I guess I can cover Rome now. Sooooo, part two of my wonderful vacances de printemps was spent visiting Dennis in Rome, and let me just say, 5 days of Italy was not nearly enough. I fell in love with the country from day one. I took the train from Paris to Rome because I wanted to have a real eurotrip experience that I feel you can only really experience by choosing to take the train instead of plane. But anyway, 16 hours on the train wasn't exactly an ideal way to spend over half a day, but getting to travel through Pisa and Tuscany and the Italian countryside was totally worth it. I fell in love immediately. Rome did not disappoint either. From the minute we stepped out of the metro and looked up to see some Romans ruins just chillin in the middle of the city I was in awe. Now, I love Paris--don't get me wrong. And one of the things that makes me love Paris in a way that I could never love an American city is how old it is. The first time I walked from my apartment in the 4th to university in the 7th, I felt like everything I saw, touched, walked on, etc was an antique. Like, I would walk past Hotel de Ville, and to think that that at least parts of the building have existed for nearly 700 years totally blew my mind. And I'm not ashamed to say that it still kinda does blow my mind. However, walking through Rome and being able to see for my own eyes and physically touch something that was built 1500 years ago REALLY blew my mind.
I was equally in awe later that day when I visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and the Imperial Forum. In a way it reminded me of seeing the Mayan ruins in Mexico, but somehow way cooler than the Mayans, most likely because I thought Italy was way cooler than Mexico, but that's a story for another time.
Later, while waiting
for Dennis to get out of studio, I was sitting in the Piazza Campodiglio just soaking up everything around me, when I look to my right, and see a 20-piece brass band warming up. I didn't think it was a holiday, and there wasn't really anything around them to make me think it was any kind of special event. But nevertheless, they were there. After about 10 minutes of getting warm, they began to play what I imagine was the Italian national anthem, because within the first couple of notes played, all the Italians flocked to the band and began singing along in the most nationalistic was I have ever seen anybody sing anything in my life. I think I even saw a few men cry. No lie. Afterwards they played a piece from some opera. I'm not sure what it was, but I definitely recognized it. This time they had an opera singer singing along. It was crazy. I don't know how I was lucky enough to be able to be sitting there in the right place at the right time to witness that randomness, but I was really happy I got to. I had been in Rome for all of 6 hours and I already witnessed one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. It made my impression of Rome even greater than it already was.When I met up with Dennis, he was eager to show me around. Not to brag, but choosing to go to Rome for holiday because I knew I had a place to crash was probably the most brilliant idea I've had in a really long time. But not only did it work out economically, but I soon realized that picking Dennis was also brilliant because as an architect major, he knew sooooo much about the city. As we walked from sight to sight I was able to point to different buildings and things and could explain to me exactly why they looked the way they did, and how old that makes them, and why they were built, and all kinds of crazy cool facts that I definitely wouldn't find in any guidebook. So, in other words, I'm a genius. Yep. We also got lost a couple times, but I absolutely loved it. As I'm sure I've mentioned in more than one blog post, one of my favorite things to do here in Europe is wonder around until I'm lost, and then try to find myself again, because I honestly believe it's the best way to see and experience really, really cool things that you would never get to if you always follow the beaten path. It was the same in Rome.
When we got home we were a couple hours early for dinner so we had a nice salad--Dennis made his own salad dressing, I was quite impressed--and he introduced me to Italian wine. I brought a bottle on French wine with me as a thank-you for letting me crash with him, so we were able to compare the two. After our salads we headed to a pizzeria that was supposedly the second best pizzeria in Rome and split a mushroom, sausage, olive pizza. Not to state the obvious, but yeah, it was pretty damn good pizza. The strangest part, though, was the fact that the
olives on the pizza were whole black olives, pits included. So to eat the olives we had to pick them off the pizza, eat them, spit out the pits, and then proceed with the rest of the pizza. I'm not exactly up with all of the cultural customs of Italy, but I can't imagine how somebody hasn't at least mentioned to them that it would make more sense to cut the olives first, or at least de-pit them. I don't know. It was still amazing pizza. The one thing that I both love and hate about pizza here in Europe (and this applies to every place in Europe I've been so far) is that the pizza is really fancy, and gourmet. You can't get real American pizza anywhere; every place that sells pizza, even Pizza Hut here in Paris, sells small pizza with crazy toppings and super special crust, ect. There's a lot of places that sell "American Pizza" or "Pizza Americain" or "Pizza Americano" as well, but in all of these places, their definition of American pizza is usually just something like plain pepperoni pizza, not a big-ass 16" (40cm?) pizza with shitty sauce and stringy cheese that might taste terrible under most circumstances, but tastes like the greatest thing in the world at three in the morning when you've had to much... we'll say "juice", to drink. I miss it now, but I know that once I get back to the States and eat real American pizza for the first time I'm going to be incredibly disappointed that the cheese is just stringy mozz and not delicious camembert or brie or gruyere. But that's life, I guess.Dennis had the next morning free so we walked to Vatican City and did the whole Vatican thing. It goes without saying that
I had a really great time and loved everything that I saw, but after four hours of looking at Catholic art and sculptures and frescoes and urns and a million other thinks I kinda wanted to poke my eyes out. So we left and ate lunch. Because food, especially Italian food, never makes me want to poke me eyes out. Dennis and I made pasta for dinner that night and I was once again impressed by Dennis' ability to make his own pasta sauce. I also explained to him that the long, round bread that comes in a paper bag that he eats with dinner every night is actually a French baguette. He was rather surprised. I was surprised that he had no idea what a baguette really was.I left a couple days later and was really upset to have to leave, but nevertheless happy to get home to my apartment and back to the life that I've grown so accustomed to. Also, I missed fresh croissant. I had a brioche crema just to be able to compare the two, and while I was highly impressed by the idea of stuffing a croissant with cream, it in no way compared to the deliciousness that is a fresh croissant from my favorite boulangerie.
So, long story short, Italy was amazing. And if I ever do this whole study abroad thing again, I really can see myself choosing somewhere in Italy. But, the fact of the matter is, being away from Paris just makes me realize all the more that Paris has become my home within these last two months, and it's the one place, above all, that I truly feel at home.
