Wednesday, February 12, 2003

I wrote the following while I was in Rome, and just got around to typing and posting it

1-25

Of all the ways to being a trip, calling and finding out your flight has apparently been cancelled is not the best start. Two hours beforeI was scheduled to fly from Cleveland to Philadelphia for the first leg of my journey, I checked online and saw that my flight number was stated as leaving from Charlotte and arriving in Atlanta at 6:30 PM. It turns ou tthat this is because my flight number had been changed ,and no tthe flight itself.

I ended up in Philadelphia with no problems at around noon, where I met Leanne as she walked off her plane about an hour later. We occupied ourselves in Philadelphia International Airport for a few hours before moving to the gate, where we met with a few other students from our program (in total about 9 people from API were on the same flight). The 9 hour flight was fairly uneventful, and I enjoyed watching The Sopranos on the samll TV screens build into each seat.

We landed in Rome at 8:45 AM, Italian time (2:45 AM EST). There we met with the API staff who were waiting for us. We all loaded onto a bus and started heading towards the hotel.

The first thing I noticed about this place was the incredible foliage. One of the most impressive looking trees here is the umbrella pine. It's reminiscent of the trees you see pictures of in Africa: tall trunks with small clustered leaves at the top that you would swear were professionally trimmed daily. The second thing that I noticed, though it was not nearly as pleasant, was the prolific amount of graffiti everywhere.

Once we got to the hotels, we were assigned our rooms. While everyone else had a room nunber, my room was called La Sala. The door was also right off the lobby. I opened it up and there's this steep winding stone staircase leading down. I make my way down to find a lounge area with three beds and then an entire other room with a king size bed. As I'm looking for the bathroom, I find a door, open it, and see it leads to the hotel basement, where janitors are walking along and singing in Italian. As I go back into my room, I also see that there is no lock on this door either. So I walk back up to the lobby and explain the situation to one of the API staff, who in turn translates it ot the concierge. He responds by saying that it's the safest room in the hotel "because it has two exits." I in the end I switched rooms.

After a much, much needed rest from the horrible jetlag I experience, me and Leanne took our first steps alone out onto the streets of Rome. I never thought it would be so daunting to leave the sanctuary of the hotel. We skittered around like puppies with tails between their legs for a good ten minutes before finally beginning to get used to a world where everyone speaks jibberish (or at least that's what it sounds like to me for now). We even took our first stab at the local cuisine by stopping in the least intimidating pizzeria we could find. The pizza was excellent. However, they have no idea of the concept of a "slice" of pizza, and looked at me quite strangly when I asked for one (and I went through all the work to look up how to say that phrase in Italian and everything).

The rest of the first number was fairly uneventful. We took a short, pleasant walk wti hthe group to a part of the city known as Trastevere, where we had a brief orientation and light buffet dinner. The highlight of the evening was making our way back to the hotel and stopping at a bar along the way (a bar in Italy is more like a cafe), where we ordered, in Italian, hot chocolate, or capaciatto. Aside from it honestly being the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted, it was a thrill to converse in Italian. In fact, all but one of the places I've been to have only spoken Italian. While it's somewhat more difficult to get across the alnguage barrier, the very fact that there is a barrier makes me really appreciate being here.

1-26

Today we slept until nine or so and then had a light breakfast in the hotel. We then walked to a virtual history show of Rome, which was mediocore, and then continued on to a part of the city called Venice Square. Along the way we passed a very old, intriguing building, and I told Leanne how it was amazing that you passed these random buildings and they were just part of the scenary. While that's still true, it turns out that specific "random" building was in the fact the Pantheon, built around 100 B.C., one of the oldest buildings in the world.

Venice Square is beautiful. It is completely surrounred by magnificent buildings, wit hthe center building (a tribute to victory, I think) completely dwarfing everything in sight. It reminded me mos tof the Lincoln Memorial, thought it is literally at least three times as big. We had a quick sandwich before taking a two hour bus tour past some of the more famous sites in Rome, which I'll go into detail with on future entries since we'll be visiting those places in the next two days.

After the tour, I came back and took a nap for awhile, still recooperating from the six hour time difference. Then at eight, me, Leanne, and six other people we had me twent out for dinner. After a bit of walking we found a aplace that said they would serve us all a full meal for 10 euros each. This full meal consisted of bruchetta, salad, artichoke, fried eggplant parmesean, lasagna, spaghetti, gnochi, and then pear with nut sauce , pinapple, and an excellent tiramisu for dessert. We also had our first experience with the infamous Italain male character when six of them came in, sat at a table next to us, and bought roses for all the ladies. In the end two of them ended up at our table before we left.

1-27

Toady was a visit of Christian Roma. Woke up around 8:00 and had a light breakfast - I have no idea though how Italians survive on a pastry and coffee for 4 hours until lunch. I have discovered a wonderful fruit drink called ananas, which resembles pinapple juice, and now I finally know what that James Taylor song is about. After berakfast we took a bus over to the Vatican, which I learned is actually its own state. We took a tour through various gardens and room, all magnificent and filled to the brim with unbelievable artwork and statues. We eventually made our way to the Sistene Chapel, which was, as expected, incredibly intense and beautiful. I was most impressed with the huge amount of artwork everywhere, covering nearly every way and cieiling. The chapel captured this feeling perfectly because of how it is completely covered by magnificent artwork.

The next stop, St. Peter's Basilica, has so far been the highlight of the trip. I don't remember every having seen pictures of this place, but like so many other buildings in Rome, the scale of it is incredible. It is like walking among buildings built by titans, and I'm not surprised that it took more than 100 years to build.

Afterwards, me and Leanne walked back towards the hotel. We were both equally starving but didn't end up finding a place to eat until we neared our hotel, but it was worth the wait, as it wa sour first real time eating out. Dining out in a piazza, in Rome, near fountains, with live music, is really all it's made out to be.

After lunch we stopped at a cafe and had some gelato, or Italian ice cream, which is just as good as it's made out to be. We then went back to the hotel and took about a four hour nap, which was much needed.

For dinner we jointed three of the girls who we ate with on Sunday. Luckily, two of them both dspeak Italian fairly well, whcih makes finding a restaurant and then eating in it much much easier. The place we found was great, and we knew this right away because there wer only Italians eating there. The dinner was capped off by one of my absolute favorite drinks, Lemon Chello, for free! I ended up finishing off three other people's, and it was a great surprise at the end.

1-28

I'm now right this from Florence, and unfortunately it's a bit difficult to remember everything that happened on Tuesday. I definitely do remember, however, touring through the Forum and Colliseum. It was incredible to walk through the former heart of Rome, and see everything that was still standing. One of the things that hit me the hardest was that we were walking on the same exact ground that Julius Ceaser et al walked on - Roman roadwork was definitely to be admired, when you think about how our roads today barely last ten years. After walking through the forum we passed on to the Colliseum, and it was very satisfying to finally see this place that is often the first thing people think of when they think if Rome. It was great how we were able to walk almost everywhere in it, and see it from all angles.

I spent my last afternoon in Rome sleeping, and I do regret missing Palantine Hill, because Leanne said it was stunning, but I figure maybe on the way back through Rome I will stop there. The last night in Rome was very relaxing, and I was really looking foward to arriving in Florence and settling in. Rome was a fantastic start to the trip though, and a great introduction to everything Italian.




posted by Jon at 1:37 PM
3 comments

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

Unfortunately I just typed out my longest entry yet, but deleted it because I'm using a Macintosh and it must have known that I hate Macintoshes because instead of copying my entry to save it, it deleted the whole entry and replaced it with a pound sign. Sigh!

I mostly wrote about some more impressions I've had of Florence. For instance, Leanne made an interesting comment yesterday about how all the pictures and videos you see of Florence really don't do it justice. Not that those aren't beautiful, but the real feeling of this city exists in the hundreds of cobblestone alleys that you walk through every day. And I do mean cobblestones - wearing high heels would be a deathwish here. I've never liked walking this much in my life, but Firenze is not too shabby a place to have to walk around all the time. Also, every day I'm finding my way around better and better, which means I'm able to avoid the vespa and bus filled main streets and instead take the quieter and quainter side streets.

I'm also discovering the neighborhood around me more, and it is really like a small village. I live in the southeast corner of Firenze, which is pretty far from where any tourist might stray. The people who run the alimentari (small food store) near me have begun to recognize me, which is great, and the guy who owns the gelateria near me also recognizes me, which probably means that I'm eating way too much ice cream.

I bought my first train tickets today, with the destination of Verona for February the 14th. I also reserved at room at a hotel there for two nights. I know, I said hotel and not hostel, but I figured paying the extra money for a hotel room, instead of a dorm room, was worth it on Valetine's Day. Verona sounds to be like a very nice place to visit for a few days, as it has a lot of history buried in its tombs, and has what sounds like a very beautiful Roman Arena. It's also, of course, the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. Even though the characters were fictional, the actually built a balcony for tourists to go to and massacre lines from Shakespeare. I have to admit that it's tempting to throw Leanne up there and take a picture though.

I can't remember what else I wrote before this nasty computer erased it, but I did really want to thank everyone for commenting on the entries! It's great to log in and see everyones notes. I'm about to head out and see Catch Me if you Can - in English! Even though both me and Leanne have already seen it, it's free (sponsored by my program), and after all this Italian television we're both absolutely dying for some English cinema. Buena sera!
posted by Jon at 8:51 PM
5 comments

Sunday, February 09, 2003

My mouth has been attacked by a canker sore, unfortunately, so my first free weekend in Florence has been fairly uneventful. Leanne has also been sick with a combination of about five different sicknesses, so we're both hibernating until we feel better. Yesterday we attempted to go to the train station to purchase tickets to Verona (probably not the best thing to do while sick). It seems like we'll be able to get the train tickets pretty easily, but finding a place to stay might be more difficult. Hopefully a travel agency around here will be able to help with that.

Had my first vegetarian cooking course on Friday morning, and it was quite enjoyable. There were only 7 people in it, and the teacher was very nice. Each day has a featured vegetable, and Friday it was broccoli, so we made broccoli soup and broccoli souflee. If anything I know I'll be eating healthy every Friday morning. I made a great low fat fettuchine alfredo that night from a recipe I found online. One of the best things about cooking here, aside from all the fresh food of course, is all the time I have to do that.

I was meaning to visit the Academy this weekend (place of many sculptures, such as Michelangelo's David), but with all this sickness I thought I might not enjoy it as much as I could. I've been walking past all these famous places every day on my walk to classes (I'm planning on taking pictures of that walk to post later), but haven't had the chance to actually go inside and look at any of them, aside from the Duomo. It's pretty crazy that I pass all these places every day I've seen videos or pictures of all my life.

I missed the states quite a bit today, mostly because I just wanted to sit around and watch movies today. Even though I have a TV and cable, nothing at all here is in English except for MTV. They even have Bonanza on all the time in Italian. So I either end up watching movies I've seen or watching the "Jenny From The Block" video for the 67th time.
posted by Jon at 1:57 PM
3 comments

 

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