Update!

I've been so behind on my blogging lately, I don't think I can ever catch up! But I'll try for a quick summary. (It's still going to be long, though, so bear with me.)

I've been busy with class and school. The weekend was fun, if not hectic.

On Friday, after visiting the most amazing art gallery, Galleria Borghese, we browsed around town visiting several churches and monuments. Most noteable of these was probably the Capuchin Monastery, Santa Maria Della Concezione. While the monastery was being built, the brothers needed a place to bury their dead, so they piled them in a side chapel. The chapel now holds over 4000 bodies of monks, mostly broken apart and used for decorations, but some are whole. We also visited Mussolini's old Villa, although it has now been converted to a botanical garden for Sapienza. There was no mention of Mussolini's name anywhere in or around the Villa, not even on the street signs. I though it was interesting that, given Rome's massive history, it is this most recent period that they would like to forget.

We took a trip to Tivoli and Villa D'este on Saturday. These are beautiful gardens are designed around fountains, commissioned by Ippolito d'Este after he lost his papal bid in 1560. The villa was abandoned under the Hapsbrug family, and fell into disrepair. It passed through several more hands, finally becoming property of the Italian state in 1920. It was damaged again in WW II, but has been undergoing renovations almost constantly since the 1980's.

All the Fountains rely on old mechanics and water pressure to function, making this feat of engineering even more impressive.
I thought the best fountain was the organ fountain, which was originally powered by forcing oxygenated air through the pipes while someone manually played the keys. I'm not sure how it works now, but it goes off automatically every 2 hours. Luckily this coincided with the end of our visit, so we got to hear it play. The picture is of the "walk of 100 fountains".

On Sunday I went to the Porta Portese market as I mentioned before, and on Monday we managed to catch an exhibit of Monets, as well as some other impressionist work that was quite nice. They didn't have any postcards of my favorite paintings, otherwise I might have gotten some.

As a tangent, I read somewhere that, before tomatoes were really used, Italians put fruit on their pasta. I had some extra peaches lying around, so for Tuesday dinner I made up a recipe and it wasn't too bad!

et Alors: Pasta Pesca Balsamico!
Basamic peach pasta. Cosa molto Buona!

Tonight we have a group dinner, so I won't have to make up interesting pasta variations of my own. Tomorrow we have another mid crit for studio, and then we are going to Assisi, home of St. Francis, for the weekend. I hope it is as nice as Amalfi!

Ciao tutti,
A piu tardi!