Days 5 & 6

The last two full days in Rome were relatively uninteresting (no tours or anything) so I am going to consolidate them into one post.

Day 5 started out typically: Wake, shower, breakfast, class. In class we delved deeper into how Greek society and city states began to evolve and especially the difference between Sparta and Athens (Sparta was radically communist while Athens was radically democratic). We also looked into how the history we know now was recorded.

After class I went to the internet café with a girl from my class, let’s call her Hal (I don’t like putting people’s actual names on the internet without their permission). Hal and I helped each other out with our myth presentations for a bit before heading back to the hotel. On the way back I stopped in the pizzeria and grabbed myself a slice of what looked like cheese pizza with bits of hotdog on it. Whatever it was, it was good. I decided my room was boring so I crashed in Hal, Lye, and Anne’s room with a bunch of other people. Most of them were in the photography class and were trying to complete some of their assignments (which seem really cool by the way).One person had the idea to open up the window for a kind of aerial shot. Once we did this we realized that there was about a 3’ ledge with perfect room for sitting. The next little bit was spent by me and a new friend Sey watching the world go by from this window. I had asked a few times about going down and finding a grocery store for snacks for the room. Finally Sey agreed that she needed to get out so we went and found a giant drugstore/supermarket. It had the variety of a Wal-Mart. There Sey and I stocked up on chips, chocolate, wafers, orange juice and other such necessities. We came back to find that Lye, Hal and some others were trying to get some actual work done so we went into Sey, Air and Ico’s room next door. Sey and I played war on the ledge while we all enjoyed our snacks and the other two read and listened to music. By this time my own room already had accumulated visitors and I wasn’t exactly welcomed warmly.

We went to dinner at 7:00 and had the same kind of food again; pasta course, meat course and dessert course. I can’t quite remember what we had each day but I do know that none of it was bad. After dinner we had a choice to go down to a piazza with the teachers and watch the world cup Spain-Germany game on a public screen or hang out on our own. Originally I had planned to go to the piazza, but it became apparent that most people figured out they could watch the game with their friends other places without the teachers supervising, so there weren’t many heading out. Instead, I went with Lye, Sey, Hal, Anne, Ico to show Anna the Trevi fountain (she missed the tour the first day). So we all went down to the subway and made our way to the fountain. We took tons of pictures and saw some cool sights. We also stopped at the Spanish Steps and some of the girls got another assigned shot for photography done. From there we took a cab back to the hotel. It turns out it was about double the actual price because he didn’t go straight to the hotel, but we got a little tour of Rome anyway, so it wasn’t too bad.
After we got back, I crashed the rest of the time in Sey, Air and Ico’s room and Sey and I watched the first 45 minutes of the Wizard of Oz while the others bustled around their own business.

On the morning of Day 6 I apparently slept through the wakeup call and my roommates didn’t think to wake me before 8:20 which is 10 minutes before my class started. I was also supposed to present my myth first thing in class. I quickly got dressed and ready, downed an espresso downstairs and got to class right on time. I quickly turned on my laptop and presented my myth using the notes on my computer. After I sat down I could actually not remember anything that I had just said. Though it felt bad, I got an 82%, so it wasn’t terrible. We spent the rest of class learning about classical Athens including part of a rather rude play written in that time. It compared thunder to “Shitting after eating a lot of stew”. We also did a little review for our upcoming myth test.

After class a bunch of us met up as a group and went with a few teachers to the nearby street market. While apparently nothing compared to the legendary Florence leather market, it still had a nice selection of jewelry and clothing. I got some gifts out of the way and spent about €15. Once the market closed down at about 2, Sey and I went to the train station, which also acts as a large mall. We went to the book store because we had both finished the novels we brought. I bought a copy of Dante’s Il Purgatorio on sale for €7. I thought it was fitting as Dante wrote from and lived in/loved Florence which is our next stop. After that we went clothes shopping. Sey wanted a new dress and I wanted to get at least one shirt from Italy to be my Italian shirt. I couldn’t come back to Canada without any new clothes for myself, it would be simply unacceptable. I ended up finding a cool grey shirt that was actually the lowest price in the store. €13.50 on sale from €27.00. We then stopped by the grocery store and topped up our snack supply.

We went back to the hotel to find my room filled with visitors again so we crashed in Sey’s room and finished watching the Wizard of Oz while Air napped beside us. We tried to sit on the window ledge and read our new books, but some busybody on the street saw us and must have thought the ledge wasn’t as wide as it was because he told us to get down, then went in and got a concierge to come out and tell us to get down. After that I decided to go out to a café before dinner where I got the best cappuccino yet and read the first 2 cantos of Il Purgatorio. I got back in plenty of time to drop my book of in my room and be downstairs for dinner. I had decided that before I left Rome I wanted the clichéd dinner in the open air with a plate of spaghetti and a checkered tablecloth. Because of this I abstained from my dinner and afterwards convinced Sey to drag herself away from her computer and come enjoy a last Roman night. Everyone else declined my invitation so Sey dragged me to a gelato place where she got her final Roman wish, then I dragged her to a little restaurant that overcharged for my plate of spaghetti, but I was satisfied and felt like I had finally done Rome properly.

We got back to the hotel and all of us pitched in for internet in Sey, Air and Ico’s room and spent the rest of the time talking to people back home, looking at pictures and listening to music. It turns out Air and I have a similar taste in music in the fact that it is somewhat varied. She stole my iPod and put on first Shania Twain, then Bob Dylan, The Doors, Drake, Lil Wayne and Cage the Elephant. It was pretty awesome.

Well, there’s the recap of days 5 and 6. I finished this just in time because we are approaching San Gimignano for the world’s best gelato so I should shut down. I shall update more later.