Fountains of Water, Mountains of Chocolate

I don't really have any good words to describe Tivoli... it's a town southwest of Rome, and within its microcosm it's possible to see glimpses of two civilizations millenia apart, and yet living such astoundingly similar lives that one would think they were neighbors rather than ancestor and descendent. It is home to two of the most lavish, unthinkably grand residences in Italy; one belonging to the Emperor Hadrian and the other to Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este. So shockingly similar in intent and lasting effect are these two villas that I can't help but think of Tivoli as a testament to how, though our civilization has evolved and changed so much that sometimes it is beyond recognition, even to us (yes, I'm talking to you, 1993, when no one used the Internet), our essential natures are no different than they were thousands and thousands of years ago.


Tivoli, as is the case with many of the most significant historical sites, gives us glimpses not into the lives of those who lived modest, productive and private lives, but of the rich and the powerful who could afford ostentation and the immortality that comes with it.


The Emperor Hadrian was something of a megalomaniac; for evidence of this fact I'd like to direct your attention to a ginormous wall sitting complacently along some cliffs/fields in Great Britain. Also, the Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome. It's the biggest temple in the city. And the Temple of Jupiter at the Acropolis in Athens. It also has the distinction of being the largest thing in the Temple District there. The dude did not think it was appropriate to build anything smaller than your average high-school. Dr. Freud, interpret as you will. But Villa Adriana is no exception to this tendency... in fact, it might be the culmination of Hadrian's penchant for stupidly large structures.

We arrived there in the morning on a charter bus filled not only with my Roman Imperial Art class, but also with my Villas class and an archaeology class that I'm not in. Professor Gadeyne then zoomed off to parts unknown, leaving those hapless individuals who aren't used to his speed to struggle up the hills, through the olive groves and chunks of travertine sticking up at dangerous intervals, finally catching up without time to catch their breath.

As enthusiastic and knowledgable as he is in the city, Professor Gadeyne was truly in his element surrounded by the ruins of the villa. I'm not a big antiquity girl; I appreciate it mostly insofar as it influenced the creation of the art which I truly love. But majestic doesn't even begin to cover the ruins of Villa Adriana. I'm not sure how much I would have liked it if I had been a contemporary of Hadrian's, but in it's ruined state it has flown in the face of everything the Roman rulers wished out of life, namely, to be so godlike that they controlled the natural world around them along with everything else, and been totally reclaimed by the landscape around it. The brick and limestone of the skeletons of what were once grand entrance halls and frescoed baths now appear to spring up organically out of nothing. They belong there as much as the olive groves and anemone do. I guess millenia standing in the same place will have that effect...

Villa d'Este, on the other hand, hasn't been around long enough for it to not be a little tacky in it's lavishness. The Cardinal Ippolito was close to his geographical forefather in more than the power he wielded in the society he lived in. The ancestral residence of the Cardinal-Governor of Tivoli was a monestary of the Franciscans, an order which had a reputation for having a very... um, monastic aesthetic, even among monks. This didn't jive well with our man Ippolito. Nah, he had the whole think encased inside a ginormous villa... so technically he still lived in the monastary... it just had a lot nicer furniture and a little more leg room.

He and Hadrian had another thing in common: wanting to control the natural world around them. It's a funny thing about human beings that we can't just let the majesty of nature be enough for us; we have to put our stamp all over it. At Villa d'Este, this tendency in particularly evident. The place isn't known for being the luxurious residence of an almost-Pope who got booted from the College and relegated to the po-dunk town of Tivoli because he was too popular, even if he was of the d'Este family. For those of you who don't know, the d'Estes' were sort of like... well... who's a political dynasty that's not as big as the Kennedys or as stupid as the Bushes?... They were kind of like the Adamses of the Renaissance. Not the Mortitia and Wednesday type. The John type. But I digress. The villa is known for its water gardens. And man, these things are serious business.

The villa is built into the side of a hill, but it's a very steep hill that's not so good for planting gardens. Or, you know, walking. So what Ippolito ordered was for huge amounts of dirt, etc. to be dug up from around Tivoli and he made his own hill. The guy was sort of like what Donald Trump might have looked like in the Renaissance. But the good thing about that the little red skull cap would have covered any unfortunate hair decisions.

The gardens are this veritable wonderland of splashing, dripping, cascading, trickling and water in it's every other incarnation. There are fountains which just spray water in interesting shapes and some that have mythological and classical themes intricately built into them, and some that literally have little hydraulic birds that sing and move through water power alone. And all of this in the 1530s. Doesn't that just kill you? And the amazing thing is: they're still using the same hydraulics system that was originally installed. It blew my mind. The only downside to this garden is if you have to pee before you start your tour. They're big gardens, you see, and it's easy to get distracted when all you hear is the sound of rushing water. Not so relaxing in certain instances, it turns out.

The day at Tivoli was really fun, because of the historical continuity wrought by ostentatious, self-aggrandizing bastards about how materialistic one can get. Narcisism is really fun when you don't have to deal with it face to face. The bus ride back was relaxing... basically everyone was worn out from trying to keep up with Professor Gadeynne all morning, so we slept. Then a bunch of us went out for Chinese. Sigh. That's one thing that I really miss from the States. Rice Kitchen is the ambrosia of the gods.

On Sunday Kelcie and I got up early to go to the Perugia Chocolate Festival with some other kids from school. Well, we weren't really going with anyone in particular, but as you can imagine, American kids flock to the Perugia Chocolate Festival with the same fervor as Mick Jagger fans to a Stones festival. So we knew we'd probably meet some new people on the train. Turns out we did. We spent most of the day with Emily, the resident student who organized the trip, and John, Kevin and Rish, three other study abroad students.

As you can imagine, a chocolate festival is something like heaven on earth. It smells orgasmic, to begin with, but then there are the free samples and the relatively cheap and delicious tasties everywhere you turn. Some of the highlights: hot chocolate, which is not your Swiss Miss mix, let me tell you. It's basically melted chocolate. That's all. I had peperoncini, which was spicy as well as burn your tongue hot, which was wonderful considering the fact that fall has finally arrived in central Italy. It's like soup. So, one cup will have you groaning and begging to die, basically, because of chocolate overload. But of course, we didn't stop there. I also fought my way through the mosh pit to get some of the chocolate bits flying off of the chocolate sculptures that were being carved in the street. The boys and we bonded over chocolate covered churros, which made me feel like a giant zit after I ate them. But they were still a pretty damn good choice.

After meeting up with the three boys, the six of us went to the main piazza, where I geeked out to general disinterest about the fountain carved by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, and we noticed a lot of people with these odd chapeaus. Basically, they were Burger King crowns in the shape of purple cow heads. Like, with ears and horns and stuff. Well, we saw the source of the cow hats, and that was a tent where people were moshing (there was a lot of moshing happening. Chocolate brings that out in people) to get in and emerging with a cracker covered in oozing fondue chocolate. This was Milka. We braved the choco-mosh to get the dinky little cracker, but Kevin and I were both way more interested in procuring those hats. So, we jerry-rigged our way to the front of a line that was comprised mostly of seven year olds (you do what you gotta for the purple cow hat) and after some negotiating in ItaloEngliSwedish, we got six of them. And then proceeded to wear them for the rest of the day. Some of the people you find randomly on trains really are the best friends you can make.

I actually had to admit choco-defeat a lot sooner than the others did. Don't get me wrong; I eat Nutella like it's my job and I'm going for Employee of the Month, but not all at once and not starting at 11 in the morning and going until 5 at night. I just can't do that. So I watched placidly as everyone else put their game faces back on and went on a chocolate binge to kill a horse or two. I did break my swearing off of chocolate to participate in a round of chocolate beer, which was actually surprisingly good. It didn't taste like chocolate while you were drinking it, just a very dark ale, but there was a chocolatey aftertaste that was really interesting and fun.

Huh. How many times can I say chocolate in one post? The one most crucial thing to note about this day, besides the deliciousness and the food coma that resulted that night, is the crowd. Holy crap, people like their chocolate. It was only through extreme good fortune in the morning and extreme pre-planning in the afternoon that we got seats on the train both ways. There were people sitting and standing in the aisle for the whole two hour trip. That's dedication, my friends.

So the moral of the story is: if you're planning on the Perugia Chocolate Festival at any point in your future (and you should be), make sure to A) get the train early both ways. B) bring your ipod to drown out the chocolate-beer drunk Italians singing Shakira on the ride home and C) always remember to wear your purple cow hat. It makes the outfit.

Thank You For Everything, Professor Kirk

A lot of really great, fun things happened this weekend, but I'm not really in a place at the moment to discuss them with any kind of humor or excitement. I promise I'll post more about those stories a little later, more to document for my own benefit than because any of you are waiting with baited breath to hear about them, when the initial shock of this very, very sad day has abated.

An email was sent out yesterday to all the AUR students with the news that Professor Terry Kirk had passed away suddenly over the weekend. I don't really know any more than that, and it would be inappropriate and disrespectful of me to speculate. All I know is that it was very sudden and shockingly out of the blue. Professor Kirk had been teaching at AUR for over twenty years. Needless to say the news pretty much rocked our little corner of The Eternal City.

I am personally placed in a situation that I've never experienced before by this unquestionable tragedy. Of the death that I have experienced before, I was either mentally and somewhat emotionally prepared for that person, beloved though they were, to pass away, or the event was far enough removed from my immediate existence that I was saddened, but not stopped completely cold by the news. This is different. I saw Professor Kirk walking out of a classroom building on Tuesday night last week. I waved to him and smiled, and he grinned back as he zoomed with characteristic briskness toward Via Carini. On Thursday, Professor Gwynne told us in Art For Art's Sake that he would be leaving after that lesson and that Professor Kirk would be resuming the class. As much as I love Professor Gwynne, I was nevertheless excited by the idea of another class spent constantly on my toes, waiting to jump when a question was fired at me in a style which would have made Socrates proud. I was so eager to experience his teaching again.

There are those people that you rarely come across, and when you do you count yourself very lucky, who provide an incredibly accurate model of what you want to be when you finally reach that elusive point of "grow up". They reinforce and encourage that part of you that whispers "this is what I love. This is why I love it." They give you an outlet to express those things you already know while at the same time constantly giving you new things to learn. You can look at them and see why you chose the profession you chose, because they are an example of a person who followed their passion and triumphed. They set the example of continuing education not because it will get you more money, but because they genuinely find joy in their curiosity and in discovering new things for the sake of discovering them.

I only knew Professor Kirk for a little less than two months, but in that time he made such an impact on me that, though I came to Rome thinking that Art History could just be a neat thing to know a lot about but not necessarily an ideal career path, I now realize that I can't ignore something that makes me thrilled to go to class each day. The joy in his face when he spoke about the aesthetic theories of Kant and Winkelmann makes me realize that, even though what you're passionate about may be confusing to some people, if it makes you excited enough to make your life's work revolve around it, that's what you should be doing.

Again, I didn't know the man very long, but given the outpouring of devastation and grief that AUR is currently weathering, his indelible impact on me was not a unique event. If he could help me solidify my academic passion into a career goal in just two months of twice-a-week classes, I can't even imagine the impact he's had on the students and teachers he's been working with for over twenty years. There are some people who change people just by being themselves.

Here's my point: if there's someone out there who made a profound impact on you, whether it be academically, politically, spiritually, whatever... tell them. Tell them how much you appreciate the role they played in your life, and how their influence has stayed with you. Honestly, on Friday I would have thought that sentiment a little melodramatic and sappy, but the world can change just that quickly, and you never know when you might have already run out of chances to thank them for the person you are.

Religious Life in the Capital of Catholicism

As many of you are doubtless aware (either because you're a part of my family, or because I can't ever seem to shut up about them...) I was raised as a part of a ginormous Irish-Catholic family. Like, the kind of big Irish-Catholic family who make Mass an integral part of almost every family gathering, do some pretty entertaining acrobatics in too-small kitchens/living rooms/dining rooms in order to link hands and pray before a meal, and where everyone is not only someone's cousin or aunt/uncle, they're also someone's Godparent or Confirmation sponsor... in the 'recipes' section of our family website, there's a Novena. You get it. We're Catholic.

And I'm so very grateful to have been raised in this family. Not only for the more obvious reasons of having a ton of people supporting you in what you do and having the pretty sweet added bonus of a built-in group of friends, but for one very simple reason: if my parents had decided to raise my brother, sister and I in another religious tradition, I probably wouldn't be an art historian.

Not that everyone in my family is Catholic; my paternal extended family isn't, and their faith is just as strong and just as inspiring to me. But having the traditions of Catholicism reinforced, the stories reiterated over and over again, and the penchant for ornate (by Montana religious standards) ornamentation presented to me week after week certainly cultivated in me a healthy interest, and a rather comprehensive elementary knowlege, of Catholic iconography before I even knew of the existence of a field of study called Art History.

When I went to the Louvre at age 16 and found myself able to identify events and even relatively obscure people in Christian artwork without looking at the placard, it was one of the coolest moments of my life, and certainly the one that doomed me to a field where I can hope for little more than an especially nice refrigerator box to call home after I finally finish school. But that probably wouldn't have happened (damn! I could have been a lawyer!) if I had not been raised in the tradition for which these artists had been working.

Naturally, when it came time for me to study abroad (I love how that's like, a right of passage in the American university system now), Rome, with its rich history not only of the art that has fascinated me from the word 'go', but of all that which influenced and inspired it, seemed a perfect fit. Not because I'm an especially devout Catholic; I have more than a few gripes with the political position of the Institution as it exists right now, but because of all the incredible art that has been inspired by the Institution, and maybe by the Faith itself sometimes, throughout the centuries. So, with my very faithful and loving family behind me, supporting me, and my mainly academic interest in something so very spiritual for so many people before me, I found myself stuck between St. Peter and a hard place.

I came to Rome with not a little trepidation on how I was going to handle my political objections to the Church coupled with my burning desire to enter every church I saw and analyze the altarpieces to within an inch of their metaphorical lives. I was afraid that I was entering a country where the Institution reigned supreme and left little room for wonder, love, compassion, comfort, education... all the things that I've learned from my big Catholic family back in the States. I was afraid that the Italians would be able to smell on me the stench of 'culturally Catholic academic who thinks she's so enlightened'... I've definitely caught a whiff once or twice myself.

But really, I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of prancing into the middle of a religious oligarchy where one can't purchase condoms because they spread AIDS and women must be seen and not heard, I found myself in a country full of cultural Catholics. The observation has been made before the you can't help but be Catholic when you live in Italy. Churches in Rome are like Starbucks' in New York; there are at least two every block or so. Most of the major holidays when people get off work are also Catholic Holy Days. Your kid probably goes to a parochial school, not because he's the second son and so destined for the priesthood, but because parochial schools provide a really good education.

I'm constantly fascinated and delighted by the way in which religious life seems to permeate the everyday here without making a big deal about itself. The main identifying factor of my bus stop is an altar to the Virgin built right into the wall, complete with an entire brigade of marble and bronze plaques bought and placed there by families. There are usually burnt-out candles, wilting roses and prayers written out and folded up and stuck behind a plaque. Many people make it a habit, when they're disembarking, to touch the foot of the altar before absent-mindedly making the Sign of the Cross and continuing on their way, screaming into their cell-phones all the while.

For a few weeks it was always amusing to me when a priest or a monk, in full cassock, or a nun in her habit (this is even in 90 degree weather) would pass me on the street. Now it's just business as usual. I've even begun to be able to identify the different orders based on their dress. It was a bit confusing at first when a group of nuns came to the park I was sitting in and began to gaily set up for a picnic... I thought one of them was Mother Thereasa... I'd only seen that blue and white habit on one other person before. But they ride the bus, drive around town and go grocery shopping (there's another icon of the Virgin set into the wall on the corner of the grocery store, btw) just like I do. They buy less cheap wine... but that's their perogative I guess.

And these people arent' just relics of a bygone era of devoutness, either. These are pretty young guys with their backpacks casually slung over their shoulders, skillfully navigating the crowded 75 to Piazza Independaza... in a cassock. There's one especially mean calendar that all the little tourist traps sell, which I can only compare to a fireman calendar in the States. It's basically just a bunch of beautiful young men, one for each month, staring broodingly at the camera. Except they all have black shirts with white collars on. Grr. That's just plain cruel. Blasphemous? Perhaps. But funny? Yeah. And a little unnerving for me, who was raised with priests who were all pushing at least fifty? You betcha.

And you know how in the States the biggest, most grandiose and hallowed buildings are usually reserved for affairs of state? Like, how every capitol building has a big dome on it and we build giant suggestive obelisks to commemorate our general macho badassery? And how churches are generally not the focal point of a major city's skyline? Turn that around, and you've got Rome. Parliament is nothing to sneeze at, architecture-wise, but St. Peter's makes it look like a Fischer-Price dollhouse. Rome's skyline, although it's not a particularly high city and therefore hasn't got a really distinctive one, is dominated by the domes of churches, not the skyscrapers of capitalist temples of commerce or Greecian inspired buildings build to house democracy.

The point is: Catholicism has been the norm around here for so long that no one even thinks twice about it. You pray to St. Anthony when you lose something because it's what you do, not because you're thinking that some guy with a halo is going to tap you on the shoulder and hand you your cell phone. You cross yourself when someone else does it more as a reflex than as a sign of solemn devotion. And Jesus not only died for your sins, but He also gets you the day off work once in awhile. To quote poor jilted Diane Lane out there under the Tuscan sun somewhere, Mary is less the absolute paragon of feminine Virtue and Purity than she is everyone's aunt, who is just there, looking out for you, from basically every street corner.

If I've learned one thing about religion from living in Rome, it's this: Catholicism, and religion in general, I suppose, can be whatever you need it to be. It can be a habitual action that tells you something about where you've come from, or just an excuse to get off work a few days a year. It can be a very dearly held belief that compels you to go to Mass each day or join a holy order, or it can be simply a part of the life going on around you. It can be a comforting familiarity when you're far away from your family. It can be the inspiration for a chosen path of education. It can be a new cultural discovery and a safety net at once.

I've learned that religion is intensely personal, and that devotion doesn't come in only one flavor. For me, the most sacred and holy part about Catholicism is the fact that it has inspired great human beings to greater feats of artistic expression. And my way of praying, by marveling at what human beings are capable of and then learning just how they did it, is just as valid as receiveing Communion every day of your life. I've learned that, shockingly, it's easier to ignore the Pope when he literally lives about a mile away than when he's across the world issuing edicts from on high.

Maybe that's why Italy has such a healthy (in my opinion) relationship with religion compared to the places I've lived before. It's part of their lifeblood. It's in the very soil. They imbibe it every day and, much like wine, it looses its remoteness and mystery and becomes another important facet of a rich and deep understanding of who they are and where they come from.

The Fairies Tale

Do you ever have those experiences where you're expecting something to be 'cool', and for it to be 'a great experience', but you're not expecting anything more than a story to tell? Or those faint but real suspicions that some necessity of life has the potential to be something so much more enriching, fulfilling, gratifying, completing than even you ever thought it could be? Or one of those times where the newness you're experiencing blend with the familiar in such a way that you're completely exhilerated at the same time that you're comforted? Well, if none of this is ringing a bell, you need to get your ass to Le Fate.

Here's the story:

Michelle had approached me and a few of our other friends several weeks ago with the idea to take a cooking class that's advertised on some bulletin board in the AUR A building. Obviously, this sounded really cool, since I love to cook and to eat and experience new foods, but it was 35 euro, and I'm also kinda stingy, so I was leery. She got in touch with Andrea (who she assumed was a woman), who is the chef and owner of the restaurant Le Fate, in the meantime, giving us all some time to think it over.

The deal was: we would show up at the restaurant at around noon one day, and Andrea would teach us and help us cook a traditional four-course Italian meal. Then, we would eat said meal and probably make a lot of yummy sounds, and all of this for 35 euro. Well, given my love of cooking, I decided that this was actually really reasonable for the experience and the tasty food that was sure to be included. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for.

Casey, Michelle, Christine, Amanda and I met up this morning at 11:15 to walk to Le Fate, which is on Viale di Trastevere only a few blocks from my house, and close to the tram stop that gets the rest of them down from Monteverde. It's a beautiful fall day in Rome today, which is basically indistinguishable from a beautiful summer day in Montana, weather-wise. It's sunny and bright, but still pretty hot for what one expects of fall; it's about 70 degrees-ish. So we walk the few blocks to Le Fate, which I've been to before last week with Michelle to put the down payment on the class. We didn't meet Andrea then, but rather HIS (yeah, Andrea. Like, Andrew.) brother, who helped us settle the payment. I was immediately enchanted last week by this place.

Le Fate literally translates as The Faeries, and the restaurant, which probably seats around 25 people at maximum capacity, is all decked out like a woodland glen. The chief source of light, besides the big front windows, are twinkle-lights. There are carved wooden gnomes (but the effect is whimsical, not tacky) and big wickerwork chandeliers hung with grapes and little disco balls... it's trendy and sweet and homey all at the same time. I immediately loved it. Like, it's a restaurant with a faerie theme. Okay? But it totally works. It seems like it just grew up there; there's nothing contrived about it.

So we show up today and the woman who opens the door doesn't look to be much older than we are; turns out she's 28. Erica greets us warmly in English, and I immediately think "woah, this girl's from Michigan!". Yup. Turns out she grew up in the Detroit area (at this point, who didn't?) and went to college for awhile at Western (that's in Kalamazoo, folks. Queue the singing puppets...) before transferring to AUR. She now lives in Rome with her boyfriend, Andrea, and helps him organize what I guess have become a very popular restaurant and VERY popular cooking classes. She's totally chill and friendly, and seems the ideal young expat to me. She's still authentically American, but she gives off an air of being more a citizen of wherever she happens to be at the time. I feel an immediate desire to be friends with this woman.

And then Andrea shows up. It's not even possible to describe this guy. He's 32, but he's been in the kitchen basically his whole life. He's vibrant and funny right off the bat, and very, very beautiful. Like, what all Italian men should look and act like. Erica is one lucky woman. He starts off the class with this incredible, joyful intensity of a man who really loves what he does. He talks about the objectives of the class, which is to help us to experience real Italian cooking, and more specifically, real Roman cuisine. He makes it very clear that one of the four courses of our meal is going to be a very regionally specific Roman dish. He's Roman. Lived in Rome his whole life, though he's very well traveled and speaks beautiful, though not perfect, English. I am immediately drawn to the guy's energy. He knows that he's very good at what he does, and he wants to share what he knows with other people. I admire this quality, since it's one I hope to acquire for myself, in my own work.

Well, I'm chomping at the bit to get started, especially after he talks a little bit about Le Fate and what his values as a chef and businessman are. Everything he uses in the kitchen, the wines, the meat, the produce... all of them are local. Local, as in, he came back from the market with the ingredients for our meal about ten minutes before we got there. And not a market like Meijer, but the very street market with stalls and vendors that I passed on my way to his restaurant. Since everything he uses is local, he only cooks those things that are in season. On his menu right now are fiore di zucco, pumpkin flowers, which will only be available for about another two weeks before they're gone until next summer. He shops each and every morning and designs his specials for the day based on what he's inspired by at the market.

Here's what we're cooking: a soup (not a traditional first course in Italian cooking, but Andrea has a ton of friends from AUR who always bugged him about making them soup when he was our age, so he knows Americans like it, and it's a nostalgic thing for him to make it with us) of leeks, potatoes and pumpkin, flavored with sage, rosemary, bay and juniper, followed by fresh pasta (yeah, we're going to learn to make pasta) with a sauce of mushrooms and fresh cherry tomatoes with parsley and romano (yes, ladies and gents, thats romano as in ROMAN), followed by saltinbocca (beef, NOT veal, as Andrea explained to me when I asked, because the Roman area not like Montana is it's amount of open space, so it's not economical, and never was, to kill a cow before it was big enough to feed more than a few people. Why waste the potential for more food?), and finally individual chocolate soufles that, Andrea said, is not only the best recipe he's ever found for soufle, but will also keep in the fridge for up to two weeks before you cook it. Sweet in more ways than one.

We got in his kitchen, which was close quarters for the six of us, with Erica popping her head in every now and then to chat when she got bored on the computer. Andrea not only teaches the HOW of things, like how to chop leeks without cutting all your fingers off (I'm a lot more experienced in the kitchen than some of my friends), but the WHY, like the thing with the beef, or a very interesting thing about garlic: he said that Italians don't like to use it in the same quantities that Americans think they do. He ways that garlic is very heavy on your digestion, and the reason that Italians even use it in the first place is because of it's nutritional value, which is all in the skin, which Americans peel off. So, if you're cooking with garlic rather than eating it raw, you can just crush it and leave the skin on and it won't hurt anything, and will actually help your heart and your cholesterol. Fun fact and misconception I've always held about Italian cooking.

So anyway, we're cooking along, all getting to help with different parts of the meal; I actually made the pasta dough by myself, a skill which I've always wanted to acquire but was a little intimidated by. I don't know why, now that I know how. Fresh pasta is the best kept secret in the world, in my opinion. A) It's stupidly simple to make, B) It only has four ingredients, tops and C) these ingredients are cheaper than buying already made pasta like Barilla, etc.. Holy crap. What a revelation. I may not ever cook with dried pasta again, given the choice, because of how easy, cheap and wonderful the fresh version is.

The first course is finally finished (by yours truly) by blending the potatoes, leeks and pumpkin together with a stick blender (which is, incidentally, a good gift idea for me if you're stuck), and then served with fried bread. Yeah. Fried bread. Two of the best things in the world coming together at last. I can tell you now that this is categorically and without a doubt the best soup that I've ever eaten. It's warm and comforting and really, really simple. You can taste each ingredient and the freshness of it right through the beautiful, creamy texture. It was all I could do not to lick the bowl.

When Andrea brings out the second course, it's really funny to see the pasta we made by hand (pici, which is like hand-rolled spaghetti, but much fatter) in this beautiful, delicious and yet again very simple dish. We joked that we could pick out the ones that each of us made based on technique. The saltimbocca is next, and this term literally translates to "jump in your mouth", because the Romans eat it as a sort of finger food. It's a very thin slice of tenderloin, on top of which is placed a piece of proscuitto and a piece of Ememtare cheese (although Andrea said any mild cheese will work). This whole thing is folded over and a sage leaf is secured on top with a toothpick. Then it's cooked over low heat in butter for a few minutes. How could that be bad?

Throughout the meal, Andrea and Erica sit and eat with us, and we talk about everything from our majors to what everyone's opinon is of New Jersey (mostly not favorable, if you're wondering... NJ has a really bad rep here for some reason...) to where New England is. Andrea is confused because he's under the impression that it's a state, and that it's somewhere close to Wisconsin. It takes a little while, but we get there in the end. We laugh and drink wine and Erica and Andrea ask us what we like about Rome. They're both very impressed that no one says The Coloseum, but both make a face when I express my love for the water fountains. Apparently the water tastes like hose water. Apparently this is very okay with me. Andrea talks about how he and his dad started this restaurant, about how he and his brother run it now with their parent's help... Erica helps us enumerate the differences between Italy and the States... they're really warm and friendly; the kind of people you just want to be friends with.

The chocolate soufle comes out of the kitchen in Andrea's capable hands, each decorated with "Le Fate" and each of our names in Creme Anglaise around the edge. Delicious doesn't even begin to cover it. Finally, after around 5 and 1/2 hours spent at Le Fate, we take our leave of Andrea and Erica with hugs and kisses and promises to return for dinner sometime, and very VERY full and sleepy.

Rome in the afternoon is beautiful, with the soft light coming down through the trees that inexplicably still have leaves on them. I'm so content and happy, but also really excited by the things that this restaurant and the people who work there represent. Local, real food cooked with passion and love and tradition by a guy who really likes food and really likes people, and a couple who seem really cool and together, even though their cultural backgrounds are so different. The whole thing just seems like an essay on the way different kinds of love: familial, professional, personal, cultural... can all blend into such an amazing, satisfying and altogether unique way... rather like an incredible pumpkin soup. Moral of the story: best 35 euro I've ever spent. Really, the best expenditure of money I've made in QUITE a while. And worth a hell of a lot more.

If you're ever in Rome, and I sincerely hope that my descriptions have piqued your interest in this city I'm falling for more than they've put you off, I can't recommend this restaurant, or these classes highly enough. It was as close to a perfect experience as I can imagine. Here's the website: http://www.lefaterestaurant.it/home.html. I submit the above as the highest testament that I'm capable of. Buon appetito!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Jerks

Today, I have come to what I think are two pretty obvious conclusions about the universe. I'll try to explain them as accurately as possible, and relate the circumstances that lead to them.

Conclusion 1) Human beings are the most miraculous, incredible, improbably beautiful things that have ever evolved on this earth. And that may sound a little biased, considering that to the best of my knowledge, I am a human being, but I really do mean it. And this is coming from a girl who spent her entire existence until the age of 18 in Montana. And really, if you can apply the words miraculous, incredible and improbably beautiful to any place on earth, Montana would probably be that place. And perhaps I should qualify the above statement by reiterating that I'm an art history major, so basically, without human beings, I would have no field of study. Also, I wouldn't exist, so it wouldn't matter, but... that's just getting waaaaaaaay too existential... leave me alone! It's 11.00 at night and I've had an emotionally exhausting day.

Why, Maggie? You may ask. Why this convoluted existential quandry? What could possibly have been so emotionally draining that it's made you so euphorically arrogant, so philosophically woozy? Well... two words. Sistine Chapel.

Now, I flatter myself that after almost twenty-one years in my head, I've gotten to know myself reasonably well. So it stands to reason that I should have expected this kind of reaction from myself. And to a certain extent, I did. I didn't go immediately gallivanting off to the Sistine Chapel straight off the plane because I wanted some time to mentally prepare myself. People who haven't spent a good two years of their fairly short life studying the time period of which the Sistine Chapel is perhaps the piece de resistance have told me that the first time they saw it fundamentally changed them. I know myself well enough to know that I couldn't just let it be another tourist site.

Now, I know that sounds melodramatic. What makes that silly Pope-choosing room more important, more significant than say, the Raphael stanzae just down the hall? The Caravaggio hanging in the painting gallery downstairs? The Bernini adorning the entirety of St. Peter's? The answer is: it is precisely those things that make this one thing so significant. Whether by design, divine or human, or purely by chance, what I experienced today as I walked through St. Peter's and then through the Vatican Museums, seeing all of these works of genius both classical and modern, was a slowly escalating realization, something that I've brushed up against obliquely since I set foot in the Louvre at the age of sixteen, that human beings are capable of miracles. There is so much beauty and wonder and life inside us that we can't help but let it out in one way or another... and some people just happen to excel at this expression to such an extent that what they create acts as an outlet for others to realize the beauty and wonder and life within themselves. That is why the arts are important. That is why you have a coffee cup with the hands of God and Adam on it. That is why I've seen people's eyes mist over when they talk about the first time they saw their favorite painting in person for the first time, or the first time they experienced Shakespeare, Mozart, Longfellow. What Michelangelo, Leonardo, Chagall, Picasso, Gentileschi, Seurat, Monet, Van Gogh, Klee, Rodin... the list goes on... what they created touches something inside each of us that reminds us of why it is good to be a human being, when there are so many reasons that make us forget.

Now, that was all awfully sincere of me. I'm usually very flippant about this kind of thing... I call myself a nerd (to my face) a lot more often than anyone else does. I'm fascinated by the things that make art political, personal, heretical, whatever, but that doesn't mean that I don't have reverence for what I'm studying. It means a lot to me. It is both chosen profession and religion. And I know it's not that way for everyone, and for some people the Sistine Chapel ceiling is not some portal into deeper humanist awareness but rather just some paint on a ceiling that hurts your neck if you look at it for more than a few minutes... I understand that. Intellectually. Emotionally, viscerally, it's a completely different story. Which brings me to...

Conclusion 2) Human beings are cattle. Silly, stupid cattle. A statement completely at odds with the rapturous, Bambi-esque one above it? Perhaps. Or maybe just two sides of the same perverse and often-baffling coin of human nature. What makes me say this? Poor planning and flash photography.

The first: I knew that the Sistine Chapel would be a much more religious experience for me than it is for the general population. I've spent literally hours analyzing the fulcrum toe of the flippin' Libyan Sybil. It was just going to be more important for me. So I decided to wait until I could have the house to myself and time to process without talking to anyone when I got home... and with my roommates at Oktoberfest this weekend, it seemed like the perfect time. Except... the entire tourist population of Europe decided that today was a good day to move from in front of the Mona Lisa to standing in line at the Vatican. It was poor planning on my part to make my pilgramage on Saturday (the literal Latin translation: day on which we get through all the major tourist attractions in this city before moving onto... what was it again? Oh yeah. Paris.) I was sort of expecting this kerfuffle, but I was also niavely expecting that since the Vatican is considered by some to be rather a holy, sacred place, that that tourist population of Europe might find it within themselves to show some respect. Wrong.

The second: Fun fact-- did you know that there are guys whose JOB it is to stand in the Sistine Chapel all day and yell at people to shut up and quit taking photos? And do you know what keeps these guys employed? The fact that people never cease to talk in very loud voices and take flash photos despite the fact that they're being admonished not to in twelve (I counted) different languages.

While I was sitting and pondering the brilliant contradiction that is humankind, the humankind around me were busy moshing in an attempt to get right underneath The Creation of Adam to take their brazenly un-clandestine photos. Even though they're not allowed! Now, I get the idea that by taking a picture, even if it's a crappy, poorly lit picture of some other person's genius, you get to share a little in that genius. It's nice to bask in the reflected glow. I get that.

But honestly! How do you think these things have lasted as long as they have? When they tell you not to take photos, there's a good reason to listen! It's not just some uptight control-freak thing that all museums have in common; they're trying with all their might to combat your selfishness and stupidity and downright carelessness in order to preserve these things for future generations. And honestly, with the world as it is right now, those things that make us remember those things that are good and beautiful and wonderous about ourselves are more imparitive than ever.

And also, do you really need to talk for the twenty or so minutes that you're in a room where they specifically ask you not to talk? Is that so hard? Could you not just pay attention to what you're feeling inside yourself for a few minutes without having to point out to your companions "Look! There's Adam! Ohmygod, I can't believe it!". Really? Because you're holding a 20 euro bookbag from the gift shop that would suggest that this sight isn't a complete surprise. One would think that you would have been expecting to see the not-so-well-hung naked guy on the bag before you bought it. But that's just me. And I might have weird expectations about these things.

But really. In the paragraph above when I was spilling my guts about art history being akin to a religion for me... I felt like I was going to go all Jesus on their asses and start screaming "Myyyyyyyyyyyyyy temple should beeeeeeeeeeee a house of art! BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT a den of POPERAZZI. GET OUT! GET OUT!" (A reference to Jesus Christ Superstar for your enjoyment). But I held it in.

And nothing I can furiously blog about or bitch about is going to change the fact that, for a lot of people, the Sistine Chapel, really, the entirety of the Vatican Museums, is just another check on the list of things they should really see in Rome. And that Rome is just another check on the list of places they should see in Europe. And that Europe is... you get it. And that makes me so sad. I wish everyone could see these things the way I see them. I wish I could convey some semblance of the wonder they hold for me to the guy sitting next to me on the bench, feverishly reading his guidebook as though there's going to be a quiz in ten minutes.

But really, if everyone saw the world the way I see it, we'd all get bored pretty fast. Variety is the spice of life, after all, and if everyone saw everything the way I see it... well, we'd all take ourselves way too seriously, for one (which I think is already true, but in my case I know it to be fact) and I couldn't have even gotten into the Sistine Chapel today because the entire room would have been full of dead silent, reverent people wiping away single, artistic tears and not moving for hours. And I don't think I would have liked that any more than the poperazzi cattle.

But think of the killing I could make on neck massages.