Hello again readers! Today was our orientation day for the UARK Rome
Center which is held in a gorgeous building of which the name is
currently escaping me! It has a beautiful courtyard (that we are
unfortunately not allowed to congregate in), old marble stairs, and
private entrance so it is not accessible by tourists. It’s is about a 10
minute walk from my apartment across the river so that will make it
manageable for me to make it to my 8:30 AM classes. Orientation began at
9:30 AM and ended around 4 PM with a lunch break from 12:30-2:00 (or
12:30-14:00 as they say here). For lunch we found a pre-made pizza
restaurant just outside of the Rome Center and ate there. My pizza was
5.50 euros and it was enough to fill me up. I had the buffalo pizza (no
not like the animal, like the cheese; it’s one of the most popular types
of cheese here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_mozzarella)
which was just red sauce, huge chunks of buffalo cheese, and basil.
After lunch, we went back up and listened to more presentations.After we were done with orientation, a group of us decided to go to Piazza Navona which is about 5 minutes from the Rome Center building. There, we went inside of a 17th century baroque church called Sant’ Agnese in Agone and it was breathtaking. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of it since there was a strict no photos policy inside of the church, but you can google it and see pictures of the inside on the wikipedia page. Inside the church, when I looked up, I saw the beautiful painting on the dome which reminded me of the painting in the capitol building in Washington D.C. I know that the paintings are completely different, but something in the Sant’ Agnese church’s dome just reminded me of the one in D.C. It was nice to have a sense of familiarity in this foreign country, even if it was a fleeting moment.
Just outside of the church was a beautiful fountain that again I didn’t take any pictures of (sorry guys I’ll take more later, it’s just nice to be able to take everything in now). We stood by it for a couple of minutes admiring the hustle and bustle of the square. Piazza Navona is exactly what I pictured before I came over here when I was picturing Rome using past experiences with movies and pictures and though using my memory. It was crowded but not too crowded (unlike the streets by the Tiber River in the morning and evening), had shops lining the square, had a fountain, and had a church. That is where it sank in for me that Rome will be my home for the next month.
Once we had decided that we were finished seeing Piazza Navona, we decided to head towards Vatican City. My friends Jacob and Brock wanted to see it and it is near my apartment so my roommate Christine, some other friends from another apartment, and I decided to tag along. It was about 20 or 25 minute walk from Piazza Navona up to the Vatican, but it was worth it. Below you’ll find my pictures from this post. The one in top left corner is of the Vatican from before the square. The one in the bottom left corner is after walking up next to it. It is quite amazing to me how much different the Vatican looks when you can’t see St. Peter’s Dome! There were people inside of the square setting up for a rosary recital at 6 pm when we were there at 5:15. While admiring the beauty of the Vatican, we met a couple from North Carolina who had been traveling around Europe for 2 weeks and were traveling around Italy for the next week before heading home. They stopped us to ask a question and admitted that they asked us because they heard us speaking fluent English and didn’t want to have to translate.
After the Vatican, Christine, Brock, Jacob, Alexis, and I went back
to my apartment to drop off our stuff before heading out to the grocery
store. Tonight, we went to a much larger grocery store where I got some
American favorites (ritz, pringles, and powerade) and some new things
like random crackers and Italian chocolate meal bars. We brought the
stuff back to the apartment and rested our feet from 6:30 to 7:30 until
the girls from another apartment met us at my apartment to walk to
dinner. We ended up crossing the bridge to go to dinner and ate right
around where the Rome Center is at this outdoor pizza restaurant. If
there’s one thing I’ve learned so far from being in Italy, it’s that it
is totally okay to eat pizza for lunch and dinner.For dinner, my friends Kristin, Christie, Alexis, and I split a bottle of Rose. Kristen, Christie, and I ended up splitting two Margherita pizzas as well while Alexis got his own. And I know that if you read my post from yesterday, you’ll probably remember that I ate a Margherita pizza for lunch. I am an extremely picky eater and in Italy, a Margherita pizza is the equivalent of our cheese pizza in America (which if you know me you know that is the only type of pizza I will eat). I am trying to broaden my horizons but I was hungry so I wanted to make sure that I got enough to eat! Diner was delicious once again but we were still a little hungry, so we decided to head out to find a gelato shop.
This task did not prove to be difficult at all because gelato shops in Rome are on almost every corner. We found this cute little shop called Frigidarium where I got the gelato you see me with in the middle picture below for only 2 euros. To my left in the middle picture is Christine and in the middle is my new friend Kristin. Kristin is also in the picture on the far right with me. The gelato we all chose was similar to a cookies and cream and it was the best thing I’ve eaten since being in Rome. Christine and I got ours dipped in chocolate while Kristin just ate hers plain. I hope that all of the walking I did today (roughly 9 miles) “cancels out” all of the gelato I will be eating on the trip
Ciao!
Taylor
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Read more from Taylor at https://taylorsitalianavventura.wordpress.com/
Check out http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecampus for more information on the U of A Rome Center: Summer Campus.
