Quando a Roma...Parte 1 (uno)

So I had my first outing to Rome on Saturday (July 26) - and it was quite a full day! I had booked two tours for myself - a Baroque tour of Rome in the morning and a tour of Vatican City in the afternoon. Lots of pictures of course, so this will probably take a few posts...the question is, where to begin? I think I will use some advice from Alice in Wonderland:
The March Hare: "Start at the beginning!"
The Mad Hatter: "Yes, and when you come to the end, stop!"
(you all know I'm obsessed)

So my journey to the Eternal City began early in the morning - I wanted to catch the 7:30 train so that I would have plenty of time to get properly lost before finding the meeting site for my 9:30 tour. On the way to the train station I took this picture - it's of Via L. Bonaparte (not sure what the "L" stands for...there's a lot of that with street names around here - take the street outside LNF: Via E. Fermi - I always say "east" in my head for some reason even though I at least know in this case that the "E" stands for "Enrico"). I think it looks like the trees are growing out of the sidewalk (and I don't know how they manage about the roots around here - you don't see any traces of them).

It was good that I decided to arrive early because, of course, I got a bit confused leaving the train station and headed in the wrong direction. Nothing like getting lost to help you find yourself! Roma Termini is the main train station in Rome - all the metros stop there as well, and my destination was the Piazza della Repubblica, which, it turns out, is actually much closer to the station than it looked on my map. In any event I got to the right place at about 8:45 so still had some time on my hands...easily solved, however, because the meeting place was in front of Santa Maria degli Angeli - a beautiful church! Well, actually it doesn't look like much from the outside, as you can see. The area is the former site of the Diocletian Baths, and thus there are many ruins about. Someone saw fit to build a church inside, however, and while the outside is humble, the inside is stunning. I tried to take a good picture of the dome that covers the entrance, but those sorts of shots are always difficult. It is capped with the most beautiful, geometric stained glass. It really is a magnificent church, and I think moreso because you are so shocked by the contrast between the exterior and interior.

View of the Piazza della Repubblica - before things get rolling!

The dome over the entrance of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The picture doesn't do it justice at all, I'm afraid.

Interior of la chiesa. I got a little weak in the knees when I walked inside (literally).

Not a bad start to a day in the Eternal City, I'd say.

My new, other, 'Room with a View'

I actually have a new office now - I was borrowing someone else's desk for a few weeks, but am now permanently settled for the rest of the summer! The new building is quite nice - it houses la biblioteca, and on the ground floor, it houses some models of various kinds of detectors and displays about particle physics. I'm on il primo piano (which in the US would mean the second floor) and have quite a nice view from my window. So, no complaints here about the move!

Views of my new work-place. It is a very nice brick building with very reflective windows! I think the architecture is pretty cool, and there is a large seminar room on the ground floor.

Model of a cryogenic gravitational wave detector on the ground floor of my building - I think the wooden person is my favorite part.

Sometimes I really luck out with the view - these were some awesome clouds. My desk isn't right next to the window, but I can still see out of it easily!

The terrace on the first/second floor of the building.

I pass this gate on my walk to work. It happened to be cloudy that day, and something in the loneliness of the place called to me, so I took a picture! My walk to work isn't quite as nice as when I walked through the Oxford University Gardens to the Materials Department last summer, but it's not too bad (and there are blackberry bushes growing along many strips of the road - yum!)

Frascati

So after torturing you guys with my lovely, brilliant, award-winning poem, I think I will tone it down a bit and just post some pictures of Frascati.

Let me add that Frascati is a very nice place to go and relax - it is rather amusing because it is about 20 minutes from Rome, so Roman families come here for a day trip to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city (and they did that in ancient times too!), and Frascati families always seem to go to Rome. It reminds me of something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide - akin to bypasses, perhaps? Anyways, for those of you familiar with San Diego, think Balboa Park on a large scale.

My favorite place in all of Frascati: the boulevard of Viale Vittorio Veneto. Green benches flank both sides; the left looks out towards Rome (Frascati is on a hill) and the right borders the main piazza - Piazza Guglielmo Marconi. People of all ages just come here in the afternoon and sit and watch the world go by. It's wonderful.

An apartment complex that I always pass when I walk up to the heart of Frascati. I think it is ridiculously cute.

This is one of Frascati's drinking fountains. I guess this is why you're told to carry bottled water when you're walking around Italy. I will add that I did actually see someone drink from a similar fountain elsewhere in Frascati - I was impressed, to say the least!

View across the Piazza Marconi up towards the Villa Aldobrandini.

This is Frascati's cathedral - Basilica of St. Peter Apostle in the Piazza San Pietro. Quite grand, I'd say. I think there was a wedding or something big happening when I took the picture because a lot of people were walking into the cathedral in very fancy clothes.

PS

I suppose that here, "PS" stands for "pre script" rather than "post script" due to the way this is being posted. In any event, I was hoping to post some pictures tonight, but I've been having internet connection issues today and while it seems I can write, my computer does not want to upload images right now. So, ciao e a presto!

A Random Question

So I was poking around the "profile" section of my blog, and as an option, you can answer a random question. Now, I composed this lovely answer and the server tells me that it can be 400 words at most! So, I'll post it here instead.


Question: The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:


Response:

Once upon a time,

(and of course, this must rhyme)

there was a little Frog,

who lived in a bog.

Now, this Frog was quite sad -

no hope to be had;

you see, his head was bare -

he hadn't any hair!

So, he hopped to the farm,

and brushed up on his charm;

he would talk to the Pig,

and beg for a wig.

And, how, you may say,

did he intend to pay?

Well, the Pig was troubled too -

and he didn't know what to do.

You see, the Pig was very plump,

and all he wanted was to jump!

But now my part is done,

and I'm telling everyone:

Go sit on an old barrel,

and take some Lewis Carroll,

and read "A Pig-Tale",

though it may make you wail.

For some stories are quite sad

(and some poems we write are bad)

but it's all in good fun,

and now my poem is done.

(Hooray!)

Why I'm Enjoying Particle Physics at LNF

This is where I'm working at LNF - my office is currently in the little building on the right (where the car is) - it may not look like much, but at least it is air conditioned! Which is wonderful after my 20 minute walk to work in the morning. Temperatures have been warm here but not unbearable - maybe a little humid. Apparently it is about 10 degrees hotter in Rome, so I'm just fine in Frascati, and we occasionally get a nice breeze (but more on the weather in a different post). Anyways, one of the really cool things about this building is that it is on - get ready for it - Viale Isaac Newton, and here's the picture to prove it. That is probably the best thing about working at a national physics lab - all of the crazy physics-ness of the place. Every via, viale, piazza, piazzale - you name it - is named after a famous physicist here. And then there are the amusing road signs. I think it all kind of goes well with the particle physics atmosphere - I would argue that high energy physics is the most creative branch of physics in terms of naming its components and experiments. Take the case of the quark (I mean, really, what sort of a name is that for a particle when we're used to protons and electrons and neutrons): not only does it come in six flavors (up, down, charmed, strange, top, bottom), but it also comes in three colors (red, green, blue). So the fact that the names of some of the experiments I've run across are truly wonderful acronyms isn't surprising. For example: AMADEUS (yes like Mozart - in fact there was a small reproduction of the first page of one of his quartets next to his picture on the second page of the paper), SIDDHARTA (yes, like the Buddha - this is the team that I am working with), and the name of the accelerator - DAFNE (think Greek goddess - actually, it is sometimes spelled with the capital greek letter phi instead of the F because it is a "phi-factory" - producing phi mesons.) And then there are the units sometimes used: "shed" and "barn" (I haven't actually seen any sheds in the papers I'm reading, but there have been plenty of barns). But I literally broke down laughing today while I was reading the AMADEUS Letter of Intent when I got to the following paragraph:

"The season of systematic investigation of kaon-nucleon interactions suffered an abrupt ending around 1980, with the closing down of most of machines and beam lines dedicated to this branch of physics...So, many of the statements on the successes of flavour SU(3) - just to mention one single case in the physics of the Standard Model - so abundant in particle physics textbooks are in reality based on a handful of old, low-statistics, low-resolution experiments, performed using kaon beams with momenta hardly less than some hundreds MeV/c, that nobody would even think today of proposing to a selecting committee."

Priceless.

A Room with a View

I need to watch that movie when I get back to the US. This is the view outside my window, which is directly across from my bed - what a glorious way to wake up! Especially when I wake up with the birds at 5:30 - they start singing to tell the sun to get up, and me too, I guess. (You all know I'm a morning person.) I'm actually living in a hotel about a km from the lab - LNF (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati). In any event, the view is waaaay better than the construction site I got to see (and hear) while I was at Oxford. I'm actually in a handicapped room - which is funny because it is on the first floor, only since this is a villa-style building (the name of the hotel is the Villa Mercede), that means that to get to it, I walk in the lobby, up one flight of stairs, down a hall, then down two flights of stairs. There are of course (very small) lifts, but the whole situation is rather amusing. Also because every time I take a shower my bathroom gets slightly flooded (I'm an expert at taking a shower with almost no water now!) I considered asking to change rooms but when I was looking at the floorplan posted for emergency exits, I decided that the position of the window in relation to my bed was worth the price of a slightly flooded bathroom. So I bought some paper towels at the supermercato and am content. You'll notice also in the picture my begonia - I named it Vittoria and practice my Italian on it (and perhaps pretend that I'm like Alice in Wonderland talking to the flowers...) - I bought it my first Sunday here (when I was finally properly awake) at L'Angolo Dei Fiori (The Flower Corner) from a lady who doesn't speak any English (and as I don't really speak any Italian, I'm rather proud of the accomplishment - the little things count!). I also have una televisione piccola with about 10 channels. Only one is in inglese - CNN - so I have been getting caught up on world news. (Which is not a bad thing, since I tend to isolate myself from the news while I'm at school.) It has also been somewhat of a novelty to find The Lord of the Rings on one of the channels - I'm expecting part 3 this coming sabato. Luckily I have watched these movies enough that I basically know what is being said, in spite of the dubbed italiano (one of the guys in my lab group is from Romania - he said that he is impressed that the Italians take the trouble to dub everything; in Romania, imported shows and movies are in English with subtitles). CNN has just finished up a "Going Green"-themed week, and I found two reports particularly interesting. One was the idea (still very much in the idea stage, but with promise for future implementation) of vertical agrigulture - basically imagine a skyscraper that has sprouted corn and you've got the idea. I think it sounds pretty cool, and it will be interesting to see if it actually turns up in a few years (and by a few, I could mean 20). The other is something already in use - pollutant-fighting cement! Actually I really liked this story - the origins of the cement date to the construction of a church commissioned by the pope to celebrate 2000 years of Christianity. The architect of course designed a very modern building, with a concrete and glass exterior. However, he didn't want the concrete to get dirty with time but rather to stay white, so he hired an Italian cement company to work on the problem. Only after creating it and in the process of conducting some tests on it did the company realize that in sunlight, whatever they're adding to the cement reacts with pollutants and breaks them down into nonpollutants (well, I'm tired and not very eloquent at the moment). Apparently a few places in Rome have been paved with it and are under study (obviously damage to all of the old buildings due to pollution is a major concern here). It's amazing what you learn when you watch the news.