A week with visitors!

02/07/11, 02/08/11, 02/09/11, 02/10/11

     The week started in exhaustion. All of the traveling is so great, but it really takes a toll on my sleep pattern! Definitely worth it though. I had two tests over the course of this week, one in Italian on Monday and one on food & culture on Wednesday. The Italian test went really well, but the food & culture test was one of the hardest tests I’ve had to take! I’m curious to get the results back from this test. I was very livid after the exam because the material itself wasn’t difficult, but the format of the test was unlike anything any of us had ever taken before so we weren’t prepared. For the multiple-choice questions, the answer could be one, two, three, four, or all of the options and they didn’t tell you how many, but if you missed one of the options, you got the entire question wrong. Rather than just get a question wrong and not get any points added, if you got an answer wrong, it is subtracted from your score so it is technically possible to receive a negative percentage on the exam. After taking it, none of us were very thrilled and therefore decided to make the best of the day and have a picnic with some wine in the Villa Borghese gardens on top of the Spanish Steps. Reluctantly, we went back to our next class where our program director came in to talk to us because she caught word that we were very upset with how the test was run. We tried as a class to explain to her our frustration, but once again the language barrier caused a problem. She was under the impression that we don’t like the Italian testing system and got defensive and wouldn’t listen to what we had to say. However, this wasn’t the case. We were simply trying to say that had we known what the test was going to be like, we could have better studied for that format and felt more confident leaving the room. Either way, there’s nothing I can do about it now except wait to see how it actually went! 

On the way to Villa Borghese Gardens for a picnic

     In between those classes, on Tuesday the 8^th, we went to Palazzo Massimo and looked at various museum exhibits. Due to the lack of reliability of public transportation in this city, my roommates and I wound up having to take a cab to class in order to make it on time to the meeting spot. The meeting place was at the Piazza della Republica, where us girls were excited to see was the location of where Lizzie McGuire drives by on a vespa in her movie. It’s weird how pretty all the sites looked in the movie and the fact that I’m now getting the chance to see them all for myself. At the museum, we saw the development of Roman paintings and sculptures. We learned about frescoes and while I’ve scene many of them, I didn’t realize how talented artists have to be to create one. After the top layer of plaster is smeared on, artists have roughly 6 hours to create the painting they want. I also learned the difference between Roman and Christian mosaics. Romans used them on the floor and Christians used mosaics on the wall. In looking at these mosaics, it was neat to see the intricacy of them and how they varied depending on where they are located in a house (the bathroom versus a bedroom). We then talked about statues and how they transformed to using what is called “contrapposto,” in other words a more natural than rigid stance. Our professor showed us the Roman copycat of the Greek Discobolo statue. I’ve seen pictures of this, but never really thought much into detail about the statue itself. Our teacher described how unrealistic the pose itself is for if this man were to actually release the discus using this stance, it would either fly directly upwards or else hit the ground and start rolling. I really like having this class at various locations throughout the city because it’s as though we all have our own personal tour guide who helps me learn things I wouldn’t otherwise have known just going to that location. 

Piazza della Republica

Roman Mosaic

Discobolo

     I took this week as an opportunity to catch up on sleep and didn’t go out at all. Therefore, I feel much better tonight as we get ready for 7 other Tridelts to arrive in Rome (6 from Grenada and 1 from London!).

02/11/11

     Today, we had our first wine seminar where we learned the basic concepts about wine and how it is created. I found this information very interesting, but was confused by all the terms as well. There is so much to know about wine, how it is created, the different types of wines and the grapes that create them, etc. that it is impossible to have a firm understanding of it after a two hour lecture. Unfortunately, that’s all we have so I took in as much as I could and look forward to learning more about it on my own. Our friends arrived at noon, but we had class until 4 that afternoon. Since they were exhausted from their travels, we thought it best to just wait until after class rather than in between classes to go meet up with them. Following class, my roommates and I just about ran to the bus stop because we were so excited to see them! Since it was already starting to get a little dark, we chose to show them the Spanish Steps, the famous shopping street, and Piazza Venezia (or what we like to call the circle of death because it’s a free for all with traffic). 

Friends on top of the Spanish Steps

     By this time, it was about 8 so we parted ways, they went to their hostel and we went back to our apartment. We grabbed a slice of pizza on the way home, and all got ready. We went to a club in Testaccio called Akab, which was really fun because everyone from our program who had visitors brought them there. Therefore, the number of students from U of I pretty much doubled that night.

Before Akab

02/12/11

     We had an ambitious schedule for Saturday and Sunday to show our visitors around in order to ensure that they got to see everything that was necessary in a visit to Rome. Because everyone was starving, when we met up we stopped at a little outdoor restaurant for a quick lunch. Trying to accommodate for 13 people is a little difficult for any restaurant around here because many aren’t that big. Luckily there was enough room to push enough tables together so we could all sit together. I got a mozzarella and tomato Panini to tide me over until dinner. From lunch, we went took our guests to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, stopped at Giolitti—the best gelato place in Rome in my opinion (I got my favorite combination thus far with white chocolate, banana, and caramel), Piazza Navona, and showed them our school. It was my first time actually going into the pantheon yet and it still bewilders me how the building itself was built at that day in age. 

Eating gelato outside the Pantheon

Inside the Pantheon

     We parted ways to go get ready before we met back up for dinner. We planned to take our friends to Casetta de Trastevere because it’s one of our favorite restaurants and affordable. We sat at dinner for nearly three hours, it was so good to catch up with everyone else and hear how their programs are going for them. All the girls from Grenada had improved their Spanish as they live with host families while there and they have no choice but to speak it constantly. From dinner, we headed back to our apartment to meet up with the boys in our program and their friends before heading out to a club called Coyote. This was one of my favorite nights since being here. Not only were we together with some of our best friends, but they were playing great music and we couldn’t get ourselves to leave until about 4:30 in the morning. As we walked home, we walked past all the people setting up for Porta Portese, which occurs in front of our apartment every Sunday afternoon.

02/13/11

     Given that we stayed out so late on Saturday night, it was very difficult to get up Sunday morning. However, we planned to meet our friends at the Vatican for the Pope’s Blessing at noon. Even though we nearly ran there to get there on time, we made it! This was a really cool experience, the whole area was filled with people sporting the flags for their respective countries. The Pope came out of a random window and spoke in several different languages. Even though I could only understand the English portion, the whole experience in itself was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The fact that the Pope comes out every Sunday he is in Rome to do this is unique and having the chance to see it was something I wont forget. 

Crowd outside the Vatican for the Blessing

View of the Pope outside a window at the Vatican

     After the blessing, we took our friends to see Castel San Angelo and to a restaurant in between there and our school that we’ve been to several times and has a student discount. Like usual, I got the margarita pizza and was very satisfied. The visitors all planned to go to the Roman Forum and Colosseum from lunch and since we’ve seen that and they have tickets, we went back to our apartment and took a nap. Many of us had an early morning the next day so we didn’t go out. Four of the girls left Monday morning, one went back to London and the other three continued on to explore more of Italy starting with Florence. Meanwhile, three were still here until Wednesday so we still had plenty of time with them!