day 12: Villa Giulia

c'è solo una foto oggi...


more etruscan overload continued with a morning field trip to the Villa Giulia. Alicen, Kerry, and i made sure that we got in Walsh's group for the best tour. that museum is fantastic, and it's another one that it's a shame that you can't take pictures in. photography seems to be less enforced in the courtyard, so that's how i got the picture of the triton mosaic.

other awesome stuff there: temple reconstructions, sarcophagus with the couple, and phrygian/etruscan gold tablets. also sala 11, which i returned to much later in the year for my final project.

greek, dinner, chilling later that night? i can only presume.

Tarquinia redux

over the past day i have undertaken a little project, to which i alluded at the end of my last post. as most of you know, i spent a lot of time editing and tweaking my photos so that they looked their absolute best (sometimes even better than in real life). but the photos i took at Tarquinia and Cerveteri were the first ones that i seriously edited, and i didn't have the experience and skill that i had gained some 2000 photos later at the end of the semester. i tried to do some color and exposure correction on my photos from the tombe that were taken in low light without flash (because they had to be, since they were through glass). i did what i could with the limited tools of iPhoto. now i know that i could have done better, and thankfully i still have the original, unedited versions. i've gone back and re-edited some of them, with pretty good results. here is a sampling:

original

2006 edit

2007 edit

original 2006 edit 2007 edit

original 2006 edit 2007 edit

i must say i'm really pleased with these results. of course, not everything went perfect. i actually desaturated some of my photos when i edited them in 2006, because they had some nasty yellow hues to them. that resurfaces again in my new versions, but i like the greater saturation, even if it's a bit overblown at times.

and some were not salvageable at all. [warning, geeky photo editing stuff ahead, including histograms and whatnot.] the best results came from photos that were light but lacking contrast. photos that started out darker just couldn't be saved to a high standard of quality (usually they would look too red or orange). i found out that the reason for this was that those photos were severely underexposed in the blue range:

since the curve for blue was essentially off the dark end of the scale, there was insufficient color data to stretch across the whole spectrum and not make it look ugly. unfortunate, but i'll have to stick with my old edits of those photos.

so those are the results. you can view all 20 of the Tarquinia redux photos here.

day 11: tombs

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the day's eventsthe second tuesday marked the first real all-day city course field trip. that also meant our first bus ride with Fabio. after breakfast we all made our way out to the bus. i found a seat somewhere near the middle-back. before we could leave we had to do the emperor countoff...oh wait, that was the first time we did it. Klaassen read off the list of emperors as they were assigned to people and then we did a couple practice runs, which sucked. eventually we got through it once and headed out.

if i remember right, i think i had a pretty calm busride, mostly looking out the window as i listened to an episode of TWiT on my ipod.

upon arrival at Tarquinia we entered through the gift shop/biglietteria and stopped just on the other side to get an introductory lecture from Maas. the only problem was that it was so blasted windy that we could barely stand up straight, let alone hold our notebooks or pay attention. he cut it short, thankfully, divided us into groups of three (i was with Andrew and Creaser) and sent us off to check out the tombs.

our group apparently just wasn't fast enough, because every single tomb that we went to already had somebody in it, and only one group could fit down there (comfortably) at once. we tried a few of the tombs near the entrance to the site with no luck, then thought we would fare better if we went down towards the end, but that didn't work either. eventually we just decided to wait for any groups ahead of us. that at least meant we got to stand inside the shelter at the top of the stairs rather than face the gale outside.

we did ultimately get around to 12 tombs out of some 15 or so that were listed on our checklist, which wasn't bad. we made sure to see all the highlights. nobody's trip was complete without checking out the porn on the wall in the Tomba della Fustigazione. on a more highbrow, archaeological note, we also made sure to check out some fancy carving at the Tomba della Pulcella. it was fun walking down the side of the hill to it, and then you almost had to run back up just to beat the slope and the wind. there was also a lovely view of the countryside from over there.

after being rounded up from all over the site, we piled back on the bus for a short drive into the town of Tarquinia, to go to the archaeological museum. i think our appointment to enter was at noon, and we got there before that. since we were all pretty seriously chilled through from the wind, Maas took us all to a bar and bought everyone hot chocolate or cappuccino. i opted for the hot chocolate, which wasn't too bad of a decision. it was very rich, but most of all it was warm.

then we headed across the street to the museum. it was like etruscan overload. we got our whirlwind introduction to bucchero, terra cotta sarcophagi, and most important for me, etruscan writing. i think we did split up into three groups, and this was where we learned that (all other matters aside) it's best to go with Walsh on a museum tour because he'll actually point out the most useful stuff. anyway, i at least remember him giving the bucchero talk. there were no pictures allowed in the museum (shame, because they had some awesome stuff, including the famous sarcophagus with the man holding the etruscan scroll), but i snuck one that i figured nobody would mind while in a non-exhibit walkway on the second floor. oh, i also learned a little bit of italian from PK when somebody set off the alarm by leaning too far into the reconstructed tomb exhibit, and she had to apologize to the custode. how had Barbara not tought us "mi dispiace" in the first two classes? ah well.

it was past 1pm when we left the museum, and we were starving. we ran back to the bus to collect our lunches, and then had to find a place to eat them. some people just descended on bars, carrying their bag lunches with them. if it were later in the semester and i'd known better, i would have done just that (making sure to buy something from the bar so as to not piss off the owner). instead i thought that seemed a bit too rude and ate outside with PK and Alicen (and Kerry, were you there? i don't know. sorry!). i nearly froze my hands off eating my prosciutto cotto sandwich and trying to hold everything in place with my juice box.

then it was mercifully back to the bus for the ride up to Cerveteri. again we got a brief intro on arrival at the site, and then were turned loose. we were allowed to roam as we pleased, no groups to stick with or real assignment except "go see things." sometimes lots of centristi crammed into a single tumulus, sometimes we split up, sometimes we climbed in or on top or around them. Sick Nasty made a particularly death-defying leap into a flooded tomb, yet managed to keep himself and his camera dry.

i heard there were some cool ones down near the end of the site, and went off to try to find those. Jetta was tagging along, and because i had got some bad first impression of her i tried (and succeeded) to ditch her (sorry, Jetta!). that didn't turn out so great for me because shortly after i did that i got completely butt-lost. i had a map, which should have helped, but i couldn't get oriented because everything in the whole damn place was round. i tried to climb one of the tumuli to get my bearings, and that didn't help much either (except i got a nice photo out of it). i ran into the edge of the site, but couldn't find any way back to familiar territory. i knew it was getting close to when we were supposed to meet back at the entrance, and i was starting to panic. i don't know exactly how i got back (i know i made a complete circle more than once) but i managed to find the main path without needing anyone to come search for me.

the rest of the day was pretty calm. bus ride home, collapsed for a while, had dinner. after dinner i went down to the lobby and did some photo editing. Alyssa came by and saw what i was doing and we talked photography for a bit. more on that photo editing process in the next post...

day 10: foosball

ci sono solo due foto oggi...

foosball was the thing to do after dinner at this point. the elite group of foosballers hadn't established itself, and Sick Nasty was just getting around to being called sick and nasty. i mean look who is playing/spectating in these pictures! Tulisha, Heather, Kati, Megan...the infernal racket of the foosball table (not to mention excitable foosballers) drew them to the fourth floor. then things got intense, and only the few remained. (and then spring hit and ping pong became the new foosball, but that was much later.) whew. lots of fun.

[update: we did have class in the forum (for the first time) this day

we went on our first trip to the forum. since it was nice and early in the morning, i wound up doing something stupid, namely the "remembered to charge the camera battery but forgot to put it back in the camera" trick. so i had a useless camera at the forum. fortunately we're going back.

duh, like 20 times.

anyhow, as you can conclude, there are no photos

also duh.]

day 9: ?

c'è solo una foto oggi...


this was actually taken late saturday night. i'm not sure anyone else took a picture of the "mugshot board", as i called it, which became a fixture on the bulletin board in the lobby. i'm glad i did.

as for what actually happened on sunday...i have absolutely no idea. this is what the comments field is for (hint hint).

day 8: steps and fountain

[note: yes, i fudged the date on this post, but it's neater if it matches the appropriate day]

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good old Foto Express man

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the day's events:
and more copy/paste, laziness prevails =P

today was my first Saturday here. the most daunting aspect of that is that i'm not fed by the amazing Centro cooking staff. i slept in and once i got up waited for enough people to congregate to make a pizza run. it turned out to be me, Alicen, Kerry, and Kimberly. i got what turned out to be spinach, broccoli, and sausage. it was quite delicious but spinach is a very tricky pizza topping.

the four of us then went into the city to the spanish steps and the trevi fountain area. we waited an eternity at the transfer stop at p.za venezia for a little shortbus, the 119, to take us there. in that time we could have easily walked the short distance over, but we didn't know. there were mobs of people at both the steps and the fountain, including some interesting characters. we spent a little time at each and then decided to wander back to the bus station and grab some gelato on the way. we made a detour to the supermarket in the monte verde area, but were keeping an eye on the clock so we would get back to the Centro in time to watch the Lazio calcio (soccer) match. while i was standing in the juice aisle of Sidis, the grocery store, some elderly italian lady started accosting me. i didn't know what she wanted so i just kinda shrugged. then i realized it looked like she was asking for help getting down this large bottle of water. i went over to help her, but that just made her angrier. totally confused, i just walked away. i did manage to get my juice after she went to another aisle though =)

Prof. Walsh has us all hooked. he's a huge Lazio fan and now about a quarter of the Centro is rooting for them. he's really surprised at how we've taken to it, so he's going to organize a trip for us to go to the next home game. however, i think he's getting pretty pissed at me and Alicen, because we seem to bring them nothing but bad luck. we've watched three games, all of which have been draws. the officiating was very unkind to Lazio today. two players got red cards, one legitimately but one on a horrible call. another got a second yellow card in a two-game span, so Lazio will have three players suspended next sunday. and finally a close but probably improper offisides call negated a go-ahead goal late in the second half. it's so much fun to watch the games with Prof. Walsh though, because we get to see a completely different side of him. i admire the fact that he'll watch with us, his students, and scream "goddammit!" and "fuck!" when the calls don't go Lazio's way.

that card to Liverani was complete bullshit. a 1-1 home draw to Cagliari was the result. sigh.

day 7: the climb

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the day's events:

friday was a no class day except for the art history field trip. therefore it was very quiet around when i got up. those who were on the trip had already long since departed and most everyone else was still asleep. gradually people turned out. meg, megan, heather and i had lunch in the garden. once the art history group returned we got a group together and went to the vatican to climb to the top of st. peter's. it was 4 euro to get up into the cupola but it was worth every eurocent. the climbing the 500-odd stairs was a trial but incredibly fun, and definitely rewarding once we reached the top. we couldn't stop taking pictures. the views were simply remarkable.

we did have to stop on the way up. Megan was getting a bit claustrophobic as i remember (and i couldn't blame her, i was a little bit that way too). we stopped at a little landing with a tiny grated window, through which i took this photo.

when we climbed back down into the main part of the church it was late afternoon. mass started at the far end of the church at 5pm. we wondered why we were being herded out of the way by security when suddenly a group of 5 cardinals came walking through. we left before we became engrossed in mass since we had to figure out the return bus system and get back in time for dinner. we wandered out of st. peter's looking for a fermata (bus stop). we didn't find any until we were on the road right along the river. we waited and waited and were just about to give up and have to climb the stairs back up the Gianicolo, but just then one came. we rode back to monte verde, made a quick stop at the enoteca (wine shop) and headed to dinner. a large group went out after dinner to the irish pub (some of them have been there 4 times already i think) but several of us have heard that the expense isn't worth it, so stayed in. party in the Centro, and we're not ashamed.

maybe a little ashamed? i'm generally pleased with how things went tho.