Connor Murphy: Italy

7/1/12  Traveling to Rome and My First Day in the City

My original flight plans were ruined because the first flight from Nashville to Detroit did not take off. This problem caused me to miss the second flight from Detroit to Rome. I had to be rebooked, and my new itinerary took me from Nashville to Atlanta to Paris to Rome. The Atlanta airport is the largest airport in country, and it was much busier than Nashville: there were much more fast food options and many more people. After going through Paris, I finally arrived at Rome, but my bag was not there. I went to St. Stephens School after all my trouble at the airport and loved the school. After a group orientation with the other students, the group leaders took us to a small park in Rome with many orange trees and a great view of the entire city. Next we went to a place called the keyhole. The keyhole is the door to a place owned by the Catholic Church. It is a sort of summer resort for the clergy. When you look through the keyhole you see a long walkway surrounded by tall green hedges on each side. Later that night everyone went to the Circus Maximus to watch the Euro 2012 Final Futbol game between Spain and Italy. Everyone was dressed in the Italian national colors-red, white, and green. There seemed to be 200,000 people in the crowd. Unfortunately Italy lost the game, but the experience was still great. 

7/2/12 Second Day in Rome, First Day of Class, Bus Tour

Today was my first day of classes at St. Stephens. My first class was Latin. In Latin I translated and read Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita--(Trans: From the Founding of the City). This work is Livy’s masterpiece about the early history of Rome. Livy rather objectively analyzes Roman history, discussing both mythical and factual information about the origins of Rome. In my second class, Roman Topography, we discussed the Seven Hills of Rome: Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Aventine, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian. We also discussed the early history of Rome, which conveniently tied in with the literature I read in Latin. In my third, class cooking, we made fiori di zucra fritti, which is basically a deep fried zucchini flower filled with mozzarella cheese. I learned a little Italian that we used in cooking class, for example, carne is meat, biscotto is a cookie, pomodoro is tomato, etc. That night we went on a bus tour of Rome and saw the sights of the city. Earlier in the day my luggage arrived, so I finally had all of my belongings. 

7/4/12 Tiber Island, Ara Pacis, Symphony Performance

Today in Latin I did further work on Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita. I read the section in which Romulus and Remus reunite with their grandfather and take back the kingdom of Alba Longa from their wicked relative, Amulius. I like reading Livy because I admire his smooth narrative style. Livy adds quick details and facts into his story by using subjunctive clauses and other types of relative clauses. These small details help complete the story and give the reader a good picture that describes early Rome. In topography we went to the Tiber Island and translated Latin inscriptions on the bridges. Next we went to see the magnificent Ara Pacis built by Emperor Augustus. That night we went to see a performance of Beethoven's First and Fifth Symphonies. I never was a big fan of classical music, but I enjoyed the performance very much.

7/7/12-7/8/12  Sorrento and Pompeii

Over the weekend our class went to Sorrento, a coastal town south of Naples. On Saturday I was going to go hiking with Nik and Sebastiano, two of the other students, but the bus that was supposed to take us to the starting point of our hike never arrived, so we went down to the beach instead. The water in the beach was very clear and blue, and the sun was very strong.

That night we had a three course dinner at the hotel and went shopping downtown later that night. The next morning we left Sorrento and headed to Pompeii. In Pompeii we explored some of the villas and viewed the magnificent frescos. 

My favorite fresco was a large painting of Venus on the wall of a villa. We also looked at the baths and discussed the Roman culture. Pompeii gave me a great insight into the lives of all classes of Roman people. The literature we read in Latin III this year, especially the Horace and the Sallust, gave us a good insight into the lives of the patrician class of Romans, but did not mention the lower classes as much.  Listening to the tour guide talk about the ruins of the shops and plebian homes above the shops gave us a great perspective into the lives of the common Roman citizen. For lunch we ate pizza at a restaurant near Pompeii, and then we went back to St. Stephens. That night there was no evening activity planned, so I relaxed with my friends and watched the movie Get Him to the Greek.

7/13/12 Last Day in Rome, Ostia Visit

For our last day in Latin I discussed everything I read in Livy about the early history of Rome: Romulus killing Remus, the Rape of the Sabine women, and the battle between the Horatii and the Curatii. In Topography we took a 30 minute train ride to the ruins of Ostia, Rome’s largest port city. We gained an insight into the great diversity of Roman trade by seeing mosaics with pictures of elephants and tigers. In cooking we made supli, which is a ball of dough rolled with cheese and meat and then fried. It was the best thing we made in cooking class. We also went over some of the Italian we learned in class. We discussed the names of food and the adjectives we learned to describe the food.  We also discussed the history of a few of the dishes we prepared. At night we went to a tourist restaurant to celebrate our time in Italy and say goodbye to our friends. My friends and I talked about our favorite memories from our trip and enjoyed our last night together.

 I am going to miss the great friends I made on the trip, but I will always remember the great experiences I had during my journey in Rome. I am very grateful to the Wilson Family, Mr. Gioia, Dr. Gaffney, Mr. Gaither, and everyone else who made this incredible trip possible. I am so fortunate to have been able to travel to Italy and gain a great insight into Roman culture and Italian culture.