Howitzer

I've managed to hunt all the fruit flies near my trashcan...except for one. It's dead hot now, and plus because my roommate left, the trashcan gets emptied less often. All this led to a mini invasion of 5 fruit flies. I counted. My buddy Dan once told me that if I saw fruit flies, I should get rid of them immediately. Otherwise they'll lay eggs and multiply. Hence, I hunted those 5 fruit flies. The last one remains elusive though, but I'll get him eventually.

So it turns out that I won't be able to find out if I'm going back to MIT by at least the 10th. Well then. I guess I'll just hang around until then, maybe look into some housing options. I wish I could just find out what it is that I'm headed for.

I'm about to call school to talk about whether I can return for this fall or not. I don't feel very resolute in going back, and I'm equally unsure whether they'd even let me just yet. At times, when I think about school, all I have in my mind is the loneliness and unending work. It begins to feel like an impending crush on my soul. I try to stay positive, but I really question whether graduate school is the right decision for me or not. I guess I just don't know what else I'd do if I didn't go to school.

..and it's never felt better. Europe was fun, but America is home. Coming next: Recaps for each city I visited.

....of a hole inside my heart. I guess everyone gets this from time to time? It would be sad if I was the only one anyway. Is life ever complete for anyone though? It probably isn't, because then they'd just stop doing everything. Maybe my dreams will reveal to me what I'm feeling.

-Howitzer

So I’m finally in Rome. The destination I was so excited about in the beginning is no longer so exciting now that I’m actually here. I think I’m a bit tired of being a tourist, and overwhelmed by all of the art I’ve seen on this trip. I’ve now seen art in Madrid, Paris (lots), Amsterdam, Florence (lots). Oh well. I’ll make the most of the last leg of my journey, because I know I’ll regret it later.

Rome is a pretty nice place. Compared to Florence, Rome is definitely more urban, more touristy. The entire city center is filled with ancient or religious buildings of historical value. In fact, there are over 900 churches in the city. I find myself spotting a church every five minutes. In America, you would call that being surrounded by rednecks. In Rome, it’s called being pious. I like the people in Rome however. They are very welcoming and good-hearted.

The food continues to be similar to Florence. The pasta plates are smaller and more expensive that I imagined, although at least I feel full after each meal. I think I’ve reached a point where I’m going to stop ordering secondo plates of meat. It’s all just grilled or roasted beef, pork, and veal anyways. I think I’ll focus the rest of my trip on trying different pastas. I really do like the pastas in Italy. My friend once described them as more than just a means to bring sauce to your mouth. I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description. Eating the pasta is more tasty than eating the sauce. There are so many different shapes of pasta, and each shape brings a different texture to your mouth.

Rome is filled with so many churches that I was originally really excited to visit it. I’m less enthusiastic now, but I did visit a church, Santa Croce in Jerusalem, which had numerous important holy relics. The most famous among them was the Title of the Cross, a wooden board which described Jesus’ crimes and who he was. Also present were two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, which Christ wore, a piece of the Holy Cross, a piece of Jesus’ Crib, the finger of St. Thomas, and one of the three nails used to crucify Christ. I wasn’t allowed to get as close as I wanted to inspect the relics, so I had to settle for squinting at them from afar.


I found it really curious as to why holy relics are so revered. I can understand the appeal of gazing at a holy relic in wonder, and using it to help you imagine all the legends that occurred. It seems however, that the Church is very protective of its relics, to the point of refusing identification and testing of the relics. I find it really hard to believe that so many relics have been preserved from 2000 years ago, especially pieces like the Holy Cross, or the Crown of Thorns. I am especially incredulous at the idea of discovering the Holy Cross buried in the middle of the desert, during a crusade. I think legend has it that someone received a vision from God, and then discovered it. So either God must be real….or the Holy Cross is fake. But perhaps the real value of the holy relics is to help you reflect on biblical events. I don’t know.

Rome also has many monuments built by the ancient Romans. Yesterday I saw the walls of Rome. Quite impressive that they were still standing and sturdy-looking after all these years, and all the sackings that Rome experienced. Some of the marble monuments show heavy signs of corrosion though. It’s sad to see the columns and buildings with large, dark pit marks, where the acid rain has eaten away at the soft marble. It makes me realize the transience of all the other pieces of art, culture, and history I’ve seen. Eventually everything I witnessed this trip will be devoured by time.

I'm working on the entry. For now, enjoy these pictures from Florence! In order of appearance, food, Gates of Paradise, Santa Croce, Campanile from Duomo dome, my orange shoes, and Duomo. Enjoy!

So yesterday, I walked all around Florence, and saw 3 different churches. Florence was the source of half the Renaissance, and I could clearly feel it from the things I saw around the city. Dinner turned out to be amazing, making up for the mediocre first two meals that I had in Florence. I was almost ready to write off Florentine cuisine. Dinner description and pictures are at the end. Now, on to the art!


Our first stop was the Church of Santa Maria Novella, just a few minutes walk from our hotel. It was bright and balmy out, even at 10am. Even though the high’s for the day was supposed to be around 90, I wore a black collared shirt and my jeans. I’ve been getting this habit of dressing up whenever I visit churches. It feels more proper. What I noticed first about the Italians: a lot of them wore sun glasses. Which was cool, since I brought mine too. Aviator glasses seem to be really popular here.

When we arrived at the church, I was pretty impressed. The Church of Santa Maria Novella was constructed between the 13th and 15th centuries, and is the only church in Florence to have it’s original façade in place. An arrangement of white, green, and rose colored marble covered the front. Three open aired frescoes filled up three arches. I wasn’t sure if these were original frescoes as well. The outside of this church was very neat looking. It looked more like a cheerful palace, compared to the rather brooding churches of Paris.


I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside, which is a shame because I think it had the most beautiful interior out of all the churches I’ve seen this trip. Many of the walls were replete with paintings and frescoes. Among the famous works there were both Giotto and Brunelleschi’s Crucifix. It was interesting to see the different styles. Giotto’s painted crucifix was decidedly Medieval, with less emphasis on accurate physical description of Christ’s body. Brunelleschi on the other hand, gave Christ strongly defined muscles, and really made his agony seem real. The western transept was also cool. It had a gold altarpiece, with pictures depicting Christ, Madonna, and other people. Dante’s Inferno was painted on two opposing walls, with Paradise depicted on one, and Purgatory/Hell on the other. I noticed on the altar piece that Christ was handing keys to St. Peter, and a book to St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas is actually present in many places in the church. My favorite part of the church is the chapel to the right of the main altar. Chapel of Fillipo Strozi. Most of the works in there were done by Fra Filipo Lippi. His paintings on the wall attempted to trick the eye into thinking they were actual carvings in the stone. He painted columns and reliefs into the chapel wall, making careful use of shadowing to achieve his intended result.

One last thing to mention about Santa Maria: Masaccio’s Trinity fresco is there, and is the earliest known piece to show the use of linear perspective.

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, or Il Duomo, was our next stop. If the Santa Maria Novella was impressive, the Duomo was absolutely breathtaking. The marbling patterns were much more intricate, with heavier usage of the green and rose marbles. In addition, there were more carving in the façade of the church. I just stared at the massiveness of the marble designs. Notre Dame in Paris has nothing on the Duomo.




We climbed up the dome for which the Duomo is so famous for. The church was built starting at the end of the 13th century, but the dome was constructed in the 15th century by Brunelleschi. It was an ambitious engineering feat for the time, having been constructed without scaffolding, and being so huge. The climb to the top was hot and made me sweaty; I had to take off my shirt halfway up. It was all worth it though. The view from the top was gorgeous. We could see the neighboring Giotto’s tower(Campanile) there, as well as the rest of the city. There were red roofs ranging far, surrounded by picturesque Tuscany hills. We sat and enjoyed the view for sometime.


In front of the Duomo was the Baptistery of St. John. We did not visit the interior that day, but we saw the famous gates outside. The short backstory: In 1401, Ghiberti famously won a design competition for the gates, beating out fellow famed sculptor Brunelleschi. So successful were his north gates, he was invited to create the east gates. Michelangelo was so impressed with he east gates, that they would go on to be named the “Gates of Paradise”. The Gates of Paradise were indeed masterpieces. I saw that they were full of detail, and very lifelike. Ghiberti was able to give a sense of depth in his scenes by sculpting with higher detail the closer and more important figures. He raised those figures out of the door, while keeping the unimportant servants flat against the gate. These gates are probably one of the most impressive art pieces that I’ve seen. I think Ghiberti spent 27 years on these gates.


The last stop for the day was the Church of Santa Croce. Its known for having the tombs of many famous Florentines, including Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli. I was pretty tired and hot by this point, so I’ll skip the description. I did really like all of the inlaid patterns on the marble floor. I’ll leave you with a picture of the marble inlays on the floor of the church, along with a picture of my bright orange shoes.



Dinner for the day was at a place we saw walking around once. It had lots of review stickers on the restaurant’s window, which gave us high hopes. The food turned out to be delicious, and relatively inexpensive. I had a egg noodles with proscuitto and creamy sauce for my primi plate, and then grilled lamb with rosemary for a secondi plate.

The best part about Italy is the wine. I love the red wines that we have here, particularly the chianti wines. I feel like my wine experience in Europe started with sweet, light, and fruity wines in Spain. I progressed from white wines to drier red wines in Paris, eventually to the really dry chianti wines in Italy. It’s as if we started slow, and eased our way into stronger stuff.


-Howitzer