Well, I've been in the Land of Wine for 4 days now and I couldn't be more in amore. Every turn of the corner is a new beautiful sight, every interaction with an Italian is a new lesson learned, and every street stepped onto is a death sentence what with the lack of any rules of the road and Vespas tearing in between the Smartcars and trams.
I don't even know where to start. Well, I guess I'll start with school. I have it every day but some Fridays off, and I take Italian language, Layers of Rome, Food and Media, Italian Culture and Society, and Food and Culture. I know, right? I am getting graded on stuff I actually want to know more about. Some of my classes are at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci, and some take us to the actual sites and monuments that we are studying. Our cooking classes are in the GustoLab, which is attached to the school and served us an amazing welcome dinner, complete with fried pizza (which is how it was originally made), pasta carbonara, eggplant parmesan, tiramisu, and, of course, vino. Did you know that the thought of spaghetti and meatballs makes Italians want to vomit, and that they have penis shaped pasta? Because they do.
But anyway, what I have taken away the most is what our program director, Sonia, has said to describe the country and people. It's a nation of organization and anarchy right next to each other. When another director, Leonardo, clicked out of his introductory powerpoint, every student was quick to tell him how easy it was to get back to the current page. He, however, chose to close and reopen the whole program, clicking through every page and link to get to the right one. That's how the people do things here- close down a pizzeria because they want a long lunch, but get furious when you give them a Euro bill over 10. They always suggest taking a ten minute break in the middle of class or bring you your food right away at a restaurant, but you must do everything short of throwing your empty bottle of wine at the waiter's head if you want to be given the check.
What's given me the most perspective on the differences between Italian people and Americans is the nightlife. Here, public drinking is allowed and utilized, mostly in the form of sipping vino in a piazza and people watching. However, a tour guide I met one night at an American bar said that this summer, the Prime Minister banned the sale of food from 2 am to 6 am. In protest, street vendors set their carts up outside of the government building and sold all that they could, leaving their trash on the front steps in their wake. Me and my roommates tend to side with these types of Romans, chugging vino on the bus to the bar and giggling endlessly at the beer called Splugen. In the bars themselves, there are always signs written clearly in English, not Italian, saying to keep our voices down. It's hard to gauge how to act appropriately, because some are genuinely enthused by our atrocious behavior. Our taxi driver last night, for example, sped through the streets at our request, proclaiming that he was "NASCAR driver, si?"
All in all, the first four days have been incredibly eye-opening and breathtaking. Right now, though, I need some friggin sleep because I am waking up at 8 am to get to an island in the Tiber river for class and then hopping on a bus at night to go to Interlaken, Switzerland to shred some foreign powder.
Speaking of shredding foreigners, I have made some more goals for this semester. Renting bikes and riding in Villa Borghese, attending a futbol game, seeing the Queen cover orchestra band, and visiting a Latin mass at the Vatican, among others. Because that, among other sites such as this ancient royal castle, are my current neighbors:
Jealous much? Also, note how the use of totes is embraced:
Probably the only thing they do that makes their appearances unattractive. Welp, I need to go finish up packing and do some Italian language homework.
Arrivederci!
Cason
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