Ok, so I’ve never really blogged before and it’s not really the kind of thing I usually do, but let’s give this a shot. It is currently about 10am on Monday, January 18th. I leave for the airport in 6 hours, and I have yet to pack. I know, crazy, right? Anyways, I’m sure I’ll get everything done by the time I need to go, so I really shouldn’t panic…
Well, dear reader, whomever you may be, for as of yet I have told no one I know how to access this, I suppose I should provide you with some background information. I took four years of Italian in high school, and since then have just about forgotten it all. I will probably be cramming it on the plane in between sleeping and reading Harry Potter (I know, shocking! I haven’t read Harry Potter yet?! Well, you see it’s this whole thing…and really I digress). The point of the matter is that, as you may have figured out from me taking Italian far past the requirements needed to graduate from high school, I have had a wish to visit Italy for a long time. That wish actually came true in the spring of 2014, but that was for a mere week. I was in primarily Trieste, but I spent a few days in Venice too, as well as a day trip out to Verona. However, I have never been to Rome, which, as a History major and Classics minor, is high up on my list of places to visit.
So now I get to spend months in Rome, during which time I will get to explore even more of Italy. Perhaps the class I am most excited for is…the exact name eludes me at the moment, but it’s essentially reading about Rome in classical texts. Reading about history is all well and good, but it’s when you can then walk in those very places you read about that history becomes reality, it becomes alive. It’s mind-boggling to think about the history of a city like Rome. People have been living there for so long, and it has changed so much, but yet the history is there to see. In a way, it’s also comforting to know that people leave a mark behind. We may die, but parts of us live on, whether it be as large as the Colosseum, or as small as a mark of graffiti or a statue with the metal polished smoothed by the generations of people grasping at it.
Rome will be many things, but at heart it’ll be an adventure.