The Long Story Short

Basilica di S. Pietro

Rome will swallow you whole.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The whole city is a living creature that pulses with life, food, and honking SmartCars. It shoves you on the bus, hustles you down the cobblestoned street, hands you a gelato  and a forkful of traditional carbonara then stops you in your tracks to stand gaping and grabbing for your camera in front of some stunning piece of ancient architecture or Renaissance masterpiece. It takes your hand and threads you down back alleys and breathes the scent of fresh ingredients and the slight tang of B.O. in your face. When it's done it leaves you by yourself at a small outdoor table softly lit by Christmas lights strung through the ivy above you, empty espresso cup in your hand, wondering why your feet hurt (it's only been a day!) and wanting more.

Trastevere 

Honestly, I prefer Florence. Before takeoff I was nervous, much more nervous than I expected after waiting so long to return to Italy. Maybe it's because I was traveling alone this time, or that I kept mixing my Italian up with Spanish as I practiced in my head. Maybe because I knew there wouldn't be a friendly monk at the terminal to meet me and my friends, to show me how to find the correct train and locate my hostel. But mostly I think it's because I remember Rome as an intimidating place. Stunning, yes; gorgeous, of course; full of history and art and religion and culture! But bustling, noisy, fast-paced and confusing.

It's true, I remembered correctly. It is all of those things. But I found myself (surprisingly) acclimating quickly. As soon as I stepped off the train at Termini, Italy came flooding back to me. I knew where the buses were and how to ask for two tickets. I remembered how far Trastevere was from San Pietro and what "a sinistra" means. It's only been four days and Italy feels like home again.

"Best Gnocchi in Rome": only found on Thursdays

So, long story short, it's been a crazy half-week. Hence this being my first post when I promised myself I'd write every day. Since I'm hopelessly behind and won't catch up if I don't cut corners somewhere, here is the short list--a brief summary of what I've been up to instead of blogging for the benefit of all of my friends, family, and potential future participants in the UST/Villanova Law Rome study abroad program at home:

     Roma: A Week Abridged
        Warning: large amounts of food involved
         Also please note: the author is human, and "studying" does not appear on the list

Ristorante d'Ottello in Trastevere

• 10 hours solo, American Airlines
• 9.5 hours of waiting, Fiumicino Airport floor
• Luggage schlepping
• Camping Tiber hostel (highly recommended: far away from city center but worth the hike!)
• Margherita pizza and some good wine
• Luggage schlepping
• John Cabot University move-in and orientation (FREE LUNCH)
• Gelato
• Grocery shopping
• Real Italian dinner with the new apartment-mates (they're great!)
• Gelato
• Classes (Full description in the link under "courses," they promise to be exciting if the air-conditioning ever gets fixed, and the professors are terrific)
• Gelato
• Multi-apartment dinner party; home-made pesto pasta with steak (and home-made pesto) and salad
• Wine night out on the Tiber 
• Roman Catholic holiday: Feast of St. Peter and Paul, no classes. Includes:                     

Catching some sun at Ostia

            -LOTS of public transportation
            -Really great lunch, complete with
             complimentary bruschetta and bottle
             of Spumante
            -Ostia Beach, a.k.a. the "Roman Riviera,"
             complete with old man in saggy Speedo
            -Gelato and really great pizza
            -Fireworks at Castel Sant'Angelo
            -Night walk to the Vatican
                                          
   

Fireworks over Castel Sant'Angelo, from the bridge

• The Best Gnocchi in Rome
• Tiramisu
• Gelato

It's been incredible. Tomorrow we're visiting the Italian Supreme Court in the morning, then traveling en masse to Assisi for the weekend. For next time I promise, promise more description/emotion/thoughts etc., you know, all those blog things. For now I hope a few photos will suffice.

Proof that Jesus lives and loves me.

            

A Salute

I would like to take this opportunity to rain accolades on my friend Rob, engineer and Nook-hacker extraordinaire. I am now the proud owner of a nookCOLOR ereader/Android tablet, all for the happy price tag of $250. So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, Rob, for tech geeks and friendly hackers everywhere. Don't worry, Rafe is buying.

Finally, yes, it was slow and difficult typing this all finger-by-finger on a touch-screen keyboard. But I did it, because I can. The human story continues.

Prelude

I had grand plans for my First Post, but, as it's taken me a grand total of 4 hours, 42 minutes and a whopping 6 episodes of Deadliest Warrior to get the damn thing set up to my liking, I have no choice but to keep this one short.

I wouldn't write anything now to begin with, except I hate that small "no posts" text mocking me from the empty page of my shiny new blog, calling me out for the 420-character facebook-status cheapskate that I am. My pillows, incidentally, are also plaintively calling me from the next room, but my pride is going to win this battle.

That said, I've decided to briefly explain the name of this blog, merely because it's easy. Easy, but interesting.

When I first started thinking about blogging, before I knew what I wanted to write or why, I knew its name. I wanted to call it "The Weight We Carry," from Allen Ginsberg's Song. The choice was easy. It's a line from my favorite poem, and it means something to me about my life. More importantly, it carries the perfect balance of the cryptic and the profound; just short and just vague enough to sound like a good blog. (Come on, that's TOTALLY how you pick blog names. Slightly enigmatic, pithy. Concise but open enough to be deep. Let's all be honest with ourselves.)

Then a few days ago I bought a book by a Sicilian writer named Gioia Timpanelli at a secondhand bookstore in Uptown, Minneapolis. I picked it up off of the table near the front window marked, "Special! $1!"  I knew nothing about the book except that it was called Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of Sicily and that it cost one dollar.

I'm only on page 31. But I loved the prologue so much that Ginsberg was demoted to mere 'blog description' rather than the more prestigious title role that I intended to give him:

"Sometimes the soul is tested. The body feels sore, the mouth dumb, the big red hands hang useless on their arms. Time passes. Surely, the soul will have its way. It lolls. Time passes. And the soul waits. Nothing happens. Come on, make something happen. Make lists! There are always urgent things to do, things to do for this morning, for today, for next week, for a month, for an entire year. But then a laziness takes hold, and nothing on the lists proves as urgent as this lethargy, so the lists are left out in the sun in a shopping bag, become bleached, illegible, are rained on, and finally forgotten under the beach chair. (No, not lists, certainly not lists. Poor, dear, little papers. It's too heavy a burden for them.) Minutes pass, hours, maybe a year, possibly a decade. At last, the soul is refreshed in the sweet company it has made.
      Then, one day, it gets up and stretches. Today is not like yesterday. The soul notes the difference. To the neighbors, opening and slamming shut their doors, nothing seems to have happened. Nothing at all. Finally, now, the soul lifts its arms and with its graceful hands brings down the fertile rain."

Timpanelli, Gioia. Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of Sicily. W.W. Norton &
       Company, New York: 1998.

That done, this soul (mildly ironically) is going to bed.