2 Days in Istanbul

Greetings all from Istanbul on my 2nd day after getting here. The weather has really been amazing since we've been here with temps in the 80s and humidity much lower than that in Roma, all with a consistent light breeze. We had a walking tour today with our good friend Mimet (well, he's our good friend now) who took us all over the place. But I'm not here to tell you about what I did today, because I still need to reflect on it and organize it. What I can tell you about is our adventures from yesterday.

Saturday our first stop was Hagia Sofia, perhaps the most famous of Istanbul's mosques. The 'Sofia was built in 537 A.D. or B.C.E. (that's a really long time ago, in case the point was lost on you...) It is the oldest of Isanbul's mosques, but not the largest. It is, however, perhaps the most influencial on the design of later mosques. You can read the wikipedia entry, but, in short, it was first built by the Roman Empire as a temple, eventually became a Basilica (Roman Catholic church), and was converted to a mosque after the capture of Istanbul by the Ottomans in 1453 BCE. The picture here shows the dome and the perpetual scaffolding which, I guess, tends to be a mainstay in the mosque-turned-museum.

It was my first mosque I've every been too, and I can tell you it didn't diappoint. For the most part, the mosque is quite a different building that the "typical" basilica. The plan is basically more square rather than rectangular or cross-shaped...one somehow feels more "equal" in that the "front" of things is much less obvious than in a church which may have an altar or other focus for the front. Since Muslims pray 5 times a day facing toward Mecca (generally southeast in Turkey) each mosque has a mihrab or niche facing that direction. The directin of the mihrab may or may not correspond to the direction the mosque was actually built, though in many instances it seems generally toward the front of the building. The picture here shows the mihrab of the Hagia Sofia.

The mosque is a really amazing new form of bulding I have never experienced. One of the places we went on Saturday was the Rustem Pasa, which apparently has no Wikipedia entry (maybe I should make one!) The colors in the Rustem Pasa were quite different than what we experienced in Hagia Sofia. Here, they were brighter and more vibrant, and the interior was almost entirely clad in ceramic tile. You can see the wonderful blue of the tile in these pictures. The tile was cleaned less than 10 years ago and, apparently, it makes a huge difference in the quality of the lighting within the mosque to have these clean, reflective tiles. I was amazed at the amount of light in the mosque, even though there were no artificial lamps lit (yes, its all natural daylight).

I sneakily snuck some pics of people praying as well...I just found it fascinating since I have never really experienced Islam. At the mosque, you remove your shoes before you come in (there is a carpet outside just past the front stairs on which your shoes must never be) and women must cover their head and shoulders with a scarf or other wrap. People come 5 times a day to pray, either in the mosque or just at home on a small prayer carpet. The prayer is a series of bows from compelte standing to down on one's knees and forehead, in a sort of sequence that repeats many times. They are "called to prayer" by announcements over loudspeakers distributed all over town...you can always here the call no matter where you are in town. Some interesting things about living in a Muslim country for a while.

Another place we went was the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. This museum was interesting but simple...many artifacts from various times in Istanbul's history. I feel like a learned a little about a culture I have no familiarity with. The best part (perhaps) of the museum was that I really got a chance to open up my sketch book and 'go to town' on some drawings. I produced about 3 pages of sketches in the hour and a half I was there. Not too bad if you ask me ;-)

Two of the most interesting things I saw there were a map of Istanbul's waterways during the time of Suleymaniye, a scroll-like piece of parchement with things that look like architectural drawings, and a panel on Yurt construction. The Yurt is a simple dwelling not unlike a teepee or other tent that is made to be erected and take down periodically, consistent with a nomadic lifestyle. The map is shown above and one of the panels on the Yurt is shown here.


Another place we went on our first walk were the Basilica Cisterns. This is esentially an underground colonnaded area that was used by the Romans to store water for drinking. Now it is a cathedral-sized underground place that tourists can visit for the low-low price of 10 Turkish Lira (about 7 bucks). This place was truely awesome, especially when one starts to think about what is must have taken to build them.

One of the real "tourist trap" parts of the Cisterns were 2 columns which featured heads of Medusa in various orientations. No one really knows why these are located in the Cisterns, and they are rather cheesily lit and advertised, but I have to admit, I still thought they were kind of cool.

Other places we visited on our first day included the Spice Bazaar and the Hippodrome, both of which are places we are sure to visit in the near future. Our first was was really amazing, well organized by our professor, and very pleasant in the cool water off the Sea here. Tomorrow I will let you know a little more about what we did today, including a couple of more mosques and more Bazaar! Until tomorrow...

I Made It!

Greetings to you all from Isanbul! I arrived the night before last around 9pm after 2 smooth flights. We went from Roma to Athens and then from Athens to Istanbul, so now I can say I've been to Greece (or at least the airport!) Everything here is good, Isanbul seems like a nice place, and yesterday we were able to spend the day seening sights. I am going to do a longer post tonight when I'm not sitting in the hot sun....the internet connection is actually stolen from a neighbor somewhere as the hotel has no internet access. Thank goodness for insecure networks. At any rate, we spent the day walking and seeing sights, and today we are going to take a guided tour with someone who knows a lot about Istanbul. More information to come this evening, but suffice to say I am here, I am safe, and Istanbul is COOL! Talk to you soon -

The Last Day in Roma

OH how I will miss her. Roma has really been amazing, although I cannot say a once in a lifetime experience because I hope to come back again! Today is my last day and tomorrow morning at 8:15am local time we catch a van a bunch of us rented to the airport. I'll take an 11am flight through Athens, have about a 4 1/2 hour layover, and get into Istanbul (properly pronounced with the accent on the "tan" part like is-TAHN-bul) around 8pm. The good thing is that many of my friends from here are on the same flight, so we will be travelling as a pack. Such power in the pack...

I don't really know how to summarize Roma. Of course it has been amazing, interesting, wonderful, weird, strange, hot, humid, puzzling, infuriating, euphoric, and probably a hundred other emotions all in the span of 6 weeks, and sure I took an amazing number of photos (and have begun trading photos with friends, which expands my collection manyfold), but I don't feel there is really any way to summarize it en-mass. Like learning architecture from a book as opposed to going out and really touching it, Roma can not really be described solely in words. The best record I have is, of course, my memory, which cannot be shared with anyone else completely. Something inevitably gets lost in translation -- even as you say the words they've already not come out the way you planned. But the memories last a long, long time. I feel it was very appropriate that my studio project was slated as a "Museum of Memory", and that is truely where I would like keep Roma...in my own personal museum inside my head.

Alison (my professor) left for Turkey today, but before she left we all learned to count to ten in Turkish. It wasn't easy. I'm not sure I actually remember it, but at one point I learned it. Istanbul will only be a 10 day adventure, but I hope to be able to soak it up at least enough to know whether I would like to go back some day or not. It sounds like a very intriguing place, with lots of cultural changes to experience, different foods to eat, and things to see and do. Wish me luck. I may try and post one more time if I get the chance, but I have a lot to take care of today before I leave early tomorrow, so no guarantees. If I don't talk to you again until I get there, I say hoşçakal!
PS If you are interested, you can get a brief summary of Istanbul here.

Final Review a HIT!

I must admit, in the end I was pretty surprised at how successful Ron and my final review went yesterday! Considering the serious bashing we took at our last review about a weak concept, poor execution, etc, last night was amazing. My favorite comment was "I like your project. I like to so much I have a lot to talk about..." -- and this from a genuine Roman woman. Who else would know more about her city and what's appropriate for it? In general we had a strong concept, excellent plans and sections, and elevations could have used more work but were "on the right track". I feel really good today after that...quite pleased.

Last night the "crew" got together and partied a little bit to celebrate. We had a great time and ended the evening by strolling over the Pantheon and sharing a bottle of wine among the 6 of us. They have been great friends, especially supportive after Carin had to leave to go back to L.A. Ron was a great partner to work with, Pat and Mike are hilarious and a lot of fun to hang out with, and Ellen and Kelly are sweet and good company in their own right. It been nice to make new friends while here after having not known anyone before I came.

Now we are beginning to think about Turkey. Today is Tuesday and my Roman adventure already ends this Friday...its hard to believe 6 weeks have already gone by. Admittedly, I wish I could stay here longer, and I have mixed feelings about Turkey. On the one hand it will certainly be interesting to experience a new country, but I also feel like it will be so foreign I may feel a little lost there. I don't know any Turkish and far fewer people will actually speak English there than do here, the culture is compeltely different whereas Italian and American culture have many similarities, and the HEAT really scares me. Its been hot and humid here but I've heard its actually worse there. I'm sure I will enjoy it in many ways though, otherwise I wouldn't have chosen to do this. I'll stay in touch with you as much as possible from there too, although I have no idea what the internet connection situation looks like.

That's it for now...talk to you TOMORROW! Ciao!

This is IT

The hard work has paid off. Last night, my partner Ron and I finished up our model around 11:45pm, many hours ahead of schedule. I almost felt guilty leaving the rest of the studio behind as we went for a slice of pizza and a beer to celebrate (almost). We are ready to rock...just some printing and preparation stands between us and complete victory over our summer studio. It's VERY exciting to have made it here, especially because we basically designed a building in two weeks and a day, a feat unprecedented in either of our illustrious careers. Good times were had as our skills complimented each other perfectly....Ron with his 20 year old idealism and amazing design ideas and me at 33 with my "experience" and technical skills. What a team.

So wish us luck....only about 4 1/2 hours to go until the review! I'll let you know how it went. Ciao!

At Last, Some Red Sox Action

Most of you (of course) know that my lovely wife introduced me to the Red Sox several years ago, and I have never been able to shake the obsession with baseball's most awesome team (of course, up for some speculation). I am used to being able to watch a game almost every night, like I was able to back in Boston. Moving to Portland proved challenging because games were only on TV when they were on ESPN...but I got lucky, there were a lot of Red Sox games on ESPN this year. HOWEVER in EUROPE there is pretty much NO CHANCE of watching any baseball games, whoever your favorite team may be. The good news is tonight I was able to listen to my FIRST RED SOX GAME in Europe while I was working in studio. It was an afternoon game and I stayed up until 1:15AM Rome time just so I could hear the end of the game (Red Sox lost to the Mariners...dammit). I was able to play it "out loud" in the studio over my computer and, surprisingly, there were a couple of people interested in listening (mostly because the R.S. were playing SEATTLE, the only major league baseball team in the Northwest). Good times were had by all, I worked in studio from about 8:40am to 1:15am, and much was accomplished. See you all tomorrow for the "final push". Ciao.

PS In case you are interested, I have NOT been able to change the time listed on each one of my blogs. So the truth is that the time is always wrong....just subtract 9 hours every time and you'll get the West Coast time equivalent of when I'm writing. So complicated..........and yet so simple ;-)

Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este + MOVIES!

I would love to start this discussion with the two places mentioned in the title, but I feel very briefly I have to let you know about a few "cool" downloads I have available. I am fortunate to have a camera that takes small movies and I have put them on my FTP site so they can be seen by YOU! (disclaimer: these videos have no sound, but they are still cool).

Click HERE for a mini-movie of the PANTHEON
Click HERE for a mini-movie of the Campo de Fiori during Italia's semi-final victory
Click HERE for a mini-movie of stuff burning in the Campo after Italia's final victory

OK, that being taken care of, let's talk about the afore mentioned goodies...

Although my trip to Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este was a bit of a bust because my camera ran out of battery juice (kind of makes you feel like you should have paid a little more attention) I got to visit two amazing sites that had completely different characters. Hadrian's Villa is an amazing complex of buildings that was the "summer home" of the emperor (not even close to reasonable!) and Villa d'Esta was the home of a major philanthropist. Hopefully I will be able to recover some pix from my friends, because the ones I was able to take don't do either site any justice.

That being said, the picture above is from H.V., the Temple of Venus (or what's left of it). Here are some pix that show how well preserved the site actually is:

























Villa d'Esta was essentially the biggest collection of fountains I have ever seen in one place. It is situated on a gigantic hill and the temperature at the bottom of the hill must have been 10 degrees cooler than it was at the bottom just because of all the water flowing creating "evaporative cooling". I swiped a couple of pix from the internet to share until I can get some decent photos:











I guess that's about all I have to say for now. It was great to have a day off just to enjoy some sites right in the middle of the "final push". 3 days to go until final review. My partner and I decided to stop working for the night so I'll probably go home and just chill for a bit and go to sleep. Mmm...sleep. Take care and talk to you tomorrow. Ciao.

PS Here is a quick video of the guest quarter at Hadrian's Villa...just wanted to share one more! Click HERE.

Getting Caught Up to the Present

It’s Thursday and time to bring you up to speed on the last few days of my European adventure. Carin and I returned Sunday night from London after having tried Easy Jet for the first time. Admittedly, the flights were very cheap…less than $100 each way from Roma to London. The planes were brand new, service was good, and the flight was smooth. However, since Easy Jet typically flies out of the smaller airports in a metropolitan region, to get from our hotel in London to the apartment in Roma it took a subway, a train, a plane, a big bus and a city bus. That makes for a lot of travel in a little bitty amount of time. At least we were together and able to see it as a little mini-adventure after our “vacation” away.

So now we are in crunch time for my school work in Roma. My final review is this coming Monday (how could it already be here?) and my partner Ron and I feel like we have a lot of work to do but are in general in pretty good shape. If you do the math, we are currently in week 5 of the program…but that’s a little deceiving. We basically had the first week here “off” because we were always doing tours, visiting museums or gallivanting around the city. Weeks 2-3 were dedicated to selecting and analyzing the sites from which we could choose for our projects and determining who our partners were to be. That means that only in the last 2 weeks (weeks 4 and 5) have we been designing buildings.

Last week, our review was a little rough. Our concept for the project was a bit week and the execution was so-so (or so it was said…I’m not convinced!) Even though we had gotten good feedback from our professor all along, it was clear that some things needed to be tweaked. Now in the last week Ron and I have re-invented our concept, done a series of pretty detailed 3D massing diagrams, permutated our options to practically infinity, and decided on a scheme with which to proceed. Not bad for 3 days work. The review today with our professor was much more positive this time around and it seems we may be on the right track to developing a pretty interesting building. Look out Monday, here we come.

Essentially, our final idea is to design a museum of contemporary architecture in Rome. While here, we have been simultaneously impressed by the vast amount of ancient architecture and information available to us and disappointed by the amount of information on what is going on in Rome now architecturally. Our museum, called Roma Ora! (Rome Now!) will explore the architecture of the last 50 years in Rome (the post-fascist period) and provide a series of galleries which can display “recent” architecture, architecture of the present, and architecture of the future. We see the building as being able to host design competitions for urban infill projects in Roma, the fruits of which can then be displayed in the galleries. Indeed, we feel we are filling a gaping hole in the fabric of Roma’s continuum of information with our proposal. That’s the brief and skinny…now let’s talk about some more site seeing!

The Colluseum

Yesterday we were given the morning “off” from studio and able to go out and visit something we had not yet had a chance to see. My ‘crew’ and I decided to head to the Colluseum, once again a major landmark which requires little introduction. To someone who now lives in the 21^st century, my initial impression was that it looked much smaller than I expected. However, an arena able to seat 50,000-70,000 people is surely nothing to scoff at and it did impress. It was really amazing to see the under-floor labyrinth first hand…pictures do not do it justice. Its hard to imagine gladiators battling various animals and other men to the death there for the entertainment of the population. These photos share a little of the impression I was left with but do not really tell the whole story. You really do have to “see it to believe it”. Another landmark DOWN!

Today we head to Tivoli to see Hadrian’s Villa, yet another extremely important historical site. I’ll let you know how that goes tomorrow. I also need to let you know about going to the Castel Sant'Angelo the other evening for a night-time romp around Roma's main fort! What fun! Ciao.

I Miss London Ever So Much

I just realized tha there is one more thing I didn't mention 3 weeks ago when it happened that maybe I should just remind everyone of...Carin and I have OFFICIALLY been married just over a year! We made it this far and every day gone by has been better than the one before. What an amazing woman and what an amazing relationship. But enough about me 3 weeks ago...lets talk about me last weekend.
Please everyone...a moment of silence for the loss of amazingly cool weather, people who speak the same language as me, and an actual real breakfast instead of just capuccino and a croissant. Last Thursday after my Herculaneum and Pompeii adventures I met up with Carin in London, a place which I hope for Americans requires no Wikipedia entry. The three amazing things mentioned above (I like to call them the trifecta of goodness) were only a few of the fun times had from Thursday through Sunday night.

I arrived Thursday night around 10:30pm and took a variety of transportation methods to meet up with Carin around 12:30am at the Radisson Edwardian Hampshire Hotel in Leicester Square in the heart of London's theatre district. At this moment I have to say a huge thank-you to Carin's folks who were the ones that gave us the suggestion and booked it. It was located absolutely central to everywhere we needed to be, the service was good and it was beautiful. Thanks folks!

Friday we woke up and decided I should take a ride on one of those really cool double decker red busses all around town, just to get my bearings. Carin got a recommendation for one of the two tour companies in town, "The Original Tour". We were able to get on and off the bus as much as we wanted, and a boat tour was included. It was great to get an overall picture of the city and be able to decide where we wanted to go later, and to get great views of it all from the river as well. We saw Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, a great Egyptian obelisk, St. Paul's Cathedral, many of the bridges, an old power plant, and many many more famous buildings and landmarks. The pic on here is, of course, of London's Parliament building.

Later on that day Carin and I met up with a friend of her's, Anne, from Boston. Carin and Anne used to work together at the Wang and Anne just recently moved to London to "try something new". We got some dinner and went to see Juliet Lewis in Fool For Love. It turned out to be an amazing show, short and sweet at only 1:20 with no intermission. We briefly swung by Trafalgar Square afterward and listened to a little bit of symphony music that was being projected up on a big screen. It was very casual, the weather was cool, and it turned out to be just a very pleasant evening.

Saturday Carin wanted to take me to her old neighborhood from 1988 when she lived with her friend from Penn/Boston, Doug Bellow (who just had a baby too! Congrats Doug and Kate!) It was fun to experience her old haunts, hear a few stories about how things had changed, and to in general just experience a piece of that part of her world. These two pics are of her old "front door" to the apartment building and her old pub haunt, the Hoop and Toy.

Afterward Carin took me to Harrods, perhaps the most famous of London's shopping establishments. Although neither of us are big shoppers, this place is apparently an essential part of any visit to London and, after having gone there, I see why. The building is absolutely huge, old, beautiful, and you can find just about anything you would want to buy there. As luck would have it, they had a pretty "hip" pair of pants I purchased for my European nightlife. How fancy!

Next we went to St. Paul's, one of London's main cathedrals. St. Paul's was designed by a very famous English architect by the name of Christopher Wren in the late 1600's. The interior was stunning, although photos were not allowed so I have no proof ;-). I did get some great shots from the top of the dome after surmounting the 530 stairs to get there, my longest climb yet (of course, I have yet still to go to St. Peter's in Roma). I was there only about 45 minutes but it was enough time to really gain an appreciation for the talent Wren had as a detailer and designer.

Finally, we finished up Saturday with a bit more theatre. We saw Judy Dench in a Royal Theatre performance of the 1924 classic, Hay Fever. I have always been a big fan of Ms. Dench's, not only from her work in movies (including playing 'M' in the Pierce Broson James Bond films) but mostly from the first British comedy I really fell in love with, As Time Goes By. One really great part of going to the theatre was meeting a great pair of Americans, Norm and Cara from Las Vegas. We sat next to them during the performance, had drinks during intermission, and exchanged internet blog and column information afterward. Norm writes for the Las Vegas Review Journal online (his column is called NORM! Vegas Confidential), and you can check out his European blog here. It was really a lot of fun to meet them...hope you had fun guys!

We woke up Sunday with a mission: ride the London Eye. The L.E. is a giant wheel from which "pods" hang that fit 20-25 people each. It opened for the Millenium celebration in 1999 and is probably the best place from which to see the central portion of the city of London. It takes about a half hour to go around one revolution and even though the tickets were a bit pricey, it turned out to be well worth the ride. Just look at these views!


Carin and I ended our time in London with a nice walk along the river, just relaxing and enjoying the great weather and each other's company. It was amazing to be able to spend 4 days "away" with each other. I get pretty busy during the week so we really have had to make the best of the weekends together and London proved to be the longest, most relaxing time we have had yet while in Europe.

As many of you already know, Carin's father, Ken, had a stroke a couple of weeks ago and she recently decided to go back to L.A. for a couple of weeks to be with her family during his recovery. The latest news is that Ken is doing very well, his family is in good spirits, and Carin is enroute as I write this tonight. I will miss her like crazy while she is gone, but I'm very happy she is able to go home and be an integral part of everyone's support system during these challenging times. She'll catch back up with me in Istanbul on August 3rd, so until then I am in the hands of some of the best friends I have found here so far, Mike, Patrick, Kelly, Ellen and Ron. Good luck Carin, I love you, and good luck to Ken and the Rosenberg family...you are in my thoughts and I can't wait to see you all again!

PS Here is a pic of the "crew" that will be watching over me while Carin is gone. It's taken inside the Colluseum, which we all visited today and which I will tell YOU more about tomorrow! WOO HOO!

We Haven't Forgotten About You

Man, what a series of crazy happenings since last time I wrote to you, I almost don't even know where to begin. Last Wednesday was the 12th of July, my birthday and, as I would come to find out, the birthday of Samantha Brockette, the daughter of a friend and former guitarist of mine from Boston, Sean. Super-cute pix of her can be found here. I still can't believe he's a daddy...when Samantha gets old enough, oh the stories I'll have to tell! ;-)

Thursday morning Carin left for London and I left with the class on a bus for an adventure to Herculaneum and Pompeii, two cities which were buried by the volcano Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Right now I'm going to tell you a little bit about my journey to the two Italian towns and I'll give you a little about Carin and I in London later on today, as I have limited time at the moment.

As you probably know, Pompeii was especially well preserved by falling ash from the sky, so well in fact that loafs of bread, houses and streets, and of course, people still existed relatively intact when excavations began a couple of hundred years ago. Because of all the ash that fell upon the small coastal town of Herculaneum (first picture), the excavation of what is left is in a deep, deep pit you have to walk down a huge ramp to get to. It was amazing to experience the first real feeling of walking down a Roman street the way they would have 2000 years ago with small scale shops on either side and houses tailored to the family's needs. The picture on the right here shows the level to which some of the tilework and such is preserved in Herculaneum. This piece is from a rich family's home. We hang pictures on the wall, they brought artists in to do frescos and mosaics directly on the walls of the house. Wow.

If Herculaneum was cool then Pompeii was really nuts. Unlike Herculaneum, which is in a "pit" now, Pompeii rests on top of a great hill that got buried by Vesuvius. This pictures shows what is left of the great Pompeii basilica, a place that would have held worshipers back through history. At the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius, Pompeii was actually in the process of rebuilding from a massive earthquake that had happened only 17 years prior. Many of the buildings that are therefore "unfinished", like this one, were actually knocked down by the earlier quake and were in the process of being rebuilt when Vesuvius erupted.

Pompeii was a relatively rich town at its height and had many very "posh" houses and neat public ammenities. Here is a pic of a column-cum-sundail I though was pretty interesting. Somewhat more disturbing is the plaster cast early excavators made of a person very afraid to die. The eruption of Vesuvius happened so quickly and without any warning that almost no one was able to escape. Probably one of the worst days in history for any city.

Its funny, in some ways I was so impressed by Pompeii and in some ways I was a little disappointed. You always hear that it is the "best surviving example" of a typical Roman town and I guess part of me expected buildings to be completely intact or something...unrealistic considering the tons and tons of hot ash and lava archaeologists had to dig through to get to what they could preserve. Pompeii, in its ruin, felt lonely, hot, and in general uncomfortable. You can tell it was once a great city and that great joy was had there, but the ghosts of the past are too powerful now. Seems like you can almost hear them speak to you when the hot wind blows.

WORLD CUP MANIA!

Italy won!!!! So all you sports fans will know what I am talking about, but here is some background for those of you who aren't. The World Cup Football (Soccer) tournament took place in Germany this summer. Italy made it all the way to the finals. We have been watching all the games here and enjoying the Italian energy.

As each game became more important as Italy worked its way toward the finals, the Campo di Fiori (the square that our apartment is on) became livelier. After the quarterfinals and semifinals, the Campo would be have people in it until the wee hours of the morning when the police started rounding people up to go home. The Campo is considered the area of town where the youth hang out at night so it is basically a bit rowdy. After the semifinal game, people started throwing bottles and lighting firecrackers and that was about it for the police.

For the final game on Sunday night, they were out in force. We decided to stay and watch our game at home. All of the students in our group watched the semifinal game at our place and then many of them went walking around the city to check out the reaction. For the final game, a number of students decided to head over to the Circus Maximus, where the city had set up huge screens to show the game, but Erik and I decided to stay close to home.

The police were set up before the game even began. They set up a first aid tent on the square and had presence on all the corners. At the beginning of the game the crowd was quite small and then it grew as they game when on. We tried to take a series of pictures so you can see the progression.

It was a great game and especially fun (and fortunate for us I think) that Italy won. People were waving Italian flags everywhere and singing songs and cheers. The energy was charged. We went over to the building which houses Erik's school to get some other views of the action for a little while and watched the people jumping in the fountain. I have to say the police were pretty reserved during these early hours, just letting fans have fun and celebrate. After an hour of watching the fun, we decided to try and get some sleep. We put our earplugs in and were able to drown out most of the noise except the loud booms from the firecrackers or the sirens.

There were celebrations again the next night when the team came to Roma. And for the entire day after the game, we'd see cars with flags being waved and people cheering or blowing horns. All in all, Italy is psyched!

We're off to London for a few days. Erik is stopping in Pompeii on his way. So we'll have to catch up with the blogging when we return.

(pix to come...soon!)

PS...In Case You Haven't Heard

Italia is the World Cup Champion Team! We have had 2 nights of utter mayhem around here with partying until the cops call it quits. I'll write more about this tonight or tomorrow morning because my midterm review is in just a couple of hours, but suffice to say this country has been ROCKING the last 2 days. What a great experience to be here when they took it all. Ciao for now but talk to you SOON!

GGGOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back Into the Frying Pan - The Post-Firenze Letdown

All I can say is I absolutely LOVED Florence much, much more than I thought was possible. So far its my 2nd favorite city I've visited in Italy behind Lucca. Carin and I took off around 8pm on Friday night and got to Firenze around 10pm, found our hotel promptly, slept like logs, and stayed until Sunday afternoon around 1pm when we caught a train back to Roma. We weren't there for very long, but we did a lot in just a little time. Now its Monday and I have a midterm review tomorrow, so there's a long night and a lot of work ahead. But enough about me, let's talk more about us in Firenze.

On Saturday we got up bright and early to get me to the Duomo around 8:30am. The early the better in terms of beating the crowds. We had planned that I would be the one to make the almost 500 stair climb to the top of Bernini's masterpiece. This cathedral is very famous in that Bernini used a double-dome construction method that leaves a space between the inner dome and the outer dome, through which a series of stairs take you to the top.

The climb to the top was VERY interesting...and not for the clausterphobic. The pic here shows what size most of the passages were. Essentially you climb up a series of spiral and straight stairs until you get up the side of the building to the base of the dome. Near the base of the dome you are brought back inside the building and are able to look down into the church itself. The fact that there are not many people in this pic is because the church had not yet opened to tourists for the day. Quite the view.

After being brought inside the building and then back into the dome itself, you go up some more narrow passages and start to really notice the dome slanting around you. In the final stretch to the cuppola of the dome, the straight stairs turn from going around the dome to going directly up the dome...sort of a ladder/stair to start with that turns into a real stair as you keep climbing.

Of course, once you get to the top of the dome, it is one heck of a view of the city. I haven't yet put together my photomontages of this, but here are a view spot photos I took while up there that really give you a sense of being "on top" of Florence. It was truely awesome.

After descending the Duomo, Carin and I were off to check out a few more things around town. Another big highlight was visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce, who's interior, if I am to be honest, I liked quite a bit more than the interior of the Duomo. Unfortunately the main apse was covered with scaffolding (you can kind of see it in this photo) so I didn't get a good view, but the arches, ceiling and general "decor" of the interior was wonderfully simple, unlike many of the extra-gaudy basilicas I've been to so far.

Attached to the Basilica were a series of small cloister courtyards that were fairly unremarkable but kind of nice to visit.

We did a lot of walking around town looking at exteriors of buildings, getting familiar with Florence in general. The last place that really sticks out from the trip was the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval bridge-turned jewelry shopping district and Europe's oldest segmental arch bridge (a segmental arch is a circular arch in which the inner circle ("intrados") is less than a semicircle). I found the bridge not particularly interesting because of its arches or its age, but because of the way in which its been built upon and converted into a sort of outdoor mall. This pic shows a little detail of how when they ran out of room on the bridge itself for a building, they just kept building and "saddlebagged" them over the side. Talk about no seismic codes...I'm pretty sure than in even in Rome today building codes wouldn't allow this kind of thing, but its cool that it still exists from antiquity.
As I said it was a busy couple of days and we did a lot more walking around and looking than I have mentioned here, but this one's getting long enough anyway ;-). Talk to you soon.