Ancient Forums: Art History Photo Comparison

Roman Forum


Forum of Theodosius

Rome and Istanbul are connected by a common ancient history in the time of Constantine. However, the two capitals of the Roman Empire have since developed in very different ways.

Rome is a city based on its ancient past. Other than Mussolini’s building projects and the new housing of the Ara Pacis, Romans don’t build new buildings. They restore old ones to their original glory but nothing new goes up. The city is built on the foundations of ancient times so that the past literally supports the city today. Tourists come to Rome to see the Forum, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and more. They see the monuments that have been standing for over a thousand years and the city of Rome has worked to preserve them so they’re all in incredible condition. The Roman Forum stretches farther than the eye can see and really gives you a sense of what is was like to live in Rome in ancient times.

Istanbul, in contrast, is a modern city. They had the same ancient past with similar monuments yet all that remains standing of the once-great Forum of Theodosius are a few fragmented columns on the side of a modern tramway. Istanbul plowed over its history to move into modern-day.

Art and identity are unavoidably linked in both contexts. Italy doesn’t have an “identity” in the modern world. People think Italy and think the Colosseum. They think Augustus and Caesar. Italy’s only identity is its ancient history. Rome is a gorgeous city, but it’s not dynamic. It’s not constantly changing. It’s at a standstill with its roots in the past.

Istanbul doesn’t have those associations. The Theodosian Forum is certainly not the first thing I think of when I hear “Istanbul”. Istanbul is truly a thriving city. With about 7 times the population of Rome, the city feels more urban and metropolitan. There are real roads other than cobblestone alleyways and it feels completely intact with the modernization of the rest of the world. Rome, instead, feels left behind.

Is it bad to live in the past? I think the Pantheon is the most fantastic thing in Rome and it’s been there for nearly 2000 years. Yet, I appreciate Istanbul’s modernity because it makes me feel so much more at home. Life in Rome seems so inextricably tied with the past that it moves so slowly, reluctantly trudging forward in time. Istanbul is jumping ahead with both feet but sacrifices its antiquity and ancient connections so that the Theodosian forum is a bit of a joke, just marble garbage with cars whizzing by.

The cities have a common connection yet completely different feels, exemplified perfectly by the ancient forums. Is there a balance between past and present? Is there a way to cultivate ancient importance while maintaining a strong identity in the present? If there is a balance between the two, it’s certainly not found in Rome or Istanbul at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Istanbul: Day 1

Today was our first full day in Istanbul and began with the search for a cafe. We're staying in the dorms of a university here so you would think there would be some sort of cafe here, but no. So, we wandered around and found this place which had lots of pastry looking things so decided it would work out. Nothing was labeled and there is quite a communication barrier when you don't speak a word of Turkish so we basically just pointed at various things.

Surprisingly, the pastries here are not sweet. Well, at least the breakfast ones aren't. Mine had olives in it, some had cheese of various types, one had onions, and so on. But they were all really good! It was just a big change from our Italian standards.

After breakfast, we listened to Resat (our Turkish professor) tell us about what we'd be seeing and all that but I was incredibly distracted the whole time because of this mysterious stray cat that was literally wandering around our group and meowing. There are tons of stray cats and dogs here. This cat wasn't even cute--it was mangy and gross and obnoxiously loud. I really don't like cats all that much.

Anyways, we got on our bus after that (which is wonderfully air conditioned) and went over to the old city part of Istanbul. We were going to do the ancient sites and things today but really, there's not that much to see. Turkey is not like Rome where all the ancient stuff has been preserved and is still there. Really, we just saw a column and some random marble lying around in the midst of a tramway. It wasn't that cool, to be honest. We saw some old walls and went to get coffee/tea at a hookah bar. Our tour guide woman was telling us about this great place for tea and she brought us to it and literally it was full of older Turkish guys smoking. But whatever! I got apple tea for the first time and it was delicious. It was similar to apple cider, only like a million times better.

After that, we saw this ancient racetrack thing that again had been turned into a modern area and the only things there are two columns and this bronze thing. I didn't really understand what we were supposed to be looking at. But, our professor is friends with this woman that started the Istanbul Culinary Institute so we went there for lunch and it was good. Not as good as last night, but good. We had this interesting yogurt soup with wheat chunks that was surprisingly good despite its description. Then, we had a parsley salad that I did not like. Literally, it was parsley with dressing. Parsley is a garnish, not lettuce. But oh well! We had this chicken dish with a Turkish version of pasta that was fantastic for the main course and then a lemon jello-like thing for dessert that I also enjoyed. So overall it was good. Without the parsley mysteriousness it would have been better.

After lunch, we went to the GRAND BAZAAR dun dun dun. It has 4000 shops. 4000!!!! They could give us like 8 days to spend in there and it wouldn't be enough. But they only gave us an hour and a half so we wandered at high speed. I got something completely ridiculous and unnecessary but I wanted it so badly and the guy gave me a really good deal along with a free evil eye charm thing. Curious as to what I got?? A beautiful mosque lamp! I don't exactly know how I'm going to get it home without breaking it but I will find a way. The guy at the store did some extreme bubble wrapping so it should be okay.

After the Bazaar, we came home to the dorms (I napped on the bus) and I uploaded pictures and blogged. Nothing too exciting. But now we're going out to walk along the river and find some dinner so I'm excited. Hopefully we'll find something as delicious as my expectations seem to be.

Only three more days of Istanbul fun and then I'm on my way home!!

Today, I went to Asia.

I just wanted to let you all know that I made it to ISTANBUL. Legit. This city is monstrous and it covers two continents! Crazy. So, I started off the day in Europe and then flew into Asia and now I'm back in Europe. Basically, I'm just a world traveler extraordinaire.

More blogging to come later, we're going out to dinner soon.

Our last day in Roma

Today, I am sad. We are leaving Rome tomorrow. We get on a bus at 8:15 and drive away to the airport. We are going to Istanbul so I'm excited but I'm not ready to leave Roma! If it wasn't this hot, I might run away and not go with the group to Turkey. I could go be a bum and get a puppy, like the one that lives on our street. He has TWO puppies. And they are adorable.

Anyways, moving on. I just realized that I haven't blogged since Saturday. We've done a lot since then but not much of it was super interesting. We have had a lot of projects and papers due this week and I'll be honest here--I HATE GROUP PROJECTS. With a passion. I seriously detest them. And all the presentations were group-based and some people really don't understand how to make a powerpoint or that a 20 minute presentation with 5 people means you each talk for FOUR MINUTES. Not 12.

All in all, this week has been frustrating.

Sunday, I basically worked on homework and projects and nothing too exciting. Monday, we went to Saint Peter's. It was cool but, again as I said for the Vatican, I think you only need to see it once. And I've already seen it. It was pretty but I still think the baldacchino (the giant bronze thing at the front altar) is not very attractive. I personally feel like the bronze is too dark and heavy of decoration AND they stripped it from the Pantheon where I'm sure it was a much more beautiful addition to the dome coffers. Pope Urban VIII, your Pantheon destruction was unnecessary. After that, we had presentations for our Migrations class. A few groups went and, although these presentations were only supposed to be 20 minutes, each group talked for at least 30. And then we discussed in typical honors fashion so the class went overtime. I had a group presentation the next day so we stuck around to make sure everything was in order for that. However, my group for our Islam class (for which we had presentations on Wednesday) somehow got it into their heads that it would be a great idea to change our topic. With less than two days to pull off everything for it. I think our new topic was much more interesting and was able to complete my part Monday night, however, some of the rest of my group members were....not so motivated (here begins my frustration).

On Tuesday, we had a presentation by our Islam professor (who happens to be Turkish) about what to expect in Istanbul and some Turkish history. The Turks made it mandatory for people to switch from Arabic writing to our Roman alphabet in the 1920s. How inconvenient would that be?? Parents wouldn't know what kids would be writing down and kids wouldn't know what their parents would saying and that would just be entirely too complicated. After that presentation, we had more presentations in our migration class. My group went and we talked about our time volunteering at the Refugee Center and showed off these cool maps we made and I made a really good powerpoint for the presentation without excess text and with lots of cool pictures. There was even a picture of a camel and it was completely relevant. So that went very well and it was a definite relief to be done.

After that, I started working on stuff to finish up that class and to get ready for my Islam class presentation the next day. My group had a complete FAILURE of a meeting about it and I ended up staying there, completely finished with all of my stuff, until almost midnight waiting for them to get their acts together. Most of my group was great, just a couple people....not so much. Anyways, more on that in a moment.

Wednesday started off entirely too early and we had some art history presentations at a little church (I'm going to be honest--I'm tired of seeing churches. They all look THE SAME to me at this point and I've completely stopped caring about them) and another presentation about the Talking Statues, which was actually interesting. Basically, people would write things on statues as political jokes and satirical things back in the day. They'd make fun of the popes a lot. After that, we hurried back for our Islam class presentations. I was incredibly unimpressed. I had prepared and knew what was going on but certain people had definitely not put ANY time into the presentation and it was completely obvious. I felt very embarrassed to be standing there as some people were speaking. Hopefully we don't get graded as a group because I'm pretty sure we would fail. Again, I hate group projects. And this was frustrating. We still have to write a group paper on the topic and, although I'm done with my part and we talked about trying to finish it before we leave, I have a feeling that's not going to happen. These people really don't understand that some of us aren't going to have copious amounts of free time to work on projects after the trip is over so even if it's not due until the end of July, they need to get their acts together now. Coming home Wednesday night also left me very irritated.

Things got a little better when my roommates and I went out to dinner. We went to this little, cheap restaurant in our neighborhood and everything we got was really delicious. So that made me a little happier. But then, that mood was ruined when there was some complications for a different project and I might have to completely redo what I've already done.

Anyways, Thursday dawned and I was not in a very good mood from lack of sleep and irritation at people's ridiculousness. I am still not in a very good mood. We had art history class where we listened to three presentations and had to stand in the heat and it was just not a very fun time. I think we're all a little art-historied out.

Once we got home from class, we stopped at a bakery near our house for some lunch and they gave everything to us for free!! Perks to it being our last day here. Once we were actually home, we started packing everything up and cleaning our apartment. Our landlord is coming for an inspection at 3:30 so we had to get everything tidy again. Hopefully everything goes fine so we can get our 100 euro deposit back.

Now, we're just waiting for him to show up and I came to the realization that it's been a long time since I've blogged. So I decided to do that to pass the time. I have a headache so maybe I'll try and nap after this.

Tonight we have our final Rome group dinner at a very fancy restaurant so that should be good. I'm still irritated but hopefully that will make everything a bit better. I really, really don't want to leave Rome but I want to leave group projects behind forever.

Anyways, my suitcase is packed so the next time you hear from me, I'll be in Istanbul!

(Hopefully. In reality, we actually have every day packed from pretty much early morning to late at night so I might not have time to blog a lot. And sorry there are no pictures in this post--maybe I'll add some in a few days. Also, sorry for my frustration.)

Computer, don't melt!

It's HOT. All the time. And my computer gets so freakishly hot all the time that I feel bad for poor Robert and have to turn him off until he cools down again.

But seriously, it's hot. Even at midnight.

And sorry I haven't been blogging daily. A) I've been busy and B) I don't seem to have that much to say. Thursday was pretty uneventful. We had our classroom classes for basically the last time in Rome (this coming week is all final presentations). And the insalateria was closed so we had to go somewhere else for lunch that was definitely not as good. Other than that, we came home after class and worked for most of the afternoon.

Thursday night we did go get gelato, though, which was very fun. We ended up just sitting on the steps and talking for entirely too long because none of us wanted to get back to work. So I didn't get home until late and was tired all day Friday but it was a much more fun way to spend the night than writing papers.

Friday, I was tired, like I said. So I didn't enjoy our adventures as much as I might have. Plus, it was hot. And walking 30 minutes and standing for an hour is not fun when it's hot. We left early to go to Palazzo Barberini and stopped at the Trevi fountain along the way. We all threw three coins in so we could return to Rome soon!! Well, some of the guys only had one coin so instead of coming back here soon, they're apparently going to get married soon.

Anyways, we kept walking past the fountain and kept going to the Palazzo. It was basically a giant mansion that is state-run now but most of the inside was being renovated so we didn't get to see much. There were a lot of paintings and a very beautiful spiral staircase, though. I love spiral staircases. I want one in my house.

After the "short morning" there (that ended up being like 4 hours) we were walking back to Santa Maria sopra Minerva for a presentation on Galileo when our fearless leader, Lisa, decided she needed coffee. So we all got coffee! And then she almost forgot about Bennett's presentation.

But anyways, after coffee, we eventually made it to the church to hear about Galileo who was basically one of the coolest people ever. First of all, he loved math (obviously important) and he was the original guy to drop two balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa and find out that they hit the ground at the same time. He was pretty much the founder of Physics 121, let's be real. But, during this presentation, I was mildly distracted by the pigeon lady. She rides around on her bike with tons of birdseed and feeds pigeons. So they all swarm around her and she happened to come very close to us and I really really really don't like pigeons. But she's just throwing food and they're landing on her and on her bike and she picked some up and it was just completely revolting. Pigeons are gross.

After that and some group meetings, the rest of Friday was ours! Unfortunately, we have all our final projects due next week so a lot to do. We worked for a while but eventually I gave up and took a nap. And, after dinner, we went down to the river to go to the night market there! It was packed with people. There were even little kids there at like midnight. But it was fun to get out of the apartment and do something more exciting than homework.

Today hasn't been super exciting, either. I got a present for Jake this morning though! It's fantastic. And, I found something for me and was very very excited about it. But, after my morning adventures, I had to come back to our apartment to the realization that my projects still aren't done. So I've been working on those. I'm finally at least making progress and I get to make powerpoints which I kind of love so things are looking up. Plus, I have all day tomorrow to work too.

I wish I had an exciting story to tell you all but these past few days have just been full of work! We have a potluck tonight with all the students to celebrate our LAST WEEKEND IN ROME which should be fun. I can't believe it's our last weekend! Time has gone so fast!

Roma, I will miss you.

My five years of French were actually good for something!

It's been a very long day. I'm tired. But, today was actually relatively interesting so I figured I'd blog about it before I forgot everything that happened!

It started off bright and early (8:30 meeting time...) so we could tour a Roman mosque. To get to said mosque, we had to walk to Piazza del Popolo (about a 30 minute walk from the Campo) and then take a train. It was an adventure. After walking, we got to the incredibly sketchy train station with the most rickety unsafe seeming trains EVER and get on for a short ride to the mosque. However, the train has two different types of stops--ones written in black that the train actually stops at and ones written in blue that you have to request, like if you're on a bus. Did we know that? No. So, first time around, we missed our stop because it's a "request only" stop. We headed over to the other side of the platform to get back on the train and get to our stop. We pressed the button this time but come to realize the stop we want is under construction and thus out of order. So, we cross to the other side of the platform again to just get off at the stop right after the one we were supposed to use. Italians do not post signs about stops being closed or under construction and I feel like that should be mandatory but apparently not.

Anyways, three train rides later, we got off and walked a short distance to the mosque where they instantly force all the girls to cover their shoulders and heads. Luckily, we had been warned and brought our scarves but it was entirely too hot a day to have your head wrapped up. I don't care what religion you are, I would just like not to be forced to wrap a scarf around my head. The mosque itself was large and had lots of Arabic writing but really wasn't super exciting.

After that experience, the few people who are volunteering at the refugee center for their class project (I'm included in this group) had to rush to center before it closed for the day because this was our last day to volunteer. We had to take the train and then the metro to get to Termini and then had about a 15 minute walk to get to the center so it was more time wasted on traveling. Also, thank goodness I was there because no one could seem to figure out how to read the metro map. Anyways, we got to the center and basically I just wandered around talking to the people there, helping them with their English and listening to their life stories. I met a guy from Somalia who completely hates Italy and a 14 year old from Afghanistan. Also, I met a guy from the Cote d'Ivoire and he has only been in Italy since April so speaks no English or Italian but IL PARLE FRANCAIS! Alors, j'ai utlisie mes etudes francaises! Tres bon.

It was a bit difficult to understand everything he was saying because (a) it's been like a year since I've spoken French and (b) he was speaking a not France-French dialect. But I got the gist of it! He was a florist in the Cote d'Ivoire. I think I would hate being a florist. Plants and I aren't friends.

After a few hours there, it was already almost 2:30 and we hadn't eaten since 7:30 so were all getting a bit grumpy. And the buses we were supposed to take back from the center were so packed that we couldn't get on them so we had to walk back to the Rome Center to meet for our next class, giving us approximately 5 minutes to grab some food and maybe go to the bathroom before our 3:00 meeting.

3:00 brought our first art history class of the week where we toured some churches that had massively gilded ceilings that were so heavy that they had to reinforce the church walls and add some buttresses and all that just so the ceilings would stay up. It was more ridiculous, gaudy Baroque. Enough gold leaf was in those to churches to bedazzle probably all of UW. Then, we trekked up to the Aqua Paola, this massive water fountain/pool thing that a pope built a while ago. It was very pretty and the sky had been thundering earlier in the day but had fabulously cleared up when we were sitting by the fountain.

Getting home after class was slightly unfortunate because it meant I had massive amounts of reading to do. I've since discovered how GREAT of a skimmer I can be. But really, we're reading about Sultans now and they just had this obsession with harems and conquering Hungary. That's about all I got out of those 70ish pages.

After reading and a quick dinner, we went out to watch the soccer game! We found this bar very close to our apartment that was serving liters of sangria and wasn't crowded at all so we decided it was a good choice. Partway through the game, this group of German kids (probably about our age) stormed in and were singing and chanting and made it really, really fun. We found out that the only English words they knew were "Oh, shit" and "What the fuck?" Quality cursing, America. Way to spread that around the world. The game was really fun though and it was very depressing when Germany lost because the kids in the bar were so sad.

The game ended and we came home and I decided to blog. And that basically sums up my day.

A few days later

Hello friends! So, I've been slacking and haven't posted anything about my life since our Florence trip.

Actually, the real reasoning behind this is that I haven't been slacking at all! We basically have everything due for the whole course in a week. So I've had shit to do, including but not limited to:
1) Research immigration to Italy
2) Look up the current political situations in multiple countries with people who immigrate to Italy
3) Try and figure out how said people get to Italy
4) Make serendipitous discoveries about Islamic/Italian relations
5) Actually put more time and effort into researching those relations
6) Read a lot about churches
7) Read a lot about popes
8) Visit a lot of places to learn more about popes
9) Upload pictures to facebook
10) Find time to blog so my mother knows I'm still alive

But really, studying abroad is going well, we've just almost reached the end of our time in Rome and have to do something to get our 15 credits. So we're busy.

However, tonight I have been solidly working for the past almost 3 hours with minimal facebook time so I decided I should take a break and blog.

Backtracking to Sunday, my roommates and I wake up to discover the lack of food in our apartment after our Florence trip. Actually, let's correct this: they woke up to discover this. I slept until 11. It was the first time I've slept past 8 since we've been here so it was necessary. And Catherine went to our usual cafe without me and our cafe guys missed me! Basically, we're all good friends now. They invited us to the beach with them! Have I mentioned that already? I'm not sure. My blogs and conversations all run together in my head.

Anyways, since we didn't have food, we went out to both lunch and dinner. We explored Trastevere and found out there was this hill right behind us with a very majestic fountain/waterfall (which turns out to be someone's monument for art history.... who knew??) and beautiful views of all of Rome. It was gorgeous! Except it was 90+ degrees outside and there isn't really much shade at the top of a hill. We got lunch after exploring and came back for an epic afternoon of..... HOMEWORK! Maybe not so epic. But we had copious amounts of reading and researching and group projects. After a long afternoon, we went out to dinner to this delicious little place near our apartment where I got some fantastic ravioli. Since Italians take their time with everything, we didn't get home from dinner until after 10 so after a little more reading, it was bedtime. I don't think I've been sleeping enough in Italy. Tiredness is beginning to get to me.

Regardless, Monday dawned ridiculously hot (again) and began with an attempt to volunteer at the refugee center. Since that's my project for one of my classes, it's quite crucial that we actually spend enough time there to get enough information for our projects. So, we got up early on our day off (they gave us Monday off for the fourth of July!) to bus it to the refugee center only to find out that it was closed. Why? I have no idea and neither did the guy who came to the gate. So it was a fail of a morning and a waste of time as we took two buses and did nothing. After that, we spent some time in the lovely air-conditioned Rome Center working on everything again and trying to coordinate group project meeting times. It was not incredibly eventful.

But, that evening, our professors were throwing a (late) fourth of July dinner for us! So, all 20-some of us went to their apartment where they had some restaurant bring it the most fantastic lasagna EVER. It was so much fun to actually have time to sit and talk with everyone else because we really don't get much of that at all. We heard some life stories and the tales of the most depressing pet owner ever and spent a very long time just hanging out. And, after spending a few hours together, what better thing to do than go get gelato together? Great idea. So, we went to our new favorite gelato place (which is actually kind of far away, but definitely fantastic so worth the walk) and I ended up getting home much later than I wanted to but it was fun! So I guess that's all that matters.

Getting up this morning was not so fun, though. I couldn't sleep last night because of the ridiculous heat and an unnecessary flare-up of my weird chest pain. But I'm in Rome! So I'm ignoring it and ibuprofen and I were best friends today.

We met with the rest of the group for a tour of the largest synagogue in Rome and a tour of the Jewish ghetto that used to be there. The synagogue was very pretty but both tour guides (for the synagogue/museum and the ghetto) were difficult to understand and said almost exactly the same things so we probably could have combined the two. And the Jewish ghetto was demolished a long time ago so we just wandered aimlessly at what used to be the edges of it. It was cool but it was also very hot outside. And we were hungry.

After a much needed lunch break, we were back in the classroom for our Islam class where we finished discussing Trickster Travels and learned a lot about Islam. I'm really excited to go to Istanbul now.

We had a two hour break after that so for some reason decided to walk back to our apartment even though it takes a very long time to get back here and it really only left us with an hour or so which is not enough time for me to be very productive, let's be real. But I did get my art history reading done, so that was a plus. We hurried back to the Rome Center for Kasaba's guest lecture (he's our Islam professor if you haven't read anything on my sidebar) and it was really interesting. And they had snacks. And, to top off the evening, the movie we were supposed to watch after that lecture was cancelled because it wouldn't play! Woo. So we actually had time to mosey back to our apartment, stopping at the crepe place for dinner. I'd only heard good things about this place but hadn't actually tried it and it ended up being wonderful. I got a crepe with cheese, tomato, and some sort of mysterious salami/ham something or other. And it was delicious. After getting home, I seriously did homework until I took a break to write this.

So it hasn't been an incredibly exciting few days (hence the lack of blog posting) and I don't even have my camera handy or many good pictures (we couldn't take pictures in the synagogue or anything!) so you don't get to see any pictures in this post! Sorry! But tomorrow we are touring a Roman mosque, volunteering at the refugee center (hopefully for real this time), and seeing at least three art history sites so it should be more eventful!

I hope you're all having fun and had a wonderful fourth of July!