Brad
Monday: Futurismo & Rainy Dinner
On Monday evening, the gusts of wind through the Roman cobblestone streets did not fail to turn Jaime's cheap street vendor umbrella inside out on multiple occasions.  Nevertheless we arrived at the gallery across from the Quirinale just as the rain really picked up, with umbrella intact, and just in time to meet up with our student advisor, Barbara, and fellow art history student, Susan, to view the Futurismo exhibit of Futurist art. 

Neither Jaime nor I had any clue as to what Futurist art was, but LdM was paying for the event, so it was on offer we could not refuse.  The exhibit turned out to be quite an interesting experience -- a reflection of the feelings instilled with the onset of the industrial revolution period in the early 20th century.  Never before in history had there been unnatural mass production, noisy mechanical cities, bright manufactured light, the ugliness of straight lines wherever you looked for we all know from being four years old that there are no straight lines in nature. 

John trying to fight the rain

The damages of the rain

Jared and Brad in Italian Family presentations

Basilica San Paolo

Procession

"Bradisismo"

At Casa Bleve

The 3 amigos: Brad, Peppe and John

The 3 amigas: Mariella, Jaime and Laurie

Jaime trying to take her pizza out of the oven

Different view of Baia and the castle from Cymba

Underwater-part of a road

Baia Terme (the echoing chamber)

Baia Terme

Nice view with Temple of Venus in the background

John and Laurie with fig leaves and grape vines

Yet another beautfiul sunset

Most of these ideas manifested themselves in the art of the time, using a multiplicity of jagged lines, production imagery, and hidden pictures in the confusing blur of the speedy city.  The exhibit itself used bright lights to illuminate the paintings in such a way that was unnatural and difficult to look at, and in one area a track of mechanical noises played overhead.  Pablo Picasso was just one of many artists on display from the Futurist movement.  

John and Laurie were in Rome.  So after leaving the exhibit we met them at their hotel and decided that the weather had cleared up enough to walk towards the Pantheon for dinner.  We had made it no further than Piazza Venezia when the sky seemed to split open and dump an ocean of weather on us.  Furthermore, the wind picked up significantly so that the rain was pelting us horizontally and made using the umbrellas an exercise in futility.

I was soaked from head to toe except for the hair protected by my Sicilian hat.  I did not have nor want an umbrella, and whenever a street vendor would hand one towards me and ask if I wanted to buy one I simply stared at them with a look of utter disbelief that said something like, "Seriously? At this point, you have got to be joking."

Ironically, the rain essentially stopped once we reached the restaurant, where we were greeted by friends of John's and Laurie's visiting from Washington and blankets on the chairs of our outdoor dinner table -- thankfully underneath a tent.  I went to the bathroom to strip and wring my clothes out in the sink before returning to my cozy blanket and a meal of calamari, octopus linguini, and red wine followed by a warm chocolate cake and hot cappuccino. 

Tuesday: Pasta presentation and Basilica San Paolo
The next day, everybody was presenting various aspects of Italian culture in our Italian Family class.  Some students presented Italian holidays (it's no coincidence that the profusion of red, green and white during the Christmas season coincides with the colors of the Italian flag), others presented Italian social traditions, Italian wines, and Jaime and I did a presentation on the pasta of Italy and its fundamental connection to various aspects of the society. 

We also presented recipes for regional pasta dishes throughout Italy and in conclusion, I threw on an apron and cracked a few eggs into a volcano of flour to mix and knead into pasta dough as a demonstration for the class.  While I was kneading, we drank a few glasses of wine for Jared's Italian wine presentation, which was lovely although drinking alcohol in class was not anything new after having been in wine tasting class all semester

Jaime
After our presentation, Brad and I dropped some stuff off at home and then took the metro to Basilica San Paolo. It is a beautiful basilica, with so much gold inside.  It was very crowded in there, and there was beautiful singing echoing through the grandiose church. Then mass started and this very important looking procession of priests and altar boys took place. 

Brad and I thought that maybe it was St. Paul's day, because it was a Tuesday afternoon, and not a common time for such a mass.  However, after some research, I don't think it was St. Paul's day, but some resources show that St. Paul and St. Peter are celebrated in the end of April. However, I'm still not sure what the actual significance of this mass was. It was beautiful though, we sat in for about 15 minutes. We didn't really understand anything and we had a bunch of work to get to, so we parted back for home.

Brad
On Wednesday evening, instead of taking notes in a classroom and tasting afterwards, our wine class met up at a fancy Enoteca (wine bar).  It was called Casa Bleve, and was built on top of an old first century Roman wall.  It had a pristine atmosphere, with pillars and marble statues throughout the tall ceilinged room.  We were given a brief tour of the wine cellar in which we could see the buried Roman wall among an abundance of wine -- one of which was called Bradisismo.  I am now considering changing my name.  There were even bottles down there that cost a thousand euro. The wines we drank were significantly less expensive.  Our tasting included Jaime's favorite Sicilian wine, Nero d'Avola, and appetizers of goat cheese and bologna.

After the tasting, a good number of our class agreed to forget about any work due the next day and go out for a night on the town.  We walked to the nearby Trinity College Irish Pub, and sat at a table to drink a few pints and tell funny stories.  I saw my USC friend, Andrew, who was nearing the end of his pub crawl.  The next day he had forgot that he saw me until I reminded him. 

The next morning, I chugged enough coffee to make my eyeballs spin in their sockets, but at least I could give a presentation without falling asleep.  My lecture for Film and Mafia class regarded the second mafia war in 1970's Italy, very interesting stuff.  I gave a decent presentation, but I always get choked up when I present -- my stomach tightens and my voice quavers and I get rather nervous -- I would rather write from the comfort of my couch, but once I relaxed a little bit, things went fine.  Following the presentation we watched clips from a ridiculous low budget musical that made fun of the mafia.

Jaime and I had packed our backpacks and went directly from the school to Termini train station, where I bought a bottle of Sagrantina di Montefalco, a DOCG wine from Umbria, to thank John and Laurie for hosting us so often.  In addition I bought myself a banana, margherita pizza, and Paulaner for the train.  The train ride is beautiful, cutting through the country side and fields of wild poppies and old farms and small rural communities.  But the sun always blares through the window on us and creates a sort of green-house effect that makes us sweat profusely -- at least we had some music to distract.

We caught the three euro Ali-bus from the train station to the airport, close enough to John's work that he could pick us up, and we drove to their house only sparing the time to drop off our bags and were soon walking down the street to eat at Pepe and Mariella's restaurant, La Taverna, one last time.  We were given a smorgasbord of appetizers as usual -- bruschetta, calamari, boiled squid, mussels, eggplant, and artichokes -- only to be followed by a two pasta course with some Tuscan Remole and local Greco di Tufa wines and then strawberries for desert with limoncello.  I wanted to pass out.  Needless to say, we never left Mariella's hungry, and I can honestly say that it is the best food I have had in Italy. 

Jaime
Friday Morning everyone lounged around and enjoyed the warm weather out on the patio, while drinking coffee of course. I guess I should say Laurie and I did, because John went to work early, and Brad slept passed noon.  I started writing the first of three papers due this week; it pretty much took all day.  Although I was doing work basically all day, it was a very relaxed day. Instead of working, Brad decided to stay in bed all day and organize his billion songs in iTunes...he was happy to finally be able to do it. 

Around 6 pm we all started to get ready for a little get together Laurie organized. A few friends from town came over and everyone got to build their own personal pizza! Laurie made the pizza dough, and the rest was in all our hands. I tried the whole tossing thing, which didn't really work...but the pizza turned out so delicious. I had trouble sharing a whole lot of my pizza because I liked it so much.  It was a really nice evening as well, a lot of delicious wine and admiring the neighboring towns and Naples light up at night.

Saturday was another day that started of f slowly and calmly with coffee and sunshine.  Brad was the only one missing this time.  I got the special invite from John and Laurie to go to the recycle center of Monte di Procida! Apparently it's the best in the vicinity -- I must say I was impressed. The recycle center is really close to the port, so we drove down to the water, felt the sun beating down, and watched fishermen pull into the port, kids (who had to have been 12 years old) driving little boats around aimlessly and ladies sprawled out on the big rocks trying to begin the summer bronzing competition. 

We walked over to the other side after seeing a bunch of old men gathering around a fishing boat that had just pulled in.  He was selling fish right from the boat! Unfortunately, I got to see a bunch of octopi sliding out of the bucket and getting pushed and squished into clear plastic bags. They really grossed me out...I definitely didn't buy any to take home...when we did get home though; I started paper number two out of three. Meanwhile, John, the "master editor," was kind enough to edit my paper number one! Lucky me! Brad continued his music project for the day...in the comfort of his bed.  He finally emerged when it was time for left over pizza and beer (not left over) on the patio.  John, Laurie and I decided to go on an adventure afterwards. Brad was too focused on his music mission to come though. 

We drove into the town of Baia, and ended up on the glass bottom boat, Cymba, on a whim and almost by luck that it was leaving 3 minutes after we decided to board. It took us into the bay of Baia, in which we got a little history lesson about all the volcanoes and the sunken city, and got to see the area from a different perspective.  We then went toward the sunken city, and everyone descended into the bottom of the boat where we could see out of windows on either side! It was a bit rocky, but I kept it all down...however if anyone would've gotten sea sick, they would've been trapped down there, because of the close quarters and inability to go anywhere.  We got to see old roads, old parts of buildings, statues, and fish down there. It was really cool, it almost didn't seem real. 

After we got off the boat, we stopped and got some gelato, fabulous as always. Then we went to Baia Terme, It is an old Roman bathing area, along with other structures, homes, and areas to mingle among other town folk. It was about seven stories high and part of it was sunken, just as the city we saw underneath the ocean had.  Most of the lower levels had water inside.  It was really beautiful, and so large. It's still hard to imagine what all things old ruins looked like when they were fully roofed and standing because they already seem so immense.

Right when we got home, we all had to get ready for an early Cinco de Mayo celebration! Some other Americans that live in Monte di Procida had the little get together. As much as I love Italian food, there's still a lot of room in my heart for Mexican cuisine.  The couple that threw the celebration had a house with a roof top patio overlooking the ocean, so it was beautiful to watch the sunset. The Coronas were good, the margaritas were good and all the food was great too. I've missed the Mexican genre of food, drink and celebration.

Sunday started out with some paper writing, iTunes organizing, and coffee drinking again.   Despite writing so much, I couldn't complain being able to look at the Mediterranean Sea while writing. John and Laurie were invited to a birthday party at another American family's home. Since Brad had been working so much on his music project, he needed to start his papers, so I was the only one to accompany John and Laurie to the party. It was about a 20 minute drive to Brenda and Duke's house -- they were very kind and southern.

She cooked gumbo all day, shish kabobs, chocolate covered strawberries, along with an assortment of other southern and non-southern delicious snack, lunch and dessert items.  They had a very big house; it's not common to see them so big here in Italy.    When we got home we all gathered for our last cocktail hour on the patio, watching the sunset.  We drank bellinis (prosecco with peach juice). It was a sad feeling knowing that it was going to be our last time down in Monte di Procida, and then it started to sink in how close we were to the end of our Roman adventure.

Saturday the 2nd marked the "only two weeks left" day.  We decided to leave Monday instead of Sunday night, so there we went to sleep for the last time.  However, I had to wake up at 3 AM so that I could register for my fall classes at Chapman.  It seems crazy, but my register slot was for 6 PM California time, so I had to wake up super early.  It would've been more enjoyable if I didn't know that I had to wake up two hours later to leave for the train station, but oh well, it's all an adventure.  We'll miss the nice lifestyle at John and Laurie's Villa Rossi...and all the cats ;).

FYI - We have finals next week, so since we'll be busy studying and packing... you'll all have to wait for the final conclusion until the following week. Sorry! Ciao!