Roman Cartography

I am taking this class called Roman Cartography.  It is going to be an awesome class.  It meets six hours a week, and the first three hours are a lecture, which is ok.  But the really great part is the second three hours.  It consists of a walk around the city.  The goal of the class is to learn about the development of Rome by traveling the original pathways throughout the city.  During the walks we stop and look at the buildings and learn about how to identify what time period it is from, who built it, and how it has changed throughout the years.  We also look at a lot of maps and find out how the city has grown over time.  I am learning so much already, but the best part of these walks is that I am getting to see all over the city.  I am learning my way around, and finding all the best places to shop, eat, go to galleries, everything.  I am seeing neighborhoods that I might not have found on my own!  It is so much fun, and hopefully this class will help my sense of direction!

Villa d'este and Villa Adriana

Yesterday my school school went on a field trip to Villa d'este in Tivoli and Villa Adriana.  We were not super excited about the field trip because we had to wake up at 7 am and we were out late the night before celebrating the end of our first week of classes.  However, the trip was well worth the early wake up time.  We started the day at Villa Adriana, which was a villa that Hadrian built to live and rule his empire from.  It is on the outskirts of Rome, only a 30 minute drive away.  It is an enormous site, filled with the ruins from Hadrian's decadent place of residence.  There are many interesting things about this site, most is that only a small percentage of it is excavated yet.  We saw a model of the Villa as it once stood, but only a fraction of that is visible today.  Archiologists are constantly working to uncover more of this villa.  The villa is amazing for architecture students in terms of construction, material, and program.  I can't even describe the mass of structures that are still standing.  And the villa also includes an array of underground tunnels and passageways that no one really knows what they were used for.  There are also rooms that don't make any sense.  We literally don't know how Hadrian lived.  The most fascinating and most famous part of the villa was Hadrians island, or the Maritime theater.  This was an island that Hadrian designed to be his personal getaway.  He dug a moat around a small piece of land where he could go to be alone.  Apparently there used to be a drawbridge that he could pull up so no one could get to him in his private island-room.  It is really an amazing piece of architecture.

After Villa Adriana, we visited Villa d'este.  This villa is not at all like the ruins of Hadrian's villa.  Villa d'este reminded me of a mini Versallies.  It is brimming with fountains and gardens built into a hillside.  The villa is at the top of the hill and you must travel down several beautiful winding staircases in the garden to get to the bottom of the hill.  The site is very famous for its water organ, which plays music at certain hours.  I can't even describe the wonder of this place, it was truly a garden from a fairy tale.  I wish I could just get lost in the garden for days and days! 

Registering for Classes

Registering for classes here is not like registering for classes at Bennington.  I much prefer the process at Bennington, which is saying a lot considering Bennington's process incredibly stressful and tiring.  Here it is even worse.  I picked classes after I got accepted to the school, yet apparently these choices meant nothing.  We had to fill out another course preference sheet here.  At first I got really excited because the teachers presented all of their course offerings and I started considering courses that I has previously ruled out.  So I proceeded to try and choose my classes.  However, when I looked at the schedule I realized almost all of the classes I wanted to take overlapped.  Why would they schedule so many overlapping courses?  I have no idea.  The administration finally realized this problem and started sending around crazy emails switching around class meeting times.  This made it nearly impossible to choose a schedule because everyone was confused as to what time classes were actually meeting.  My Italian Rationalism class changed it's meeting time three times already! On top of all the class times changing, classes keep getting canceled due to lack of enrollment.  Then everyone complains, more people decide they want the class, and the class gets reinstated.  It is so frustrating.  I still don't know my schedule.  I got an email saying that the one class that I really wanted, Roman Cartography, might get reinstated.  If this happens my schedule will be perfect.  However, if I don't get that class back I will have to choose another course, probably Architecture Analysis.  I really hope I can get all my classes, and that the schedule doesn't change again!  The process just seems unnecessarily disorganized, but I am hearing that this is juts how study abroad is.  Hopefully the disorganization will fade as classes start and everyone gets settled in.

On a more positive note, my luggage has finally arrived at the school's office.  Two guys from my house are going to help me bring it back here (since the cobblestones pose a particular threat if I were to drag it here by myself).  I will finally have all my toiletries and clothes!

Ciao for now!