Day Five

Day five today, and I feel as though I have been here for a month already. I am trying to make friends with the lady who works at the sandwich shop I go to every day for lunch. I used what little Italian I do know to learn her name, and tell her I will return tomorrow for lunch, she appreciated the attempt and gave me a smile when I said "Ciao, bella...a domani.". The reason I like this place, they are cheap, fast and delicious. I usually get the caprese panini, I've never had caprese in a sandwich before, it is VERY good. We are taking our ciesta right now at the apartment, naps and shots of cold limoncello. We visited the Pantheon, another huge basilica, and also went to the Crypta Balbi today. This evening we are going to visit Montemartini and then are having a party in the evening to celebrate the end of our first week here. 

We have a photography guru with us named Mel, he is helping us learn and assigning us missions, one of which includes working in black and white, very useful with some of these old pieces of art.....

Day Four

Another busy day, we visited a really cool marketplace in the morning with tons of fresh produce and fish. I chased a gypsy down the street trying to take her photograph and then thought to myself, isn't it supposed to be the other way around, with the gypsy harassing the tourist? We then went to the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli which is so named because an apparition, thought to be an angel, once appeared above the church. This is also how the Castel Sant'Angelo we visited yesterday was named, and how dozens of other buildings in the city were named. I chalk up all the apparition sightings to heat exhaustion....it is so damn hot here. We are all coping quite well though, scurrying from shady patch to shady patch at all the monuments. We also visited the Baths of Diocletian, a 34 acre complex that could hold up to 3,000 bathers at once! A couple photos from today:

I couldn't help admiring her melons:

A friendly old nun sat across from me on the bus:

Day Three

Today we walked through the Palatine Hill and I presented the Roman Forum to my group. It is so hot here that all of us have quickly adopted the Mediterranean schedule, work in the morning, ciesta, then studio time in the evening. We are in our apartment right now with no lights on and half a dozen fans going, trying to beat the heat. So, the highlight of my day was sharing my knowledge of the Roman Forum with my peers. As I predicted, they much appreciated hearing the stories and legends of the forum instead of just a memorized list of dates and names. I rewarded myself with a pistachio gelato....mmmmmm...

Day Two

I used jet lag to my advantage this morning. I awoke around 4:30 AM after my body restlessly continued to insist that it was day time, not night. Rather than fighting it, I decided to use this morning to go get some nice photographs of the Roman Forum at sunrise. I left the apartment just as the first merchants were beginning to set up shop in the Campo de Fiori. I walked for fifteen minutes in the early dawn light and my pace quickened as I approached my destination. I have been studying this place for about the last two months and have learned a great deal about it, but now to actually be here? In person? My heart was pounding with excitement! I spent the next hour at a vantage point near the old tabularium, from which one can see the entire forum, with the massive colosseum in the distance. It was breathtaking. I savored the moment for ten minutes or so before getting to work, just taking it all in, so as to remember it with my own senses, not just the sensors of my digital camera. Here are a couple photos of the Temple of Saturn and the great Roman Forum at sunrise!

Day One

Today we checked into our apartments, did some orientation type stuff, familiarized ourselves with the immediate neighborhood and then all gathered at a large table in the UW Rome Center for a lasagna dinner. Everybody is so excited that jet lag is hardly evident in anyone. I have already had such a great experience and everywhere I turn there is something amazing and wonderful, and this is JUST THE FIRST DAY!!! I imagine that many of the blog entries I make over here will be mainly photographic, since that is the primary objective of our journey....so here are some pictures of my surroundings....

This is Campo de Fiori, as viewed from the fourth floor of the UWRC. It is an open air market during the day, a popular hangout at night and my front porch for the next month. The shaded yellow area on the right is our apartment. The next shot is of our studio, it is AMAZING, the facilities here are better than what we have in Washington, mostly because it's OURS! After that is a photo of my desk (the one on the left), the imposing brick wall that sits behind me is actually incorporated remains of a 13th century medieval tower. The final photograph shows my entire design group at our first group dinner, lasagna, salad and vino....Not even the best photos could do this place justice, but I will try...

Landed in London....

I bought an hour of time at a hotspot so I could Skype Rach and figured I'd update the blog real quick while I'm at it. I am at London Heathrow Airport right now waiting for my next flight to take me to Rome. The flight was good overnight. I managed to sleep quite a bit. The flight attendant was the only disturbance I had all night, he was super effeminate. Every hour or so I'd wake up and he'd be sort of prancing down the aisle announcing some new thing he had to give out and just generally spreading cheer and fabulousness. Imagine Steve Martin doing his best prance and speaking with a lisp, that was this guy. When he brought my dinner, he asked if I wanted wine with it and I asked if I could have a Heineken instead, his reply? "Well of course you can you big silly goose...."  That's right, he called me a big, silly goose.... 

A Brief Stop in Seattle.....then on to ROME!

I am back from Part I of Joey's Excellent Adventure '08. It included a few nights at Rachel's folks' house, more than a week of camping in the Oregon Cascades and a brief stop in Portland on the way back to catch our breath. The highlight of it all was something I've been looking forward to for much of the last year. I canoed Rachel out to the middle of the lake her family has been visiting for nearly 30 years and I asked her to marry me!  Yippee! Shazaam! Yowzah! I am very excited about the whole thing, there is something very satisfying about looking into someone's eyes and telling them that you wish to spend the rest of your life loving them. I wrote the whole story on the Henney Family Blog for those of you who are interested...

So much happened on the trip, maybe it is best told BY THE NUMBERS:

1..............................Vehicles we took to Oregon

2.............................Vehicles we brought home from Oregon(We bought Isaac's red pickup)

13...........................days I went without my cell phone

0.............................days I really missed having my cell phone

80...........................pounds of potatoes brought camping from the Mclennan farm

2.5...........................hours it took me to mow the Mclennan farm

29............................sea shanties sung while mowing

2..............................shanties I actually remembered all the words to

234.........................pictures Rachel and I took while camping

2.............................starting population of campsite on Sunday(thanks Jo and Claire)

14...........................number of people Rachel, Isaac and I prepared dinner for Wednesday

42...........................people at camp on Saturday night

11............................canoes and kayaks in our fleet(give or take)

2..............................hours before sunrise Rocky starts whining to get out of tent and play

4,000.....................calories Rocky burned per hour while camping

10...........................calories Rocky burned per hour in the days immediately following trip

32...........................cuts, scrapes and bruises on my body after trip

9.............................times Rachel made me stop playing to patch me up

9.............................times I whined about it in my best little kid voice

1,023,789.............mosquitoes collectively swatted by the group

1,001,491..............of those mosquitoes killed while visiting latrine (encourages speediness)

10..........................capacity of backwoods sweat lodge

11...........................pedicures performed at backwoods spa

542........................cocktails served by backwoods tavern

110.........................man/woman hours worked by backwoods public works department

23..........................references to Blazing Saddles campfire scene on chili night

Man, that's a long list....it could go on and on. The amount of food and booze consumed alone deserves its own list, I mean, there must have been over 2 dozen coolers under the food canopy at its peak! 

Thanks again to everybody who cooked meals for such a HUGE group, I ate better in the woods than I typically eat at home. Thank you to Seaton and Joanne for all their hard work and planning to make sure everybody had such a great time. Thank you to everybody who pitched in, whether it was unloading or loading monstrous canoe loads, chopping firewood, sprinkling water on the ground for dust control, ferrying drinks to the floatilla, making sangria for the whole group, washing mountains of dishes, digging the latrine, setting up camp, breaking camp, repairing the table and bar area, bringing extra chairs, or one of the hundreds of little things that make this camping trip such a success every year, thank you! And, thank you to Rachel for loving me and for not tipping the canoe and soaking me on the night I asked you to be my wife, although you came pretty close!