Alpine Tom

When Sam, John, and Ethan first proposed a trip to Interlaken to go skiing, my heart sank deep into my abdominal cavity. Immediately, the first trip outside of Rome was riddled with contradictions. So many questions piled up. How could I ski? I don’t know how to ski. I actually hate skiing. Last time I went skiing I thought I was going to die. How, if I failed to ski in Massachusetts, could I succeed in the Swiss Alps? Yet all the while, how could I bail on our first trip outside Rome together? Would I regret it for the rest of my life? Definitely. Would I even have a life to regret after I tried to ski in the Alps? Hopefully.

View from Hike

As good friends seem to do, the boys informed me that not participating in this journey was simply unacceptable, a non-existent option. So, on Tuesday before our expected Thursday departure, we—Ethan, Sam, John, Hallie, Jess, Lauren, and I—went to Termini station to reserve our night train to Interlaken, leaving Rome on Thursday at 19.55. One swipe of the credit card and all of the sudden, I was going to Interlaken. It all seemed too easy.

Wednesday and Thursday were riddled with fear. I was actually overwhelmed with genuine fear. Skiing causes significant problems for me. I never did it when I was young, and now, I am six feet off the ground and useless in the snow. When I ski, I fall. When I fall, I fall hard. That’s the situation. I’ve had a total time of about 4 hours on skis in my entire life, and they were very, very bad hours. As if that weren’t enough, I was also completely unprepared in terms of the gear required to ski. I have not a single piece of clothing, save a winter jacket, that has any use in a mountain/snow setting. So, as a result, I basically packed everything I do own in my pack in a fleeting attempt to compensate for my lack of weatherproof materials. Not waterproofed and scared of the snow, I set off for the train station taking me to some of the most serious skiing in the world.

Termini Station. 1920 hours. 21.02.

I arrived at Termini at the scheduled meeting point around 7:20 PM. Of course, John and Sam failed to follow protocol and were, as a result, not at the meeting point. The rest of us found them and we all went to wait at the track for the train. We were in a sleeping car with 6 bunks for the 7 of us. One would be on the floor, but we were going to wait until after we were all drunk to decide who that person would be. Everyone came packing his/her own poison. The girls brought some crappy white wine and vodka; John and Sam each opted for his own personal bottle of disgusting whiskey; Ethan and I took the classy route with two nice bottles of Chianti. Next stop: Interlaken. Well, actually, next stop Spiez. We had to switch trains.

The train ride turned out to be a total blast. The room was small and cramped, we were all too close to each other, and it was hot. But there wasn’t a care in the world. I think I had even forgotten that were en route to Death Mountain. Some highlights: John drinks too much whiskey, has to go stand outside in the hallway, finally does fall asleep but nearly falls off bunk and kills Hallie, who is sleeping on the floor; Ethan makes a special offer to Lauren, but fails to execute; Lauren gets angry because Ethan keeps telling her that she is the one who has to sleep on the floor because she is the smallest, which according to Lauren, is not a fair reason to make her sleep on the floor because its not her fault that she is the smallest; Ethan brings his camping sack and hangs it from the hook; John wins the rock-paper-scissors-drink tournament; Tom transforms into Dad, checks everyone’s passports before going to sleep, ensures that all valuables are stowed safely near everyone’s heads, masterminds an organized effort to get everyone to bed in a safe and efficient fashion.

We arrived in Interlaken safely and on time. We decided to walk to Balmer’s, our hostel, from the train station, which turned out to be a great idea. When we got off the train, it was pitch black dark, but the light from the stars was just enough to outline the massive figures of the mountains that surrounded the town. During our walk, the sun began to rise, illuminating even better the daunting snow covered peaks that immediately reminded me of my skiing commitments. This fearful reminder was trumped instantly by the beauty of the place. I guess here is the first instance where words start failing. There might be a bit of that in this retelling, so consider yourselves warned. There’s just no way to describe the place, so I might have to use words like beautiful, spectacular, breathtaking, amazing, splendid, shocking, gorgeous, and incredible in a weak attempt to recount the experience. It will fail, I will sound like a bad poet, and we’ll have a lose-lose situation. Accept my apology in advance.

Our first look at Interlaken - as the sun rose on Friday morning en route to Balmer's

Balmer’s is a great hostel. It has been catering to awestruck Americans and other European backpackers for over fifty years, and they’ve got it down to a science. We made it up to our room and decided to take a quick early morning nap. Ethan—who I forgot to mention, is a dedicated and insane skier that likes climbing through uncharted mountain terrain and jumping off cliffs while attached to skis—could not resist, and disappeared into the snow for the day despite running on no sleep. When we woke up from the nap, the remaining 6 had our first Swiss meal. Eggs, bacon, ham, cheese, hash browns. Excellent. The food was great, but the best part of the meal was the 30 Swiss franc (about 28 dollars) worth of tap water that we ordered. Classic. I carried my water bottle with me everywhere after that. John and Hallie, in the span of about 5 minutes, decided to go skydiving. At 2:30, they would leave to jump out of an airplane at 12,000 ft. I suppose I would have considered it, but it was very expensive and my only goal in Interlaken was to survive skiing.

Sam and John listening to the same iPod in the same bed

Me and the evil woman that made us pay 30 Swiss franc for tap water

So, and then there were four. Sam, Lauren, Jess, and I opted for a free hike up a mountain near Balmer’s—about the only free thing you can do in Interlaken other than breathe. It was an easy 45 minute hike up to the top, but it ended up offering some great views of the area. I took a moment to draw for a while and we hung out at the top for about an hour, enjoying the view. I also peed off the edge. Nice.

A view of the Laken from the Hike

Balmer’s suggested that we rent our skis during the day, so on the following morning we could just go straight to the mountain. We hiked down and headed to the ski rental place, where they hooked us up with everything we needed for the mountain. I had to get skis, boots, pants, helmet, gloves, and goggles, along with the lift ticket. I opted for a one day rental with the option to extend for Sunday, because at that point, I wasn’t sure if I would be around on Sunday. So why waste the money, right?

One of the many views from the Mountain

Interlaken had already squeezed a good bit of money out of us, but the people at Balmer’s convinced us that “Night-Sledding” was something we had to try. So, another 75 bucks per person down the drain, and we were going night sledding. John, Hallie, and Ethan all returned very much alive and completely stoked from their respective adventures during Day 1 in Interlaken, and all of us rallied for the trip to the night sledding mountain. After our first gondola ride in Switzerland and a very bizarre flashlight-lit lesson on tobogganing by a funny Swiss guy, we set off for the sled track. It was pitch black dark, but we figured that the track would be lit. We were wrong. Night sledding was apparently going to occur in the dark, lit only by the stars. After our eyes adjusted, we could see just about clearly enough to make out the difference between white, which corresponded to the snow on the track, and black, which corresponded to either a tree, rock, or massive crevice leading down to the valley below… This was apparently safe, according to the funny Swiss guy. So, imagine 100 20-22 year olds, flying down a slick toboggan track in the middle of the night, flirting with serious injury at every turn. I managed to avoid any wipeouts, but I came close a couple of times to significant catastrophe.

Despite the rager that was occurring at the nightclub below the hostel, we opted to go directly to sleep with high hopes of a great day of skiing. That was a good idea, because it gave me some time to pray as I lay in bed waiting for the morning.

Here comes the fun part. Thoroughly scared, I followed our crew to the bus stop, skis in hand. All of us were completely decked out in the necessary mountain garb. You rent off mountain in Interlaken, which is great, because you get shuttled to the mountain dressed to ski. No lockers, no lines, no paying for anything except food once your up there. The ride to the mountain was (insert any lame awesome words here). As we got higher and higher, the mountains got bigger and bigger. The expanse of the view increased as well, until we got to the level of the ski town, at which point we were just high up.

As promised, Ethan took us all to the bunny hill for a skiing lesson. This ended up not lasting very long because the bunny hill was tiny and had no slope, so there was not much to work with there. It was nice to move around on skis before going up the real mountain, though. We decided that we were ready to graduate from the place where all of the 18 month old kids were skiing, to head up to the place where all of the 3 year old Swiss prodigy skiers were skiing. (There are small, crazy, Swiss children all over the place that are about 3 feet high doing things on skis that normal humans would never even consider.)

Pleased with the situation

After about 3 seconds on the first lift up, I realized that I had gotten myself into a very serious situation. The absolute shock of Interlaken beauty was being weighed against the fact that I was going up to 7500 ft above sea level to ski. Luckily, the former was strong enough to let adrenaline take over. Ethan took us to a great run for our first go-round. It was wide and just steep to practice wide S-turns and some carving. I fell immediately.

The beginning actually went pretty well for me, all things considered. The falls that I was suffering were acceptable falls. I was staying in relative control, I guess, and fell usually as a result of getting my skis mixed up, crossed, or split. I was pretty dedicated to the pizza for the first hour, which is a conservative beginner position to put one’s skis in as you go down the mountain. It acts as a snow plow and keeps you traveling at a manageable speed. Ethan rode along with me for a bit and helped me take the next step towards turning. I actually got the hang of it.

I was pretty happy after the first section of skiing. The view from that first run yielded the most outrageous and best natural site I had ever seen. I was amped just to be there, which really helped in the skiing department, as my brain did not have enough RAM to process the amount of danger I was actually in.

The comfort zone disappeared as we made our first turn off of the nice wide section and moved on toward the narrow, CLIFFSIDE catwalk second section. This was very frightening. A catwalk resembles a mountain road: a narrow path carved into the side of the mountain that is bordered by the resulting wall and cliff edge leading down towards imminent doom. In this picture there is a catwalk that I went on later in the day (not the same one, but similar idea).

View from lift. That run is the catwalk from our first trail. Click on the picture and check it out. You can see the skiers on it. It was steep and epic.

The first run was long, and ended in a very difficult step and twisty section that last for about 10 minutes. I took my share of spills, but nothing catastrophic So far so good. That run was a blue run. The mountain is divided between blue, red, and black, for beginner, intermediate, and advanced. There is nothing “beginner” about these beginner blue runs, as even Ethan admitted. They are no joke. The one we went on took at least 35 minutes to ski (including restarts after wipeouts) and there is no turning back. They are a significant challenge to any average person interested in skiing. So, after surviving one of said blue runs, I was pretty happy.

The rest of the day was spent doing more of the same. I started to get the hang of it and, believe it or not, the fear seemed to slip away. Being in such an incredible place really helped because I felt the strongest of desires to experience the mountains on skis, the way they were meant to be experienced. You can get some amazing views from the decks of the restaurants by the lifts and gondolas, but there is no replacement for flying down the runs and slicing through the snow with the Alps as your backdrop.

Adrenaline was running sky-high by 4 pm, about a half hour before the lifts closed. I had just suffered a brutal wipeout, the worst of the trip, and luckily everyone was watching. They had finished the run and could see me coming down the hill. Something bad happened that resulted in me going too fast. The tips of my skis got crossed, I went flying, my skis popped off, poles were left behind, and I, alone, slid about 30 feet across the trail, over the edge, and down the bordering hill, only to come up with a smile on my face at the ridiculousness of what had just occurred. The chorus of laughter waiting for me at the next lift topped it off perfectly.

Lauren and I went back up for one more run before the lifts closed, which turned out to be a great idea. The mountain is so extensive and there are already so many runs that it never felt crowded once, but for our last run that was even more so the case. The highlight of the trail happened about half way down. I was in front of Lauren and had just taken a nice swooping right turn off a hill, finishing in a wide section that led towards the more technical curvy part at the end of the run. The valley seemed to open up and I got to slice back and forth, with two huge mountains to my left and right, without anyone else in view. The sun had just set behind the big mountain across the valley, and I was alone in this perfect place. That 45 seconds was definitely the highlight of the trip and something I’ll hopefully never forget.

Saturday night was spent at the awkward Americanized discotech at the hostel. We were too tired to go anywhere else, so we packed away two beers and hit the sack. I had gone immediately after returning from the mountain to extend my rental and lift ticket. All I could think about was skiing Sunday, so sleep was the priority.

This is right next to the starting gate for the highest runs we did - about 8750 ft above sea level. My personal altimeter read "holy shit".

We woke up as early as we could muster on Sunday and packed up the room. We checked out and left our bags in the baggage area so we could spend the day on the mountain. I was so pumped to ski again. One day in the Alps had forced the most unexpected 180 possible: I loved skiing. And I wanted more.

Stoked on Sunday, en route to the mountain

Happiness in preparation for Day II

I have written in my notebook under Sunday, February 24^th: “Best Day of Life Candidate”, and that could not be closer to the truth. Charged with the excitement from Saturday, we went all out on Sunday. I did the same blue runs to warm up, and then Ethan took me along a red run that I managed to survive. I did feel the change in difficulty immediately. It was a lot steeper, a lot faster, and it required you to have much more control over your body to get down safely. I did not exactly have that control, so I fell a couple of times, but I managed it. I did part of that red run again and took the lift back up to the catwalk run. I asked Ethan to take me down the cliff next to the catwalk, which other more advanced skiers had been doing all weekend. It looked manageable if you did it right, so I figured with Ethan in front it would be fine. What an excellent idea by me. That section was exhilarating and the adrenaline was really pumping, because I was doing something I probably should not have done. I made it down only falling once. Nice!

A little bit later on in the day, I was on the lift with Ethan when I decided that I should attempt a short black run. I had seen it the day before and considered it impossible, but I saw it from the lift on Sunday and thought I could handle it. Ethan went first and I tried to follow by example. It was an extremely steep situation, but my turning had gotten much better by that point so I was able to cut down the black with pretty good control. I fell a couple of times, but only into the mountain. Conquering the short but substantial black run was a great feeling. Ethan wanted to go off jump of the top of the mountain or something, so he sped away and I did the black run alone one more time and then conquered a small section of mini-mogles before my final lift back up to the gondola. Succeeding/surviving the blues, and then that final black, was one of the greatest things I’ve ever felt. At the end of it all, I could say that I had skied the Alps. Definitely did not expect that. Sunday was just one of those days that does down in the books.

Extremely high up

Unfortunately, we had to leave the mountain early in order to give us time to get back to Balmer’s, power shower, pick up our stuff, and get to the train. This post is already so long that I will say only that we did all of those things. The train ride home sucked. The guy that booked our tickets at Termini made a huge mistake that resulted in us running all over the Milan station on the way back trying to get it sorted out. In the end, we ended up split up in two cars stuck with a bunch of weird people, one of whom was definitely trying to rob us. Ethan I stayed awake and stared at him for 3 hours until he left our room, but we got no sleep. We arrived as zombies back in Rome on Monday morning, tired, useless, and ready to go to class.

Monday was a brutal day to endure, but we were all so stoked that we had just conquered the Alps that nothing else seemed to matter. A great weekend in a great place, perfect blue sky weather, nice temperatures, great skiing; quite simply the best weekend I’ve had in a long, long, long time.

Ciaociao.

One of these days I will fill you in on some more quotidian Roman things, but things are happening real fast over here and its entirely too much fun to be on the computer.

Videos from the Mountain:

One of Our Many Runs



Skiing!

Catching Up

Today is Sunday February 17, and a little over a week's worth of stuff has happened that has yet to be recorded in the blog. We left off on last Thursday night when we returned from Perugia. On the following Friday morning, all of us went to the IES center for the first time and and took the Italian language placement exam, which would decide what level of Italian we would have for the semester. The IES building is a new this semester; we are the first class to use it, and its really nicely done. It is directly across the Tevere from the Castel S. Angelo, and as I said before, is walkable from my apartment in Trastevere.

I spy Shmethan

After the test a bunch of us went out to eat and found a nice place just around the corner from the IES center. We became friends with the waiters, who said that they would give us a discount if we came back during the coming weeks. On that day we got a free panettone. After lunch we decided to walk around a little bit. We headed up towards the Vatican, which I had still not seen yet. Bramante did an excellent job with the place. We did not go inside S. Pietro's because we didn't want to deal with the line that day, but just being in the piazza was great. The weather was perfect and we all shared one of those "is this really happening?" moments. Very solid.

Me, John, Sam, Jess, Lauren, and Hallie (where's Ethan?)

We had to make a quick stop back at the IES center to get the results of the placement test, after which we all were cattle herded back into our tour groups from Perugia to take the tour of the nearby Roman monuments. We saw the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi fountain in a two hour whirlwind tour. For me, the most outstanding of the group was the Pantheon, which is the best preserved example of pagan-era architecture in the city. People don't realize that the Pantheon is OLD. The plans for construction began in 126 AD and the interior is still perfect. The monolithic columns are massive and the dome is revolutionary. There is a power to the place that is very exciting.

Vatican colonnade

After a post-tour rest, the crew—Sam, John, Ethan, Hallie, Jess, Lauren, me—got together at a bar called Sloppy Sam's in Campo dei Fuori on Friday night. We all had a good time grilling each other about our respective pasts, and I would say that by the end of the night, we all knew a lot more about everyone else. Maybe too much, but not really.

Sam and John redo their wedding vows at the Vatican

Saturday morning was a slow one—finally a chance to sleep in a wake up refreshed. Scott and I cooked up a nice breakfast, after which I headed out to do some sketches. I walked up the river and found a couple of nice scenes. I managed to crank out two little blind contours, one of Castel S. Angelo, and the other of one of the many bridges across the Tevere. In the middle of my third, Jess showed up and we went for a great walk up past the Vatican into a neighborhood called Monteverde. Monteverde, isn’t a green mountain as the name suggests, but it may once have seemed like it. There is a lot of residential there now, but there are also nice parks and great spots that at points offer amazing views of the entire city center. Rome has no highrises. The entire doesn’t get much higher than 6 stories, so when perched up in Monteverde, you can see right across all of Rome.

Harry Potter e i Doni Della Morte!

That night I headed out to Bologna, which is towards the city limits, for dinner with John, Sam, Hallie, and Lauren. We ended up at a mediocre and over priced restaurant that was pretty disappointing; the annoyance did spur a general movement towards more home-cooked dinners, and we’ve been doing that much more often since. After dinner we headed back into Trastevere for more wanderings and drink. When everyone headed back home to Bologna, Jess and I chilled for a bit more. John, Lauren, Hallie, and Sam live far from me/Trastevere, as does Ethan, but Jess is only about 15 minutes away so her commute back isn’t so bad.

Spectacular Pantheon

The party continued on Sunday morning. Jess and I met up to do some drawing. We ended up at a café on Viale di Trastevere about halfway between both of our apartments. We started off with cappuccino and some pastries, but before we knew it, it was time for some wine. After leaving the café, we got two beers and started walking towards the Colosseo, where we were planning to meet everyone. We spent a great afternoon drinking in the sun, sitting on a ledge looking straight at the Colosseo. The open container law is really great—and that’s not to say that there are drunken Italians stumbling all over the streets. It’s just nice to be able to enjoy a drink outside in front of one of the world’s most famous monuments. That night Ethan and I headed to Jess’ apartment for dinner, which ended up being some alright take out pizza from a place around the corner. Not much else happened after that. It had been a pretty long and exhausting weekend, and the team was ready for a nice sleep before day 1 of Italian class.

The Pantheon dome, coffered ceiling, with a side of sunny day

That Monday, intensive Italian started for everyone. All students had been placed into an Italian section, and for that first week, it was 2.5 hours of Italian a day without any other classes. I don’t want to take up too much time babbling on about classes, but it is worth mentioning Gianni, who is my advisor and the absolute man. He is an archaeologist and is basically the real version of Indiana Jones. He is in charge of academics at IES and personally saved me from getting screwed out of all of my classes as a result of my bad-luck registration time. He suggested to me that instead of taking classes at local university, I could get an even more rewarding Italian experience doing an internship this semester. That was not one of my original goals, but the prospect was too good to pass up. He told me about a colleague of his who is starting a new archaeological dig at the Roman Imperial Forum—the ancient city—and needs help from a select group of college students. In other words, for part of my time here, there is a chance that I’ll have a chisel and file in hand carving out ruins in probably the most celebrated ancient urban skeleton in all of Italy. Nice!

Other highlights from the Monday-Friday: jazz. On Wednesday night, I wandered to a late night jam session at a place called BeBop, a small club about 25 minutes from my apartment. Ethan came along with me, neither of us knowing what to expect. We got lost en route and nearly gave up until our last ditch effort at asking for directions paid off. BeBop is a small underground joint that was absolutely swingin when we got there. They were finishing off the last tune of a set, and I got right on the drums within 15 minutes. The other drummer left and I played for over an hour until the club closed. It was a great feeling to get back behind the drums. I talked with the owner of the club for a while afterwards, got some contact numbers, and headed back home completely stoked about the music find.

The following night, the already good jazz vibes got even better. I found another place online that had a Thursday night jam session—a place called Charity Café. This time Ethan and I went with Hallie and Lauren, and arrived at an even more swingin place. Charity is tiny. The stage is basically on top of all of the tables, but the place was packed with Italians and tons of musicians. There had to be 7-8 horn players there, and they were serious players. I got up on the kit and we played a mid tempo blues that went really well. The tempo stayed in the pocket and the other guys got comfortable playing with me. We then did a more up tempo tune, after which another drummer came on after me. The crowd cheered for me a bit though, which felt great. My Italian might not be as great as I would like, but it sure was nice to communicate in another way with the complete strangers of Rome.

So, now we find ourselves at another weekend. Not too much happened that deserves recording, but Saturday night was I suppose an especially good time. We got the guys together and went out for a solid man-night in search of Italian babes. We started off, unfortunately, at an English bar because it was the only place that I could find that was playing the F.A. Cup game between Arsenal and Man United. United destroyed Arsenal 4-0, but we did see some good goals. After that we went back to my apartment for a little while to play rock-paper-scissors-drink. The next stop on the party train was the place where all the Italian babes were going to be, but our train completely skipped that stop or something because we ended up with a big donut on the Italian babe count.

We did meet some American girls up from Florence that I guess dug our style. We hung out with them for a bit at a bar near Santa Maria in Trastevere. They were up for the weekend, but demanded that we call them if ever in Florence. They apparently have a huge apt, and they are taking a cooking class, so I guess now we have a place in Florence to go and eat a home cooked meal by girls. Nice.

Sunday was a slow day in general. I had the team over for dinner which was actually great. I cooked my first from-scratch tomato sauce with the help of my roommate Scott who fancies himself a bit of a cook, deservedly so because he knows his way around the kitchen. It was really good. We got some ingredients for some good apertivi—fresh bread, cheese, prosciutto, and olives. My course came after that and Lauren made a salad. We did that all, including a bottle of wine, for 35 euros. 5 euros a piece for a dinner like that was great. And now, its Sunday! And I just wrote about Sunday. Which means I am now officially caught up on the blog for the first time. As you all breathe the sigh of relief that I know you’ve been waiting to breathe, I’m off to bed. Regular classes start tomorrow.

Trevi Fountain. Not bad.

Ciaociao

Perugia, Assisi, e Orvietto

Tuesday morning began with our first showers at 34 Via dei Genovesi. Not bad; good water pressure and enough hot water for all four guys. The trip to Perugia left across the Tiber from Castel S. Angelo, so we began the morning walk along the river up towards the buses at around 07.30. The walk was really nice—definitely something I look forward to doing on all mornings with good weather. It takes about 20 minutes to get to the IES Center. See magnificence below:

Lungotevere della Farnesina - en route to class

When we arrived at the buses we found that IES Rome has a lot of students. About 150 I think. Packed into buses and not even in Rome for 24 hours, we all headed out of the city for our three day orientation. The bus ride offered a nice chance to finally sit still and do nothing but wait. The ride through the immediate countryside was as illuminating as it gave us an idea of what kind of businesses populated the areas outside the celebrated urban area; lots of car repair, construction, small business, and small farming. After a pit stop at an autogrille where many of us opted for a cappuccino, we finished our trip and arrived in the university and capital city town of Perugia.

Perugia

We stayed at a hotel just below the main hill of the town populated by university and government buildings. Everything is old. That’s pretty much all there is to it. After checking into our rooms we got on with the tour of Perugia, given by the lovely Costanza. She was a fox and immediately began accumulating a following among everyone on the walk actually paying attention to the tour. (Unfortunately, as there inevitably will be in all groups of college students, there is also here at IES a contingent of remarkably one-dimensional cretins already too cool to learn. On the first day.). The sites in Perugia offered a nice change from the more ancient sites of Rome. Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is full of Estruscan informed architecture from the Middle Ages. Today we see the result of a layered blend between that Etruscan heritage and the arrival of the late gothic. Subtract electricity, the few cars, and the retail stores, and you’re in 1350.

Perugia wasn’t all about the tour, even though I did take some time to go buy a sketchbook and devote an hour or two to some drawing. Tuesday night there was our first chance to really get out and stretch the limbs. Though not in Rome, everyone was committed to ensuring that plenty of merriment ensued on our first night together. Partying out Italian style in Perugia was so much fun. You can walk around with your drinks and enjoy the fact that you’re in such a well preserved slice of the Middle Ages. People are out meeting each other in the streets and it’s just a healthy, youthful scene. The Italians were all welcoming even to those of us who didn’t speak a word of the language; after our first non travel day, the morale was as high as one could have ever hoped.

Etruscan Arch

A personal highlight for me was my first true conversation with an Italian. I met Valentina on the steps of the basilica where she was hanging out with friends after class. I asked her about the name of some of the landmarks, and we got to talking about studying abroad, the University in Perugia, and what it might be like for her to study in the states. To be able to speak Italian, even if it is poor, is really a great thing in Italy. Especially in a university town, you will be answered in Italian if you get 1/10 words right. It’s a huge help and a huge boost of confidence. The impact of 4 semesters of Italian in the states was already showing. Thank you Columbia for your language requirement rules.

The Approach to the Church

Dinner was held back at the hotel, where we had a three course meal of pasta, carne, and dolce. After dinner, the troops rallied again for another approach to the Perugia nightlife. Almost all of the IES students that I met on the first day were a pleasure to be around; not all would be the best of friends, but all were ready to share a few beers and get to know new people.

Great detail and movement in this contemporary railing on the way to Assisi

Wednesday started off with 3 hours of boring presentations by the IES staff explaining useless information about health, safety, hospital use, emergency numbers, and insurance. After the brutal info sessions, the crew headed off for an afternoon tour of Assisi, land of the Franciscan order, founded of course, by S. Francis.

Assisi Magic

When we got to Assisi the communal jaw dropped and we remained in “awe” mode for the rest of the day. The church and crypt were decorated with the beautiful frescoes and the general planning of the church and piazza was really remarkable. I took note of some nice renovation details clearly executed by some very trustworthy architects who were given the job of repaving the ground of the piazza and providing the railing leading up to town. There was well conceived detail everywhere and I was enjoying every moment. These pictures give a clue, but I suggest you wait for the weather to be about 55 and sunny and check it out for yourself.

Assisi, sunset approaches

After another enlightening tour by Costanza, who by that point seemed to know everything about everything, I gathered some new friends to carryout the extra walk to the top of Assisi where la fortezza looked out over the entire valley. It was about dark when we began and when we got to the top, night had fallen. The castle, built by the Vatican in the 14^th century to show the power of the Papacy, was lit nicely and glowed against the dark sky. Very cool.

On the way down I got to talking with a guy named Ethan, who hails from Colorado. Ethan seems to be of the brand of fellow that COOP, back at Columbia, would cherish. He’s a skier and general pioneer of adventure, so we started fantasizing about the possible trips that could be taken during the semester, which included a trip to the Alps for some skiing and a trip somewhere in the Mediterranean to do some surfing and windsurfing. The surfing and windsurfing are things I badly want to do, so it was nice to find a potential come-with for those trips.

Inside the Church of S. Francis

All of IES Rome took over a restaurant in Assisi, where I gathered with Jessica, Charlotte, Ethan, and a bunch of other new people. We had a great dinner and talked about all kinds of stuff. Charlotte told her now infamous “scarf” story, which carried us on laughing for the rest of the meal. After dinner we took the bus back to the hotel and ventured back up to town for our last night in Perugia. Everyone was pretty beat so were shared a bottle of wine on the steps of the basilica and just took in the sights. Sam and John joined Ethan and me, who had come with Hallie, Jessica, and Lauren. The seven of us got to know each other a bit and after a couple hours headed back to sleep. That night in the hotel the four guys prioritized some man-time before for we all crashed. Definitely worth it, as it was then when Ethan decided to reveal to us what has gone down in our short history as “the Ethan story”.

Assisi 20.00

On Thursday we were to return to Rome, stopping in Orvietto on the way to meet Costanza for our last tour of the orientation trip. Costanza was now a hero; Ethan, Sam and I had convinced John to ditch his group and come along with us, as we were the lucky ones who had been fortunate enough to be in the group serenaded by Costanza. The duomo in Orvietto was outstanding. The detail was remarkable and its amazing condition despite its 650 year old lifetime made all of its stunning features even more impressive. The bas-relief on the front told a linear story of beginning with the creation and finishing with distinction between il Paradisio and l’Inferno. I immediately registered the connection to Dante (not really a stretch), but it gave me a chance to ask Costanza, in Italian, about the connection between the author and the Church’s sculpture. One point for Tom. Nice.

Costanza and the Guys in love in Orvietto

After the tour ended, we said a sad goodbye to Costanza, who left us her email address (!). She is coming to Rome at the end of February, so maybe there is a chance we will see her again after all. The seven of us—Ethan, John, Sam, Hallie, Jess, Lauren, and I—got together for some pizza after the tour and then finished off our time in Orvietto with some picture taking.

Back in Rome, tired and ready for bed, we all denied ourselves the sleep we needed and went out to drink. Hooray!

That night, after having a nice dinner with Jess’ roommates and ISC (Italian student companion), Valentina, we went around to la Piazza di S. Maria in Trastevere to a bar where a bunch of us sat down for a few beers. We ran into our waiter from the restaurant, and he and I started talking (in Italian, of course). Valentina and another ISC came along and had a great conversation with the three of them. Speaking Italian is so choice.

The crew walks the streets of Orvietto

At some point, when I catch up with all of this, I will take some time to explain more of the everyday stuff that goes on around the apartment. There is no way to record everything, yet everything seems worthy of recording. Morale is high, I’m in one of the best general moods of my life, and somehow, I feel like the only way from here is up. Now that is awesome.

A nice detail of the duomo in Orvietto to finish it off

Ciaociao!

La Prima Giornata. Il 4 febbraio.

Ciao tutti. Today marks the beginning of the official Roman Holiday. Enough about broken computers—onto la dolce vita.

Today was actually a complete travel day, so in other words, a not so dolce day. After a relatively painless but long and restless flight from Philadelphia to Paris, I arrived at Charles de Gaulle prepared to make the transfer to Roma. Flying Air France was nice even though it involved the transfer. Before we even took off from Philly I found myself speaking French to a gentleman beside me who struck up a conversation. He was en route to Paris where he would catch his connection to Morocco. Interesting guy. He’s getting married to an American in New Jersey in the summer. Nice.

I arrived, as I said, at Charles de Gaulle having pocketed that French introduction to my Italian vacanza. 5 euros at the airport got me a water and a croissant. That’s fair. On the flight to Rome from France I met a bunch of other IES students: Liz, Jenny, Andrew, and Matt (I think). Names are still relatively fresh and uncertain. They are all excited about our mutual endeavor.

I spent way too much time at the Rome airport in the IES lounge waiting for another student to come through whose apartment was close to mine. IES had set up a private welcome room in the arrivals gate where arriving students could meet and pick up orientation materials. Despite the frustrating wait, I did get a change to meet a good number of other students in the program. We have what is shaping up to be a good group: a definite relief.

Finally, Joe, a student at Illinois, arrived, who lived close to my apartment. We hopped in a taxi and departed Fiumicino for Rome. The drive was nice; the taxi driver indulged our mediocre Italian and we managed a nice long conversation balancing between bad English from the driver and bad Italian from we the passengers. Once in Rome, we dropped Joe off at his apartment in Monteverde and headed towards Via dei Genovesi 34, my new home.

I am in the heart of Trastevere, and when I mean heart, I mean my roommates and I have an absolutely incredible apartment. It is very small, but tasteful and delicately furnished. It is modest in terms of grandeur, but it is about 150 years old with beautiful wooden i-beams. According to our Italian graduate student roommate, it would sell easily on the market for over 2 million euros. It’s just ridiculous. In no way do we deserve such a spot. Pictures will be up soon to better describe the feel of the place. I arrived at dusk, and was thus unable to experience the splendor of the huge wide open sunlit windows. The view out those windows is about as picturesque as one could ask for. No point in describing it any further in words though…pictures to be taken on the next sunny afternoon will be posted to aid the effort.

My roommates are good fellas. Sam hails from GWU, hometown in CT, and knows a bunch of people in Rome doing other programs. That will certainly help facilitate the attempt to widen our social network outside the IES program. Scott goes to the University of Rochester and is a Studio Art major. We are planning on heading out together to do some sketches. If Rome had to be just one thing, I would say it is first and foremost sketchable. Every single street corner and alley seems to be the perfect predetermined composition for a careful rendering. I’m looking forward to testing my drawing skills against the beauty of the tightly woven and dense urban nooks of my charming wrinkled neighborhood.

Our Italian student companion is the man. Antonio has a brother who is a professional drummer in Rome. He promises to get me in touch with him. That could be really great for me in terms of getting out to play. I am sharing a double with Antonio. He is committed to speaking only Italian if we choose, and will prove an invaluable resource for both learning the language and getting a grasp of the elusive true Roman culture.

Despite the encouragement of the apartment and my new roommates, it would be wrong to say that I wasn’t feeling a bit down this evening. Exhausted from the extensive travel and running on airplane food and Junior Mints, the reality of leaving my family and embarking on this substantial challenge was raining on the parade. I wasn’t proud of it, but what can I say. There was a while there where I just wasn’t feeling it as I had hoped to. Luckily, Antonio sparked up a conversation about jazz and we started to listen to some music. I got a weak but effective internet connection from an unknown source and I was able to catch my mom online. We chatted. That saved the day, as expected.

We had a quick dish of pasta prepared by Antonio in the living room and decided, despite our significant exhaustion, to go out in the ’hood to celebrate the beginning of this adventure with a beer. We walked through our area of Trastevere taking in the Monday night scene, which was surprisingly alive considering the day of the week. Young people, old people, meeting out on the street, sharing a cigarette and a glass of wine, all amidst the backdrop of the rich Trastevere facades; the whole scene was charming in a very real and nonchalant way. I cannot wait to indulge in it as a semi-resident of the area.

We settled on a bar by the Tiber and warmed up to a round of Peroni. It was then that we decided that Antonio was sworn to speaking only Italian to us for the rest of the night. We proceeded to have a great talk in broken Italian, touching on topics ranging from the congiuntivo (subjunctive verb tense) to the undeniable and overwhelming attractiveness of basically every Italian ragazza that we saw that night. We decided by the end of the drinks that it was going to be a great semester. Antonio fell in love three times. With the waiter and then two other times with two other girls.

After a mad dash through a sudden downpour, we arrived back at home base. The crew crashed and I took a moment to jot this entry down. Time for bed now. Tomorrow, everyone in the program heads off to Perugia and then Assisi for a three day mini-vacation/orientation. I’m guessing its going to be three days of duck-duck-goose paired with a healthy serving of world famous architectural sites.

Check back for the pictures. Buona sera.