Leaning tower

Many times throughout this trip I have been overwhelmed by the sights we've seen. But the first time I saw the leaning tower of Pisa was the first time I actually didn't believe my eyes. Other sights were, in my opinion, more beautiful and majestic. But when I saw the tower I had a hard time accepting that any structure, especially one so large and so ancient could lean so hard and not fall. It was also really cool to learn how different engineers went about trying to fix the tower.

Observatory

The observatory was amazing!  I learned a lot of very cool facts about the earth and space that I never knew before. The 3-D demonstration of the Big Bang was very cool and entertaining. I wish we would have had more time so I could have checked out some of the interactive parts, like driving a land Rover on the moon, but it was still a great experience.

PACCE Project

The PACCE Projet was a lot of fun and I felt very good about what I was doing. We got to help make Rome a better place by taking off stickers put up by the Mafia and we took off tags put up by random kids. In the end, we helped make Ottavianno a better place and at the same time, I had a chance to meet some of the locals and got to hear their opinions about all of the vandalism in Rome. It was a great thing to be a part of.

Retake Roma

Right off the bat, I could tell Rebecca was not a normal Italian. Her clear Midwest accent was the first giveaway, the second was her attitude towards cleaning up the city. I thought it was awesome to see how she was trying to merge our two cultures through taking an initiative to make the city of Rome a cleaner place. Participating in retake roma and talking with Rebecca and the other Italians really helped me see contrasts and similarities between our cultures.

project

On sunday our group participated in a program known as Retake Roma. Within this project we cleaned off graffiti,  painted the subway, swept the sidewalks, and removed a lot of stickers from street signs. I found this to be a very interesting type of community service because even in a lot of major cities in the US you do not see it this bad. Moreover, the reactions we got from the pedestrians stuck me as strange. It was like they never saw anyone doing community service before which is so strange from an outside perspective because it is very much a part of our culture. Finally, after thinking about it, I do not know how much I support this program. I agree that it is a great thing to clean the sidewalks, but the tags have been a part of Roman culture for a long time now. Instead some American came over and decided she didn't like what she saw so she was going to fight it. This not only makes some locals angry but it also fuels the stereotype of Americans having a need to have it their way.

PACCE Project

I found the PACCE project very rewarding. During the project, I scraped tags (stickers) off of buildings and signs. Then I helped paint over graffiti down in the metro station. This was particularly hectic because there was a lot of foot traffic during certain times, and it was hard not to accidentally paint someone with my paint brush or drip paint! Then I helped wipe graffiti off of the metro stair wells. This was really difficult because Rebecca wasn't the most organized and prepared and I had to use puddle water in order to complete my job. The donuts and beverages afterwards made it for me! Plus, I also liked seeing some local Romans' positive reactions to our community involvement. Hopefully this is a program that can keep going!

Medical Museum

The museum on medicine was a place where I found a lot of interesting connections to our readings. One plaque in the museum talked about how the discovery of better navigation of the seas impacted the medical world. Travel amongst new regions spread diseases, and the plaque mentioned syphilis in particular. Another plaque discussed how Gutenburg's printing press had impacted the spread of medical news and findings. I found these connections between sites and our readings pretty neat!

Observatory 

Ahhhh the observatory... Even though the visit didn't go as planned, I still found the subject material to be mildly interesting. I'm not a huge history fan, but I found the old telescopes very intriguing. It was also very impressive when that one guy (I forgot his name) found the circumstance of the earth by using such a simple instrument. I complain about doing "pre made" math problems when these guys had to teach themselves the math methods and techniques to fulfill the goal of the problem statement. I still fully believe that the people who created geometry are wizards. Although the history observatory was gorgeous and filled with old gadgets, I much preferred the scientific building for the kids. There were so many buttons. I could have spent forever in that building. My favorite part about that building was the light up planets. It was so interesting to see technology and information that was so outdated as well. 2006 was a long time ago. I'm not saying that all of their information is wrong, I'm just saying that a lot has changed in the past 9 years. Even though I didn't get to make a spectrometer, I still enjoyed the visit and I appreciated the guide for showing us around the buildings. 

PACE PROJECT

Throughout the PACE project I followed the orders of Rebecca and executed a long list of grueling tasks. I'm totally joking. Cleaning up the metro area wasn't terrible at all. Oddly, I found it fun and rewarding. I scraped off stickers from the mafia then swept the ground until I got annoyed. I cleaned and painted metro poles. I even scrubbed graffiti off of walls and stair railings. It was so nice that the locals were so approving of our services. I thought that they would be super grumpy because we were blocking their metro entrances and exits. Having old people say "bravo" is heart warming and thrilling. I'm sort of sad that we didn't get to talk to more Italian people. I was looking forward to meeting other Italian girls that were my age. It would have been fun to chat with them and compare college majors and life stories. I think that the coolest part about the PACE project was that we noticed our hard work when we revisited the site. It was really cool to visit that specific metro stop and say "hey, I painted this". Rebecca was very motivated and her story was inspirational. I'm still impressed at her energy levels throughout the day. She was never grumpy or in despair. That really helped me from getting super mopey from fatigue and dehydration. Overall, it was a fantastic experience. 

Retake Roma

This project was definitely an experience I will remember for the rest of my life. It was so awesome to get to work with members of the community and learn about the impact that Retake Roma is having in Rome; this movement is doing wonderful things to keep the city of Rome a clean and peaceful place for many to live. It was astounding to look at the difference we had made in a little over three hours of working around and in the metro stops; it was great having all sorts of people express genuine gratitude for the work we were doing in cleaning up just a small part of Rome. Really after cleaning up all the stickers, cigarette and cigar stubs, and wrappers etc., I realized that Rome really needed to be cleaned up more than what I had originally believed. There is so much graffiti and useless stickers all over the place, and it's mind-boggling the amount of junk that is placed anywhere. Many lessons were learned through this project such as the willingness to recognize a problem and take action to fix it.

This is my lab....and this...is my LABORATORY(Observatory)

The observatory was really a lot of fun. Although I was super sad about not being able to make use of the spectrometers, there was plenty of good things that I found to be interesting. The tour guide was enjoyable to listen to, and I really liked the fact that he was learning some of our names. My absolute favorite part of the tour was getting to the science portion just because there were so many fun toys to play with!

The museum of the history of medicine in Rome

Rome has many beautiful sites to visit and to explore. I enjoyed every site that we have visited. We went to the museum of medicine in Rome which was very interesting. They had many historical artifacts in the museum which we could touch and observe closely. Also, they have replicated many of the other medical instruments and devices which was very cool. We were able to see the skeleton of a boy who had a surgery on his brain, because there was a hole drilled through his skull. The surgery actually was so precise and successful because the boy survived the operation. The techniques and tools used by these doctors is amazing! I have entirely enjoyed this tour!

Retake Roma

We were involved with the organization which worked on cleaning out the streets in the city of Rome. We met Rebecca, who originally was from the USA and now lives in Italy. She started out cleaning the walls in her neighborhood from graffiti, and then found more people who also wanted to live in a clean city. The organization grew around the city, and today there are several cleanups per week. During our involvement we removed the ads from poles and walls, washed out the graffiti, painted poles, and cleaned the metro stairs. Rebecca was a passionate woman, who truly believed in what she was doing. I liked the day spent with a purpose and learned more of an Italian culture.

I enjoyed the history of medicine museum and that it was not a typical tourist museum to visit. I loved the basement that was kept or made to look like typical medicine shops, workshops, and such from the past. I especially enjoyed being able to touch the clay feet  from 200 AD and how much more lax their rules were at academic museums in Italy versus any museums in the US. It was helpful to see the chronological order of how medicine developed and the child that had his brain operated on and survived for several weeks was extremely interesting to show the skill of surgeons thousands of years ago.

Visiting the History of Medicine museum in Rome was very interesting because we were able to touch and interact with the museum objects. So often museums are for looking only, it was a change of pace to be able to touch objects from the 2nd century.

pacce

I enjoyed helping the retake Roma group clean up and seeing the difference we made in just a few hours. I was surprised to hear it was the first time the city had worked with the group and how much of a struggle it was at the beginning of the day with various miscommunications. I was also surprised at how many people, both tourists and Italians, thanked us, or asked us what we were doing, ( I think, from my broken Italian skills) but also the few that saw what we were doing and littered anyways. I was able to understand the Italian mindset more, but still not why they are fine with living in a filthy and graffittied city, or how they don't even realize what Roma could be.

The leaning tower of pisa was amazing! I never knew that the builders tried to make sone levels of the tower levels to attemptto fix the problem but only seemed to make it worse. The church and grounds surrounding the tower were also quite beautiful.

Retake Roma

Working with the individuals involved with Retake Roma was an eye-opening experience for me. See how difficult it can be to change a culture that is set in its ways really opened my eyes to the cultural differences between the United States and Italy. We look down upon those who choose to litter or graffiti, however in Italy those are both considered normal.

PACCE

I really enjoyed this PACCE project. We received instant gratification from the locals. I also really enjoyed getting to know Rebecca who taught us Roman culture and how to start a movement. I painted, applied gel, pressure washed, and removed stickers. Meeting the other members of retake was really inspiring.

Medicine Museum

During our stay in Rome, I thought the most interesting site that we visited was the medicine museum.  Seeing the different tools in the medical field from over the ages was really interesting.  Like the Roman medical tools in the basement with the foot molds from the Roman times, all of which were really cool to see.  Then going up into the modern times was cool, but the most interesting stuff was the older pieces.  For example, the body of the Roman child who underwent a major head surgery and lived through the operation for a few weeks.  Overall it was the best site of the day and fun to go to.

PACCE

The PACCE project that we did on Sunday was more interesting than I thought it would be.  As a group we worked with the Retake Roma organization which is trying to clean up the city.  I did not notice it until working with them, but there are graffiti tags and stickers everywhere.  As one of the founders said they have to do this or no one else will because the Italians will not do it themselves because they do not see a problem.  Throughout the day, I worked on cleaning up the stickers on the streets and it was not easy.  It would be impossible to clean the city as a small group meaning to clean Rome the people need to change their attitude on this matter.

PACCE Project Reflection

Our PACCE Project consisted of cleaning graffiti and stickers off of concrete and poles around a specific metro station. The work was worth while and rewarding with each scrub! I was just so impressed with Rebeeca's level of enthusiasm and passion for getting Rome back to its original beauty. I was able to talk to her after we relaxed with some drinks and found her sense of intelligence and commitment to the community make all of our efforts worthwhile!

PACCE

For our PACE project, we helped clean up a popular intersection near the Vatican. Graffiti is a big problem in rome and all of Italy. Together we washed the metro entrances and repainted parts. Many elderly stopped to tell us thank you but few would join in. The people of Rome have become really use to graffiti and litter. Also the metro up until now didn't participate and they were very strict when they did.

Observatory

Today at the observatory I found the fact that there has been life found outside of earth very cool. Even though it is simple life it is still something. It is interesting knowing about the make up of all the planets and knowing which planets have water and which do not.