Italy is one great country. This summer, eight other Gallaudet students, one teacher (Prof. Ian Sutherland) and I all took part of this amazing Italian Studies course that only comes along once every four years here. The goal of the course was to immerse ourselves in art history, learning everything we could possibly learn about Italian art and its history. We travelled all over -- visiting Rome, Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii, Naples, Sorrento, Rome (again!), Orvieto, Florence, Siena, Ravenna, and Venice.

Ira, one of my cats, slept behind my backpack while I was packing.

Having bought a lot of new L.L. Bean camping clothes (not my style, mind you, but they're comfy!), I packed 'em up in my new backpack and flew from Dulles to London on a Tuesday night.

-rome-
I flew into Rome, and stayed the night at the Ciampiano airport overnight, as all my classmates were flying in at different times and I had the directions to our hotel in my head. ;) We bumped into a Deaf Italian guy on the metro on the way to our hotel, but he was signing a-mile-a-minute and we didn't follow him all too well. Our ability to communicate improved after we picked up some Italian Sign Language from other Deaf Italians we met on the trip.

At the ruins of the Forum, next to the Curia (Senate House); our first day out in Rome.

The Colosseum with Prof. Sutherland standing beside it.

This Roman soldier knew some Italian Sign! Wahoo ;)

The shadows inside the "Altar to the Nation."

The famous bronze capitoline wolf - take art history and you'll know what I mean. :)

Inside the Pantheon.

Capitoline Hill from Hadrian's Fortress.

-mt. vesuvius & pompeii-
We left Rome for a few days, to go make the ascent to the top of Mount Vesuvius and view the Scavi of Pompeii. Pompeii is a great little town, and I loved it so much I returned to it during my month-n-a-half sojourn across Europe.

The ascending trail to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius.

Tabitha, a classmate, takin' a picture of the view from Mt. Vesuvius.

The crew at Mt. Vesuvius- Jessica, Jim, Amy, Charlotte, Megan, Drew, Tabitha, me, and Arlinda.

In Pompeii, there are thieves. Lots of 'em, and they don't look anythin' like Lara Croft or Nicolas Cage in National Treasure. They're usually stupid enough to think that exvacators just leave priceless statues lying around. In all actuality, what they do is replace those statues with copies. So, people steal copies of copies of copies. And here's a good picture of a copy:

A copy of a statue of Apollo.

Our professor, Ian Sutherland, is certainly the most qualified professor Gallaudet has to lead this group through Italy. He has a degree from Duke, and has many friends in the archaeological field. In fact, he also dabbles in archaeology himself- he has a house in the ruins of Pompeii that he often goes to during the summers to excavate. The house is called "The House of the Large Fountain," and he was able to get us inside the house, which is closed to visitors, for a closer look.

Detail of the "large fountain" in the "House of the Large Fountain."

The most famous painting in all of Pompeii, in the "House of Venus."

A wall fresco in the Villa Dei Misteri ("House of the Mysteries").

-naples & sorrento-
Naples is a big, dirty city, with ridiculously cheap clothes... Sorrento, south of Naples and Pompeii, is a charming little seaside town with many delicious restaurants and hundreds of bottles of limoncello.

On the street in Naples.

Sunset (or what's left of it) in Sorrento.

-rome (again)-

In the Jesuit Gesu church, looking up on Saint Ignatius ascending.

The long march to the Sistine Chapel (in the Vatican museums).

Inside St. Peter's, at the Vatican.

Inside a church designed by Bernini, waiting for class to end.

-orvieto-
Easily my favorite town in all of Italy, although Pompeii and Cava Dei Tirreni are both great little towns too. Anybody with a little time in Italy should go visit Orvieto and the magnificient Duomo, which is my favorite church in all of Italy- and there are tens of thousands of churches, and we must've visited at least a hundred of them.

The duomo at Orvieto, which was so large I couldn't get all of it in one frame.

Detail of one of the columns on the facade of the duomo.

A side street in Orvieto.

I think these pictures are enough for this one ;) More to come on the next one! Until next time...