La scala sancta

I went today with a guy from school to visit the scala sancta. As one would expect, in Rome there are many theological students, and Homero from Brazil is one of them. He stays at the scala sancta where he will begin his studies in October, and in the mean time he is studying Italian with me.

The scala sancta are believed to be the steps which Jesus Christ stood on during his passion on the way to trial. The steps were brought to Rome many years ago and are now a place for christians to worship. They are now covered in wood and it is only allowed to go up them on ones knees. I wasnt up for it so I took the stairs on the side!


Homero gave me the tour of the buildings where he lices and studies including their massive flatscreen tv (yes thats where your collection money in church is going people) and I got a pretty cool aerial view (right) of the opposite church, the Basilica of San Giovanni. Its actually the oldest church, and also most important in Rome. Next to the church is housed all the vatican documents for the whole of Italy.

Gianicolo

I took a long and sweaty walk up a hill today to check out the view of Rome from above....rather impressive I must say, have a look at this picture.....

In the middle of the picture is the pantheon. While I was up there the noon gun was fired, something I didn't even know existed in Rome. I took a video of it....




Thats all for today....

I am back in Rome!

So I am back in Rome - not much has changed in the last 3 months or so...except that its super hot here at the moment! The family I am staying with (same one as before) is well, and its nice to be back here.

I went to try register at school today because it starts tomorrow, but as is typical in Italy the offices are closed until the actual day of opening. So no doubt its going to be chaos tomorrow!


On the way I passed a movie set. They are adapting the book Eat, Pray, Love into a movie. Those of you who have read it will know that the Eat part of the book is based in Rome. I believe Julia Roberts is playing the lead so I guess its big budget! I walked right through the set, but didnt see anyone famous nor were they shooting at the time, so you wont see me when the film is released!

My last day in Rome....for now

Today is my last day in Rome for a while. My 3 months as agreed through Geovisions and the family was up this week, and as I had arranged a while back I am leaving to meet up with my parents for a holiday. However the family has asked me to return for the rest of the year, which is great news. I will return towards the end of August, because in June I am on holiday and in July the kids are attending a summer camp. Then in August, as is customary in Italy, the family will be going away on holiday.

So I will return at the end of August. Until then I wont be updating this blog....have a good summer (or winter depending which hemisphere you are in) holiday!

Music Festival

Last night we had a music festival at our home. There was about 120 people invited to come and listen to various musicians play. The highlight of the evening was a gentleman called Robert McDuffie. He was actually nominated for a grammy some years ago! There was also a great guitarist, a couple of piano players and even an oprah singer! It was a great evening. Unfortunately with the dim lighting I wasnt able to take any decent pictures.

Rome Master Tennis

Today I was lucky enough to go to the final of the Rome Masters Tennis. The mother of the family had arranged some complimentary tickets through her work. The final was contested between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The first set went to a tie breaker, which Nadal won, and then the second set started promising before Djokovic seemed to loose it a bit mentally and Nadal took it 6-2. It was the first time I have seen any tennis on clay, and it was great to see the long rally's!

The kids go back to school tomorow, so I will have the days free for the next 2 weeks before I leave Rome.

This week we are having a Music party at the house. The father knows a famous american violinist, who has agreed to play at our house, and so he has arranged for some other musicians to come along too. Its quite a production, we are expecting 120 guests! I have my doubts as to whether the house can handle that many people, time will tell! Last week the father came home from a trip to Florence where he went to a wine farm of someone he knew and bought some wine - 300 bottles!! Its all stored in the kitchen now, it looks cool!

School finished!

Today was the last day of school for April. We wrote our final exam - it didn't go too great, I don't know if I passed it! Doesn't matter though, I never came to Italy to write exams! I have found learning the italian language challenging to say the least. I think its a combination of the speed at which we learn things, and the fact that its so different from english. In the last 2 months of school we have learnt various tenses - present, past, future and the imperative, as well as the pronouns, prepositions and possessive words. The encouraging part of it all is that I understand everything they have taught us, its just that there are so many rules and exceptions to the rules that I have a massive "checklist" in my brain that I need to run through prior to trying to say anything! And every week the checklist seems to get longer! So the challenge is to not sound stupid by talking too slowly! I guess over time it will come a bit more naturally. I wont be attending school this month, as I leave Rome on the 15th. If all goes according to plan I am looking to return to school in September. This should hopefully give me a good opportunity to work on what I have learnt and too practice this with my Italian speaking family up north.

The children return from Sicily today, and they are on holiday for the rest of the week, so I am hoping we might squeeze in a trip to the beach if the weather is good.

Pompei

Today was the school trip to Pompei. Pompei was destroyed by an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in AD79 when it was completely covered by 60 feet of ash, and was forgotten about. It was then rediscovered in 1748 (by accident I believe) and the excavation works began. The city has been well preserved and gives a good idea of what a typical Roman city looked like at the height of the Roman empire - at the time of the eruption the Colosseum was already under construction in Rome.

A teacher from my Italian school gave us a tour of the ruins, and had some interesting stories to tell. It was obviously all in Italian, so we had to concentrate hard! A few that I will share - the picture below shows 3 large stones placed in the middle of the road - this was an ancient "zebra crossing" that people used to cross the road when there was heavy rains, so as not to get their feet wet (again this shows how the Romans were pretty smart with water).

The next shows a roadsign. As Pompei was a busy town close to the port, they would have lots of visitors, who in turn, had "needs"! Since this as AD79 there clearly weren't any neon signs giving directions, and so this was a subtle way of pointing the patrons in the right direction....

This last one shows the main square with a view of Vesuvius on the background. We were told Vesuvius used to be double the height!


Overall I enjoyed the trip. It was nice to have a knowledgeable tour guide, however sightseeing with 50 people does waste a lot of time, always waiting for people to catch up who have stopped to take pictures etc. On the way home we stopped in Caserta, to have a look at the Palace there. The palace was constructed in the eighteenth century for the king of Naples. It is another World heritage sight. We visited some of the 1200 rooms inside the palace! Here is a picture of one, they all pretty much looked the same, paintings on the ceilings and lots of gold!


So that brings to an end the week long cultural week in Italy. It was a fantastic opportunity to visit so many sights at no charge! If I am still in Italy next time they have another cultural week I will be sure too take advantage again!

Tivoli

I went with my friends to Tivoli today. It is a town outside of Rome, with the main attractions being ancient villa's. The most famous of which is Villa d'Este. It is a Unesco world heritage site, and in fact was awarded the European Best Park award in 2007.

There is a very clever use of water in the gardens, with over 500 water jets in fountains and pools, and multiple water troughs. The river was actually rerouted about a kilometer to provide water for the fountains. Unfortunately pictures can't convey effectively the beauty of the gardens. Apart from the water features, there is also plenty of flowers, fruit trees and other sculptures. This is the row of fountains, there are over 100 fountains in this row alone!

This is a view of the main fountain - I forget the name....


After Villa d'este we walked through the town of Tivoli to the other side and visited Villa Gregoriana. This was a fantastic park with both natural and man made waterfalls. We took a long walk through the forest and got some fantastic views of the waterfalls.


Tomorrow its off to Pompei..

Ostia Antica

Last night was the Ben Harper concert for earth day. There were some support acts and then Ben Harper....although it was good music, it was a bit of a disaster from an organization point of view - there was no real crowd control and it didnt really feel so safe the whole time! But it was free, so cant complain. After the concert I went with my friend to a place called Giolitti - a 19th century cafe that is famous for its Gelati (ice cream). I had limoncello flavour....it was excellent!

Today Tara, my Australian friend and myself tried to go to the Galleria Borghese, but unfortunately its entrance with reservation only, I guess because its not only very popular but also small. So we decided to head off to Ostia Antica on the outskirts of Roma. It is the ancient port city of Rome, where goods that came in via ships were transported up the river on barges to supply central Rome with supplies. However over the last 2000 years the sea has retreated several kilometers and the river has changed direction! Apparently it died completely as an inhabited area some 1000 years ago. For me the highlight was that there were no real restriction as to where one could walk, and so we could meander as we pleased. I particularly enjoyed taking in some sun on the theatre.

If you look carefully you may see me in the picture! The kids have gone off to Sicily to spend some time with their grandparents, so I have some time off for the next week or so...