Roman Holiday

Sunday, January 11

Today Sam and MacKenzie and I with two other girls from our group, Erin and Christine, met up and went exploring in Trastevere. It is such a beautiful day...the sun is out and it is much warmer than it has been lately. According to Profe, Trastevere is supposed to have a lot of public parks, so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and find a place to do our reading for class. We didn't really know where to go, so we just set out walking. Close to the apartment we encountered a big hill and decided to climb it. We discovered a beautiful old church and what appeared to be the Spanish embassy next door. From the church we could see down on Trastevere. We kept walking up the hill and saw an old war monument and a huge fountain. As we kept climbing, we finally stumbled upon a huge public park at the top of the hill with a huge monument commemorating the Italian war hero Guiseppe Garibaldi. Beyond the monument was a look-out point where you could see the whole city of Rome. It is the most amazing and breathtaking thing I've seen so far here, and we all made a pact to go once a week together and make it our secret study spot. I sat on the edge of the look-out point for awhile and just stared at the view for a long time reflecting on my time in Italy so far. This place is absolutely incredible and life here seems so simple. Our apartment is simple; we have no internet, tv, or any fancy electronics. The kitchen has the bare essentials with the small washing machine, dishwasher, and hot water heater all next to eachother. All the people here seem happy and carefree all the time, and they seem to spend their days reading newspapers in corner cafes drinking coffee or wine, depending (and sometimes not depending) on the time of day. We walk everywhere, buy our fresh groceries in the open-air markets of the Campo and Piazzas, eat simple but good food, and that seems to be all we really need. Even though I am here as a student and I have scholastic responsibilities, living here has been so wonderful that it makes me wish I had my own apartment here in Trastevere and a silver Vespa to ride around the city!