Shyam's European Adventure 2009: Nun In Cars and Full Body Work-Outs....

I cannot believe half my program is over! Yesterday we had our midterms!! They went okay, at least from what I can tell at this point. At this point in my program I have written 4 five page papers and taken 2 seventy-five essay midterms.

Okay, I haven’t been updating this in a while so here are some of the highlights:

I’ve been to so many museums. On Friday, we went to 3 museums! In one day! I’ve definitely developed a new liking for mosaics. I always thought that they were just bits of glass or tile glued together to make a picture. I saw some mosaics that showed perspective, shading, and depth—they were amazing. I also definitely went to the coolest museum ever. The Monetmartini Musuem in Rome is an old powerplant that has been converted into a museum that houses pieces from the Capitoline Hill Museum (mostly Roman statuary) The dialogue between the ancient art and the modern machinery was incredible and the juxtaposition wasn’t jarring at all. I was really surprised that I liked it! I tend to be an Art History elitist at times but I couldn’t find any faults with this museum. The class in generalis going really well; I got my first two papers back and didn’t do too shabbily on them. We did have a really cool guest lecturer come in and talk to us about Rome Reborn—a digital reconstruction of Rome based on literature, plans, etc from a specific time. It’s on Google Earth, so you should definitely check it out if you have the time. We also got to go to a Museum that had an entire scale model of Rome as it once was. This was mindblowing! The place was incredible. See pictures below for an idea. This week we’re going to Ostia, the Ara Pacis Museum, Castel San Angelo, and hopefully inside the Forum of Augustus!

The famous Etruscan Wolf that nursed Romulus (the founder of Rome) and Remus!

Marcus Aurelius!

Plan II in Rome is Number 1!

The Roman Forum in the background.

KG having some fun!

Theater of Marcellus!

Some statue totally doing the Soldier Boy!

The ginormous model of ancient Rome!

The Montemartini Museum

Getting lectured by Dr. Darius Arya

But awesome stuff, like running into Debra Messing (GRACE from WILL & GRACE) by the Trevi fountain sure makes one's day. On that same night we went to a Gelato place that had us choosing between 100 different flavors. No joke. It was really stressing me out. I ended up getting watermelon (too sweet) and green apple (amazing--tasted like Asian chewy candy).

Having no Internet at home makes life pretty awesome, but at the same time it really sucks. I'm trying to juggle med school application processing in addition to blogging and keeping up with all my other emails. I have to copy and paste emails that I have to reply to in word and reply from there. It's kind of a pain, but it's the only way I can manage.

Italian waiters give us this really strange expression when we ask for Olive Oil when they bring us bread--as if it's unheard of. Sorry for that that random train of thought but let me give you a bit of a story. On last Friday night, a few of us decided that we missed Mexican food too much. So we took an adventure to the famed Piramide Metro stop, got led to the street we needed to find by a random Italian (yes, that part was sketchy), and discovered a Tex-Mex joint! Don’t get too excited yet, the vegetarian burrito was 11 euro! (that’s about USD$16 compare that to 99c at Taco Bell!) So not only did not open until 8pm (we were there at like 7, Italians eat so late!) but we weren’t missing Mexican food for 11 euros worth (at least not just yet)! So we decided to go check out another restaurant, so we hopped back on the metro—at this point we were ravenously hungry! The closest stop to the next restaurant was near the Spanish Steps and when we got down, we looked in my book to find something else because we were just that hungry. We looked forever and realized that the guidebook lied to us! This restaurant was right near our apartment—closer to the Trevi fountain than to the Spanish steps. But we got there and let me tell you—100 DIFFERENT PASTA SAUCES TO CHOOSE FROM! Each of us got a different sauce, and they legitimately tasted different from one another! It was truly the best Italian meal I’ve had on this trip! The Tiramisu was excellent too. Now comes part two of the adventure: when we got home, everyone was in the mood to go dancing. Vicki and Christopher had picked out a place, and unfortunately I didn’t realize it took two buses to get there plus some walking. After getting off the second bus and finally getting our bearings right, we discovered that this place was closed (On a Friday night?!—I just think that it means they went out of business). We were literally in the middle-of-nowhere-Rome. I swear, I only saw one taxi pass us by in wherever the heck we were at. We then waited for a random night bus (which took forever to arrive) and it only got us to Tiburtina. This meant for the last leg of our trip home, taxis were the mode of transportation. We finally got home and I have never been so happy to see Via Rasella (except of course on our epic adventure back from Pisa).

Lesson learned: I miss Austin’s 6^th street and the E-Bus.

This weekend was a chill weekend. Because of midterms coming up, we decided to take the weekend off to explore the city. And it was amazing. Rome has so much to offer! On Saturday morning, after being able to sleep-in for the first time in forever, we went to the open-air market in Campo del Fiore which was filled with fresh fruit and vegetables, flowers, dried fruit, bread, meat, etc. It was very lively to say the least. [Before reaching the fruit market, we finally went inside the Pantheon] I got mini strawberries there and a whole variety of dried fruits (Starfruit, kiwi, mango, melon, sweet tomato, and carrots). While resting there, we saw one of the best things ever in Rome: A nun driving a car! Ishanee is making an album entitled ‘Nuns Have Fun.’ We then walked over to Tiber Island, Rome’s medical center. This was pretty cool and the place looks gorgeous. This led us to the part of town that last year’s group stayed in: Trastevere. This was actually a really non-touristy part of Rome, however, location-wise it’s incredibly inconvenient. We had lunch (gnocchi!) at this pretty authentic place and went to Santa Maria in Trastevere. This church, like all the others, was beautiful. After spending some time there, we headed back home. There was a review session for our Midterm at the institute, however I was going to go check out my religious group’s center in Rome (they had services at the same time as the review was!). The place is only 5 streets away from our apartment, so it was incredibly convenient. The thing was, everything was in Italian. It was different and cool and I’m going back on Wednesday. It’s definitely nice to have such a comfort like this when you’re abroad. The people are wonderful and I’m sure I’ll see some of them in August at our annual Church convention in LA.

From our early morning stop at the Pantheon. Seriously impressed with this building

Campo del Fiore!

Mini Strawberries

Tiber Island: Home to Rome's Hospital

Sunday was another adventure that was completely unplanned! The morning can be summed up with the phrase full body workout. I got up early and went to the Spanish steps to catch up on my postcard writing and once everyone else caught up, we headed over to what we thought was Piazza del Popolo. Instead we got distracted by people riding Segways and biking (golf) carts. We found out the cost and decided to get ourselves a pedal-golf-cart. This was like an episode from I Love Lucy. We kept not being in sync and we our brakes weren’t working too well. People just started at us and everyone else riding these gizmos seemed to be doing just fine. After a drive around part of the Borghesse Gardens, we decided to rent a rowboat and go around the little lake they had. This was pleasant too and on the lake there was a Greek shrine that was perfect for that location. The whole adventure was just so unexpected and we all experienced a bit of Relaxed Rome. [Also full body: legs-the bike, arms-rowing, abs-laughing]

Beginning of our epic bike ride

Yes, we were up against cars on the road.

The lake we boated on!

Random fountain in the Borghesse Gardens

About to begin our rowing adventures

Greek shrine on the lake..I want one of these in my future house (lake included)

I could maybe see myself changing my major just to study at the American Academy. It’s this secluded American institute for architects, classicists, art historians, etc—students and teachers. It’s complete with dormitories, studios, and beautiful gardens. We went to the academy for a dinner and to visit to a photography exhibit. The dinner was quite good. I loathe tomatoes unless I can’t see them (I only like ketchup and pasta sauce) but oh boy these were the most delicious tomatoes ever: mini, red, and green. They tasted like strawberries and there wasn’t a single bad one—I am dying to know how they picked them. The main meal was risotto that was inside a broiled bell-pepper and that was quite scrumptious too. For dessert we had cherries and I usually don’t particularly enjoy cherries, but these were really good too! Italy has for sure expanded my taste buds. I love Capuccinos and Café Lattes here too (they’re so much cheaper here than coffee is at Starbucks back home!) After dinner we went to the place last year’s group always went to for Gelato (and we even saw their picture on his wall!!!)

So this is the doorstep for the nights of Malta--at this point we were not officially in Italy, but in Malta. There you go Eric, I just added another country to my list.