Adventures in Rome: The Vatican City

Previously on Adventures in Rome...

Jamie and Henri journeyed through ancient Rome, wondering all the while why history hadn't been that interesting when they were pre-teens in a classroom. Now, they venture to a new country, Vatican City.

Day 3: The Vatican
Henri and I structured our third day in Rome exactly the same way we had the previous two, with one goal at the end of a long wander. This time, however, the goal was physically much closer to our hotel and in many other ways much farther away; The Vatican City.

The Vatican City was declared an independent state in 1929, when the Holy See signed the Lateran Treaty with fascist Italy. (I'm not clear on exactly what is represented by the Holy See, but I do know that it has existed since the fourteenth century and it is not a country.)The Vatican has a population of about eight hundred and is about 110 acres big, making it the smallest country in the world in terms of both population and area. You could fit the entire population of the Vatican into Folsom Field almost seventy times, if you could get them to leave all of their treasures behind. And I do think treasure, in every sense, is the perfect word to describe the things in the Vatican.

The Vatican City has always seemed a little strange to me-a country just slightly larger than my high school, in the middle of another city-and a little mysterious. Maybe it has to do with my lack of knowledge about Christianity and Catholicism, or with popular culture creations a la Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, neither of which I've actually read). When you have a wall (a big wall, believe me) surrounding your city and a secret archive, I guess it's just a matter of course that there will be legends and rumors and conspiracy theories galore. I spent a whole day in the Vatican, and I still feel like I just scratched the surface of the stories and the treasures the city holds.

Henri and I started our day by wandering our way to Castel Sant'Angelo, or in English, the Castle of the Holy Angel. It was originally the mausoleum of Hadrian (the same guy who commissioned the Pantheon) in the second century, but was converted to a castle and fortress in the beginning of the fourteenth century. This is another example of the overlap between ancient and modern Roman history. In its modern history, it's served as the Papal apartments, a prison, and a fortress; Pope Clement VII survived the siege of Charles V's Landsknechte during the Sack of Rome in 1527.

It certainly looks like a castle to me! The statue on the top is of the Archangel Michael, who (according to legend) appeared on top of the castle and sheathed his sword to end the plague of 590; it's from this legend and statue that the castle gets its name.

The castle is now a museum, and Henri and I spent the next two and a half hours exploring. Inside is a spiral corridor that is original from when the castle was a mausoleum; it rises to the level of the circular ramparts. Henri and I also saw the entrance to the (no longer) secret tunnel from the castle to St. Peter's Basilica the Popes used to ensure their safety. Inside the square part are the Papal apartments, though most of the furniture and decorations have been moved to the Vatican Museum.

We also found several very narrow twisty stairways that led to the very top of the castle, where the statue of the Archangel is. I, of course, was delighted to be up high again, and took this picture looking south east. That's the River Tiber below us, which curves out east to run below the castle and then back south just past where you can see in this picture.

This is looking directly east and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. I could tell, even from this distance, that St. Peter's would be very, very high on the list of incredible things I'd ever seen. We had a long journey before we got there, though. After lunch (bolognese americano, delicious) Henri and I met up with a tour guide from the same company that we'd found at the Colosseum. Our tour guide's name was Elena, and after gathering a group of about twelve we headed into the Vatican Museum.

The Vatican Museum is the second largest museum in the world, after the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. would be the biggest museum if you combined them, but Elena was of the opinion that they were a chain of related museums so they didn't count. I found this somewhat amusing. I've heard several different versions of this statistic, but the middle one is that if you spent one minute looking at every piece in the Vatican Museum you would be there for fourteen years.

FOURTEEN YEARS.

Yeah, that's how I felt too.

After bypassing the queue and buying our student tickets (bring your student ID everywhere, by the way. There are almost always student discounts at museums and the like!) we headed up an escalator into a large square called the Pinecone Courtyard.

There's the pinecone the courtyard is named after. It's a bronze statue of Greek origin, and at one point it was part of a fountain. You'll have to forgive me; I don't remember the rest of the story about this piece. I claim information overload in the fifteen minutes following this picture.

This is looking the other direction from the same point. The golden globe in the center was a gift to one of the more modern Popes. If you look very closely, you can see information panels behind the globe. There are six sets of two panels around the edges of the courtyard, all showing the same thing; images of the Sistine Chapel.

Because the Sistine Chapel is a house of God, the Vatican officials ask that you maintain silence while visiting it. This requirement, however, makes it difficult for tour guides to point out the more interesting points of the artwork or tell stories about Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint it. To solve this problem, they provided replicas in the courtyard so the tour guides could tell their stories and point to the pictures before we went in. And oh, are there stories.

Elena started with a brief explanation of what a fresco is, and how it's different from a painting. A painting is the application of a colored substance (acrylic, oil, water) to a surface (canvas, paper, drywall). A fresco is actually a chemical reaction between a coloring agent and the plaster; the coloring agent carbonizes, changing the color of the plaster. There is no color overlaid on a surface, because the surface itself is colored. That's why frescoes last forever. This also makes frescoes really tricky to do; you apply the plaster to the wall or ceiling, and then you have to wait for it to dry to just the right moisture content before you apply the coloring agent. If you get it wrong, the plaster won't carbonize and you have to chip it off and start over. We can then conclude that good fresco artists were extremely skilled.

So when Pope Julius II decided he wanted frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he wanted the best fresco painter he could find, and he asked his cardinals to find such a man and recommend him. One of the cardinals had a young cousin studying to be a fresco painter named Raphael, but the cardinal didn't think Raphael would get the job because no one knew if he'd be any good (yet). So he instead recommended Michelangelo, knowing that Michelangelo would refuse the commission.

Michelangelo was a bit of a character in Renaissance Italy. He was known not only for is incredible artwork but also for his stubborn temper. He was primarily a sculptor (who carved arguably the most famous sculpture ever, The David) who was fascinated with classical Greek art. He was not, however, a painter, and he considered painting as not even a true art form. Painting was work for those who wished to be artists but didn't have the talent. He was quite vocal in this opinion, which is why the cardinal was sure he would refuse the commission. The cardinal was right; Michelangelo told the Pope no. The cardinal hadn't, however, counted on Pope Julius II.

Telling the Pope no was not something many people in that day and age did, and Pope Julius II was just as stubborn as Michelangelo. The Pope's next message was something along the lines of, "That wasn't a request, Michelangelo. You will paint the Sistine Chapel." Michelangelo refused again, and moved back to his hometown, Florence, to avoid the Pope and the Church. Pope Julius II was not deterred in the slightest. His next message read something like, "Paint the Sistine Chapel or I'll burn Florence to the ground."

So Michelangelo returned to Rome to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, on two conditions. He could paint whatever he wanted, and he would never be asked to paint a fresco again. (Twenty-four years later he got wrangled into painting The Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, but he did get to paint whatever he wanted both times.)It took him four years of sitting on scaffolding to do it. The ceiling consists of nine panels depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis surrounded by images of the prophets and sybils who predicted the coming of Christ. Even with my extremely limited knowledge of Christianity, I recognized most of the nine scenes.

Probably the most famous is the painting of God giving life to Adam, both with their arm outstretched to the other. The other scene Elena took extra time to describe was the panel showing God creating the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon. God is painted twice, once facing out and once facing into the scene. There are two theories about this. One is that God's work was so great he had to turn all the way around to see it properly. The other theory (the one that centers on the fact that God's pants are painted firmly around his upper thighs when He's turned to look back at his creation) is that Michelangelo wanted the Pope to be able to enjoy both moons from the altar. *wink*

The irreverent, immature part of my brain was giggling hopelessly at this point, saying to me, "Michelangelo painted God mooning the Pope!" Ah...yeah. Potentially, he did. He also painted one of the little angels hiding behind a sybil flipping the bird (the British equivalent of flipping someone off) so it's not completely insane to think that was exactly what he meant by painting it the way he did. Either way, God's bum has been forever immortalized on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Elena also explained several of the important features of The Last Judgement, pointing out Saint Peter with the key to heaven, Saint Bartholomew with his own skin in hand, and Saint Catherine with her wheel. (There are others, but my lack of background knowledge proved too much for my memory.) She pointed out Charon ferrying his boat across the River Styx into hell, which I thought was rather interesting. I didn't expect to find a Greek mythological character in the same painting as Jesus, Mary, and various saints.

She also pointed out one of the demons in hell, the one farthest in the lower right corner who is depicted with donkey ears and wrapped in the coils of the Serpent. That particular demon got his face from a cardinal who dared to criticize Michelangelo's work (too many naked people, and Jesus depicted as young (read-without a beard) for the first time). When the cardinal went to Pope Julius II, the Pope jokingly told him his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so Michelangelo's painting would have to remain as it was.

When Elena was finished with the panels in the Pinecone Courtyard, we started in on the museum proper. The first thing you see are Greek statues and their Roman counterparts. Greek statues are almost always bronze (and hollow) while Roman statues are carved from marble.

I could show you a multitude of photos of the different statues, but since I've already written a small novel about the Sistine Chapel, I'll limit myself to the very best stories. This is a Roman copy of a Greek statue of the sun god Apollo. Not only is Apollo the god of gods in Greek mythology, this particular statue is the direct inspiration for how Jesus is depicted in the Last Judgement.

Alas, I am not tall enough to get a good angle at this particular Vatican treasure (though I don't think most people are). This is the bathtub of Roman emperor Nero, famous for being both the last emperor related to Julius Caesar and for being completely crazy. Like most things in Rome, the scale of the picture is deceptive; that bathtub is thirteen meters in diameter. (That's over forty feet.) It's a single block of marble, and it's made even more incredible by the type of marble it's made from.

Imperial porphyry was quarried from a single quarry in Egypt in the middle of the desert, nearly 160km from the Nile River. The Romans were so entranced with the unique color and grain of the marble that they exhausted the entire vein of marble. Other, similar veins have been found in modern times, but the extreme conditions of the quarry and the distance to the Nile make it nearly impossible to quarry. The other unique thing about this marble is its extreme hardness; with modern stone cutters it takes nearly an hour to cut three centimeters through the stuff. Can you imagine carving and sanding Nero's bathtub in the second century?

This is another example of porphyry marble. Again, I can't imagine the time and skill it took to carve the reliefs into the sides of this piece.

After the three dimensional pieces, Elena led us down two corridors of more artwork. This is the corridor of tapestries, many woven in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages. One of the things I noticed was the incredible moulding and painting on the ceiling of the hall. It was only at the other end that Elena told us the entire ceiling was flat; everything was painted. I was completely fooled, and I still couldn't tell the difference even after I knew it was painted instead of moulding.

This is the corridor of maps, made in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. What boggled my mind was that the greatest error on any of the maps to today's maps was eighty kilometers. That sounds like a long way, but think of the difference in technology between then and now. Somehow I can't imagine that modern people would do half as well since we've come to rely on technology so much.

After the corridor of maps we went into the Raphael Rooms, which were once the Papal apartments. Remember the cardinal who wanted his young cousin Raphael to paint the Sistine Chapel? Well, he'd learned his lesson about trying to manipulate Pope Julius II, so this time he just outright asked the Pope if Raphael could have just one wall in just one room. The Pope agreed, and when he saw Raphael's work kicked out all of the other painters and told Raphael to do the entire apartments. Many of the frescoes are biblical scenes, while others depict the Pope in an important historical or political moment. I don't remember most of the stories about the different frescoes, but I'll share the two stories I do remember.

These are bibles from all over Europe in different languages. One of the Popes (I unfortunately don't remember which one) sent copies of the Bible in Latin to bishops and cardinals in all of the different countries, who translated it to their native language and sent a translated copy back. The Bibles are wonderfully old and priceless just because of that, but they are also linguistic treasures because they're huge samples of languages for which we know the translations.

Alright, I know. Another interesting picture of...a wall. (My previous post about Rome also featured a wall picture.) But this is actually one of my favorite stories from the Vatican Museum. The last major Sack of Rome (Rome, being at the center of such a powerful Empire, has been sacked and looted many times) was in 1527 and came about because of a convoluted bit of politics. From what I understand, the Holy Roman Empire was fighting the Kingdom of France over control of the Papal States. The Imperial Army defeated the French, but when the Empire had nothing to pay with the soldiers mutinied and sacked Rome. German soldiers under Charles III, the Duke of Bourbon, ransacked the Papal apartments, forcing Pope Clements VII to flee to Castel Sant'Angelo. While in the Raphael Rooms, the German soldiers carved graffiti into the frescoes on the walls. If you look very closely at that picture, you can see VKM carved above an X in the plaster. (VKM, in old German, stands for long live the king.) Also carved into a different fresco: LUTHER. This was the time of the Reformation, when Martin Luther and his ideals became the roots of today's Protestant religions.

And this is where I wish I was a history major again. It's so easy to imagine German boys, indoctrinated with the Reformation, seeing the splendor of the Vatican and wanting to make their mark on it before they had to go and fight again. It almost felt like Pope Clements VII had just vanished into the secret tunnel between the apartments and Castel Sant'Angelo.

After the Raphael Rooms we (finally!) got to see the Sistine Chapel for ourselves. I've heard stories about how the artwork truly seems to breath, and you half-expect Jesus to turn his head and judge you as well as the figures painted in The Last Judgement, but it never quite made sense to me. You don't get that feeling from looking at pictures of the artwork, and they're both two-dimensional representations of the same thing. Oh, I can appreciate the fact that the original is always better than a copy, and I've always felt the time and effort put into the art is astounding. I had no idea what I was missing.

I can only give you the same cliches I'd heard a million times and discounted: the figures painted on the ceilings and walls did seem to breathe, and the panel on the ceiling depicting God descending from the heavens? He's painted as if He's diving from the ceiling to the floor of the Chapel, and I kept glancing back to make sure He was still up there and not coming down to join us. There really aren't good words to describe the works of the genius that was Michelangelo. I can only tell you that if you ever have the slightest chance, go see it for yourself. The lines, the crowds, everything is worth it. The pictures don't do it justice.

We were given twenty-five minutes in the Sistine Chapel before we were supposed to meet at the back and continue on our way. It's not a particularly large room (comparatively) so I initially thought that would be a good of time to enjoy the frescoes. (Don't forget to look down, also; the marble work of the floor is beautiful too.) So when three minutes later Henri tapped my arm and told me we had to go, I was unpleasantly startled. Turns out it had been the full twenty-five minutes; good thing one of us kept track of time.

After the Sistine Chapel we went to St. Peter's Basilica. The old basilica was built in the fourth century, and it was rebuilt beginning in 1506. It was finished 120 years later in 1626. It has the largest interior of any church in the world; you could stand the Statue of Liberty up in the dome and have room to spare. Tradition and some historical evidence say that Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, is buried under the alter. I knew from a very long way away that St. Peter's Basilica was really big, and really incredible, but I still had no idea what I was walking into.

I took three pictures once I was inside: this one, one to the right of it and one to the left of it. I'm only posting this one because my pictures don't do justice to what I really saw. I can tell you a few interesting stories about the Basilica; the circle of porphyry near the door is where Charlemagne was crowned, and to the right of this picture is Pietà, a statue carved by Michelangelo of Mary cradling Jesus after he'd been taken from the cross. It's the only work he ever signed.

There are a million more stories to be told about the basilica, and a million other pictures I could have taken, but after I took my three panoramic shots I just stopped. I stopped trying to cram my head as full of Roman and Christian history as I could, I stopped trying to take pictures, and in some ways I stopped thinking. I just wanted to look, and to be exactly where I was. I told you had no words for the Sistine Chapel; it's even more true for St. Peter's Basilica. I have no words.

As Henri and I exited the basilica, somewhat shell-shocked and awed, we were brought down to earth a little bit by the sight of one of the two hundred Swiss Guards who have served the Pope for hundreds of years. They were protecting Pope Clements VII when he was running to Castel Sant'Angelo, and they are most likely the reason he survived. Most of the two hundred at that time were killed. The Swiss Guards are known for their bravery and loyalty; they're also known for their rather...recognizable...uniform. Leonardo da Vinci designed it, and I think we can agree he had talents outside of fashion. Henri and I began our wander home, stopping for gelato and dinner (in that order!) on the way. Once we returned home, we again fell into our beds, exhausted, somewhat overwhelmed and incredibly glad we'd chosen to come to Rome.

Up next:
Day 4: Villa Borghese
Day 5: Esquilino and Trastevere neighborhoods
Day 6: The Journey Home

Adventures in Rome: Ancient Rome

I have to admit that I was never that interested in Roman history in middle school. It just seemed like too much time to really be comprehensible, and I always get it mixed up with ancient Greek history. I can now announce I’ve found the solution to this disinterest; go to Rome and see it for yourself! The city is incredibly dense with wondrous things to see and learn about.

Day 0 - Journeying
My Roman adventure started at five in the afternoon in the Uppsala Centralstationen, where I caught the train to the airport with Henri. One uneventful trip through check-in and security later, we got on our plane to Rome! Henri was jealous because I got my passport stamped every time; he’s an EU citizen, so he never does. We arrived at the airport, caught the train to the city center, and found ourselves standing outside Termini at midnight, not quite sure how to catch the bus to our hotel. A little wandering and waiting (and some quality time translating the Italian bus website before we left) paid off and we found our bus.

It was a crazy bus ride; we went whizzing through the city at relatively high rates of speed for the many tight corners we went around. Everything we saw was big and old and we had no idea what any of it was. It was a complete blur, and we couldn’t wait to start exploring once we weren’t so punchy and tired.

A little more wandering from the bus stop to our hotel address led us to a large unmarked door with a suite of random things inside. Our hotel consisted of four rooms and a patio in the basement apartment, run by a sweet old Italian man who spoke very little English. He showed us to our beds and Henri and I crashed.

Day 1 - The Colosseum
The next morning we started a tradition of careful planning that served us well for the entire trip. The plan: see the Colosseum, and take the longest way possible to get there. We estimated it was about five kilometers in a straight line from our hotel to the Colosseum, which is about the same distance from my apartment in Kantorsgatan to the BMC where I had my neuroscience class. It took me about an hour to walk the distance in the week before I had my bike.

It was nearly four and a half hours later when we finally reached our destination. On the way we found the Piazza del Popolo, which is just inside the ancient walls that enclosed the northern-most part of Rome. The marble gate was incredible.

In the center of the piazza is one of several ancient Egyptian obelisks, which were transported from Egypt. It was covered in hieroglyphics and had one of Rome's famous fountains at the base. On the north side of the piazza (just to the left once you're through the gate) is "Jamie's first Roman church." Henri and I went inside to see it.

I was in awe. Like the cathedrals of Stockholm and Uppsala, the columns and arches made the space seem bigger and more graceful than normal. The stonework, painting, and other artwork was incredible. And while I was drooling? Henri was busy informing me that this was pretty standard, as far as churches went, and I should wait until I saw one of the proper basilicas. I thought he was crazy.

Three churches later, I was starting to think he might be right. Every church was beautiful, and every one was different. One was painted predominantly in blue. Another had an elliptical dome instead of a round one. We visited nine churches that day, and I can say that as far as examples of human-created beauty, Rome topped anything I have ever seen.

During our wanderings we also found the Piazza di Spagna, which is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. My history here is a little sketchy, but the steps were built by an important Frenchman and were at their time quite an architectural marvel. They lead up to one of Rome's larger churches, which was unfortunately under renovations. The view from the steps was quite nice though.

Many quirky, narrow side streets later we stumbled onto the Trevi Fountain. This is the most famous fountain in Rome, a city famous for its fountains. The story goes that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, you'll be sure to come back to Rome someday. My twenty cents now rests comfortably at the bottom of the fountain. Hopefully the story is true!

Finally Henri and I decided that despite the fact that we hadn't yet reached our destination and we weren't quite sure where we were, it was long past lunch time. We ate lunch at a little place with tables and chairs set up in the street. I had lasagna quite unlike anything I've called lasagna before; penne-style noodles, red sauce, ground beef, and cheese baked in a bowl that sort of reminded me of how French onion soup is served. It was delicious! I was also reminded of one of my favorite parts of Romance cultures: wonderful crusty bread with every meal, and generally with olive oil. I was in food heaven.

After lunch we continued our wandering; we knew which direction to wander in, if not exactly where we were. Two corners later, we were suddenly confronted with Capitoline Hill, and the magnificent National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. It's made entirely from travertine marble, which is quarried north of Rome. It's impossible to miss this white building, particularly on sunny days when it just glows.

To the left of this building is Via dei Fori Imperiali. Mussolini built it straight through a lot of ancient Roman ruins; if you've ever seen video of Italian troops marching up and down a street during WWII, this is where it happened. On either side of the street the ground drops to the ruins, which are about ten meters below the level of the road. At the end of the road is the great structure itself, the Colosseum.

Ok, I switched perspectives on you. Now Fori Imperiali is on the right, and the Colosseum is just visible past all of those trees. The ruins just in front are remnants of the Augustus forum.

This picture was taken from the same spot, just turned 180 degrees. The two domes are Catholic churches, built over a thousand years after the ruins before them. The tallest column seems to be another obelisk, but according to my (very cursory) research I did when I got home, it's not considered an ancient Egyptian or an ancient Roman obelisk.

And there it is: the goal of Day One. The Colosseum captures the imagination of almost everyone who hears any of the stories of gladiators and lions; it's one of the most well-known buildings in the world. It lives up to all of the hype.

When Henri and I finally arrived to the piazza just outside the Colosseum, we were approached by a guy selling tours in English. After a couple of questions (do we actually go inside, are you approved by Colosseum officials; our plan did not include getting scammed!) Henri and I joined the tour.

It turns out that one of the reasons the Colosseum is so well preserved is that various popes throughout the years rebuilt parts of it. There are two reasons proposed for this (outside of genuine historical preservation): 1. they felt somewhat guilty about their efforts to...recycle...marble from ancient Roman temples and buildings, like the Colosseum, and 2. they wanted their names on something as cool as the Colosseum. So when you see large stone plaques with Latin names on them, those are the popes who helped rebuild.

You can tell the difference between original and renovation by the stone work. All of the original Colosseum was built from travertine marble, which you can see in the picture above. The blocks were wired together with bronze rods to keep the whole thing from falling down. The holes you can see in the marble were chipped out to get to the bronze rods to make weapons at some *cough* undefined later point in history. (I'm telling you, kids, pay attention in history class!)

This is the inside of the Colosseum. Almost all of the seats have fallen (or been taken) apart, but you can see one section remaining almost directly across from where I was standing. Below that, you can see a small portion of the reconstructed arena. Everything below that was hidden from view, and fed the trapdoors that released the famed starving lions or swallowed up the dead fighters. The other thing I found really fascinating was that the Colosseum, at one point, had a canvas roof that could be unfurled at will to protect the spectators from the sun and rain.

As we were leaving the Colosseum we were informed that our tickets included entrance and guidance through the archaeological sites on the Palatine Hill, but as it was after entrance for the day (4:00) we could come back tomorrow and join another group, no worries. So Henri and I began our wandering home. We stumbled across another block of ruins called the Largo di Torre Argentina, sunk into the ground in the middle of modern buildings, and then several blocks later the Pantheon, which was filled to the brim with tourists. We decided to come back this direction the next morning and see the inside when it was hopefully less crowded, and continued on our way home. (Turns out all that walking can be somewhat exhausting.) After the best gnocchi I have ever had, we again crashed in our beds, while visions of crumbling marble danced in our heads.

Day 2: The Palatine Hill
Day Two in Ancient Rome had much the same structure as Day One; wander until  we got to Ancient Rome, tour the Palatine Hill, wander back. We did, of course, want our wander on the way there to coincide with the Pantheon, but we figured we could make it happen. If we found it without looking for it, surely we could find it while we were looking for it.

Every morning we crossed the Tiber River; we were staying on the east side of the river, and ancient Rome, as well as the modern "downtown," are on the west side. Not able to remember the names of all of the streets, we simply named the bridges by where they crossed to. For example, "our bridge" was the bridge that was closest to our hotel.

The next bridge downriver was the "train bridge" because of the metro line it also carried, and the bridge below that one was the "courthouse bridge," although courthouse seems an entirely inappropriate word for the building we were referring to.

This is the main entrance; see the relative size of the cars parked in front? The building extended three or four lengths of the entrance on either side. It's massive, beautiful, and very old-looking. Henri jokes he'd break a law in Rome just to be able to see the inside. I told him he was on his own for that particular adventure.

This is a perfect example of the little streets we wandered down all morning. Roman people seem to be very keen on growing things, and there are trees, vines, and potted plants all over the city. Our wanderings also brought us to a small market, where we bought two clementines to snack on as we continued. Perhaps it was the fact we were hungry, or that we were eating outside, or that we were simply eager to be delighted, but they were wonderful, although somewhat more tart than the ones we have at home.

Alright, I know. Interesting picture of...a...wall. The interesting bit is the column on the right side; it's of ancient Roman origin. I have no idea what building it was originally part of, but it illustrates a classic characteristic of Rome; you have columns, churches, apartment buildings, and everything else built in the last twenty-five hundred years all mixed together in this fantastic overwhelming whirl of history. It's completely incredible.

Our wanderings then took us to Piazza Navona, another one of the bigger piazzas in Rome. Another Egyptian obelisk and another beautiful fountain, graced the center of the piazza. Along one side was another huge white building that sort of reminded me of the courthouse. Henri declared it a church, and I thought he was crazy. Churches are not that big. I had clearly yet to learn that Henri was right about everything related to Roman churches (though to be fair, he'd been to Rome before.) It was a church, although there were other offices and things to either side of the church, in the same building. One was the Brazilian Embassy.

Here you can see the church/embassy/other important things on the left. Also notice the interesting oval shape of this piazza; we'll come back to that later.

From here we started trying to find the Pantheon, and we quickly discovered that it is halfway impossible to find something you're actually looking for in Rome! Quite a bit of wandering later, we did find it, and it was happily less crowded than the day before, though still busy.

In order, this is the front of the Pantheon, the inside of the dome, and one picture of the inner walls. The Pantheon is interesting for a variety of reasons. It was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa to be a temple to all the Roman gods, and then it was rebuilt by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. as a monument to a triumphant battle...somewhere in the Roman Empire. (Again, smacking twelve-year-old self for reading under the desk during history.) It's since been converted to a Catholic church, Santa Maria della Rotonda. It's also interesting because it's almost two thousand years old, and it's still almost perfectly preserved. It's the largest dome ever made from un-reinforced concrete. It's also an architectural wonder for several other reasons that have to do with the dimensions of the dome and the angle it rises at, but I didn't follow most of the details. I can tell you it was very big and very impressive.

Our goal of seeing the Pantheon completed, Henri and I continued to wander through the little streets on our way to the Palatine Hill. We again stopped for lunch in a small side street just before we reached Capitoline Hill. The different varieties of pasta was mind-numbing; I could have returned there every day for a month and not tried everything. Happily fed once again, Henri and I continued on our way.

As we walked past the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, I noticed lots of people climbing the steps to the entrance, which was high above ground level. I've always liked being up high, so Henri and I started climbing. Lots of steps later, we discovered there was also an elevator that you could ride to the very top of the Monument. Needless to say, I was quick to buy a ticket to one of the highest points of Rome.

This is looking northeast from the top of the monument. The biggest dome you can see against the skyline is St. Peter's Basilica.

This is looking straight north. The long street you can see running straight from the monument is Via Del Curso, which goes all the way to Piazza del Popolo.

This is a direct 180 degrees from the other picture; you can see the Colosseum, the majority of the forums, the temples to ancient Roman gods and emperors, and the whole Palatine Hill. This reminded us of our big goal for the day, and after taking in the sites for a while (and the gloriously warm sunshine!) we continued the rest of the way and joined our tour.

The Palatine Hill was, in ancient days, the address to have in the world. According to legend, the cave at the base of the hill is where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf. Romulus went on to found a city on the hill and named it after himself: Rome. (I think the legend also includes him killing his twin, but I'm not clear on details of the story.) The emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Domitian all had palaces on top of the hill. (The word palace comes from the name Palatine.) Domitian's palace is the best preserved, as it was the last built.

This was a stadium he had built for his entertainment. Young men would compete in running and throwing competitions, and occasionally fighting competitions. You can see some of the remaining marble, but most of what you see here is brick. Most of the palace was built from brick or concrete, and then covered with panels of marble. (It was cheaper to do it that way.) This led to one of my favorite stories from the tour of the palace; Domitian was so nervous about getting assassinated he had all of the marble polished until it was actually reflective. That way, he could stand with his back to the wall or he could see someone sneaking up behind him. The funny part: he was poisoned by his wife.

We also learned something about the other arenas that had been constructed by ancient Roman emperors. The Colosseum is, of course, the most famous, but there is also the Circus Maximus, on the east side of the Palatine hill, Domitian's private arena (the one pictured above), and much larger public Stadium of Domitian. The Circus Maximus has been left as ruins and preserved as it was, but the Stadium of Domitian was in a very central area of Rome and has been rebuilt as the Piazza Navona. That's why it has the unique oval shape I mentioned before.

The archaeological site also included the world's first botanical garden, temples to most of the Roman gods, the first paved road in the world, and most of the Roman forums.

This is the temple to Venus and Aphrodite. To the right is the road I mentioned, leading to the Arch of Titus. The Colosseum is just behind my right shoulder from where I was standing.

This is the arch of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. That's the Colosseum behind it. Whenever an emperor had a major military triumph, they built an arch (or the Pantheon, if you're Hadrian) to commemorate it. These arches were the model for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

This picture is taken from the top of the Palatine hill, in the botanical gardens. The three huge arches are remains of the Temple of Massenzio, who was a Roman emperor in the third century A.D. What you can see there is about a third of what the temple actually was. It's hard to tell from this picture, but later I went and stood in the right arch and it is incredibly massive.

This picture is taken from the same vantage point, pointed to the left of the Temple of Massenzio. There are two temples in this photo. The one on the right, that sort of looks like two separate buildings, is the Temple of Romulus (not the founder of Rome, but the son of Massenzio). Through the bushes you can just see a set of bronze doors, which look green with age. (They're leading into the round part of the building.) Those are the original doors of the building, built eighteen hundred years ago. They have the original locks in place, and when archaeologists found the original keys, they were able to determine that the keys and locks still work. Absolutely mind-blowing.

The one on the left, with the scaffolding on it, is dedicated to another Roman emperor and his wife. I was starting to hit information overload at this point, so I can't remember which emperor, but I was interested because it was the first known temple to be dedicated to a human woman (as opposed to a goddess).

This is my favorite photo of the Roman Forums. You can see the remains of the brick walls, marble columns, and in the background, the Palatine hill (right) and the Colosseum (left). Walking through the forum is a somewhat unique experience because of the lack of fences and "do not touch" signs. Chunks of marble, labeled with ID numbers and coordinates, are scattered all around for people to touch and examine. You can walk through some of the rooms of the ruins, and see remains of statues. Of course, not everything is open to the public, but it was fun to be able to trace a marble relief that was created two millenia ago.

It's tricky to read when the photograph is this size, but carved into the marble on the top of the columns is Senatus Populusque Romanus. Translated from Latin, it means the Senate and the People of Rome. To understand exactly how incredibly cool this is, you need a very (and I do mean very) broad understanding of Roman history.

Romulus (disputably a real person and not just a legend) was the first of seven kings who founded and ruled Rome, some time around 750 B.C. After the seventh king, around 500 B.C., Rome was ruled by the Senate. Julius Caesar upset the power of the Senate in 49 B.C., but was never considered an emperor for a variety of reasons I never really understood. His adopted heir, Augustus, was the first "official" Roman emperor. The Roman Empire changed sizes and emperors rapidly, but was eventually split into two halves, Eastern and Western, in 395 A.D. The Western Empire crumbled into the barbarian states, recognizable as the modern western European countries, in 476, and the Eastern Empire became the Byzantine Empire.

500 to 800 is considered the Medieval era of Rome, and Rome was ruled by various Popes who accepted Byzantine rule (and fought with France a lot). In 800 Charlemagne was crowned the king of the Holy Roman Empire, which marked the end of Rome's acceptance of Byzantine rule. The Papacy continued to fight with France and occasionally Germany all the way through to modern history. The other bit of history to note is the Roman Renaissance, which was in the 15th century.

And voila. Rome in a nutshell.

The phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus dates back to the origins of the Roman Senate, around 500 B.C. Someone, some time between 2500 and 2000 years ago, carved those words into those marble blocks and probably watched as they were set atop those columns. He (they?) had no idea that the Senate would last until the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, or that popular representation would be the philosophical basis of so many modern governments, or that SPQR (the abbreviation) would still be on Rome's coat of arms in the twenty-first century. SPQR has survived arguably one of the most tumultuous histories ever, and there it stands. Talk about the Eternal City.

As we were staring at the Latin words, a voice came over a loudspeaker announcing the closing of the archaeological site, and Henri and I followed the crowds to the exit. Another, somewhat shorter, wander home took us to our favorite part of modern Rome thus far, the Gelateria del Teatro. Hidden in a tiny alley off one of the narrow rambling streets, it has the best gelato I have ever had in really interesting flavors. My favorite: raspberry and garden sage.

It took a while for Henri and I to motivate ourselves to finish the walk home, where we again crashed hard.

Up next:
Day 3: The Vatican City

The End of Neurology

Hej san,

I can finally say that I have successfully (as far as I know) completed my first full course at Uppsala University! It was time-consuming, occasionally stressful and overwhelming, and altogether one of the best biology courses I've ever taken. My compatriots and I studied long and hard for the exam, which was a different style than I've experienced at home. It consisted of eighteen free response questions, and we had five hours to answer them. It is definitely the longest single exam period I've ever sat for. I feel relatively good about it; I nailed the several questions on the vision system (despite the fits it gave me while studying) and I knew enough to guess at the questions I wasn't sure about. (The regulation of appetite is still a little muddy for me.)

I should get my results back in a week or two, and though I know it will only be recorded as pass/fail on my CU transcript I hope I did well. Neuro was a comfort to me when everything else was strange and different, a way to meet interesting people from all over the world interested in the same nerdy things I am, and a wonderful challenge.

Mixed in with the end of neuro was some bad news; one of my ski cross racing friends, Brooke Dunleavy, crashed at a race in Norway and wrecked herself pretty badly. Six breaks in her pelvis, four broken vertebrae in her neck, and two dislocated hips landed her a helicopter trip to the best hospital in the region. The good news: that's Uppsala University Hospital! While I'm not pleased about the reason for her visit, I'm glad that she ended up here, where I can go and visit her. I went twice last week, and she was upbeat and rather more alert than I expected her to be, given the morphine drip. Her parents, Jan and Peter, were also glad to see a familiar face. At the last update, Brooke had surpassed her doctors' expectations by weeks and stood up for the first time. I hope to go see her again soon.

As I mentioned several posts ago, my friend Henri and I had decided that when I finished with my Neuro course (and he with something about surface physics that sounded even harder!) we would go to Rome as a much-needed holiday from classes.  We flew out Wednesday evening after our exams, and spent the next five and a half days exploring the Eternal City. I can safely say that it was one of the most incredible holidays I've ever had. I finally know a little bit of something about the history of the Roman Empire (it's so much more interesting when you can touch the marble reliefs!) and I even managed to get a bit of a sunburn. Our time there was jam-packed with adventures, so I'll share them all in a different post (to come soon after this one!)

We returned to Uppsala on Tuesday night, and I've spent the last several days doing laundry, sleeping in, and figuring out what I'm going to do now. Even with my new course starting up next week, I'm still going to have an incredible amount of free time. My philosophy course, called Happiness, only meets for two hours once a week! This will certainly be a change from Neuro, that's for sure. So what am I going to do with all this time?

My first priority (after laundry!) has been cleaning out my academic life (email, desk, folders, etc) to get ready for my next course. I've also managed to study a bit of Swedish, and I'm currently working on applying for a First Year Class Advisor position on PLC staff next year. Once I finish that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I do plan to put the time to good use doing something interesting!

I'll leave this for now, as above-mentioned laundry needs to be changed, but watch for a post about my adventures in Rome soon.

Until then, hej då!

The Big Bad Brain

Hej san!

I'm afraid this will once again be a relatively short post, and I can already tell you not to expect much next week either. It's crunch time for neuroscience! Our final is officially less than two weeks away, and we present our research projects next week. This week has been crammed full of studying, revising my research paper, and occasionally some Swedish homework. The worst part is that it's been gloriously sunny at least every afternoon, and I really want to soak up all the rays I possibly can.

Despite my continual obsession with the sunshine, neuro is as fascinating as ever. This week we had lectures about behavioral genetics, neurotoxicology, neurogenetics, and consciousness. What does it mean to be aware? Is there a genetic component to intelligence, or sexual preference, or mental disorders, and if so, how much of a role does it play? These lectures were structured more as seminars because of their controversial nature, and it's a good contrast to just memorizing the different classes of receptors.

When I can't focus on neuro anymore I turn my attention to Swedish homework. Sometimes it seems like the most intuitive language (which could possibly be because of five weeks of exposure to it before the class started) and sometimes it's just downright puzzling. For example, when you want to make a Swedish noun plural, you don't just add "s" to the end, you have to add a different ending depending on what letter the noun ends with and whether it's an "en" or "ett" noun. (Swedish nouns have a "gender" the same way Spanish nouns do.) It's fun to learn, even though I don't know enough yet to really read anything all in Swedish.

Occasionally I can't help but go out in the sunshine. I discovered last weekend a trail running through the trees just past the ICA (grocery store) and it's my new favorite place to go walk or run. My other fun adventure for this weekend: Henri is teaching me how to makes crepes, the French way. I'm so excited! But after that it will be back to the crunch, at least for a little bit.

Until next time,
Hej då!

When one attends a Gasque...

Hej!

After a wonderful day of sunshine, I'm finally back to writing. As implied by the title of this post, my biggest adventure since the last time I wrote was attending the international student gasque! But I'll start at the beginning of the week, and write from there.

Just after my last post, it started snowing in Uppsala. It was wondrous to see everything all white and beautiful, but it also made biking to class more interesting. I was really impressed with how well the city kept the streets and bike paths clear though; as long as I stuck to the more well-used paths and roads instead of the many short cuts I've picked up, they were cleared and covered with gravel and sand. The really interesting biking happened later in the week, when the weather warmed to about 4 degrees (40 in Fahrenheit) every afternoon three days in a row, and melted all of that lovely snow into mush that got churned into interesting shapes and frozen every night. Most people gave up on biking altogether, but I thought it was more of a good challenge to get to class without slipping. Fortunately the continuing warm weather has melted most of the slush away, so the biking is actually the best it's been yet.

And of course, I have to write something about what I was biking to! Neuroscience has been fascinating as usual; this week we had lectures about the auditory system, emotions, pain (which is actually controlled by an entirely different set of neurons than the rest of the touch sensory system), and the neurology of biological rhythms, namely sleep. We had our second oral exam, which was a decided mix of good and bad news. The good news: the discussions we had were really interesting, and we kept getting side-tracked on interesting tangents away from the actual questions. I wish people just sat around at talked about science like that more often! The bad news: I have A LOT of studying to do before the written exam.

I've also been working on my literature overview project, which is about the neuroscience of music. It's also been really interesting, but the rough draft is due tomorrow and I'm not nearly ready to turn anything in. Sometimes deadlines are good because they force you to actually get going on something, but other times they're really just frustrating.

The end of the week was marked by more than just the oral exam for neuro, however. This Friday was the international student gasque. A gasque is a formal dinner and dance, and every Nation has several. This particular one wasn't hosted by any specific Nation, but was for all of the international students. I had a blast! It was fun to get all dressed up with some of my friends from neuro (I haven't been that giggly and girly since high school!) Everyone mingled for a bit when we got there, and then we went upstairs for dinner. Every gasque has a random seating arrangement, so there's no pressure to go with anyone in particular, or to get a date. I sat next to a girl from Austria, Johanna, the secretary of Smålands Nation, and my friend Jeremy from Canada. (He's the one who organized the Super Bowl party). We had a blast, especially once I discovered that Johanna followed ski racing. Most Austrians do, even if they're not skiers themselves. For an Austrian, not hearing about Hermann Maier is like an American not hearing about Tim Tebow; even if you don't follow football you can't escape completely.

Dinner was also fun because of the Swedish traditions involved. Between every course, (this dinner had three) and often during the courses as well, the toast master of the event will interrupt everyone, lead a drinking song, and then everyone will toast and drink. I was quite happy toasting with my soda, and no one seemed to care so long as I tried to sing all of the songs (in Swedish, mind you) as exuberantly as everyone else.

After the dinner (this was at about 11:30) they cleared all of the tables away and had the "after party" part of the gasque. In one section of the room there was a live band, and in another there was a karaoke going on. Between them was a bar and places to sit an hang out. Most of my neuroscience friends were pretty thoroughly inebriated by this point in the evening, and watching them sing karaoke (I'm a Barbie Girl and Summer of '69) was absolutely hilarious. I stayed until about one, when I decided I'd had about enough and walked home. It was a fun experience, and hopefully I'll get the chance to attend another gasque.

I'll unfortunately have to make this post shorter than the last several, as I really should be writing my neuroscience paper at the moment. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to report next time!

Until then,
Hej då!

Turning Dreams into Plans

Hej!

As this is officially Vecka Fem (Week 5) of class, I can officially say I've used up a quarter of my time here in Sweden. What a terrifying thought! At times I feel like I can't imagine what it would be like to not hear more Swedish than English, to not have the cathedral and the castle as part of the skyline, and  to not eat Wasa everyday. (After a quick review, I have discovered I have not expounded the joys of Wasa yet. It's a flat bread/cracker type of thing, and I put cream cheese, peanut butter, jam, or Nutella on it. It exists in the US, but it's really popular here.) At the same time, I can't believe time is rushing by so quickly, and I feel like it's only going to go faster.

So it's rather fortunate that this week past week my attention has been turned, by a number of circumstances, to making plans for all of the wild dreams I've had but never really acted on. It began last weekend when Henri invited me to join him on a day in Stockholm.

Stockholm is about forty minutes away by train. I was really excited to travel by train, which is something Henri found rather odd. He's used to taking the metro or the train everywhere, and it wasn't until I showed him a map of Denver's LightRail system (which I do love, but has nothing on European train systems) that he understood. Trains are wonderful. They're fast, smooth, and you don't have to worry about anything but being on time. We arrived in Stockholm at 9am, and proceeded to explore Gamla Stan, which is the island that has the "Old Town" on it. Stockholm is comprised of fourteen different islands, all of which have a slightly different character. Gamla Stan includes the currently used royal palace, the Stockholm Cathedral, and a wondrous maze of tiny, winding, cobbled streets.

This was again something that completely enchanted me that Henri was slightly more used to. After some thought, I decided that perhaps one explanation was that most US cities were built in an era of at least horse-and-buggy transportation, if not car transportation, so all of our streets are wide and straight. While he also enjoyed walking around Gamla Stan, he was rather amused with how awed I was. It was beautiful! The buildings are mostly faded red and yellow, and they're all pressed together around the little streets. The best part about Gamla Stan is that no matter how you turn yourself around, you end up on the edge of the island soon enough, and then it's very easy to figure out where you are from the landmarks across the water or from the towers of the various churches and the cathedral. For a bit we crossed the bridge to Norrmalm, which has the modern downtown.

We also went inside the Stockholm Cathedral, which is very different from the Uppsala Cathedral. The inside is made of brick, unlike the grey stone used in Uppsala, so the whole cathedral has a much warmer and cheerier feel to it. When we were there a group of musicians, mostly string and piano, were warming up for a concert. Someday I would love to hear a concert in a cathedral; the acoustics are really incredible. Even listening to them warm up was quite a treat.

After several hours spent like this, we both decided we were cold and wanted a bit of fika. (Fika, loosely translated, means coffee break; it involves hot drinks, some kind of sweet bread, and time to chat, but it can be at home or at a cafe. It's very casual, and one of my favorite things about Sweden.) On our ramblings, we'd found a triangular courtyard with creeper-vines arching over the streets and a large tree in the middle, and a cafe on one side. We managed (somehow) to make our way back to it and ordered semla (a bun with the top cut off, filled with vanilla custard and whipped cream) and tea, and proceeded to spend the next two and a half hours talking. Our conversations ranged from regional food specialties to history to current politics to our homework. Talking with Henri is a joy.

After our extra-long fika, Henri and I took the ferry to Djurgården, another one of Stockholm's islands. Djurgården is part of Stockholm's Royal City National Park, the largest city park in the world. Our goal was to go to Skansen, which is a living Swedish history museum. I'm guessing it's a bit like colonial Williamsburg, if anyone is familiar with that; a town built to historical standards, populated (at least during the day) with people dressed and acting in accordance with the time period. You'll note I said "I'm guessing," because we never actually made it there. When we got off the ferry, I caught site of a really massive building and I wanted to see what it was.

Turns out it was the Nordika Museet (Nordic Museum) which houses artifacts of all kinds about the history of Swedish culture. Henri and I spent three hours wandering around before we realized it was dark out, and at some point we should probably get back to Uppsala. A ferry, a train, and a bike ride later, I was exhausted but completely content with my adventure. Henri and I have agreed we need to go back to see the Stadshuset, where they give the Nobel prizes (except the Peace Prize, which is awarded in Norway) and to finally make it to Skansen!

On the train ride back, I made a comment about how much I love going places. I've always wanted to travel around Europe. Henri gave me a funny look and asked me why I wasn't doing it. He pointed out that I was much closer to the rest of Europe than I will be for a while, and told me that the bargain airlines have really good deals sometimes. "Just book something and go," he told me. After I thought about it for a while, I decided that Americans see traveling to different countries as a much bigger deal than Europeans, simply because going to another country (that isn't Canada or Mexico) means traveling a very, very long way.

He inspired me to spend a rather unfortunate (for this week's neuro reading, anyway) amount of time on a website called Skyscanner, which searches all of the European airlines for really cheap fares. I can fly to cities all over Europe, like Rome, Prague, Paris, or Geneva for under 100 euros. These are cities I read about in stories that might as well be fantasy because they're normally so far away, but now it's a two to four hour plane ride! While I didn't click the green BOOK button last night, I think I will in the near future, if I can ever decide on where to go. If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate them!

My last "dream turned plan" is a little closer to home, and was inspired in a completely different type of situation. This week in neuro we covered the somato-motor system (the sensation of touch and the ability to move and balance, which are actually more closely related than most people think). One of the lecturers, Klaus, explained about joint receptors, which measure how much tension we're putting on ligaments and tendons. When you tear something, an ACL for example, you also tear the neurons that feed the joint receptor, and that's part of what you have to regain during physical therapy if you ever want your balance back. When Klaus was explaining this, he was speaking with the air of someone who knew what it was like to tear a ligament, so when I asked him a different question (about stretch receptors) during the break, I also asked him which ligament he'd blown.

He laughed, and told me an ACL in a football (soccer) match, and then wanted to know if I had done one, which led to a conversation about skiing and other athletic activities around Uppsala. He told me it's really too flat around here for skiing, but one thing they do have is long-distance ice skating. Some years, if it's cold enough, the water in the Stockholm archipelago freezes and you can ice skate for miles and miles. Apparently this year it's cold enough, and the ice is in really good condition. On his advice I'm going to try to organize a group of kids to go ice skating in the archipelago. I'm not sure it will happen this weekend, but hopefully week-after-next. (Next week is the second oral exam, and the first draft of the literature overview is due. Turning dreams to plans is well and good, but I should also probably pass my class!)

The other exciting news of the week: this was the first week of my Basic Swedish class, which I have from six to eight every Tuesday and Thursday evening. The first class was mostly administrative matters, but we did get through counting and the alphabet. Swedish has NINE VOWELS, (a, e, i, o, u, y, å, ö, and ä) some of which sound very much the same to me. This will be an adventure in its own right.

Overall I'm really happy with how I've spent the first quarter of my time here, and I can't wait for the next adventure. To make it even better, I keep getting good news from home; my two best ski buddies qualified for USCSA Regionals and Jeff is holding his own at the Steamboat Telemark World Cup Races.

Until the next adventure,

Hej då!

Life as Normal (or as normal as it gets)

Hej everyone!

I will, predictably, start by apologizing for the delay in this post. A variety of circumstances created it, but I promise I will hopefully now be back to posting on Wednesday or Thursday each week. With that out of the way, let me return to telling stories about my time here in Sweden.

Last week in neuroscience was as demanding as ever. We finished our second lab, which was based on a computer simulation of action potentials. I'm really glad we did this one because it really forced us to think through this rather complicated topic. We also did our third lab, which was the only one of the course that required true "lab work" with pipettes and everything. We tested two neuropeptides to determine which one binds more tightly to the receptor. It was an interesting lab, and my partner and I will analyze the results this afternoon.

In lecture we covered the intricacies of the interplay between the nervous and endocrine systems and appetite. There are definitely moments when I throw my mental hands up and I'm just glad that it all works! We also had our first literature analysis session, which is when we read an original research article and discuss questions with one of our professors. This paper was about the neurotransmitter ghrelin, which regulates hunger. I was glad that I'd had experience reading research papers before, because they can be quite daunting if you've never done it. I was once again very happy that English, and not Swedish or German or anything else, is my native language!

This week has been much lighter in terms of classroom time; we had Monday completely free, and a review session yesterday, but all because we had our first oral exam today. For the oral exams, you are given five minutes to look over the questions by yourself, and then you are paired with a classmate and assigned two of the ten questions to answer. You have twenty minutes to work out answers before you present them to the class, along with questions about any details you couldn't remember. The purpose is not to really test the students but to provide us with a check point to see how much we know and how much we need to go back and study. However, it's worthwhile to study because the last thing you want to do is sound like a fool in front of the entire group. I think today's went relatively well, though I will admit I got lucky with my assigned questions; there were a few I definitely did not want to try to answer.

Outside of neuroscience, I've had several good adventures since my last post. On Friday I attempted to ride my bike to IKEA, which is not really all that far from the BMC. For the first time since I arrived here though, I managed to get totally turned around and accidentally went for a two and a half hour bike ride instead! I visited the shores of Lake Mälaren, the third largest lake in Sweden, before turning around and heading back upriver to town. It was quite a beautiful bike ride, but it was a touch too cold, particularly in my jeans and with my school books on my back.

My other good adventure this week was to join in with the rest of the American exchange students in watching the super bowl. I've always liked watching football at home, but most of the evening games there are very late at night (or early in the morning, depending on how you count) here, so I've been following the play offs by looking up the scores the day after. However, a Canadian friend of mine organized one of the Nations to show the Swedish stream of it, and serve American football food, which turned out to be chicken wings, potato wedges, and nachos. I think they got it about right! I have to admit though, Swedes don't really do spicy; the chicken wings weren't hot by any stretch of the imagination and the salsa tasted a little more like tomato and onion sauce than anything else. Henri was just trying to figure out why we would say the salsa had no kick; "what do you mean it can't kick?" It was still great fun, particularly to try to explain football to all the non-American kids.

Football is a complicated sport! Before the game even starts, one needs to know at least a little about how the four downs work, and what a yard is (which automatically leads to a discussion about how much better the metric system is than whatever we use) and what an end zone is. Then you can begin to describe the different types of players (the quarterback stands in the middle and throws to the receivers) and plays (pass versus rush). Of course, Brady and Manning chose to start the scoring off with a safety given for an intentional grounding penalty. That one isn't difficult to explain at all, let alone the rest of the scoring for football. One can then move into the different penalties (false start, holding, personal foul, pass interference, delay of game, illegal formation) and when a play is declared over (fumble, incomplete pass). After one particular blocked pass, a defense man made the referee's signal for incomplete pass. Henri leaned over and asked, "is he supposed to be waving his arms like that? Is he hurt?" I thought I was going to die laughing.

I gave up at halftime; it was two in the morning and I had little interest in watching Madonna instead of football. Henri and I walked home, and I asked him what he thought of American football. He was very impressed by how much strategy was actually involved. "I thought they would just be punching each other for the ball the whole time," he told me. "They look like they're dressed for war!" He then declared football to be more complicated than quantum mechanics. Oh the joys of international sports.

Beyond those adventures I can safely say that I spent most of my time ensconced in my room with my neuro text. Live-timing was a great distraction, as my brother and friends raced in Telluride this weekend. Jeffrey got third and fourth, and my good friend Keeli was second and fifth! I was very proud of both of them. I'll be watching next weekend as Keeli races in Winter Park and Jeffrey competes in Steamboat at a telemark World Cup. Hopefully next time I will be able to say I FINALLY made it to IKEA, and tell you about whatever other adventures I've been wrapped up in. Until then,

Hej då!