First day of school...in a Roman palace!!!

"This place is, like, stupid-pretty."

So spoke one of my classmates this morning as we stood by the fountain in the central courtyard of the Palazzo Taverna, a 13th Century palace located between the Piazza Navona and Castel Sant'Angelo, in the heart of the old city. The UA Rome Center occupies several rooms in one wing of the palazzo, and it is filled with Pompeian-style wall paintings, Egyptian-style chandeliers, and crooked, time-worn steps. I think I could get used to this.

Ostia Antica

Yesteday, we took our first day trip to Ostia Antica, the ancient port of Rome. It is located at the mouth of the Tiber River, where it flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

It was amazing!! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the fact that I feel I excercised great restraint in only taking 58 pictures should speak volumes. Here are a few of the best (and most likely to interest non-archaeology geeks):

You give 'em an inch...

...and they take a mile.

I have been going on tours with my classmates and professors for the past couple of days, and while on breaks, I have learned a little about how things are done here. Yesterday, I learned how to legitimately order in Italian, and this afternoon, I got to test out my newfound knowledge at the little cafe near my apartment. I walked up to the counter, intent on getting a sandwich and water for lunch, and I was pleased as punch that I would be able to order in (faltering and probably terribly mispronounced) Italian. The ladies who operate the cafe are usually pretty good about making themselves understood and taking care of customers, no matter what kind of language skills they have, so I thought it would be a nice, safe place to test myself (and possibly offend someone) while trying to break the language barrier.

I walked up to the counter.

Lady: "Buon giorno. Prego." Essentially, Hello. How can I help you?

Me: "Buon giorno. Vorrei uno panino - tonne e pompdoro." Hi. I would like a sandwich - tuna (which I did not know was tuna at the time - it looked more like pork of some sort) and tomato.

Lady (pointing to the sandwich in question): "Questo? Tonne?" This one? Tuna?

Me (very pleased with the proceedings so far): "Si. Grazie." Yes. Thank you.

Then, with what I have decided to characterize as a maniacal grin (though in reality, it was nothing more than an animated smile), the lady at the counter proceeded to rattle off a bunch of rapid-fire Italian at me, which threw me completely off, so I couldn't even ask her to "Parla lentamente, per favore." Speak slowly, please. My only response to the sudden onslaught was a blank look and shake of the head, to which the lady responded with a disappointed sigh and a rather dejected recital of her usual series of questions in English. I opted to sit outside, and when I passed the cash register, the gal there chattered at me, too, but when I shook my head at her, she too switched back to English.

My first attempt at ordering in Italian was a disheartening (though, in hindsight, rather amusing) failure. However, with this experience under my belt, I will be better armed for my next assault on the language barrier.

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By the way, due to a misunderstanding of the way my name is printed on all the Rome Center paperwork (it has something to do with the columns on the page, I think), the people here think that my first name is "Katie Lynn," which, with the Italian accent of some of my professors, comes out something like "Kay-ti-ah-lee-na," all one word.

"Across the Tiber"

I am living in a "village within the city," known as Trastevere, which means "across the Tiber." The quarter is famous for its narrow, twisting, cobble stone streets (which, I feel compelled to point out, are potentially fatal to anyone who cannot walk with one eye to the ground -- I don't know how the Italian women do it, walking around all day in sky-high heels). Now, when they say narrow and twisting, they mean it. We went wandering around in the area the other night after going to see the Tempietto, and we managed to get thoroughly lost. Every time we manage to get lost around here, our plan seems to be to head north as best we can until we reach the Tiber, where all the bridges are marked and match our maps. It may not be the most efficient way to get around the neighborhood, but so far, it's been the most dependable. Shops close, graffiti gets cleaned up or added to, ristoranti bring in their chairs, but the Tiber remains faithfully between its walled banks.

I'm not saying that getting lost is necessarily a bad thing, either. Yesterday, fourteen of us got lost, and then split up, and then to the foot of the Castel Sant'Angelo. Sadly, I forgot my camera yesterday, so I don't yet have any pictures of Castel Sant'Angelo or Saint Peter's Square, where we headed next. We watched a little boy chase pigeons around the square for a while and considered going in, but we're hoping to make it on a day when there is less of a line to get inside.

Today, though, getting lost was definitely a bad thing. The day after we arrived, I went with two of the other girls to find the school. We got lost a couple of times, but we made it in the end. Yesterday, fourteen of us went to find the school, and we went out of our way a little bit and split up, but we made it. Two attempts, two different routes, two successes. Today was our first orientation meeting at the Palazzo Taverna, and we were all supposed to be there by 1:45. My roommates and my neighbors and I thought it was at 2, so we were behind from the start. Add in the fact that we missed our turnoff and had to try to find the flying donkey (graffiti-ed over a window) that marks the entrance to an alleyway that opens onto the piazza behind the school and climb up to the third floor of the palazzo, and we didn't get into the meeting until almost 2:10, red-faced and sweating. Heck of a first impression, right? But everyone laughed it off.

When in Rome...

Again.

I know.

But the old cliché seems to have become a motto of sorts for our little group, and I’m simply taking my turn at repeating it.

Sherri and I went walking yesterday with Laura, and we found the school in the Palazzo Taverna (but not the student entrance), the Piazza Navona, the ruins of Domitian’s Stadium, and the Pantheon (all after getting quite lost in the muddle of poorly marked streets—I am happy to report, however, that we are getting much better at spotting street names). When we got back, we got to meet more of the Rome Center students, and we all went out to see the Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio. As it turns out, our apartment is right at the base of the Janiculum hill, which is sadly not one of the legendary “Seven Hills of Rome,” but is said to be the site of the crucifixion of St. Peter and is the second highest hill in Rome. The church was closed for a wedding, so we only got pictures through the gate, but I think we’ll make it back eventually. If nothing else, we got some neat pictures of the Roman skyline.

After the Tempietto, we (which at this point in the story includes 14 people, mostly architecture majors) went wandering down the far side of the hill through some narrow but lively side streets. Aside from a creepy kid who followed us and made us all compulsively check our pockets for valuables, we dealt well with being pretty much lost. We eventually found a sign that had a map, so we just followed the river back to part of the neighborhood we knew.

I got to have my first Italian dinner last night as well. We all went to a little café down on the piazza about a block from our apartments, and it was nice, aside from the fact that the woman who first tried to serve us got angry because none of the people in the group spoke very much Italian. The food was amazing! Afterwards, we went wandering aimlessly for a while. Now, when I say “aimlessly,” I really mean that our group lacked a single aim. In truth, we had several. Apparently, some people wanted gelato, others wanted bathrooms, and the rest of us were just following along because the others at least appeared to know what they were after. What it all amounted to was us making a big circle through the neighborhood, splitting up, and heading back to various apartments to sit and chat. All in all, not a bad night.

When in Rome...

I MADE IT!!!

So, there were a couple of times when I had my doubts, (like about 3 hours into our 8 hour plane ride across the Atlantic, when I was bored out of my mind and could look out the window and see absolutely nothing) but I made it!


The plane rides over were pretty uneventful. I left out of Minneapolis and made it to Chicago earlier than scheduled, which was alright because I went in entirely the wrong direction looking for my flight to DC. Did you know that Chicago’s O’Hare airport has a dinosaur? Well, I found it. I made it to the gate just in time to board the plane, despite having arrived 15 minutes early. When I got to DC, I found out that Sherri’s plane was running late, so I got to sit and worry about her for a little while, but she made it. She had to run, but she made it before we even started boarding. We also ran into another U of A student, named Jeremy, while we were waiting to board.


I ended up sitting next to an Italian guy who was traveling with his whole family. I didn’t think he spoke much English. For the entire plane ride, all I could get out of him was “Sorry” when he wanted to get up yet again, and “Thank you” when I let him get up with one more smile and a polite “Va bene” on my side. The rest of the time, he didn’t say a word to me, in Italian or any other language. Finally, after breakfast had been brought out and we’d eaten the yogurt but both rejected the banana bread, he became Mr. Chatty Tour Guide. “Oh, I am so glad that the sun came up when it did, so you can see France.” We actually got to see the sun rise over the coast of France. Pretty neat. “It’s so nice that the clouds are staying away. This way, you can see the Alps. Notice how jagged they are?” “That’s Corsica that we’re flying over now.” HUGE wind turbines on the mountain tops of Corsica, by the way. We could see them spinning from the plane. And as we flew along the Italian coast on our final descent to Rome, we could see long rows of sprinklers in some of the fields. “You see, the soil in this region, it is very difficult to grow things in. That is why they are spraying water in the fields. They grow food.”


We landed without incident and made it through passport control, the baggage claim, and customs with only minor difficulties (like trying to lock the bathroom stall doors—we just ended up piling our bags against them and hoping for the best), and we were actually feeling pretty good about ourselves. Until we tried to call the people who run our apartments. Sherri and I ran into yet another UA student, named Laura, who had been standing around in the airport for 2 hours, trying to get through to the apartment people. Only one of the two types of payphones would ring through when we dialed the number we’d been given, and then they just went straight to a scary Italian answering service that none of us could understand. Anyone we asked for help either sent us to someone else or tried to sell us something. Finally, we gave up and went outside to look for a ride to the apartments. Sherri and I knew that one of our roommates, named Audrey, had arrived the day before, so we just hoped she’d be around and be able to help us figure out what to do about getting in touch with the apartment people.


Just as we were all piling into a big black van with a couple of ladies from Connecticut, Jeremy came running up to us, saying that someone was looking for us from the apartment company. Apparently, since Sherri and I had emailed them looking for a ride before we left, they had sent someone for us without letting us know that we should expect them. We’d already gotten payment and everything figured out with our van driver, though, so we decided to stick with him and meet the apartment people at the apartment. That was the scariest ride of my life! Romans are terrifying drivers. They just kind of go until something gets in their way, at which point they honk the horn and/or slam on the brakes dramatically as people and motorcyclists weave in and out between the bigger vehicles, and they all just park wherever they feel like it. Sometimes they parallel park on the side of the street, but other times they just stop in the middle of the street or an intersection of streets and get out to go about their business. Our driver actually parked on the sidewalk to drop off the gals from Connecticut at their hotel. We did get to see the city though, and since our driver didn’t know exactly where our apartment was, we found an open-air market, a pharmacy, several restaurants, and a supermarket in the neighborhood before we even got a glimpse of our apartment.


The apartment is nice: very clean-looking with its white walls and hard-wood floors. We’ve got a red, purple, lime green and sky blue color scheme going on, which somehow works. Sherri and I are sharing a room, and the other two roommates, Audrey and Erica, are sharing the other. The other girls are all very nice. We all share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room/dining room area. We're up on the 4th floor of the building, which is actually the 5th floor, but around here, the ground floor doesn't count. There's a scary-looking half-spiral staircase, but we haven't taken that yet because there's a glass-sided elevator (pictured) that comes up in the central balcony area onto which all the apartments open. Interesting note: there are no window screens here.

Laura lives in an apartment a couple of blocks away from us, and she, Sherri, and I have all kind of latched onto each other. We went for lunch yesterday after we’d gotten into our apartments, and then we braved the supermarket. The ladies working the checkouts are in a really big hurry, and we’ve kind of had to guess at what we’re buying, but it’s not too difficult. There are pictures on most of the items. We even found what amount to boxes of Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Pops!!


So far, so good, and we’re heading out in about an hour to go find the school and then go see the Pantheon and possibly the Vatican, which aren’t too far from that.

Still around....

So, it's been a little while since I last posted, but I'm still around. I think I've got more homework this summer than I have ever had before.

I'm working on Latin, so I don't get too rusty before classes start in the fall. I'm going to be doing Latin online with one of my professors next semester, so I don't get behind while I'm in Rome. I've got to find textbooks this summer though, because I won't be able to get them once I'm in Europe. For now, I'm working on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and trying to make myself parse things. I'm really quite bad at parsing, but I can translate just fine. Figure that one out.

I'm also working on a little Italian, so when I land in Rome in September, I will at least be able to read the street signs and tell when someone is making fun of me. Ever see the scene in Maid in Manhattan when those two French ladies are talking about JLo in the elevator, and Ralph Fiennes tells them off in French (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQkCo4ZoHQE) ? I would love to be able to do that! Anyway, I've studied French, a little Spanish, and now Latin (as well as Greek, but that really doesn't help as much as the other languages do), and I've done some work with Italian for the Digital Pompeii Project at school, which uses an Italian art encyclopedia series as a main source. When it comes to reading signs and stuff like that, I can usually puzzle things out, but it never hurts to practice. I have a phrasebook with grammar and pronunciation sections in it, and I'm going to work on finding something online so I can hear the Italian being spoken. I also have the first few chapters of a couple of my favorite books in Italian, so I'm slowly working my way through those.

"C'era una rampicante bizzarro."

Love it!!