Friday, September 22, 2006
Friday September 22, 2006
As promised, I tried two new flavors last night:
Egg nog- This was not very impressive. The flavor was lackluster and quite frankly it just tasted like cream- .5/5
Tiramisu- While the taste was good, it could never live up to the real thing...disappointing. 1/5
Okay...and now for my day. I woke up and made it to the bus at 8AM. There were only twenty of us that went on the trip, and it was led by one of the professors. We went to a little place called Sutri, which has an ampitheater carved out of tufa (volcanic) rock as well as a Mithraeum and ancient tombs. It was very interesting and I took some cool pictures. The Mithraeum is a place carved into the tufa rock and it was kind of scary, esp. since I am claustrophobic. Also eventually the Christians took over the sacred space and painted some interesting frescoes on the walls. The ampitheater was very eroded, but it was cool to see the places where the animals and gladiators were brought in to fight. Basically we were only there long enough to snap some pictures and then we had to get back on the bus. We made our way to Caprarola, which is another little place that has nothing special except for the Villa Farnese, which is a huge elaborate Renaissance (I think ?) villa that was built for the Farnese family because they were the administrators of the region. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it bascially contained a bunch of rooms that were very elaborately painted in the grotesque style. I didn't really like it because it seemed really gaudy, except for a really cool room called the map room that contained one of the first maps of the entire world. We actually walked around the gardens a bit and they were nice. I took some pictures of a manmade cave type thingy with water in it. Then it was back on the bus heading for Viterbo, which is the largest city in Lazio (Lazio is a region like Tuscany) after Roma. It is much smaller though, with only 100,000 people. We meandered into the medieval section of town which was very quaint and then sat down and had lunch. My friends and I actually sat with the professors who were leading the trip and so they were quite chatty...but it was interesting. When I told them that I hadn't seen the Pantheon yet you should have seen there faces...Don't worry I'll get there. We were at a great little Trattoria and I tried the house pasta which was called Tortellini San Lorenzo. It had pancetta and ??? in it...but it was good. That was it for the day and I took a nap on the bus ride back to Rome.
Later that night...my roommate, a new friend named Bob, and I went to Trastevere to a gallery opening. It was really interesting because all of the people at the gallery were artsy (obviously) and knew each other. Needless to say we felt a bit out of place but it was still fun. I really enjoy looking at professionally done photos. I think that I said before, it really makes me excited to be taking a photography class. I don't know if I will ever be able to do what they do but I can hope. We also stopped to see a street performer do magic things. It was a very fun night in a quaint little area of Roma. Oh, I also tried a new gelato:
Banana- now the fruit flavors are supposed to be refreshing and this was. The flavor was great and actually tasted like banana...but it just didn't live up to the lemon- 3.5/5
Egg nog- This was not very impressive. The flavor was lackluster and quite frankly it just tasted like cream- .5/5
Tiramisu- While the taste was good, it could never live up to the real thing...disappointing. 1/5
Okay...and now for my day. I woke up and made it to the bus at 8AM. There were only twenty of us that went on the trip, and it was led by one of the professors. We went to a little place called Sutri, which has an ampitheater carved out of tufa (volcanic) rock as well as a Mithraeum and ancient tombs. It was very interesting and I took some cool pictures. The Mithraeum is a place carved into the tufa rock and it was kind of scary, esp. since I am claustrophobic. Also eventually the Christians took over the sacred space and painted some interesting frescoes on the walls. The ampitheater was very eroded, but it was cool to see the places where the animals and gladiators were brought in to fight. Basically we were only there long enough to snap some pictures and then we had to get back on the bus. We made our way to Caprarola, which is another little place that has nothing special except for the Villa Farnese, which is a huge elaborate Renaissance (I think ?) villa that was built for the Farnese family because they were the administrators of the region. We couldn't take pictures inside, but it bascially contained a bunch of rooms that were very elaborately painted in the grotesque style. I didn't really like it because it seemed really gaudy, except for a really cool room called the map room that contained one of the first maps of the entire world. We actually walked around the gardens a bit and they were nice. I took some pictures of a manmade cave type thingy with water in it. Then it was back on the bus heading for Viterbo, which is the largest city in Lazio (Lazio is a region like Tuscany) after Roma. It is much smaller though, with only 100,000 people. We meandered into the medieval section of town which was very quaint and then sat down and had lunch. My friends and I actually sat with the professors who were leading the trip and so they were quite chatty...but it was interesting. When I told them that I hadn't seen the Pantheon yet you should have seen there faces...Don't worry I'll get there. We were at a great little Trattoria and I tried the house pasta which was called Tortellini San Lorenzo. It had pancetta and ??? in it...but it was good. That was it for the day and I took a nap on the bus ride back to Rome.
Later that night...my roommate, a new friend named Bob, and I went to Trastevere to a gallery opening. It was really interesting because all of the people at the gallery were artsy (obviously) and knew each other. Needless to say we felt a bit out of place but it was still fun. I really enjoy looking at professionally done photos. I think that I said before, it really makes me excited to be taking a photography class. I don't know if I will ever be able to do what they do but I can hope. We also stopped to see a street performer do magic things. It was a very fun night in a quaint little area of Roma. Oh, I also tried a new gelato:
Banana- now the fruit flavors are supposed to be refreshing and this was. The flavor was great and actually tasted like banana...but it just didn't live up to the lemon- 3.5/5
# posted by sarahconcannon @ 10:20 AM 
