About My Neighborhood: Manzoni

At first glance, maybe even a third glance, Manzoni does not look like much. It certainly does not look like the kind of neighborhood hiding residences comparable to palaces, at least by Roman standards. My family's "apartment" could easily be an expensive, Maryland townhouse. My new home has two large levels with wooden floors, the bathroom I share with my host sisters even has black marble! When I walked through the neighborhood for the first time, on my way to meet my new family, I thought I'd be living in a tiny, rundown apartment.

There is trash on the street instead of inside the street dumpsters, there are life-size posters promoting anti-xxx lining the walls of most buildings, there's a large abandoned warehouse with broken windows, and of course, the frequent theme that has characterized Rome-- grafitti. So, you can imagine my surprise when I walked into this palace. However, now that I've been here for a while and have gotten a better look at the neighborhood, it's actually not too bad. I do not feel unsafe walking around alone, especially when the sun is setting and there is a certain calmness.

In a way, this part of the city is not unlike New York; it is a Romanized NY if you will. There is the frequent smell of ciggaretts, trash, and fresh gasoline. Especially on weekday mornings when Manzoni is buzzing with pedestrians, mainly punk-rock high schoolers fresh off the metro. They kind of linger and hang out on the block next to the metro, smoking and chatting for a bit before finishing their walk to school.

Despite these imperfections, if you look closely, the Manzoni area does have a certain beauty about it. The people seem approachable, unlike people in other areas, there are grand, rustic buildings sprinkled throughout the quarters, and Rome's infamous Colloseum is within walking distance. The Colloseum is one of my favorite buildings in the city and I am glad it is one of the few buildings that has evaded all the grafitti. Manzoni may not be the quaint, stereotypical Italian town, but Manzoni does have a certain charm. It is beautiful in it's imperfections, and by now I have grown up enough to know that nothing is ever what it seems at first glance.

Art & Architecture

Rome has been quite an adventure thus far...

Friday night the group wanted to go out. I wasn't really in the mood because I was so tired, and I had class the next morning (yea, on a Saturday since we did not have class on Monday or Tuesday due to the holiday). But I went anyways since I did not go out the first time and I wascurious about Roman nightlife. I figured that since on the first night everyone went to the American bars, they had gotten that out of their system and we'd go to some cool Italian spot. We met at Piazza di Spagna and pre-gamed outside, attracting a lot of attention taking pictures and since we are a group of 33, it's hard not to get noticed lol.

We were there for about an hour or so waiting for everyone to arrive, but little did I know this would be the best part of the night...So, we start heading to Campo di Fiori (American bar area). The drunken "leaders" of the group said would be a 15min walk but actually ended up being 45min...it wouldn't have been a bad walk if I hadn't been wearing heels (ladies beware: there area cobblestones everywhere). We end up at The Drunken Ship and turned the entrance into a dance floor, dancing to Britney Spears all night (and by all night, i mean until they kicked us out about an hour later because they were closing).

Afterwards, everyone wanted to go to another place called Scholars, but it was around 2am and a couple of us wanted to get some sleep before class, so we decide to head home.

Warning: don't hold your breath for the night bus.

As we walked to the bus station, we see both busses we need (one behind the other) drive past us. We are screaming and running, but driver just shrugs and continues. One girl, not wearing heels, books it and catches up with one of the busses and he finally stops. He takes us to the main bus station, where we get off and wait for our connection. Oh, btw, on our walk to the bus station, a car full of italian men pulls up next to us (6 girls) and ask if we want a ride...tempting, but no.

So we are waiting at the bus station, and again, another car full of italian men pulls up and ask if we want a ride...but in retrospect, it might have been the same guys lol. When we are just about to give up and catch a cab, our bus pulls up (around 3:30am).

The next morning....

I wake up 20min before my class starts. It takes me about 3minutes to realize I will be late. Thank goodness I live close to the metro station and it is a quick ride to the school. I arrive to my first Art & Architecture class about 5min late.

I LOVE this class. It's basically an in-depth tour of Rome. On our first day, we saw where the Romans used to have their chariot races. Any person casually walking through the area would not have ever known this because it's basically a beautiful green field now with gorgeous ruins overlooking it. We saw Hercules' Temple, which was once a port for import/export, but due to changed landscape is now a street (the temple has been preserved, and is actually the oldest standing temple in Rome). The interesting thing about this class is that many of the things we'll see existed in ancient Rome, but now either do not exist or have been used to build other things.

Modern Rome is a city that has a constantly rising ground level. It has been built on top of other structures, so underneath a church, for example, could be another church. My professor, who is an archeologist, says that if we were to dig, we would find the entire ancient roman city underneath modern Rome. This is also why Rome only has two metro lines (the A and B lines), because if they were to add more, they would destroy the buildings underneath. Throughout the city one can find several major excavation projects and the ruins coming back to life. Very interesting.

Later that night we all went out again. However, because we are such a large group decisions could not be made and we spent most of the night walking around aimlessly again. But it was kind of nice because we went through several neighborhoods and piazze (plural for piazza), getting a feeling for the Italian nightlife. There were young italians all over the place chilling with friends outside of the pubs and restaurants, which make the streets very vibrant. I do not feel unsafe at all walking around at night. I usually go home alone, and I feel comfortable asking for directions. The Italians are very helpful, although they love to make directions up when they don't really know the answer. I found a bus that would take me to the metro, and on there I met a group of Bolivian students. I told them I was Dominican, and they told me to sit with them. We chatted for a little bit (group of 5 guys) and I found out they are 17 years old, in Rome for two more days, having a study tour through Europe. Very cool!

They happened to be getting off at my stop, so they walked me to the metro. When I told them I was going to the fùtbol match on Sunday, they got very jealous lol. At this point it was 1:20 am, which meant I only had 10min before the metro stopped running. So i RAN to the station, and apparantly I wasn't the only one-- I felt like I was in the running of the bulls, italian style lol. That was fun...I felt so Italian lol.

So last night...

Sunday, we went to the game (Roma vs. Milan). The stadium was packed! It was a gorgeous stadium though. Fun time, except for when I got lost trying to find my group on my way back from the bathroom...lost an earring lol (thank goodness that was the only thing). I drank a little too much wine, but overall it was a successful night.

Bienvenuti!

I arrived to Rome on Sunday Jan. 4th. The following accounts are emails I sent to my mom before I created the Blog*. However, now that I have this blog, I will be posting here instead of sending emails so everyone can share my experiences!

*It will be in present tense so assume it is that day.

Sunday Jan. 4, 2009

I arrived to Rome safe and sound. It is so cool here! It's not what I expected, but it's not worse than what I expected either. Today was such a long day! It's 9:30pm right now while you guys are just in the middle of your day! I've only had a 1 hour nap (which means I've been up for 1 day and 1/2)...so exhausted and sooo sick...I had a fever on the plane so the flight attendant gave me asprin. It helped for a little bit but I've been pushing myself through the day and it's been really tough. My throat is killing me!!! Im going to take nyquil before I hit the bed, but if Im not better by tomorrow then I'll go to the pharmacy and get antibiotics (we dont need prescriptions for those here, thank God!). But don't worry, I'm still having a good time.

So, today we arrived and I was surprised to notice that I was probably the lightest packed out of almost everyone (one boy brought a backpack and suitcase so he beat me) but it was still hard pulling it around...luckily that was only for a short period of time lol. After getting settled into the dorm rooms, which we'll be staying in until Tuesday, we had orientation and explored the neighborhood surrounding the school. It is very beautiful. It's a Sunday so a lot of things were closed, but we bought some food at a bar (snack bar of course) and it was delicious! I got a pizza unlike any other pizza I've ever tasted (yum!).

After that I took my one hour nap until the 2nd part of orientation in which we had a walking tour of Rome. We walked for about 4 hours from one end of Rome to the other. It was so amazing, so gorgeous, so...Italy! I felt I was ready to die because of my throat, but it was great. I didn't want to take a lot of pics though, because I wanted to just absorb the environment. So many things are different. After the tour we FINALLY went to dinner around 6:30pm (which is not the typical time for Italian dinner, usually around 8:30pm, but we'd been starving). Dinner was delicious, but again, the food was really scratching my throat so I couldn't really enjoy that. However, I am glad I came...just wish I hadn't arrived arrive sick :(

Tuesday Jan. 6, 2009

OMG! The past two days have been great! So much to tell...gotta b quick tho cuz dinner starts soon. Soooo where to start? ok I'll start with yesterday...

Yesterday I got a nice 12hrs of sleep hahaha I got to wake up at 10:30am. We had a short orientation and then went walking around Rome again. This time we went to Italiaidea which is the name of the school we will be having our 3hr Italian classes, it is located near Piazza di Spagna (where the Spanish Steps are). I had to take a placement exam and basically, if I do better than the intro level of Italian, I get credits for a higher level class at Loyola. For example, I've taken up to level 104 so since I know I did well on the exam, I'll get credits at Loyola for the next level which is 201. We spent a while at Italiaidea learning about the school and stuff.

Afterwards we went to this great pizzeria which are just like a nice restaurant lol I got some antibiotics so by that time I felt a lot better. The pharmacy was AMAZING lol Don't worry, I have not overmedicated myself. The pharmacist was so helpful too, just like a doctor lol After dinner everyone went out but I still wasnt feeling completely myself so I stayed in.

Today...I went to the Epiphany (the name of the holiday) Mass, in which the pope presided in Vatican City. The mass was held in St. Peter's Basilica, which is simply stunning. In March we have an audience with the pope, in which he basically blesses everyone and their objects in the middle of the plaza (or Piaza in italian) and it's kind of like a pep rally lol.

After the mass we seperated into groups to explore the neighborhoods we'll b living in while we are here. I just arrived about an hour ago to my host family's house. It's a HUGE and GORGEOUS apartment! I have my own room and it's basically my dream bedroom lol La mia mamma italiana, Maria Pia, and her daughters, Livia (19yrs) & Agnese (16yrs) seem so lovely and I can tell we'll quickly become a family. Oh, I even have a dog named Pongo (but he's really annoying).