Tivoli (the City outside Rome not the Apartment Complex in Gainesville or Orlando)

My family and I decided to go to the local commune of Rome called Tivoli. Tivoli (the namesake of a popular apartment complex in Gainesville and Orlando) is a small city about 20 km outside of Rome known for its Villas. We visited the Villa D'Este which is known for its multitude of fountains. The fountain in which my whole family is standing in front of is called the Fountain of Neptune (constructed by Bernini in 1661). My other favorite was this set of fountains called the Hundred Fountains which is a long line of fountains that connects two larger fountains on the end.


My dad and I had a field day with all the naked people fountains. Italians like their naked sculptures. Unfortunately, I realized when we got to Tivoli I forgot my memory card for my digital SLR so our pictures were limited to a digital point and shoot camera (which I can't stand anymore).



One highlight of the trip is how we discovered how much guide books like Frommer's suck. In Frommer's it told us to go to one metro station to catch the bus to Tivoli, but in fact the metro station that you have to stop at is the one before the one Frommer's said (luckily I knew that beforehand!). Frommer's also doesn't tell you where to stop once you are on the bus to Tivoli cause if you stay on the bus till it stops it goes about 2 km too far. Frommer's is now on my crap list, just like Mapquest.

We also experienced how confusing Roman public transport could be. For example, when the bus for us to go home to Rome was full we took the next bus that also said to Rome but by a different route. That route somehow goes one direction first and then turns around and backtracks the same direction (huh?). So there was one point where we saw a sign that said Poli one direction and Roma the other. The bus went in the direction of Poli. I've ended up on the wrong side of Rome once already so I didn't want that to happen again. My sister said I looked like I crapped in my pants. Anyhow, we somehow passed the same sign for Poli/Roma and this time went in the direction of Roma. Wheew.

Messa Della Notte al Vaticano

Since we were in Italy, we decided to attend the Christmas Midnight Mass given by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Basilica. In order to go, I had to reserve tickets for entrance for my family at the Pontifical North American College (the American Catholic Seminary in Rome) about a month ago. The tickets didn't guarantee admittance but you had to have them to get in. We got in line at St. Peter's Square at about 6:30 p.m. The line quickly filled. In essence, I told my parents that this was nothing compared to the nights waiting in line at the O'dome for Gator Basketball. One nice thing was that a few study abroad students were right in front of me in line and they came prepared. So they shared a glass of Chianti with me! At about 10:15 p.m. officials let people into the Basilica. It was mayhem. Right when the gates opened, people started running and some people even tried to run ahead of other people in line. I thought to myself, this is the worst place to skip and be dishonest :). After getting through security, my family and I sat down in our seats and waited about another hour until the ceremony began. It was a beautiful ceremony that was given primarily in Latin and Italian. Instead of translating everything, each part of the mass was given in different languages, even Tagalog! Given that, my family and I (and I'm sure the masses of tourists) did not understand the majority of the service. My mom actually fell asleep during part of the Pope's homily. The event was covered by CNN and I later found out that the homily focused on loving all children around the world (which would explain why the Pope said bambini a lot and why there were kids in native garb giving the gifts to the pope). The service lasted about 2 hours and we didn't get home until 4 a.m.

Getting Medieval on Your Assisi

This post is backwards because my family, Eugenio, and I actually went to the Medieval city of Assisi before we went to Madrid. Anyhow, we all took a day trip to this beautiful city which is most known for being the home of St. Francis, one of the patron saints of Italy. Many of you may have heard of St. Francis through St. Francis House Soup Kitchens in the States. Assisi is a beautiful city which has architecture which is very different from that of Rome. There are at least 5 different churches, the two main ones being Santa Clara (other patron saint of Italy) and St. Francesco. Everywhere in the city, you see many of the characteristic signs of St. Francis, the dove and the Tau symbol. Both come to represent the love and peace which Christianity stands for. I bought a wood Tau cross, which also comes to resemble the typical Christian cross, with my name inscribed into it. The church of St. Francis also had probably the coolest nativity scene I had ever seen. For Christmas, the figures in the scene (shown below) are replaced by real people. Here are a few more pictures below:

Trip to Madrid

So I wish I had something more interesting to put on this post, but unfortunately the day before my family and I left for Madrid I ate something in Italy that gave me food poisoning (main reason I haven't been posting). So the picture displays how I spent the majority of my family's 4 day trip to Madrid. Anyways, my family did end up having a good time walking through the city and seeing the sights. I did manage to walk around and take a bus tour for one of the days. That day we went through the Royal Palace which had like over 2800 rooms. Usually, eating is one of the highlights of my trips abroad but I hardly ate anything the whole trip and what I did eat was nothing new to most of you, Burger King. When I wasn't sleeping, I did manage to catch up on news (CNN, which I don't have in Italy) and also got to watch the live announcement of the FIFA World Player of the Year Award go to my boy, Italian Captain Fabio Cannavaro.

Family in Rome

I picked up my family succesfully this morning at the airport, despite the massive public transport strike today. I met my parents by taking an early train not affected by the strike and then after he got home from work, my roommate Eugenio drove out to pick us up about an hour after I met my parents. One thing I noticed at the airport was a guy coming out of the international terminal with a Miami Hurricanes sweatshirt. I was so tempted to yell the now ever popular "Go Gators" at him, but I figured he suffered enough being a Hurricane fan this year. I figured I wouldn't ruin the beginning of his vacation. Anyways, my family arrived safely and once they got home we did an early Christmas celebration. They brought many gifts, some which were simply some food from home (skittles, doritos, etc.) and some winter clothes (remember I am from Florida).

After my family slept a bit I cooked them my favorite Roman dish (Spaghetti Carbonara) and gave them the express one afternoon tour of Rome. This quick tour involved the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, the famous Sant Estacios Coffee Place, Piazza Navona, the "Wedding Cake" Monument, and the Colosseum. It also involved eating Ciambella (huge freakin doughnuts in picture below...yeah they are the bombe!), cafe, pizza, and gelato. Off to Assisi tomorrow.

Going to Berlin?

One of my favorite things about doing this whole Ph.D thing is that I get to travel for my work whether it be visiting laboratories, conferences, or simply for PR work (ha). So far my work has taken me to Cocoa Beach (where I've been caught roaming the conference hotel with my surfboard in my wetsuit instead of a suit and tie), Los Angeles, Baltimore, Indy, Cincy, Nashville, Pittsburg, and now Rome. Since I'm in Rome I figure I'd try to take advantage of traveling for work here, too. So I submitted an abstract to make a presentation at the European Ceramics Society Conference in Berlin next June. I've been to Germany plenty of times but never to Berlin. So what better way to get to go than for a conference? I'm hoping the abstract gets accepted and if it really matters to you, I'm really excited about the work I want to present. I know it's been 3 months since I've been here but I figured it was time to actually post something work/school related.

Christmas Visitors!!!

Two days ago my friend Corrado at the lab told me that I looked really happy and he wondered why. I was like, "My family is coming to visit this week!" I'm so happy to have my family coming because the last few weeks have been a bit rough on the friend tip. All the Agape Italia Stint Students had to go back to the States to work out Visa stuff (keep them in your prayers). I lost 8 really good friends from the Rome Stint Team for hopefully only a month and lost some additional "same time zone" buddies from the other team in Salerno. Also December is the time when many of the study abroad students leave since they are done with their semesters. On top of that, I've been a bit discouraged about how little many people try to keep in touch with me (I guess many people were right that in times like this you realize who your true friends are). Anyways I'm glad that my family is coming for Christmas and that Dominic and Amanda are coming right after them to spend New Year's here in Rome. Here's where I'll be visiting during this Christmas Break:

• Assisi, Italy
• Naples, Italy
• Madrid, Spain
• Interlakin, Switzerland.

If I don't happen to be able to catch you from now until Christmas, Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuevo!

Natale in Roma

Christmas is definitely in the air in Rome. Christmas stuff was up around the city before Thanksgiving. I guess since they don't have Thanksgiving, there really isn't a day which sets the date in which Christmas stuff can start going up. It seems like every piazza around the city has some type of Christmas market/fair going on. For example, in Piazza Navona there is a market full of shops, game booths, and even a carousel! Instead of coming home for Christmas, my family insisted on coming here to visit me for Christmas so that they could experience an Italian Christmas. I'm glad I get to share with them so far what I have loved about the Christmas season here. Walking around the city at night is always a fun thing, but add all the Christmas stuff and it makes it even 100 times as cool. They even setup a huge Christmas tree out by the Colosseum. Here are a few of my favorite pictures!:

Gators in the BCS National Championship Game & Eric in Rome

I would first like to thank my family, my girlfriend Liz, Abby Theater in Rome, and the guys from the Rome Stint Team for keeping me in touch with my Gators. My family and Liz have made the great efforts of pointing the iChat video camera to their tv's to let me watch parts of the game. Abby Theater is an Irish Pub at Piazza Novona that televises American College Football (that's where I watched the UF-FSU game). The Rome Stint team have a sling box which transmits their cable from Ohio to the internet, and that's where I watched the USC-UCLA game and then the UF-Arkansas game.

Anyhow, I'm writing this to inform everyone before they ask, no I don't wish I was in Gainesville at this time. When people start asking me about that, it makes me start actually wanting to be back there. But actually, I'm perfectly content about being here in Rome during all of it. One is because I was around all the hoopla during the Basketball Championship and Two I love getting to share the Gator Nation with Rome. There are bunch of Gators here in Rome and I love getting to share it with people who don't know the greatness of being a Gator. They just know I'm crazy for my Gators! So trust me...come January 8 (technically January 9), I'll be going crazy for UF and combating the crazy amount of Ohio State fans in Rome. So Go Gators!