Day's in Rome

Day 01: Arriving in Rome May 27th 2008
So finally after being on the plane for around 9 hours, I have finally arrived in Rome!!! First off it's super hot here and hot as in 37 degrees, which is crazy!!! I don't know how the Italians' deal with this heat but its crazy. So even though I just arrived, the field study has just started. Back to work and enjoying what I shall be immersed in from this new environment. Starting day one, we went to San Stefano Rotondo to observer one of Rome's first churches and seeing the interior as well as from it exterior. Along the way we walked past the Arco di Dolabella; some people don't know that this arch is one of the oldest architects in Rome and they just walk past it, what a shame...hope people would talk the moment to look into its beauty and its structure ^____^ .....after that we went along Saint Giovanni E Paolo for our last tour for the day because of the lack of time, then finally back home for some SLEEP *hearts* .....lucky for me, I got use to the all-nighterz I had last month, so I was able to conformably adapt to the new time zone here (cheers for me).

Day 02
Waking up from my first night in Rome, the morning air is sweet. Not too hot, yet not too cold and it's just about right. For today we started our tour by taking the metro towards the Centro, walking to the Piazza di Popolo, which I must comment, it is like one of my favorite piazzas by far, because of its open space, but also being able to observe people (both local Italians and some interesting tourists). The metro is some what getting use to, but once I become familiar with it, it shall become my best friend. Moving away from the piazza, we continued to move down to Spagna passing by the Fontana della Barcaccia and then down to the Piazza Barbinini where we took a quick look at the Fontana della Tararughe. After walking around from piazza to piazza we all had our first lunch together at Dar Pallaro. I must say, food in Italy is sooo good. I don't know how to compare the food from here to back in Vancouver without spending more the 40$ for the meal. My lunch consisted of olives and some deep fried meat? for antipasto (appetizers), pasta for primo (first course), some kind of mean for secondi (second course), and freshly cut strawberries with home made apple cake/pie for dolce (desert)....yummy!!!

After the meal we went towards the jewish ghetto area where we ended the day at Campo de Fiori where we were lucky enough to see the piazza changing into an open field. Some background info on the Campo: the Piazza changes based on the time of day it is in. From the morning the locals open up their stores selling fresh vegetables, fruits, coffee makers, cookware, and many more. Between 2pm to 5pm the area gets cleaned up and becomes an open space for the kids/locals to mingle around the place and finally at night the place becomes young generation central where the Italian night life begins. The night life is pretty sweet, had a chance to go there myself and to be able to see some crazy Italians move around the space and was able to interact with them just a little bit. Still having some difficult talking to them at times, since I feel rejected when I try my best to speak some Italian to them, but then practice makes best, so I am still trying hard. I will be accepted within their culture some day, but for now I shall just accept their way of treating me as an outsider.

Day 03 - Lunch in Trastever *yum*

Day 03
Today is my FUN day, because I get to go to Trastevere *hear* which is my home neighborhood for this years project. Had a chance to see some of the spaces and narrow streets that 'Real City Rome' has mentioned in their books. As I expect this interior side is pretty quiet, where the outside becomes noisier and noisier, yet still nice to be around. After touring around the place, I had my first Italian style Spaghetti Bongola, which was something I was waiting for a long time (well also with the carbonara). Again the food was delicious =] after lunch we had free time we I ended up wondering around the town to going down Via dei Corso and found a lot of designer clothing/shoe stores. Most of them ranging within 20 euros and they had like a LOT of crazy clothes that I am hoping to shop around or maybe wait until I get to Florence? Not sure yet, still debating...

Day 04
Turns out that our tour in the MAXXI was cancelled because of the construction that was being taken place, all we were able to do was go observe from the outside like the other tourists are doing and see as much as we can... *sigh* after that we picked up some lunch at the Ponte Milvio and end up going to the SAS Hotel to look around at the contemporary architecture. Broke into a team of 3-4 members, seeing how much information we could gather up from this place. My team including Murray and Azmina, had a chance to talk to some of the janitors in the SAS hotel and turns out that we could actually get a whole tour of the building, top to bottom, including the funky rooms and such. Neat info on the SAS hotel: each room is designer differently to give its uniqueness and the exterior form fits within the context of the outside portion of the city, where the inside has its elegance look to make it look classy. The building is divided into 7 floors, where the top floor has a pool and consists of 2-3 bars in total. At the very end of the day, we walked around the area and took a break from work and had some free time in the end. Had a chance to wonder off into the streets and had some time on my own to wonder around the neighborhood and has a chance to walk beside the Colosseum at night =]...


Day 05
So being Italy, today was the HOTTEST day ever....temperature being around 37-37 degrees, which was boiling. To summarize todays event was 'stairs climbing'... so it turns out that I climbed more then at least 500-700+ steps of stairs, on the hottest day of Rome *hooray* so this is what my day was like: woke up early to meet up with the coordinator at the side of the Campidoglio stairs and meeting at the very top of the stairs where he suggested.....then moving to main section of the Campidoglio museum, for those who's interested in seeing Romes history and interested in sculptures in its best condition, the Campidoglio Museum is one of the best museums by far from what I have seen. Later on, we moved on towards the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II and climbed to the highest portion of the monument. Given the time range, this was roughly around lunch time where we had a short lunch break and continued our observations from there. From the Vittorio Emanuele, we had a chance to see the Roman Forum, but the sad part of this was that the Roman Forum is now closed off to the public and has a entrance fee of 12 euros/day which is a shame. Last year, those who were lucky had a chance to walk into the Forum anytime/day they wanted to but has now restricted people from entering it, which is one of my disappointments...BUT I did have a chance to see it in front of my eyes, so I am graceful for that =] .... after the museums and such we travelled to Palatine Hills, where we got a change in atmosphere and enjoyed our moment in gelato... I must say that gelato in Italy is like heaven.... for 2 euro, u can get 3 scoops of the largest size in Canada and on top you get fresh cream to go along with it. For 3 euro you can get an large gelato sunday desert thing, but I prefer the 2 euro scoop just because of its price... the gelato it self... *hearts* this is what gelato should be and should taste like. For those gelato lovers, all I can say is this: if given the opportunity to go to Rome, head towards San Lorenzo and the gelato there is something that will be within your memories forever *hearts*....trust me, it's well worth the price and its only 2 euro!!! compared to Canada's 4$ dinky scoop of gelato....HA!!!!

Day 06
The earliest day of our Field Study....Woke up around 6am to meet up with the coordinator and the rest of the group, why? Because we wanted to beat the crowed to get into Saint Peter's Basilica. So why go to Saint Peters that early? Well, if you like open space and wanting to experience something that you could never do in Canada, this is what you've been waiting for. The space in Saint Peter's is just.....priceless. Completely open empty space at 7am. Down side is that, past 11am it becomes a tourist battlefield. The open spaces suddenly fills up with more the 1000 people within seconds. Interesting to see how this space quickly fills up. So from this point, I got lost.... with my friend Karen, which was stupid because we were taking photo's around the Basillica and turns out that non of my other team members told us that we were going up to the cupolla... *sigh*, BUT we ended up going up there with a fee of 7 euro, which was well worth the price. The view from Saint Peter's can't be compared to anything I have seen so far in Rome. From this point, I can't say much of what I have felt....there's so much to express but words can't say much. The experience in seeing the view will explain it all. Everyone has their own way of explaining how they've experienced the view from Saint Peter....for mine, it's just silence and an image to go with what I'v seen. After Saint Peter's Basilica Derek, Jenny, Karen, Azmina, and I travelled around the neighborhood and eventually ate some a Japanese resaurant. So why did we eat there? well maybe because we're a little home sick and wanting to have some of our cultural food in our system. Interesting to listen to chinese people speak Italian though, because after ordering they were mocking us of speaking Italian to them, go figure....we're not from around here. But we're still trying to adapt into their culture =]...Welcome to Rome, this is how everyone treats you. Being watched by everyone in the store even from the moment you enter their shoe store, they're always watching. From that point, how you communicate with them or how you talk to them (with manner) will then finally begin to slowly accept you into their space. It's not like they don't like you, but they just want t get to know you and to make sure you are not just some random tourist trying to take away their Italian-ness, by buying 'I LOVE ITALY' hats and shirts and acting like you should be the one that should be getting the attention. This is Italy, even though you are the customer you are not always on top of the world. As I go into these stores, I can feel this sense of being watched from what others has told me. It's not like a unwanted feeling, but its a feeling of being tested and how much you want to be a part of their culture.


Day 07
Had a chance to sleep in which was nicer for a change. Woke up around 10am and had a chance to look at some of the images that I've taken so far. Out of the group, I have taken the most, which was around 1,744 images within 6 days when the field study study has began =] so for those waiting in Canada, yes I have taken a LOT of images and there is more to come. Around 5-6pm my team and I left to Trastevere to look/observe the neighborhood on our own and to see what we can gather from our observations. Had dinner at the La Tarsa, which is the traditional Roman style cooking. Ordered some olives and ham for antipasto, white-wine for a drink, Traviolli con cioci e pepe for primo, and Taramisu for desert. Got a little lost on the way back, but eventually found our way back home. By not my feet is getting use to the pavement in Rome, some note in streets in Rome, their roads are NOT like the one's we see in Canada or anywhere else within North America. The roads are literally individual square shapes flat stones, with irregular levitation... as for the traffic, its completely chaotic, BUT that does not mean there's order within the driver. Cars are running everywhere, but all I can say is that people here can certainly drive better then those in canada/Vancouver. Even though there are no traffic lines dividing them up, Italians know how to get to places even in this chaotic system of theirs. As for now, it is 3:33am and I am falling asleep, so I shall end my blog for now.....ciao


Day 08
So this morning woke up early to meet up with Jeremy King, an Roman Architect group called KING ROSELLI ARCHITETTI. Had a interesting interview with Jeremy King, where the interview was controlled by Derek Pante, Rob White, Kiks Chua, Simon Shum, and Ryan Murray. The interview talked about the changes and connection with Rome and its surrounding neighborhoods, as well as his perspective on the direction that Rome is going towards in the future. After the interview we had lunch with the group at Da Oio, located in Testaccio, which by far has one of the best Spaghetti Carbonara. Stayed at the restaurant for a while to catch up on some social time with the rest of the members and realxed for a bit since it began to rain for a while. Honestly, rain in Rome is completely different to Vancouver's rain.... Vancouver's rain is like constantly raining for I don't know how long and the rain in Rome is massive but usually lasts for only 5-10 minuets or so. After the rain, we moved around the neighborhood and ended up at the Centrale Montemartini Museum. The museum itself has a completely different arrangements compared to the other museums in Rome, which in my opinion I find this one enjoyable, just because of how the statues are arranged and the space that they are being placed in. Saw some pretty neat statues and mosaics such as: Statue di Nike, Statue of Agrippina, and my favorite statue, Niobide. Along with the statues, I was able to see some crazy mosaics made during the cremation as a symbol of immortality and desire for afterlife. The details on the mosaic such as the Letto di Osso is something that people should consider going to during their trip in Rome. Worth the trip to see some different mosaics and how well they are pre-severed over the period. The day ended with an interview with the company LABICS, interviewing Francesco Isidori. The interview was controlled by Morgan Taylor, Brad Slavin, Karen Lo, and myself *yay*... so this was my first time being an interviewee, I was getting a little nervous asking the questions. I screwed up a little trying to ask questions based how they maintain their Roman/Italian identity while working within a group of global context and how it affects they way they design as Italian/Roman designers. Eventually the professor helped me out with the wording, but the interview went pretty well. We had a nice conversation talking about their works based on the importance of context and their values; we had a chance to take a look at their previous projects along with their current projects, which was sweet because we had a chance to see their scale models and renders that they used for their prototypes. Overall, my first experience of interviewing an Italian architect was pretty amazing and I'm hoping to meet many more designers along the way.

Day 09-10
Today was research day!!! *yay* so this was the beginning of my neighborhood research with my team members, Ryan Murray and Karen Lo. Walked all over Trastevere and explored certain areas that we might consider going back to. Stayed in a few piazza's and mingled with a few Italian's. Had a chance to wonder around the market in San Cosimato then travelled between the West and East side of Trastevere. We found a few differences between the two sides, but we might consider changing our observations to the North and South side of Trastevere instead of the West and East side of Trastevere based on a few observations and from talking to a few locals. For lunch we had a panne with some delicious expresso at a local bar, which I'm planning on going there often so that I can slowly learn some more Italian during my stay in Rome with the locals. In end end we went home for a siesta (siesta, is a nap taken between 1pm to 5pm where the Italians go out during the morning then coming back out during the night, hence the Italians are known for their nightlife and social gathers at the local piazza's) then coming back out at night and head back to San Cosimato to see if there were any changes. There were a few Italian's playing soccer and surprisingly the amount of people that was there during the day was no where to be found. Compared to Piazza G.Belli, the piazza was packed with a whole bunch of people just gathering around and enjoying their time. So we took a break and joined the group, trying to blend in as much as we can....but being asian makes it very difficult *haha*... so while we were there a magician came and all of a sudden the entire crowed began cheering and yelling out his name. A great way to end the day by enjoying a nice show with the Italian while having gelato *hearts*

The second day, we went out early in the morning to finish off the neighborhood project since it was due in 7 hours... so we rushed out, bussed to our neighborhood and took some notes on what the difference during the time of day. We observed the difference in interaction between people during the day and night, how they move through the spaces, where they cluster themselves and why, along with what we want to bring to this research. Passing by a few narrow roads, we began noticing that most of the shops in Trastevere (especially on the north side) are found inside of their homes, which makes it difficult to know whether if its a store or a house, unless you take a step inside. Once your in, you will be greeted by someone waiting to the left of the entrance. At time, most store owners will come out of their store and just look around and ask you to come inside, which I find very different from Vancouver. They way the shop owners come out of their stores and drag you inside; feels more welcoming rather then those waiting for you to come inside then greet you or ignore you. So 7 hours passed by very quickly, crammed our knowledge together and made a quick presentation which got bombed...although we expected to be a lot worse, but at least we have a definite direction we want to consider looking into. Overall the day ended with us rushing to gather information and finishing up a presentation within 1-2 hours.... talk about fast-pace info. gathering and presentation prep. cheers to Karen for finishing off the slides and making a final copy of it.

Day 11
Woke up early and went into the Pantheon as a whole group. It wasn't raining so we couldn't see the drops of rain coming down from the ceiling hole, but still worth the view. Might consider going in, although from my opinion the Pantheon was as glorious as I expected, maybe it was because of the timing? Got there around 11 am so my opinion might change once I have another look at it at a different time and with different weather conditions. A note from a few past Italia members: the Pantheon can be viewed at its best when it's raining.....so I hope it rains in a couple of days and I've yet to see it again. After the Panthon we had a short 45 min break to just wonder off. I ended up walking around Via del Corso, which for some people *cough*Jessica*cough* is like shopping heaven. Its like Gucci around the corner, then Prada beside it, oh and there D&G across from it.... a note to a few people that are thinking of visiting Rome and shopping for some fabulous clothes, wear NICE shoes and a nice top. I'v noticed that all Italian's in these high end fashion shops look down on you a lot based on what you wear. If you want service, wear some nice shoes at least since they look down at your feet and slowly look up and kind of decide what kind of attitude they should give you. Going into like a regular street-look clothing shop would be okay, but going to shops like Gucci, Fratelli Rossetti, Moschino, Eredi Pisano, and many more shops look down at you a lot. So a little note, don't feel offended, they are just doing what is natural to them. Accept their culture and move on, when you start to buy something they will be happy. Over all enjoy your shopping =] ..... I know I did. Finally meet up with the group and headed towards the Vatican Hill on bikes. Had a fun time just riding around an different atmosphere where that aren't many cars and all there is to see is just Rome in its natural environment. For those who don't know what the Vatican Hills are, its the road that connects Roma towards the other parts of the city, which the Romans back then used to travel from city to city. I had the opportunity to travel along that pathway and it was delicious. Although climbing up the hill by bike made it very difficult, but it was worth the climb. Yay Rome

Trastevere Market - Kitchen Stand Owner

Day 12
So, I went back to Trastevere on my own. Why? because I wanted some time alone and get away from work. Just wondering off and cool down, which I did ..... and it was sweet. Woke up early and took the number 3 bus to Trastevere, got off at Piazza Porta Portese and went to the Sunday market, which is well known in Rome for the cheapest deals. Being curious to find out how cheap it was... all I could say is that, everything there is CHEAP. Everything there was roughly around 2-3 euro, ladies clothing (street/designer style) was roughly around 1-2 euro, shoes (real Nike, Addias, Puma, etc) was around 5-10 euro, Soccer accessories/clothing (From teams around the world) was roughly around 5-10 euro, and some food (Pane + caffee + orange juice) was 2 euro.... all I can saw was that they have pretty sweet deals there. I had a chance to talk to the guy that I bought the Bialetti coffee maker, I was able to make a deal with him by dropping the price from 17 euro to 8 euro. This is what I love about Rome, they have good things here for prices you can cut down to half its price, maybe even more. Just 3 days ago, I bought an Italy Soccer Jacket for 15 euro, which is around 40-60$ canadian?...

Shoe Stand with many 5-10 euro Shoes *hearts*

Anyways back to the market, ended up wondering around the market, which got packed very very quickly. No wonder some of the locals don't come out after lunch, its packed with tourists and locals. For some background information, Italians tend to wake up early to shop for their needs early so that they don't have to deal with the crowed nor the tourists, smart people... I need to learn from them. So after shopping/observing and talking to a few locals, I meet up with Karen, Brad, and Kiks at the Popolo, where we broke off from there and ended up shopping. Shopping was fun.... very fun, but I think I will go back again the following day and wear better clothes so that I don't feel look down at =[ .... so by being in Rome for around 12 days, I'm roughly around 60-70% knowledgeable in knowing where I am when being dropped off at a random place. Rome becomes pretty easy to navigate around once you find a piazza or some fountain or even the metro, since the station tells you the name of the location, duh... 4-5 more night in Rome and we're off to Toscana and its hill towns. Hopfully these 4-5 nights will be fun and enjoyable as the rest of the days that I've had so far. Ciao...

Note: Images will be coming in soon since I need to edit some images and such haha... they will be good, I promise =]