Brad
Terme di Caracalla Roman Baths & Museo Palazzo Venezia
Jaime and I, Queen and King of Frugality, did our best to take advantage of the free monuments in Rome for the week.  Monday, after Italian class, we hopped on the metro and traversed Southeast of the Coliseum to the Terme di Caracalla Roman Baths.  They were kind of gargantuan.  The Caracalla Baths were built between AD 212 and 216, during the reign of the Emperor Caracalla and could hold up to 1,600 Romans at one time.  At the time, there were fire heated pools, wrestling and boxing rooms, and black mosaic on white tiled floors within the massive brick arched structure. 

A work out center or gymnasium were ideas that I considered to be only of modern societies, yet the Romans figured it out long ago -- it's no wonder that their statues appear so muscular.  Wikipedia had said that the baths were the only structure to be damaged by the Abruzzo earthquake, but we could not really tell.  Between a hedge border and the ruined baths were fields of grass laden with buttercups, daisies, and clovers.  A picnic here would rival Villa Borghese if it did not cost three euro on any other given day.   Jaime and I  sat on a park bench and had a relaxing afternoon chat before Jaime headed back to the apartment and I went inside the free Coliseum to listen to some music and people watch in the drizzle. 

At the baths

Ben Harper

Ashley, Chris, Cassie and Brad getting ready for ben harper

Canale Monterano

Luisa in the wild

Brad in the caves

The Etruscan road

Roman Ruins on top

Carrie and Jaime hanging out on the ruins

Church

Tree inside church

Davide and Barbara next to their new home

Cassie in front of the Abbey

Ashley, Becca, and Jaime at Montecarlo

The next day, Tuesday, after The Italian Family class, we moseyed down the road to the Museo Palazzo Venezia which we speculated to be situated in an old palace.  Because of its close proximity to our apartment we agreed that we would avoid potential regret for not having visited it.  We marched up several grueling flights of stairs to the entrance, only to be sent right back down by the usher for not having a free ticket.   We thought it a rather absurd concept, but picked up our free tickets at the bottom of the stairs and returned at the top, sweaty and smiling.  It was a small museum but interesting, with early Christian paintings, and a large collection of porcelain dishes from all around the world.  We were glad we did not spend any money on it though.

Museo Capitolini & Ben Harper Concert
Wednesday, our infamous all-day day, was not a day spent locked in a classroom prison, but a day enjoyed in the Capitoline Museums by Piazza Venezia with our Art Therapy class.  After our Italian lecture, the five of us in Art Therapy class pocketed red, blue, and yellow pastels to make any combination of the spectral colors and took a stroll to the museum with paper in hand.  The museum was primarily white marble statues and bust profiles of Gods and Goddesses, emperors and warriors, which we took to interpreting artistically with color variation and personal style. 

Before coming to Rome and taking any art classes (beyond film courses), I had dabbled with a pen and pad in sketching.  I felt as though I was a decent artist, but after this semester, my skills have noticeably improved.  My art has loosened up, and consequently instead of cartoonish solid outlines of figures, I have learned to scribble more and work with swirls, lines, masses and contrasts.  Jaime had not taken any art classes beyond a high school freshman drawing course, but her ability to create figures using color pastels has far exceeded any expectations.  She is a talented artist, who I would pay to see an exhibit of at this point, so I hope that she continues creating after Rome. 

I have come to realize that most people claim that they are poor artists because they have not actually sat down and spent more than a few minutes trying to draw.  People get discouraged easily, but the art is inside of everyone and it's not the finished product that's important, it's the creative experience.  Life's not a process, it's a journey -- I have started calling my "To Do" lists, "To Enjoy" lists -- because that's what it's all about when it comes down to it. 

After hanging our masterpieces in the classroom, we remained in the room for Wines of Italy class.  The blistering hot Southern Puglian region wine even gave my nostrils a heated sensation when smelling the spicy aromas.  We learned of Sicilian wines as well, but the most interesting piece of information was about an illegal cheese from the Sardegna island of Italy.  It is left out to be digested by maggots before being eaten and digested by Sardegnans.  The cheese is illegal because of the obvious health hazards, but apparently it can be purchased on the black market if you are interested.

The wine tasting served as a nice precursor to the free Ben Harper concert for Earth Day located in Piazza del Popolo that night.  He had recently visited Africa as a demonstration and National Geographic was sponsoring the concert and broadcasting it online.  Ben Harper, if you are not familiar, is a popular Southern California modern rock musician who could be best described as "chill."

The piazza flooded with young people, jam packed shoulder to shoulder -- the first time we had really seen a large group of Italians our age.  A group from our wine class pushed our way through the mob, using other eager fans as lead blockers whenever possible.  We were about a third of the way in front -- good enough for Jaime, and I did not want to bounce to the front row and leave her with all the Italian boys.

An Italian mainstream rock band headlined, and we all jumped and yelled with the singing crowd.  Then Ben Harper walked out on stage and none of the Italians seemed to know that it was him, and consequently did not receive the ovation that he deserved.  So Jaime and I tried to make up for it and screamed our heads off for Harper.  A girl next to us collapsed to the ground, vomiting profusely and had to be carried out by medics. 

As the night rolled on, smoke filled the air with a haze that was sliced with colored laser lights.  Ben Harper ripped up the guitar and as my buds and I were doing our best defying earth's gravity and screaming up a storm while pumping fists towards the stars most of the Italians chattered carelessly, smoking their cigarettes and throwing their wine bottles on the ground.  So much for earth day.

I can't be too harsh though because there were select songs that the whole mass of people pulsated to in unified rhythm, especially the closing encore of Queen's "Under Pressure."  But our exit from Piazza del Popolo included a clanking of wine and beer bottles with every step; I'm glad we did not sprain ankles.  National Geographic planted enough trees to offset the carbon emissions from the concert as a demonstration, and Ben Harper donated 25,000 euro to the Abruzzo earthquake victims -- saying that earth day is not just about saving the planet, but about saving the people of the planet and treating each other right.  It was wild to see our Southern California musician in the middle of Rome, Italy ... and even crazier to hear an electric guitar and look up at the surrounding centuries old domed churches and obelisks.
 
I stayed up all night finishing a Film and Mafia class presentation of a chapter of Cosa Nostra, our book about the Sicilian mafia, only to get to LdM the next morning  and find that I could not open my PowerPoint on the computer.  I spent half an hour trying to engineer a solution before putting my masculine pride aside and asking for help -- which I received immediately, but was nevertheless, too late to present to the class.  We watched "Il Divo" and after class had to skip the Planetario (Planetarium) because it was not open.  So we retired to the couch for a lazy day of not a whole lot.

Jaime
Friday was our "Into the Wild" excursion with LdM's Italian Club.  Originally we were going to go to a national park in the Abruzzo regions, however, that is the region in which the earthquake happened (there wasn't damage to the park, but it was recommended by many not to go).  So, the plans changed and we went to Canale Monterano, which is about 50 km north of Rome. 

We were supposed to be at the school at 8:45 am to get on the bus, but, like we should have expected, we were some of the first students there on time, and apparently 25 minutes early according to Italian standards. Barbara and Davide were there sometime after 9, but the bus didn't even arrive until about 9:30. 

The bus ride was about 1 ½ hours to the location.  The bus dropped us off at the entrance to the natural park, and we started to follow the trail. The professor for the ‘Ancient Rome' class, Massimo, was our guide. The trail first led us to a little waterfall that fell into a sulfur stream.  Well, the rocks were all sulfur I guess.  It was a big area to mine sulfur back in the day, so every once in a while we got hungry for hard boiled eggs on the hike for some reason.   

I didn't feel like I was anywhere near Rome or even in Italy for that matter on our little adventure in the wilderness. It wasn't the typical picture that you expect when you think of Italy.  The trail wound around trees and moss covered rocks.  There were so many trees that the sun hardly shone through on the trail.  Everything was so green and earthy looking and the air smelled so fresh. It was SO nice to get a break from the city. 

The trail then led out of the forest and back across the stream where we got to go into some old caves that were once used for mining. It was pretty musty and somewhat scary inside, but we made it out alive!  After that we walked up a hill leading to some old ruins. We got to walk through an ancient Etruscan road that was carved through a giant boulder, it was really narrow, but then again, they didn't have cars back then.

At the top of the 15 minute climb, we made it to some Roman ruins built on top of Etruscan civilization.   It was really pretty, especially seeing them in a different setting, rather than the city.  The artist Bernini did a lot of work on the ruins that we saw up there. We continued on to another old church that now has a big tree growing inside. 

When we started to leave on the trail back to the bus, Brad and I were walking next to each other, and I looked down and saw a brown snake, about 1-2 inches in diameter, but I am terrified of snakes, so I couldn't spit out quick enough "BRAD DON'T STEP ON THE SNAKE,' but he did ,and I saw the snake open his mouth in anger, which sent me on a sprint across the field...followed by many other screaming girls. 

Massimo told us that the brown snakes in this area are vipers; that really put a damper on the last 10 minutes of the hike for me, especially hearing some hissing in t he bushes on the way back.  We finally made it to the bus without any snake bites and drove to a town close, where Massimo coaches rugby and we got to eat lunch at the club house at the rugby field.

After lunch, a couple of us learned how to play rugby.  It was really fun, but it's definitely not my sport.  A few of us walked up to a palace in the middle of the town which was really pretty, and looked more French than Italian.  There was also an art exhibit on display.  We left for Rome around 7 pm and made plans to meet all the students that went on the trip for dinner. 

We met around 10 and went to THE Montecarlo that we hear our classmates talking about all the time.  It did end up living up to our expectations fortunately. We drank a lot of house wine and ate a lot of incredible pizza. After that, we went around the corner to a pub called Abbey Theater and had a drink, and then decided we were all too tired to really continue ‘going out.' I went to some other girls' apartment and had a little girl sleepover, and Brad went off with another guy for the night and stayed up watching the Red Sox vs. Yankees game all night. 

The next day we wasted a good amount of the day sleeping and were not too productive. Sunday however, we spent all day working on a project/presentation about pasta for the Italian Family class. The unfortunate part about the end of the semester right now is I filled out my planner and realized that we have a quiz, a paper, homework, a presentation or a final every single school day until we go home.  We'll be desperately trying to find time for fun stuff.