News of the Week and Mailing Address

We had visitors come this week to see us!! Katie's sister Tara, who is studying in Spain this semester, came to visit with 3 other people (Lydia, Brittni, and Megan) she doing the program with through her school. It was nice to meet new people and have to play the role of tour guide for a little bit. Katie was a great host for them, and I'm sure they had a great time.

European Skittles

One of the highlights of their visit was that Tara brought me Skittles!! The Skittles she brought ended up being European ones that she found in the Madrid airport. She had packed American ones in her luggage, but long story short, she ended up not being able to claim her luggage before she left for Rome. (Their group did a pit stop in Madrid before coming over.) European Skittles are different than American. Instead of grape, there is black currant. Not too sure what that is but it tastes a lot different. The rest of the flavors were a little off but not as bad. The skittles themselves are not as bright in color as American ones are. All in all, I still prefer American ones but these worked enough to suffice my needs for a bit.

Gelato
Another major part of their trip was getting gelato every night. :-) They agree that Katie and my gelato place is pretty spectacular. In personal opinion, it is even better than the famous Giolitti gelato store. Giolitti does have more flavors to choose from, but the people just aren't as friendly and the portions are a rip off for the price you have to pay. At the Frigidarium, we can get a larger portion for cheaper. With their visit, we made major progress on making friends with the workers at the Frigidarium. We're now on first name basis (Simona and Raphael), little larger scoops than normal, and friendly conversation terms. Tonight they joked with me about switching my usual order and getting fruit gelato on a cold night versus chocolate. Typically people order fruit gelato on warmer nights/days. Tonight Tara, Lydia, Megan, and Brittni got to take a picture with them, and Simona even made extra special servings for them since it was their last night. Katie and I are starting to wonder if we'll get any special treatment during our last night/week here. They have giant to-go containers, and we're hoping for at least one free one of those.

Vatican City
Earlier today we went to Vatican City. I knew the Vatican was close to my apartment, but with walking to it for the first time, I really realized how close it is to my apartment. We decided to go today to take advantage of free admission (National World Tourism Day? Or something like that.). We left our apartment too late to get a chance to see everything and ended up only making it into St. Peter's and into the Popes' tombs below. Pretty spectacular sights! It was a little much to take in in such a short amount of time; luckily, I have the opportunity to go back, and I'll be able to enjoy it more then.

School

School is going well. Last week was a bit busy with a lighting drawing being due today for my Made in Italy class and a model in Revit due last Wednesday and also this Wednesday. For our Revit model, we had to go measure a museum space using triangulation and put it into the computer. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, we had been divided into groups and each group only measured their certain part and did a drawing for that (section or plan). When it came time to put them all together, it didn't go too seamlessly. After figuring out certain measurements, we had some troubles with putting it into Revit. Revit likes straight walls and none of the walls we had measured were straight since it is a building from the ruins era. After a few headaches, mine has finally been pieced together, and we'll be moving onto the next stage this following week, which is to design our lighting showroom.

Every week my walking art history class gets better and better! My instructor has now made us baked goods two weeks in a row! This past week we went to the Capitoline Museum. It is filled with famous ancient sculpture pieces like the She-Wolf. It's hard to imagine that piece of sculpture being buried in the Roman Forum and being found x amount of years later, but, yet, at the same time it's so cool! It's even sweeter to imagine all the emperors and people we hear about today worshipping that exact same piece of sculpture that you are now looking at.

Field Trip!

My class is leaving for our South Field Trip Thursday morning, so this week will go by super fast. I'm excited for the trip and even more excited to go to Capri after it is over for one night. Hopefully the weather will be nice, and I'll be able to enjoy the beach!

Mailing Address:

I've been receiving a lot of requests for my mailing address, so here it is again. I'm anxiously awaiting for mail to arrive now that I've received so many requests for it! :-) If you want to send a package, make sure you write "used personal items" or "gift" on it and claim it to have no value. Italian Customs will search through the packages and decide if extra charges should be added, which can get to be quite expensive and out of my own pocket. Writing down "used personal items" or "gift" should help to eliminate those costs. Letters are always appreciated too!

Kelly McCann

Iowa State University Rome Program

Piazza delle Cinque Scole 23

00186 Rome, Italy