I live here, now I have to conquer it
The past two weeks have been more then I ever could have imagined. The more I have explored Rome, the more I and my friends figure out how much it really does have to offer. How often can you go to a city and turn every corner and have an old building sprung on top of you. The way that I have been able to explore the city is through running. I try to run five days a week and although it is not alway the case, I will just blame it on the weather and not the abundant wine. Two of my runs have been epic in my point of view. I have never ran more then 9 miles in my life and rome has eased me into running one 10 mile run and just today I ran 13.1 miles. On these runs I have literally sweated throughout the entire city. On my ten mile run I ran through this long list of monuments and buildings – Stadio Olimpico, Piazza del Popolo, Piazza Cavour, Rome Hall of Justice, Castel Sant’ Angelo, Trastevere, Isola Tiberina, Circo Massimo, Arco di Costantino, COLOSSEO, Foro Romano, Wedding Cake, Piazza Venezia, Bassillica di San Pietro, and the Vatican… On my half marathon run I ran through Borghese Gardens, Trevi fountain, up to the top of the Wedding cake and along the Tiber river.
Now I know some of you out there are not runners and this may no interest you. But one week ago our school took a trip to Tuscany which was unreal, each city we visited was walled in. Usually only with one gate, we took sights such as the birthplace of Petrach, a medival bow contest, a little girl dance performance, and even a medival march and band. All cities were amazing medieval towns.
To top it all off we took a boat tour on Lake Trasimeno and on the boat tour was many castles and even an island in the middle of the volcanic lake home to a total or 17 people even though it was was a village of 1000.
This past weekend that we are just finishing now, sept 14th to 16th I went to the beach in Ostia, took three trains from where my campus is up north in order to get the beach. Walked down a freeway with my friend Mark and saw the Ostia Antica ruins for free. Continued are 5km walk to the beach, where we walked about another 1 or 2km in order to find the public beach so we would not have to pay.
In Italy you have to pay for a beach chair and the only way to get on to the beach is to pay for one of those chairs. Thus meaning that the beach is privately owned throughout, except for a few public access points. To be honest I think it just the way the Italians like because they need to be relaxed and do not care about time as much as Americans do. In Italy the culture is extremely different, they values conversations and friends, more then they do money or time. and to be honest I enjoy their culture a lot more the culture that I have lived with in America.
In summary, my time here so far has been beyond what words can explain. I have made lasting friendships already, been surrounded by nothing but great people and good food and company. I am on lifetime high as far as my life is concerned and it just keeps getting better and better.
I even caught a guy pick pocketing me, after my friend had fell on the bridge going to Trastevere, one man on the bridge helped me help her up. However, after she was walking again another guy came from the front left side of me, and was mocking my friend Tanyelle who had fallen and at the same time acting like he was tripping me. I soon realized this was not a joke as he reached his hand in my Oakley shorts pocket and had his on my wallet. With his hand still in my pocket, I lunged with my right arm and grabbed a hold of his right arm and said “Let go of my #%$#@^& wallet.” Almost immediately he let go of my wallet and vanished away on the expansive bridge. Guess my Ping Pong reaction skills really came in handy there.
Well that is all for now, I will get another blog posted next Sunday.
Be safe and live happily!
Steve O