Giorno 5

Giorno 5 19 di Agosto, 2010


Alora, today was a beautiful day. First of all, I had a much better night’s sleep and this makes a big difference in my day! I started out around 0900 and took a new bus route to Termini just to see a different scene into Centro Roma. It was nice. I still have the smile stuck on my face. On the ride there I kept finding myself looking up. There is a whole other scene of artwork, statues, and gardens above our heads! And, ah, the sky was beautiful today. Granted it came with a heavy heat that was quickly trapped between the buildings and the streets, but it was beautiful. I only wish that I didn’t sweat so much! Ooh, so ugly!

I did some more wandering and stopped at the Fontana dei Naiadi. Apparently there was so much controversy over the naked nymphs of this fountain that at one time the government put up a huge wall to cover them up. Some students later tore down this wall and the nymphs have been “free” ever since. It is a beautiful fountain. I took pictures of it on the bus tour yesterday, so I didn’t take any more today. I just walked around it and admired the statues from a closer view. It is nice to see people from all over the world sitting on the wall, many dipping their feet in the water to cool off. I just walked for a while and then decided to make a route to the school. I knew the general direction and just went through streets, trying to stay close to the shade of the buildings. It was almost noon but very very hot already. There were many vendors walking about selling parasols and hats.

On the way to school I noticed a family leaving their home. Normal, yes? But then I took a closer look at the “house” and realized that it was a mini-palace looking building. I took a picture. Can you imagine this being your home?! (And this brings me to once again apologizing for not posting pictures onto the blog. You guys, I really need help here. I tried setting up an account online to post all of my pictures, but I just didn’t know what I was doing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! What is a “good” site? Should I just try posting everything to Facebook? I don’t know. Help!)

I got to the school a little after noon and had a café and this yummy biscuit thing with chocolate on top. Ha ha, I am laughing at myself because when I ordered the “café” I thought I was asking for a cup of coffee…but it ended up being this mini cup of espresso. Very strong espresso. Not what I expected, but still good. Yes, I remembered to take a picture this time. Then I went through the routine of checking email and posting my blog. I like reading your comments. Do you have any questions for me? I tried to figure out what to do with the photos, but got very frustrated and gave up after an hour of trial and error…that only ended in error. I think I did something wrong to my computer too. Now it is showing an error when I start it up. It says that there is something wrong with some software on the C: drive….I don’t know. I just hope that the computer keeps working enough to let me continue journaling and connecting to the internet. While I was waiting for the photo thing to work, I studied my Italian. Good thing too becuase we WERE quizzed on it!

Class, again, was the same. Fun, sometimes difficult, but very useful. I am making friends with a Korean lady whose Italian name is Sophia. She speaks Korean, some Italian, and very very little English. She has been living here for 3 years already and is now starting to take language class. She works at a Korean B&B so hasn’t really needed to learn Italian, but now she realizes that this is to be her permanent home and she would like to learn. It is great talking with her during our class break. It is really forcing me to use the little Italian I know. I was so surprised today when we were actually having a conversation! I was understanding her and responding in Italian!! Of course, it was very broken Italian and we laughed at ourselves a lot, but this IS great practice. For all of you who told me, you KNOW who you are, yes normal conversation IS the very best way to learn. We were feeling so confident that when new students joined us on the terrace, we brought them into the conversation! YES!! I was feeling so good about it that I started using Italian on the streets!

By the way, almost everyone in metropolitan Rome speaks – or wants to speak – in English. It is good because I can communicate almost everywhere I go, but it is not so good because even when I try to speak in Italian they want to speak in English. Most of the other students want to practice their English too! Va bene, I still have Sophia to talk to.

So, after school we (a handful of girls from different classes) were going to attend a seminar on the wines of Italy. But this seminar was completely in Italian and we quickly abandoned it. I still don’t understand why but Tamara and Anna (a 4th level from Croatia) were dead set on, and super excited about, going to the Hard Rock Café. Of ALL the places we can go, of ALL the authentic food we can eat, you want to go where? Maybe it is because the food is what I know from home already, maybe my age is showing (they are 19 and 20), but I just couldn’t understand what the huge draw was to going there. In the end I decided to go because 1)I wanted to make it up to the girls for not joining them for dinner last night and 2) I was curious to see how “American” the place could be. Besides the heavy accents of the servers (who really tried HARD to have an American accent!) it was just like any burger restaurant back home. I was actually surprised at how good the burgers were, but they were HUGE even by American standards. I could only finish half of the burger and not even half of the fries. I don’t know how these girls split a humongous plate of nachos, ate all of the burger, and had a dessert after too! Tomorrow is a day for salad and fruit, but this weekend I am going to go somewhere to have a pasta dish of some kind no matter what!!! Jeesh! …But it was incredibly entertaining to see the excitement and fascination they had with American food.

Afterwards, we were all feeling uncomfortably full and decided to go for a walk to the Fontana Trevi. Some made their wishes, but I will go back on my own one morning to make my wish. Maybe the place won’t be so crowded earlier in the day? Again, I took pictures and had pictures taken with me in them, but it just doesn’t express the magnitude of the whole thing. I do think I will go back, sit quietly by myself and try to write about it. After this first week of exploration and discovery I know I will have time to revisit each place and really get to know it. Another homework: find a decent book that will teach me the history and stories surrounding these places. I will bring it with me and read about each point as I am there.

Olga and I parted ways from the rest of the group after Fontana Trevi. We wanted to walk home since it was such a beautiful night and we both weren’t quite ready for the day to end. It took us about an hour but we were in no rush and stopped often to take pictures. Ah, one great thing that happened on the way: we were just walking along and then heard this beautiful singing. I thought it was a recording or something, but it turned out to be a man and a woman singing opera in the street. It was so enchanting. Again the silly grin was plastered on my face and surprisingly I felt my eyes sting with tears because it was so beautiful and so surprising. How lucky am I to be here?! Molto, molto, molto.

We sauntered through the Piazza Navona, took more pictures, talked about family, bought postcards, shared different stories, took a drink of water from the “soup tourine” (I will tell you the story of the tourine another time) and just meandered home. I am still not very sure of what direction I am going in but Olga has a map in her head. I need to start paying attention to where we are going and turning because she will be leaving in a week and I will need to know my own way around!

I’m not as tired today as I was yesterday but I should probably wrap things up and go to bed. It is now 2300 (11pm). It takes me about an hour to type each entry so we must have returned home around 2145 (9:45pm). I was thinking about writing some postcards tonight, but I think I want to take them with me and write them while I am visiting different places in the next few days. Let me know if you have a preference of what location you would like your postcard written!

Oh! Do not worry that I will have no posts for the next two days. I only have internet access from the school and they are closed on Saturday and Sunday. However, I will keep journaling over the weekend and will have all three posts up on Monday.


A settimana prossima… (Until next week…)
Reem



PS. Haila, I don’t know if you are reading this, but if you are, can you send me the photo scavenger hunt list? I never took it and forgot almost everything on the list. Thanks!