The Weekend Without Trains, Pt. II

To round off my birthday weekend (for Parte I, see this post), the following day I and a few others accompanied Chris and Hannah to Castel Gondolfo, the papal summer residence, where the Pope gives a brief address and prays the Angelus with the faithful every Sunday in July at noon. Since there was only one train out that would get us there in time, we left early and arrived with a few hours to explore the area before heading up to the papal residence. Castel Gondolfo and its surrounding small town sits on top of a huge hill (a mountain, really) overlooking a large, beautiful, impossibly aquamarine-blue lake. The Castel Gondolfo train station is situated exactly halfway up the mountain between the lake and the castle, roughly a 15-minute hike along the "road," nearly as impossibly windy and dangerous as the lake is blue, and along which the locals whizzed by at speeds better suited for an Interstate highway. 

Since we had so much time, we decided to go down and enjoy the lake before heading to the castle. Other than desperately hugging the guardrail in order to avoid becoming grease spots on the side of a mountain, the walk down was gorgeous. The weather was lovely, the olive groves lining the hillside were waving silver-green in the light breeze, wildflowers were plentiful and the lake glittered and begged for photos. 

The state of the beach, frankly, (to paraphrase Randy) would have caused a riot in Minnesota. The scrubby grass and patches of black volcanic sand were not remotely improved by the amount of litter and dog poop. However, Hannah and Chris assured us that the coves on the other side were away from town were much nicer; anyway, the water was the perfect temperature and skipping stones were plentiful. We splashed around, laid out in the sun, chatted, and made friends with a couple of the nearby locals before putting our shoes back on and beginning our ascent to see il Papa.

Hundreds (thousands?) of the faithful gathered to
participate in the noon Angelus.

The problem with going down to the lake from the train station was that now we had to go all of the way back up. And up. And then up just a little more. Bearing in mind that just yesterday our little beach crew (made up of an entirely different group of people than today's, excluding myself) had trudged a grand total of over 6 miles. In sandals. With sand in them. It was tough going. However, we finally made it to the top and waited in line for entrance to the papal residence, or at least became part of the unruly mob that passes for a queue in Italy. They finally allowed us all in to the covered courtyard inside the residence, where we were herded along until we found a nice little open spot near the back with a perfect view of the balcony where the Pope was to appear. We still had half an hour of standing around before the actual audience, but that was easily spent observing everyone around us. We were surrounded by people of all ages and nationalities; the group directly behind me was an Italian family saying afternoon prayer together, and the young couple in traditional African dress asked Hannah in heavily-accented English if she wouldn't mind taking a picture of them with the Pope's balcony in the background. People were waving American, Italian, Slavic, Brasilian, Canadian and Vatican flags; at one point a group of women (we discovered later that they were a group of super-enthusiastic young nuns) broke into a song, soon accompanied by all of the Italian voices in the room and ultimately all of the voices in the room when they switched to the chorus of the Ave Maria. It was quite beautiful. 

Finally, amid deafening cheers, shouts, chants, songs and applause, B16 finally appeared. He waved to the crowd, greeted everyone in Italian, then began the Angelus. It was in Latin, and the prayer was displayed on the large screen at the front so everyone (everyone who knew how to pronounce Latin, anyway) could participate. The prayer was followed by a papal blessing (I got my camera, among other things, blessed--hopefully from now on it will only take perfect pictures) and a brief address to those gathered in six or seven different languages, each tailored specifically to its own native speakers and each ending with a cheerful "Happy Sunday!" 

Pope Benedict XVI greeting everyone below.

After giving everyone a final wave, he turned around and went back inside. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes. 

Vatican Papal Audience
April 2009
(Not a bad description, no?)

Setting narration aside for the moment: seeing the Pope is a powerful thing. This wasn't my first audience. The first time, I expected to be over-awed; blown away by the sheer force of Holiness radiating from his person as he blazed out of St. Peter's, white garments billowing majestically, waving from the backseat of his white drop top Popemobile and surrounded by a legion of what looked like hardcore, badass Secret Service agents capable of stopping an assailant cold with only their eyes. It was cool, definitely. But I didn't sustain the spiritual mind-blowing by his appearance that I'd expected. Instead, most striking (both that time and this) was the reaction of all of those uncounted individuals from all over the world attracted into his presence. It's easy to brush off the excitement and high energy of a gathering like that; that it's similar to people meeting their favorite celebrity. People are always wildly excited about meeting someone famous, fantasizing that they know the personal details of their lives or believing that they've got some sort of intimate connection with a person they've never met. I've definitely heard the all concerns about Catholic allegiance to the Pope, from both non-Catholic Christians and non-religious alike: why do people blindly follow him? Doesn't that ignore the authority of Jesus? Isn't that politically dangerous? Why don't Catholics encourage followers to think for themselves? Is he really infallible? Isn't he just a man? Should we place so much importance on some guy whose "divine appointment" (election by other men...) was probably politically (Church-political) motivated anyway? The objections are endless. 

Yet the experience is different. Something unites all of these people in this room. Something greater than them, greater than the Pope. It's the Church, the manifestation of the Church as a people, represented by a man. For all of us here, this is an encounter with Christ. And the people feel it; they know it. As he slowly walks out onto the balcony, and he waves at the thousands gathered below him, they wave back. Not like those people on the today show who wave frantically at the cameras looking for some notice, or recognition, or 30 seconds of fame. They wave personally. They greet him as individuals; as people greeting a friend. They love him, and they know that love is returned by a true Person, by one through whom we are all united. It is a palpable thing. And that is why it's worth waiting years, or worth the hour-long train ride, worth the walk up a freaking mountain. And it is something only someone who has shared the experience can know. And the "experience" doesn't have to be a Papal audience. It is the experience of the Church, of divinity made manifest in the human, the Incarnation: it is the experience of Christ. However we meet it. Anyway. If that's a little too much for anybody, sorry. Back to the narration.

"This is very French. The French love picnics
 like Asian tourists love taking pictures!"
--Hannah : )

After we surged out of the courtyard with the rest of the crowd (passing that group of rambunctious nuns, now clapping and chanting, on the way) we found a place to buy return train tickets and grabbed a perfect picnic lunch of fresh bread, salami, cheese, tomatoes, cookies and wine on a grassy spot a little ways down the hill. Once we were fed we traipsed back to the train station just in time to catch the 13:54 back to Rome, ready to be home by three and have the rest of the afternoon to catch up on some outlining for next week's finals. Unfortunately, this post is not called "The Weekend Without Trains, Pt. II" for nothing.

We boarded the train just fine; it was almost too small to accommodate the influx of pilgrims heading back to Rome, but it was on time and we eventually found seats in the front. We hadn't been moving for more than 10 minutes, however, when we unexpectedly stopped moving. This is not an uncommon occurrence in Italy and no one was much concerned. The concerning part was when we stopped at a little nowhere station called San Marino with no one in sight and didn't start again. 

San Marino, looking up

After sitting around for awhile wondering why the woman who appeared to be our driver kept leaving the train, she finally came back and announced (in my limited Italian reproduction), "C'e` una problema con il treno, con la macchina. Non funzione. [...] Il treno prossimo (or some synonym for 'next/following') arriva alla diecisei." Basically, it broke. The next train comes at 4 pm. Get off. Awesome. It's 2:15. 

So we all get out of the train. The broken f***ing train. 

San Marino, looking down

To our relief, we see a sign that reads, "Osteria della Stazione" (restaurant!). To our dismay, it's pointing uphill. *expletive.* So we climb, again. After climbing and climbing and then climbing just a little bit more, we reach the restaurant. It's Sunday, just after 2:30 in the afternoon. Of course it's closed. So we keep walking, until we're in the middle of the town, on top of another mountain.

We finally stumble upon a small bar with coffee, water, BEER and pastries; also a few other stranded travelers from our train. They're walnut and cherry farmers from California, in Italy seeking the ancestral towns and homes of their great-grandparents. We spend about an hour chatting with them, swapping stories about farming and law school, learning how walnuts are harvested (tree-shaking machine...no joke) and how rain on ripe cherries ruins the whole crop. (Apparently nitrogen in rainwater causes the skins to split.) At 3:30, we head for the station. 

We arrive only to find that the "broken" train has been repaired and departed with the less-adventurous pilgrims aboard 5 minutes ago. So we sit down to wait for the next train, due to arrive in less than a quarter of an hour anyway. It's on time, and we all make it back home after another slightly unusual Italian detour. 

Fine. (Fine as in fin, end. [fin-eI, if you know IPA] Not ok, sure, fine. Though it was that too.)

The Weekend Without Trains, Pt. I

Well, in case you weren't aware, public transportation in Italy is not very...reliable. Schedules change without notice, machinery breaks down, strikes occur, bus drivers take smoke breaks in the middle of a route...you get the idea. This will become a problem later in this post.

View from The Hill

For now, we're going to celebrate my birthday. This past Saturday my Golden Year finally came to a close and I turned two dozen years old. Huzzah.  I'd really wanted to celebrate by taking a large group of friends (hopefully all willing to buy me drinks) out to Trastaccio, apparently Rome's hottest clubbing neighborhood. However, with most of my most club-happy classmates in Croatia for the weekend, I finally gave up the stay-out-all-night-partying idea around 1:30 am Friday night and just hit up a local bar instead, where I treated myself to my second tiramisu` of the evening (it was delicious). 

I also trekked up to the top of Gianicolo Hill above our section of Trastevere, which offers a large statue of G. Garibaldi, apparently the main general in the reunification of Italy in the mid-19th century; as well as a bar, an incredible view of Rome, and a LOT of those guys that kindly offer everyone roses every 3 minutes, a service for which they happily charge 1 euro. Add in the DuPree family and three bottles of cheap-ish wine (well, minus the skunked one) and it made for quite the outing.

The Castle

Saturday proved even better: we found a terrific beach in the small town of Santa Severa on the coast of Lazio about an hour north of Rome. We took a train out for the afternoon, hung out for a few hours, built a sand castle, sustained jellyfish stings (that fun was all Erik's), jumped around in the [huge!] waves and generally had a good time for only the cost of the 3,20 train ticket. It was a perfect day, until the real fun began.  

The Other Castle

We headed back to the train station from whence we came, intending to catch the train departing for Roma Trastevere station sometime between 6-7 pm. Being the smart traveler that I am, I had looked up return trains before we left and discovered that there was, in fact, such a train running roughly hourly from 5-11 pm (excluding the 8 o'clock hour for some unfathomable Italian reason). Unfortunately, as is so common, someone on the Internet (not to name names, but: *trenitalia.com*) was WRONG.

Our first problem was that we didn't have return tickets, and the station was too small even for an automated ticket machine, much less a ticket counter. Luckily, (or maybe not-so-luckily) there was a nice old man there who cheerfully told us in largely-unintelligible Italian that we couldn't buy tickets there and it didn't matter anyway because the station was closed, there was no train, and that for both tickets and the train we'd have to go to the other station, which was very far away and that there was no other way of getting there besides walking. All of this information I, being the most proficient--that is to say, not-very-proficient--speaker of the group, had cobbled together from the select phrases that I'd understood: "non c'e` biglietti," "non c'e` treno," "chiuso," "l'altra stazione," "lontano," and "a piedi."

Marc stopped to gather some wild black
raspberries, just in case we starved to death.

Well. Okay. We started walking. We walked about 2 km (passing 2 bus stops, I might add...a piedi my ass) before asking some people on the street corner where we could find the other train station that did, in fact, have a train that would take us back to Rome. To our dismay, they pointed directly back the way we came and told us there was a station on the left about 2 km that way with a train to Termini at 7:10 pm. When we protested and explained as best we could about the old man and the no train and the no tickets and the far away station, they patiently let us know that he was right, we couldn't buy tickets there, we'd have to buy them at the market, which was now closed. We should just go back to the station and get on the train, which would arrive around 7. By this point, I'm feeling pretty foolish. Obviously there'd been some serious mistranslation on my part when talking to the old man, and as a result our entire group--already tired, sun burned and (in some cases) with jellyfish-scourged armpits--got to go on an extra 2.5 mile trek for no reason. Whoops.

There was nothing to do but go back. Which we did. We even found a small bar across the street from the station selling tickets (it was open). At this point I was severely doubting my ever-developing (or not) language skills that I'd recently been so proud of; obviously that guy meant that the ticket thing was closed, not the station, and "lontano" probably meant "behind" (as in, you can buy tickets at that little place across the street behind the station) instead of "far away," etc., etc. Whatever. At any rate, we'd be on the train and on our way home by 7:15. Or not.

Stazione S. Severa

Not long after we'd arrived at the platform, a young man about our age accompanied by a man who I can only assume was his father politely asked us if this was the correct platform for the 7:10 train to Rome, because according to the departures/arrivals screen no such train existed.

Well, shit.

After a lot of confusion, consulting of timetables and discussion with the other three people waiting for the same imaginary train, we understood the situation from the following snippets of conversation: "non c'e` treno!," "sabato," and a long string of something very angry that was most likely too impolite to translate. Our new friend explained (much more calmly) what we'd known all along, thanks to the Wise Old Man of Santa Severa whom we'd met earlier: that there was no train.

Apparently, they'd recently changed the schedule, and the only train running to Rome all evening on Saturdays left at 9:13 pm. It was currently 7:00, at a tiny little station with not even a ticket counter. We asked if there was somewhere good to eat to kill time; of course, killing time was only a pretext: at this point we hadn't eaten lunch, we'd run out of Marc's roadside wild berries and were on the brink of going Donner party. He informed us that there were some very good pizza places along the beach in "downtown" Santa Severa....about a 2 km walk down the road. -_-....

Investigating the local wares

Luckily, they offered us a ride. Despite the setbacks, the detour was actually rather nice. The restaurant on the beach was closed (many places in Italy don't even open for dinner until 8 pm), but we ate at a nice little pizza joint right off of what appeared to be the main square. We befriended a stray cat that looked a little bit like Hitler (for an illustration, go here), found a local open-air artisans' market and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset from the beach before trekking that same damn 2 km back to the station.

We did, eventually, make it home, and even made it out for a mojito pitcher or two at our new favorite, Scala 27, before bed.

It was a grand birthday.

Just Because I'm Super Excited About It....

We're going here for dinner tonight.

Le Fate
Roma Trattoria Romana, Trastevere
Disclaimer: stolen from Interwebs

This is the description from Italy Travel Guide:

Le Fate, Vle. Trastevere 130 (☎06 58 00 971; www.lefaterestaurant.it), Inspired by the fable of Aurora, this festive restaurant has taken on the themes of love and solidarity in both its ambience and the quality of its food. The warmly lit dining area has the feel of a woodland cottage, with a bookshelf of cookbooks in the corner, twinkling star lights, and a string of vines covering the wall. All ingredients come from Lazio, so you can expect especially fresh plates; the homemade gnocchi with steak, cream, spinach, and ricotta is as rich in flavor as Princess Aurora was in gold. Students who aren't blessed with riches like the fairytale heroine should take advantage of the €10 meal, complete with bruschetta, pasta, dessert, and a glass of wine. Just say the magic word (or show your student ID). About 15min. down Vle. Trastevere from P. G. Belli. Free Wi-Fi. Inquire about cooking classes and apartment rentals for students. Open daily 6-11pm. Takes credit cards. Wheelchair access. Has internet. Serves alcohol. Has air conditioning.

Andrea.
Disclaimer: Also stolen from Interwebs.

They have a student deal: bruschetta, an entree, dessert and a glass of wine for 10 euro; menu changes every day. Their executive chef is Andrea, the wonderful man who taught our (incredible!) cooking class last week. 




It's gonna be great.

Assoc. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States

Yeah, we hung out. Thanks, Duquesne University/Villanova/University of St. Thomas/John Cabot University. And whoever catered. : )

Poor guy posed for a lot of pictures before he got to eat.

In other news, I am back in Florence. More specifically, back in Settignano, at Villa Morghen, where I spent some of the most beautiful months of my life and a place which will always remain very dear to me. Only for the weekend. But it promises to be a glorious one. I'm traveling with wonderful people, and I have the opportunity to spend time with another very dear old friend. Not least significantly, I'm giving my poor lungs a long-weekend break from Rome's less-than-desirable air quality. Also, the food is incredible. Naturally. Trains are fun. ALSO Roma Termini sells wine in the form of juice boxes. Whaaaaaa...?!?!!!

More to come later. This weekend brings the Uffizi, Michaelangelo's David, exploring Florence and Settignano, a day trip to San Galgano and San Giminagno, and of course Brunelleschi's masterpiece. I also want to catch up on what's gone down in Roma recently (cooking class!!!) and share a few reflections from our program trip to Assisi a few weeks ago. But for now, we're engrossed in the final episode of season four of Dexter as we recover from a long day of travel. Pace.

Jennifer Berry, Some Hooligan and Francesca Bernocchi
Villa Morghen, April 2009

L'inizio

La Vita Romana

Every good law student knows that context is vital. Before I embark on wild descriptions of trips, revelations, revels, historical sites and cultural experiences, I feel the need to frame them with a picture of our daily lives as we've settled into a routine over the course of the first week. The basics: where we live, what we eat, and what we see every day. For this reason, I've dubbed this one "L'inizio," The Beginning. That is to say, it should have been my first Roma post, to start everything off in the proper atmosphere. But it wasn't, so we're a little sideways. As that seems to be the Roman way anyway, I don't really mind.

Just about everybody in the program is housed in John Cabot's Gianicolo Residence, basically a dorm building (the most Italian, picturesque dorm building ever seen) full of 2-6 student capacity apartments. It's a beautiful living space; the building is obviously very old but it's been recently renovated and outfitted completely with IKEA furniture and amenities.

The residence itself as well as John Cabot's two campuses are located in the Trastevere neighborhood, just over the Tiber from the main part of the city. "Trastevere," in fact, is derived from Latin and means "beyond the Tiber." I know, Latin's pretty cool. Anyhow, I can't think of any part of Rome in which I'd rather spend 6 weeks of my life. The neighborhood is beautiful, quiet and more subdued than the city proper; however, it's not a far trek and/or bus ride to the Vatican or any other Roman attraction. And at night, the whole place wakes up and glitters. The italics is to indicate my earnestness.

Trastevere is basically a maze of tiny streets that in any other city would be properly labeled "alleys." They all look alike and they all seem to lead everywhere. Every once in awhile they open up to little piazzas with fountains and crowds of people, locals and tourists alike, all sitting, standing, walking, eating, drinking, chatting, begging, selling, shopping and posing for photographs. The most famous of these is Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, which houses Rome's oldest church, of the same name. In this piazza are musicians, impromptu concerts and magic shows. It's exciting, but it's also the most tourist-y. (Read: don't eat here, it will be more expensive.)

On the piazzas restaurants and storekeepers can expand into the square with displays, tables, umbrellas and extra seating, while the streets are narrow and shops instead make the most of their windows and open doorways with bright colors, lights and gorgeous arrangements of whatever it is they're trying to entice you to buy. It's like constantly walking around a Christmas tree after Santa has paid a visit. It's also here that the best food is to be found. Tourists stick to the main streets and piazzas, so prices are higher and the food is slightly more generic. Not that mainstream restaurants are bad; they have easy, set-price "tourist menus" with antipasti, primi and secondi piatti (courses), and dessert for a flat fee. The courses will include traditional platters so you "get the experience," most of the waiters speak English and all of the descriptions are translated so you don't accidentally order raw meat (it's possible).

The real way is to tough it out a little: find a small place with a nondescript door where you only hear Italian and you think you'll need your phrasebook to place your order. It's definitely worth it. Most likely that little nondescript door opens to a cozy, softly lit interior with wooden tables and red-checkered tablecloths and garlic hanging from the ceiling. You can almost hear "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp playing in the background. Minus the whole dog thing.

A night out in S. Maria di Trastevere

By the way, you'll be doing this at around 8 pm, 7:30 at the earliest--nothing opens until then. If you start at 8, dinner won't be over until 10. And the night is still young. Suddenly the streets are full of twice as many people as were out and about before you started eating; people walking everywhere, speaking a variety of languages. It's a week night, and the streets won't even start to empty until midnight or later. On the way home: dessert. There's a gelato shop about every 5 meters.

So that's the neighborhood.
As for our accommodations themselves: I live with one other girl in a perfectly sized, air-conditioned room outfitted with two twin beds, two little desk-tables and two identical wardrobes, plus a massive power strip for our numerous electronics and a window that looks down onto...well, not much, but the view straight out is gorgeous.

Our little "camera di letto"

And that's just our bedroom.

We live with four others in our 6-person, two double-bedroom, two single-room, double bathroom monstrosity (complete with dining area, living room and kitchen), where we have plenty of room for activities that include (but are not limited to) quiet studying, yoga and multi-apartment, multicultural dinner parties. The group of us, Loryn, Tyler, Chris & Hannah (the ampersand is necessary to denote their Engaged Couple! status), myself and Rafe, is a terrific one. The rest of the folks in the program are similarly awesome: it's a well-balanced, fun-loving crowd of future lawyers with a little bit of a wine habit (but it's ok, we're in Italy!)  For example, this evening witnessed a herd of us in the living room, involved in a heated game of Family Feud on someone's iPad and all eagerly awaiting the commencement of Taco Tuesday, unbearably delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.

Rafe demonstrating our spacious living room

This, then, brings me to the best part: our fully loaded Italian kitchen. By "fully loaded" I mean with a gas stove, oven, dishes (IKEA, of course), cooking pots, cheese grater, refrigerator, microwave, corkscrew, washing machine and terra-cotta tiled walls; also without a dishwasher, toaster, measuring cups, towels, counter space, dryer or a lightbulb above the stove.

We're able to stock our cabinets with fresh fruits, veggies, cheeses and breads from the local area markets. The liquor policy is frankly strange for a group of students of an average age of 26, but 1 L/person (including empty bottles??) in a 6-man room still gives us a colorful array of bottles decorating the counter. We also discovered a few "normal" supermarkets/ grocery stores where we can get hot dogs and potato chips for those meals when we're just feeling, well...American. We did have a good excuse the first time--but the 4th of July only comes once a year. 

 Hannah and Chris: experts at this Italian cooking thing.

A few of us (me!) were slightly startled when the "Room & Board" expected costs from orientation didn't include Board...some sort of "you don't have to buy food every day" meal plan. Well, we're big kids now I suppose, and spending my planned "fun money" on food just means that I won't travel out of the country as much as I'd thought. I will, however, definitely eat better than expected. As I reflected on this, I'm actually quite pleased that it worked out like this. Of course, I'd love to have all of the travel cash I could ever need at my fingertips, but I've only got 6 weeks here and I'm determined to make the most of being here, in Italy. So I'll stick, immersed in the language and the food and the religion and the art and the FOOD. Cutting out Prague, Budapest and Greece leaves a little bit more spending space for Milan maybe, and certainly a brief re-visit to my beloved Florence. And for Rome, and i ristoranti Italiani. Naturally. And gelato! Every day. 

Freedom.

Besides, having to provide our own meals as cheaply as possible has brought out the creative side in more than one of my classmates. We've invented all sorts of snacks, sauces, meals and goodies, mostly using just typical Italian ingredients: olive oil, tomato sauce, pasta, cheese, and basic vegetables. A surprising collective culinary prowess has made itself manifest the first week in the form of "dinner parties" as well. The original idea of sharing a meal with the apartment of 6 below us and a few other guests has now grown into such a lively tradition that they've started taking on themes. 

the Chefs

It all started with Marc showing off his Italian food skillz with an incredible pesto-steak pasta. Then, as the Fourth of July required some sort of special celebration, we settled on the obvious: hot dogs and burgers, but with an Italian twist. Our typical American feast came with sauteed mushrooms and onions, improvised relish, Caprese salad and freshly-grated Parmesan over everything. Tonight it escalated to Taco Tuesday, which is exactly what it sounds like. With originally-compiled taco seasoning mix and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Eat your heart out, JCU cafeteria. Buon appetito!

Mob descending on Taco Tuesday table