Pane et circenses

Well, as of this evening, it seems like my days of leisurely exploring Rome are at an end. There was a big reception and dinner tonight at the Academy where I was introduced to tons of people whose names I don't remember but probably should. I take that back, I remember about 4. Not too bad. Tomorrow I have an appointment with Eve to be introduced to the library, after which Eve, Leach, and I will sit down and hash out a game plan of what we're doing this week and beyond. Should be interesting, especially since I have almost no clue, haha. Dinner was fantastic, though. One of the women we sat with said that the head chef used to work at Alice Waters' restaurant in California, which is famous for its focus on local, seasonal eating. We had pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and basil, followed by half a cornish game hen seasoned with lemon and garlic which sat on a bed of arugula, tiny string beans, and paper thin slices of zucchini. Dessert was sliced fresh peaches in a bit of syrup and bits of mint. Oh, and a really nice rose wine. So it was definitely worth 16 Euros - but dang, that's still a lot of money.

So that was the evening. The rest of the day, I did more sightseeing. I walked down into the south part of Trastevere to see a church - S. Cecilia. I wrote a paper on it in one of my Art History seminars, so it was nice to see it in person. The whole story of S. Cecilia is pretty interesting. This is the apse mosaic:

She's on the left, next to Paschal, whose square halo indicates that he was still alive when the church was dedicated.

The church was dedicated by Pope Paschal the 1st in 820, and was the beginning of a series of churches he built. The story goes that St. Cecilia was a young Roman woman who was shut up in the hot room of her own baths to be martyred in 230 AD. When they opened up the room, however, she was still alive, so they called an executioner who tried to cut off her head, but he botched it so badly that she lived for 3 days afterward. Gruesome as usual. Not long after Paschal became Pope, he declared that Cecilia had come to him in a dream and told him where to find her body in the catacombs of St. Calixtus. So he had her dug up and built this church to commemorate her.

What's really interesting to me is that he did almost the same thing (minus the dream) for another young sainted Roman woman, Praxedes (in Italian, S. Prassede), and also dedicated a church to the Virgin, S. Maria in Domnica. These were the only churches he built. At this point in history, Rome and Constantinople were in the midst of a power struggle over which city was the center of Christianity, and I think that Paschal's veneration of specifically Roman saints was a way of claiming the preeminance of Rome. I never did decide in the paper why he specifically chose to venerate women more than previous Popes, but it's definitely an interesting question!

Under the church, there's an excavation of Roman ruins with some interesting inscriptions (mostly Christian) and the remains of a 4th c. AD house, with an altar to Diana inset into the wall.

The rest of the day was spent walking up the Via Giulia, where I found this interesting church - S. Maria dell'Orazione e Morte (Prayer and Death) . This particular offering box outside the door used to contribute money to victims of malaria in Campania, which was a real problem up til fairly recently.

Mosquitoes, I can tell you, are still a problem in Rome, so I can see how malaria would have been an issue. I would really like to have seen the inside, but it was closed.

Oh! And I did go to the grocery store this morning, and picked up pasta, a can of tomatoes, olive oil, bread, orange juice, and a head of garlic. I forgot to get salt, though, so I'll have to go back before I can make dinner. Argh. A weird cultural note about Italy: you aren't allowed to pick your own produce. You tell the proprietor what you want (un aglio e due limoni, for example) and he or she selects them for you. Of course, if you are a fierce Italian granny, it seems this rule does not apply, but I wouldn't want to tangle with one of them either. For garlic it doesn't matter that much, but for fruit it is definitely annoying.

It was a long day, and that reception was a bit stressful, so I am very glad to be home in my little apartment. I'm starting to feel pretty settled in, and am really enjoying having a place to come home to.

I'm Here

I'm here!

This was one of the most uneventful trips overseas ever. The flight was fine, and I even got 2 hours of sleep! I finally got to talking to my neighbors about 2 hours before we landed, and it turns out that the husband was a Rome Prize fellow in 1958! He's a sculptor who works mostly in bronze and marble, so when I get the internet for real, I'm going to google him. He and his wife were on their way to their summer house in Umbria. Sigh. That would be the life... He used to live in a studio one street over from my apartment, and told me about a neighborhood restaurant around the corner which has good, cheap, working-man's food. I'll have to try it out!

My apartment is very nice, and the neighborhood feels very safe. There are lots of little old people wandering around, which is always a good sign. There's a grocery store literally across the street (more on that later) and a pizza-by-the-slice place and a cafe a few steps in the other direction. The only weird thing about the apartment is the things it is missing. Trash bags. Extra toilet paper. A corkscrew, and a knife that's sharper than a butter knife. There is, however, a cutting board. Weird, huh? I'm sure there's other things that I just haven't thought about yet. So at some point soon, I'm going to have to find a store that sells those kinds of things (the grocery store won't - they just do food).

Oh, and the apartment does have air conditioning! I don't need it yet, but that will be really nice in July.

Once I got in, I took a shower and a nap, and then I started walking. I walked most of the afternoon, to the extent that at one point I had to make myself go into S. Maria in Trastevere and just sit and contemplate the mosaics for 20 minutes. Without someone else to make me rest, I sometimes overdo it, especially during the first two days when I'm trying to not give in to jet lag. If I don't have a book, I don't usually like to sit at a cafe table by myself, so when I get hungry and tired I get a slice of pizza to go, which covers my need for food, but not my need for rest. So I made myself sit for a while, which was definitely needed. The apse mosaic of the church is pretty fantastic, too:



The church dates from the 12th century, and was one of the first in Rome dedicated to the Virgin. The central apse mosaic shows Mary sitting at the right hand of Christ with his arm around her, in effect justifying her veneration.

Oh, also: I first walked to the Academy, so that I could get an estimate for the time required. Now, Google Maps tells me that the apartment is .8 miles from the Academy. What it neglects to mention is that about a third of that distance is a very steep hill (maybe 30 degrees?) which is topped by a set of approximately 70 stairs. Ow. My rear end is going to be in fantastic shape by the time I get home! At least at the end of the day, it will all be downhill.

Once I met up with Chelsea, we went to the Gianicolo overlook:



We then wandered down to Trastevere, and had an expensive but delicious glass of fresh squeezed orange juice in Piazza St. Maria in Trastevere. Mostly I think we were paying for the ambiance - a perfect people watching spot. It was a nice way to end the evening. Now I'm back at my apartment, with a slice of pizza topped with squished cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and some kind of thin-sliced meat (maybe beef?). Hopefully I'll get my computer linked in at the academy tomorrow, where I can actually post this!

News in Brief

1. We had an insane flash flood downtown yesterday. After it stopped pouring, I walked out of Ballantine on the way to my car...and was confronted by this:

This little stream is normally about 4 feet wide. Dr. Long always called it the "Mighty Mighty Jordan" with more than a tinge of sarcasm, but on this day, the river got the last laugh.

2. I have an apartment in Rome! Sheesh, finally. It's this one: http://www.mercuriusrelocations.com/romanrentals/id115.html . No washer, AC, or internet, and probably it was too much money for having none of those amenities, but it's close, has a great kitchen, lots of light, and a bathtub. And more importantly, it's mine! I was wasting hours every morning perusing Craigslist and hoping that I would have a fantastic offer miraculously materialize in my inbox, but now I can finally focus on tomorrow's exam.

3. Sahara Mart now carries a bar of milk chocolate I can have! It's $5.00 a bar, which seems like a lot, but until Tuesday, I had not had milk chocolate of any kind for over a year. It's made by the same company that makes the dark chocolate bars I can eat, but it's a brand new line. Their dark chocolate is really good, of course, but it's also really intense. Sometimes I just want something light and sweet, although at that price it definitely won't be a weekly indulgence.

4. Special Author exam tomorrow morning. I still won't be done, though - I didn't find an Italian article to review til yesterday, so she told me I could just turn it in early next week. Argh. I really wanted to have this all over with... Aaron made me laugh really hard the other night when he referred to the criteria of "one foreign article" as "Affirmative action for articles."

5. Daffie's getting around easier, Aaron's over his cold...I'm the only one who's still kind of a wreck, but hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, at least part of the stress will be over!

6. My poor lime tree is in recovery. I had been neglecting it before we went to Maine, and when we got home, all the leaves but four were off. I put it outside on the porch where it could get sun, warmth, and lots of rain, and today I noticed that there are tiny leaf buds all over. Yay! I probably will never get as many limes off it as I did last winter, when it lived in the sunroom of our old house, but as long as it's green and smells nice, I will be happy.