A farewell to Roma

Well, look at that. Too soon, it seems, we're at the end of our journeys in Rome.

I was told that I had the hardest job. The last post on daily diary, I am supposed to sum up our trip. However, I feel it would be an injustice to each and every person on this trip, as well as an insult to every private sweet memory for one person to try to sum it up on a blog for the world to read.

Above the art, the things we've seen, the places we've discovered and the new friendships we've made, above everything, there is one single thing that makes this trip so amazing and so special to the 10 students (and yes, even to the one professor) that I cannot describe for the rest of you. Maybe some of us ourselves don't realize what we have gained yet...some of us are just glad to be going home, and probably won't think of Rome until the excitement of seeing their friends and family once again, eating at their favorite places that had been deserted by them for almost 3 months. But what we all went through was so incredibly internal and amazing, that to try to describe it to the outside world would be an almost laughable spectacle.

Our memories. Our growth. Our bonds with each other. Our bonds with Rome. The intricacies of day to day life over there. We all made ourselves a completely different life over there - a completely different self. I can't speak for everyone else when I say what an impact that self has made. I learned more about myself and life than I had ever previously experienced. I saw growth in my fellow classmates that I haven't seen take place in my closest friends over the course of years. Whether we like it or not, the 10 of grew close. And even though we liked some more than others, we all shared something over the course of these last 2 and a half months that will stay with us, very likely for the rest of our lives.

Am I being too sentimental? Probably. And I know the point of this daily diary is to, obviously, document what we do everyday. But short of a profound internet novel, I don't think I could ever do that here. I know the ardent followers of our journeys probably know and remember what we did even more than some of us can recall - the names of churches, the piazzas, the art - it all flows together for us in a haze of thought, memories and emotion. I guess what I'm trying to get at, for those of you who want a summation of our trip, on this, the last day in Rome, is this:

We all learned more about life and grew as people here more than we ever could've in a classroom. Educators, parents, and people who have any interest in young people, you should all be proud of the 10 honors kids who lived life for two and a half months in a foreign country, on a foreign continent with foreign customs and who come back to you not only safe (which when I think back to certain times, is an amazing accomplishment) but a new notion of how the world works outside our country and some actual real-life knowledge.

(oh yeah, and we come back with new expectations for coffee. Sorry, I don’t think Starbucks is gonna cut it anymore...)

Shayla

Building Altars to Rome

Throughout Rome, on street corners and in alleyways and under bridges, you can find small altars built to honor different saints. In this tradition, each apartment in the Rome Center was assigned the task of creating their own altar with "relics" collected from around the city during our stay in Rome. We were basically given free reign to make whatever type of altar we wanted, so after working all day yesterday assembling our altars, each apartment got to present their altar to the class.

The boys in Apartment 3 built a shrine to Totti, everyone's favorite AS Roma soccer player. They built the altar as a triumphal arch to commemorate his return to stardom following his leg injury this season.

The girls in Apartment 2 built a church dedicated to San Tempus Temporis, or the Saint of Time. Their church had 4 altars, each dedicated to a different artistic period, as well as a shrine to Mandie's obnoxious alarm clock.

The girls in Apartment 312 built a cemetery throughout their apartment in the style of the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, complete with a tribute to Nutella, a cloister on the balcony, and two pyramids built out of Fanta bottles and cereal boxes.

Complete descriptions of these altars and the histories behind them can be found on the altar link on this blog:
http://honorsinromewinter06altarprojects.blogspot.com/

Well, we're off to finish packing up all the stuff we've bought over the last three months! Anyone have an extra suitcase?...

- Nicole

2nd to last day of class

The day began without any scheduled events but this did not mean we weren't busy. Many of focused on one of the many creative writing assignments and on preparing our altars. The altars are projects that each of our room will present tomorrow (Wednesday) to our classmates and Lisa. We must dedicate the altar to something or someone and use artifacts we have found in Rome. Without revealing our altar (we'll save that for tomorrow!) Danny and I used a cardboard box to form the frame of our altar. To acquire this box the two of us went to Punto! grocery store. A nearby employee eagerly welcomed us to the soon-to-be recycled boxes by declaring "Prego!!" when he noticed our interest in the box so we grabbed the biggest one we could find. We then picked up a few items at the Cartoleria (office supply store). I don't know what the other rooms have been up to but they keep whispering and closing their doors when I'm around (no this isn't normal). I can't wait to see what everyone has in store for tomorrow.

In the afternoon we met with Sheila to listen to her comments on our writing assignments. We always enjoy when Sheila reads a few of her favorite pieces because our group's good sense of humor always shines through in our writing. After a couple of good laughs we moved on and read an piece by a writer who makes a living simply shadowing an individual for several months and captures the essence of their life. Sheila hoped to inspire the aspiring writers in the group and I certainly believe she succeeded.

In the evening most of us returned to our creative writing assignments. Some of us demonstrated our acute focus on our work while others showed that multi-tasking is another option. P.S. Thank you all for reading these entries, you certainly inspired quality entries from all of us. Please leave a comment or two if you haven't already! ---Schuyler Dunphy

How Honors students spend their days off...

Since we have so many papers to finish up, altar projects to create, and suitcases to cram, Lisa gave us the day to work on all these half-finished assignments. Since today was my day for daily diary, I went around Palazzo Pio to capture everyone in action shots.

So how do Honors students spend their days?

Well, some of us get things done around the apartment. Ema here is hanging up her laundry, while Shayla and Kristin attempt to make packing fun.

Others, like Julia and Danny, type away furiously at their computers. I get the impression that Julia is preparing for a typing marathon in this photo...

The rest of us spent the afternoon working on our papers and projects too, though with slightly less gusto than Julia and Danny exhibited. Christina, Whitney, Schuyler, and I appear cheerful while typing away at our laptops, regardless of any ill feelings we may be secretly harboring towards our slacking creative juices.

Mandie, on the other hand, makes no effort to hide her distate for haikus about Bernini. In fact, if I were Bernini, I would start running in the other direction. Quickly. Especially if you saw the other picture of Mandie that I didn't post, which shows her trying to eat my camera.

Poor hardworking Honors students :) Except that we are in Rome, and even studying isn't that bad when you get to do it in such a fabulous place!

The last great action shot I took today was of Lisa and her favorite dog in the whole wide world, Sadie :) Too bad Sadie hates ALL of us and barks her head off anytime any of us walk into the room...

Well, those are all the action shots I have for today, folks. Only a few more days left, so I'm off to make the best of them! Ciao ragazzi :)

-Nicole

Orvieto!

Today we got to spend the day in the tiny town of Orvieto, just north of Rome. We got up early to catch our train out, but of course it was delayed. Still, we made good time, and the fact that we got to take a trolley up the hill from the Orvieto train station was pretty awesome and made up for our slightly rocky start.

The first thing one notices upon arriving in Orvieto is the huge church, or Duomo directly across from the bus stop. The church is noticeable not just for its great size or its impressive façade of marble and mosaic, but also its striped-ness. Both the interior and exterior are covered in horizontal stripes, giving stark contrast to its soaring verticality. Inside the church we saw some extremely frightening frescos depicting the Last Judgment. The one of the Inferno was probably the scariest, and we were especially fascinated by the Technicolor demons who were shown torturing souls there.

Lisa showed us around a bit, and then set us loose to cause mayhem and destruction around town. Many of us went to a coffee shop to stock up on caffeine for the day and splurge on some of the brightly wrapped chocolates they sold there. Mmmm. They are for friends and family, we swear…

A group of us found a really good view of the countryside and had a good time looking at that, then we hit the streets to find some good souvenirs and a place to have lunch. You can’t ask for better than Umbrian food. I had gnocchi. It was awesome.

Orvieto is known to have really beautiful pottery, so many of us got gifts for

people back home in the pottery shops. There are also many other types of artisans with shops lining the streets there, so it was a good time. When it was time to go home we got to take the trolley again, then mess around at the train station for a while.

Yeah, we are insane. Anyhow, it was an awesome day. Yay Orvieto. I’ll bet you are all hoping you are one of those lucky people who is going to get some of that chocolate, huh?
-Julia

Not for the faint of heart...

Raise your hand if you think walking up 122 steps sounds like a good time!! Yeah, so I'm assuming that nobody is raising a hand, because it was not fun nor easy! Today we visited the church right next to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument, which is atop 122 big steps. My thighs were not very happy with me once I reached the top and we all took a moment to catch our breaths and check out the beautiful views. The church houses a golden icon of the baby Jesus to whom people continue to write letters, leaving them on the altar in front of his box. See how he glows!? I think most of us found it a little odd--not the idea of it, but just how he looks, glowing gold and covered in jewelry with an eerie and solemn face of an adult.

We walked through the Monument and stopped outside the cafe for a view of the Colosseum, Trajan's market, and Via Imperiale for Danny's presentation on the art and philosophies of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini barreled through the Forum of Augustus to build the large and always busy Via Imperiale that leads directly from the Colosseum to the Vittorio Emmanuele Monument, making a clear connection between the greatness of ancient Rome to Mussolini's politics and leadership. Can you imagine what the ruins had looked like before he destroyed part of them? It's hard to picture!

On our way to the church of the Capuchin Monks located on the infamous and expensive Via Veneto (thanks to Fellini), we had to stop once again at San Crispino for the best gelato in the world. I tried pear and if I didn't know better, I would think that I was eating an actual pear! It was amazing! Two and a half months just isn't enough time to try and enjoy all the flavors of gelato! None of us were exactly sure what to expect from the Capuchin Cemetery, but Lisa gave us fair warning that it would be creepy and gross. Yes, yes it was. The corridor and little rooms were decorated in lovely patterns and designs of flora, stars, etc., but with human bones--the bones of former monks! Some of the corpses didn't appear to be completely decomposed, but it didn't smell bad or anything in the cemetery--although it was pretty cold...I wondered what it would be like to be a Capuchin monk, incorporating death into everyday life in this manner. In some ways, it is nice--there clearly is beauty in death, for look what they can do with your old bones! -Whitney

Wednesday 1 March 2006: More Borromini and the Modern Art Museum

The morning was spent visiting many of Borromini’s works: St. Ivo’s Church, Chiesa Nuova, San Giovanni of the Florentines. Borromini was underappreciated during his life and only after his tragic death did scholars begin to realize his artistic genius. He was a troubled soul who was difficult to work with. Borromini was in competition and at the same time collaboration with Bernini. Bernini was a sociable artist, who was loved by his patrons. Their rivalry ended with Borromini’s suicide.

St. Ivo’s
St. Ivo’s is a church that was completely designed by Borromini. Scholars have studied the structure because of its unusual shape. St. Ivo’s is the seat of the head of education until 1935. The theme of the church is wisdom and the decoration of the church holds true to this theme. Some scholars say that the floor plan is meant to look like a bee in flight or a hexagon, which is the symbol of a honeycomb and therefore connected to the bee imagery. The bee symbolizes wisdom and intelligence.


The most stunning part of this church is the lantern that spirals up to heaven. Scholars have tried to figure out the symbolism behind the spiraling lantern. The few discussed today were: conch shell, allegory of philosophy, imagery from the Old Testament (pillar of fire), and the most believable the papal tiara.

Chiesa Nuova


Borromini designed the oratory that is attached to this church. In order to not take anything away from the splendor of the church Borromini was not allowed to use marble columns in his design. In order to get around this he built columns out of brick. Borromini has taken a lot of his designs from Michelangelo, which can be seen in the windows of this façade.


What Borromini does, however, is change the original slightly in order to add a sweeping, swirling movement (characteristic of the Baroque). We went inside the oratory, which also has an incredible library, but it was closed so we wandered around inside for a while staring through windows and standing in courtyards.

San Giovanni of the Florentines (The Florentine Church)
Borromini is buried inside of this church.


He also designed the dome and cross-section of the Church. Borromini was a troubled soul and died a very sad death. One day Bernini was talking with Louis XIV and mentioned that he thought Borromini’s work was gothic. This was a terrible thing to say because it meant Borromini’s work was old fashioned and didn’t fit the times. The word of this affront spread like wildfire and poor Borromini upon hearing it stopped going out and fell into a great depression. One evening he chooses to rewrite his will. While he is writing his servant tells him he must go to sleep and turns out the light. In the middle of the night Borromini wakes up and wanted the light turned on. His servant refused and in a fit of rage and frustration he decided to inflict some type of bodily harm on himself. He saw a sword at the head of his bed, laid it on the bed and fell on it. He did not die immediately. Instead he writhed in pain for 14 hours until he bled to death. During this time he wrote out the account of his death so everyone would know about his sad demise.

On this happy note we all split for lunch.

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
This afternoon we caught the 116 mini-bus up to the Villa Borghese so we could take a short stroll over to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (the modern art museum).


The museum was incredible. Lisa talked to us for a little while about modern style of Italian painting called Futurism. Futurism was a movement that began in the early 1900’s. It asked for artists to throw away past art and turn to a modern approach that had no connection to antiquity.


The museum was full of all different sorts of modern art and also a few interactive exhibits. An Italian artist in the 1960’s created interactive exhibit where you walk inside of a dark box and all of the sudden lights turn on and manipulate your experience. It was very interesting to look at art that was not ancient and stare at the bold colors and strange designs.



Ciao,
Ema