Roma and Thanksgiving

Well, I know I've been slacking on this but I have a good excuse. I have been really busy at work, what with finals and the replacement of all the computers in the library. This has led to a lot of problems with the printer (which they totally installed wrong on all 12 computers) as well as setting up all of the internet settings and downloading stuff for the kids not to mention wiping all the old computers, etc. We also have a new program that tracks all of the users. Figuring that out has been interesting. The IT guys didn't speak English so everything was translated to me by someone else who doesn't really know very much about computers so I'm still not sure that I have all the info. Still working out the kinks with all of that and also working a lot as I have extended the hours for finals week.

I should give you all a recap of Roma. We left town early on Friday Nov 19th and got to Roma about 3 1/2 hours later. Along the way we stopped at an Italian version of a rest stop, complete with super store peddling tuscan specialty products, pizza, and cafe. It is, by far, the largest store I have been in the past 3 months. It felt totally American, which by now is alien but is also kinda nice to revisit.

Most of the students here are leaving Italy at the end of the semester. Some are moving on to other FSU international campus (London or Valencia, Spain) but most are headed home. The other day, Jenny and I were standing on a street corner here in Firenze, talking about her reintroduction to American food. She's nervous about returning to the world of processed food and is worried that it will make her sick for the first few weeks. She said she's going to try not to eat processed food as much as possible but I told her that it will be really difficult to keep up. Then I said, "Even their Coca-Cola is worse for you than ours" meaning that American coke is far worse than Italian coke products -- as if now I am an Italian rather than an American. Of course, I know that is far from true but the slip surprised me.

Anyway, Roma. Made it into town and right away the vastness of Rome compared to Firenze strikes you. The bus swung around a couple of corners and there was Trajan's Column. Trajan's. Freakin'. Column. Beyond that, the Colosseum. I have visited the full size copy in the V&A Museum in London twice and have been dying to see the original. Who doesn't dream of ROMA?! We swung around another corner and caught sight of bits of the Roman Forum. I've died and gone to heaven.

We stopped at the hotel. I got a cute little single complete with balcony! The balcony only overlooked an alley but it was nice to have anyway. The room came stocked with a toiletry kit including a razor, soap, shampoo, etc, which promptly went into my backpack along with 2 rolls of toilet paper. Yes, I am now that guy that steals toilet paper from hotels. A bunch of us found a salad place and I ate a giant salad that was awesome. Then the group met up to head to the Colosseum and Forum by way of Trajan's Column. God. I guess I hadn't prepared myself to be so struck by these things. We wandered around the Colosseum for a while with a professor who brought along a little book like the one Kristen gave me with the transparency reconstructions of all the sites of Roma! Kristen you were there with me that day! Here I was standing in the Colosseum -- still can't believe it. I'm still waiting for my new camera so no pics. I had everyone else take a bunch of me but haven't gotten them yet.

From there we walked to the Roman Forum which was amazing. The layers and layers of history are positively astounding and interesting. There was one church built inside the ruins of an old temple built atop the foundation of a pagan ruin. Crazy. I have been reading a lot of English literature about British or Germans traveling in Italy and especially Rome during the 18th century. Many of the books included engravings and it is really interesting to compare the present-day excavation and reconstruction to these old images. We lucked out and the rain cleared for the afternoon while we were walking around. We stopped on a little landing above the Forum where a little fountain bubbled water. I stuck my hand in a took a drink -- the water was super cold and tasted so good! There is a short story by Edith Wharton called Roman Fever -- couldn't help but think of it here -- great story.

From there, we walked to the cat sanctuary which is really a city blocks worth of Roman ruins that they let stray cats run around in. There were only about 10 cats around when we walked by, but it was cool to see them sitting on the broken fragments of columns, etc. Next, we walked to the Pantheon and visited Bernini's Elephant statue that is crowned with an ancient Egyptian obelisk. It is so interesting to see these things all over Roma, treasures stolen form Egypt during antiquity, still standing now. Sue (the Program Director) introduced us to a coffee shop in the piazza that sells granita di caffe laced with whipped cream -- so good.

We had a little break before dinner and a few of the girls and I skulked around the narrow streets around our hotel. Needless to say, in light of the mugging, I am still wary of Italy by night. A man stopped us and asked us in broken English if we could help locate the address he was looking for. I immediately said no and pointed him to a news stand a few feet away. Normally I would have hauled out my map and attempted to help him but I really have no tolerance for men I don't know anymore -- which is sad but I feel as if it's necessary. He barely approached the news stand then a few minutes later we saw him sitting on a bench a few feet away. There was something strange about it but nothing ever came of it. I'm not sure why I'm mentioning it now.

We had a group meal at a little restaurant, clad in ivy, a short walk from the hotel. We were treated to a pasta course followed by salad, fritti misti (assorted fried items) and veal saltimbocca alla Romana -- which apparently means "jumps in the mouth roman style" named so because it is so delicious. It's a thinly pounded veal steak topped with prosciutto in a butter, Marsala, and sage sauce. I liked it but the fritti misti was probably the crowning glory of that meal. The platter had mozzarella, whole fresh artichoke hearts, potato dumplings, little balls of rice mixed with marinara (or meat sauce - not sure) and mozzarella, zucchini strings, and zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and anchovies -- all fried to golden perfection. I accidentally took a bite of zucchini flower not knowing it had anchovies in it until too late. Thankfully, I swallowed it whole and chugged enough wine to get rid of the taste. Fish crisis averted. To finish we had berry tiramisu which was ok. All and all another great group meal.

Following dinner, we walked the short distance to the The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or "Fountain of the Four Rivers" and Trevi Fountain. I threw in my three coins -- supposedly for love, marriage, and to ensure return to Rome. Not really sure about the marriage part but the other two sound good to me. Everything was beautiful at night and we stayed at Trevi for a while. Unfortunately, the usual hustlers that bother everyone with in sight around major tourists areas in Italy were out in full force, offering to take pictures or sell roses, trinkets, etc. The rose guys are the most annoying. They hand you a rose and even if you refuse it they keep insisting until you take it just to get them away from you. Then they wait until you start walking away then block your way and get way too close to you demanding money. They especially do this to children thinking that the child will throw a fit when their parent try to take the rose away from them insuring that the parent will then in turn just pay for the rose to shut everyone up. One of the guys kept bothering this couple with two small children and Kate and I stood watching the whole interaction shaking our heads. The couple eventually got the roses away from the children and gave them back to the man after a 5 minute battle during which the guy noticed us shaking our head at the annoyance. Then the rose guy came over to us and told us that we were interfering in his business (how we can do that from a distance of 20 feet is news to me). Then he made a little lunging gesture and offered to fight Kate! It was totally ridiculous and annoying. The fountain would have been so much nicer if these guys would have just left everyone alone instead of making everyone on edge, clutching their purses, etc. Oh well, it was still nice.

The next morning, we headed out the Vatican. I brought my rain boots with me but I knew that I would be inside all day, so I figured as long as I can get into the museum before the rain starts I should be fine. Well, just as the bus containing said rain boots pulled away from the curb it started pouring. Then we walked around the corner to find the line which we then stood in for two hours. In the rain. Without rain boots. It was pretty cold but we all made an umbrella roof and huddled together and it ended up being fun. We finally got into the Vatican Museum to find that it was absolutely PACKED to the hilt. I can't even imagine how it must be during the tourist season. We joined the one way flow of traffic and saw all the sculptures, map room, etc and ended our tour in the Sistine Chapel! It was pretty incredible. Smaller than I had pictured but I had attended an art history lecture a few days before about the chapel which made the experience even better. Toward the back of the chapel we tried to take the exit leading to St. Peter's Basilica only to find it blocked. Apparently, a bunch of cardinals were being sworn in or crowned or whatever (sorry Grammie but I don't know these things) in the piazza. This also meant that the basilica itself was closed! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! I wanted to see the Pieta! Oh well, I am going to Roma again in January and again this summer so I will see it eventually. The rain persisted but we headed out to get pizza. We had about 2 hrs to kill before the were supposed to meet the group to head home. We shopped around a little bit trying to kill time and get out of the cold and rain (which by this point was a complete and utter deluge) but eventually we walked back to the Piazza and hung out under the loggia for the remainder of the time. About 2 minutes before we were scheduled to meet the group, the rain completely stopped and the sun came out -- go figure. We were all soaked but climbed onto the warm bus and changed clothes. I finally got to put on my rain boots -- but it didn't rain for the rest of the day.

Back on the bus, we headed to the Roman Catacombs just outside the old walls of the city. At about 60 feet underground we snaked through tunnels that at one time contained the bodies of ancient Romans. These people were so small! A few of the tombs still had their engraved grave markers and other had small frescoes. It was pretty cool but to be honest I got a little freaked out being in there. I was extremely dark and there were about a thousand different ways to get lost and die a slow death.

It was a great trip! Excited to back again in January and see some of the things I missed.

Ok, on to Thanksgiving. The Study Center set up a group meal at the nearby Palazzo Borghese, an absolutely stunning baroque old palace. I had to sit at the grown-up's table with the rest of the faculty members which was totally boring. By now everyone has heard how I got mugged and I had to answer a bunch of questions about it for the women and all the men just apologized to me repeatedly on behalf of their sex. After describing the incident (for about the millionth time) the general consensus at the table is that it definitely could not have been an Italian man because an Italian man would never treat a woman like that -- then they all commenced to speak about it in Italian - most of which I didn't catch. For the rest of the meal, they all tried for a while to speak in English to be polite because I was sitting there but after a while they gave up entirely which I didn't really mind. It's fun for me to try to figure out what they are saying.

As for the meal, which I'm sure you are dying to hear about, we had salad (with canned corn on it, of course), farro soup (a barley-ish grain), turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce (canned), mashed potatoes, peas, and pie. The turkey and soup were very good but the stuffing was borderline terrible. They put basil in the gravy as decoration or something and it made everything taste like pizza. It was by far the worst food I have had in Italy, but I think that is only because they were trying to imitate something that they don't quite understand - the protein, butter, and carbohydrate-laden delicious mess that is American food. Don't get me wrong, the food was certainly edible but any American from New York to LA would tell you it just didn't taste right. Plus they were stingy with the gravy which is arguably the most important part of Thanksgiving. The pumpkin pie, however, was a dream come true.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to movie watching, reading and baking cookies with some of the girls at my house. It was fun. I introduced them to the 90's classic movie called "Singles". I'm not sure any of them actually understood any of the pop culture references that were made in the movie but they all recognized how fashion has come full circle. It was pretty funny. Oh and on Sunday I went out for pizza and ran into someone I know from Orlando who now lives in New York. The world is so tiny.

Most of the students are gearing up to head home. I'm really going to miss a few of them. I can't believe how quickly this semester has flown by! Mom and Dad are flying in on the last day of the semester which I am super looking forward to! This weekend maybe heading to Arezzo and Cortona weather permitting. My last weekend with some of my girls. At this point, I am hoping beyond hope that I don't cry at the farewell dinner next week. So sappy. Luckily, I'll have Mom and Dad here to make up for it.