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!