Caffè Writing

It’s a warm Tuesday afternoon as I write this, sitting in one of my many preferred caffè, alternating sipping on a pudding-like thick ciocolatta calda and a refreshing bottle of acqua frizzante. I’m full from my free but still disappointing cafeteria lunch, the like of which have not improved since my previous post, but I would feel awkward sitting at a table, a service which at this coffee shop costs but a half euro, without ordering something. And this is my first European hot chocolate, and I am enjoying it so far. It is a refreshing change from my usual cappuccino and my favorite shop’s cappuccino freddo; I’ve had one of each of those already today, and I don’t need any more espresso right now.

In case you’re concerned about my caffeine intake, don’t be. I’m in Rome, heart of the country with the best coffee in the world. I have a warm cappuccino and a croissant (here called a cornetto) before my 9:00 AM class each morning, and immediately after class I cross the Tiber River to one of the best caffè in Rome, the Bar della Cappuccino. It’s a five minute walk from campus, if you count waiting for the lights to turn at the crosswalks, and it has the most delicious drink I’ve had in my life: the cold cappuccino. Somehow, they make it better than any other caffè I’ve tried; there’s something special about this shop’s rich flavor and dark color that far surpasses any other. It’s sweet, as well, even though I don’t add sugar. I take my cappuccini here black (well, without extra milk or any sugar) unless it is subpar. If that’s the case, I drown it in sugar to mask the terrible taste, and the next time I order something different.

After I’m fully awake after my delicious coffee breaks, I either start writing for the day, go to the grocery store, or shop until lunchtime. Immediately after lunch, most days I go to a caffè, sit at a table, order, and write. This, of course, is what I am doing now. Between posts for two blogs, long letters to my best friend, and short stories for my creative writing class, I’m writing on average about 1,500 words a day. Not bad, not bad at all.

Of course, I’m in Rome, so I haven’t stuck to my average schedule every single day. I’m here for five weeks (four weeks to go!) and so I’m doing a little bit of sightseeing every few days. Tomorrow I’m headed to the Vatican for the first time; my friends and I are visiting St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel and I’ve been mentally freaking out in excitement for the chance to see masterpieces by Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, and many others up close and in person! If I wasn’t a music major and I enjoyed doing research more, I would be taking multiple art history classes. As it is, I’m content with reading my Rick Steves guide and supplementing it with internet searches.

In the meantime, I’ve already explored some of the most historic sites of Rome: I’ve marveled at the Pantheon, tossed a coin into the Trevi Fountain, climbed the Spanish Steppes, traversed the Piazza Novanna, explored the Roman Forums, and ventured inside the Colosseum. All of these were really, really fun, and I would try to visit them every week if there weren’t so many tourists taking up space!

Tourists are really the only thing I don’t really like about Rome right now, which sounds absolutely silly until you consider that for my stay here, I’m more than just an American student. I’m a student studying at a university in Italy for the summer, and I’m living in an apartment complex in the middle of Trastevere. It hasn’t taken me and my friends very long to feel like we belong here far more than the tourists that plague the streets. The shop owners recognize us in an inviting way reserved for near-Italian visitors; we blend in well after a week here, and slowly we’re fitting into the Roman culture around us.

I’m marveling as well at how quickly I’ve grown comfortable walking the streets here. The first few days, I rarely strayed across the Tiber; home was the small area between the residence and the campus, bridged by the Tiber river and the street of my school. Walking outside of this area, especially across the river, still felt like I was venturing into a very foreign country. But after a week, and a few hours spent exploring most of Trastevere by wandering around looking at shops down whichever street I pleased (but always keeping track of the location of the river), I’ve expanded my boundaries. I can cross the river with ease now, although I don’t do it very often yet. Rome is slowly becoming a giant-city home.

The traffic still is terrible, but I’m slowly getting used to it. Part of my difficulty adapting to it, I believe, lies in my upbringing in a college town lacking in huge population, manic drivers of this intensity, and a mass public transport system. Rome is a large city similar, I hear, to Boston and New York City, both places where I would be just as uncomfortable in relation to traffic, at least for a while. So my alarm is almost understandable.

In addition to exploring Rome, I spent this weekend traveling in the area of Campania. I got to see the ruined city of Pompeii, the touristy but beautiful island of Capri, and Napoli, the home of pizza. (I got to see very little of Naples, but I did get some very delicious pizza and a tasty fruit tart afterward.) Pompeii was fascinating, but it would have been more enjoyable if we could have explored it in small groups as opposed to in a giant tour. But I did learn that, interestingly, one of the best preserved buildings, in regards to the art still on the walls, was clearly a brothel. Not able to hear the tour leader well before entering the building, I was startled by the detailed paintings on the walls. In Capri, I went on a chair-lift to the highest point on the whole island, which happened to be the very top of an extremely tall mountain. Having never been skiing, I had no idea what to expect from the chair-lift, which suspended me several hundred feet above the ground and rocky shore of the ocean. I was mildly freaked out before getting on the lift, but I had three of my new good friends with me who all, having experience with this kind of thing, couldn’t understand why I would be freaking out about something so easy and calm.

They were totally right; once I was up in the air, the lift was slow (it took 13 minutes to get to the top of the mountain) and wonderful. I could see practically the whole island, and it was absolutely gorgeous! The white stone buildings became tiny roofs dotting a green, hilly landscape circled by clear blue ocean, and in the background through the fog and clouds stood a beautiful volcano. Sadly, I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures from this “flight” because my camera died right before I reached the top, but my other friends captured photos for me, and the sight was breathtaking. The chair-lift up and the top of Capri were probably the most enjoyable things of the whole weekend trip.

Little else occurred of importance; I bought a dress in Sorrento to wear to the opera, I bought a “lava-rock” bracelet in Pompeii because I wanted a souvenir from there, I attempted to make garlic bread but just buttered warm bread instead because cutting each garlic clove would have taken forever for eight people during our Thursday night pot-luck dinner, which is now a tradition but will be taking place tomorrow night, and I ate a bunch of tasty Italian food.

I’ve also been writing, and it’s wonderful. I love having so much free time to write, but it’s also very strange, because I’m so used to spending my days in a practice room. I miss my violin, which is encouraging, but it is nice having hours to myself. However, I don’t really know what to do with all my free hours; I spent two straight hours yesterday writing, and it felt like nothing. I wrote two detailed scenes and called it a day; if I’d used that to practice, I would have just gotten started! But I can’t help but miss my violin; I’m careful to stretch every day to keep my body limber, and I do my pencil-push-ups so my bow hand doesn’t completely fall apart when I get back. I’ve also been on the lookout for violin shops in Rome, and I’m planning an expedition to Cremona so I can visit the city where Stradivari, Amati, and Guarneri all built their violini famosi. I am content, here, though, writing all the time. I read the beginning of a short story yesterday by one of the other students in my class, and it was so excellent that it reminded me why I want to be a writer, and especially why I want to be an editor.

Well, after an hour and more than 1.5k words, I’d better bring this blog post to a close. I’ll update soon; I’ll try to before Saturday, as I’ll be wanting to gush about the Vatican and everything else.

Baci,

Giulia

First Impressions

When I arrived in Rome, my first impression was perfection: perfetto. Three days later, still somewhat jet-lagged and trying to adjust to the ordeal of walking for hours on end on uneven stone, I still find it perfetto. Rome is everything I wanted it to be, and it keeps surprising me in ridiculous ways.

After 26 hours of travel and about 4 hours of uncomfortable airplane sleep, I exited the Fiumicino Airport on Thursday at around 3:30 (my flight got in at 2:00; getting bags felt like it took my whole life) and was immediately amazed. The airport wasn’t anything spectacular or Romanesque, but the temperature outside was, again, perfetto. Unlike the raging, dusty winds and the scalding, dry heat I’m used to, Rome had a slight breeze complimenting its 72 degree weather. This breath of fresh air was exactly what I needed to get me through the following frenzy of forms and information thrown at me. I’d been awake far too long-this was a bit much for me to process immediately.

The registration process and such was mostly a blur, but I do remember the shuttle ride from the airport to our residence. Rome at first seemed like any other large city, with gas stations and billboards decorating instead of gorgeous architecture. I was sitting in the front seat of the shuttle, so I had a fantastic view of the landscape, but I also had a mildly terrifying view of the traffic. Rome traffic is indescribably bad. Or, rather, it’s impossible to comprehend by American standards. Cars and motorini weave in and out without any regard for actual space, pedestrians, or collision-avoidance. If I hadn’t been in the front seat, I definitely would have gotten sick. Instead, I could only stare in semi-frozen horror, as we narrowly escaped crashing into the tiny cars that make my Prius look like a monster truck.

I was so distracted by the driving that I missed the transition from outskirts to actual Rome. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the gas stations and billboards were gone, replaced by ancient buildings made of classic brick and stone, transporting me into a land where I was hurdling down streets Romans had traveled thousands of years ago. It was breathtaking; captivated by the view, I was unaffected by the rushing traffic the rest of the ride. A forty minute ride to our residence passed in what felt like just ten.

But once we reached the residence, I was brought back into reality. I soon realized that while wheeled suitcases are excellent for airport and city travel, they do not hold up well on cobblestone streets. Luckily, I wound up with a room on the ground floor (not the first floor, which in American terms would be the second floor…), so I didn’t have to deal with too many steps or the unreliable elevator. This elevator is worth its own interesting side note: it is turned off between the hours of 11:30 PM and 7:00 AM, and it only holds about 300 lbs.

My ground floor room turned out to be one of the nicer apartments in the complex. I have only one roommate (some people have nine!) and a large living area plus a reasonable-sized kitchen. I’m not sure how often I plan on using the kitchen, as the food here is way better than anything I could make, but the refrigerator has become quite useful for storing fruit and water and leftovers. The wi-fi is a great addition; internet caffè (coffee shops) are hard to come by, and it’s nice to be able to Skype in the comfort of my own apartment.

The few days after have been wonderful so far, although I could have done without the endless orientation sessions and the less-than-ideal cafeteria food. I regret having a meal plan, although hopefully the cafeteria’s preference for excessive salt will not extend to its breakfast croissants, as I plan on grabbing a bit of colazione (perhaps just a roll and a small cappuccino) on my way to my 9:00 class.

I have enjoyed feasting on gelato throughout the city so far, though, and I have definitely appreciated my meals (outside of the cafeteria) thus far. I’ve tried a few pastas and some pizza-by-the-slice (a delightful Eggplant and Mozzarella concoction I ordered by mistake) and I cannot wait to partake in the rest of the city’s edible offerings. I haven’t had gnocchi once yet, but that’s soon to come. I’ve missed my European Fanta (ten thousand times better than the American product) and my acqua frizzante that, unlike the rest of the students here, only I seem to love. I’m still getting used to the late dinners, however, and I may need to purchase afternoon pizza slices in order to get by until 10:00 PM, the time my pasta was served last night.

I’ve been trying to order interesting, unfamiliar, and non-repetitive items thus far, and I think I’m going to have difficulty ordering gelato other than nocciola (hazelnut), although I got to try a flavor named Mozart which was a mix of peanut-butter, vanilla, chocolate, and a bunch of other unidentifiable but tasty flavors. My pasta choices have been quite successful, and I can’t get enough of the buffalo mozzarella, which is possibly my favorite thing in the whole world.

Once I put down my fork, my thoughts turn to sight-seeing. I’m staying in the part of Rome known as Trastevere, south of the Tiber River. There are a few things of great interest that I’ve yet to explore here, but the main attractions of Rome are across the river and quite a bit further from my apartment than I’m willing or able to just walk. However, I’m planning on exploring the Colosseum and the Forum and the Pantheon and of course the Vatican just as soon as it stops raining. (I love rain, but I don’t want to walk around for five hours in it when I’ve got five weeks to explore.) I was supposed to go on a tour of Ancient Rome today organized by my university, but I set my alarm incorrectly and woke up twenty-five minutes after the tour started. I was quite disappointed, but it gave me a day to figure out exactly what I’m going to do with the rest of my week. Also, I got to see quite a bit of Rome yesterday during an orientation tour, and my feet are still recovering from that, so maybe this all worked out for the better.

Now that I’ve been in Rome a few days, I’m actually quite excited to begin my class in Creative Writing. It takes place from 9 to 11 Monday through Thursday, giving me plenty of time to write, blog, and explore Rome during my afternoons and extended weekends. In addition, it gives me time to figure out my napping schedule should I need one. (Rome has, by law, designated quiet hours from 1 to 4 PM and from 11 PM to 7:00 AM.)

However, I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to spend all this free time. My fingers are going crazy; I don’t have my violin and my body isn’t entirely sure what to do about it. It’s so strange to know that I’m going to have hours and hours to spare during the day that cannot be filled with practicing!!! I’ve already been looking through guide books and online catalogs, trying to find classical music concerts I can attend without breaking my budget, and I’m attending an opera in June. It’s sponsored by the university, and I’m just hoping people will actually buy tickets for it, since I’m not sure how most people would feel about attending an Italian opera in Italy, where there will be no English subtitles (the only thing that holds the average viewer’s attention). I, on the other hand, can hardly contain my excitement to see the opera, and the lack of subtitles makes the entire experience even more intriguing. Perhaps, without their aid, I will be able to more easily capture the storyline and key Italian phrases.

Speaking of Italian phrases, my year of Italian equipped me to conjugate tenses but did not entirely prepare me to plunge into a fast-speaking, hand-gesturing country. I love the language and how it rolls off the tongues of the natives, but I had difficulty ordering my slice of pizza for dinner tonight, and was only saved by the cameriere taking pity on me and voicing my options in English. However, my grasp on the language seems stronger than 9/10 of the summer session students, and so I feel more confident about this. After all, confidence is key to public speaking, whether it be in English or a foreign language. And I’m doing pretty well with my Italian, my pizza order aside. I can only hope it will continue to improve the longer I spend around locals during these next few weeks.

Although there are dozens of additional things I could write about, I’ve reached the limit of what I can type tonight before I go to sleep. I’m starting to get sleepy at a reasonable hour, although I’m still not totally adjusted from the states, and I have to get plenty of sleep before my exciting first day of class in the morning. So until next time, buonanotte!

Baci,

Giulia