Parents in Rome and some Sad News

This week back in Rome (I wrote Ames at first, definitely not the same thing) was mostly just spent trying to meet some deadlines, as I've been putting off a lot of my work lately...

Friday night, Meghann and I went to Maharajah for some Indian food.. it was so delicious and definitely cheaper than we thought it was going to be! A definite plus, and it was so fantastic to have food that wasn't Italian...

When we got back from dinner, we met up with some of the other girls and went over to the boys' place. From there, we all headed out. We started in Piazza Navona and some bar/club place over there. It was crowded, loud, and mostly pretty boring, though, so Ryan, Colleen, Meghann and I headed out to explore Rome at night. We found Ryan's favorite fountain, as well as tried to go to Aventine Hill. Although it was closed since it was dark, there was still a great view of St. Peters. We took a long route home, walking through Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, as well as the triangular-shaped one just south of that (San Cosimato, I think?). I've decided I like that piazza, and it's about halfway to studio, so actually wouldn't be that bad to try to hang out at. We had fun playing around on the urban kids' playground for a while before heading the rest of the way home.

The next day, I got up to meet my parents at Galleria Borghese... the museum was really cool, they had a lot of beautiful paintings and sculptures, as well as their special exhibit on Caravaggio and Francis Bacon. They basically said they weren't necessarily trying to draw a parallel between the two artists. It was really neat to see Caravaggio's Self Portrait as Baccus in person. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne was an incredibly impressive sculpture, and I cannot imagine the amount of planning and delicacy.

After the museum and a picnic lunch in Villa Borghese, I took my parents on a kind of super tour, on a really roundabout path from there to my apartment. It was a ton of walking, but still good. We walked around Villa Borghese a little bit, then down to Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Vittor Emmanuel monument for a great view of the city, took a break getting gelato at San Crispino (so good! I got pear, and loved having bits of the skin in there, so tasty). Then we walked through the Pantheon, then off to Piazza Navona, down to Campo dei' Fiori, with a rest/tour of studio. After that, we walked a bit through Trastevere, then hopped on the tram the rest of the way to my apartment.

We tried to go out to Renato e Luisa for dinner this night, but they woudn't let us since we didn't have a reservation.

Sunday, we did Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum, with a little help from good ol' Rick Steves. We then took a little rest at my parents' hotel and made a reservation for Renato e Luisa before heading out to the Capitoline museums to see the bits of the colossal statue of Constantine... it was definitely quite large, with the head being taller than I am.

Dinner was really tasty, and the place was cute, I was definitely glad we made it in that night, somewhere I should consider going back to.

Monday was spent almost entirely at the Vatican. I got to sleep in a little, which was really nice, but then we went into St. Peter's Basilica (HUGE.), then the Vatican Museums. I was impressed with the size of both, and liked to see the Egyptian stuff at the museums... I also recognized so many statues of Hercules. I was pretty disappointed that my dad pretty much shooed us through the room with Raphael's The School of Athens.. I barely got to see much of it. Apparently there were too many people in that room for him. Then, again, when we walked into the Sistine Chapel, the first thing out of his mouth was "What is going on in here?" Apparently, he can only really concentrate on how many people are in a room.. oh my.

That night for dinner we ate Indian food.. about as good as Meghann and I ate on Friday night, but the atmosphere of the first place was much better...

Then, I said goodbye to my parents and headed home, quite exhausted from the weekend.

This weekend, we also received some incredibly sad news. My art history professor has passed. I am incredibly sorry that he is now gone. I thoroughly enjoyed class with him; he was so enthusiastic and passionate about everything he talked about, I loved it. I can't say I've ever known anybody else who had made poured concrete sound so interesting. Needless to say, he will be missed. I am not sure what will happen for art history now, but I guess we will find out...