A relatively simple day in Rome

All in all it was a pretty uneventful day. That sounds so awful since I am in Rome and I should using everyday to go explore and check off more and more things on my list of life experiences, but then again, when living in a foreign country, should you not at least once in a while just live like they do? “When in Rome…” Yeah yeah… all that crap. It’s a pretty lame excuse, but I for some reason have not slept for two nights in a row (perhaps the backlash of jet lag?) and today it started to wear on me a great deal.
Class was good and I am realizing that I really enjoy my classmates. The girl from Brazil, Maitê, sat with me during our break between lessons in the garden and we chatted a great deal. This girl has been everywhere! Her Father owns a business that he moved to Miami, Florida for a while so that’s where she learned English, she learned Spanish because as a little girl she loved watching Spanish soap operas, she learned French because her Father speaks it and demanded that she and her sister learn as well. She got extra practice on all these languages because she lived for a year in a boarding school in France for international students. She’s only 18!! She’s also quite funny and it was nice to feel so comfortable while at school.
After class I came back and had lunch then went on a walk with some of the guys around the Villa gardens (always an adventure with them, involving a lot of laughter). We went back inside and Antonio asked me to help him with his English homework. This was a great relief to me (in a very selfish way) to see someone struggling with a foreign language like myself. After we finished his work he asked if I wanted to read a book in Italian. This is something I have been planning on doing since before I came, so I accepted his invitation to the library (which he has the keys to). Mostly classical literature and Italian translations of scholarly essays, it was hard to find something that I could actually stand a chance at even getting past the first sentence. *For Dr. Bob: they had Dante but Antonio suggested against it since Dante’s wording is quite complex.
We finally decided on two books, one a French book translated into Italian (which Antonio thought would help because the translation would be more simply worded) called Memorie di Andriano by Marguerite Yourcenar which is true story about a man and his homosexual relations… interesting? We shall see. The other is an Italian novel called Il deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati. I have yet to figure out what this book is about, but hopefully I will soon get the gist. I was also given two dictionaries, one that is Italian to English and English to Italian (this book is enormous and weighs at least 10 pounds) and another that has Italian words and English translations throughout. Very helpful.
After this trip to the library I headed back to my room to let my Zune charge and to read for a while before I finally went out for a run. I left at 4:30 which was a poor choice since the sun was incredibly hot. I went to the pine forest that is across the street from Villa (not really a forest but rather a park with lots of very tall pine trees). There was a good amount of shade under the trees but on the other side of the trees is a huge open field with lots of hills and winding pathways through the long grass. I ventured away from the forest into the crispy grass with thin pathways flecked with old people taking leisurely strolls in the sun. The sun beat down on my arms and I suddenly desperately wished that I had a tan so I would not burn.
The field was amazing and it weaved around hills and suddenly came to the top where you could see a great deal of the city, including a clear view of Saint Peter’s. I suddenly felt as if I were a child peeking into some taboo place or event, as if I had sneaked up behind Rome and taken it by surprise with my sudden appearance at the top of the hill. I stopped running for a time and took in the sight. It’s a great thing to behold Rome in such a grand fashion. You think of Rome and you think of Italy, and for me at least, it is not until I really draw myself up and open my mind that I really think about the former might and strength of Rome. The solitary hand that once gripped multiple nations and huge masses of land and people and had the power to control all it touched with but a finger of command. Yes, a great and overwhelming thing to behold. I continued running.
After lunch I had been invited by Luigi (another guy on my floor) to possibly play tennis at 6:30 for a while before dinner. He ended up not coming to get me and for that I was very grateful. The sun had nearly killed me and I desperately wanted to take a shower before dinner since I felt like a salt lick. I made my first mistake at Villa by showing up to dinner in flip flops which apparently is taboo because the Cardinal wants at least some show of respect in clothing. Luckily for me, he was not at dinner and I was kindly informed by Gabriele of this apparent rule. In class today we were assigned some homework out of our book and strangely, I’m almost grateful. In a very odd sense, I feel like having some sort of responsibility for my studies is in a way validating my being here. I am surrounded by guys who study a great deal and work on their schooling just as hard as I do, and to not take part in some of that was making feel kind of like a slacker. But at least now I have a real reason to go to the library, aside from just updating my blog and whatnot. Ciao!

p.s. I write all these entries like a journal I'm keeping on Word. I'm only using 11 point font and it's already 23 pages long :-)