Tag: bcn

Arrivederci, Roma!

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Our two weeks in Rome were wonderful. After constantly moving around for the first few weeks of the trip, it was nice to get to settle in and stay in one place for a while. We’ve been busy, though. We spent most of our days touring, exploring the city’s 2700-year-old history first-hand. We’ve seen everything from the crumbling ruins of the Roman Empire to the impossibly beautiful churches of the Renaissance to the simpler (and hideously boring) architecture of Fascist Italy. We’ve toured churches and museums, seen some of the most significant art and architecture of the last few thousand years, and learned so much about the culture and history of this city.

Interspersed with all this touring are free afternoons and entire free days, and we’ve used this time to rest and to experience and explore the city. Between the 23 of us, we’ve spent countless hours (and countless euros) shopping, gone to mass at the Vatican, visited jazz clubs, gone dancing, strolled through open-air markets, gone on picnics in the city’s sprawling gardens, and gone running along the banks of the Tiber River. We’ve even gone to a professional soccer match and were amazed and overwhelmed by the sounds of cannon-fire and fight songs, the sight of massive red and yellow flags waving all around us …and the smell of cigarettes.

It’s surreal and wonderful just being here in this country, and being here with such incredible people has made this trip all the more amazing! In case you can’t tell, I’m more than a little excited about this adventure and the people with whom I’m sharing it. Everything about this trip has been wonderful! We’re almost four weeks into this Italian adventure, and I’m honestly still loving every moment. I still wake up every morning just as excited, just as amazed that I’m actually here.  It’s actually really sad to think that our trip is over halfway over; I don’t want it to end!

You should be hearing from us a lot in the next few weeks, not only from the official blog writers but from our classmates as well, writing about their own experiences in Rome and the cities to come. Stay tuned! We’re heading to Florence next—the city of Dante and Petrarch, Michelangelo and da Vinci, the birthplace of the Renaissance. I honestly can’t wait! There’s so much to see and do and experience in this country, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead!

– Brian
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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Week One: The Adventure Continues

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A little more than a week ago, I never could have imagined we would see and experience some of the things we have in the last few days. Eating octopus and swordfish, exploring two-thousand-year-old ruins, wandering through cities and hiking mountains… it’s been an amazing adventure! Italy is such an incredible country, and almost every day we’ve been here has been better and more beautiful than the last.

We’re still in the “classical” phase of the trip, so the sights we’ve explored have mostly been from ancient Greek and Roman history. Last Wednesday we left Agrigento for Syracuse, and on the way we stopped at a 4th-century Roman villa with the largest collection of classical mosaics anywhere in the world. In Syracuse and Taormina, we visited crumbling temples and enormous Greek theaters. This country has such an amazingly rich history, and I’m finding it fascinating to actually visit the places and monuments we studied in class earlier this semester!

Now that we’ve gotten over our jet lag, most of us are adjusting to the slower Italian pace of life. In America, many people seem to rush through their days and their lives, seldom taking the time to just relax and enjoy the day. Here, businesses close at midday, and people take a few hours just to eat, rest, and enjoy their time with the people they love. A few days ago, a few friends and I gave it a try. We sat outside at a restaurant by the water, talking and eating, barely noticing the three hours that passed us by. This entire lifestyle is truly incredible, and a part of me wishes me never had to leave!

For me—and, I know, for many others—the highlight of the trip has been Taormina. The city was built into the side of a mountain, and our hotel had the kind of view poets used to write about. Mount Etna towers over the horizon, covered in snow, almost too beautiful to be real. As the sun sets, stars and city lights burn against the darkening sky, and the Mediterranean Sea spreads off into eternity. It is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and words and pictures can never begin to capture it. Honestly, I don’t think anything can ever top that experience… but I’ve said that before on this trip and been proven wrong. I just can’t get over how amazing this country is! Now, we’ve left Sicily and arrived in mainland Italy, and I can’t wait to see what adventures await us in the days and weeks to come!

– Brian
Blog Team
Italy 2012

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Eh, Cumpari!

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By now, you know a little about the 23 of us and about our program itself, but it might help to know a little about what these past few weeks on campus have been like.  We’re in class each day from 11:30 or 12:30 until between 4 and 5, with a short break between classes for lunch and last-minute reading.  We have four classes—Roman Civilization, Modern Italian History, Shakespeare’s Europe, and Italian Publics—and to a large extent these classes are student-driven. We are responsible, for example, for leading discussion in English class and for presenting on the daily reading in our classics and communications classes.

The work-load (several hundred pages of reading each week, plus papers, presentations, and tests) can be overwhelming, but it can also be immensely rewarding. The things we’re learning in one course reinforce what we’re learning in every other course, and in only a few weeks, we’ve learned an incredible amount about the culture and history of Italy.

We’ve even picked up a little Italian along the way! This week, we had an introductory Italian lesson from the head of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Throughout the semester, we’ve slowly been learning a few basic Italian words and phrases, but this was by far our most intense and most extensive lesson. All things considered, I think we’re doing rather well; we can say good morning and good night, and we can count to 23. That’s all we’ll need to know… right?

Now, as impossible as it seems, we only have two more weeks on campus. Two more weeks of classes and presentations and papers. Two more weeks until this adventure we’ve been looking forward to for over a year finally begins.

Somewhere between studying Petrarch and the Roman Empire, between watching Italian movies and learning “Eh Cumpari!” (“Hey Friend,” an Italian novelty song with a frustratingly catchy beat), I’ve realized I’m surrounded by 22 truly amazing people. And looking around the classroom each afternoon, I know there is no other group with whom I would rather share this experience.

Two more weeks. I think I speak for everyone when I say… I can’t wait!

Brian Neumann
Blog Team
Italy 2012