Rome

I have had quite an adventure over the past week. On Tuesday morning everyone from A&M that’s studying here at Santa Chiara took a train to Rome. I was so excited to be going to Rome and when I got there, I was more excited than when I actually landed in Italy. How that works, I’m not really sure, but I was. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and grabbed a sandwich at a little bar about a block down the road. Then a group of us took the metro (of which I am a pro now) to the Colosseum. By the way, I discovered that mass transit stresses me out, especially the metro during rush hour because of the close proximity to everyone. When we got off the metro at the Colosseum and started walking towards it, I could barely contain my excitement. When I could see it through the door, it felt like Christmas morning in September. I had only read of ancient Rome in history and Latin books, but to see it, right there in all its glory was amazing. I haven’t been so excited in a long time. We spent the afternoon walking through ancient Rome and I was actually impressed with how much I remembered from Latin. I could picture the Roman forum and basilica as it was originally and could see a parade marching towards the Colosseum. It was so overwhelming. We saw the prison where Peter and Paul were held, which brought so much to life for me. I think I tend to compartmentalize things – this relates to history that relates to religion, and so on. Just being here has made me realize that’s not how the world is at all, and all of a sudden, my Latin, history, and religion were one with architecture. It was incredible.

On Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, so everyone was very happy about that. Breakfast at Santa Chiara is on your own, which means a lot of us don’t eat it. (By the way, thank you so much for the package, Mom. It was waiting for me last night when I got back.) In the morning, we had an audience with the Pope. We had reserved seats, which just means we were able to sit while everyone else stood around. We were also recognized for being there and though we are not supposed to whoop while we’re here, some people did. (That’s so embarrassing too. Who ever came up with the idea to whoop at A&M must have been a real hick or something. Why do people enjoy sounding like animals?) The Pope drove around in a little car through the crowd for a while. I guess he needed to know that he had the support of the people behind him. During his address he semi apologized again for what he said the other week, but not really. You could tell he stood by what he said but was just trying to cause a little peace and put it to rest. It made me chuckle a little.

In the afternoon, we spent the day inside St. Peter’s, which was absolutely amazing. I’ll have to send some pictures, because I don’t know how I will ever put into words what it was like to be in there. Again, it really set into motion all I had learned about it in classes. I had always heard that as you get closer to it, Michelangelo’s dome seems to disappear but to actually see that is something else. I can see why he might get criticized for that. Why would he design a dome that disappears, but originally the plan was a Greek Cross plan and it wouldn’t have the effect of disappearing like it does now – with the longitudinal plan. (That might be boring to some of y’all – but Sara – that’s for your benefit☺)

That evening we had a gallery opening at a museum to attend, which was very neat. We got to see a whole bunch of museums that have been proposed all over the world. It was great to see how architects have worked out solutions for the building and the environment it will be situated in and for what purpose the museum is being built. However I did see one of them that simply just looked like a blob. I didn’t like it at all.

On Thursday morning we felt as if we had been there for a week and we were all pretty exhausted, but we had a full day with Peter Lang (our studio professor) planned. We started off going to the Etruscan Museum and then to see Renzo Piano’s concert halls. We toured them and this was definitely the best part of the day. It’s incredible how much attention to detail there was. And each chair in the halls cost 800 euros each. Let me just say that when we sat in them, we all said to ourselves, “These chairs are so worth 800 euros.” By this point in the day, we were all very tired and hadn’t had lunch yet. It was about 2:30 and many of us were irritable and I seriously thought I was going to pass out, haha. But the day was not over yet. Peter said we had a thirty minute walk to our next sight, which turned into two and a half hours of walking, taking buses, and retracing our steps, which didn’t help the situation at all. Then we were lead right into the ghetto of Rome and there is no joking about that. We were standing right in the middle of a gypsy village and a group of Kurds flying their flag and a group of Pakistanis. Me being the person that I am was scared to death. Many of the people were nervous and upset that Peter took us to the place. It’s one of those places that I am glad I got to see but would have much preferred to see it on slides in a classroom, if you know what I mean. We ended up at the Macro, museum for contemporary arts, where there was an exhibition by Christian Boltansky on death. It was in an old slaughterhouse and it was a little eerie walking through there. He was drawing attention to how many people died while working in the slaughterhouse – interesting, but kind of weird. The more I think about it, the more I like it, but it was definitely strange at first. That evening a group of us went to Hard Rock Café for a little touch of home and some American food. A bunch of people were feeling homesick last week. -maybe from the realization that we will be here for a while. So the night at Hard Rock came at a perfect point in the trip.

Friday concluded our trip to Rome and we left for Capri, but that will come later!