Trajan's Forum and Ostia Antica

I've had a busy week. Last week I had my Italian midterm (which was rather difficult), a trip to Trajan's forum, a trip to Ostia Antica, and shopping! 

Trajan's forum was on Thursday. I was actually pretty surprised by this field trip. I got to Piazza Venezia almost every day yet I had never realized there was a GIANT column and an ancient  forum just to the left of it. (just out of the picture). I guess I had always been distracted by the "wedding cake" (or so the Americans call the giant building in the middle of the piazza... I think it's a museum...). Anyway, this forum is not open to the public so we felt very special when our professor just waltzed in, talked to some people working on the excavation, and they let us in! We got to wander around while all the tourists watched us and wondered how they could get down there too. One couple actually tried to follow my class into the forum because they didn't realize it wasn't a tourist attraction. 

The forum itself was cool. It was actually 5  (I think) forums all connected. They go right up to the big, famous forum. We got to get up close to all the marble and ancient buildings. It was very interesting. I didn't realize that not all marble is smooth and shiny. It certainly looks like it should be smooth but it's really very sandpapery. 

The next day, I went to Ostia Antica. It is very similar to Pompei in the sense that it is a fairly well preserved ancient Roman city. However, it was almost better in my opinion because it was so green! There were trees everywhere and grass was growing inside some of the houses. It really felt like I was part of the excavation instead of just wandering through a deserted city. Also it probably helped that we had our own tour guide that pointed things out to us that I wouldn't have seen by myself. For instance, Ostia was flooded repeatedly since it was on the ocean, so Hadrian decided to essentially rebuild the city about a meter above the last city. In some places you can see the drop between the new city and the old. You can also see where the city hasn't been excavated yet. The fields beside Ostia are a couple meters above the ancient ground level and in a few places you can see columns sticking up from underground. 

My professor is an expert in marble so we spent a lot of our time talking about marble--where it came from, how it was cut, what the slabs will be used for, what they did if a crack appeared, etc. Honestly, I think sometimes he makes stuff up. How can he know that this piece of marble came from Greece and this piece came from Egypt? They are both grey and they look exactly alike. I'm sure he's right. It's just kind of ridiculous that he can see such small differences in marble. All in all it was a pretty successful day. I would enjoy another trip there. 

Yesterday, my roommates and I took a "study break" and went shopping. Ken recommended a store named OVS so we went to check it out. It was very cool. I actually went back today and bought a coat because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Haha. My plan yesterday was to buy a coat but I wanted to see all my options before I made a decision. It was very fun although it took much longer than I had planned. We have our midterms this week for the rest of our classes so I was planning on going back early to study but I didn't get back until dinner time. Oh well, it was worth it. 

This week, as I said, I have midterms... therefore I have been taking many study breaks. Besides shopping I also made cookies for my roommates. They turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Much better than my last batch. Anyway, despite my study breaks I HAVE been studying, Dad. Unfortunately I think my exams will be pretty difficult which is a shame since it counts for half of my grade... I've been studying all weekend so I'll just hope for the best. I've done all that I can do. I just need to make it until Thursday!! I'm going to Milan on Thursday night, Lleida, Spain for Friday through Sunday, Dublin until Thursday, and then back to Milan (and maybe Turino or Switzerland) until Sunday. It will be a good 10 days of traveling! 

Here are my pictures of Trajan's Forum and Ostia Antica