It’s hard to believe that after so much anticipation and preparation, we’ve completed CC 265 and are now transitioning into TX 201. The idea of going to Rome this spring was actually planted in my mind over a year ago when I came to Skidmore on an Accepted Candidates Day in April 2010. The Classics department table had brochures and I immediately imagined myself taking the course. Looking back, it was pretty irrational and presumptuous to have my sights set on taking a class in the second semester of my freshman year at a college I hadn’t yet decided on enrolling in. I almost missed the application deadline in October, too--but here I am! And I have no reservations about the trip. I can vividly picture the first days of class when Dan and Jackie showed us the course website with the ticker saying that there were over 100 days fino a partenza. Sitting inside Ladd Hall in snow boots and my winter jacket, this looming number made Rome in May seem ages away. But these past few months have flown by—our focus on course readings, the catastrophic midterm exam, and the final has given me little time to really reflect on the cumulative experience until now. In applying for the seminar I was most excited about seeing ancient monuments and famous works of art in person. Even though we had a lot of assigned readings, I felt like the literary perspectives were secondary to these physical structures in my constructing a mental image of the city. Having the knowledge of the “hard city,” from the Augustan Regions and now-ruined temples to the modern Rioni and recent buildings, I feel as if I am revisiting a place from my childhood. I have the specific angles of Piranesi’s engravings still in my mind, and I’ve spent hours exploring on Google Maps street view (both the ancient 3D and modern layers). At first, I may be disoriented, but one significant visual symbol will trigger an entire cache of memories and I will soon feel at ease.
Because of all of this, I look forward to finally getting to Rome, where I can finally apply this knowledge to tangible things and locations. For the next week when I don’t have any schoolwork to do, I am positive that it will be the only future event that I can think or dream about. I know we’ve discussed the possibility of over-romanticizing the trip, but it would be impossible for me not to enjoy seeing what we have studied all semester come to life. Reading the letters of Florence Nightingale, who traveled to Rome in her 20’s like many women on the Grand Tour, definitely confirms this for me. She was obviously educated in Latin literature, the history of the Roman Empire, religion, and art, yet wrote about how awe-inspiring landmarks like the Coliseum and St. Peter’s Basilica are at first seeing them. It will also be rewarding to visit these great sites with my classmates and professors who have each dedicated a lot of time and effort to fully appreciate them.
Arriving in Rome, my mood is half sluggishly jet-lagged and half energized with excitement. After getting our bags, a process that miraculously does not go awry due to someone’s lost suitcase, I begin to take note of my surroundings. I try to remember the chapters of my Prego textbook from Elementary Italian and pick up on conversational vocabulary. I’m not sure if it’s my paranoia of having an outwardly ‘American’ appearance, but I hope that our large group goes unnoticed and the natives don’t peg us immediately as tourists. On our way to our home for the next two weeks, Dan says one of his legendary quotable lines and Jordy or Alissa desperately try to access Facebook on their adapting cell phones before the moment is forgotten. Once we arrive and unpack, we fight the tempting urge to lie down on our beds and rest for a few hours. Two weeks, though a nice amount of time to spend abroad, does not allow for a lot of down time, especially on the first day when we have so much of the city to see for the first time. But we don’t mind and know that caffeine and eagerness will motivate us to wake up early every morning and see as much of the city as possible. As we get our bearings of the dorm and unload our bags, it finally sets in that we are really here. For the next fourteen days we will do as the Romans do: sip espresso outside cafes, people watch, and attempt to parlare Italiano under Gia’s guidance. Half of us will probably breeze through our stipends in the first week, tempted by Italian boutiques’ offerings and deceived by currency exchange rates. We’ll probably keep running lists of everything we observe, form tracking the plaque’s of different Rione to the number of Paolos we meet. Walking outside in Rome to the first site we are visiting, I look around and consider all these possibilities, feeling content. I’m content with the much sunnier-than-Saratoga weather, the promise of two weeks of sampling different gelato flavors, and the reality that I’ll be learning about and experiencing a new culture with enthusiastic peers. Arrivederci, Skidmore, e Ciao Roma!
No comments:
Post a Comment