SPRING BREAK 2013 (Florence, Rome, Naples)
NAPLES:
They warned us about this place...
After a long week of early rises, late nights, and days packed with sight seeing we were exhausted. So we took the first day in Naples to relax and regain our strength. We ferried on hour off the coast of Naples to the Italian island of Capri. The beaches are not sandy but rather naturally composed of white stones. It is not the kind of beach one enjoys walking barefoot across but we had no problem laying down and sun bathing all day. We didn't even make it a mile away from the ferry dock before choosing our beach spot to chill for the afternoon. It was glorious.
The next day we woke up early once again and took the train to Pompeii...
Plaster mold of the vacancies found in the earth from where Vesuvius trapped many lives.
After walking through the massive sight for over four hours we had to leave before seeing everything and head off to Herculaneum, the other city that was extinguished from the Vesuvius explosion that very same day. Herculaneum is much much smaller but also better preserved because only the hot ash settled onto it, not the burning explosive rock and lava that struck down on Pompeii. These buildings still had sharp corners and roofs while at Pompeii the whole top layer of the city's building had been burned away.
Next came my favorite part of the day, hiking to the hop of Mount Vesuvius. When we reached the top I learned that this volcano had exploded relatively recently as well in the 1940s. Freaky stuff seeing as we could still see smoke rising out of the volcano's mouth.
Memorial to all who lost their lives at the hands of Vesuvius.
The next day we spent exploring around the actual city of Naples. The picture below pretty much sums up the city: graffiti, young people, and forgotten statues.
Siting on the edge of the Castel dell' Ovo
Looking down from the edge of the Castel dell' Ovo
Statue eyes freak me out.
Then we went to the oldest aquarium in the world! I thought it was going to be huge and magnificent but then we got there and the building was relatively small as were the tanks inside. This makes sense though seeing as it was the first aquarium in the world.
SPRING BREAK 2013 (Florence, Rome, Naples)
VATICAN CITY:
Smallest country in the world in which no one really lives.
I just read Angles & Demons which takes place in Rome and Vatican City. I loved knowing exactly what Dan Brown was talking about when Robert Langdon was running all around to different locations in the two cities. I read the totality of Angels & Demons 620 pages over the course of one long weekend (which is a huge feat for me seeing as finishing a book before a month passes is usually making good time). It is now one of my favorite books and I highly recommend it to everyone. It touches on issues of science, religion, mystery, murder, love, deception, and triumph. A fast read designed for the intellectual mind. So, if you have not already read it you should. And if you have not already been to Rome you must go. If you have neither read the book nor traveled to Rome, buy a copy of Angles & Demons and an international flight to Rome ASAP and read the book on the flight over killing two birds with one stone. Now I want to go back to Rome and travel between the four pillars of science mentioned by Dan Brown and follow the path of the Illuminati because all the buildings and sculptures mentioned are real.
Vatican City is one giant museum. Every inch of every surface is historical. They possessed thousands of famous works over the course of Christianity's existence especially during the crusades.
Some time ago one of the popes decided that having the naked sculptures of men within the wall of the Vatican was too provocative so he went around and chiseled off all of their loins. He replaced the empty space with marble fig leaves. Sculptures with these fig leaves are mostly only found within Vatican City.
My neck hurt after leaving the city because of the constant craning to see everything on the walls, ceilings, and floors. No surface was less adorned than the next. The hallway pictured below was my favorite.
You're not allowed to take photographs inside the Sistine Chapel so I took pictures of these postcards depicting the images within the Sistine Chapel instead. The Sistine Chapel is at the end of the tour through the Vatican which was well planed by the museum designer seeing as it is the most magnificent room an art lover will ever enter. I kept my thoughts focused on the insane details, the masterful depth of perception, the angelic color scheme, and deep meanings. I tried to find what Michelangelo intended observers to discover within his art. I tried to imagine the insane amount of effort and time that went into painting this massive chapel. The years of planning, the years of laying on his back. I kept reminding myself that his is where Michelangelo had once stood, this is where the most famous artist of human time exerted the majority of his artistic energy. And then I was overcome by that energy. I felt deeply moved to the point of tears. I couldn't look away from the beauty of it all. I fell in love.
SPRING BREAK 2013 (Florence, Rome, Naples) ROME: Romance in Antiquity
We woke up reallllly early the first day in Rome so that we would beat the crowds to the Colosseum and Roman Forum because we heard that the lines were ridiculous to these major tourist attractions. We showed up to the Colosseum at the same time as the sun. It was so early in fact that we had to wait a half hour for the entrance to open. I can't say I've ever been out of the house that early on my own will before. We watched the sun rise through the windows of the Colosseum, it was a movie moment, and then meandered our way into the building with the first 50 people of the day. It was lucky that we we able to take our photos without the huge crowds there so that you can actually see the Colosseum in the photos and not just a bunch of tour groups wearing matching ball caps.
Afterwards we ventured into the Roman Forum which is this huge complex of ruins right across the street from the Colosseum. There are only two entrances and two exits from this expansive and enclosed archaeology site. After wandering around for hours and hours we finally decided it was time to leave and snag some lunch but the only problem was we couldn't find our way out! We felt like caged animals. We kept thinking we found the path out but would then reach the end and find another blockade! I was a wild goose chase that significantly increased my sympathy for animals caged at the zoo. At least we finally were able to find our way out, the poor zoo animals are always hopelessly searching for the way out to no avail.
Gelato every day all day.
We saw sooo many things that first day in Rome I don't know how my little feetsies managed. One of the things that impressed me most was the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier pictured below. It was just so large and intricate and smack dab in the middle of the city. It put the USA WWII memorial to shame.
The Trevi Fountain is one of those things that stun you when you see it for the first time in real life no matter how many images of it you have seen before or how much imagining you have done about it before. Like everything in Rome, it was so much larger than I thought it would be. The water and statues were so much prettier than I thought they would be. And the crowd surrounding the fountain was so thick and loud it was a sobering moment that made me think "wow, we are really here in Rome, this is real life."
Still more sight seeing to be done we found our way to the Spanish steps. This Italian spring break gave me the opportunity to perfect my map reading skills. I never have an excuse to get lost again after finding my way through those twisty turny tiny changing old roman streets. I am kind of a control freak in these types of situations that involve time lines and the possibility of getting lost so I took most control over the directions.
It wouldn't have been authentic if there weren't Fiats everywhere.
SPRING BREAK 2013 (Florence, Rome, Naples)
FLORENCE:
Florence is a spectacularly beautiful Tuscan city.
We almost missed our connecting flight to Florence from Rome because our flight from Istanbul departed an hour late and we only had an hour layover but thankfully we picked up an extra hour due to time zone change so we made the connection with seconds to spare. We were running through the airport like lunatics pretending to be contestants on the Amazing Race. Turns out they had held the connecting flight just for us because we had made such a big hooplah back in Rome about missing our connection - sometimes making a fuss pays off (even if everyone on the flight gave us death glares as we walked on 30 minutes after they all had boarded).
Italian food is glorious. I don't understand why all food everywhere doesn't taste this good. If all the restaurants in an entire country can consistently produce food as delicious as we tasted everywhere in Italy, then why can't the rest of the world too? They should share their recipes at the next United Nations meeting.
Florence is situated on either side of the Arno River and is a port city. We never saw a drop of rain the whole perfectly temperate week.
Our hostel was a short walk from the Duomo in Florence which has the most beautiful exterior of any Church I've seen thus far.
Florence is known for it's ceramics and is adorned with beautiful painted ceramic works.
Many of the sculptures are breathtaking from afar but up close the animals faces are always so strange. There is a specific dog and dolphin with scary faces we kept seeing everywhere.
Florence has so many gardens I didn't know what to do with myself! The gardens are what make Florence my favorite part about my travels through Italy. Lush green trees with bold colored flowers and well groomed bush pathways made me feel like I was in Pride & Prejudice.
I kept trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a place as beautiful as Florence all the time... I imagine I would be broke.
I have a fascination with doors. My favorite things to observe when traveling are the different types of trees, doors, and antique shops. We stumbled upon this door walking back to our hostel one afternoon, turns out it is the main entrance to the Santa Maria Novella Church. I really wanted a picture in the doorway but there was a tourist guy already standing there talking on his cell phone and didn't seem to be moving anytime soon. So we did the photo shoot with him. I never know how to pose when I am solo in a picture so since he was on his phone, I pretended to be on one too. Upon further examination of the photograph you can notice that he is watching me as all of this happens.
Lets see... what else happened in Florence?
My friend Caroline got confronted by the Italian Police because she was laying on the ground when we were taking a break from walking. We found a lovely piazza where a street performer was playing the guitar so we sat down to watch and eat gelato and bask in the sun for a bit. Well Caroline got a little too comfortable and laid completely down on the ground... and as we found out it is against the law to sleep on the streets in Italy. Probably for the best.
Also, I bought a super wicked embroidered jacket from a vintage shop downtown from this loony old lady whose shop could have made an appearance on the show Hoarders. It still had the original tags on it and I got her to drop the price 10 Euro (which can be converted as 20 Lira - SCORE). When we got back to the hostel I looked up the brand, Roberto C, to see how much the jacket was really worth but all I could online was about Roberto Cavalli, the famous high fashion designer from Florence Italy. I knew my jacket wasn't a real Roberto Cavalli piece because the label didn't have his full name but I couldn't find out anything further until I read an article about a lawsuit between Roberto Cavalli and the brand Roberto C. Apparently the brand of my jacket is being sued by the real Roberto Cavalli for stealing their name. The results of the lawsuit have not been determined yet but it at least helped me find out that the jacket was designed and made right there in Florence, Italy!
Senior Year approaches and Class Registration time is happening now. I figured out all of my classes and preferred professors for both of my final two semesters as an undergraduate. Everything would be falling neatly into place if it weren't for the fact that my registration time slot happens to be when I am on spring break in Rome without a computer and without reliable internet. So I am scrambling to try to find a friend who can register for me or perhaps the UNCW registrars office to register for me. I leave for Italy on Friday April 5th so hopefully I will figure it out before then.
The rest of my undergraduate academic life consists of these classes: FALL 2013
PSY 355 - Experimental Psychology
PSY 405 - History and Systems of Psychology
COM 400 - Communication Studies Capstone
COM 305 - Communication Theory
PSY 490 - DIS (Independent Study = Lab Research Assistant)
SPRING 2014
PSY 464 - Psychology Capstone
PSY 352 - Health Psychology
COM 346 - Communication with the Deaf & Hearing Impaired II
PSY 490 - DIS (Independent Study = Lab Research Assistant)
ASL 101 or ASL 201 - American Sign Language
....Hopefully my brain doesn't explode before graduation.
April 1, 2013 ISS workers, students, and faculty protest mass layoff of ISS employees.
Basically, the house keeping staff of the university are employed through a sub-contractor but they have been exclusively working at Koc for 5 to 10 years. And now the contract is up with the sub-contractor meaning all of them will lose their jobs and have to relocate. There is a campaign for these workers to be hired directly through the university which would save their jobs but also cost the university more money.
(Google Chrome translated article written about the issue....)
Our trip started at 23:30 Thursday night with a 7 hour bus ride to our hotel in Ayvalik, a small town on the Turkish coast of the Aegean Sea. After eating Turkish breakfast (for the millionth time since starting my study abroad) we immediately headed into town to visit a local NGO that supports women's right to work...
Afterwards we had an hour or two of free time to wander around the town. We walked up and down the sidewalk/dock that borders the town watching the fishermen untangle their nets from the morning's catch.
Some of our friends recommended that we walk to the top of the hill to see the view. Getting to the top involves walking through the center of the residential area of town. The town is relatively poor and the residents are mostly low-income. This was the first time that we have been to an area of Turkey outside of Istanbul that wasn't extremely touristy. It was a very hot day so some of us were wearing shorts and some of us were wearing short sleeves or sleeveless shirts (If you don't know, this is very taboo for Turkish people) but it was really hot and we are Americans. [I'm really bad a packing so I forgot all my summer clothes since Istanbul was freezing the day we left so I was wearing pants and boots.] Walking up and down the water no one really bothered us unless they were trying to sell us something but when we started walking up through the center of town more and more people starting staring and hollering at us. We kept just trying to ignore them and keep our heads down but at one point there was a group of men sitting around outside and one of them stands up trying to get our attention, trying to get us to talk to him, and when we ignored him I guess he got offended and in order to save face in front of his manly guy friends he starts yelling at us as we walk away, "i know you, i know your country, i hate you, i hate your country" all the while including curse words and all the while his friends laughing in the background. My friend Angela was starting to feel very uncomfortable and anxious so we turned the corner and walked back to the main part of town without getting to see the view from the top. Another girl wearing shorts later told us that this really old Turkish woman came up to her and said "Ayip" which means "shameful" in Turkish. Since we were in Asia and in a smaller poorer town the area was a lot more conservative and religious than Istanbul. We had been warned about this sort of thing before coming to Turkey but have yet to experience it. You live and you learn. We just brushed it off our shoulder and decided to stick closer to the tourist areas when we were wearing such attire.
However, we met some really nice people in the town too! Before we ran into that rude group of men we ran into a super cute pair of ladies and their young daughter. We were taking pictures and they asked us to take their picture so they started posing and modeling in the street, it was adorable. We tried to have a conversation but we were all so tired from the bus ride that we could hardly remember any Turkish and they obviously knew zero English. We found out that one of the women was sick with cancer but couldn't afford the medical treatments she needed. They weren't asking for money, just trying to have a little fun out on the town. They wanted to get our address so we could send them the pictures we took. We tried to get their e-mail address but that didn't work; I assume if they don't own their own camera they don't own their own computer either. So they walked behind us up the street for a while and when those rude men started yelling at us they starting yelling back at them defending us. we hardly saw ANY women out on the street other than those two sweet ladies and their daughter. It was just all men which felt very strange. In this type of town the women get married, stay at home, don't work, take care of their husband, and apparently hardly leave the house. Which is why the NGO we visited is so important, it empowers women to work for their own money and get out of the house.
After lunch we bused to Pergamon to visit the ancient city of Acropolis which was beautifully adorned with millions of wildflowers. It was, for lack of a better word, EPIC. I could hardly decide which was more amazing, the wildflowers or the ruins... We got to climb all over the ruins (which was not the best decision on their part seeing as I'm so clumsy and accidentally destructive)...
I'm the one on top :)
Exhausted we head back to the hotel in Ayvalik which is an hour's drive away. The rest of the day was ours to use freely so we all snagged our swim suits and ran to the beach right down the road from our hotel. It was still March and all of the Turks kept saying it was too cold to swim yet but the weather outside was hot so we didn't really care how cold the water was going to be. But oh boy was it cold. But so worth it to SWIM IN THE AEGEAN SEA! It was amazing and so much fun! In order to stay warm I was splashing around and swimming circles pretending to be a shark. Yeah. Some of the other CIEE kids were too scared of the cold to go swimming so we were pretending to sing the song of Sirens from Homer to beckon them into the water: it worked. I got stung by a jellyfish but I'm pretty sure it was dead because of how cold the water was so the sting was not bad at all.
We went back to the hotel for a quick change and food and then straight back to the beach to play games and hang out. We found wooden tanning chairs laying around and set them up in a circle near the water. After a while one of the wild dogs came to hang out with us. And after getting fed a little and petted a lot he decided to work as our watch dog. Every time another animal or would come close he barked them away. It was the sweetest thing! He even made multiple trips to follow each group of people as they walked back to the hotel to protect them along the road.
The next day we checked out of the hotel and drove to an Olive Oil Museum since Turkey is famous for their olives. We all bought some olive oil, olive oil soap, olive oil lotion, etc. They say the Greeks were choosing between Poseidon and Athena to name their capital city after. Poseidon brought humanity horses and Athena brought humanity the Olive tree, Athena won.
We then stopped by a village in the historically rich Assos, also known as Behramkale. And then off to TROY! People who have been to Troy before warned me that it was underwhelming so I was mentally prepared to be underwhelmed except for I was getting really excited to climb into the mock Trojan Horse and take really cheesy tourist pictures. The coolest thing to see at troy was this pile of puppies we found!! Precious. They were so tiny it looked as if they had just opened their eyes yesterday. The second coolest thing and most terrifying part of Troy was the mud brick house that bees had turned into one giant bee hive. I walked through that section so quick that I forgot to take a picture of all the bees and holes they dug into the mud brick. The entrance way of the site was being renovated and was under construction; the entrance way which includes the Trojan Horse was under construction.The Trojan Horse was covered with scaffolding and black fabric, I was beyond disappointed.
Pile of Puppies!
Super sarcastically excited about seeing what should be the mock Trojan Horse
CIEE group photo on the Theater seats at Troy
At the end of the trip so much drama had developed with the tour guide we hired. He was treating us like pre-schoolers and kept lying about his credentials and facts about the sites. We were a group full of university educated Americans some of which who are studying archaeology, like come on dude we aren't going to let these things slide. He just talked so slowly and was so boring, I would have been very interested in learning about all the sites had I been learning it from anyone other than him. So when we was doing his little talks I would go find my friend Tasha and ask her the real story about the sites instead. Tasha is a non-traditional student meaning she is a lot older than the rest of us but still one of my favorite people because she is hilarious and has a "I don't give a s***" attitude. She is studying Archaeology and Art History and is just incredibly smart in general. When the tour guide misinformed the group she politely started a discussion with him about controversy over the discovery of the site of Troy and the archaeologist who discovered it, Heinrich Schliemann, and for the rest of the time the tour guide was extremely unprofessional and passive aggressively attacking Tasha.
If you're interested, here is a documentary made by The History Channel that analyzes the Troy controversy. Jump to minute 20:00 to hear specifically about the Heinrich Schliemann controversy. Or jump to minute 28:20 for a brief one minute summary.
