After a day of exploring the Tivoli gardens, I am pretty exhausted. Getting out there was quite the adventure but we made it! We are slowly but surely acquainting ourselves with Rome’s public transportation system. The gardens are lovely! There are massive gravity-powered fountains throughout the extensive gardens. One of them actually functions as a “water organ,” complete with silver pipes, and plays music every two hours. It was a great day to be out in the gardens and it was nice to be in such a serene environment (quite the opposite of the revving cars and loud voices outside my bedroom window as I’m writing this).
My Italian class is so much fun!! I have this compulsive obsession with learning as much Italian as I can because, with every lesson, it becomes easier and easier to speak with my signora at home, or just people in general, out and about. Having just finished my first week of classes, I can comfortably talk to people in Italian and it’s such a trip!! Having such a strong background in Spanish definitely helps a whole lot but so much of learning a language is just listening – idioms, voice patterns, pronunciation. One may learn formal elements of language out of a book but to ACTUALLY learn any language, you just have to listen to people speak.
Though I’ve already been nerding out with regard to monuments we’ve been seeing, I’m insanely jazzed for some of the top museums in the world: The National Museum, Villa Borghese, and the Vatican Museums. Wooo!!
We’re introducing some friends to the Asian restaurant across the street tonight. Normally, of course, it’s important to try authentic local cuisine a lot but, as Lily and I get wonderful, home-cooked Italian food every night during the week I don’t feel too bad defaulting back to Thai or Chinese food on the weekend.
Ara Pacis and Bernini's "Ecstasy of Saint Theresa" tomorrow!!
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