Africa in Rome

Yesterday we wandered about town. The day started innocently enough, we met in the square in Trastavere –which I'm told is similar to the Village in New York. It has a fresh market, a playground, and supposedly an active nightlife (I haven't been able to confirm or completely deny this last claim yet). Anywho, after we met, our instructor Davide led us to several main corridors and palazzos.

We went to the Rome Center, our school for the semester and it was there in the Empire wing that I discovered my first glimpse of African influence in Rome, it was probably just the first time I noticed. There were two identical chandeliers that I couldn't keep my eyes off. They were bowl shaped fixtures with 6 (or more) sphinx heads on them. The bottom of the bowl had what looked to be two knives crossing. The faces on the sphinx heads however did not look especially African, or especially European really. In that same room I also I saw a baroque painting with a black man in it, which was the first time I'd seen that as well.

During my trip here I going to look for similar African themes.

Roman Holiday (Day 1)

It's been a long trip so far. In fact I'm writing this from the 12 hour flight that is my last leg of my trip. I have no idea of what they'll think of me once I arrive and I probably shouldn't be concerned with this but being disliked in a foreign land could end up being a very lonely place. For now I am watching an Italian movie wishing that I had taken the languages courses that I so happily signed up for. But I'll improviseJ. I've been traveling now for about 16 hours total which means that I should have 3 more hours left (I think).

Arriving in the Atlanta airport this morning I was rather nervous. Started to think to myself, "what did I get into here?"; made several observations to keep my mind busy.

1. Americans have a sense of entitlement that is quite annoying.
   

   For example the flight attendant on my first flight asked that all passengers turn off their electronic devices while the plane is taxi-ing (sp?). The man across from me becomes outraged at the thought of having to put his e-book down for the trivial sake of safety. He says to the lady I suppose is his wife "that's bullshit, do you know how many flights I've been on where people had their phone on the whole time and the flight attendant didn't say anything?". To him I wanted to reply, "just turn the damned thing off, I'm not dying today because you want to play solitaire".
   

2. The man next to me seemed to have turrets. He wasn't saying anything, but he was jerking a little in an uncontrolled fashion.
   

   I thought to myself, "poor thing… I hate it when my body does things that I didn't tell it to do. Like grow leg hair or have menstrual cramps." Although I'm sure his plight is quite different than mine.
   

3. I'm almost positive that the children sitting next to me on my second flight wanted nothing to do with me.
   

   This was made evident by the younger one's persistent crying, the older one's fearful look at me, and finally when whole family hastily moved to the rear of the plane at the flight attendants suggestion. However, I could just be paranoid or overly sensitive in this situation (doubt it).
   

4. They served wine on the flight from Boston to Rome J; it's like they knew I was coming. Jk, they apparently do this all the time, -just wanted to sound important. Anywho, I think the alcohol content in the wine they serve might have been the highest I've ever had. I'm intrigued! Can I bring bottles back?
   
5. That whole going to sleep after a good meal is not just a Black thing. Yep, I'm afraid it's international now. Everyone on the plane passed out after they served us dinner which was a choice of beef or fish, manicotti, fruit salad, regular salad, cheese, more wine (yay!), and tea. I ate everything. In fact I ate like I didn't know where my next meal was coming from…and at this point I still don't. After eating I joined the other passengers in the great communal pass out. I woke up only to pass out again. I think they put something in that wine.
   
6. At the present moment I'm watching an Italian film about…I have no idea what it's about. I don't mean to sound like an uncultured American but they lost me awhile back. I only remember that the movie played a 50 cent song, there was a black boy in it and they referred to him as a colored boy (according to the subtitle, -not sure if it has the same connotation as it does in America), and they made a reference to Obama (when the 'colored' boy was mentioned the father said, "Si se puede", translated: "Yes we can". As you can tell by now I'm not big on proper punctuation.
   
7. Whoops! Looks like they're about to serve breakfast…gotta go!