La Roma: First Impressions

Ciao, e benvenuti nel mio blog!

The past ten days have been very exciting and fast-paced, especially for those of us like me who have never been to Italy before, but we do get a nice amount of down time to relax (for instance, no seminar was scheduled for yesterday, so most of the morning and afternoon were free). I finally got ahead on reading earlier, so I decided I really ought to start keeping a journal/blog. Since this is a first impressions post, I’ll try not to ramble on for too long.

These first ten days, what has really struck me about Rome has been…

  • the vibrancy and richness of the city. This is true both literally…
    First gelato in Italy!

    the strawberry gelato is so pink

    <3 the Tiber

    the Tiber river!

    so many flowers

    so many beautiful flowers~

    …and more figuratively–people here are generally quite friendly and readily start up conversations. There is also so much to see and do here: the Colosseum (il Colosseo) and the Roman Forum (il Foro Romano), the Vatican (il Vaticano), the Pantheon, art museums (most notably La Galleria Borghese, featuring a stunning collection of paintings, sculptures, and ceiling art), castles, gardens, piazzas and churches and fountains, oh my! (And that’s just the start.)

    We only have about ten days left to explore this incredible city, which to me feels way too short and where did the time go and what should I see next.

I’ve also been really amazed at

  • how cheap many things are here, seeing as Rome is such a popular tourist destination. That is, things are cheap if you know where to go. For instance, there are 2 pizza places within a block of where we’re staying that offer large fold-up pieces of pizza that cost about 3 euro. You can easily get a nice cappuccino for ~1 euro (or so my roommate tells me, since I don’t drink coffee). I paid under 2.50 euro today for a bunch of 7 decently-sized bananas from the supermarket. A panino costs about 4-6 euro, and you can easily get certain types of pizza (such as la margherita, which generally appears to cost around 6 euro) for <10 euro.
    Also, many museums/government-owned areas have free admission on the first Sunday of the month. That’s how we got into il Castello di Sant’Angelo for free on Sunday the 5th and saw some incredible views:
Sharp, pointy objects, yay! There is no cause for alarm or concern.

the angel at the very top of the Castel Sant’Angelo

pano game too strong (lol not really)

view from the top

angle 1 from above

trees + buildings

the river's back!

angle 2 from above

angle 3 from above

view of St. Peter’s in the background

look at those angels flanking the edges of the picture

technically not a view /from/ the castle, but still a nice pic

To wrap up, another simultaneously surprising and striking aspect of Rome so far is

  • how quickly we have adapted to some aspects of life here. For instance, many of us now take backpacks/tote bags/etc. to the grocery store (il supermercato) of our own volition. Having customers pay for having to get a plastic bag for their purchases makes sense to me, in lowering both environmental impact and the frequency or likelihood of ‘splurge’ purchases on consumers’ part. Dividing up our trash into different segments (compost, plastic, glass, paper, non-recyclable waste) is taking longer to adjust to, but I’m glad that I’m being reminded to lower my environmental footprint every time I have a meal in the kitchen. The last bit makes me wonder whether these more environmentally-conscious habits/practices will continue once we get back to the States. Given how quickly we seem to have adapted in some ways here in Rome (e.g. to walking at least 10,000 steps every day and to carrying a bag with us al supermercato), and yet the lingering resistance to changing other aspects of our lifestyles (e.g. to dividing up our trash and to balancing social life and time alone and successfully communicating with the rest of the group), I’m not quite sure. However, once we’re back in the familiar atmosphere of our homes, I feel that we could all too easily return to our old ways after our stay in Italy.On the other hand, I’m hopeful that my much greater knowledge of the Italian language and increased appreciation of the long history and culture of Rome will stay with me for much longer. Last night at dinner, I successfully managed to speak to the waiters in Italian to ask for silverware and to respond to a greeting, which is more than I’d gotten from the ~third of Duolingo in Italian that I’ve looked at. Today in Italian class, we essentially wrapped up our second unit (on asking directions and getting around as tourists/newcomers), and tomorrow we’ll be starting a third unit on food. Last Friday, we learned more about the history and significance of the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, getting a glimpse of the terribly crowded, restricted living conditions that nevertheless, for a time, allowed the Jews to largely stick to their own culture and faith under immense pressure to convert. Later today in seminar, we’ll be discussing the papal bull that authorized the creation of the ghetto, as well as the diary of Anna del Monte, who was imprisoned and tormented by priests and converts for 12 days (after a certain Sabato “denounced” her, falsely saying that she wished to convert to Christianity) before being released and returned to her parents in the ghetto, ostensibly more sure of her own faith than ever before. I wonder at her resilience and determination in the face of persecution, and wish I could be like that too (though perhaps with less screaming than was reported in the diary, albeit only partially written by Anna, according to the translator/editor).

    Well, it’s time to have lunch. Un paninoUn pezzo di pizzaUna zuppaUna pasta? I guess we’ll see.

Ciao for now, and see you next time!

 

 

A Weekend in Budapest

The weekend after the Fourth of July our class took a trip to Budapest, a city known for its beauty, and less for troubled past. As we strolled along the Danube, I could not help but be dazzled by the city’s grandiose, ornate buildings. Equally breathtaking was the river of glistening currents, together living up to the city’s reputation.

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On our way to yet another example of Budapest’s picturesque architecture, the Hungarian Parliament Building, I noticed something peculiar:

 

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Yes, there were two different street signs for the street we were on, but one of them was crossed out with a red diagonal line. When I brought this to our professor’s attention, he informed me that this binomial practice used to be commonplace in Budapest until recently, and that the city has now taken down most of the old street signs.

This now rare remnant from Hungary’s recent past stirred up my curiosity. I immediately took a picture of it so I could investigate the story behind it later. And it turns out, that the newer street name, Wekerle Sándor, is the name of a Hungarian politician from early 20th century who served three times as Prime Minister. His political career was later cut short by the establishment of a communist state in the aftermath of WWI; he was held prisoner as a hostage, as were many others from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the picture I could not discern the other name that had previously graced the street. But it is not hard to guess that it must have been connected to either of the two regimes of terror Hungary experienced last century, the Nazis or the Communists, the past the new Hungary wishes to dissociate itself from. The city’s decision to rename its streets speaks of its determination to actively renounce its times of darkness, by reconnecting with its past glory as once a ruling empire. Such appropriation of the imperial imagery in promoting national pride was also vastly evident in the Parliament Building draped in royal splendor.

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Inside the Parliament Building

In a few years, or even months, the older street sign probably will follow the fate of others that had already been removed from the public view. Renaming the streets whose names once embodied authoritarianism is a way of correcting the past; it denounces the perpetrators and honors the victims of the two regimes of terror. But one question remains: Does removing the old signs send a stronger message than denouncing them with a red mark? In other words, is rendering these signs of its troubled past altogether invisible a better option than having them visible and alive, but corrected? This was one of the many thought-provoking questions that continued to guide our discussions.

 

Adventures and Ordeals

It’s a funny thing to be stuck. You keep doing what you always do – talking, laughing, breathing. And yet you know that something is obstructing you, keeping you put. And when you suddenly decide to accept that you’re stuck, you begin to look around and realize what you’re actually stuck in.

This is the story of 17 students, one professor, and one bus driver, “stuck” in the great expanses of the African savannah. We had just spent the day driving through Etosha National Park. This 22,270 square kilometer park in northwestern Namibia is home to 114 animal and 340 bird species, and encircles a salt pan so large it can be seen from space. Most of the group had been particularly looking forward to this visit, and many of the sights, not to mention the wildlife we witnessed were the most beautiful of our entire trip.

And yet it was at that moment when we were just 15 minutes away from the park exit and our tire popped, that something different happened. By that point, most of us were (or at least I was) hungry, tired of spending the day on the bus, and anxious to get home, so the news that our tire had popped was not met with great delight. Despite being advised to remain in the bus, as the clock ticked on, several of us went out to get some fresh air. We got off and continued our follies – laughing, talking, taking pictures, writing S.O.S. in the sand (jokingly of course).

But after a bit, it hit me that we were actually stuck – even if temporarily so – in one of the most magical places I’ve ever been to. Even though we were meant to have left the park before sunset, we were lucky enough to have had a reason to stay and see the park’s transformation from day to night.

Far off into the distance I watched the sun, a large ball of fire slowly lowering itself down on the horizon until it kissed the grassland plains. And then, after what seemed like just a few seconds, it was swallowed up and gone. I walked around myself in a circle, mesmerized by the kaleidoscope skies changing from orange, to red, to yellow, to blue, to purple, and finally to pitch black.

Even after leaving Namibia, this is the moment that stays with me most vividly. Something that I feel I learned from Namibian culture was that nothing is really a big deal. Being punctual is unheard of, and things going wrong is actually the name of the game. But throughout our two-week road trip across the country, we stopped being frustrated with logistical setbacks and started to embrace, even take advantage of them, always saying that “the only difference between an adventure and an ordeal is your attitude.” That moment in Etosha park doesn’t just remind me of the country’s beauty and magic, but of the idea of embracing the unexpected, the state of being stuck in a place that’s not so bad after all.

(note: couldn’t upload pictures because the website said storage quota has all been used.)