Favorite City: Barcelona, Spain
Honorable Mention: Paris, France
Favorite Place in Rome: the Pantheon
Honorable Mention: Piazza del Popolo
Best Column Hugged: Temple of Hephaestus, Athens, Greece
Honorable Mention: Roman Forum, Rome, Italy
Best Building: Pantheon, Rome, Italy
Honorable Mention: Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain
Best Church: Notre Dame, Paris, France
Honorable Mention: St. Vitus, Prague, Czech Republic
Best Dome: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontana, Rome, Italy
Honorable Mention: Sat Ivo, Rome, Italy
Best Museum: Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany
Honorable Mention: Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece
Most Beautiful Place: Oia, Santorini, Greece
Honorable Mention: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Best Hike: Fira to Oia, Santorini, Greece
Honorable Mention: Corniglia to Vernazza, Cinque Terre, Italy
Best Food: Barcelona, Spain
Honorable Mention: Athens, Greece
Best Gelato: Giolitti’s
Honorable Mention: Gelato del Teatro
Best Bar/Club: Shari Vari, Rome, Italy
Honorable Mention: Dow Jones, Barcelona, Spain
Best Shopping: Istanbul, Turkey
Honorable Mention: Florence, Italy
Best Public Transit: Barcelona, Spain
Honorable Mention: Berlin, Germany
Best Train Station: London St. Pancras, London, England
Honorable Mention: Milano Centrale, Milan, Italy
Best Airport: London Heathrow, London, England
Honorable Mention: Athens International, Athens, Greece
Best Airline: Aegean Air
Honorable Mention: British Airways
Best Drivers: Interlaken, Switzerland
Honorable Mention: Prague, Czech Republic
Friendliest People: Edinburgh, Scotland
Honorable Mention: London, England
Most Attractive Men: Budapest, Hungary
Honorable Mention: Edinburgh, Scotland
Furthest North: Stirling, Scotland
Furthest South: Fira, Santorini, Greece
Furthest East: Istanbul, Turkey
Furthest West: Stirling, Scotland
Countries (13):
France
England
Italy
Vatican City
Spain
Germany
Greece
Turkey
Czech Republic
Hungary
Austria
Scotland
Switzerland
Cities (37):
Paris
London
Rome
Florence
Pompeii
Positano
Sorrento
Milan
Venice
Barcelona
Berlin
Athens
Oia
Fira
Istanbul
Prague
Ostia
Caprarola
Bagnaia
Budapest
Vienna
Capua
Paestum
Tivoli
Orvieto
Pisa
Manarola
Corniglia
Vernazza
La Spezia
Edinburgh
Stirling
Munich
Hohenschwangau
Luzern
Interlaken
Lauterbrunnen
Currencies (6):
Euro
British Pound
Hungarian Forint
Turkish Lira
Czech Crown
Swiss Franc
Things that are better in Europe:
-Cheaper and fresher groceries
-International travel is easier
-Public transportation (except for Rome)
-The beauty of everyday things
Things that are better in the US:
-Free public bathrooms
-Greater variety of food in a single city
-Eating dinner before 9 pm
-DRYERS
I’ve gained about 10 pounds. Yes, TEN. When you eat nothing but pizza, pasta, paninis and gelato (literally every single day) for 5 months, it’s not really a surprise. I don’t really regret anything. In fact, if I had to do it over, I’d eat gelato twice a day, every day. I miss Giolitti’s SO MUCH.
I have to admit; Rome didn’t truly feel like my home until near the end of the semester (even if I told you guys otherwise in this blog). Sure, I liked the cobblestones and delicious gelato, but for me, Rome was just a vehicle for other international travel. It was my chance to see the world. It wasn’t until April, when we weren’t given any travel weekends and we were “forced” (as if it’s a bad thing) to stay in the city, that Rome actually began to feel like home. I started getting attached to the dirty streets and the loud Italian arguments, just in time for me to have to leave it.
Now I miss Rome dearly and wish I would have appreciated it more in the first month or so that I was there, when I was more focused on getting out into Europe instead. I consider Rome my second home behind Dallas, and one of the most comforting things about it is that if I go back in 10, 20, 30 years from now, I know it will be exactly the same, standing as beautifully as it was when I left it.
Speaking of leaving Rome, I have a dramatic story from my last day. After dropping off my luggage in storage before my two week travel with Robby, Caity and I walked across the city and said goodbye to all of our favorite monuments. The Colosseum and the Forum were busy as ever, but luckily those monuments give everyone equal amounts of attention, so we found our moment to say goodbye. We ordered our last (large) cone of gelato from Giolitti’s and ate it by the Trevi Fountain, where we threw in another coin to ensure our return to Rome… you know, just in case the first one didn’t count or something. We strolled down the Via del Corso, waving goodbye to the 4 story Zara and H&M as we passed, towards Piazza del Popolo. We stood in front of the obelisk and looked down all 3 diverging streets. We found one of those annoying flower salesmen and actually purchased flowers, for once. We then walked to the tomb of Augustus and Caity weaved her flower into the fence around his mausoleum.
By this point, we had said goodbye to everything else, so we had only the Pantheon left. As if to make this into a movie, the sky opened up and started raining as soon as we headed to the Pantheon. We stood silently outside in the rain and stared at the temple front… for like, a really long time. I started to tear up, and I heard people around me whispering from underneath their umbrellas. We finally mustered up the courage to walk inside one last time, to find that they had roped off the center because of the rain coming through the oculus.
It was my last day in Rome and all I wanted was to stand in the center of the Pantheon, so after checking for guards, I hopped the rope. I stood and enjoyed the rain for a moment before bending down and placing my rose on the wet marble floor. That’s when I lost it. Tears, everywhere (not very well masqueraded by the rain). I returned to the proper side of the rope where Caity and I just stood and cried for a solid 5 minutes. People were probably wondering what on earth was going on, but after a few minutes had passed, we started to hear the excited gasps newly arrived visitors surprised by the rose. It was then that we decided to leave, but not before hugging one last column.
Many people know that the semester before Rome, or “Comp Studio” as we call it, is a brutal one. The late nights that architecture school is known for are pushed into even later nights, which usually end up being early mornings with no “night” at all. Class is held every single day, Saturdays and Sundays included, and you have to say goodbye to even the least time consuming extra curricular activities. You wake up every day feeling inadequate and stupid and beaten down. There were days I cried to my mom on the phone telling her I couldn’t emotionally handle going to school that day. If Rome weren’t the light at the end of that long, dark Comp tunnel, I would have quit.
But getting to go to Rome after a semester from hell was an unbelievable rejuvenation. The world went from being somewhere I didn’t want to be anymore to this beautiful, wondrous, inspiring place. And what’s more, I started thinking of myself as an integral part of it. I realized that I, as a living soul and human being, mattered more than what I, as a student, can produce in a studio. I started living (reasonably) selfishly, putting myself before my work, seeing the world that I wanted to see in a way that I knew could bring me back to the happy life I lived before the fall of 2015. I found myself the streets of Rome (YES yes I KNOW this sounds incredibly cheesy!!). In my Travel Writing class, we read Eat, Pray Love, and there was one particular quote that stuck out to me in describing my semester, and my transition back to my happy self:
“I came to Italy pinched and thin. I did not know yet what I deserved. I still maybe don’t fully know what I deserve. But I do know that I have collected myself of late – through the enjoyment of harmless pleasures – into somebody much more intact. The easiest, most fundamentally human way to say it is that I have put on weight. I exist more now than I did four months ago. I will leave Italy noticeably bigger than when I arrived here. And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person – the magnification of one life – is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody’s but my own.”
On a lighter note, some of you may be interested to learn that my Turkish coffee-ground fortune came true. I met a man named Benjamin about 2 weeks before I left Rome. He was from Israel, but lived in Rome to study medicine. Just as the Khave Fali predicted, we shared romantic walks along the Tiber River and engaged in great conversation. I taught him about architecture and he taught me about medicine. He played an instrument (the guitar), just like the Khave Fali said he would. Of course, the prediction that it would be short lived and end amicably was also correct, seeing as I left Rome shortly after meeting him. Benjamin and I still talk often, and he shares his dreams of moving to the United States once he becomes an official doctor, so maybe I’ll see him again someday. But even if not, wow, what a great way to end my time in Rome (also now my friends are even more optimistic about their romantic fortunes coming true, too).
Oh also, I met Cindy Crawford. She was filming a commercial at our school one day during finals week. Perks of going to school in a palace.
So that’s… it. I guess I’m officially out of things to share. I’ve had lots of people ask if I am going to continue this blog now that I’m home, but as much as I love traveling and as much as I love writing, I think I like the idea of having a little, self-contained European journal. I love that I can look back at this whenever I need to remind myself of how beautiful the world really is (probably while I’m working in studio at 2:00 in the morning).
So since I don’t really know how to summarize this semester in my own words, I’ll use someone else’s:
“Live, travel, adventure, bless and don’t be sorry.” -Jack Kerouac
Number of Columns Hugged: 0 (BECAUSE AMERICA IS TERRIBLE)
Days Since Mexican Food: 1
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Read more from Haley at https://haleywalton.wordpress.com/
To find out more about the U of A Rome Center semester program for Architecture, visit http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecentersemester/
