Tuesday, March 26, 2013

New City, New Tongues


                                                                                                            
                                    We had an all around interesting day today. As soon as I thought I was beginning to get a sense of Roman history, architecture, and even the native language, I felt as if I was bomb-rushed by a whole new side to the Roman culture. It is almost like every small city-state of Italy has made their own mark on the country and in fact, that is exactly what we learned today.

                  Our first walk started off a little rough. As soon as we arrived at the metro stop where we were supposed to meet our docent, Tom Rankin, we were surprised to not see him at first. It was actually kind of funny because while we waited for him for an entire hour, we later found out that he was there at the station waiting for us, but even with the small little mix up at the beginning we managed to have a very fun walk.  I like to think of our walk today as an excavation. Tom took us to the ancient ruins of Ostia  and I have to say, it was so much bigger than in the pictures. At first thought, I assumed Ostia Antica would just be a small little village off the coast, but it turns out that the little village I envisioned was actually an entire full fledge city with a cemetery and imperial forum. I liked it a lot because Tom allowed us to explore the sight and discover the city on our own. It genuinely allowed me to enjoy the city for myself.
                  A few hours after that, we met our next docent, Andrea, for a language workshop at a small bar in Monti and apparently time was, once again, not in our favor. We met Andrea at the bar but apparently the bar owner was running a bit late and we stood outside of the bar for close to ten minutes and we practically had the first part of the session outside. Needless to say, the owner showed up and we continued the session inside. Before I continue can I ask you something? Do you think there is only one way to speak Italian? Well, long-story-short, NO. There are many different ways to speak the language and each way can depict where and what part of the country you are from. I never would have thought of that at all without the insight of Andrea. In a way, English is also the same way. We have forms of slang, obscenities  and even accents, but what brings all of these different styles of one language together is one common root that they share.   This root comes from the history of the culture. Who would have thought that even though we are separated by over a thousand miles across the ocean, even though our dialect is different, the way Americans and Italians speak can still be so similar.
-Devin

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