Naples: Day 1

This neglect has been preposterous. I should just start writing stuff down.

So, Ayla was already planning to take a trip to Naples and Capri, and since I wanted to go as well we went together- this had the added benefit of me not actually having to plan anything. We hopped on the train early Friday morning and got into Naples with plenty of time, we planned, to check into our hostel, see the Naples art museum, and visit a few castles and the like.

This, of course, never actually worked (and we quickly learned that planning is for people who expect and require everything to go perfectly) For starters, the street we had for the hostel's address appeared to not exist, off of the street it should have been. We asked a few Tabacchi (it means Tabaccho Shop, but they carry all kinds of things) if they knew, but since they had no idea, we tried asking a Farmacia (Pharmacy, that one's easy), thinking maybe they'd live in the area, as they tend to be family-run. The Farmacia actually ended up calling the hostel for us, which we were very grateful for (though we had to take the phone because the guy on the other end didn't speak Italian!) Turned out the road we were given was a side street off a side street, thus our difficulty in finding it off the main road.

Finally, we dumped off our backpacks and got back out to the city. We trekked to the art museum...at the top of a hill...which was fun. But we did not factor into the time we allowed for the musuem that we're two art majors. We spent the rest of the day in the museum. When we finally gave up finding that last painting we knew was there, we trekked down the cliff a bit, found a bus, and got back down to the main city. We wandered around for a bit, found somewhere to get some real Neopolitan Pizza, and then went back to the hostel and crashed.

Verdict on Naples: dirty, loud, not-Rome, but still enjoyable. Very lively.

A momentary diversion.

It has been brought to my attention that not everybody knows all the goodies that come with me having my photos in a Flickr gallery (especially a Flickr Pro gallery, thaaaaaank you Liz <3 <3 )

So, here is a further explanation. Clicking on a picture in my post will take you to that picture's Flickr page. Directly below the title is a button marked "all sizes". This does exactly what it says it does, and if you want to examine the steadiness of my hand you can download the original file of the picture here. (this is a Pro only feature, so thank Liz again.)

Now lets say you're more of the casual browser, and don't care to see the minute details of every single picture I deem important and Flickr-worthy. Back on that individual photo page there are a few Slideshows on the right. The top one is for my Photostream, which is just every photo I add to Flickr. The second is for my Fall Abroad set. This is more useful, despite that right now they're basically the same thing, because I can adjust the order of how the photos appear in the set, whereas I cannot in the photostream. Click on the arrow to see more thumbnails of pictures, or click the little projection screen icon for a classy little slideshow. Only problem, it cycles through the pictures (you can skip through them yourself, it's just annoying that it skips ahead on you.)

And last but not least, I've tagged every photo I've uploaded on the map. (Have I mentioned I love maps?) Its a yahoo map, so its not as sophisticated as google maps are, but it works well enough. You can access the map from any photo page (its in the small text on the right hand side) or the photostream page, but oddly enough it is elusive on the Sets page.

So there you go.



hard link to the Fall Abroad Set.

hard link to the slideshow.

hard link to the map.

Day 31 photos

We walked down what felt like the entire Via Appia Antica today. It turned out to be only a mile though, damn!

Along the way, we stopped in some museums, catacombs, ruins etc. (man, I love catacombs!)

Day 30 photos

Class trip to St. John Lateran.

A shot of the old mosaics, some of the only stuff left from the original structure, in the Baptistery.



And, a photo of a St. John statue that may definitely be in the pool for the Photo Contest:

Day 29 walk

Oh! I remember this! (That's saying something, it was almost a month ago)



View Larger Map


So! Went out, probably relatively early, with the intention of getting to the Capuchin crypt and drawing (with my new black paper and my conte crayons!) the, er, decorations there. It's really a hauntingly beautiful place. On my way there, though, I realized that as it was a Sunday, the crypt might not be open. I continued, but you can tell that I was not necessarily worried about getting there as I stopped to draw along the way.





The first one, I was kind of in an alley and had to keep flattening myself against the wall to let cars by. (this was as more my depth perception than anything else- Italian drivers can be crazy, but they don't hit things, and they had enough room) The second, I sat down on a little roadblock in front of an apartment building. It gave me a little more time to work, and a more comfortable position to work from. Some older guys came by to see what I was doing, and seemed surprised (or maybe just declarative, people can be dramatic) that I was using a pen. I was too, actually, but I feel a lot more comfortable sketching in pen now than I used to, and this day was when I realized that I didn't have to labor over things in an erasable medium. (hooray!)

I moved on, meandering. Though, when marking out my route later in the day, I am always surprised to see that I didn't actually meander as much as I think I have. I suppose that when I don't know where I am, even straight lines feel like meandering. But I was heading in a direction, so I did.

The confusing mess by Piazza Barberini is, indeed, confusing. I had to backtrack in order to find the chapel itself (it was halfway up the staircase to the church) and may have, ahem, been too proud to clearly backtrack in front of waiters, etc who had seen me minutes before. Thus, a bit of looping was required. Once finding the chapel, though, I found it inundated with tour groups! This was too much, especially for drawing purposes. So I snuck into the church proper, instead and drew some putti instead. (Dang putti, being everywhere)



These were no exception, though I found the first's face to be rather enchantingly serene- they're usually more...cherubic, shall we say. And the second was quite interestingly asleep.


After this artistic output, I decided home was best, but that I had enough sunlight/stamina for an indirect route. Thus, as is usually the case with these things, I ended up turned around, and then in the Villa Borghese. (This was back when I still carried a just-in-case map, but the Villa isn't on it, hah) I tried to situate myself via the setting sun, but after realizing that I was not only getting further and further away from things I might recognize, but that I had mixed up east and west again and was in fact going in the opposite direction, I turned back. Refusing to be distracted by streets named after Fellini, I took the street I knew and arrived back in civilization again. (Passing the American Embassy along the way, a fact I would angrily exclaim upon later when I realized they would have be useful for dropping off my absentee ballot.)

I doubt the rest of the day was eventful.

Except for the birds! Oh man, it was Hitchcockian in October, due to migration we assumed. Whichever reason, the birds went spastic, but the swirly flying patterns belied a cacophany and a snow flurry's more disgusting cousin. We quickly learned not to take routes with trees.

But I'm sure that was it.

Day 26 photos

Site visits to San Clemente and Santi Quattro Coronati

Days 19-23

Day 19. The last day of Course 1. To celebrate, we went to a Mithraeum.



No, that was just for our presentation! Silly me. (I did get to climb some ancient roman stairs, though!)


So yes, Course 1 was over. We did still have a Final, though, for which I had to try to decipher my notes....can you tell where I started falling asleep?




And also a Travel Report, where I pulled my favourite act of all- turning in a piece of art for a non-art class.




I also got sick that weekend. Inevitably. But the final was shockingly manageable!

Now, onto Course 2!