Roman Water Fountains

When Jared and I arrived on Sunday morning and made our way into Trastevere, we noticed randomly placed fountains that just seemed to pop up out of the ground. As we sat down for a break we noticed that the locals were actually drinking from these old, cement fountains. Seeing as how we were all interested in how the water tasted, we made Brian try it! Once he gave us the okay, we "dove" right in. For almost a week now, we've been enjoying this water that is gravity fed from the hills north and south of town. Without doubt, this is the best water I have ever had. It may be the fact that I know where it is coming from, but oh well. Throughout the summer I will be looking into these fountains and what they mean for modern day Romans, and modern day Tourists, as well as a little history behind the.

Photography in Rome

As you all probably know, I'm a (new) photo geek. The Collegian back at Penn State helped shape me into that. Anyways, photography in Rome is huge. This most likely comes as no surprise. With thousands of monuments, paintings, scenic areas and other interest points, there is no shortage of stuff to photograph. I've noticed that most people in Rome (not just the Romans) are shooting with Nikons, which scares me because I'm a Canon kind of guy! There is also no shortage of large format D-SLRs (digital- single lens reflex) cameras, which is what I use. So I feel like I fit in! I've also been seeing more and more professional looking photographers as I walk around, which is always good to see. These people can give me ideas on what to shoot, how to shoot it, and even a peek into how photography in Italy is viewed.

Viale Di Trastevere

The main street in Trastevere (Viale Di Trastevere) is a very busy place. Considering that my apartment is about 1 block away from this main road, I decided that spending some time this summer looking at exactly how this road is used for modern day Romans. I'm not just talking about driving, thats a whole different story. The road is used as a social space for, what seems to be, most Romans. Lining this street are various bars, pubs, restaurants, shops and markets. The most popular places on this street seem to be the bars (coffee bars). They are literally lining this road, with 3-5 every block for the whole 2-3 mile long road. It's truly amazing. They bars don't just stop there, they spill out into the street were the Romans seem to gather on sunny mornings and cool evenings. The sounds of the tram that runs along the road only adds to the uniqueness of this space. Also, it is a main artery into the heart of downtown Rome. The road consists of 3 lanes. The 2 outside lanes are for driving (they drive on the left side, just like the United States) only, although we sometimes do walk in the road as the sidewalks tend to be crowded at certain times. The inside lane, in between the 2 driving lanes is designed for trams and emergency vehicles only, but an occasional taxi driver or moped driver will use it for a convenient, less busy drive to town. Throughout the summer I will be looking at various aspects of this street.

Classes and Town

The first lectures of the summer began today, and they went rather well. We discussed The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne, after that we had a 3 hour break which will be ending soon. A few of us walked up to The Pantheon, The Trevi Fountain and the surrounding area to grab some lunch and just take another look at a part of the city we had not been to yet. The Pantheon is an amazing structure. The outsides of some of the buildings here are nothing noteworthy, until you step inside. The outside of The Pantheon, minus the pillars, is nothing but gray stone. Massive, nonetheless. Once inside it seems to come alive with hundreds of people all looking up at the amazing ceiling with its opening to the sky. Trevi fountain is also very interesting, but we'll talk more about that later this summer. For the next few hours we will be viewing Italian neo-realist films and then heading back to our apartment where we'll be hanging out, doing some work, and possibly dinner with the girls. Ciao.

Today was a great day! This morning Dom, Cole, and myself woke up rather early and walked to class. What a beautiful morning for the 45-minute walk! Once there we had two orientation sessions, and then we went to visit a church just down the cobble-stoned street from our classroom. The church was beautiful! The paintings on the inside of the church were made to play with human eye, and in turn the images on the ceilings of the high church appeared to be 3-D. Outside of this specific church was a Piazza in which various shows occur throughout the year. I can’t get over the fact of how life in Rome is lived. Narrow streets. Crowded streets. A population density like nothing in the United States. The town is amazing, but confusing at the same time. None of this seems to faze the people who live here, though. I guess after a while you grow accustomed to the crowded, busy lifestyle. Anyways, after our church visit Dom, Cole and myself decided that the Colosseum was something that we had to see as soon as possible. So, with a 20 minute walk through some of the most historic ruins in the entire world, we stood in front of the Colosseum. We literally just touched the concrete of the stadium and the surrounding structures as we thought about what actually happened here, and what it meant in present day Rome to the present day Romans. To them, this is the perfect place to earn a few Euros. Everything from 20 postcards for 1 Euro, to 5 Euro for your picture with an “authentic” roman gladiator, it seemed, to me at least, that this was not the “right” place for this type of stuff to be going on. I have the same feelings though about the men and women who stand outside of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. and sell t-shirts that say “I saw the Lincoln Memorial!”, there has to be a better place for this to happen. But again, it’s been this way for years and years and us humans are stubborn when it comes to changing our habits and our way of life (especially when it comes to making some money). As we walked back towards Via De Parrasio we kept to the outskirts of Trastevere in hopes of finding some new places to check out on our next dinner excursion, of course there are hundreds of them scattered about town, each just as unique as the one next door. Tonight me and the four other roommates are going to have dinner at some other Penn State students apartments down the street as we plan our trip to Paris for next weekend.

Today was the first day that we all got to meet each other. Jared met me outside my little apartment first thing this morning and we took a taxi over to Penn States class space in the middle of the city center. After we picked up our room keys we headed down to Via De Parassio and met our other 3 roommates, Dom, Bryan, and Cole. We decided that taking a nap would be the best thing considering they had just arrived earlier this morning. After our 4 hour naps, we cleaned up and headed out to our second real Italian meal. Pizza and wine. That’s what the meal included. Nothing like a real Italian Pizza! After that we started walking down Vial de Trastevere and happen to run into 4 other Penn State students. It was Allisons 21st birthday so we decided to head down to try and find a bar to grab a drink with her. To no avail, Rome is not the town to go out for a drink on a Monday night. We eventually found a little bar and ran into a few other American students from just outside Seattle. After a few drinks we walked back to our apartment in the rain, and just hung out and planned where we wanted to travel on our three-day weekends. Tomorrow we have our orientation meetings and eventually grocery shopping for the first time! Should be interesting…

Rome!

Day one. Done and gone! It took forever to get here, but it's totally worth it. Jared and I met up at the airport, which worked out perfectly seeing as we shared the 75 euro taxi ride (about $116) to the city center. These high prices are due to the fact that gas is at about $12/gallon. And we thought $3.69 was bad! I thought that having a couple grand saved up would be enough for 7 weeks, but it's looking like that might not be the case. Anyways, when Jared and I arrived in Trastevere we went to his hotel to check in but we were too early, so we went to mine. It's get better because I had the wrong address so I missed the guy the first time (who I was renting the studio apartment off of) and had to wait 3 hours to meet up again. So Jared and I went to some little cafe and had lunch. Food was cheap. A meal cost me $3, which is nice considering traveling around town is not cheap at all. After that, Jared and I decided to take yet another taxi to the Stadio Olimpico and watch AS Roma play Atalanta...which they won easily 2-1. On the way back from the game we saw some guy riding a motorcycle get hit by a car and slide a pretty decent distant. After he got up (bruised and hurting) he got into an argument, all in Italian, with the other driver and then asked Jared and I for our opinions about calling the police/ambulance and about the accident in general. Of course Jared and I don't speak great Italian (read: no Italian) so we just held the bike up for him while they argued, then we left. Unknown to us, we were walking in the wrong direction for a good 40 minutes. As you can probably guess, this led to yet another taxi ride and another 15 euro trip. Anyways, we went back to Jared's and just hung out, then I walked back through a bustling Roma night! Lot's going on outside. Random spickets are placed throughout town that flow all the time with fresh water, so it seems as if they turn into social spots at night, as well as the bridges and Piazzas and other gathering areas. So that does it for day one. Tomorrow is when everyone else arrives and we start getting things going.