Another week in Rome

01/31/11

     Back to the reality of class here on this Monday. We didn’t have class until 1 in the afternoon, allowing us to all sleep in and catch up on sleep after a very long, exhausting, but fun weekend. We had classes then the day concluded by going to the supermarket for groceries for the week and cooking dinner. We made chicken cooked in parmesan and garlic with pasta salad. It tasted great, I really like how much cooking we’re doing. I can’t wait to become a better cook after all this experimentation and come home with recipes! The rest of the night unfortunately entailed catching up on all the homework I should have been doing these past few weeks, but chose to spend my time otherwise seeing Europe!

02/01/11

     We woke up bright and early excited to go see the Roman ruins and the Colosseum. Walking through the forum (ruins) made me realize how much more history and buildings have remains in the forum for such a small amount of space. This whole area is what used to make up the civil and religious center of ancient Rome. As I walked through and learned of the history of it from my teacher, I couldn’t help but imagine how grandeur the sight would have been in its prime. I found it incredibly beautiful even in its devastated form now. We examined it from the largest points of its expansion (the Arch of Titus to the Arch of Septimus Severus). The majority of this areas history lies with many of Rome’s famous emperors and their decisions in how to expand or use the land. From emperor to emperor, the land slowly transformed to the point where the Colosseum was built on top of a lake at the end of Nero’s garden. I learned that it eventually came to be known as the Colosseum because whenever spectators went to go watch the gladiators, they’d refer to it as going to “the Colossal Statue.” This statue was originally of Nero, but was transformed to portray whichever emperor was in rule at the time. 

The Roman Forum

One of the arch entrances to the Forum

     After learning about the name, we actually walked over to the Colosseum and it was the first time I’ve ever seen it up close! It’s even more astounding in person than it is in pictures or movies. How people had the capabilities to build a structure such as this during with such little technology. We learned of gladiators and they’re lifestyles which kept making me the of the movie Gladiator. Luckily, our teacher ended the lesson a bit early and left us to openly explore the Colosseum for as long as we wanted until our next class. We opted to eat lunch within there, capture some great pictures, and then head onward to class. We spent the remainder of the day wandering the city and cooking dinner to save up our energy for the next day when we would hang out with Lauren’s Italian friend Federico!

Colosseum!

Girls in our Layers of Rome class inside the Colosseum

02/02/11 and 02/03/11

     Wednesday could have been the longest day of class I have ever experienced. During my food and culture class, we are trying to fit all of the history of Italian food into 6 hours, split into two lectures. Needless to say, my hand hurt incredibly bad after fiercely scribbling notes for three hours. After having class from 9:30-4:30 with short breaks in between, my roommates and I were very eager for the night we had ahead of us! 

     We met Federico at 8 p.m. because we were doing a traditional Italian meal, where he met us with his friend Alessandro. We proceeded to a place called L’Antica Birra Peroni, what used to be a beer factory. Of course we drank pitchers of beer alongside our meal. For an appetizer, our table split a fried platter of supli, fried olives and meat, and some form of a fried flower. I didn’t really ask questions, but rather tried it all and it was delicious. For my main meal, I had penne al’arrabiata again because I loved it so much time the first time I ate it. After dinner, rather than go back to our apartment and pregame like we normally would, we went with the Italians and did as they do by going to a bar called CO2 Brasserie. The girls and I split wine and hung out until Federico’s other friend Leopaldo joined us as well. We hung out at the bar for awhile until we decided to head towards La Maison for the night! Our fellow friends from our program met us there and we spent a dance-filled night with them and our new friends!  

Fried appetizer platter at L'Antica Birra Pirone

Before dinner

     Thursday didn’t entail much other than a typical day of schoolwork followed by cooking our dinner until we went out. Tonight, our program decided to meet up with a club promoter, Alfredo Martinez, who helped us get into a club opening at Bloom. 

Gina & I at our apartment before Bloom

02/04/11

     Friday approached me sooner than expected. After a relatively short day of class, Lauren, Christina and I thought it was the perfect day to go for a run along the Tiber River. I can’t even explain how relieving a feeling it is to go running here. Because our last trip was a little unorganized, our apartment spent Friday night preparing for our trip to Firenze (Florence). We had a train at 6 am to Florence and were returning on Sunday at 3 pm. We sat over dinner going through Ashley’s Let’s Go Europe book to decide the key places we wanted to hit and the best order to do so to ensure we accomplished everything we wanted. I also facebook messaged one of my friends who spent a semester in Florence asking her for suggestions and we took those into account as well. Although I intended to go to bed super early, time seems to fly and before I knew it, it was 1:30 in the morning and I was getting up in 3 hours!