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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