Wherever you are, that's my Rome.

Not having updated in two weeks, this will naturally be a long post. However, I'll try to pick up where I left off as best I can (because it's been so long, I'm actually using my course syllabus to remember everywhere I've gone), and try to spread out the pictures enough that there isn't too much reading. I'll start with the results of the midterm, I think. I wasn't too sure about how that was going to come out, but I ended up with a 95%, so it ended up going pretty well for me. My Latin midterm went pretty well, also, so I'm pretty satisfied with my classes so far. I am a little worried about my presentation for the Triumph class, only because my subject is the triumph of Constantine, for whom I have had a really hard time finding primary sources. But I don't have to give that presentation until the last week of classes, so I still have plenty of time to figure something out.

Saturday the 3rd, Dan, Pamela, Kayla, Ashli, Nick, and I went to the Villa Borghese, a huge, gorgeous park in Rome. We picnicked with various cheeses, breads, prosciutto (I love prosciutto), after which we promptly napped for at least an hour. Then we played a little football.
Monday we went to Montemartini, an extension of the Capitoline Museum, that is nowhere near the Capitoline Hill. How that works, I'm not sure, but I'm glad it's there. They allowed photos, but I forgot my camera. Luckily, Stephen was kind enough to e-mail me a couple of those that he took. The museum is really interesting in that it is built in a renovated giant factory thing (I think it was a factory that made miniature models of factories) and all of the machinery was left in tact, juxtaposed to the ancient art that was placed inside. It's a pretty neat museum that doesn't overload you with whole rooms of busts and white marble sculptures. Some museums you feel like you're going to puke if you see one more bust of Augustus. The first photo is a really good one Stephen took giving you a feel for the statues vs. the modern stuff. (I still don't know how to rotate photos; Stephen sent me the picture already rotated).
Apparently the Romans also felt a little called to the see. This was a wall mosaic, I think, in someone's villa.This is a ridiculously famous statue, one of Stroup's favorites, and my sixth or seventh archaeological faux pas, I believe. I'll have to go back and count.
Wednesday morning we all walked to the Castel de S. Angelo, a castle that once was originally the Mausoleum of Hadrian, but was later appropriated by various Italian families and built up as a fortress, continuously being built up more and more until some time in the renaissance, and is now a museum. I didn't take a picture of the outside, because it's not the Mausoleum of Hadrian anymore, and the castle itself is pretty ugly (I think). There was around the back side of it, however, a playground, which is totally not fair. I would have killed for a playground next to a castle growing up. The picture is of some graffiti on one of the banks of the Tiber. I run along the Tiber sometimes, but usually only for long runs, and when I need a break from the Circus. The Tiber's pretty disgusting, but I see people fishing in it all the time.
When we got to the Castel, we ended up in the middle of a shoot for a movie. The girl in the photo below is apparently a famous Italian actress, hence the Italian kids taking pictures of her. I followed suit, assuming she was important. Then they asked us not to talk (Stroup wasn't too happy, seeing as she was supposed to lecture at the site, and the front is really the only place you can get the sense for the shape of the original Mausoleum and not just castle walls).
After our walk at the Castel, we wandered to a museum of Etruscan art that we weren't allowed to take pictures, and then to another museum where we were. I left my camera and notebook in the locker at the first museum, though, and had to run back and get them, and then try and find my way to the next museum by myself. Luckily, I have a pretty good feel for Rome, now. I think I know Rome better than I know Seattle, just because I've been forced to get out so much.

Egyptian vase (for Lora).
More Egyptian for Lora.This reminded me of prom, for some reason. I'd hate waiting line to have the bust of my date and me carved, though.
Somebody's dog.This museum had a strange way of arranging their ancient art, interspersed with themed modern art. This is some of the modern art.You look so...riiight...

Friday we took a field trip out to Hadrian's Villa; which is huge. We have excavated about 40 of the 120 hectares of land we think were used in his villa. The whole thing is beautiful, but I forgot my camera when we went, so I have no photos of it (and I haven't stolen any from other people yet). We picnicked there, and then explored on our own for a bit (the first hour or so was Chris giving his site report, most of which was walking). Stephen pointed out at one point how we were walking over the floor mosaics like they were nothing, and how the first time we saw one (at Ostia) we were afraid to walk on it at all. Then we joked that at this point we're so sick of floor mosaics that we just want to deteriorate them all as much as possible, leading to my new theory that medieval people didn't forget how to build like the Romans, and weren't stupid, but they were probably just so freaking tired of Roman architecture that they tore as much down as they could to build crappy hovels and decadent churches. It's tough being a medievalist on a tour of Rome with a bunch of classicists...there is no shortage of medieval hate-rants.

Last Monday we walked to the Esquiline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome (which change, depending on who you talk to; there are about nine hills that all claim to be one of the seven at one point or another). On top of the Esquiline were a bunch of imperial baths, one built right on top of another. This picture is Trajan's bath, built on top of part of Nero's, if I'm remembering correctly. Nero was a crazy guy, who built the famous "Domus Aurea" (House of Gold), which was essentially the largest villa in the world (it practically covered the Esquiline, spilled down into where the Colosseum is now, and I think even touched part of the Palatine).This is a remnant of the Republican Wall, artfully incorporated into the side of the very modern orange apartment building. A soothing contrast.
On the same walk, a little farther down the Esquiline, we met up with another important gate, really well preserved for being 2,000 years old and built up around. Most of the disgusting black-ish stuff on the older buildings (especially the Colosseum) is from pollution, and it all helps to deteriorate the stone faster, which is really too bad. This gate was mostly awesome because I could actually read the inscription.
On Wednesday we visited the Etruscan museum at the Villa Giulia, which didn't allow photos inside, but had a huge collection of Etruscan art and artifacts. The gold that Etruscans worked was beautiful, with really intricate rings and giant necklace-things that you wouldn't really expect from a pre-Roman culture that we really don't know too much about. A lot of their pottery looks really Greek, but they often have interesting, fundamental changes in their representations of Greek myths, since they weren't native myths and the Etruscans probably misunderstood certain elements ("First off, the whole first act will have to be rewritten. They're losing the war? Excuuuse me!").

Etruscan pug, not to be confused with Etruscan sea lions.
We weren't allowed to take photos inside, like I said, but this dagger was in too good of shape...so I risked it. Totally worth it.Due to previous reprimands for not posting pictures of cute animals seen in Rome, here are the turtles outside the Etruscan museum. Then again, I guess I had to, since you probably won't get much Googling "Etruscan turtles."
Yesterday (Friday) we bussed out to Cerveteri, the site of a bunch of Etruscan tombs, and then to Tarquinia, where there were a bunch more, bigger, better Etruscan tombs.

Descending into the first tomb of the trip at Cerveteri.
Wall painting of athletes on the inside of one of the tombs.More wall painting.Dramatic Italian landscape. These hills, unfortunately, were not alive with the sound of music.
This is a view from part of one of the rooms of the museum of Etruscan art (housed in a renovated castle) that we saw in between Cerveteri and Tarquinia. The Etruscan stuff was great, but I really liked the castle...We were supposed to be watching the professor's kid...I was taking a picture, and I was totally going to help right after.
Now at Tarquinia, I somehow didn't manage to take a photograph of the outside of any of the tombs. They were all big mounds of rock and earth, and some you had to climb into. The lighted tombs aside, it was very Indiana Jones.

Ashli on her way in/out of a tomb. I don't remember which. My camera took longer than she expected to take the photo, I think, but she was a lot more excited when I started. This is a bird that flew out of a tomb as Kayla was entering, nearly killing her. The bird did, however, succeed in killing me. Knock knock (who's there?) Yeta (yeta who?) Yetanother archaeological faux pas...and a conventionally awkward sentence...Some of the entrances to certain tombs were a little higher up, and took some will power to get inside. On my way up to the entrance (top left).
Almost there...Just switching hands so I can put one in the entrance in order to pull myself inside...Crap.No Tims were hurt in the making of this roll.
I did manage to get inside on the second attempt, however. This is the inside of the tomb...pretty awesome. The ones with stairs were totally unsatisfying; they were so much better if you had to work to get in.It even had paint still on the walls.This is some more Etruscan art in a tiny museum that we went to on the way back from Tarquinia (Tarquin was an Etruscan king...hence the name of the site).
Castle that was turned into the said museum.

Today I went for an eight mile run along the Tiber. The rest of the day I've been doing homework or trying to grow a beard. I bought some corn and broccoli for dinner, along with a small steak and some potatoes for mashing. I really like living outside of the dorms, being able to cook my own food, especially. But tonight I'm going to do a little more Latin, get dinner started pretty soon, and then we're watching another episode of the HBO series "Rome." I e-mailed my application to the University of Aberdeen in for my exchange study in Scotland next fall, also, so (even though I'm pretty much in, having been accepted into the program already at UW) hopefully that works out, and I'm glad I won't have to worry about that anymore on this trip (setting up a study abroad while on a study abroad is not advised).

Latin Word for the Last Two Weeks: "mora" (tr: delay)

Vale, amici.