Italia Blog Dump: Rome, Dolciano, Pienza

Hello…

Long overdue blogging. Really long.

Written on: June 15, Sunday

Hello. It’s 3:20 pm here in Dolciano. We’re in a country rest house apartment type villa waiting to leave to Pienza. It’s amazing here! miles and miles of nothing but trees with Karen in the background playing with Brad’s guitar. A nice change from the crazy city of Rome.

So what’s been going on? The first few days of Rome were spent touring around the city. We went to places like Campo di Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Vatican (and later the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel with Murray hours before our final presentation), Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, etc. I’ll try to give a nice rundown day by day from the timeline that Murray set up.

ROUNDUP

May 29th thursday - Another touring day. I woke up early with Derek and Murray to walk along the Tiber River from Campo Cafe Farnese. Superb cappuccinos. Walked with the rest of the group across the Tiber, to Tiber island into Trastevere with more churches. Had a really great lunch with Spaghetti Vongole at Ai Speghettaria. We stopped the touring there since it rained. Boo. Big group nap at the boy’s apartment. That night, we went up to Campidoglio for selter from the rain and towards the Trevi fountain which was empty except for the annoying rose vendors. Why did the Vancouver rain follow us?

May 30 friday - Derek and Murray wanted to check out Spagna in the morning before meeting up with the group but I ended up going by myself. I wanted to try out the other train station near San Giovanni Basilica instead of the one in Colosseo and asked people in Italian for directions. Proud moment. It was nice and empty with a few people scattered on the steps. Today was contemporary Rome day so we all gathered in Popolo and took a tram towards Parco della Musica, the new music complex for shows, concerts, operas, etc. HUGE. This German lady showed us around the place while musicians were having a rehearsal on stage. After a quickie snack at the bar, we headed towards an indoor basketball court Parco della Sport. bah. Walk walk walk then OMG ITS THE ZAHA HADID MAXXI under construction. Progress looks like it hasn’t changed since I stole pictures from the internet in January. After a nice photoshoot by the wall at Ara Pacis and a sneak tour to the swanky SAS Hotel y King Roselli, we headed to San Lorenzo for some neighborhood studies and the best gelato EVER at Fassi. 1.50 euros for a mountain of creamy goodness in 3 flavors topped off with MORE cream. Fucking awesome. Yoshi Karen Alex Brad Murray and I headed towards Spagna and situated ourselves in the middle of the tourist laden steps. Then I took a picture with a fake Roman. Weeee.

May 31 saturday - I didn’t end up sleeping and so I took a really really long shower while everyone was asleep and while there was still hot water in the tank. Afterwards, I took my camera to campo to watch the morning setup. I felt really stupid standing there for the longest time just waiting for stuff to happen. I set up a tripod right smack in the middle of someone’s spot and didn’t realize it till he back up into me with his truck. Nice man. He shooed me away quite pleasantly. I sat for the next three hours with a cappuccino then later on under the monument watching an old man sell his cool plastic chopper/peeler/slicer/dicer whatchamacallit. I bought one myself! Bought some food when Murray and Brad arrived and took it home.

This day was stairs day. I was cranky the whole way. I also lost some pictures which fucking sucks. It started when we ad to run from our apartment to the Ara Coeli steps beside Campidoglio on a hill through tons on slow walking tourists who unexpectedly stop for pictures and pointing. We ran UP to Campidoglio from the back, then down the front then up again to the meeting point. THEN when Rus got there, he walked us DOWN the church and UP Campidoglio again. I was royally pissed by this time. Then we went in the Capitoline Museum which was HUGE and took lots of pictures. Lots. I gave up somewhere in the middle since there were 3 other SLR’s. I wore my flipflops that day which did not help at all. Afterwards, we walked up to the Vittorio Emanuele II building which looks like a big cake “la torta” or a massive typewriter. That building is HUGE and we walked UP to the top then DOWN to the bottom entrance of the museum then UP inside to get to the museum then back DOWN. Fuck. To top stairs day off, we went to the Theater of Marcellus up and down more steps.

BUT this fun filled day was still fun. Despite all the walking and complaining and lost pictures. I promise. I enjoyed myself. I’m in Rome damnit.

June 1 sunday - Vatican Day! Today we went to St. Peter’s basilica at the crack of dawn to avoid the hoards of tourists. It was HUGE. Crazy big. I couldn’t imagine how people in the past constructed such a massive building. There were marble statues everywhere down low and up high. The paintings on the high high ceiling were NOT paintings and turned out to be mosaics. HUGE. We went up the cupula so that’s how we found out they were made of little colored squares. I think there were 500 steps to go up and around the winding steps to the top. You could see the whole Rome from up there. Uber cool. Everyone had some contemplative photo from that spot. It was free game after that. After a SUPER AWESOME pizza meal with tons of toppings with Rob, Simon, Brad and Murray, we hung out at Circo Massimo. Again. Which was nice

June 2 monday - Day off! Spent most of it being lazy all day until Rob had the idea of exploring Testaccio with me and Derek. We walked around and took lots of photoshoot photos without me in any of them. Grar. Ended up eating at a trattoria since we were starving with everyone in there speaking in english! Weird. The area was sketchy. Molto sketchy.

June 3 tuesday - Started today with our first interview ever with Jeremy King near Campo. He was kinda boring. I expected a cooler dude but he seemed uninterested in what we had to say. Bleh. Then we took it to Testaccio for lunch (I had various organs in sauce) going around the mountain of shards and looking at the sketchy looking clubs again. Afterwards, we walked to Ostiense to check out the Centrale Montemartini, an old power plant type place with old extra sculptures. Looked really cool but I got bored fast so I started taking pictures of butts and penises to keep myself entertained. Out second interview was with Labics where it was more fun. This dude just seemed more enthusiastic. I just about died when I got home on the fall-asleep couch.

June 4 wednesday -  Work day! Me, Rob and Derek headed back to Testaccio again in the morning to check out the market. So much goodies! I love markets! We bought some bread, meats, cheese and veggies which turned out to be a big mistake since we had to carry it around and couldn’t do more research. Oh well. We had to also wait for everyone else to get back home so we could put the stuff in the fridge. Grar. Stupid buzzer didn’t work. Anger. Ended up hanging around the house again and cooking dinners.

I really like cooking. 1.) I get to pick what to eat,  2. )I get to eat first and 3.) I get to eat more.

June 5 thursday - Work day part 2. The team decided to start later and head off to the Ostiense part of the city. We ended up finding a bunch of kids tagging a wall and interviewed them. Twas really cool! More walking around looking and stuff and taking pictures. Ostiense is really empty, a real working class town with workers. We went to the old air terminal and train station which was almost completely empty and run down. It would be perfect for a zombie movie. Perfect. More walking around in the sun and we ended up too far into Garabatella just in time for kids to get out of school. Totally different neighborhood but I didn’t bother doing anything except take pics since it wasn’t part of our scope. Lots of great graffiti on the way home though. Then we went home and “worked”

What I really like about the apartment is that it’s really chill and homey with pull out beds in the living room. It isn’t really such a good thing with presentations abound since it affords sleeping. Glorious sleep. We also had presentations. Eew.

June 6 friday - First day off! Shopping!

June 7 saturday - Bike day trip on the Apian Way. We all met up bright and early at the Pantheon and rented bikes near Ara Pacis. It was epic. We all biked along the Tiber towards the outside of the city. Derek, Azmina and I tried out going into various expensive shops but it was clear that the well dressed sales people were eyeing us to get the heck out of the store. We didn’t fit in with our sneakers and shorts. It was a hot hot day of biking and we went pretty far on bumpy cobblestones. We took really great pics and video on the way and found a little picnic spot. With Brad’s guitar and the frisbee, we hads fun. A nice relaxing day with everyone chilling out. On the way back to returning bikes and riding across the city, we were blocked by a huge gay parade. Large truck barges with half naked gay guys dancing to techno music. Awesome. We wanted to eat somewhere fancy but it was expensive so we decided on dinner at home again. Good times

June 8 sunday - After a failed trip to the Vatican museum (closed), we headed back home for lunch and I went with Karen and Brad for some shopping on the Corso. We got lost on the way home but made it in time for me and Murray to take the train towards the beach in Ostia. We weren’t sure which stop to get off on and I was getting pretty worried about the trip. Eventually, we ended up in Ostia Lido Centrale and found a really creepy looking hostel along the beach. It totally looked like an old, abandoned psychiatric ward but inside, there were colored walls and couches and INTERNET! Woo! Got to chat with Steffi to say Happy Birthday and tell her that I was still alive. We had a nice little dinner at a restaurant and lay down on the cold cold beach for a bit. We e-mailed Brad some directions and instructions for tomorrow.

June 9 monday - Brad and Rob came and we all baked on the beach. I got a really really really bad sunburn that still haunts me till this day. Peels and uneven-ness. It was fun though until we realized how crispy we were. Falling asleep was my mistake. BIG mistake. I look really really bad now. BUT still a lot of fun. Why didn’t I put on sunscreen?

June 10 tuesday - Work and read day. I ddin’t wake up early. I didn’t want to. My whole body was burnt. I spent it reading Dynamics of Delight and walking around like an old lady. Oh so carefully. I was just grateful that I shared the experience with Murray and Brad

June 11 wednesday - Another work day wherein I felt kinda okay enough to head out with Rob to check out Testaccio in the late afternoon. The central park was packed with kids and parents looking after them. Still pain. Cooked dinner at home to save money. At night we went all the way to San Lorenzo for some yummy giant gelato.

June 12 thursday - Slideshow making day. Before that, Murray and I made a trek to Trestevere to check out the Tempietto. We also went back to the super duper pizza place by Campo. Started putting together the slideshow with Murray by making sure all the pictures were collected and tagged properly. Twas pretty relaxing since we still didn’t feel the pressure. Rus came by to check on us which made people panic sort of. But whatever. I dragged a bunch of the guys over to the trattoria around the corner for some dinner which turned out to be really fun. A nice chill day before the ultimate panic sets in. Ended up staying up til 5am working on completing the slideshow.

June 13 friday - Happy Birthday Murray! Our big mistake today was visiting the Vatican Museum in the morning with a 5pm presentation that we were so not prepared for at all. Getting to the Sistine chapel was tough! There was a lot of people and we had to go through so many rooms to get there. So many. Probably took us a good hour walking around taking random pictures on the way. We also found Rafael’s School of Athens fresco and The Lacoon sculpture. Mondo cool. We got back and that’s when I started to freak out with the severe lack of time. Presentation turned out pretty good and we had a celebratory 8 course meal at San Lorenzo. Yoshi had a little too much wine that night and barfed on me! Yay.

June 14 saturday - Goodbye Rome. Arrive in Dolciano. Super awesome Villa with a pool and we get our own building! I got my own room with a roomie and it is HUGE. I love it. The kitchen is also large which is great for cooking. We went for a supermarket trip today and the bill was 146 euros for all of us. Holy shitballs.  We had a nice group dinner in the guy’s apartment with all of us a and plate of d-lish tomato sauce pasta. Oh and the bathroom downstairs is like a cave. I love the shower. I love it.

June 15 sunday - Pienza Day. Really awesome day. Party because the whole morning we spent in the villa lounging around waiting for the call to leave. We left at 4pm to go to Bagno Vignoni, an enclosed sulfur pool which was not for swimming. Eh. Twas okay. Then to Pienza which was a pretty cool place I guess. It kinda felt too touristy I feel, like everything is planned. All the houses have neatly placed flower boxes outside their window and I could see tourists abound. Local people were mostly old but it was nice to walk around aimlessly. It’s on top of a hill like most of the places we will be visiting are so the views from the edges are amazing. Had dinner at Ristorante Dal Falco and had Coniglio (rabbit). Mmmmm tastes like chicken.

June 16 monday - Day off. A whole lot of nothing. Woke up late, swam in the pool walk around and ate food. It was great. Eventually in the evening, my research group got down to business to prepare for the next day’s mission.

October 22nd, 2008

Entry Filed under: Italia