Connecting it All Together...

Learning about the Roman structures in a textbook, or gazing at pictures, in my opinion, is a sense of superficial and incomplete knowledge of the subject. Physically touching the Pantheon, experiencing the Roman Forum at night with the sea of lights shining on the ruins, peering up at the grand Coliseum ties in all the previous knowledge learned back in classrooms to tie all together. You begin to imagine stories Julius Caesar, Augustus and so fourth, along with the Roman Senate taking charge of Roman politics. Or Hadrian ordering the reconstruction of the Pantheon, or even the tens of thousands of gladiators that fought, and the thousands that perished. A tangible object, for me, allows for all these connections to be made. Now I feel as if I am starting to understand the full picture of historical Rome, the power it was and still is, but there is so much more to learn. Literally every street corner there is an important piece of Roman history. A seemly endless wealth of knowledge waiting to be discovered.

 So far what has been the best? Seeing the Pantheon in the flesh. It gives chills down my spine thinking that this structure before my eyes has seen little less than 2,000 years of history, and it still is in spectacular condition. Not to mentioned the impressive engineering skills it took to successfully complete the dome. 

On Thursday night a group of us went to Campidoglio (Capitaloline Hill), where the was a live orchestra playing ballroom dance music with seemly thousands of well dressed Italians dancing in the piazza. Just across the piazza was the best view, looking down and across of the Roman Forum ruins. My heart stopped at the surreal sight. This was my first time physically seeing the Roman Forum.

In addition, the locale people are so full of life. People here seem to be enthused about everything, live life in the moment kind of attitude. More of the energetic piazza's (which can change depending on time and day), there are usually great music street performers. Although they are begging for money, the still give a great sense of culture and liveliness to the piazza spaces. The only thing slowing down my locale experience is the language barrier, but that is a work in progress!