Today I woke up with a heavy drowsiness that signified not my lack of sleep, but depth. After staying awake for over 36 hours, the sleep gave me great energy to start my first day in the city of Rome. A breakfast of milk, extremely thin-cut ham, and rock-hard bread, typical in Italy, sustained me for a morning of tourism. First, I witnessed the glory of St. Peter’s Basilica. Once inside, everything was unspeakably peaceful and serene. Much bigger than I thought, it also contained many secret passageways into the depths of the church. I tried to explore as many of those as possible, but 20 minutes was not nearly enough to absorb all that St. Peter’s had to offer. I did get to see a papal priest preaching, however!
St. Peter's Basilica
Next was the Santa Maria Dell Pace, a Catholic church, and, a little walk away, the Piazza Navona. At the church, I discovered that the Pope who built a structure engraved or painted his insignia on a wall of the structure, so that future visitors would know exactly which Pope, Benedict the 1st, John Paul the 2nd, or someone else the 5th, built it. The piazza was a convention point for many artists, and in the center of the piazza is the “Four Rivers Fountain”, an aesthetically charming fountain that contained 4 men representing the 4 great rivers of the world, the Nile, Danube, Ganges, and the Rio della Plata in the Americas. The Nile river’s figure had its head covered, since the source, it’s “head,” was at that time unknown. The Rio della Plata had an armadillo with a curved-back mouth, because a man who had brought an armadillo back from the Americas had preserved it and, as a result, the lips of the armadillo were forced out. I also saw the Santa di Luigi dei Francesi- another sanctuary.
The Pantheon
The Pantheon was next: monument to all the gods. A Latin teacher, Dr. Travillian, explained that the Pantheon had the largest concrete dome in the world, could fit a perfect sphere from dome to floor, and could be enclosed with all sides of a cube tangent to the circular form of the building. It was arguably the most perfect building in the world. It was amazing to me how the Romans could build such a magnificently designed and structured building that, even today, we cannot construct of equal proportions.
I briefly saw the Teatro Marcello and the ruins of the Rogo Argentina (Pompey’s Theater), where Caesar was murdered by Brutus and the conspirators. Tomorrow, we may go to the Teatro Marcello again. I also discovered that there are faucets around Rome where you can fill your water bottle with the best water since the time of Caesar. You just have to push up on the faucet and check if water spouts out of a hole on the top of the faucet. If it does, then the water is “potabile” (drinkable). If not, the water is “non potabile.” The water here is also mineral-enriched, so it tastes different from water in America. It’s going to take me a while to get used to. When we returned from the tour, we were informed that we had walked nearly a third of Rome’s most renowned landmarks.
At night I took the verb quiz that we were all studying for today. I had some trouble with time, but I remembered the future passive participle just in time. The Latin Teachers, Dr. Karl Maurer (He’s not German, trust me) and Dr. David Sweet, then went through a Latin passage on the Death of Caesar, by Suetonius. The lecture was very interesting (the main topic was participles, though...), and the professors were funny but well-learned. Dr. Maurer is always in his own world, staring through everyone and digressing to wherever he pleases. Another interesting thing about Dr. Maurer is that he is extremely flexible. He sits down as he walks to his seat, and his legs droop from his knees like noodles. Dr. Sweet is very quiet, but just as his name suggests, very kind.
Today was the biggest day, since we saw so many sites. From now on, though, our touring trips will last about only a third as long, I think. Ciao! (Good bye)
No comments:
Post a Comment