So I've been back from one of the most amazing trips ever: Rome. I think what made it so much cooler than a lot of other trips I've been on was the fact that we spent two whole weeks JUST in Rome. So we got to know the city really really well. And fall in love with it! :P
I figure it's only fair that I tell y'all a little bit about some of the fantastically awesome things I did on my adventure! So I'm calling this list "The Highest of the Highlights" because the entire trip was a highlight, and I can't write a novel of every single awesome thing that happened. So here goes! I feel it is important to preface this list by saying that I went to Rome as a part of a JTerm in which we studied Shakespeare. Before leaving for Rome, we read three Shakespeare plays: Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. We then discussed the plays every morning before we were set loose on the Eternal City!
- Melanie, one of the friends I knew before the trip, and I met two really cool people named Becca and Bryan. We clicked right away! Within the first like 20 minutes of being at the airport, we were already hanging out. We soon became known as “the [troublesome] four” of the group. Others tried to break us up, but it rarely worked. We weren't horribly clique-y though!
- Our first stop on the trip was just outside of Rome in the Alban Hills. The professors got married there, so they knew the place really well (well, they knew the entire city really well, but this was just a special stop). The stop was intended to ease us into the Italian way of life without the hustle and bustle of the huge city. We went to an abbey where monks still lived and worked! One of the monks saw us walking around and told the professors that we could go down into the foundation of the abbey (where tourists can’t usually go)! So that was just the first of many uncommon places we were able to go to over the course of our trip. The professors hooked us up! We got to go INSIDE of Julius Caesar’s forum as well as Augustus Caesar’s forum! While we were down there, a whole bunch of tourists were looking down from above, wondering how the heck we got so privileged to walk around down there! We also got to go inside of Livia’s (Augustus’s wife) house, which had just recently been discovered and was not open to tourists because it was under restoration. It was so cool!
- The food. Need I say more? Everything I ate was so delicious and fresh and amazing! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat dried pasta or not-fresh tomatoes ever again. :P Our (meaning the four of us) favorite place to eat was this place called “La Base,” which was an Italian restaurant that was trying to be an American restaurant. We went there together like four times (the others went separately at various other times, too, but I went about four times)! Now before you start calling us lame for our seeming lack of culture or whatever, the food was so delicious! And it was fun to see how Italians viewed American culture. They had a playlist of American music videos from the 90s that they just kept playing over and over again. We’d go in and start singing along right away. It was so much fun. There was another restaurant we went to, and we stayed there for two and a half hours! Throughout the course of our meal, our waiter kept hitting on Melanie and Becca and picking on Bryan and I. It was so funny! It did get a little old after he walked down the street and didn't come back for like 20 minutes! We just sat there, dumbfounded, and wondered what the Italian word for “Check” was so we could ask the other, non-English-speaking waiter and get out of there.
- Crossing the streets in Italy was a very interesting task. In order to cross a busy street, you simply make eye contact with a driver and start walking. The cars just stop for you! It was scary the first couple of times because the mopeds (of which there are many) time you while you walk and they zip in front of and behind you the whole time you cross! But after a while it became fun! I wish American drivers could be trusted to stop when you randomly step into the street! Their system was not completely flawless, however (go figure). On our way back from the Etruscan Museum (Etruscans lived in Rome before it was Rome), we saw what we’re pretty sure was the aftermath of a hit-and-run between a Smart car and a pedestrian. We’re not positive though because all we saw was some guy running down the street yelling “Americano!” at some car and a lady sitting in an odd position on the side of the road holding her head and sobbing. At first we thought we were totally done for because of the guy yelling “Americano!” at the top of his lungs, so we tried to dip into an alleyway that ended up being someone’s driveway. So we had to turn around and we kind of speed-walked past the scene.
- Our foursome developed the habit of counting all of the significant stairwells we encountered. It was quite the adventure. So, let the records show: the stairs next to the “Wedding Cake” (a building built by Mussolini in the early 1900s) number 124, the accessible stairs of the “Wedding Cake” number 129, the Spanish Steps number 134 or 135 (I can’t remember, dangit! I guess I’ll have to go back :P ), and the steps to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica number a whopping 544! We definitely got a workout!
- While in Rome, our professors saw a poster declaring, “Watch Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in his native language (English)!” So they managed to get us tickets for the opening night production of Julius Caesar! It was really cool seeing a play in Italy. The Theatre minor in me got really giddy. :P The production itself was… decent I guess, but it was still a really awesome experience! It was in a little teeny black box theater with probably about 150 seats. We were in the second row, right up against the stage. It was great!
- Before we left the city, we all got up at 5 am and walked around the city. The city feels completely different when there is no one around. It was fun to see the street vendors setting up their tents and filling them with fresh produce for the day. We walked to the Trevi fountain together to throw coins in. Tradition dictates that one must throw a coin into the Trevi fountain as a promise that one will return. So as I threw my coin into the fountain, I yelled, “Arrivederci Roma!” (“Until we meet again, Rome!”) So that means that I will be going back at some point. And that is awesome.
There was so much more fun! But these are just some of the funnest things that I could think of right now. Ask me questions and I'd be happy to tell you more! It was so amazing! I could talk for two weeks about all of the awesomeness! But I won't. For I have to go watch an opera!
-- Dar
No comments:
Post a Comment