Rome III

Continuing with my Rome blog...

On Sunday morning, we woke up early, and three of us went to Mass at St. Peter's Basilica. This was the first time I had been in the Basilica since being in Italy long ago. It was my first ever Mass; I figured that having Mass at the center of the Catholic world would be a pretty cool experience. We got there very early, and were able to grab seats in the pews, about 7 rows back from the front. Of course the entire service was in a different language, so I didn't exactly get a lot out of the service. But, I had a lot of time to admire the architecture in the front of the Basilica, and enjoyed watching Mass happen. After that, we left the Basilica and entered St. Peter's Square, to watch the Pope give his weekly address, in tons of different languages, to the waiting crowd. I would judge him as one of the more powerful and influential people in the world, and so it was cool to see him in person, and listen to a short address, mostly about the Pope's commitment to the strengthening of the Catholic church in Africa. He stands the house he lives in, in front of a window looking down on the entire square. There were tons of people there!

So, after this, we continued on what I would call "old church day." Besides the Basilica, we visited 4 other churches: the Pantheon, really cool because of its architecture (a circle inside a square), a second church which, because, the neighborhood didn't want a big dome blocking the horizon, has a dome painted on part of the ceiling to simulate a dome, another church which wasn't extremely remarkable, but big and a basilica, and a church in Trastevere which was very nice, but small for Rome standards. Those four churches, and the Spanish steps were our main activities for Sunday during the day. And it was a good day, a lot less walking and a bit more relaxing than our first day in Rome. For dinner, we had pizza at a sit-down restaurant, which was good but not remarkable. Also, I believe the restaurant was not too much of a tourist hit, as it seemed that the Italian people already in the restaurant were staring at us for a good portion of the meal. After this, we ate gelato, and went to a nearby square, where we hung out and eventually ended up on a new lookout of the city, with even better views of the city, and especially St. Peter's Basilica. It seemed a bit like a couple's area; there were 2 couples watching the city when we got there, one guy and girl, and one guy and guy.

Alright this is Sunday: not quite as full as the first day, but still really fun and interesting. Later I will talk about the Vatican Museum/Sistine Chapel, and walking up in the dome of St. Peter's (which was all our activity for Monday)

Rome II

Continuing on with Rome! After trying to visit the Pantheon (which I called the Parthenon for much of the trip), we visited Piazza Navona, which was filled with musicians looking for money, and people selling lots of random stuff, though mostly drawings and paintings of the sites in Rome. There was also a really nice fountain in the middle, which represented the Four Rivers (by Bernini, who by the look of things in Rome was a pretty busy man). After this, we finally took a short break, to rest a bit and get warmer clothes for the night.

For the night, we went to Trastevere, which was a smaller, less big-city feeling area of Rome. This was where Ashley had spent her summer last year, so she knew the area well. We went to our nicest (and most expensive) dinner here in Trastevere. It was excellent. We had an appetizer (which turned out to be listed as a per-person price on the menu rather than a flat total rate) of grilled vegetables (including grilled zucchini, which I had really been missing), and a plate of meats. However, we steered clear of the plate of cubed uncooked ham in olive oil. It wasn't the most appetizing thing I have ever seen. For the main dish, I had a really good white-sauce pasta with little pieces of ham and amazing mushrooms. It was excellent. After dinner, we walked up to the top of Trastevere, with a really nice fountain (which I've heard was an embassy). It was nice to just sit down and look at the city from high up. It seemed that every night, we ended up at a viewing point of the entire city. And, it seemed that each night we found a better viewing spot. So, this was an awesome first view, but was eventually trumped by some other ones.

This ends my saturday in Rome. And, I can't really start writing about a new day. I've included a couple pictures. One is of the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona. The other is in front of a random water fountain, which was actually an old bath. Definitely not a popular tourist landmark, but still seemed very authentic Roman.

Roma!!!!

Rome was awesome! I really enjoyed all my activities in Rome. And, now that a friend has posted a couple pictures of me in Rome, I can now write about the experience.

Traveling was uneventful. We left Granada Friday morning, and arrived in Rome Friday night. On Friday night, we began our trip by visiting the Trevi Fountain. I will include a picture of me (with friends) at the Trevi Fountain. It was absolutely beautiful! And it helped to make me feel like I really was in Rome, and not just in another random place in Spain. As will be a common theme in this blog, the food in Rome wasn't spectactular. I was thinking back to what I ate in Naples long ago, and it did not compare, especially the pizza. After visiting the Trevi Fountain, we ate our first gelato at, according to Ashley(UT), is the most famous gelato place in Rome. It was very very good, as all the gelato was in Rome. In the pictures, you will see the same people: in the picture above, from left to right, is Shaz(also from UT), Jackie(Boise St.), me(Clemson Go Tigers!), and Ryan(Univ. of Massachusetts), my roommate. I will identify Ashley in a picture she is in. This, minus Ryan most of the time, was the group I traveled around Rome with. Also on the first night, we walked by the wedding cake, which is a memorial to the unknown soldiers and Vittorio, a famous person in Rome's history; we saw the place where Mussolini would come out and give his speeches to the masses; we saw some cool ruins, including a tower thing with an intricate continuous scroll telling a story on the outside; and last, we saw the ruins where Caesar Augustus was killed.

The next day, we began with a group bus tour of the city, where we were told a bit of the history of Rome. We also stopped near the Coliseum, where we walked around there and the Forum. It was fun to see; however, I remembered this area from my younger years, and did not feel the need to see it again in detail, so that was pretty much all of the Coliseum I saw. We then got back on the bus, and ended the tour at St. Peter's Basilica. At this point, I started the day which wins the "most walking in a day" prize. First, we booked it away from St. Peter's Basilica, and made it to Campo de Fiori, just in time to shop at the outdoor market. Besides touristy items, they had lots of fruits, vegetables, spices, and other cool street shops. Next, we booked it to a church farther away than the Coliseum, named Saint Mary of the Snow. The reason it was named this: a rich man had a lot of extra money, and prayed to God (in September in Rome) that he would build a church at the spot where it snowed. And, apparently it never snows in Rome, especially not in the fall. And, it snowed on one of the seven hills. So, he built a church there. It is a beautiful church. My favorite part of the church was a colorful, striking stained glass window at the back of the church. It may have been a bit newer, because there was even hot pink featured in the window. Another cool part was the outside; you could see old murals behind the newer facade that were really well preserved for being outside. After this, we tried to visit the Pantheon, which was closed at the time to visitors because Mass was going on.

Alright, this is getting long, so I will end it here and continue with the Rome post later. Hope this is interesting! Oh, and in this picture, to the most right is Ashley. She had been in Rome studying abroad last summer for a month, so she really helped us get around the city. You can see in this picture how intently I am concentrating on enjoying my wonderful ice cream.

Sevilla

So I have definitely forgotten to write in the blog for a while, which means I need to write a little about Sevilla. Sevilla was a really cool city. It was certainly bigger than Granada. However, it had a lot more parks and green space, and a really big river running through it. Whoever planned Granada seemed to think that parks were not a priority, so all the open space in Sevilla was a nice change. Grass has also yet to make a meaningful appearance in Granada. We visited the Sevilla Cathedral while there, which was very beautiful, and huge! Its actually the 3rd biggest cathedral in the world, behind the Vatican and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, which Lyndsey and I will be visiting soon! There are lots of other features that make this Cathedral really cool. They are one of I believe five places claiming to have all of part of Christopher Columbus' remains. It seemed to me that they had a legitimate claim to the title. But, the Dominican Republic must have a decent claim also, as I do remember seeing a huge monument to Columbus in the Dominican Republic on my senior missions trip there. They also had a massive organ, a jewel room with some pretty amazing stuff, and my favoirte part, a huge carving of different Bible scenes telling the story of the life of Jesus. I thought it was really neat, so I have a picture (off of Google, my penalty for not having a camera) We also visited a Palace in Sevilla, which was very impressive. My favorite part was the gardens: they had different sections of the garden which represented different influences, for example one part was Muslim-influenced. It was also my favorite part because I was able to understand the majority of what the tour guide told us. This was probably my first all-Spanish tour which I really understood a lot of. Perhaps my favorite/perhaps most dangerous Sevilla activity was our bike ride through the city. I'm not exactly a master on a bicycle (I can ride them, to clarify), so it was interesting riding through lots of people, and busy traffic circles, and other hazards. I fell once. Only once was a feat and a miracle. But, the ride made me want to use a bike again, which hadn't happened in about 6 years before the Sevilla trip I believe. We also visited a pretty cool rocky place...it looked kind of like tons of huge stacks of pancakes, if you picture the pancakes as gray rocks. I will put a picture on here of me and some others there. The some others are my roommate, another friend from the program, and our two guides. I also have a picture of the palace to put up here. Incidentally, these are the only two pictures taken of me during the Sevilla trip...apparently minus Lyndsey I don't make it into too many pictures.

Besides the Sevilla trip I haven't really been up to much. Lyndsey and I took advantage of good weather last week to explore some shops. Last week, I had popcorn for the first time in Spain, which I kind of think tasted like the best popcorn I've ever had. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess. I'm still enjoying Granada, though I'm also looking forward to seeing other places. Rome with our program, and then London during our spring break, really stick out. However, there are lots of smaller cities I would enjoy visiting near here, plus Barcelona if I get the chance. I've heard that Barcelona is a very cool city to see, so perhaps that will happen. I think this is a good place to end, thanks for reading!