The first half of orientation this morning was a lecture by author Alan Epstein. He was born in America, but moved to Rome 30 years ago and wrote a book called As The Romans Do. The lecture was supposed to be on Rome and I'm sure he is very knowledgeable on the subject. But I think he has given this lecture many many times, and while its official name remains "Rome," he has pretty much dropped the R-O part, and just spoke about himself. He got pretty deep into his idea of what he thinks life is. It was moderately interesting at times, but I hadn't had enough espresso yet so I wasn't very attentive.
The second half of the orientation was explaining the course structure and other unimportant details.
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The previous part was saved and never posted. I'm not going to finish because it's boring and doesn't compare to what happened next.
It started at around noon. "The Snow" was definitely an event. I had a meeting with the Dean of Students (who looks and talks like Stellan Skarsgård). He said this was the heaviest snow since '85. Grown men were throwing snowballs at strangers. Police officers were catching snow flakes on their tongue. It was one of the most bizarre things I have see. This is the view east from the 4th floor of my school down Lungotevere tor di Nona.
I went to a pizzeria just down the street from my school with a few other students. Very good.
Looking towards Castel Sant'Angelo from pizzeria
Other direction. Pizzeria on left.
Margherita pizza.
I had a few more meetings and left the school around 4:00. I happened to walk out of the school the same time as a girl named Paola, who is also living in a homestay. Paola goes to Occidental. I told her I thought my cousin Brian went there too. Turns out I was right. Turns out they know each other very well. Weird. Us homestayers have sort of banded together. Most students live in apartments in groups of 4-8, sometimes with an Italian student. They still travel in "apartment packs" so we have answered with our "homestay packs." Paola lives sort of near me so we decided to walk home together and enjoy this "once-in-a-generation event." "The Snow" definitely lived up to the hype. It was unbelievable.
Me and Paula seemed to have a mutual ESP agreement that we didn't have to go straight back, and we'd rather see "The Snow." We walked across Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, and within a minute we were within Vatican City.
From here we went straight south down Via delle Fornaci. This is the road Claudio (Giovanna's boyfriend) said was the most beautiful in all of Rome. I don't think he was wrong. After this the route gets a little foggy. I've looked at a map for about 15 minutes and I still can't figure out where we were.
Somewhere? Bar Gianicolo on the left out of the picture.
Romans can't drive in snow. It was a circus. Almost literally with their small cars. The roads are all very old and almost none are level from side to side. There were too many accidents to count. It seemed like every minute we saw a car sliding sideways into a wall, another car, or nearly a person. It didn't seem like real life. If a driver ran into another car, they would both get out, nod, and get back in and attempt to drive away. From where I took the picture above, we went right (directions didn't exist). We asked at least 10 people where we were in an odd Italian/English/Spanish mixture, since Paola is Argentinian. The only useful information from the author this morning was: "Italians are the most helpful people in the world if you ask them a question. They will rarely know the correct answer, but they will never admit it. Never trust an Italian's directions." Two police officers sent us in the wrong direction. Somewhere around here, another man incorrectly sent us back where we had came from.
At one point we walked on the same sidewalk 5 times. Each time getting new directions from a very helpful sounding Italian.
We had been walking almost exactly 80 minutes when we stumbled upon Gianicolo.
These pictures don't do anything justice. The experience was once in a lifetime. After about 10 minutes on this hill, we realized we were toeing the line with frostbite. We went back down to where the 7th picture was taken and went into Bar Gianocolo. There were only about five tables. The person I ordered a café from was obviously the owner. The barista was his son, and the cook, his wife. We sat in here for an hour to warm up. We were ready to leave but decided to ask the owner where we were on our map. He turned the map around two complete times in confusion before his wife came over for assistance. This didn't go over well. They fought over the map, who knew English better, and where we were on the map. It turned out they gave us the wrong location. The reason for this is most likely that the map was upside down. Anyway, we left and chose a direction. The only thing we knew was we had to walk downhill. Eventually I began to recognize a road we came across as being the same one the 8 silly umbrellaed Americans had used earlier.
After 4 hours we made it back to Trastevere. (Italians pronounce Trastevere with no dominant syllable. It sort of runs together, which I guess is what happens to all words after someone says them enough.) Paola found her homestay and I walked 7 or 8 blocks to my place past some of the nicest and most interesting shops.
When I got back Giovanna was making dinner. It was incredible. Spaghetti with tuna and "ensalada con balsamic e olive oil and.. uhhh.... very very good parmigiano. The best." We ate the spaghetti first, the salad last. I have never tasted fish as good as this. It was caught that morning. Me and Giovanna talked about Italian food the entire time, with Federico and his friend Giulio being ornery as usual. She said she doesn't think she is a good cook but she has the best ingredients in the world to choose from. Tuna was unavailable for two months because her favorite market's favorite fisherman didn't want to catch it. The spaghetti is Barilla brand. The same as in the U.S. Giovanna shops for that night's dinner everyday. She would never think of buying anything not Italian and not from a local market. But she does buy pasta at a supermarket. The bananas and mandarins are amazing. Everything is amazing. I think today was my first true taste of what it's like to be an Italian.
I don't know how today could have been better. Perhaps more coffee...
Henry- What a day! Once in a generation snow in Rome!
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