42nd Birthday and Snow Day in Rome

January 29th is always a special day......and they say that everyone should spend time on their birthday with their loved ones, and that's exactly what I did.  I spent the day with my loved ones here in Italy, my friends and family in Viterbo.  On the 28th, I got in a good workout at the pool and then headed up on the train to Viterbo.  I was met at the train station by the Giuliano family.  Their girls went ice skating, while Giusy, Raf and "il bambino, Luciano" went for a walk.  It was nice to catch up with them.  In the evening, Mario and I went out to dinner to watch the Juve-Udinese game. The ONLY downer of the weekend was Udinese's loss to the evil empire that is Juventus.  On my birthday itself, Mario and I went to the hot springs in the morning.  Yvonne's mother took us all out to lunch.  Afterwards I went up to Anna's and lo and behold, Charles (her host student from four years ago and just graduated from college in Rome), Anne (her current host student), Sophie (Miria's host student this year who lives next door) and I were all in the house at the same time.  Anna was in HEAVEN.  As per Sunday afternoon tradition, Anna was treated to a movie....and of course, she chose Mission:Impossible 4.  Afterwards, we all had dinner back at the house.  What a wonderful day.

That brings us to Rome's snow day, today February 3rd.  Yesterday, the mayor of Rome declared all schools closed.  I got up this morning and saw just rain and was a bit annoyed at the cancellation of school (now that I'm a teacher, I get upset at missing school!) but then around 11AM.....

Big fluffy, and they were FLUFFY, flakes of snow began to fall.

And just like clockwork, right around 2PM, I put on my longjohns to go for a walk and D calls to ask if I wanted to join her and her roommate on a walk.

My commitment to gelato.....never ending.

Our goal was the Pantheon!

I still need to work on my "Augustus of Prima Porta" pose

We all wanted to see SNOW falling through the oculus.

We weren't disappointed...however, the snowflakes had shrunk by the time we got there.

The walk between Piazza della Rotunda (the Pantheon) and Piazza Navona takes one right by San Luigi dei Francesi (this picture from an earlier, non snowy walk)

 

 

Inside the church is a chapel with, not one, but THREE Caravaggio paintings.  This one is the "Inspiration of St. Matthew"

The west wall has the "Martyrdom of St. Matthew"

But it is the East wall, that has my favorite, and most people's favorite, "The Calling of St Matthew."

It's the light source from an imaginary window.....

And the light shining right on the bearded man's face....who is to become St. Matthew.  Idiot me, for a long time thought that St. Matthew was the kid with the feather in his hat.

Finishing up our walk.....here we are at the snow covered Fountain of Four Rivers in Piazza Navona.

Capodanno Cinese, 2012 Anno del Drago

This past week was QUITE a social one, I'll just say that two consecutive nights of "Circle of Death" were tough on the body.  So, this Saturday, I awoke at 1230PM, went to lunch at 1530PM and then walked up the Corso to Piazza del Popolo to observe the Chinese New Year's festivities.  First off, I LOVE how in Rome, and in most cities in Italy, there is a public space almost every huge gathering takes place.  In Rome, when something big is happening, it's almost always at Piazza del Popolo (Piazza of the People).  You can pretty much assume that it is.  When I heard about the Chinese New Year's festivities...I knew where to head.

The parade took place up the Corso around 2 (they had to be finished with it before the evening Passiagiata).  And then there were a few hours of exhibitions, etc.  I arrived around 5, only getting to see the last hour, and then the pretty impressive fireworks.

These daylight pictures are pilfered from the "Browsing Rome" website, but I just wanted to show some of what it looked like with light.

Here's the stage, facing the Pincio gardens.

The emcees for the festivities.  What was awesome was that everything was in both Mandarin AND Italian, and when I didn't understand one language, I could use the other.

Of course there were different martial arts exhibitions, but I was surprised (not sure why) to see non-Chinese involved.  I guess I would see that in the United States, but I've always thought the Italians to be less interested in non-Italian activities.  In addition, the Piazza was FULL to the brim and almost the entire audience was Italian.  I was impressed....which is probably me being a bit hard on the Italian people to begin with.

My favorite, of course, were the acrobats.  Amazing!  But the hour and a half I spent at the festivities only made me MORE excited to head to Beijing this fall.  Looking forward to it more and more each day.

Technology Resolution

Not REVOLUTION but RESOLUTION, this being the first post of the 2012 year and all. The genesis of this post comes from installing a fax machine for my grandparents. Back story....

My 92 and 94 year old grandparents still lived independently, much to my mother's dismay and a total test to her patience. To compound the situation, my grandmother is essentially deaf, can not hear the phone ring, but does not acknowledge her hearing difficulties. Communication with her is TOUGH. My grandfather who can hear, but has lost a great deal of mobility, has become so incredibly passive, that getting him to do things is in itself a challenge. I could go on about the difficulties of elder care, but you get the drift.

My aunt in San Diego has taken on the responsibilities of bill paying, insurance and paperwork. Much thanks to her for that. However, this requires sharing of documents and information, which in our modern day, one just says to oneself, PDF's and email. Done! But this is my grandparents you are talking about, and the only computer in their lives is the early 1980's vintage Apple IIC sitting in their basement. So, let us move down the technology ladder, to the fax machine, which is our chosen solution to communicate and transfer information back and forth.

On New Year's Day, I installed a fax machine at my grandparents' house. I pulled it outside of the box and the immediate reaction was, "Take it away, we do not need that". After it was installed, the next step was to teach my grandfather how to use it. Lesson 1, how to receive a fax. Dedicated land line for the fax? You have got to be kidding. We have to teach him how to switch between fax and telephone mode. Sending faxes, actually a bit easier, but still requires calling my aunt and having her turn on her fax machine. I could see in his face HOW foreign this contraption was, but he did it. Now he just needs practice.

Then, this morning, in a total surprise, my grandfather called and was going over the instructions I left for him and wanted to go over them with me. As a teacher, I could totally hear in his voice when something made sense to him. He understood that the receive button was the long oval black one (It is also the only function button showing as I taped over all the over ones). Anyone up for faxing with my grandfather and grandmother?

So back to the issue of resolution. I have been accused, and rightly slow, of being slow to adopt new technology. No iPhone for this boy. Twitter? I have an account but I never use it. Updating this blog to having RSS feed or searchable index? You think I would tackle it, but it has not happened yet. But watching my 94 year old grandfather take on a fax machine? Inspiring. Perhaps it is time to switch from my hotmail account to actually using my gmail account. Ok, maybe this is too radical a step.....

Galleria Spada

Right around the corner from my morning bus stop is Palazzo Spada, so on this lazy Sunday morning, I went out for pizza at my favorite place in Trastevere and then wandered over to Palazzo Spada to see Borromini's famous "forced perspective" colonnade.

Palazzo Spada, right around the corner from my Ponte Sisto bus stop.

The famed "forced perspective" colonnade by Borromini.  The statue appears to be 60 feet away......

....but is actually only about 25 feet away.  The docent standing at the statue is NOW taller than the columns.  It's all about perspective and Geometry.

I didn't really understand it until I went upstairs into the actual gallery and looked out the window.  Turns out Cardinal Spada, the owner, had the opportunity to purchase the strip of land next to his palazzo, extending his property by the width of one house, or in our case, the length of the colonnade.

Here's another look at the "width" of the added strip of land. 

If you want to see a video clip of the basics of the Geometry of the colonnade, check out this video clip.

Naples (2 For 1 Trenitalia Saturdays)

Trenitalia is running a special 2 tickets for the price of 1 on Saturdays, so D and I took advantage of this and bought Frecciarossa (the express train) tickets to go to Naples for the day.  It's an hour each way.  I've been to Naples before, but the first time was a few years ago with SYA and it was a tour in Italian and I didn't understand a thing. The second and third times were just pass throughs to see Herculaneum/Pompeii/Vesuvius and Capri.  This time, we got there around 1015 in the morning and walked around the ENTIRE part of central Naples and I really felt like I got a sense of the city.  Just like everyone says, its loud, raucous and CROWDED, but I felt safe and comfortable.

To understand Naples, one has to understand that the city and the famed soccer player, Maradona are one.  He played here and brought them two championships  Shrines to him are everywhere.

 

 

 

Our goal was to walk the city and then end up a the world famous Naples Archeological Museum, but we didn't make it.  However, we did go into the small, but quite prominent Cappella Sansevero.  It's "capolavori" are this "Veiled Christ" (its marble)

"Disillusion"  Both are amazing!

 

We walked the famous Spaccanapoli (Naples splitter) which divides central Naples into North and South.  Here at the western end is the Piazza Gesu Nuovo and the church of the same name.  I love the texture of the facade (pyramids).

This ornate tower is baroque monument to the counter-reformation.

Naples City Hall....part of the Facebook revolution

Castel Nuovo.  I like how they filled in the area between those two turrets with a Roman Empire style arch.

Central Naples is flat down by the sea.  There are hills surrounding the city (there are many funiculars) like the one shown here. That building is a monastery.

 

 

Occupy Naples?  The line "Noi sappiamo..." translates to "We know where to get the money!"

Naples...high quality and quantity graffiti.  "Berlusconi and the rich cry"  The 2, stands for the 2 "scudetti", or soccer championships that Maradona brought to Naples.

Piazza del Plebescito.  "Do not lose hope Naples"

Here's the Naples we know from the movies.  The Spanish quarter with the tall buildings all so close together.  The laundry hanging everywhere.  Two of our favorite moments of the day happened when just walking around.  The first was a man on a Vespa which zipped by us, then he circled around, whistled, parked and then looked up to be greeted by his family on the balcony.  The second was seeing an older Neapolitan woman open up her window and sell gum out of her front window.  Running a store right from her living room.

Turning around from looking west to the Spanish Quarter, on the other side of the road, just a slew of fascist architecture, which I like because its just so.....simple in its message.

Umm, what's a windmill doing in the middle of Naples.  And look at the panels on the apartment building behind it.  "Labor is GOOD!"

Along the way....lunch.  Of course, Neapolitan pizza!  This is a "famous" pizzeria.  Lots of locals and tourists, like us.

It's for purists.  Margherita and Marinara only.

The obligatory food shot before the chow down!

The weird thing about Naples for me was that I was lost during the day....TWICE.  That NEVER happens.  I could get my bearings but I didn't know where we were and it didn't help that we didn't have a physical map, only the map on the Kindle.  As D has learned, when I am lost, I internally FREAK OUT.  I'm going haywire inside.  Then, when I figure out where I am, I instantly calm down inside.  Turns out, guidebooks are BETTER when actual books because it's just easier to look at maps when they are on paper..  Lesson learned.

Brussels, Belgium

Belgian Flag (backwards, I know)

After stopping in at my second AirBnB lodging (another awesome one, I'm SOLD), I headed over to this location.  Being the geek that I am, these buildings are the European Parliament buildings.

The reason for the visit was to see the new European Parliament Visitors Center, the Parliamentarium.  It's free and a good history of the genesis of the EU and the many functions it plays.  What is most interesting is I call it the first "iPhone" museum.  The visitor guide was like an iPhone where there was lots of scrolling and flipping through screens.  The coolest gadget (although not necessarily coolest information) were these carts, that you rolled around a giant map and everytime found a sensor, it told you a story.

Grote Markt, the heart of Brussels.

Brussels....with Anch!  He invited me to join him for the weekend of Christmas Market Shopping!  And, to boot, he won us VIP tickets to Carmina Burana.

Turns out it was Carmen, as a ballet and then Carmina Burana, with ballet.  I liked the former better.

Belgium is the home of TinTin.  Throughout Brussels, on the sides of buildings are large cartoon murals.  There is also a cartoon museum, but I didn't make it.

I particularly liked the self-reference of this mural!

Yes, Belgian Waffles were consumed.  AND fries, with MAYO.

The culinary highlight, as suggested by my awesome host, was at a food market.  She called it a Moroccan pancake.  It was a crepe, filled with goat cheese, olives, figs, peppers and then drizzled with honey.

YUM!

Final stop, the Atomium which was built for the 1958 World's Fair.

View from the base, looking up.

After a 45 minute wait for the elevator, Anch and I were at the observation level in the top atom.  At this point, I wasn't so impressed with the experience and certainly expected MUCH more talk about chemistry.

But then came this cool part, where we got to take the stairs down from one "atom" to another through a "bond"

In one of the atoms, apparently, you can get into another "atom" pod and lounge around, maybe even sleep for the night?  Plus, the pods can be suspended in the air.

Going down....

Ok, so the Belgians are STILL all about the 1958 World's Fair.  The VERY cute guy with glasses in the picture with Sinatra is King Baudoin (in 1958) of Belgium.  I'm strategically blocking on the woman in the picture, who must be his wife.  Thanks Anch for playing along to get this photo!