying "Come si dice scendere, scendere"? (How do you say exit, exit?) and as soon as I heard him say scendere I said "exit" and he knew. He wanted to say ticket but I kept saying il biglietto, which is the ticket in Italian, and he just nodded yes. And the other guy was calling the guy who wanted to practice his English "estupido" and giving him a hard time, which was kinda funny. It turned out my exit was two exits away so I wasn't going to go to the front of the crowded bus to buy a ticket. In Italy there are random searches of all passengers to see if they have tickets and if you don't you get fined €50. The bus driver isn't responsible for you getting a ticket and I even saw signs saying please do not talk to the bus driver. When it was my exit I got off, thanked the guys, and went in the general direction they pointed me to shortly before I exited. To be continued (very soon)...

Travels Around Roma Part VII: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Mirafiori

2010-01-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

Here are some more travels around Rome. Even though these visits are all out of chronological order, here they are anyways. First off is the Trevi Fountain. This of course is the famous Baroque fountain by Bernini himself (Rome's most famous architect and sculptor) and is truly breathtaking. It features Oceanis, the god of all water, and is the terminus of the Aqua Virgo, the only aqueduct line still remaining from ancient Rome (all others were destroyed by the Goths in 537 C.E.). There are other figures in the fountain all with historical/mythological significance, but Oceanis (not Triton) and other mythical figures riding winged horses and blowing conches is definitely the main attraction. At night it's even more amazing than the day. Truly breathtaking.

First up is the Pantheon. Most people think of Greece, but there is something called the Pantheon in Rome. But what is the Pantheon you say? Well the Pantheon is an ancient Roman pagan temple completed in (as my internet source says) 27 B.C.E. It was rebuilt in 125 C.E. and of course it was converted to a church in 609. Paganism isn't that big in Rome where everyone is Catholic, so that's no surprise. For more info and better pictures than what I took go here. More on the Pantheon below...

Next up is the Trevi Fountain, which is ALWAYS packed. There are tourists around it all the time. The tradition goes that if you throw a coin over your head with your back to the fountain you will return to Rome. All the masses of coins in the Trevi fountain are donated to charity. Before Italy converted to the Euro, the lira were magnetic and this homeless man famously used a magnet to fish out the coins. But the story goes that he stayed homeless because he helped other homeless people and used the money for the greater good of others. Well he was caught and banned from the fountain and now Euro coins are non-magnetic anyways. It looks like times have changed.

Third is Mirafiori. This isn't exactly the tourist landmark of Rome, but its a nice park on the North East side of Rome near Piazza Bologna. I volunteered for an English conversation class and there is an extension of La Sapienza University (the biggest university in Europe, which is in Rome and was originally built by Mussolini). I'm pretty sure this extension only teaches language mediation, because those are all the classes I saw there. That and literature classes for other languages. All of my students were language mediation majors and a lot of them were also studying German, Spanish, English, and some other languages. It was really interesting and fun to talk to Italian students my age (in English, because I would get lost in Italian) and see what life is like from a Roman point of view (and a lot of students commuted to Rome from towns in the Lazio region). It also feels cool to be revered for speaking English and helping others out. And believe it or not most Roman students don't speak Cali English. Shocking. More on Mirafiori down below...

Here is a window from slightly outside the Pantheon. If you look closely you can see ancient Roman ruins through the reflection. These king of things are kind of common in Rome. In Largo Argentina, for example, there is a tram line that runs right next to ancient Roman ruins that are sequestered off. Once you live there you get used to it. There are also remnants of the Acqua Virgo around Rome, and ancient Rome still breathes heavily in modern Rome.

In case you don't know, the Pantheon is a perfect hemisphere with a hole in the roof. And almost everything is marble. The walls and floor are marble but the roof is not. And by marble I mean the most exquisite and elegant and expensive marble knows to the ancient Romans. For the floor alone different types and color marbles were imported from Greece, different parts of the Italian peninsula, and literally from the whole Mediterranean. And this was in ancient Rome nonetheless. Of course the Roman Empire conquered all of the Mediterranean at the time, so that helped. All around the wall are extremely significant tombs, sculptures, paintings, etc. Here is one of them. You can even notice the different colors and types of marbles on the walls.

When I said that the Pantheon is significant, this applies to all of Italy and not just Rome. That's because the grave the Vittorio Emanuelle II himself is here. He of course was the first president of modern Italy in 1870. Basically he's the modern day George Washington for Italy. Here is his grave, which of course under his name says Father of the Country. The picture is a little blurry but I tried using my camera with the indoor setting and that was a mistake. This is the best I got. Oh well...

Here are some of the insciptions on the marble next to his grave. I can't really make them out because they are in Latin (you can tell by using the letter V instead of U), but I thought they were pretty cool. You also see a lot of these in Rome, so if you go brush up on your Latin.

What other all-star cast in buried in the Pantheon? Why none other than the famous artist Raphael himself. Who is Raphael you say? Well he was an artist during the Italian High Renaissance, a true genius as they say, and like many important men (Caesar, Augustus, Bernini, he went by one name). That's enough for me. He is buried here, and you can see his name on his tomb below.

Here is his tomb a little below ground level. The picture above is a magnification of the rectangular tomb. For a better picture but without the nice lighting of this picture, look to the next pic.

Here is another view of Raphael's tomb, which was taken out of the ground and verified in the 1800s to make sure he was actually in the tomb. In the Pantheon there is a poster telling people this and a reproduction of a painting showing the moment his tomb was taken out. The Pantheon looked exactly the same in the painting as it does now. Indeed, the Pantheon is timeless.

The Pantheon is famous for its roof. It's roof is a perfect hemisphere shape with hole right in the middle letting in sunlight. You can tell the time of day from where the light shines on the roof if you want. Many pictures of Italy show this shot and its worth it to see in person. Pretty amazing. But what happens if it rains? Well the rain actually goes into the Temple, but the ancient Romans built the floor slightly convex so the rain eventually goes into the sides. I missed going to the Pantheon while it was raining, but I heard it was an amazing sight to see. It's also worth noting that the ancient Romans built a massive temple in the shape of a perfect hemisphere with of course ancient technology. The story goes that Romans in the Middle Ages simply looked and Pantheon and had no idea how to build it because the building methods were lost. That and the imported exotic marble from far across and Mediterranean make the Pantheon a keeper in my book. If only it didn't have so many tourists though...

Now we get to the Trevi Fountain. La Fontana di Trevi, as it is called, is worth flying into Ciampino or Fiumicino airport at 6am tomorrow to go see. I would do that if I could. Here is one of the best pictures ever taken by man. It is of one of the men with his winged horse blowing on his conch. That and the waterfall perfectly falling into the water make the Trevi quite beautiful.

Here is a more zoomed-out view of the Pantheon. No more commentary needed for this one.

Another view of the Trevi, with a clear view of Oceanis himself. He has some sort of rod in his hand, and even my Urban History professor didn't know what it is when she was describing the Trevi Fountain for the class. The inspiration for this? I say yes...

And a zoomed-out view of the above picture. I'm not done with the Trevi yet...

Here is another view of the waterfall in the Trevi, which I really like. I would like Bernini to be resurrected and make me a Trevi 2.0 Fountain in my backyard. Being in Rome made me realize the things I really want in my backyard like the la fontana di Trevi, il Colosseo, la piazza di San Pietro, etc. It could happen...

And one more picture of the Trevi using the blue-green color function of my camera. As a final note you can notice the different types of columns such as the Doric and Corintheon columns, and the rocky motif that accompanies the fountain. Other buildings around the Trevi also have the rocky motif, which is pretty cool. When I return I want to actually swim in the Trevi fountain. Maybe at 5am if nobody is there...

Now on to Mirafiori. This is less about the pictures and more about the experience of teaching an English conversation class in Rome. When I first got there I had some time to spare and I went with my camera. I was surprised to see bamboo trees in Rome. They are pretty rigid and since it rained earlier if you shook them water drops came down. Needless to say I shook a lot of trees like a kid in a candy shop.

Another picture of the bamboo trees. Then I met some talking pandas and we had lunch at this really good Chinese restaurant in the middle of the Colosseum. Apparently Roman pandas speak fluent Italian and can even understand my Italian. Who knew?

Okay here is the actual school. There was a movement in the early 20th century to go away from the common marble and travertine look and go to more earthy terra cotta looks and colors. And mirafiori got this treatment. You can see the fascist architecture by the repetition of rectangles and arches, although there is no giant M in the building. I taught my class on the other side of the building, and it was a unique and interesting, not to mention fun, experience.

What is English conversation class like in Rome? My program offered us a volunteer option to sign up to teach these classes, and I couldn't resist. I taught my classes in the evenings with my friend Geleen. There was no lesson plan or script to the class. I winged all of it as I went along. The students there were taking it for some credit but no grade, so all they did was sign in and then just talk. Basically every class started with me introducing myself as a student studying abroad from California. Then I made everyone introduce themselves every class (they hated this because by the third week I knew the familiar faces), but oh well since I'm one of the teachers. Usually my and my friend split the class up after initial introductions so we could get as many students to talk. Believe it or not, Italian students aren't exactly inclined to speak English when they get credit just for showing up. So every class started with me saying "What did you do during your weekend?" and them saying "Not much." I taught two classes in a row and by the second class a lot of people left or didn't show up, so the class was small and we could talk about other stuff like politics, gay rights, cultural differences, etc.

What I learned is that nobody likes Burlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy. He owns multiple TV channels and newspapers and thus controls the media more or less. He hires cronies in political power and is trying to change the constitution so he can stay in power forever. He is the second richest man in Italy (behind the guy who owns the chocolate company that makes Nutella and Ferrero Rocher) and he also publicly cheats on his wife and publicizes this. I was told that imagine if Obama did this and got away with it, then you would hate your president too (even though Burlusconi is not the President, he still has a lot of power).

I also found out that some people hate the Pope and the Vatican in general because they hold too much political power, are racist, don't support equal rights, have too much money and political power, and brainwash the masses. Some of these are actually true to certain extents, but how much I don't really know.

I also found out that Roman students have pretty much the same life as I do. Which involves studying and going to school and then maybe going out once or twice during the weekend to have a little fun, and then repeating the week. I always started the class off by asking people what they did during the weekend, and I got a lot of short terse answers because of either "nothing much" or some variation of that. I also found out that American English is a lot easier to understand than British English. What I heard is that when you watch an American movie you can understand like 90% of it but when you watch a British movie you need Italian subtitles or else you are completely lost. I guess American English is pretty trashy, and I agree. Its not exactly Shakespearean English.

One of my students was a rapper (with his own self-made "album" and he said he has listened to a lot of Eminem, especially when the Marshall Mathers LP came out. Overall the class was pretty fun to each because people actually look up to you for speaking English when you dont even have to think about it. I started correcting people's mistakes a lot and they told me I was "good" so I guess I did an okay job. And I also tried teaching Cali slang like "later...", "sup?", "cuz" but that didn't really work out too well. I also got some funny mistakes like instead of turning on the TV you put yourself in the TV, or something like that. People also made their grocery shopping (a direct translation from Italian) and made their exercise instead of going to exercise. They said that next to Japanese Italian is the hardest language to learn all the way through because there are about 20 different tenses and even native Italian speakers don't know them. It was funny to learn that since all the clubs are 18+, the clubs are open in the afternoon for the teenagers like 13-15 and then the clubs open up for the regulars on Saturday night. One of my students said that you come out of the club at 4am while they come out of the club at 4pm. Then I asked the class if they did that back in the day, and they all laughed and said they had too much pride to do that. There was also one time when the class demanded that I speak Italian to say what I did during my second travel break, and I agreed. Of course I used really simple past tense and all I said is that I visited this, I saw that, and I forgot a lot. Then when I made one mistake, literally everyone yelled the correct verb at me all at once. It was a little scary.

They also said people will look at you funny when you use formal Italian instead of informal, which might have been useful to me earlier because I thought it was good to use formal sometimes to be polite. But apparently if you're not talking to someone really important it doesn't really matter. NOW I know that...

Travels Around Roma Part VI: A.S. Roma vs. Bari

2010-01-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

For my Culture and Identity class I had to do an ethnography on some aspect of Italian culture. So naturally I chose calcio, or more commonly known as soccer in America. Surprisingly nobody says futbol. Its always calcio, with the second c pronounced as as "ch" sound of course. And to "study" the sports culture naturally I went to an A.S. Roma game. The game was A.S Roma vs. Bari, a team from the eastern cost of Italy south of Rome. The game took place on Nov 22, 2009. I didn't know how popular the games are and how heave the traffic is going to the game, so I was late. In fact, I had to take a the metro to Barberini and then follow the crowd into a PACKED bus. It was like cattle. I couldn't move and people were all around me. When the bus turned I didn't have to hold on to anything because the people stopped my momentum. Of course the captian of A.S. Roma is number 1o, Francesco Totti. Or more commonly known as Totti. He also plays for the (currently) defending World Cup champion Italian National team. He plays forward, which basically means he's the one that shoots the most and scores the goals. The glamorous position of the team. He's basically an A list celebrity in Roma, and has his own (shoddy) clothing line. He's also the subject of jokes about dumb Romans because he speaks Roman dialect instead of standard Italian, which would be like a Michael Jordan speaking with a hillbilly accent on national TV all the time. Totti himself even published a book of Totti jokes. Also, Totti got banned 3 games while playing Denmark for spitting on a player. You can play the online Totti spitting game here. Just click gioca, or play, to start. Apparently when he hits 11 Danish players he leaves with his famous girlfriend Ilary Blasi.

Well anyways I came a little late to the game and I remember getting there in the 14th minute. I had walked into one the greatest (regular season games) that Totti would ever play... Totti scored a hat trick (3 goals) in the first half alone. His first goal was a penalty kick in the 5th minute, and I walked in just as the crows was celebrating his second goal. He has his own chant and Romans raise both hands in the air in their Totti celebrations. This was my view from the seats next to Curva Nord, which is the visitors section. But security took a lot of steps to seperate the Roma supporters from the Bari supports. Curva Sud on the south side of the stadium has all the hard-core Roma fans, but that was sold out. I was about to buy the cheap Curva Nord tickets but a local behind me advised me not to out of personal safety. It's a form of suicide to go support Roma in the Curva Nord section. You can see a Roma fan with a Totti jersey in the middle of the picture in the Curva Sud section.

The above picture was from the standing section more or less ( I don't really remember). Once I got into my seat I had to sit behind a plexiglass "wall", and this the picture I took. I really couldn't see all the fingerprints when I took the picture though.

And another picture of an A.S. Roma goal kick. The A.S. Roma wears black and A.S. Roma wears red while Bari wears white. If you right click on the picture and choose open link in new window. you will get an enlarged picture and the leftmost Roma player right on the mid-field line is number 10 Totti himself. I was trying hard to get a good Totti shot but I never really got one because he was on the opposite side of the field playing forward. Ehh but this is good enough.

And here again is another field view. There is nothing really original here, but enjoy anyways.

A.S. Roma and their inter-city rivals both play in Stadio Olimpico. Since Italy is divided into different regions, regional identity is a strong mainstay of Italian culture because before Italy was united in 1870 each region was its own kingdom. Each region has its own dialect, food (Milan eats pizza, not rice for example) and its own culture. However since Roma is the capitol of Italy and founding city of the Roman Empire, it thinks highly of itself, even if it is in the Lazio region. Basically the Roma-Lazio rivalry runs through the entire city. Taxi drivers pledge will let you know you are in the wrong cab if you say you like Lazio. You should apologize immediately and say your a tourist.

Anyways, Stadio Olimpico was built my Mussolini as a symbol of nationalistic pride, like everything else he built. It has shape-like fascist style with an attempt to reconnect with ancient Rome, which he tried really hard to do. Hence the arches, square shape, and the olympic rings.

Around the actual stadium is a mini-stadium that is lined with marble statues to show off. Here it is. The statues look nice but knowing they are from Mussolini kind of spoils it. There are also in the stadium big M shapes and mosaics of Italy conquering Ethiopia from the 1930's. Nobody has really taken them down yet, even though everybody hates Mussolini. Strange.

Here is another picture of the statues with Stadio Olimpico of course in the background.

And one more picture looking from the North side of the field. You can see how many statues there are on the left side of the field a little bit. When in Rome. Quando a Roma...

Now back to the stadium. Basically the way it works is that I load up all the pictures first and then caption them. I really didn't rearrange these pictures in chronological order, as you might be able to tell from the color of the sky. Also all the picture outside of the stadium were taken as I was leaving the game. But this picture is of the young A.S. Roma fan with the beanie and flag.

Here is a picture of the scoreboard. Totti scored three goals in the first half and Bari added one meaningless goal in the second half. You can see its the 78th minute and the score is Roma 3 Bari 1. And I guess its just some ads also. My Italian isn't good enough to translate.

Here is a view of Curva Sud with the Bari fans waving their flags even though their team is getting destroyed. Security was present to prevent any fights, but some flair fires went off in the crowd. That and that section had a chant where they all lifted their Bari scarves in the air at the same time (everyone has team scarves, especially in the winter). That and of course taunting directed towards my section. They also have organized chants and songs like Roma.

Here is a view of the Curva Sud section with the A.S. Roma fans with their flags. That is also where they do the Roma, Roma, Roma chant. However I did hear that at the end of the game and again when I went to another game (keep a look out for that post also).

And here is the max zoom view of the Curva Sud section. It was pretty crazy there, especially when Totti scored his goals. Everybody immediately got up and celebrated, hugged each other, the whole shabang. And then the Totti chant came on the loudspeakers and everybody did that. Needless to say I was a little bit lost and confused.

Another view of the Curva Nord Bari supporters. They were pretty into the game even though last time I checked in their division Bari was ranked 11th out of 20 (and Roma 10th). Imagine how crazy it would have been if the teams were good or at the Roma-Lazio game (which only Roman citizens are allowed to attend and from what I was personally told is crazy and violent).

And one final view of the crowd. I can never get enough. Roma is definitely one of my favorite club soccer teams. Lazio sucks. As they say, Forza Roma!!!!!!! (Go Roma!!!!)

My Spanish Vacation Part III: Barcelona

2010-01-03T15:16:00.001-08:00

Well at around 1 or 2pm on the Monday after Halloween 2009 I flew into Barcelona. The metro is attached to the airport (Girona airport I think) so that was pretty easy. In Barcelona everyone speaks effectively three languages: Spanish, English, and Catalan, or Català. From what I've heard its a hybrid mixture of Spanish and French. Wherever I went I at least tried to speak the local language, but there was no way I was going to attempt Catalan. I tried a little bit of Spanish and I used English when I needed to. Also in Barcelona everyone speaks Spanish with a lisp making their "c" sounds a "th" sound. Literally I heard "Grathias por tu visita a Barthelona" on the speakers in the dolphin show below. That and a lot of "Como ethstas"? I think its a little funny because it sounds like their speaking Spanish incorrectly from how it is in Cali, but then again any language spoken with a Cali accent is funny to other people around the world.

So I get out of the metro station in Barcelona. It was the Par.al.lel metro stop but the word Parellel has some periods in it for sure, but I just don't remember where. Weird. This is located in the South-East part of the city near my hostel. I see my friend and we go to an ATM. Then I check into my hostel HelloBCN Hostel (my favorite hostel that I stayed in) and we soon go out and exploring in Barcelona. I get a map of Barcelona from my hostel and see that its huge. Since its a tourist map I see a lot of monuments and the word Gaudí appears on the map frequently. Since I didn't really research beforehand anywhere that I went to (try not to do that) I had no idea what anything was. I even thought I was on the west coast of Spain for a second because I'm always on the west coast everywhere I am, which was a little sad. While we're walking I'm getting an impromptu lesson on the streets of Barcelona and the good stuff to see, as well as a the best sandwhich shop in all of Barcelona (which I visited multiple times later on). It turned out we went to an elevated park in the south-east of Barcelona near the hostel. It also has a historic castle in the park and of course good views. From the research I just did I apparently first went to Montjuïc Park and of course saw the Montjuïc Castle as well. The walk up to this is where the pictures start...

After climbing up some stairs and walking up some roads, we got to a flat walkway. This is what we saw... This is view of the harbor and main street running along the ocean. You can also see what I think are cruise ships or just really large ships parked in the harbor.

Here is a picture of the same scene above but on maximum zoom. It's a statue that I will elaborate on later. If you look at the road lined by trees and look at its first intersection you can see this statue. Since we're in Spain maybe you can guess who it is...

Across from the picture above is the Miramar Hotel, which has an incredible view. Miramar of course means "see the sea" and from what I saw it was a pretty expensive hotel. It was completely closed off and I couldn't really find a way to the lobby.

Here's another views from in line with the Miramar. You can see the seats to this restaurant on the left, which had a pretty amazing view.

Here is another view but more to the left. The ocean is of course east but its hard to see in this picture.

Here is another similar picture but more zoomed out. You can make out the cruise ship from behind the palm tree and the ocean and harbor water are more visible in this picture.

And this is a view of the shipyards south of the cruise ships...

And here is Montjuïc Castle itself. The inside of the castle was closed off and the only interesting things were the cannons that you could go and play around with up close. That and the views.

This is an endless waterfountain they had in the lower park area near the Miramar Hotel.

This is the stupidest picture ever that I somehow allowed to be taken. When I was abroad I didn't really get a haircut so my hair is kinda long and since I was on vacation I didn't have hair gel (I only had a carry-on and my clothes on my back for everything and obviously gel can't go on a plane) and I wasn't going to buy one just for a week. I always come out badly in picture and this is another example. While going through the Madrid/Barcelona pictures I saw this and I still don't remember really allowing this to be taken with my camera but whatever. If you like the shirt and jeans I bought those for myself at the Roma flea market because I didn't bring enough clothes to Rome. And those shoes were the only sneakers I brought for 4 months. Quite loyal to me. And the reason it looks like I have two watches on is that my hostel gave us a watch-like "key" that we scanned to get in our room.

And finally here is a view from the castle itself. You can see what was the moat and of course Barcelona itself.

Well here is the statue I showed you earlier. It is a statue of Cristopher Colombus pointing towards the ocean. However the irony is that he is pointing east when the New World is of course west. He was the ultimately man because he never asked for directions and got lost on his terms and dealt with the consequences. Those consequences were landing on the Caribbean Islands and discovering the New World, although the Indians would say something different.

Barcelona is defined by one man: Gaudí. He is of course the famous early twentieth century architect that designed unique buildings all around Barcelona. His works were very unique and different and prominently featured parabolic shapes and heavy use of natural daylight, among other things. The first monument I went to was his unfinished church as it is called in the Gothic section of Barcelona right in the middle of the city. After walking down Cristopher Colombus Road (more or less the translation; I just remember it was named after him and its the one that runs along the ocean) I went to the sandwich place I had heard wonders about (it was amazing; I went back multiple times). Then I went to the middle of the city in the tourist-y areas and looked around. Since I had five days I didn't really plan out my days and did what I wanted after I split off from my friends. The freedom of doing what you want in a beautiful city like Barcelona is the best, and at night my hostel would get us free admission and a free drink at a club each night so I had my nights set already. That and the abundance of sangria made Barcelona awesome.

So anyways I went to the Unfinished Church (the translation more or less) and here it is...

But what does it look like inside? Well I was curious as well until I found out that you have to buy a ticket to go in. Hmm... do I buy a ticket for a church when they are all free everywhere else? Well contrary to what I normally believe in I spent the 5 euro (it might have been a little bit more, I don't remember) and in I went. I saw this...

But there's a lot of intricate detail. I immediately noticed major differences from Roman churches, like the walls without frescos and not that much marble or travertine. That and the Gothic design and flying buttresses as they say. And of course the use of gold in a lot of the church, like this...

This post is running too long. That means I will continue on another post. ¡Adios, hasta luego!

Travels Around Roma Part V: Foro Traiano and V.E. II Monument

2010-01-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

These are some of my random travels around the Foro Traiano, or Trajan's Forum, and the Vittorio Emanuele II National Monument on the Capitoline Hill. Vittorio Emanuele II was of course the first King of Italy after it unified in 1870 and he is Italy's George Washington, more or less. He even has a famous road named after him, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which runs from the Tiber River near Castel Sant'Angelo and goes although through Rome to his own monument. My school is also located there off the street, and it is the main traffic school because all the other roads around it are from the Medieval times and are too narrow for modern car traffic.

Right after I was done with seeing Santa Maria Maggiore I'm pretty sure we all went to the Foro Traiano which is right outside. This link has a model of what it looked like back in ancient Rome, and today the few remaining columns don't do it justice. It also says that people entered the Forum through the fornix, or singular passageway under the triumphal arch. This is where the term fornication comes from because certain things happened under each fornix. Ancient Roman emporers had their own massive columns that were stiarcases with a good view at the top, and Trajan's column is in his forum. Each column is carved spirally throughout the whole column, usually with war scenes depicting victory, and how this was done during ancient times is beyond me. Same with how they built the Pantheon, which I will show later. Trajan's market is located across the street from the Roman Forum ruins as well. Trajan got around.

Here is Trajan's Column, erected in 113 A.D., and since I took a bad picture you can't really see how tall it is (125 feet)or that it has windows on top and a large statue of Trajan himself. Medieval pilgrims were charged to go up the columns, but today sadly it is not a tourist attraction like that anymore. I would have paid.

Here is the same picture but more of the Forum remains in the background. For a better picture go here. Ancient Roman ruins are dispersed throughout Rome, and are always my favorite.

This is the view of the Vittorio Emanuele II National Monument. It was completed in 1935. It combines different aspects of Roman architecture all in one and is highly symbolic as well. It has a tomb of an unknown soldier and each column is for each region in Italy. There is a statue of King Vittorio on a horse, and the winged chariots above were added by Mussolini later on. There are also many reliefs or war scenes and the Risorgimento, or Re-Unification Museum is in there too. All the other buildings around it were demolished and the monument is surrounded by Piazza Venezia, the biggest piazza in Rome.

Here is a closer view. A little of the detail is more apparent. Also, there are stairs to climb to the higher stories and there is an elevator to go to the roof. I went there later on and look out for that in a later post.

This is still another view, but this time with the national flag streaming in the wind. You're are not allowed to talk loudly when you climb the stairs and you are expected to dress appropriately. There were signs in english telling me this which were directed towards American tourists obviously. But everyone who is there is a tourist and is taking pictures, so its a little bit of a lost cause. There are nice views of the Colosseum and Forum ruins from the monument as well.

What's this around the monument???

But there is something I haven't shown yet. With any national monument, you're always going to have... protests. While we were visiting the monument a protest was taking place so we decided to go check it out.

Here is their main protest sign. They would also follow chants from people on a loudspeaker and the crowd backed up pretty quickly to form the circle seen above. There were also media and people filming and taking pictures. This was the only protest I really took pictures of, but any popular piazza or open space always has them. My Italian isn't that good to translate this or even understand what it means, but using a dictionary is says... " The truths are out! Out goes the red agenda. We are with Antonio Ingroia (whoever he is?), Sergio Lari, everyone of the honest judges, Salvatore Borsellino and Gioacchino Genchi." Apparently its a protest against corrupt judges, because I don't remember what it was about when I was there.

Here is the protest in full force. It was pretty loud but fun to be a part of, and by that I mean yelling their chants for a while, taking pictures, observing them, and then leaving.

Here is another similar picture. The sign says "Open the eyes, observe... don't close the ears... listen... only so (I can't see the rest of the line)... The fresh perfume of liberty.

After that I went near the Spanish Steps area on my way back home. Someone made the life mistake of getting married, and here is his Rolls Royce parked outside of some fancy hotel waiting for him. I also saw people getting married in Orvieto and in front of the Capitoline Museum.

My Spanish Vacation Part II: Madrid

2009-12-13T09:04:00.001-08:00

Some more picture from Madrid first. This blogging actually takes a long time to do with the picture loading and the thinking up of description on the spot. And I'm not exactly the most creative writer in the world. So you might notice some shorty and choppy text which is when I reach the point that I really don't care for the time being. Oh well.

I went to the Prado Museum and Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. The Reina Sofia had Salvador Dalí, who after seeing his art is my favorite artist. A self-proclaimed mad man, he painted surrealist art like no others. The images of the melting clocks is him, among others. Here are some of my favorite paintings that I saw. All of these are pictures I took myself zooming in just enough to get rid of the picture frame. They're not perfect pictures but they're good enough. Enjoy and everybody should go to the Reina Sofia Museum...

Besides Dalí, The Reina Sofia has some guy named Picasso (who is not technically a surrealist) and it has other prominent surrealist artists as well, some of which we will see.

First off is the "other" non-surrealish art in the Reina Sofia. Its supposed tor be modern art but I have trouble seeing the artistic value in a lot of stuff because its just cheap stuff you can buy at Big Lots but its displayed with proper lighting and called art. That and just text or newspapers cut out. Art requires skill, and anything that involves newspaper clippings or that retarded paint dripping (like this, the most expensive painting in the world at $140 million) isn't true art. Anybody can do it. But since I know nothing about something as subjective as art I'm probably wrong. You can see Number 5 by Jackson Pollock below. Its expensive because of who painted it (Jackson Pollock was the first to do this art dripping painting stuff like the little kids do) more than the actual painting anyways. But $140 million? Seriously?

Now anyways back to what I actually saw and of my pictures. I saw this "art" of words that start with S shaped in the letter of an S and it was instantly one of my favorites. For me the letter S will always be art so this one is okay in my book.

Yeah I don't really know what these are. The fork on the left has one of its prongs bent oddly and thats it. The other things I have no idea what they mean or their artistic significance.

This one was metal spheres hanging on colored strings creating a pretty cool visual effect.

When I used the color filter on my camera I got this picture. Another cool visual. It would be nice to have this in a room in my future house for no real reason.

I actually don't know what this is called or what it really is but I liked this because of its wavy flow and the use of the color blue which is always a plus. The "waves" of the picture are quite relaxing and the lack of identity in the picture leaves it to the imagination of the viewer.

This is De Este Paraiso by Manuel Millares completed in 1969. The 3-D structure of this work impressed me and I actually liked it even though I have no idea what it is. Can you tell?

Now on to the actual surrealist paintings. This is called A World by Angeles Santos Torroella completed in 1929. In reality its pretty large and taller than me. Its also hard to take in with one glance. I looked at it for a long time and I still had trouble seeing everything that was going on at once. But this is one of my favorites for its creativity and imagination alone.

And an alternate view with the original rotated to the left.

And an alternate view rotated to the left.

This is called Bull's Head with Studies for Eyes by Picasso, completed in 1937. He actually had a lot of sketches and pencil drawings like this, which was surprising to me because I thought he only did full paintings.

This is called Monument to the Spainiards who Died for France by Picasso, completed in 1946-1947. I find Picasso difficult to comprehend because he uses a cubist style, but I'm sure he wanted people to feel that way to judge art by all angles at once.

This is called The Witch by Andre Masson, completed in 1942-1943. Apparently the French can paint good surrealist works too. Who knew?

This is one of Picasso' most famous works. You might of seen it. It is pretty big. Security and museum workers were everywhere and lots of people (including me for a little bit) were crowding trying to get pictures. I am of course talking about his work Guernica in 1937. It's too big to fit in one picture in a straight angle from that room so I had to take multiple pictures. The first pic is my best attempt to get the whole thing in one shot even with the weird camera angle. The last two are panorama pics with slight overlaps. Enjoy...

This is El Enigma de Hitler, or The Enigma of Hitler, by Salvador Dalí in 1939. All of Dalí's works are full of personal symbolism. With the help of my internet source, I will actually explain them all. I really liked the Reina Sofia and Dalí particularly. The surrealist art is much more interesting to me than portraits of royal families like in the Louvre or marble statues even because there are so many of those they are like a dime a dozen. As you know, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 to officially start WWII. Also important to know is that Dalí was a self-described mad man. He was crazy and he knew it. He had visions and lucid dreams and gave everyday objects important symbolic values; all of these are directly in his works.

The only thing I want to say about this is that this is the reason the Surrealist movement kicked out Dalí because he was patronizing the wrong people. And I agree. He truly was a madman.

This work is called El Enigma Sin Fin, or The Endless Enigma completed in 1938. But what does it mean? Well believe it or not, there are six different figures in this painting. They are, in order, "A reclining philosopher; a greyhound lying down; a mythological beast; the face of the great Cyclopean, Cretin; a mandolin; a compotier of fruits and figs on a table; and finally a woman seen from the back mending a sail". And what that means is up to you because I certainly don't know (and the internet doesn't really elaborate). However with Dalí there is no right interpretation of what you see in the real because what you see is truly surreal.

This is The Invisible Man by Dalí, started in 1929 and completed in 1932. This painting is the onset of when Dalí used double images. "The yellow clouds become the man's hair; his lace and upper torso are formed by ruined architecture that is scattered in the landscape and a waterfall creates the vague outline of his legs. As with almost all Dali's work in 1929, this painting deals with his fear of sex. The recurring image of the "jug woman" appears on the left of the picture. To the right of her is an object with a womb shape, part of which delineates the right arm of the man. The dark shape outlining the fingers and legs of the man suggests the female form. Beneath the man a wild beast is prowling - another of Dali's recurring sexual symbols."

Gala, Dalí's wife, lived with him in 1929 and they eventually married in 1934. She was the model and inspiration for many of his paintings, including this 1929 work The Memory of the Woman Child. This one I leave up to you to decide what it means...

This is one of the more famous works by Dalí. It is of course The Face of the Great Masturbator completed in 1929. This painting deals with Dalí's fear of sex, and it is actually a self portrait. The main figure in the painting is Dalí's head, but of course painted in a surrealist and sometimes unrecognizable fashion. Since Dalí had a childhood fear of grasshoppers, the grasshopper under the "body" exemplifies this fear. A woman appears from Dalí's head but the man's legs are cut and bleeding, meaning that he basically a no go. The distant figure in the background is Dalí's father, who from an early age fostered Dalí's sexual fears and frustrations with his graphic book on venereal diseases.

If you can tell that his picture looks slightly different from the other Dalí pictures then you are right. This is Cosmic Composition by Oscar Dominguez, completed in 1938. Oscar Dominguez was labeled a Surrealist before even meeting the group because his style mirrored Dalí. This painting is from his cosmic period phase in 1938-1939, where he painted volcanic structures and bizarre vegetation in barren atmospheres and landscapes.

This painting is Sterile Efforts by Dalí in 1928. This one is left to interpretation as well. Plus I can't really find info about this one online so I'll just let it be.

Near the museums of the Prado and the Reina Sofia is the Royal Gardens. So of course I paid it a visit (it's free) and this is the view from the outside. Well at least one of the views.

Of course I had to take a picture of a cat. This one was kind of scared and ran away easily so I was lucky to get this picture.

This is the typical gardeny scene in the Royal Gardens. There were supposed to be roses in the fields in the background according to the map but they were all wilted and kind of dead due to the winter time. It was mostly just trees, but they had one of each kind of exotic tree from some tree native to Japan to a California Sequoyah tree all next to each other.

Here is a cool picture I took of some tree with some red fruit. I wish I could be more descriptive but I really don't know and because its from the Royal Gardens it could be from anywhere.

Here is a closeup of some tree. The tree itself is actually pretty small though. The after a while I got tired of looking at trees and plants and I got tired. The story continues...

Here is a cool fountain in the park. There are not too many of these but you see some every once in a while. I don't know what creature this is, but maybe you know what it is. I think its someone holding a duck or something like that.

Eventually I got tired and wandered to a park bench and fell asleep. This was my view. Not too shabby. The Royal Gardens are good for a stroll to get away from the city feel of Madrid.

Well that about does it for Madrid. I went out and had sangria on Halloween with some friends on Halloween though, which was pretty fun. They don't really celebrate Halloween in Madrid although I did see some people dressing up in Plaza del Sol. I almost got to go to a Real Madrid game but my hostel couldn't get the tickets for me when they said they would. I also walked all along the streets, including Grand Via which runs horizontally across the city with its center at Plaza del Sol and its western end being Plaza de España. And the western end is where I saw the outdoor restaurant in the plaza (not piazza like in Italy) in the picture above. After spending the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Halloween 2009 weekend in Madrid I had an early flight to Barcelona on Monday. I had to check out of my hostel at something like 6am and hop on the metro to go north to the airport. The airport is located outside of the city center so it took a while, but I eventually got there. Nothing crazy with the flight situation (like in London) so eventually I got to Barcelona. Honestly my memory only remembers right when I came from the metro stop in Barcelona at around 1pm that day because my roommate from Rome was waiting for me at our hostel. To be continued...

Travels Around Roma Part IV: Santa Maria Maggiore/Villa Borghese/Via Peregrinorum

2009-12-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

Here are some random travels around Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore is a famous church around Rome and is one of the 3 main churches in Rome. Even though it is dedicated to Mary it doesn't have her body, but St. Peter's and San Giovanni do. Peregrinorum is a medieval pilgrim route for religious pilgrims coming to see St. Peter's. It starts from St. Peter's, goes to Castel Sant' Angelo, and eventually goes down to the Tiber Island, the world's smallest inhabited island. Villa Borghese is Rome's major park and one of the few green places left in all of Rome. Here we go...

This is the facade of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the three main churches in Roma. In other words, its important and its really nice inside with marble and frescoes galore...

The church is/was under restoration, although I couldn't notice. I wish this picture was legible enough to read about the restoration, but oh well...

And here we are, the glorious interior of the cathedral itself. I have actually completely forgotten how it looks, but this picture is accurate I'm assuming. The marble and gold inlaid roof throughout the whole church is fitting of such an important site in Rome. Although I always say once you've seen one church you've seen them all. Really after a while its gets to overload. But still the marble statues and intricate decorations are always worth the visit. When in Rome...

Here is one of the rooms in the church, with the gold inlaid and intricate decorations. This is the norm in every important church in Rome, but still...

Until the advent of the cemetery, churches were the main places to bury people, especially important people. That mean's someone is buried here, and I saw another skull in the church in Orvieto (that I got a picture of). Its always the skull with angel wings, which is pretty cool. This one was in the upper right corner of the church kind of hidden from everything else. I just wandered into it and took a picture before my friends told me we have to go.

And some marble statues just to top it off. Once again this is a norm but it still looks cool.

Villa Borghese is the biggest park and I think only true park in Roma. This is really the only green open space in the urban sprawl of central Rome, and is a nice getaway from the city. It is located in the northern part of the city on the hill above the Spanish Steps, and thus has a really nice view of Piazzi di Popolo and of the city of Roma itself. There are lots of places for picnics and an arcade, a carousel, bicycle rentals, and restaurants dispersed in the park. There is also a villa, the Villa Borghese itself, and the famous museum which houses Bernini's works. And of course with this being Rome, statues/artwork are always everywhere.

Roma does not disappoint, with headless statues that are probably really old all over the place. Roma has enough marble to build a small city.

There are also statues with heads of course. This is a statue of someone significant, and that's about where this commentary ends...

More headless statues of course because I would never disappoint. And a close up soon...

Here is it. Enjoy...

And what would a park be withough a statue of a lion? Nothing. Nothing at all...

And here's a closer up photo that's not blurry like the last one. I really like animal carvings because you can only see so many carvings of Mary and Jesus and people just standing there. Fierce animals that have variety from different artists never get old. I definitely want animal statues for my future chateau, but the only problem is... which ones?

Now onto the Via Peregrinorum. This was the Pilgrim's Road for Medival pilgrims coming to Rome to see the Vatican. It starts on the Tiver Island, or the Isola Tevere, and goes northwest until it finally crosses the fiume Tevere (Tiber River) and gets to St. Peter's. I walked this route for my Urban History class, and thats where these photos mostly come from. As they say in Roma... andiamo! (let's go!)

This historic Medival route starts on I think the bridge going to the Tiber Island, Ponte Sisto (I don't even know the translation). And to the right of course is a view of the Tiber Island, the world's smallest inhabited island and the only place where the Tiber River halves temporarily. The building to the right is a Medival hospital and wellness center that would have been a hang out spot for Medival pilgrims. I forget what its called, but oh well...

Here is a statue of a bear, which is the symbol for the Medieval baronial Orsini family. Orsini of course means bears in Italian, and Rome is famous for its baronial families (such as Borghese) that all became popes. They just change their names when they become popes but its all about who you know and what blood you have.

Since we are in Roma, we immediately get ancient Roman ruins. This is the Theatre of Marcellus, which was built my Augustus himself in memory of his nephew Marcellus. It seated about 11,000 to 14,000 people, and it looks like a mini Colosseum with its own arches. It was completed in 13 B.C., which means that it is old. Really old. The sign says SPQR, which basically means the Senate and the Roman People. Under that of course it says Monumenti Antichi, or ancient monuments.
This is pretty much the same view but without the fences blockin the view. The theatre used to be part of an apartment building but Mussolini tore all that down so the ancient monument could stand on its own. See a future post for my other pictures with a better view of the theatre and the adjacent Portico D'Ottavia.

Right after the Theatre of Marcellus is the Jewish Ghetto, or the historic Jewish neighborhood in Rome. And even today it has the most expensive rent rates in all of Rome. While I was there with my class in early October 2009 a local man came and reminded my teacher that the 66th anniversary of the Nazis marching into the location we were standing on was about to occur. There are plaques and memorials all over the Jewish nieghborhood commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. There are also pictures of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers and statements declaring Rome's support for them in the Jewish neighborhood (and near the Capitoline Museum as well). There is a vibrant Kosher restaurant district there and of course the best bakeries in all of Rome as well. The statues in the walls are also common, as seen below.

This is the world-famous synagagoue in Rome. It is also the Jewish cultural museum of Rome and it has plaques and memorials around it. Check out a future post for more about this...

This is right on the edge of the former Theatre of Pompey, which no longer really exists but the building it used to be has a curved facade and is elevated from its surroundings, which are all signs of the former theatre that is now an apartment buildings. This building is currently a church I believe and my teacher said something about it but I forget now. Oh well...

And to finish off the route I saw another cat. This cat let me pet him and didn't run away, so he is cool. Black cats are some of my favorites because black is the best color to dress in.

My Spanish Vacation Part I: Madrid

2009-12-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

For my second travel break I went to Madrid and Barcelona. I got to know these cities pretty well because I stayed in each of them for a long time, and it was worth it because Spain is a beautiful country. Right when I got out of the metro station in Madrid after coming from the airport and riding the metro I ended up in the middle of Plaza Puerta del Sol, which is in the heart of Madrid and was also close to my hostel. There was a KFC and naturally I treated myself to an American lunch. KFC is really expensive in Europe (I tried it in other countries) and it is quite a luxurious meal (even the one in Paris). Despite the price (like 7 euro for a meal, and multiply by 1.5 to get dollars) it was worth it, even if the portions are slightly smaller than America and they are stingy with the ketchup. After I had my one taste of American and international life, I wanted to get accustomed to the city.

I immediately noticed that Madrid has its own identity and own style and flair, and I could easily notice a big difference in building styles, designs, facades, and street designs and traffic flow from Roma. I like the Spanish style becuase of its modern design (something maybe taken for granted in America), which is obviously absent many parts of Roma. Madrid has no travertine, which is used extensively in Rome, and buildings are built from scratch. The roads are designed for car traffic and there are open spaces between buildings, all somewhat absent in different parts of Roma. Madrid was really easy to get around in and navigate through. I still remember how the city is laid out and Madrid was one of my favorite cities (but not as much as Barcelona). And I love the soccer culture. It's amazing. You can't go wrong with their amazing soccer team Real Madrid (sorry L.A. Galaxy), especially with their two megasuperstars Cristiano Ronaldo and of course Kaká, who plays for the Brazilian national team. Both of these players have won the FIFA Player of the Year Award recently, which means that this team has two MVPs as teammates, which is amazing. I was also really close to going to a game but I ultimately couldn't go, which was a bummer. Anyways, here we go starting off with the big monument in the Middle of Plaza Puerta del Sol, the statue of King Carlos III on his horse. This is also a popular place for street performers and people trying to sell gold. And of course tourists. Herds and herds of tourists everywhere. And below is the inscription on the statue...

As they say in Italian, ecco, or here it is. I really can't make out the rest but oh well...

Here is a view of the plaza going south in the direction of King Carlos' horse. As always it is bustling with traffic on all the streets leading to it. The Mickey street performer was pretty standard as well. In Europe people dress up in costumes all the time hoping to get tips from pictures. I became used to it, even with the buff male fairy with vampire teeth in Barcelona.

And here is an internet photo of the plaza itself. This is the west side of the plaza and the picture above is looking north. The east side is similar but with the KFC on its north side.

Here are some Mariachi performers on Calle de Carmen (right off of Plaza Puerta del Sol). hey were pretty good and even though the accordion can get a little annoying at times.

By day there is a Mariachi band next to the statue. And I'm sorry to say but they weren't that good. Kind of annoying like all Mariachi music inevitably is. But by night...

...there is some sort of instrumental band with an array of instruments. These guys were good and they played all types of different songs. I even tipped them because they impressed me with their playing. That and the street performs in the Gaudi Park in Barcelona were the best I saw along with the break dancers in Paris (sorry but no pictures exist of those).

And of course I also saw a rap group. It might have been in a sound room in an electronics store, but it was still decent even if I could barely understand what they were saying in Spanish. I just remember that they kept telling people to put their hands up for a whole 5 minutes or so.

Next up is Plaza di España. This is on the east side of the city at the end of Gran Via, the main street that runs west-east through the city that intersects Plaza Puerta del Sol. There were many shops there and grand fountains and statues of course. But not like the marble or travertine statues in Roma, but with a more modern and of course Spanish flair. This fountain was a centerpiece of the plaza, as well as the statues.

Near Plaza de Espana there was a fountain that also served as a roundabout for traffic. I'm pretty sure it was of King Triton riding his horses in the water, which of course is the mascot for UCSD. Because I put my camera in night mode I took a lot of bad pictures, and this is the best I could get. Almost all the other pictures became blurry.

Some of the messed up pictures (about half of the pictures turned out this way) actually looked pretty good in their own way. See below.

This is another monument dedicated to King Carlos III, or Rege Carolo III in the year 1778. It is also a roundabout in traffic and rivals Roman architecture with its arches and statues.

This is the base of the Claudio Moyano monument/statue. Who is Claudio Moyano you ask? Why of course he was a former Minister of Education in the 1800s. And he lived from 1809 to 1890. He also has a street named after him in Madrid.

And here it is. After looking at marble and travertine statues in Rome, this was quite refreshing.

I went to two museums in Madrid, El Museo del Prado and the Museo Riena Sofia. This is outside of the Prado, and of course its the statue dedicated to Goya, who was featured prominently in the museum itself. Apparently in the art world he's really famous.

This is on the west side of Madrid in what I noticed was the restaurant district. There was a big open plaza and it was taken over by an outdoor restaurant seen in the background, capped with the backdrop of the building that changes colors. And of course a statue.

Stay tuned to see what I saw in the Madrid museums, which were my favorites (well the Riena Sofia, not the Prado). This Picasso was pretty standard in Madrid, and more of this to come...

Travels Around Roma Part III: Castel Gandolfo

2009-12-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

I am taking a Science and Religion class and my professor is a Catholic priest, so using his connections he took us to see Castel Gandolf and the Papal Observatory because we were discussing Galileo and his Inquisition by the Catholic Church at the time. The castle is located in Latium, in central Italy, and is built on the Alban Hills overlooking the crater lake Lake Albano. All this means that that from the observatory there is a good view of the skies with no light to interfere with the telescopes and the lake because of the high location. The castle first has an internal courtyard, and then a climb of stairs onto the roof where the observatory is. On the roof there is a great view of Lake Albano, which was formed from five volcanic craters forming into one big lake. After that we saw the telescope in the observatory and we had a Jesiut Priest show us how the telescope works and do a demo. And that about wraps things up. Pictures with captions...

This is the internal courtyard with a retractable roof. During the summer apparently il Papa (the Pope) lives in one of the adjacent rooms and the sounds of him playing the piano flood the courtyard. Apparently.

Here is my attempt at a panorama view of Lake Albano, which I have to say looks a lot better in person. The pictures slightly overlap so use your imagination to paste it together. Probably the best part of the visit although I would have liked to jet ski there.

Here is one of the Vatican telescopes from the exterior, on the roof overlooking Lake Albano to the right. The roof rotates through a rope pulley system and the floor is automatic.

Here is a Jesuit Priest who is also a Vatican astronomer showing us how the telescope works. It is angled 23 degrees to undo the tilt of the earth and the platform underneath rotates at the same speed but at the opposite direction of the rotation of Earth so keep a constant viewpoint.

And here is a view of the retractable roof open for a view of the sky, although the telescope is only used at nighttime.

Here is a picture of a sunspot taken from the telescope, with the shadow of the telescope in the middle of the sun.

Here is a view from inside the observatory. The small small pillar of smoke coming from the city in the middle of the picture is Roma, according to the Vatican astronomer.

And here are pictures of the sunset as I was leaving.

And another picture just for fun.

Travels Around Roma Part II: The Colosseum and the Forum Ruins

2009-11-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

I actually visited il Colosseo and the Fori Romani before my first travel break, but I haven't really gotten around to posting it until now. Oh well. This is my favorite area in Roma, becuase nothing is better than the Colosseum where the gladiators fought. This is also the mythical locatoin (the Palantine Hill) where the great Roman Empire was founded, and Caesar and Augustus and lived here. The Roman Empire had their Senate in the Roman Forum, and Augustus' Forum was of course here as well the housing of the Vestel Virgins. The cremation place of Julius Caesar himself is here, as well as important Triumphal arches and probably a lot of other significant stuff that I don't even realize. Enjoy...

This is the view directly across the street from the Colosseo metro stop. And I remember taking this the first time I saw the Colosseum. Its truly amazing and cannot be described with words. It's just right there, and nothing compares to seeing it in person. Everyone should go.

This is a view of the underground tunnels under the floor. Some of the ground level can also be seen in the picture. The Colosseum was built over Nero's Golden Palace, which had numerous passagways and paths. The original seating is now gone and the Colosseum would have been covered in marble. Some marble is visible today but the general strucure still remains. If only the Lakers could play here, then my life would be complete...

This is me in the burning sweaty heat giving a thumbs up, which is what the Emperor of Rome gave when he wanted the gladiator to die (don't believe the movies).

This is a relief from the Arch of Titus, which was built to commemorate the sack of the Temple of Jerusalem and how the Romans brought back the riches to Rome.

And this of course is a cat enjoying the shade in the Colosseum.
This is the Arch of Constantine. It has too much intricate marble decoration and historical significance to describe, so I will just let the internet describe it for me here.

This is the room where the Vestel Virgins were kept. It is closed to the public but use your imagination. I am assuming it was a grand room full of marble, just like everything else.

This is inside what was the Senate building, but now houses famous statues. This statue is of none other than Julius Caesar himself, dressed in his traditional imperial garb. Although there were other statues in the building I liked this one the best, because it is the most significant and as it is said Caesar could move mountains if he wanted to.

Here is a view of the Roman forum, or more accuratley what remains of it. Back in the day the buildings would have been unneccessarily tall. Think 10 stories tall, because the ancient Romans were more skilled architects than anyone else in the world and their cement used a secret volcanic ingredient that made it stronger than our modern concrete is now.
This is where Caesar was cremated and as legend goes rose to the heavens and became a Roman god right then and there. People still place flowers in this holy site to honor Caesar himself. A grand altar to Caesar made of marble and built disproportionately high was built, but that sadly does not survive today. However the gist of it does, and this is a special place in Rome for me.

Here are more ruins from the Forum.

This is literally the Augustus' Forum. Once again imagine a very tall marble and façade in what would have been the glory and pride of the ancient Roman Empire.

Another more complete view of the Forum, with the famous three standing colums ruin in the left of the picture.

This is the veiw from the outside, withe the Colosseum being to the left and the Palatine Hill behind this view.
Here are some pictures I took a couple of months later in night vision from the Capotiline Museum (another post) of the Roman Forum, which I had to include here. It is really amazing. I wish I could be like Augustus and live on the Palatine Hill and also rule the Roman Empire in my spare time...

Here is a view of the Roman Forum in the pitch dark night using night mode. The Arch of Constantine, the Colosseum in the background, and the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux (mythological twin brothers who helped the Roman army to victory and announced the victory at the forum).

This is another view of the Forum with the Palatine Hill and other ground ruins visible in the background and the foreground.
This is what I actually saw when I took this picture in regular mode by accident.

And this is reality with night mode. It almost looks like a painting or a surreal image, but I really like this picture because it reveals a new world and new colors and objects.

Travels Around Roma Part I: Celano

2009-11-27T06:14:00.000-08:00

This is a short yet sweet account of my site visit to the small Italian town of Celano for my Culture and Identity class. Celano is a small town built around a lake, except that there is no lake. It was drained in the 1950's and the land was sold to peasants. Celano has one famous landmark, which is the castle up in the hills. The head of the government wanted to live in the castle, but Celano wouldn't allow that. Thus Celano was neglected by the powers that be and today it is still a small town which strongly connects with its past. Apparently a lot of Celanese people live in Rochester, New York and many have left the sub-urban confines to other cities for better work. It is also worth noting that like most Italian towns, they speak in their own Italian dialect, which is slightly incompatible with standard Italian. It's often the opposite of formal Italian. My professor lived in Celano for a while and so visited some friends at a local bar where he had lunch and he translated for this old farmer friend of his who was telling us stories of the lake being drained. Apparently he told us in class later that the old man knew we were from Rome because my professor makes the same site visit from Rome every year and thus the old man was trying to speak to us in standard Italian by using the opposite of what he was saying. Instead of saying "I have hunger" as it is in standard Italian Celanese says "I am hunger", but in a shortened way that it would be said in standard Italian. And of course when the old farmer was speaking to us he tried to use standard Italian by saying the opposite of Celanese dialect, and he often spewed out completely wrong phrases. My experiences with Italian linguistics is a another blog entirely, but I found this amusing. And now some description of what I saw. They are slightly out of order but oh well.

1. This is a local university at Celano and also a symbol of government corruption. Apparently this university costs a lot of money to upkeep it but it gives out useless degrees and is only there because the mayor of Celano had political ties with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. I am not at all surprised at all by this.

2. This is the medieval wooden oak door to the local church.

3. This is a view of the former lakebed from the bus on the freeway heading to Celano. The lake wasn't that deep when it had water in it but it had a large area.

4. This is the view from inside the church.

5. This is a view from behind the castle.

6. This is a view from behind the castle as well.

7. This is a picture just to the left of the picture above.

8. This is a burial site inside the church, because of course churches were graveyards before the advent of cemeteries.

9.This is a view, albeit a bad one, of the castle. It is kind of big but not huge.
10. And this is a final vista from Celano. Italy has beautiful views....

Paris/London Vacation: London

2009-11-27T05:06:00.000-08:00

Now onto London. I've been sick for these past 2 weeks on and off so blogging hasn't been my primary concern. But I'm recovering now so its a good time to catch up since I'm slightly losing my voice anyways. After we took the Chunnel from Paris we arrived at London at King's Cross/ St. Pancras Station. Sadly, I didn't run through the wall between platform 9 and platform 10. It was kinda late and I was hungry so I ventured outside and had some KFC. It's expensive but good. It was such a relief to speak English finally! English English English!!! My roommates were in the train station taking a nap so I just ventured out. Immediately I met some people studying abroad in London just hanging out. Then while waiting in line I met this man with a thick North London accent I think. At first I didn't even know he was talking in English, but he wanted to know where he could buy a 5 piece chicken piece. I told him to ask the cashier. Soon after he got into an argument with the cashier and he was obviously drunk, and everyone at the place knew it. After it was my turn I went to the cashier and gave him a nod of recognition knowing he just had to deal with the guy before he, and he returned the nod back. After that I ordered my KFC, ate it, walked around a bit, and returned to St. Pancras. We had to sleep there until we checked into our hostel tomorrow, and it was cold but I made it. The next morning as I was going to the ATM I got "randomly" checked by a police officer. He explained that the 7/7 train bombings were in Waterloo station not too far from St. Pancras and its their policy to perform random checks. It also might have to do with the fact that I hadn't shaved in a while, was wearing a black hood, was carrying a backpack, and I look like I do. I'm pretty sure it wasn't random but after the cop saw me carrying my American passport he became a lot more relaxed. Then the next morning we took the Tube, as the Londoners like to call it, to the Kennington stop and made a short walk to our hostel. I still have trouble seeing how the cars drive on the wrong side of the street and using the Great British Pound, which is almost double of a dollar. That killed me.

Anyways we eventually got to sightseeing. Due to some technical problems with my camera memory, I didn't take any pictures while I was in London but I'm sure there are some pictures floating around somewhere. The first thing I remember seeing is the biggest Cathedral in London, St. John's Church, which was nice. However once you've seen one church, you've seen them all so its no big deal. But right in the view we could see the Tate Modern Museum with a sign that said "Free Entrance". I liked the museum. It had a lot of modern art even with some Picasso and some impressionist art, but some of the modern art is just newspaper clippings and I doubt if its really art. There were also a lot of interactive games and things and a lot of schools were there on field trips with their uniforms. It's also weird to see people who are asian, black, etc. all speaking in British accents. I like the British accent though. Its quite proper.

Then to make a long story short, I saw the London Bridge (at least the part of it that remains. Apparently a lot of it is in Arizona), Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Green Park right next to Buckingham Palace, another park which I forget the name of, the Tower of London tour Royal Jewels with their huge diamonds, and chatted with some locals. I also went along the street where all the well-known shops are and I visited the London Burberry store and tried on their clothes. One jacket cost 1000 GBP. I also visited the famous 3-story toy store Hamley's, which was fun. They have a lot of toys so it was fun to check them out. There was also the Ferrari Store, the Hugo Boss store, and other nice stores. I also had fish and chips multiple times. I felt like a true London bloke. Eventually the vacation ended and after some fiasco with the flight home I finally made my way back to Roma from my one week vacation break. Next up... travels around Roma and my next travel break to Spain. Stay tuned...

Paris/London Vacation: Paris Part 2

2009-10-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ciao! I'm continuing from the fountain in the Gardens of Versailles in which people are turning into frogs. Shown again below (and click on the picture for better quality)...

And of course leading down the gardens are plenty of statues. These statues are everywhere. I just got used to them but its astounding to think that they're all hand carved out of marble and of course they're all pretty big. The one below was one of my favorites...

And after the fountains is a series of modern balls that extend down the lawn. For some reason there's modern "art" at Versailles that I think is pretty ugly and out of place. But the balls on a stick made for a good picture...

And after that was another fountain, with this fountain being extremely significant. The way the palace is built this fountain is exactly in line with the middle of the palace which of course is Louis' bedroom. This means that the sun sets on Louis' bedroom before it sets on this fountain. Well what do u know the fountain is of Apollo, the god of the Sun. I think its pretty cool to do that because that required a huge ego and tons of money and power of course...
And the view with ducks completes the set of photos for this fountain (which wasn't on because the Gardens weren't officially "open")...

That's pretty much all I saw of the Gardens even though there were infinite number of pathways and shrubs and trees and statues. Some of the major attractions were closed that day but what you see above is the jist of it.

After that we went to the Eiffel Tower again, this time to climb it. A lot of steps. Something like 1000 steps. And those are just the steps to get to the elevator. Here we go with the ascent to the top! Here is the first floor which I got to after climbing too many steps. When I started I said I wanted to run up the stairs like Rocky Balboa and then hold my arms up in celebration. Yeah that idea changed. And each floor has a lot of posters and visuals explaining the history and building process of the Eiffel Tower... I got many different views as I ascended the Tower. Here they are...

This is one view of the Seine River which runs through France. Its hard to say whether I prefer this river to the Thames River or the river I live next to the Tiber River (although I prefer its Italian name il fiume Tevere) because they're all pleasing to me. Let's just say its a three-way tie.

Here's another view of the rive Siene with more of the city surrounding it. The view gets better the more you ascend...

More view. This is the park area that is in line with the Eiffel Tower. And it leads to the one skyscraper which is not centered. Whoever thought of that wasn't too bright...
I'm not going to describe climbing all those stairs but instead lets go straight to the top. This is Paris from a bird's eye view atop the Eiffel Tower (just like the view from my backyard). Here's the famous fountain next to the Eiffel Tower. At the stairs leading down to the fountain there were people who gained speed on their BMX bikes and then rode down the stairs at high speed. I'm surprised they didn't crash and die. They also jumped over people who were lying down and then rode down the stairs over there. For those of you who saw Rush Hour 3 Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker parachuted from the Jules Verne restaurant and landed in this fountain. Then they shot someone...
Try and see why I took this photo. Can you find out why? (Ok its kinda obvious)

It turns out I was really too close to home after all! Its only a couple of minutes away...

After that the next couple of days I went to some museums (including the Louvre) and inside the Palace of Versailles and walked around Paris at nighttime. Here's some pics of all of that..

At the Palace at Versailles there were room to rooms (literally, antechambers galore) and every wall was decorated. It was all very aesthetically pleasing but it all blended toghether at one point. But what I did want to see was Louis XIV's bedroom and his royal bed. His entire room is decorated with gold. Quite a grand motif...

The ceilings and wall are all filled with paintings like this. You just get used to it because they are everywhere, but its still astounding to think that these fine artworks were all done by hand on walls and cielings. No small task...

This is the Louvre, only the world's best (or one of the best) museums. For those of you who saw the move The Da Vinci Code (pretty much everyone) this should look familiar. This in the internal courtyard and the museum is a chateau converted into a museum that surrounds this pyramid.

Of course there was the artwork. From what I heard there is more artwork in the Louvre than any other museum in Paris. Its huge. Art is everywhere you can imagine and in some places you probably didn't even think of. And I also visited another museum, but I forget the name of it now. After a quick google search its the Museo d'Orsay. Here's what I saw in both museums...

Van Gogh of course. From the internet it says... " "Chaumes de Cordeville" 1890, olio su tela cm. 73x92, Museo d'Orsay, Parigi.". So there you have it. For anyone who goes to the Museo d'Orsay, skip the initial statues and sculptures they show you and go straight upstairs to the impressionist paintings. That's where all the good stuff is.
Monet is always one of my favorites. If anyone knows what this is called, please let me know. I just know that Monet liked to paint the same scene many times in different times of day and thus different light patterns, and this is one of those paintings. In real life its pretty big too. I want one of these in my living room...

Some of my favorite artworks from the Louvre are this....and this; it's Winged Victory of course (in my spare time I have B.A. in art history). I liked this so much I bought a magnet of this as my souvenir from the Louvre.
There was way too much art in the Louvre. I was all arted-out by the end. But wow, now I feel bad when I draw shapes in my notebook during class and think its art. Its not even close. Good art is hard to make. To conclude Paris, a typical Paris vacation wouldn't be complete without seeing the one and only...

And of course the Eiffel Tower when it sparkles at night every hour on the hour for 5 minutes. I just happened to be there when it did. One of my favorite sites ever. I loved it...
No description necessary...

Well that about does it for Paris. I took the chunnel to London and continued my vacation there. I'm all blogged out (this took a long time) and I have to say au revoir to Paris. Next up... London. Cheerio good ol' chap!