Engineering in Rome

First I would like to say Happy Birthday to Mike Zimmerman! The past two days have been amazing! It has rained a little both days, but also been a little sunny. Yesterday we went to the Diocletian baths, an Ancient Roman Shopping Mall, Trajan’s column, a cat sanctuary, and where the theater was where Julius Caesar was assassinated. Trajan’s column is exactly the same height as the spur of the Quirinal Hill, which was excavated to make room from Trajan’s Forum.

In the morning some of us went to church at St. Peter’s Church in the Vatican. We can see the Vatican wall from our hotel. There were many interesting things about mass that was different then what we were used to. For one thing the mass was in Latin and Italian. There were still some things that were similar so we could follow along a little bit at least. At first when we got there, there were barely any people there and then half way through the mass a bunch of people showed up and filled in the seats. When it came time to receive communion instead of everyone filing out row by row it was a free for all. Everyone stood up at the same time and crowded toward the front. This was very interesting to me.

The soccer game was very fun. We cheered for the Roma team, and most of the people that went bought some Roma attire. Unfortunately FrancescoTotti was injured so he could not play, or at least we think he is injured. The guy at our hotel desk told us that Totti was sick, so we assumed he meant injured. You might know one of the guys who plays for the A.C Milan team, David Beckham, we also got to see him play. The fans were all very intense and it was interesting to see how they reacted. The game ended in a tie 2 to 2.

Today we took a tour of the tombs underneath St. Peter’s church. We got to see St. Peter’s tomb as well, which has 6 layers of tribute to him on top of it. We were not able to take pictures underground, but below you can see a picture of the Altar and canopy above ground. This canopy is called Baldacchino and is supported by spiral columns that are 66 feet high. Another interesting thing about the tombs is that there were familial tombs that had the members of the family with different faiths. One member of the family could be Pagan and have their bodies cremated and another one could be Christian and have a tomb. They believed at this time that people should be with their families in the after life so they should be buried with them to make sure of that. When you walk downstairs underground you would think that it would get colder, however, this was not the case. It was very uncomfortably hot and many people started to get dizzy. We all made it out okay though. :)

We went to the Sistine Chapel after that and the Vatican Museum. The Sistine Chapel was unbelievable; if you ever get a chance to look at it I highly suggest it. You cannot take pictures in the Sistine Chapel so I cannot show you how beautiful it is. Below is a picture of a really neat looking staircase that you walk down to exit the museum.

After we left the Sistine Chapel we went to go visit the mayor of Rome. We got into the elevator to wait for the mayor upstairs, and someone came and told us we needed to leave the elevator right away. After this we saw why, it was because the mayor was going to use the elevator. We ended up meeting with the deputy mayor, who was a really nice guy. It felt as though we were very important people because he sat in this meeting room with us and then a photographer came in and started taking our pictures. It was an awesome experience and when we left he gave all of us a bag full of books about Rome and other goodies.

Off to see the Mayor of Roma

For dinner we went to a restaurant owned by a former rugby player called Osteria Dell Angello. The most interesting part of our meal was the second course. We had a few different choices of what we could eat, including: rabbit, ox tail, and trippas. Trippas is cow intestine for those of you who don’t know. It was good once you stop thinking about what it is and the texture was a little different than what we are used to eating I think. Some of us also got T-shirts at the restaurant, below you can see us with the waiter.

Trippas New T-shirts from the resaurant

The phrase of the day means do you speak English? Parla inglese? (pronounced pahrlah eenglehzeh.)