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090304 A Tale of Two Popes (that hated each other) |
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written
by jimkuo2 / 09.08.2004 |
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Itinerary |
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| Photo from Anna's camera |
| YMCA?!? |
| Some ladies demonstrate ancient Roman cheerleading. |
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| Photo by James Kuo |
| Facade and Tower |
| From this angle you can see the upper part of the facade and the bell tower |
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Due to schedule changes, Friday, September 3rd marked the shortest day of the program. We all met bright and early at Santa Maria in Trastevere. After we all arrived, we listened to an invigorating set of presentations as we sat next to the fountain.
First up to the plate was Sara Flood. Sara presented on the significance of the acronym SPQR, which means "Senatus Populusque Romanum." It translates into the Senate and the Roman people. It was seen on the standards of the Roman legion, as it was the official name of the Roman Empire. It can be seen today on nearly every manhole cover in Rome.
Kirstin gave a general presentation on mosaics. Kirstin illustrated the styles of mosaics with examples of how the bricks were laid out in the ground.
Alexis gave a presentation on the basic history of the church. Finally, Anna gave her big presentation inside the church on its form and function as we sat in the pews.
Of interest personally was the power struggle that shaped the church as we see it today. Pope fought antipope, and the pope that won chose to remodel this church to erase the memory of the pope that opposed him. I also thought it was interesting how the supposedly pious pope inserted himself into the apse and the mosaics on an equal level with the saints and right next to Jesus.
The day ended and we parted ways; many of us went to finish our sociology project of ethnographically researching a specific area of the city.
Saturday:
Saturday was a diverse day for most of the students. Activities ranged from a visit to the beaches of Cinqueterre, homework, more homework, and a walking tour of Esquilino with the sociology professors and Pierpalo Mudu, a guest lecturer that has been studying the area for over two years.
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Highlights |
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| Photo courtesy of Anna |
| Sabrina the Tour Guide |
| Sabrina gave free tours of the Colosseum over the weekend |
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| Photo courtesy of Anna |
| Crime Scene |
| Pierpalo told us about this crime scene. A hitman was sent to probably kill the owner of this restaurant. He sat down for three minutes in the restaurant and then got out his gun and shot the man in the owner's car. Unfortunately for the hitman and especially the man in the owner's car, the man was not the owner.
(Then Pierpalo, who moonlights as a SWAT team captain, arrived at the scene of the crime and wrested the gun away from the hitman.) |
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Giorgio's Friday story:
Giorgio rolled out of bed, walked three minutes to class, stayed awake in class, and then walked three minutes back to his apartment to sleep.
Saturday Highlights:
I personally enjoyed the walking tour of Esquilino, especially topping it off with a good Chinese restaurant with great rice. Pierpalo knew the area exceptionally well. He had visited every single shop and store in the area at least two or three times in the course of his research. Much of the area was run down; some parts that were bombed during the Second World War had not been repaired yet. Pierpalo was able to get a friend to give us a nice rooftop view of the area. He also brought us into the important churches in the area, such as San Giovanni, the former location of the Vatican. We also saw possibly the oldest thing in Rome, an obelisk brought into Rome dating to Ramses II's reign in Egypt.
Evan and Helen Wu, both fluent in Mandarin, were able to help us order food when we arrived at the Chinese restaurant. We had rice, fish, prawns, frog, ice cream type dish, and more rice for me, just to name a few things.
We found that, though this immigrant community is much smaller than the one we have in Seattle, the issues that come up were very similar. Pierpalo mentioned unequal treatment of the residents of the area by the police as one of the problems. We can all remember the incident in the summer of 2001 where a group of Asian American students in the International District were pulled over and harrassed with racially insensitive comments for a bogus jaywalking charge. The officer later testified in court that he did not see anybody jaywalking and the single ticket issued over the course of 45 minutes was thrown out.
Another common trend was markets in the area having a rising immigrant composition. Before Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps, at one point over 80% of the Pike Place Market's "wet" stalls were occupied by JAs.
Saturday night culminated in a toga party at the apartment in the Campo. We all drank so much cider and water. Once again, our get-together turned into a big study session as we all brought out our art history books to read up for the Vatican. After having so much fun, we brought out our Italian handouts and created our own dialogues while reminiscing about Sabrina's cooking. To top it all off, we got out our sociology books and had deep discussions about the economic underpinnings of modern Italian society and the influence of the church, the state, and soccer. Alas, our night of joy ended sharply at 11 PM as we all called our mothers and went swiftly to bed.
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Images |
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| Blurry photo by James Kuo
Joke courtesy of Matteus Maximus |
| This Apse is Worth Kissing! |
| Here is a photo of the apse in Santa Maria in Trastevere. It is one of the last apses that we will be seeing in Rome. |
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| Photo by James Kuo |
| I Miss Using Flash |
| Here are some of the stained glass windows in the church |
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| Photo courtesy of JMK |
| Where Did My Eye Go? |
| This has nothing to do with the weekend. I just thought that it was an interesting picture. |
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Here are some pics of what we saw that day. (More will possibly be up soon. Stop being so impatient! :)
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