Today was our free day where we could explore Rome however we wanted to, whether that be a relaxing day around the surrounding neighborhood of Prati or a train ride to the beach. Some students decided to go to the Rome flea market. While my classmates came back with stashes of treasures, the market was commonly referred to as chaotic, endless and random. On my free day my roommate and I decided to make the most out of our MIC cards and explore all of the free museums and archeological sites we have access to.
We first went to the Largo di Torre Argentina archeological site. On our first day here the class had planned to enter but we came too close to its closing time. While we could see the site from above I wanted to walk within the ruins to get an up close look. This site was just recently opened to the public in June of this year but was accidentally discovered in 1926 when a construction project revealed the remains of four temples and of the Theater of Pompey. The Theater of Pompey holds great historical significance as the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE. The Largo di Torre Argentina renovated site allows walking on elevated path ways to catch a glimpse of the ruins as well as the felines that lounge in the ancient area.
While I was expecting to see lots of cats at the site, I only ended up spotting two. It was the high heat of the day so I predicted that the cats were probably off enjoying some shade away from the public eye. The colony of cats that live there is part of the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary. The sanctuary helps vaccinate and sterilize the cats they care for.
Mina
As someone who needs alone time to refresh, I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by the tenth day of the trip. So, with a slight cold and a free day, I decided it would be the perfect day to spend mostly in bed. I originally had the intention of going to the flea market. However, I woke up and realized I needed a full day alone. So, for the first time this trip, I ventured into the city without anyone else. I say that I ventured, but that may be a strong word because I stayed within ten minutes of the dorms for the entire day.
My comfort cafe (Vero) is closed on Sundays, so I walked to another nearby cafe I had only visited once or twice before called Ciampini. At this point, it was 11:15, so I was a bit scared when I ordered a cappuccino that they would laugh in my face since Romans have this thing about ordering cappuccinos in the afternoon. Thankfully, the guy didn’t laugh and instead made me a delicious cappuccino. As I returned to the dorms to lay in bed, I decided to stop by a bakery/gelateria next to Vero. The man greeted me and recognized me from a few days before when I frantically ran in there to grab napkins with horror in my eyes because a bird had pooped on my hand and phone. I bought a tart and headed back to the dorms to sleep the day away.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t sleep much, so I spent the day catching up with friends back home through text and binging some shows on Netflix. At 2 p.m., I decided to drag myself out of bed again and get lunch somewhere nearby. I went to Grekos—which, as the name implies, serves Greek food because I was getting a little tired of having Italian food for every meal— I got a chicken pita wrap to go, and shockingly, it was ready in less than a minute. I walked back to the dorms and had a little mouse moment while eating my wrap and went back to doing nothing.
At night, my roommate went out to dinner with people. But I still needed time alone, so I went somewhere close (again) to get takeaway for dinner. I decided on Chopstick, a place that serves Japanese food that a couple other people had already been to and thoroughly enjoyed. I ordered fried rice and had to pay at a separate desk with the hostess. This moment was one of this trip’s most challenging language barrier moments. I tried my best to explain that I was paying for my takeaway order, but she didn’t understand what I was saying, and she had to call over a coworker, which took some time but was fine with me. And she kept apologizing, and I kept apologizing, and it was this back and forth of us feeling apologetic for something neither of us had control over or needed to feel sorry for.
After feeling bad for not speaking Italian, I ate my fried rice, showered, and went to bed, hoping to wake up less sick the next morning. (Spoiler: I’ve been the same level of sick for about 3 days now. Hopefully tomorrow will be better?)
Unanswerable question of the day: When will my cold end?
Eleanor
Kate and Eleanor’s Grand Adventure
After eating lunch, Kate and I decided to use our MIC cards and visit the Museo Civico di Zoologia (the Civic Museum of Zoology). Unfortunately our lunch spot was in a weird place in relation to the museum, so all of our public transport apps were routing us in a weird way. We decided to go anyway since it was a free day. The journey began by us walking a couple of blocks to a random bus stop to catch a bus that wasn’t listed on the sign for the stop. We figured out it was a scheduled bus, so they didn’t list it on the sign. After a quick bus ride we hopped on the subway and rode it a ways before getting off so we could transfer to a different bus. Once we finally arrived at the museum we found a lovely sign that alerted us the AC was not working in the museum. We decided to enter anyway. What we thought was a cool natural history museum turned out to be a kitschy museum filled with taxidermied dioramas aimed at children. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our visit to the museum, especially the gift shop with still functioning air conditioning. Our next decision was to decide whether to go back to the dorms or not. After a quick google search we found that there is a modern art museum we could use our MIC cards to get into, so we decided to go there. We hopped onto the tram (our 3rd form of public transport that day for those keeping track) and headed over to the museum. Or what we thought was the museum. For this museum, we had to go through security first and then go and scan our MIC cards before entering the gallery. When we showed our cards to the woman she said they didn’t work at this particular museum which was confusing because it said they would work online. She then directed us over to the ticket counter. I thought that we might need to show the cards to get a paper ticket as that is what happened at the Museo di Roma-Palazzo Braschi. We get to the ticket counter and the lady explains that this is a national museum and MIC cards only work for certain city museums. At this point Kate and I solved the mystery and realized that there are not one but two modern art galleries in Rome. We wanted to go to the Galleria d’Arte Moderna and accidentally ended up at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. While we may have had a fool’s journey there, we did not have a fool’s journey back to the dorms. Luckily for us the tram we took from the Zoology Museum to the National Gallery of Modern Art also went all the way back to our dorms, so we called it a day and went home.
