Pillar #8: Belgians have a strict no-return policy on umbrellas

I hate to keep harping on food, but it really is one of the best parts of Belgium. Two evenings, our professor took us out on the school and gave us a very generous allowance for food. When you're spending other people's money (or I suppose, indirectly spending my own money), it's easier to take risks and order things you might not otherwise order. The first night, I tried frog legs for the first time (they literally do taste like chicken) in addition to a delicious halibut and pasta dish. The second night, we ventured to De Vlaamsche Pot (The Flemish Pot), a restaurant that our professor had really built up over the week. Their specialty is a Flemish dish called carbonnade, essentially beef stew over frites. We also shared some appetizers, so I got to try some mussels and shrimp cocktail (with tiny, tiny North Sea shrimp). Then with a big house beer, I decided to buck the trend of the rest of my group and try the rabbit carbonnade, and I was certainly not disappointed. Though I spent most of the meal quietly picking tiny bones out of my mouth, it was really great. After that, as if I hadn't eaten enough, I got another Flemish/French specialty, a Dame Blanche (white lady, basically a chocolate sundae with a waffle cookie), for dessert. Commence food coma...

The good news is that we've (still) been walking and getting plenty of exercise. On Thursday, we took a bike ride along one of the main canals to Damme (pronounced Dah-ma), which is a small village about five kilometers from the northeast gate of Bruges. It never actually grew to the full limits of its seven-pointed star shaped walls (now removed leaving a narrow tree-lined canal in its place), so we were able to cover most of the city in about 30 minutes. For comparison, I would guess that if you took downtown Watkinsville, made it more dense, and put it on a river, you'd have something similar. After lunch, we decided to ride farther north to where the canal from Bruges linked up with the main canal leading to the North Sea. Today, these canals are no longer used and have been replaced by a much wider canal running due north from Bruges to a newer port city called Zeebrugge (Sea Bruges), but it's interesting to think that for a time in history, farmers and town people were able to watch the merchant ships from all over the world sailing down the canal past their small town.

The point of our trip was to document what my professor has called “Urban Spatial Types”—essentially streets, avenues, boulevards, squares, plazas, etc. that are found in traditional cities—so we spent Friday doing just that. These are the pieces that also make up historic American cities and towns, such as main streets and courthouse and church squares. In modern planning practice, these are unfortunately reduced to words like “arterial” and “collector” and “highway” that refer simply to automobile traffic patterns rather than the good stuff found in towns and cities, and “space” refers to the area surrounding buildings rather than the area contained by buildings. Savannah is one of the best examples locally that has many of these types. There are several boulevards with planted medians, such as Oglethorpe Avenue, and Bay and Broughton Street would be main avenues, to give two examples (obviously, the given names don't always correspond with my professor's categories). The majority of the smaller roads are either streets or alleys. Each ward has its own square as well. The key to all of this is that there are buildings surrounding all of these spaces, creating the sense that you’re in an outdoor room, and probably one that you’d enjoy being in (at least in Savannah and the other traditional cities I’ve been to). On the other hand, if you’re in the parking lot at the Publix at Butler’s Crossing--the area around the shopping center building between the McDonalds and the Rite Aid--would you want to stay there any longer than necessary? The answer is probably no (unless you’re 17 and it’s a Friday night).

Our last few days were spent in Ghent and Antwerp. The weather was miserable both days (high in 30s/40s and pretty constant drizzle/rain), so we weren't able to do nearly as much as anticipated in either city. Not only that, but Belgium is a pretty windy place in general, so it is rather difficult to keep an umbrella functioning properly. My cheap Martin's umbrella I got in South Bend was already in bad shape, but I had to throw it out after a few days in Bruges because I was down to only 3 of the 6 or 7 metal arms holding the umbrella open. I bought another one at a souvenir-type store which lasted less than 24 hours before inverted became its default position. I finally splurged and got a better one at a department store, though I nearly lost it to the canals during a few gusts. I don't know how the Belgians do it.

In Ghent, our main purpose was to see the Ghent Altarpiece, or The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, in the cathedral. It is an incredible work by brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck, who were part of the group of artists known as the Flemish Primitives because it was prior to the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy. While this is technically true, the 10-panel altarpiece shows a mastery of perspective (although perhaps not as scientific as Brunelleschi and other Italians) and very realistic imagery that represents the pinnacle of Medieval painting. The picture doesn't do it justice really--in reality it's maybe 15 feet wide by 10 feet tall. The altarpiece's history is interesting as well, involving various instances of being saved from fire and Protestants, having pieces sold off and stolen, and being confiscated by the Germans and returned in the Treaty of Versailles. Afterward, we walked around the city a bit, but several of the main squares were a muddy mess because of construction (we got the authentic Medieval experience speed walking through the mud to get to the cathedral in time), so the effort was a bit futile. The trip to Antwerp was a similar story. We just walked around, saw the main market and city hall plaza, went to mass in the cathedral, and decided to head indoors to the Peter Paul Rubens House and Studio Museum. Rubens was one of the great Flemish Baroque artists who painted the altarpieces at the cathedral in Antwerp in addition to a good deal of other well known paintings. Rubens also had the benefit of being successful and appreciated in his lifetime, so his house was rather large and elaborate.

Belgium Part III to come...

Pillar #7: Rome : Wine, pasta, gelato, cappucino :: Bruges : Beer, fries, chocolate, ???

Belgium is great.

Don't get me wrong. I love Rome and Italy in general. But there's something about Bruges that reminds me of home. (I've never been to the motherland aside from my brief weather-related diversion at the beginning of the trip, so stay tuned until May for more on that.) It could be that the food is really, really good, and typically much heartier than Italian food. It's an interesting combination of French and Flemish/German food resulting from their history of being basically a kind of independent Flemish mercantile city-state and later being controlled by the court of Burgundy (Frenchies), so you get a lot more meat-and-potatoes dishes. They call the flat area consisting of northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands the "Low Country," and with it's proximity to the North Sea and connection by canals, there is a lot of seafood in their diet also. Of course, there are Belgian waffles and chocolate abundant on nearly every street, and "frites" or fries available at most restaurants and in the main market square (with many toppings to chose from, including ketchup, mustard, beef stew, and my favorite, mayonnaise).

And there's the famous Belgian beer, which is so pervasive because they drank it as a safer, cleaner alternative to water during the Middle Ages. Yesterday, we took a really fascinating tour of the only remaining brewery in Bruges, the Half Moon Brewery, which makes the Bruges Zot beer (Bruges Joker), and we learned all about the history of brewing in Belgium. There were evidently over 1,000 breweries at one point, and now there are only 125, mostly located outside of cities to have more room. (Don't worry. They still make about 8,000 different beers.) In fact, our tour guide said that even their brewery wasn't large enough to bottle the beer or do some of the other steps, so they relied on outside breweries for help. After 6 weeks in wine country, it has been a great change of pace.

My only complaint so far is the coffee, which is neither that good nor cheap. In Rome, a 1 euro cappucino is standard, and they really have the blend of coffee to milk down. In Belgium though they get a little too 'froo-froo' with their coffee, like putting whipped cream on top, giving you a little cookie or chocolate, serving it on a small wooden tray, and bumping the price up to 2.50 euro, and it's really not all that great. I suppose that is the French influence in an otherwise practical town. (I'm told that many Bruggers don't really care for the French anyway.)

I suspect that practicality is why I have enjoyed Bruges so much. The reason we have come here is because Bruges, unlike most Italian cities, is not built on ancient foundations, nor evolved from heavily religious roots, but it was started as a mercantile port city that eventually grew to be the largest city in Europe for several centuries during the Middle Ages. It serves as a really fascinating link between the Italian Medieval cities we've been studying and American cities. Although it doesn't have main armatures that are as immediately apparent (see earlier posts), it does have many of the same patterns as most of the cities we've seen in Italy--a major market square, a major civic/religious square, multiple churches, winding streets with public spaces interspersed, and a wide mix of uses. One of my favorite differences is the scale of the city (roughly 30,000-40,000 people at its peak), which translates into a much lower city (3-4 stories in the densest parts, 5 stories in the large market square and of course taller for important civic buildings) with wider streets. I haven't confirmed this, but I'm thinking this is due to the fact that these northern European cities don't get as much natural light as southern cities (which has been painfully evident during this rainy, cold trip), so they couldn't put the buildings as close together. So basically you get a city with an overall scale and founding conditions (America being a largely practical mercantile society as well) that is much closer to early American cities. And so, the first trusses in the bridge back to U.S. urbanism are in place.

Pillar #6: Romans will suffer lines, but only at the airport

Last weekend's trip to Campania seems like the distant past after last week's mad rush to complete my first studio project in Rome. What is actually maybe only 4 or 5 days seems to double when you're spending most of your time at a desk while not sleeping regularly, meeting several times with an official from the architectural accreditation board, and being verbally held hostage by various professors before, during, and after the presentation. As it turns out, the fact that my tuition is paying for my housing, transportation, field trips, some living expenses, etc. is less of a perk and more of a way of buying ownership of our lives for the three and a half months. Frankly though, I can't complain too much, because I am learning a tremendous amount and visiting some incredible places along the way.

This is the first of two semesters in my urban design concentration, and our first project was to design our "ideal" city, or more appropriately titled, the city of our imaginations based on Roman and general Medieval European precedent. It has been a fascinating exercise and has opened the door to many new possibilities for urban planning. We applied the lessons I mentioned in my second post and created our own armatures within an imagined landscape, and then filled the city with various other streets, piazzas, squares, civic and religious institutions, housing, etc. While not necessarily my ideal city (I think it's far too early in my learning for me to be making judgments about this), I did learn a great deal and was able to apply various lessons from classes and travel to the project.


Which brings me to Campania, as I'm sure that's why you're actually reading this post. This is the region south of Rome (although sadly not much warmer than Rome) where you can find Naples, and the ruins of Pompei, Herculaneum, Paestum--all places I went during my first study abroad in Rome. This time, however, our trip was a bit more limited and VERY quick. We started Saturday morning with our usual 6 am departure and by 7:30 am, we were climbing a tremendous amount of steps (let's not forget I already climb 125 at least once a day already) to the top of the hill town of Palestrina, a Roman settlement with a large theater complex nestled in the side of the mountain overlooking a valley and another ridge of mountains. (Still in Lazio, and as you can see, in some places the snow stuck around longer.) Later, the Barberini family built a palazzo on top of the theater, creating a curving facade that acts like a set piece unto itself. You can see here the seats of the Roman theater with Palazzo Barberini on top.


After Palestrina it was full speed ahead to Pompei with Angelo, our driver from the Umbria trip, and TomTom leading the way. Pompei is, of course, the ruins of a formerly great Roman port city with Greek foundations destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and you can see that it still looms ominously over the city.


After Pompei we went to Naples for dinner and a night walk with basically the whole faculty of the Rome program. The undergraduates were there also visiting some of the same places, so we took advantage of some additional professorial perspectives for a few hours. We also got to mingle only briefly with some of the undergrads, but we still only know maybe 3 or 4 by name. The next day we spent a rainy Valentine's Day on the Amalfi Coast, which is across the Bay of Naples and has some of the most incredible landscape I've ever seen. Unfortunately, we missed going to Capri because we missed the earlier boat and would have only had a few hours to explore the island otherwise. We started with half a day in Sorrento, and from there drove southeast and stopped in Amalfi and Ravello, which was higher up in the mountains. The picture is just one of the small towns we saw during the 3 hour drive.


Which brings me to Bruges, where I currently find myself for the first 8 days of my "spring break." One of my professors from the South Bend campus flew over to take us to Belgium for what he refers to as the first week of our fall semester. After a riding in a car, a plane, a bus, and a train (all planned this time, thankfully), we finally made it to Bruges. We flew RyanAir, which is a cheap European airline that gives you the absolute minimum (ie, a seat on the plane with a small carry-on bag) and charges you for anything extra (ie, checking a bag, checking in at the airport, food and beverages on the plane, etc.) There are no assigned seats, so people began lining up about an hour before take off in order to get "good" seats, as if there were actually seats that were different from the usual small, cramped coach seats. This is apparently quite different from normal Roman behavior where, as my professor pointed out, they normally do anything they can to avoid a wait, like when ordering at a cafe or bar, getting on the tram, or taking communion. (The first two I have witnessed. The latter I have not noticed, but it seemed to be the general consensus of the group.) At any rate, we took a bus into Brussels and then hopped on a train to Bruges in time to check into the house we're staying in and take the last bus tour around town. Aside from the cold and rainy weather, I am really loving it so far, and we are moving slowly and really taking in the city. Ahead on the week's agenda: museums, walking around town, day trips to Damme, Ghent, and Antwerp, and of course, a brewery tour.

Pillar #5: Romans find snow even more foreign than Georgians

Before leaving for Rome, people who knew better assured me that it NEVER snows in Rome, that it will be much more moderate than a South Bend winter, etc. etc. So it never crossed my mind that I would be writing a post about snow in Rome until it actually happened last Friday. It was one of the coolest things I have seen in my life.

According to our original schedule, we were not even supposed to be in Rome because we were supposed to leave Thursday for a weekend in Naples and surroundings. The trip had to be shortened because we were supposed to deal with the Italian bureaucracy Friday in order to get permission to stay in and re-enter the country during the time our student visa is valid. Thankfully, that appointment was canceled due to the snow. More to come on Naples in a few days.

As I've mentioned before, I live on top of the Janiculum Hill, so it was snowing pretty hard when we were leaving the apartment to head to our appointment. By the time we made it down the hill it had let up, and by the time we were to school it had stopped. I sat down to work at my desk, and after a while I looked out the balcony doors and noticed that it was snowing just as hard as before, and my first thought was "Pantheon," which, if you don't know, is an ancient Roman temple converted to a Catholic church with a giant hole (or oculus) in the center of the dome. It's been pretty cool to see it raining in there a few times before, but there is nothing like seeing snow flakes swirling around in the sky above the dome and then slowly falling the 142 feet to the ground. There was already a decent crowd by the time we got there, but after a while the whole piazza was suddenly filled with curious Romans watching the snow fall for at least 45 minutes. Then as quickly as it came the snow was gone, and by lunch time it was mostly melted from the streets and rooftops.


According to our office manager, the last time that it snowed in Rome was 1986. Interestingly enough, Huaxia, the Chinese member of our group, pointed out that 1986 was the year of the Tiger (and her zodiac year), as is 2010. (Side notes: according to Chinese legend, the animals in the Chinese zodiac raced across a river to see what order they would be listed. The tiger was third, and the rat--my Chinese zodiac animal--was first because he rode across the river on the ox's back. There's no year of the cat because the rat knocked him off on the way over, possibly explaining my aversion to cats. And, if you know the book, the the Year of the Boar is when Jackie Robinson first played baseball for Brooklyn.) We also have a Korean girl in our group, JiYeon, who mentioned that snow in Asian cultures traditionally means a plentiful harvest and good luck in general. I guess we will all be very lucky this year (or at the very least, have excellent tomatoes and peaches this summer when I'm back in Georgia).

Pillar #4: Romans like things that are miniature

It's been a pretty calm week after a busy few days last weekend, which has left me focused mainly on school work and other day to day things, like going to the store, doing laundry, etc. These nearly daily tasks have taken some adjustment, not because things are all that different here, but because things are so much smaller. The washer/dryer combo holds on average 6 shirts or 2 pairs of jeans with some small stuff, so we do laundry basically every other day. The dryer doesn't really dry, so we hang up everything. (At least I'm not having to hand wash things in the sink like my last visit.) It's somewhat logical to have smaller appliances because apartments are typically smaller in general. (Four of us are living in an apartment that is maybe 1000-1100 square feet, and I'm told that is big by Roman standards.) I've also been surprised to learn that I would wear shirts that are XL or XXL over here.

We obviously can't drive anywhere (and those that do drive much smaller cars or mopeds), so running daily errands is interesting as well. The nearly every other day process of grocery shopping has become especially annoying. On the one hand, it's nice because everything is fresher, and we can go to the outdoor markets to get better and cheaper produce. On the other hand, walking this much causes me to eat even more than ever, so it's hard to keep a stocked pantry when, for example, a loaf of bread is half the length, and a slice is two-thirds the size of your typical American loaf. If you know me you know I like to drink a lot of milk, so a liter doesn't last very long either. (No gallons here.) Pretty much everything you can think of (produce and meat aside) is slightly smaller than we're used to in the U.S. Hotdogs come in packs of 3 (yes, they sell hotdogs). Yogurt comes in tiny cups. Juice is a liter. Beer comes in 3-packs or individually. Paper towel rolls are an inch or two shorter. Everything just seems much smaller.

Everything, that is, except for bottles of vino. Those are still standard size (or larger, in some cases).

This is interesting to think about because it really shows that Roman society is geared towards people who walk to and from the store, typically, as we do, on the way home from school or work (as long as we can make it before 8:30 when they all close. Where is the 24-hour Kroger or Super Walmart?) rather than people who drive.


The preference for the miniature ends when it comes to churches, however, as you can see in the picture I took today at Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, or the Church of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, the oldest of the four main papal basilicas in Rome (the others being St. Peter's, Santa Maria Maggiore..."big Mary," and St. Paul Outside the Walls). The Lateran has ancient Roman connections, and it is a Cathedral because it is the seat of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. Although it is on the opposite side of the city from the Vatican, there is still a strong connection between the two churches.