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