Reflection

I set out on this adventure with nothing more ambitious than the will to explore. I had not taken a Spanish class in four years, no experience translating, I was only casually acquainted with poetry, and I had never heard of Rafael Alberti. Consumed by wanderlust, I applied to the program hoping for the opportunity not just to travel in Europe, but even more so for the opportunity to explore the Spanish language in a format I was unfamiliar with.

This particular seminar serves Spanish and Italian students well, and I felt out of place. I was a political science student, returning to school to complete a second degree in journalism… Spanish and poetry had very little to do with my academic ambitions and everything to do with my personal wishes. I love language and tried to convince myself that my contribution to the group, to compensate for my unrefined Spanish, would be my enthusiasm and passion for the language and the culture. I was definitely nervous about how I would fit in—I’m older than most of the students and I was certain that they would all be fluent with perfect grammar. I resolved myself to make friends with the Italian students so that we could struggle together!

I think perhaps it was my decision to emphasize my affinity for exploring and experiencing new cultures that led me to my blog. I have always kept a journal and I love to write. I was so excited about this seminar, despite my inhibitions, and all of my friends and family truly seemed to share that joy with me as I prepared for departure. Unexpectedly, my grandmother, whom I was very close to, passed away a few days before I flew to Madrid. I seriously considered canceling my trip, but my entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins, encouraged me to go anyway. I left my grandmother’s funeral and went straight to the airport and until I landed in Madrid I was still uncertain that I could do this. I was terrified at the idea of leaving my family, my mother especially, during such a time of grief. I felt selfish and guilty. But everyone close to me had been so insistent that I continue with my plans to travel and study and I wanted some way to include them in my adventure.

I started to blog. It was so easy and natural and allowed me to write about my experiences in a format that was easy for my family and friends to access at their convenience. I could include photos and links and the best part was that no one had to feel guilty if they didn’t have time to read! Unknowingly I took on a project that connected my academic pursuits—journalism—to my personal ones; I was travel-writing. But the blog format was not a perfect way to communicate the true value of this seminar. Perhaps, just as Alberti needed the fusion of words and image, I needed some sort of hybrid too.

Alberti truly acted as an ambassador for me. I have been lucky enough to travel quite a bit in my life already, but I’ve always had the fortune of choosing where I go. Carrying around this internal conflict of wanting to be home, caring for my family, and wanting very much to just let myself enjoy traveling was not easy. I began to understand what Alberti must have lived with, the sense of belonging in one place, but occupying another. It would have been easy for me to allow my grandmother’s passing to displace my enthusiasm for this seminar, but it would have been a static and ineffective choice. I found tremendous inspiration in Alberti’s ability to seek new life and happiness in the cities he came to live in after he defected from Spain.

The time we spent in Spain, most importantly in Cádiz, brought Alberti to life. His love of the sea, of the rhythm of Spanish life, of southern culture and mysticism, of fish and wind, these quickly became grand, tangible characters to me and I fell in love with them too. Suddenly I no longer felt the heavy pull to be at home in Seattle with my family, I wanted to stay, to belong to this beautiful place. I realized, slowly at first, that we will all carry joy and sadness within us for the duration of our lives. How we assimilate the two, how we balance and manage this dialectic will determine the path and quality of our days.
Alberti never moved on, or got over Spain, he never forgot his love for his home, his family, his childhood. Despite his exile, Alberti found poetry and rhythm and life in Rome. He wrote of Rome, in the poems we translated, as another dichotomy—he both loved and hated the city, embraced and denied her. But I never actually believed that his arboleta perdida was ever truly lost. I thought he must have carried it with him always, just as he carried his love for la vida gaditana through to his return to his country later in his life. He must have always loved María Teresa, even when she passed, even when he remarried. From Alberti I learned that we don’t need to move on or away from things we loved or things that were painful, we simply need to accept them so that we can carry them with us, taking our home wherever we may be.

As I walked around Rome in the evening and came upon the Trevi Fountain I suddenly knew that I had brought my grandmother and my family with me. I carried them with me to see Guernica, to see Velasquez and Goya, to see the Atlantic stretch on forever, to see the Pantheon and the Sistine Chapel, to see me throw two coins over my shoulder into the water of the Trevi. One to return to Rome, and one for everyone at home who should come here and see for themselves what poets have been writing about for ages.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I sneak into the Rome Center to use their internet, but run out of time to get any real work done before I have to meet the girls at the Bruno statue. We’re going out to lunch and then we’re walking up the Gianocolo together to meet for class at the Spanish Embassy so we can rehearse our poetry reading.

We do a couple runs through, and it seems pretty smooth for everyone. I’m really excited, but I’m trying to tell myself that it’s not going to be as big of a deal as I may think. I’ll have to keep remembering to slow down my reading. It’s poetry, after all, every word is meant to count.

I don’t have time to explore today, I have work to do!

Dinner is just me and Dave, we eat a zucchini frittata and spaghetti pomodoro—delicious!

Tomorrow will most likely be all work too, sorry!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I meet a bunch of girls down at Campo de’ Fiori. We’re determined to see the Sistine Chapel today. I mean to take a scarf or a t-shirt to cover my shoulders, but I forget in my hurry to have enough time to buy a bus pass since mine just expired.

We meet without fuss and walk to the Vatican together, consumed, the entire time, with worrying that they won’t let us into the museum with bare shoulders. We try to convince ourselves that no, it’s just the Basilica that you need appropriate dress for… but we’re really not so sure. I at least wore jeans to cover up those sinful knees of mine. But of course, when we round the final corner to enter the museum, there’s a moment of relief because there’s no real line, but guard won’t let my naked shoulders pass.

Out of the corner of my eye I spy a little shop across the street with cheap scarves hanging in the window. I take off, dodging traffic with practiced apathy, and pick a pretty scarf and plunk down my coin. I run back to meet the girls, who are waiting for me, and drape the scarf over my shoulders. I do a little model pose and a half twirl for the guard, asking, “How’s this, better?” He smiles and actually blushes as he says, “Perfect. Thank you very much.” I’m sort of touched by how genuine he is and throw him another shoulder toss as I say “Of course! Of course!” and pass on through.



I try my best to get us a cheap school group rate, but we would need to show a letter from our university (fat chance) so we all just rally to pay for our individual entry fees. Fourteen euro is a small fortune, but it’s the Sistine Chapel for St. Pete’s sake, so what can you do? I get up to the ticketing booth and plunk down my 20 euro bill and the man in the booth points to a small sign with a photo of the International Student Card which not only do I not have with me, but I never actually put my photo in it or signed it so I’m not sure it would work anyway. I shake my head and pull a pouty face. He laughs and exclaims, “Bella!” then asks me how old I am. Remembering that student discounts in Europe are only good up to a certain age, I lie and tell him I’m twenty-two. He laughs at me again, shakes his head and says, “No, no, eighteen maybe!” takes my twenty and gives me ten back in change—charging me the student discount fee. I thank him and he winks and me as he says, “Ciao, bella!” I like to call that the blonde discount. It’s good all over Italy and most parts of Spain.





It takes forever to get to the Sistine Chapel. I’m sure there’s a direct route, but they make us carve through this maze of a route. We’re all getting impatient and it’s crowded and hot and we just want to see the ceiling and get out of there… Cortney keeps asking, is this it? And it never is. I tell her, just wait, suddenly everyone will be looking straight up.



Sure enough we enter the Sistine Chapel and everyone is craning their necks up. The guards are screaming “SILENCIO” at the top of their lungs, the irony of which is not lost on me, but I’m worried if I snicker that I’ll be thrown in the dungeon at the Castel Sant’ Angelo. You know, the Sistine Chapel is smaller than I expected. It’s different. I’m glad I saw it, especially because Tony told us all that if we go to Rome and don’t see the Sistine Chapel we’re sure to burn in hell. Well, all I know is that St. Peter, the holy bouncer, holds the keys to heaven and I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll rather hear from me that I went to his church and rubbed a little more of his foot off…



As we exit, we stop in at the Vatican post office. I write out a quick note to Grandpa Rolly, since he used to collect stamps and mail it right there. The Vatican, being sovereign and not actually a part of Rome or Italy or any nation, has its own postage currency and its own postmark. Basically, because Vatican City is about five square miles, that means that this is one of the rarest postmarks in the world. Well, probably not considering how many tourists come through here with the same idea as me!



We hustle back to Campo de’ Fiori to meet with Tony and Giuseppe for our individual conferences about our final projects. There’s still so much work to be done!

I head home early to get cracking on my work. Dave and Paola and I have a lovely dinner of gnocchi with a combination sauce of pomodoro and pesto. I’m up late working, but that’s how it goes… play hard, work harder.

Monday, September 8, 2008

We meet for class at Piazza Farnese. I arrive early because I’ve mastered the bus routes and now know how to reduce my walking on the way to class to three city blocks. Jennifer and Alan arrive and I’m so excited to meet him. They’re coming for dinner at the house tonight and I can’t wait!

Giuseppe is our troop-leader today; Tony is off on important business. We set out for the Ghetto, the original Ghetto, Rome’s Jewish quarter. The neighborhood looks beautiful, but Giuseppe reminds us that not very long ago the entire quarter was enclosed with fences that were locked at curfew. Worse, whenever Jews left the Ghetto they were required to wear a yellow hat to reveal themselves as different. The synagogue, a stoic building, sits at the end of the quarter, near the river. A giant iron fence with mounted surveillance cameras surrounds it and a guard sits in a little booth on the corner. Giuseppe explains that only a few years ago someone set off a bomb in the front of the building and since then the Synagogue has no longer been open to the public.



We walk around the building, and Giuseppe points out a dedication to the lives lost in the holocaust. I’m struck by the absence of any acknowledgment of the part Italy played in the tragedies of World War II and the holocaust. In fact, I’m suddenly a little unnerved by it. The United States has many powerful monuments, memorials, and museums to recognize one of the most world-altering eras in history, despite our limited participation in the conflict. Germany had made a conscious effort to place plaques, dedications, memorials, and museums everywhere to ensure that history is not forgotten, that mistakes are not denied nor repeated. But Italy? In fact, the only memorials or museums are those belonging to the Synagogue here in the Ghetto. I’m a little disgusted. Especially because Italians are not shy about their continued prejudice against Jews.

We leave the Ghetto and I’m almost certain that progress in this city, once the center of the world, halted a long time ago.




We walk along the river until we arrive at a park with two temples. This is where Hercules docked in Rome, bringing the first cows to sell at market and establishing the very first stock-trade. This is the spot where the twins, Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf (or old mother she-wolf, if you prefer). Giuseppe points out the hills of Rome rising around us. Atop one once lay the Jewish cemetery, then it became the center for the Knights of Malta, and now a residential area home to the wealthy.



We don’t have far to go to reach the Greek Orthodox church, most notably home to the Boca della Verità. We line up for our chance to put our hand in the mouth, legend states that if you put your hand in and you have a dishonest soul, the face will bite off your hand. Giuseppe assures us that it’s just a legend, but we all joke about whom to bet on for losing their hand…





We walk to Circus Maximus, the scene of that great chariot race in Ben-Hur. It’s just a really big field and even though it would be cruel in this heat, I wish there were horses to rent so I could tear around the track. To the far end of the field, opposite us, one could reach the Appian Way—the very first freeway and the road all great heroes took when returning to Rome.



This is Roma Antigua, where ancient temples lie in ruin or became the skeletal structures for new churches. We pass a massive amphitheater and the last-standing corners of temples, jutting out like cracked teeth. We walk between the amphitheater and the ruin of an old temple that may or may not be in the process of restoration. Blonde Megan notices bones spilling out of a disturbed grave… this city is old.





We walk to the Campidoglio, the capitol building, where the original statue of the she-wolf rests safely in a museum. The courtyard and building layout were designed by Michelangelo, who I jokingly call the Paul Revere of Rome (I think only Gretchen will get that). From the back of the Campidoglio we can see a view of the form and the Colosseum. It’s incredible. Giuseppe points out the tomb of Romulus where people continue to leave flowers to this day.






After this, it’s time for gelato and some shade. Then a few of us girls set out to see the tomb of Rafael, housed discretely in the Pantheon. We’ve seen plenty for today and head home. Jennifer and Alan arrive and we all sit down to eat a lovely dinner of spaghetti carbonara (Paola leaves the meat out of mine!) and then head out for gelato. I’m so excited to chat with Alan, since Jennifer has told me so many wonderful things about him, that I’m pretty sure I talk his ear off!

It was a nice evening and I hug Jennifer goodbye—she and Alan are leaving soon for Madrid and I probably won’t see her til I’m stateside in two weeks. It seems like so far off, but time goes quickly.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

I wake up way too early for how late I was out. It’s insanely hot and I’m pretty sure I’ve been sweating all night. I get up and eat breakfast and then lie about the house trying to find any place with cool ventilation. It’s impossible, even the fans seem to make it worse. The weight of the humid air is oppressive and I miss the beach in Spain terribly. I’m feeling sorry for myself when Alice asks me if I have seen one of the cats. Piggy is missing and we can hear him crying, but he’s nowhere to be found. Paola, Alice, and I look all over the apartment for almost an hour. Then I hear sounds of triumph and Alice consoling the poor cat. Davide left early this morning for the south of Italy, where he will begin training with the National Military Service. He slept on the pullout bed in the living room last night and apparently when Paola folded the bed up, Piggy was inside the couch and was trapped there for hours this morning! I’m the only one who thinks this is hilarious, so I laugh to myself about it.

Paola goes out to walk Billi, and when she returns she tells me that it’s too hot to go out and no humans are outside. Later in the afternoon, Dave and I venture out for gelato and discover that Paola is in fact right. There are almost no people out. The stores are closed, the streets are deserted. It’s like the scene after the zombies attack.

We enjoy our ice cream and then go back to the house to be miserable in the heat. It’s a long way to dinner and it’s too hot to eat anyway. I’m relieved that dinner is light, lox, ricotta and grilled eggplant. Then I hit the sack, trying to ignore the weather.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I meet the girls in Campo de’ Fiori and we hit the pavement to do a little sight-seeing and some souvenir shopping. Saturday is not the day to be out and about in Rome. There are so many people and the traffic is awful so getting anywhere on the bus takes forever. The shops are crowded and the sights are impossible. We wander in and out of churches and walk then entire length of Via del Corso, passing by the Spanish Steps which are swarming with tourists.

We cut the day short, it’s too hot, and we’re going to meet up later anyway. At home I eat saffron risotto with Alice and Davide. It’s the best thing I’ve had to eat so far. Paola is not eating with us because she has a date with her regazzo! She’s getting done up in a little black dress and has these incredible shoes on. After she leaves the kids fill me in on her boyfriend. Apparently he’s a body-builder type and looks a bit like Sylvester Stallone so they call him “Sly.”

Billi, the dog, is not too happy to have his mama out of the house and starts to get even more worried when I get ready to go out.

I meet up with the girls at Piazza Trilussa which appears to be an established hangout for the scrappy youth of Rome. We walk all over, ducking into various bars and clubs until we end up at yet another Irish bar. I walk in and immediately walk out. It’s all Americans and totally overcrowded. We stand outside and I practice my Italian with some locals, mixing in Spanish when I have to. I have more fun standing outside the bar chatting in crummy Italian that I had anywhere else. I’m even more determined to learn the language.

Friday, September 5, 2008

I meet Carin at Bar Biscione, where we’ve been meeting for class. It’s directly across the way from the UW Rome Center and I managed to get the password for their wireless network so we can jack internet from them, even though they’ve shunned us and won’t even let me in to puke in their bathroom…

Cortney is supposed to be meeting us too, but after an hour of waiting, we figure, she must be sleeping. No big deal. As I check my email and all that good stuff—wasting time, like one can only do on the internet—I get an email from Cortney, who did oversleep and feels awful. So of course, being the hardworking genius, she immediately gets tough on our sonnet and starts sending me all of these incredible solutions she’s had for some of our problems. With Cortney’s long-distance help we are able to finish a much stronger draft of our sonnet.

We linger around this café enough that one of the servers makes friends with us, especially when we learn she’s from Columbia and she learns that most of us speak Spanish! Wendy is her name and she and I hit it off immediately. She invites all of the girls to come out dancing with her tonight. She and I exchange phone numbers and make arrangements to meet later.

I do nothing but homework until it’s time for dinner. Paola is surprised to see me home early and comes into my room to ask me if I’m okay! She’s so sweet and I try to explain in my faltering beginner’s Italian that I have piles of homework. She understands and offers to make me some coffee!

I eat with just Alice, Davide, and Paola tonight, Jennifer has left to stay at a friend’s apartment until her husband, Alan comes to join her and the other American student, Dave, is eating out. We eat ensalata buffalo which is basically fresh tomato and mozzarella and amazingly enough I think the tomatoes are really good!

Then it’s time to get dolled up and hit the town!