Last Week

Ciao Tutti,

I spent pretty much all of last weekend writing an eight page policy paper for my Italy and the European Union class. Our topic was the conflicts in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia and we had to write it as if we were either a country in the European Union or someone who had an office in the Europe Union.  I was assigned the position of the High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy.  It took me a long time to write and I had four pages of citations, but I was really happy with the result.

On Sunday night, I treated myself to dinner at my favorite restaurant in Rome - Monte Carlo.  I had a plate of gnocchi in a cream sauce and water for only 9 euro!

My last week of classes was pretty uneventful (in terms of a semester in Rome), but was still pretty exciting when compared to a normal week.  On Monday, I had three of classes and they went off without a hitch. 

Tuesday night, after my classes, I went to apertivo with a few of my friends from my Italian class.  It was so good.  A glass of wine was only six euro and I had four plates of food!

On Wednesday, we interviewed a Roma person (more commonly known as a gypsy) for our audio documentary for one of my classes.  He told us about daily life in the camp and the difficulties of getting a job.  The living conditions are horrible, they are not allowed to have visitors after 8:00 PM, and every movement is recorded on camera.  He got a job, but his employers found out he was Roma after 10 days of work and fired him.  It was depressing.

After that, I had my Italian oral exam.  It went really well and I was very proud of myself.  I felt that it was a good measure of how much I have improved my Italian skills over the course of the past semester.  We were supposed to have a 10 minute conversation with my professor and if we ran out of things to talk about we had the option of describing pictures.  We spoke for 15 minutes and did not use the pictures at all! 

On Wednesday night, we celebrated my roommate, Zach's, birthday by going out to one of our favorite restaurants, "Da Tonino."  It was really fun and I had a great dish of penne pasta with a pesto sauce.

On Thursday, I had my Italian final exam.  It was very hard, but remain optimistic that I will get an A in the class.

On Friday, I had to participate in a Model EU for my Italy and the European Union class.  It was the second part of our paper that I wrote earlier in the week.  We held a mock summit where we discussed the same things we wrote about in our paper.  As Head of Foreign and Security Policy, I was one of the more involved people in the discussion and ran most of the meeting.  It was a lot of work, but I had a blast.

On Friday night, my Italian class went out to dinner with our Italian teacher.  She took us to an area of Rome that some of the "artsy" Italians hang out at night called Pigneto.  It was really nice to see a different side of Rome and we all had a blast!

Ciao,
Michael 

Reverse Culture Shock?

Ciao Tutti,

Today was a pretty ordinary day in Rome (which is not ordinary at all).  My architecture class met at Il Vittoriano which is also known as the Wedding Cake to tourists or the typewriter to Romans.  I suppose I am still a tourist as I still refer to it as the Wedding Cake.  Look at it and tell me it does not look like an over sized Wedding Cake!

We learned that it was built after Italy was unified by Victor Emmanuale and Camello Cavour in 1861 when they decided to make Rome the center of their new country.  It took forever to complete, however, and was not officially finished until 1930!  They destroyed some of medieval Rome while building it, kicked people out of their homes to make room for it, and dug so deep to make it that they found the remains of a mammoth.  No wonder nobody likes it!  My teacher also said it was too white for Rome as "Rome is not a white city."  That being said, it was still pretty cool.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Victor Emmanuale

 Inside the horse's belly (pictured above) - now you know how big everything was

After our field study, I had film class.  We filmed the scene that I am not directing, so I was able to relax and watch the process this time.

Then, we had our Italian class.  We had our second meeting with the director of the program who came in to talk to us about our return back to the USA.  He cautioned us that we would have "Reverse Culture Shock" when we returned.  He said we all may be a bit depressed because "noone will understand us".  I, personally, think it is a bunch of bologna, but he seems adamant that we will experience some form if it.  It is not just the director of my program that has mentioned this, though.  So far, my parents have received something from IES Headquarters and I have received an e-mail from Penn State on the topic.

I am still very skeptical of the whole term as I honestly did not have the "culture shock" I was told I would have when I got here.  I think it may be a product of traveling a lot when I was younger.  I have learned how to deal with other cultures from a young age.  I will, however, let you all know if I am "shocked" in any way when I come home.  Don't worry.

Tomorrow is my last day of classes for the week as I am skipping my Italian class on Thursday to go to Croatia.  I'll update soon!

Ciao,
Michael

This Week

Ciao Tutti,

This week was pretty uneventful, but fun. Monday was a long day. I had three classes and got an exam back. I did well and now I am just waiting on one more exam grade. Monday night, my school sponsored a food workshop by an organic food organization, SLOW food. We learned about different types of cheese and salami - how they are made, where they are made, and got to taste it all. It was only €10 and well worth it. Another plus was that the presentation was in Italian, so I was able to continue to improve my Italian by listening to a different type of lecture!

The Buffet at the Workshop

On Tuesday, we had a field study for my architecture class to see churches on a three block stretch populous with churches. We saw six churches within an hour and a half - that's what I call efficiency. We even went down a spiral staircase in one of them and saw the crypt. It was really creepy.

Tuesday afternoon, I had my film class. The scene I am shooting was moved up to next Tuesday, so we spent the majority of the class rehearsing and staging my scene. It was fun, but a lot of work. I can't wait to try my hands at directing on Tuesday!

Tuesday night, I met up with a few friends to eat at an amazing restaurant in Monteverde called "La Gatta Magiona.". It was really good. The pizza was pretty good. We each got a huge pie and shared a litre of wine for €9. Not too bad.

Pizza

Wednesday was my last "real" day of class. I had three classes - two of which were not even lectures. In my Memory and Conflict class, we had a guest speaker, Alessandro Portelli, come in. He single handedly revolutionized the field of oral history. This pertained to our class because our project is to write and produce an oral documentary on the gypsies of Rome. Alessandro Portelli told us some stories about his field work and gave us advice that he felt could help us as we complete our project.

In our Italian class on Wednesday, we watched a movie called "Le Fate Ignorante.". It was a very strange and corny movie about a wife who's husband is fatally hit by a car. When she is going through his things, she finds out he was married to a man at the same time he was married to her. It was your typical Hollywood movie with your typical Hollywood ending.

Wednesday night, Zach, my apartment-mate, and I went out to dinner with one of our friends, Tahli, who had friends in from New Castle, England. We went to a restaurant called "Da Tonino" which is 5 minutes from our apartment. It was really good and really cheap. I had Pasta all'Arrabiata and tried rabbit for the first time in my life. It is actually true what they say - it tastes just like chicken.

Rabbit

On Thursday, I only had my Italian class, but we cooked instead. Some students in our class cooked gnocchi from scratch while others cooked polpette. My group cooked tiramisu. I was responsible for whipping the egg whites into cream.  It was a lot of work, but all the food turned out great and we enjoyed eating the fruits of our labor.

The egg whites - my baby

Tirimisu

Polpette

Gnocchi

It was fun!

Thursday night, we met up with Tahli and her friends again for another cheap dinner at my favorite restaurant in Rome, Monte Carlo Pizzeria. I had a pizza pie and a potato croquette. It was phenomenal.

I'm on my way to the Amalfi Coast now. It's another trip sponsored by my trip where we'll go to Pompeii, Sorrento, Ravello, Amalfi, Positano, and Naples. It should be fun!

Ciao,
Michael

Short Week

Ciao Tutti,

I have finally caught up with this blog and posting all my pictures in the below posts (as promised).  I have also put all my pictures up from my Spring Break trip - you can find them on the right sidebar.


I got back to Rome on Monday night around 9:00 PM.  I flew into the main airport in Rome - Fiumicino.  Normally a taxi ride from the airport to the city center costs 40 Euro, but there is a train that takes you to the main train station in Rome for 14 Euro.  Given that I had a suitcase with me and the train was not an option, I explored a different method of transportation.  I found a shuttle bus that drops you off right at your apartment or hotel for only 18 Euros.  It worked great.  I arrived and waited for about 20 minutes, then the bus driver came and got my suitcase and put it in the van.  I was the second person he dropped off and was at my apartment by 10:15 PM.  Not too shabby.

When I arrived, my ISC, Silvio, was entertaining a few guests for a dinner party.  There is no better way to start speaking Italian again after a week of speaking bits and pieces of other languages than to start talking to a group of Italians over dinner!  Baptism by fire - and it worked.  By the end of the meal, I was back in Italian mode.  The meal consisted of very good pasta and something I have never tried before - liver.  If I was back in the States I never would have tried it, but I am a bit more open minded while I am abroad and see everything as an experience.  It honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It tasted like meat, but kind of crumbled once you put it in your mouth.  It is not something I would ever make for myself or order at a restaurant, but is something I would eat if it was placed in front of me at an event or a business meeting. 

On Tuesday, we had a field study for my architecture class at Saint Peter's Cathedral.  Unfortunately, my iPad alarm did not adjust itself from London time and I was 20 minutes late to class.  Fortunately, I was able to go through the line for people with disabilities and missed absolutely nothing!  The field study was great in that it was an excuse to go into Saint Peter's Basilica again, but I did not learn a lot.  I already knew most of what my teacher said from my audio tour of the Basilica I downloaded from Rick Steve's website.  I'm still not complaining - who can say they went to class in Saint Peter's Basilica.  That is something special that only a student studying in Rome can say!

Tuesday afternoon, I had my first three hour long class for film (it used to meet for two hours on Tuesday and one hour on Thursday, but now we meet three hours on Tuesday).  It was pretty productive.  We got our midterm grades back - I got a 95.  I think I'm on pace for an A in that class.  Our class is remaking two scenes from the movies we saw.  I am directing one of the scenes and am filming the "behind the scenes" of the other.  The scene I am directing is from "Caterina va in Citta" or "Caterina and the Big City" which was directed by Paolo Virzi.  I had an hour of the class to describe my vision for the scene to the rest of the class, cast the scene, and do a few dry runs.  I think it is going to come out very well.

Tuesday night, I fell asleep very early as all my traveling finally caught up to me.

Wednesday morning, we had a field study for my Italy and the European Union class at the Italian Crisis Unit.  We basically got a tour of the department responsible for extracting Italian nationals from other countries when disaster strikes.  It was pretty cool as their office reminded me of what we see in spy movies. 

Wednesday afternoon, I had my Memory and Conflict class.  We started off with getting our midterm grades back - I one-upped my film grade and got a 96.  I was very happy with this.  We then discussed the readings that were assigned to us over Spring Break.  They were about the "Roma People" or people who migrated from India to Europe about 1000 years ago and are living a nomadic life.  They are more well known as gypsies.  For the second half of the semester, our class is going to make an oral documentary about their story.  It should be an interesting project.

Wednesday night, I again fell asleep very early as I was still exhausted.

Thursday, I did not have class until 4:30 PM.  I woke up at 10:45 AM and went to the store to recharge my iPad's 3G data package.  Afterwards, I went and worked on the scene I am directing for my film class.  I needed to edit my script and start working on a list of shots I need for the scene when we shoot in three weeks.  It is starting to come along.  Next week, I will sit down with my cinematographer and assistant director and get them on the same page.  It is a lot of work, but is really fun and I am learning a lot more about film.  I also think this experience will make me appreciate film better.

Thursday night, we went out to dinner with a few people from our program.  They had a nostalgia for American food, so we went to an Irish pub for hamburgers and french fries.  They were pretty good.

Tomorrow, I am going to Venice for the weekend with my program.  They put together quite a good itinerary, so it should be a great trip.  I'll post soon!

Ciao,
Michael

Are these the same blocks Julius Caesar walked on?

Ciao!

It's been a while since I last updated, but I had another crazy week in Roma.  With every passing day, I come to love this amazing city more and more.  It seems like everywhere I go I wind up basking in amazement at a beautiful statue or a detailed fountain.

Last week was what IES called "intensive Italian" week.  This meant that we had Italian every day for 2.5 hours.  On Monday we had 12 students in our class.  By the end of the week we were down to 8.  For me, the class was not too hard.  We reviewed three of the "past tenses" in Italian for the majority of the week.  Although I have studied them before, I welcomed the review.  Each tense has very specific rules about when you can use it, so I needed the review. 

Our class also watched a movie called "La Finestra di Fronte".  When our teacher asked if we wanted English subtitles, one of the students surprised her by asking for Italian subtitles instead.  This was a great idea as it allowed us to better understand the film and the Italian language in general without depending on English.  I know that I definitely expanded my vocabulary while watching that film!

We had an exam on Friday followed by a field study.  Since the film we watched took place in the Jewish Ghetto of Rome, we were sent there to fill out a worksheet.  I love how IES tries to get you out into the city as much as possible.  I was very happy to have my first field study so early!

The whole week I was debating whether to go to Florence with some friends or stay in Rome and do "Rome as a tourist" with some other friends.  I decided to stay in Rome.  On Saturday, we decided to go to the Colosseum (or try to go to the Colosseum).  We wound up getting there at 3:30 PM thinking we would have no problem getting in.  We were wrong.  It turns out that people are not allowed into the Colosseum after 3:30 PM and it closes at 4:30 PM. 



























While this was very disappointing we certainly made the best of it.  We walked around the Colosseum, took pictures of the Forum, and basked in the glory of the Arc of Constantine.  It was amazing.  At one point, I turned to my friends and said "Are these the same blocks that Julius Caesar walked on?"  It really put everything in perspective, for me at least.  The blocks I was walking on, the statues I pass every day, the monuments I gaze upon with awe, and the fountains I stop and rest next to are all older than not only the United States of America, but were all there when Christopher Columbus discovered that the world was not flat.  That is pretty amazing.  I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

Tomorrow, my full schedule begins,  I can't wait to meet all my professors and find out exactly what we will be learning about.  I want to continue to take advantage of all Rome has to offer.

Ciao,
Mike