A Day of Work

Today turned out to be a fairly uneventful day in terms of site seeing. Ron and I got into the studio around 8am this morning and worked until 1pm, when we had a meeting with our professor to show the work we had done in terms of site documentation so far. I took a little nap from about 2-3:30pm and then Ron and I went out and did site measurements for about 2 1/2 hours. The heat was intense, but at this point I have gotten used to be always wet here in Rome...kinda gross, I know. Here is some info on the location of the site:

Here, you see Italia and Roma in large scale. My site, as I said, is on the Trastevere side of things (that's the left hand side of the river you see in the second picture here). From top to bottom in the second picture you see a few bends in the river. Count 1, 2, and just below the 3rd bend is the area where this satellite photo is taken.


It was pretty challenging measuring the site because it has an extremely irregular shape. Basically we found a curb we considered to be mostly a straight line and measure 8m off of that (we are doing everything in metric while we are in Europe...a new skill to learn). Then we pinned some fishing line into the asphalt (for future reference, regular push-pins go into asphalt quite nicely) and started measuring all of our funky angles off of that. It was hot and difficult, but we kept the mood light and in general had some fun taking pictures of one another as "scale figures" next to buildings to help us determine exisiting heights.

Tomorrow morning we are going on another tour with Jeffrey to a bunch of churches in the area that we have no yet seen. I get to finally see the only gothic church in all of Roma, Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

[As a side note, if something is in Bold that means there is a link to either their website or a Wikipedia entry I think is particularly interesting. i.e. the Santa Maria sopra Minerva above.]

It's located right next to the Pantheon, which I have tried to visit at least every couple of days. Its just so big and so famous and so amazing I can't keep myself away. This church is probably the one I've looked forward to seeing the most, after Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel and, of course, St. Peter's itself (which I have not yet seen, even though I've seen the Vatican museums...but I'll get there!).

I'm really stoked about tomorrow...I finally get to see my lovely wife after a couple of weeks of absence. She should make it to the Rome Center around 4pm or 4:30pm. Hopefully there will not be any delayed trains or mishaps, because we really don't have a way to contact each other. Its funny how we get sort of "addicted" to the cell phone life where everyone is always available (or, at least, their voicemail is available). It has been nice to have a room to myself in the apartment but there has definitely been something missing in my life, and she's on her way. Safe travels...