Another Roman Review

(Written September 17, 2009)

Hello everyone!

Rome is still fantastic as she always is. It's been raining / thunder-storming for about 5 days straight and it's absolutely incredible. It will be perfectly sunny and suddenly off in the distance you'll see these black clouds roll in with the most incredible light show. I love living so close to the ocean!

For those who don't know, my school is on top of the Janiculum hill which is Rome's highest hill. My school has an incredible view of the historic center and today I sat on the terrace and watched a storm roll over the mountains and half of the city. It didn't make it up the hill but I have a feeling it will come back later today or tonight. I really do love the weather here. Even if it is a little crazy and unpredictable, it's so different than anything else I'm used to, and who doesn't enjoy a thunderstorm or 40?

This past weekend I took a trip to visit my friend Evan in Florence. Evan goes to Goucher with me and is studying at NYU. I took my first European train ride and it was beautiful! The Tuscan countryside is so luscious. Besides hanging out in Florence, we went to Cinque Terre which is a group of 5 cities on the coast in the north of Italy, just a little north of Pisa. If you don't have facebook or if you just haven't seen them yet, click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028107&id=1395090004&l=969523b1da to see them. The hiking was hard but so worth it. I was exhausted by the end but laying on the beach for half an hour totally made it all worth it. We didn't hike all 4 trails, we hiked 3 because we wanted to catch the ferry and if we had hiked we wouldn't have caught the last one and the ferry was a priority! So Evan and I took a train from the 4th city, Vernazza, to the 5th city, Monterosso, and hung out there for a little while and took the ferry back to the first city where we caught the train to La Spezia, and then caught a train from La Spezia back to Florence. It was a really long trip and when we got back we crashed but I really want to go again.

Sunday we went out for a great English brunch which was just what I needed because I was beginning to feel a little homesick. I still loved everything about Italy but I realized that the way I feel I can express myself best is through conversation, especially just passing conversations with strangers or vendors, but now I feel like I can't even do that and I feel very isolated. But I have made some great friends here, one in particular named Rose, and when I talked to her about it she gave me some great advice and I began to see things from a different light. Sunday afternoon I came home and began my week anew!

This weekend I'm doing a bunch of different things. My friend Peter, who is also here for a year, is the youngest of 7 and all of his brothers and sisters studied abroad and a couple of them studied in Rome. His older brother told him of a place near the Pantheon, a mom and pop place for dinner, and Peter went by the other day and introduced himself and the lady told him to come by one night with all of his friends, so that's what we're doing tonight! We're meeting at the Pantheon and then spending a couple of hours eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves and then go out to a bar or a club from there. It's my first long sit down dinner experience and I'm really excited. Then tomorrow night one of the people at school is hosting a salsa dancing night, so we're going to learn how to salsa and then go to a club. Saturday, a group of us are going to Tivoli which is an area outside of Rome that hosts Hadrian's estate (Hadrian was an emperor of Rome around 125 CE and rebuilt the Pantheon). Sunday I'm going to a soccer game, Roma vs. Fiorentina, and I'm super excited. It's a great weekend for just hanging around Rome but still full of lots of great things to do.

I love Rome. In Florence I found things so small and touristy, but in Rome they're big and raucous and wild and only touristy when you go to the touristy spots. Rome is so alive and I'm so glad that I get to live in this place. My Italian continues to improve especially because I'm finally beginning to take classes. I understand a lot in conversation but when I try to speak it the words just won't come yet. I know they're in there but it's all a matter of finding the key to unlock them.

My absolute favorite class though is Art of Rome. It's an on site class and the professor is absolutely incredible. He's part history buff, part storyteller and almost every moment of his class is perfect. He's so animated about what he's doing and when you have a professor like that you can never go wrong. The first place we went was the Pantheon and it might be my favorite place in Rome so far even though I really haven't explored other places in depth. I love the area of Trastevere with it's cobblestone streets and amazing night life and I even love the city center with all it's tourists. Every time I think I know at least a part of the city I try to find a new place and get to know it more. It really is the eternal city and I'm so lucky that I get a year to discover it.

Hope everyone is doing well and having their own wonderful adventures from home! I do love hearing from you. I'm going to try to send semi-regular emails but sometimes blogging is tougher than you would expect.

I have class today at 5:15 until 6:40 and then I'm off to enjoy my weekend! Not having Friday classes is absolutely the best.

Baci :)

Liz