Quick and Dirty

Ciao all. This post is going to be quick and dirty because I want to communicate, but I'm so short on time these days. The students have taken two midterms in the past two weeks and I'm up to my occhi in tests and presentation papers. Ah, the life of a TA.

I'm realizing that while I'm discovering things about this city that I never knew, I'm also reminded of many things that I had forgotten in the six years since I left. I have been jotting these things down in a little notebook as they have come to me. Here are a few:

1. There is a cannon that goes off at precisely noon each day. It is shot off the Janiculum hill right above my apartment. I'm not sure that there is a real cannon ball shooting out (doubtful), but the sound can be heard from most anywhere in the city. It's a nice reminder about the time as I am always without a watch. Who says the Italian aren't precise about timing?

2. The women who collect the garbage - they are so made up! They are wearing these bright orange jumpsuits that can get dirty. However you imagine that as soon as the work day is over, they rip off the jumpsuit and they have some slinky number on underneath, ready to hit the clubs. Their make-up and hair is always immaculate.

3. Groups of Italian school kids - they are usually teenagers and they are totally checked out. Their teachers are taking them to amazing sites: the Ara Pacis, the Vatican Museum, etc. And they could not be less interested. They gab, they flirt, they hold hands, the chew gum, they do anything but look at the art. They drive me nutso.

4. Dog poop - there are no scoop laws in Rome...so...one has to quite literally be on their toes whilst walking around the Eternal City. You might get some dog doo eternally stuck in your treads.

5. The intricacy of doors and locks and gates - it's always a challenge to figure out how all the different portals operate in this country. It might be a button, or a lever, or a pulley, or lock that looks completely foreign and non-sensical to us, but has a rhyme and a reason all its own. Some of them are positively medieval and quite intricate.

6. Nespole - little orange bruised-looking fruits that are a cross between an apricot and a cumquat. They are tart but sweet and have this wonderful skin that you can bite right into. They are coming into season now and I plan to eat many more before my stay is up.

I'm including a few recent pictures that do not have anything to do with this quick and dirty post, but I hope you enjoy them all the same. Off to Milano this weekend. Adventures abound.

Under the surface

Ancient Romans wrote of the seven hills of the city, the Capitoline, the Esquiline, the Quirinal, the Viminal, the Caelian, the Palatine and the Aventine. Like so many vestigial aspects of this city, those hills are still present today. On Sunday I took up a walk up on the Aventine. It is largely a neighborhood. There are no bars, no stores, few cars and plenty of trees. The hill is rimmed with a several early Christian churches. Walking in this part of the city is transporting - you feel isolated from the noise and chaos of the city below. Things seem a little slower and more tranquil. There is a beautiful park with an orange grove. If I could pick a Roman hill to live on, it would be this one. A balcony and a view, please.

One of my favorite spots in the city is on this hill. It's no secret to Romans or frequent visitors alike, but it always reminds me that this place has a surface that many do not go beyond, underneath, into. The spot is a little keyhole in a door to the Priory of the Knights of Malta. What you can see through that keyhole is not something I am going to share here, but I assure you, it is special. Come here someday and see it for yourself. You will know what I mean. Trust me. Don't look it up online. Mom, that means you.

I am ruminating on this little keyhole because I am constantly reminded that after coming here for many years, several times, I have still just begun to investigate all the "keyholes" of Rome. Yesterday we got a special entrance into Santa Pudenziana - a 4th century CE early Christian church. We were able to climb up to the clerestory level and view some of the oldest surviving mosaics up close and all by ourselves. I have actually done this before, but this time we were also taken into a special room and shown a collection of bricks attached to the wall of the church. The bricks had been placed here because they each include a stamp. When Roman emperors built, they produced their own bricks, complete with an original stamp that bore their name. Scholars and archeologists can date buildings based on the discovery of these stamps. Santa Pudenziana has a whole wall of collected stamped bricks spanning hundreds of years and dozens of emperors. This kind of thing really gets me going.

On Sunday I went to the Baths of Caracalla. They are the most complete surviving bath complex in the city - they date from the 3rd century CE. It is culture week in Rome and many such sites are free to the public. Almost no one was there! I had a picnic in the grass and walked through the crumbling brick complex relatively undisturbed by anyone else.

I visited Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the biggest and oldest churches in Rome. Unlike the Baths of Caracalla, I certainly was not the one of only ones visiting this church - there were throngs of eager site-seers, anxious to cross yet another monument off their list. But while they were clamoring to get down into the crypt, I side-skirted the chaos to tuck into a little nook off to the right of the altar. On an unassuming marble slab is an inscription, marking the burial place of Gianlorenzo Bernini, one of the most famous and prolific sculptors...ever. No one even noticed he was there.

Again, I do not mean to sound as if these places are secrets to which an elite few are privy. Rather they are reminders to me that I must be vigilant during my time here and always always keep my eyes open. You might walk down a street a thousand times and one day a door might be open, allowing some workers a breath of fresh air. In turn you are offered a view into a little church, or chapel or palazzo that has a story and a history that you didn't even know existed. So you better stop and smell the plaster. Attenzione.

Tombs, Tufa and Tarquinia

Ciao! Week two of the program comes to an end and already the time is flying by. SLOW DOWN, let me savor every minute!

The program had its first day trip on Tuesday. All 25 of us piled into a bus at 8:30 and scooted down the Lungotevere and out of Rome. We headed north to commune with the spirits of Lazio's earliest inhabitants, the Etruscans. Not a whole lot is known about these people that were the contemporaries of the ancient Greeks and Assyrians. Their civilization seemed to have been systemically subsumed by that of Romans as the Latin hegemony began to spread through Europe and beyond. What we do know of the Etruscans, we have largely learned from their tombs.

Our first stop: the necropolis at Cerverteri. Here the tombs take the form of round mounds called tumuli with entrances that lead the living down a dromos (long hallway) and into the cavern below. Hobbits could live here - it's tempting to play LoTR, but I refrained.

Etruscans buried their dead by laying bodies or urns with ashes onto slabs that resemble beds. The interiors of these tombs are made up of a series of rooms of these stone beds - we believe that families were buried together. New rooms would be punched out of the living rock, tufa, when more space was needed for Grandpa Joe or Uncle Ed.

Walking through the necropolis at Cerveteri was beautiful. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, heck, butterflies were flitting about and landing on flowers. It could not have been more serene and pleasant. Pretty nice place to spend eternity.

Next we headed on to the town of Tarquinia. We had lunch at a lovely little trattoria that served mostly seafood. We headed on to the Etruscan museum, full of sarcophagi and breathtaking views of the sea, and then finally found ourselves at the necropolis of Tarquinia. The tombs here are vastly different than Cerveteri. They are far underground, single rooms, with remaining paint on the walls. This means we can view 2,000+ year old images! The scenes consist largely of figures enjoying symposia, wrestling, hunting, and some more lewd acts that I will not go into here. All in all it seems that the Etruscan perception of the afterlife is pretty bad ass.

We boarded the bus and headed back to Rome, arriving home at about 7:30. It was an exhausting 11 hour day, but we all agreed that it was so well worth it. Despite the dearth of knowledge on this civilization, any day spent with the Etruscans is going to be happy and satisfying one.

Over and out for now. Ciao.