Tag Archive for: Italy

Studiare Days 7 and 8

Oy! I don’t have enough time to tell you about everything that happened this weekend. I’ll try to hit the highlights. In the morning, I took a train to Orvieto, a small hillside town about an hour north of Rome. The train was running late, so I didn’t get there until noon.

You have to take a funicular up the hill from the new town to the old town. At the tourist office, I bought a “key to the city” (La chiave per la città), which gave me access to about ten sites. Within one afternoon, I visited all but two of them.

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I visited St. Patrick’s Well first. This required climbing all the way down and then all the way up the dual spiral staircase inside this old and very deep well. Then I visited the Duomo (cathedral). From the outside, it reminded me a lot of the cathedral in Siena because of its black and white stripes. Inside, most of the church was pretty plain.

However, there are two side chapels with frescoes that tell important stories. One chapel tells the story of the miracle of the body of Christ, which happened in a nearby town when the Blood of Christ miraculously appeared on the altar cloth during Mass. The cloth is stored at the Duomo in Orvieto, but it was not visible to me. They only take it out on special occasions.

Then I had some yummy gelato while sitting in the shade in the piazza outside the Duomo.

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Later in the afternoon, I did the Orvieto Underground tour. This takes you into two of the 1,000 man-made caves under the city. It was nice and cool down there!

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I also visited several museums and climbed all the way up their clock tower. See my Facebook page for a video from up there.

Dinner was back in Rome after another delayed train ride. Thankfully, my classmate had booked us a very fancy dinner at a rooftop restaurant. We splurged on this meal. We had five courses and a bottle of Riesling. To escape the heat of our hot dorm rooms, we shared a hotel room near the restaurant. I thoroughly enjoyed getting a good night’s sleep there and the lovely shower in the morning.

Sunday morning we slept in and made it to St. Peter’s Square just in time for the Pope’s Angelus at noon. He talked about the Gospel reading of the Good Samaritan and how everyone is our neighbor.

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Next, we went inside St. Peter’s , where I had Confession (my first time in Rome) and then a 1:00 Mass.

We were very hungry after that, so we had lunch at a nice place near my Italian language school. We had left our overnight bags at the hotel, so we had to retrieve them and bring them back to campus, where we spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening.

For dinner, I got to meet up with my author friend Leslea Wahl who is touring Italy with her family right now. It was fun to have our first in-person meeting in Rome!

Studiare Day 6

Friday morning we all looked like zombies. We were tired and hot, and news of the shootings back home didn’t help.

Our class session in the morning was only a few hours. Then we were basically let free for the weekend. Many people left town right away, but I’m sticking around, basically.

I spent a good amount of the afternoon working on one of our final projects. It’s a linguistic landscape presentation. Basically, we need to take lots of pictures of the signs around town, and then code them in such a way that we can present our findings. For example, my partner and I have been taking photos all week, so we started looking at how many signs around town are just in Italian, how many are in English and Italian, and how many are in three or more languages.

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We’re also looking at what might influence which language is written on top, which is written in bigger font, and which signs need images with them.

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In the evening, my partner and I took the long bus ride into town for dinner at a cute place near my Italian language school. We had a good meal for a cheap price. Then I took a walk across Ponte Sant’Angelo to get to the bus stop I needed. You can see video of my walk across the bridge on Facebook.

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Tomorrow is a special day trip. I’m navigating on my own, so wish me travel mercies!

Studiare Day 5

I’ve taken enough trips to Italy now that I’ve got a system down for getting over jetlag. What I haven’t quite figured out is how to get my body to adjust faster to the Italian custom of drinking coffee every morning. You see, I’m not a coffee drinker back home, but I’ve grown to really enjoy Italian coffee, particularly a cappuccino in the morning.

Alas, coffee has an effect on your digestive system. Add to that the heat (90 degree temps every day) and the long bumpy bus rides (at least an hour to get anywhere in town from our campus location), and my stomach ended up fairly queasy Thursday morning.

Nonetheless, I headed out with my class to Centro Astalli in the morning. Centro Astalli is the Jesuit refugee services center. Our guide Chiara explained the many ways they help the refugees in Rome: language lessons, soup kitchen, showers, a post office (so that they can have an address so that they can apply for asylum), and outreach services to schools to help teach about the refugee crisis.

Pope Francis had visited during his first year, and we got to sit in the same little chapel where he did. They do amazing work at Centro Astalli, and it was great to talk with them.

The chapel at Centro Astalli

The chapel at Centro Astalli

After the visit, we had a short time to visit the Vittorio Emanuele Monument and then took two buses back to campus. It was an hour and a half long trip back, and my stomach was not enjoying it very much, so I had a light salad lunch back at school. Then we had class in the afternoon.

In the evening, my stomach was feeling a little better, but I didn’t want another long bus ride, so a classmate (who’s been having swollen ankle issues) and I went to a local pharmacy to get her some help. Then we walked to a nearby restaurant, where we had a nice fish and potatoes dinner. The university is in a very residential neighborhood, so this was an authentic Italian restaurant with just Italian spoken. I also got to try suppli, a fried rice ball with cheese, which my Italian teacher told me I absolutely had to eat while in Rome, so if anyone sees Mario, tell him I had the suppli and it was delicious!

Suppli!

Suppli!

Studiare Day 4

Wednesday brought several great experiences. In the morning, we had class and more great discussions, but our plans for the afternoon had to change last minute. We had planned to visit a particular place called Refugee ScART, where refugees are working, but as it was the last day of Ramadan and many of the refugees are Muslim, we were notified that there would be little for us to see there.

Thus, we spent our afternoon scoping out various locations for our group presentations, which will occur next week. My group had been assigned to read the novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is about several women in Afghanistan in the decades leading up to 9/11  and the time right after that. We have decided to focus our presentation on women and education, so we visited the very first Montessori school started by Maria Montessori as well as the University of Rome Medical School where Maria Montessori had been the first woman to study medicine in Italy.

University of Rome School of Medicine & Psychology

University of Rome School of Medicine & Psychology

In the evening, we had a very special private after-hours tour of the Vatican Museums. I’d been there twice before, but this was really a unique experience. Two guards had to accompany us and our tour guide around, but otherwise, it was just us.

Practically alone in the Sistine Chapel

Practically alone in the Sistine Chapel

 

If you’ve ever been to the Vatican Museums, you know it ends with the Sistene Chapel, which is incredibly crowded and you are ushered through fairly quickly. We had the chapel all to ourselves and got to stay for over a half hour. Not only that we were actually allowed to take photos inside as long as we didn’t use a flash. Usually, you get kicked out if you try to take any photos.

Yummy profiteroles for a birthday dessert

Yummy profiteroles for a birthday dessert

We finished up around 9:00 p.m., and a few of us went out to eat and celebrate one of my classmate’s birthday.

Studiare Day 3

Tuesday morning we had a regular class. Our discussions about reaching students who are culturally and linguistically diverse are so rich that I fear we talk so much our professor can’t get through half her lesson plan.

In the afternoon, we had time to work on our big group assignment, which meant I spent part of the afternoon doing research for my section of our group project in the library.

Rome campus library

Rome campus library

In the evening, we headed to the beautiful Trastevere neighborhood to meet with someone from the Community of Sant’Egidio, a group dedicated to prayer and caring for the sick and the poor. We meant with one of their members who discussed the wonderful things they do , including helping refugees safely leave the countries where their very lives are at risk. We had a fantastic visit there, and our guide Paolo was truly filled with the joy of the Gospel that Pope Francis keeps encouraging us to demonstrate. The Community of Sant’Egidio is really living out that Christian mission of caring for the sick and the poor.

A 1,000-year-old olive tree in the courtyard at the Communità di Sant'Egidio.

A 1,000-year-old olive tree in the courtyard at the Communità di Sant’Egidio.

We got to see the beautiful former convent where their community meets and then we got to join them for their evening prayer at the incredible Santa Maria in Trastevere Basilica.

Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere

Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere

Afterward, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant. It was 9:00 when we left the church, so we were eating at the typical Roman dinner time. 🙂

Studiare Day 1

Welcome to the first day of the 2016 Rome trip!

Blog posts may be short and infrequent, but I’ll try to write a little. If for no other reason, then to let my dad know I’m still alive! Ciao, Papa!

The flight went well. It took a long time getting our luggage, but eventually two of my classmates and I made it out to our pre-arranged driver. Nice large car, easy ride, good price, and they meet you at the airport with a sign with your name.

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This afternoon was simply lunch, an orientation meeting, and then a group lesson on how to ride the bus into town. We get a month long bus pass so that’s pretty sweet. A few classmates and I walked around for a bit and then had dinner at Polese, one of my favorite Roman restaurants.

Then we walked to St. Peter’s for a photo shoot and then took the bus back to school.

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How to get tickets to the Pope’s General Audience

In this second in my series on helpful travel tips in Italy, I’m going to explain how to get tickets to see the Pope at his weekly General Audience. Before my trip, I had read conflicting advice on line. “It’s to the left of St. Peter’s.” “It’s to the right of St. Peter’s.” “You have to ask a Swiss Guard.” Which Swiss Guard?

I’m going to make this ridiculously easy for you. Because really, it is easy.

First off, the General Audience is held every Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m. except for during the month of July. If the weather is good (or even relatively good), it’s held outside in St. Peter’s Square. If the weather’s really bad, it’s held inside the Paul VI Auditorium, which would be to your left if you’re facing toward St. Peter’s Basilica.

Now, how to get tickets? It’s actually really easy. Stand in St. Peter’s Square and face toward the Basilica. See that set of colonnades off to your left?

Tickets for General Audience Photo

Walk through those colonnades. You’ll see a gated area. (By the way, this is the same gated area, you’d go to if you had tickets for the Scavi Tour, which gets you under St. Peter’s Basilica to see the old necropolis it was built upon and where St. Peter was actually buried.)

Need a bird's eye view?

Need a bird’s eye view?

In front of that gated area will be a Swiss Guard. Just ask him for the tickets. He has them in his pocket. No kidding. Don’t believe me? Read about what happened when my friend Katie and I went to Rome and went to get our tickets.

Tickets are free, and you can pick them up the day before.

With any luck, you’ll get a great photo of Pope Francis kissing a baby!

Pope Francis kissing the baby

Photo from General Audience on June 17, 2015

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Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 20: Tre Cose Buone (Three Good Things)

I was happy to see today that the Spin Cycle writing prompt for this week is about “three good things.” It was saving me from writing a post that would probably come out sounding unintentionally negative.

You see, this morning, I was mentally ticking off all the things about Florence that make it “less than” Rome. But do I really want to spend my last night in Florence talking about what I don’t like? No. That’s crazy. I’m in Italy. I shouldn’t be complaining about anything! And I don’t want to sound negative because I am enjoying myself here.  (Of course, that being said, maybe someday I’ll write a post about why I prefer Rome to Florence.)

But in the meantime, let’s talk about three good things that happened in Florence today.

1. I took a test to finish off the “Intermedio 1” level at school and got a 97% Yippee!

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2. Katie and I climbed to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo where we got awesome views of Florence.

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3. For “dinner,” we had an aperitivo at a rooftop  bar at a fancy hotel that Katie’s Russian classmate helped us find. We had fancy drinks as well as potato chips, formaggio (cheese), and olives (I let Katie have most of those). Then we found a place that makes yummy crepes with gelato and chocolate. (To my mom and Katie’s mom, don’t worry we had protein at lunch.)

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Bonus good thing: We also spent a good part of this very hot day in an air-conditioned museum (Palazzo Pritti) with lots of cool art.

Where we hid from the heat.

Where we hid from the heat.

Off to Spain tomorrow for the final leg of “Mi Piace, Mi Gusta”! (Yes, that’s right, we’re finally getting to the “Mi Gusta” part of the trip.)

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 18: Ciao, David!

We took it pretty easy today. After our classes this morning, we headed to a restaurant recommended by our school only to find out it was closed for repairs. So we just headed in the general direction of the Galleria dell’Accademia (where we had tickets for a 2:00 entrance) and along the way stumbled upon a nice little trattoria that was serving a delicious cold pasta dish with tuna for only 5,50 Euros. Not a bad deal.

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Then we stopped by a gelato place that was okay. (We had found a much better one yesterday and will probably have to return there.)

Chocolate and coffee gelato

Chocolate and coffee gelato

I ordered the coffee flavor gelato because it said the coffee came from Guatemala, and I thought that was funny since I’d just been there for spring break.

By then it was about 1:30, so we headed to the museum. Since we’d purchased tickets ahead of time, we thought maybe we’d get into the museum pretty fast, but what we’ve learned from the Uffizi and the Accademia is that the advance tickets get you in a slighter shorter line, but you don’t avoid the line completely. It still took us over 20 minutes to get in the museum. Katie and I took turns stepping out off line to shop at a Christian bookstore across the street.

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I ended up buying this magnet, which I liked because I understood its meaning in Italian.

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This I know, God is my help. The Lord sustains my life.

 

The Galleria dell’Accademia doesn’t have nearly as much art as the Uffizi (although they charge the same price), and the main attraction is really Michelangelo’s David. That meant Katie and I had plenty of time to sit and study this seventeen-foot tall statue, which just made me marvel at how Michelangelo could keep his perspective while working on an object so large. He must have been climbing on ladders and/or stools to carve the top parts, which I think would have made it really hard to keep the whole statue in mind. The more I contemplate carved statues, the more I admire the artists. It’s not like drawing or painting where if you make a mistake you can erase it or paint over it. Once you’ve chiseled off too much for the nose, that’s it. You can’t make the nose any bigger!

More angles of David shared on my Facebook page

More angles of David shared on my Facebook page

The museum also had a ton of paintings and artwork depicting St. Francis. We were trying to figure out if this is normal or if they did this only after the current pope chose the name Francis.

Another part of the museum that amused us was this room full of  white statues and busts. It was hard to get a good picture, but I took a video that I’ll share on Facebook.

It's kind of creepy with row after row of heads staring at you.

It’s kind of creepy with row after row of heads staring at you.

By the time we’d had our  fill of the art in the Accademia, we were tired. It was only mid-afternoon, but we both decided it would be good to go home. After all, we’d spent the entire day out of the house yesterday. A little “riposo” today sounded nice. Besides, I had three different homework assignments to do.

We had some of our leftover pasta from Monday night’s “fatto a casa” (made at home) pasta dinner, then spent some time doing a little planning ahead for Spain.

Around 9:00, we decided it was time for an evening stroll, so we headed out hoping to find a wine bar. The one near us was closed, so we headed back into the center of town. It took a while before we found a bar, but it turned out to be just a beer place. No wine. And it was really hot inside, so we headed down the street again.

After a while, Katie said, “So what are you  thinking?”

“I’m thinking one more block, and if we still don’t find something, we head back home.

At the next corner, we turned left and saw the bright lights of a piazza just down the block. There were tents set up and lots of trattorias and such surrounding the square.

We found a place that would let us just get drinks and dessert (one place had told us: “This is a restaurant–for eating. Not just drinks!”

In Italian, I asked the waitress which dessert she recommended. For the second night in a row, I was really glad I’d asked for a recommendation. We ending up getting this really yummy apple torta with a homemade cream sauce. Hard to explain, but really yummy.

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Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 17: I musei (museums)

Florence is a lot about museums, a lot about art in general, so last night Katie and I began making plans for how to cover it all without wearing ourselves. Ha! That may be impossible.

Of course we had class in the morning first. The walk to school is a smidge longer for me than the walk in Rome, but Katie was used to only a twenty-minute walk to school and now it’s a good 30-35 minutes.

In my class, we’re now working on the conditional verbs, which is basically subjunctive in English. Think: I should have finished this book or one day I would like to travel to Hawaii. It’s not easy to wrap my head around when exactly to use it because we don’t talk about subjunctive much any more in English, and there’s not one direct translation between languages.

After class, Katie and I ate some lunch that she bought at the grocery store yesterday. We had tomato and mozzarella sandwiches and fresh peaches, which tasted really good!

Then we headed to Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the major art museums of the world (not to mention Florence). Our plan was to become “Friends of the Museum,” which would get us into a whole slew of museums for 60 Euros. Expensive but cheaper than buying individual tickets at each museum. However, when we got to the museum, the lady  at the desk said that during the summer those memberships don’t work and our 60 Euros would only get us into the Uffizi, not the 20+ other museums. So forget that plan!

To get into the Uffizi, it’s best to have reservations, so we went to the next desk and bought tickets for a 4:45 entrance. Then we walked up to the Galleria dell’Accademia, where Michelangelo’s David stands. (You can see the replica of David  in the piazza just north of the Uffizi).
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Like the Uffizi, you need advance tickets for the Accademia, so we bought tickets for tomorrow afternoon.

Then we headed to the Medici Chapels. These were built as a mausoleum of sorts for the famous Medici clan that ruled this area of Italy  for centuries. When we walked in, Katie spotted a young Italian guy sitting at a table with a sign that read “Free guided tours” in English. Katie read it aloud, and a woman nearby heard her and said to her husband,  “Hey, they’ve got free tours here.”

Next thing I know, this college-aged Italian guy is walking the four of us around the mausoleum, the upstairs chapel, and even some of the back sacristy area and explaining things as best he could in a heavily accented form of English. My  guess is that the chapel is letting him give free tours so he can practice his English. We had to help him with some words now and then, but the kid did a really good job. Plus, if he hadn’t brought us to the sacristy area, I wouldn’t have realized we could go back there.

And can you guess what they have back there? Tons of relics of saints! Including a  finger from St. Catherine and a heart from some poor saint whose name I didn’t even recognize! It was crazy!

St. Catherine's finger?!?

St. Catherine’s finger?!?

All the other woman in our little group wanted to see were the Medici tombs designed by  Michelangelo.

After the Medici Chapels, we tried to go in the nearby San Lorenzo church, but we got yelled at by an Italian woman telling us it was closed even though the sign said it was open until 6:00 p.m.

Next, we stopped for gelato. We hadn’t had any in two days, so we were way over due!

Salted caramel and chocolate chip--Yummy!

Salted caramel and chocolate chip–Yummy!

Then it was finally time for the Uffizi. Tons of art! I’ll give a small sampling here, but there will be more on Facebook and Instagram.

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After the museum, we had an early (by Italian standards) dinner and did our homework.

We’re worn out now. We’ll see how far we make it through the Accademia tomorrow when we get to see the real David.