Day 48
This week, and specifically today and tomorrow take me right out of the illusion I had created that I was just in Rome to live in Rome for a few months. Sure I've been going to classes and doing my homework (honestly, I haven't skipped a single one, Mom and Dad), but those have been more along the lines of amusing distractions and historical pep talks about the city I've been wandering through on a daily basis. Alas midterms are upon me and making me pray to whatever deity that will listen taht I still remember how to study something other than languages.
In this mad rush to reacquaint myself with the format of study guides, I shut myself off so completely from the rest of the world as soon as I returned from the museum yesterday, that it took not only an email from my dad, but also my neighbor barging into my room to realize that the papal conclave had not only convened, but had sent up its first smoke signal. When this piece of news did break through my study blinders, my neighbor, Christina, and my friend, Sarai, and I all spent the next half hour hanging out of our third floor bedroom windows at 9:30 at night, trying to see what we could see. Fortunately, our windows face the exact direction of the Vatican. Unfortunately, it took us half an hour of screaming "Is that it?" "No that's a tree. It's that one!" "No that one's a cloud!" before we realized that any significant view we might have had from the top of the Aventine was blocked by a stand of Italian stone pines. (In our defense, it was a dark and stormy night, and the smoke was black).
Though our search was unsuccessful, it was quite the exciting break from memorizing the order of Roman kings, listing Nero's nefarious deeds, and memorizing every street name that does or ever did exist in Rome. Hopefully I'll go stake out the Vatican from the Villa Borghese gardens Friday afternoon and something exciting will happen again.
Ciao,
J
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