Progressing east

I'm on summer vacation! I got back home last Thursday, which puts me solidly in the eastern time zone. The next time I will be in central time is in January! From here on out, it's all going east, east, east.

There are a little over 3 months left until I leave for the Mediterranean. We still haven't gotten housing assignments yet, but I'm hoping those will appear within a week or two. I did order all my books, however, and I think they've just about all come in (one or two might be missing still). I'll make a post on that soon, once I get my room a bit more organized and get all my Rome stuff into one concentrated area. Mostly I just wanted to make my presence known again after a full month of insanity that kept me away from the blogosphere, for the most part.

Meeting #2: Meet the New Boss

....somewhat similar to the old boss. Or routine, rather.

Except for the part where it's in Rome.

The second (of 2, I believe) pre-departure meetings was yesterday. Besides turning in my travel plans, so that if I'm lost in transit the program knows where to begin, we also met our teachers for the program and talked in depth about what the academics will look like. Housing will come out in a few weeks, probably not until summer. I also learned the total number of people in the program; according to our roster, there are 26 of us, only about 5 of whom are boys.

A few days ago we got assigned to language level groups. The fact that I'm currently in Italian 203 means that in the fall I'll be in the advanced level group with one other girl. Most people are in the beginning level and there are another 3 or 4 students at the intermediate level. Beginning and intermediate students take classes with our grad student assistant, Miriam, who is native Italian and who is kind of like our on-site program coordinator. We two privileged students considered "advanced" actually take classes at Italidea, a language school in Rome (see here for more info). Allegedly the class is just us two and a "chill" instructor, and we basically talk about current issues (wars, immigration, stuff like that) in Italian to practice advanced grammar and all that good stuff. Our program coordinator, Elana, says that the advanced class always gets "rave" reviews, so I'm pretty excited to try it out.

So yeah, academics besides language. What we're actually all here for is the civilizations in Rome program, where we take three quarters of the college civilizations requirement in one quarter's worth of time. Civ, as it's called, is basically like a history-anthro-vaguely art-y thing, as far as I can tell, and we're doing the sequence called, appropriately, "Rome: Antiquity to the Baroque." A few thousand years of Roman history in ten weeks--not at all compressed or anything like that.

Anyway, we have three teachers who each teach for three or so weeks. The first three weeks are ancient Rome, up to about 400 or so, taught by a classicist named Emanuel Mayer. We don't have a syllabus yet for this, since Mayer just got back from teaching in the Athens study abroad program, but he said it will involve a lot of site visits to all the ruins. He teaches us from 9/25-10/17, and in the middle of that (from 10/6-8) we go to Napoli, to the Villa Vergiliana, from which we visit Pompeii. We'll be reading about the Romans, I'm sure, as befits such a course, and Mayer claims we'll be spending a lot of time "outside" seeing stuff, clambering around ruins, all that sort of good stuff.

The second three weeks or so (from about 10/18-11/8) are taught by Aden Kumler, who's in the art history department. She's teaching "Medieval Rome," aka Rome from about 400-1400ish or so. The main book we have to get for this part is called Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim, and there's also an artsy guide we're recommended to get about all the art (naturally) in Rome. The stuff we're reading about is persectuion/Constantine's Christian Rome,  the barbarians and Charlemagne,  Gregory the Great, Innocent III, "the Jubilee Year 1300," the Babylonian captivity of Rome from 1309-1378, and the transition out of "medieval" Rome. We have a "midterm" and a final for this section of the class. We're also doing a crapton of site visits here, which so far (according to the calendar/syllabus we have) include the Arches of Titus and Constantine, the Basilica Nova, San Giovanni in Laterano, Santa Sabina, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Santa Agnese, Santa Costanza, San Prassede, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Sancta Sanctorum, San Clemente, Sans Cosmas and Damian, and Castel Sant'Angelo.

The last three weeks (from 11/9-12/1) are taught by Niall Atkinson, also in art history. He's teaching Renaissance and Baroque Rome, basically Rome from about 1400ish-1600ish, I think. We're supposed to get books like Art in Renaissance Rome, the Life of Michelangelo, Rome of Alexander VII, that sort of thing.  Site visits galore yet again; according to the current syllabus/calendar, we are visiting the Vatican, San Pietro in Montorio, Villa Farnesina, the Capitoline and its museums, Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, the Gesu', Sant'Ignazio, Tivoli and the villas there (Hadrian's villa and the Villa d'Este), Galleria Borghese, San Maria della Vittoria, San Andrea al Quirinale, San Carlo alle 4 Fontane, San'Andrea delle Fratte, Palazzo Spada, Piazza del Popolo/Spagna/Navona, Santa Maria della Pace, the Pantheon, and Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Our course requirements for this section are basically journal entries/short writing assignments, a brief in-class presentation, and a final (which is apparently oral).

As far as how all this gets fit into ten weeks, we have class Monday-Thursday, and long weekends each weekend. Civ is Monday-Thursday, 9:30-noon each day. Language classes are Mondays and Wednesdays in the afternoon, depending on level; my advanced class meets from 2:30-3:20. It's a lot of time in class, but quite a bit of that is out of class, on site visits, I suppose. I am glad that we're doing so much and hopefully getting the maximum amount possible out of ten weeks in Rome (it's said that you could live there permanently and still not see all the things there are to see in Rome, after all.) The program also encourages us to hit the town while we're there, try all sorts of restaurants and bars and sporting events. Rome is apparently quite nice for a large city, with not too much violent crime (though lots of pickpocketing if you're not careful, allegedly).

All this has made me pretty excited to go. After the Roman era, I don't know much if anything of the history of Rome, so it will be cool to be there on site while learning about it (and getting to see a crazy lot of monuments and stuff while there). Such a huge info dump, I know, and yet so cool.

A little over 4 months until arrival in la citta' eterna....

Lull

Sorry for the dearth of news in the past two weeks or so, but there really has been nothing at all going on when it comes to Rome 2011 now that tickets are booked and whatnot. Our next pre-departure meeting is a week from tomorrow (the 16th), where we'll find out specifics about the academics we're doing and our professors and whatnot, which is cool but still several days away. Nothing is moving on the housing front, either, since I don't think they'll get around to assigning apartments and roommates until later, maybe not even until the summer; since I don't particularly know anyone else in the program, I don't even have anyone to specifically request as a roommate or apartment mate.

So: an update on how there are not really any updates! Less than stellar, I know, but after the 16th there should be academic news to report, and then it will be almost the end of the academic year here, aka time to pack. This year packing will be interesting (read: obnoxious), since I'll have to take home not only what I need for the summer but also what I'll need to bring to Rome in the fall. The rest will be sitting in storage here in Chicago until January. Wince.

Until then.

Itinerary (rough draft)

My scorn about travel agents in this day and age seems to have been largely misplaced, as the emails I received today from my mother about my flight bookings show. My flight to Rome has been booked, as have my parents' flights out to Europe and so forth; the hotels are still being worked out some, I think. The rough draft of Europe 2011 looks like this:

Wednesday, September 21, 2011-Thursday, September 22, 2011: Alitalia from Boston Logan (depart 5:45 PM eastern time) to Rome Fiumicino (arrive 7:45 AM Rome time)
Arrive in Paris evening Sunday, December 4, 2011
Arrive in London sometime Friday, December 9, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011: Delta from London (depart 10:30 AM London time) to Boston Logan (arrive 1:45 PM eastern time)

I'm not quite sure of the details of the time in London, but there is a hotel booked for Paris and apparently appropriate flights booked between cities, which I have not seen yet. Regardless, possibly the best news of all is the fact that my flight to Rome and my flight back from London together cost only about US$800. Transatlantic travel for about US$400 each way? Not too shabby on the travel agent's part, assuming that these aren't totally crap seats. Alitalia's luggage policies don't seem terrible, per se, but I am extremely wary of trying to bring a bunch of stuff back on Delta from London, considering how I will be in Europe for 80-odd days and will probably accumulate some interesting things in my travels.

All told, I am glad that things in the logistics department are progressing well (and, so far, remarkably cheaply), considering that I have until mid-May before we get to meet our professors for the program and learn the nitty-gritty details of our academic time in la citta' eterna.

Little ado about everything

The Rome front currently is occupied with housing issues dealing with UChicago, actually, and where I live when I come back to campus next winter. (Current conclusion: there will be no conclusion on this issue until December. Nothing like a good, solid, timely resolution to all your issues.) I'll likely be claiming to want to move back into the housing system, and assuming that a room is available either in my house (ideal but relatively unlikely as it stands now), in my dorm (something I'd definitely take assuming that it's a single), or in a single in a dorm near where I am now or with a similarly acceptable proximity to food, I'll stick with the housing system. I will not stick with housing if my only options are a double (I'll have had enough of rooming with strangers after a quarter abroad) somewhere outside my current dorm or a slot in one of the first-year-heavy dorms with first-year-like cultures. The housing system is mostly first- and second-years anyway, but there's a world of difference between my current dorm and others on campus in terms of culture, and while different people work better in different cultures, I know what I want and don't want. A slightly neurotic, still-high-school-y culture works well for some people, but it is just not for me at this point in my college career.

If no housing system next year, then what? Staying in the International House on campus is a high option, assuming that they would likely still have rooms open on short notice (this is something to discuss with them, obviously.) This would probably require me to cook for myself, which hopefully is something I can sort-of handle after wrangling with my own food in Rome. If no I-House, then I could throw myself at the mercy of renters in the area, of whom I know a few. Transient subletting is a very undesirable possibility but hopefully one so low as to be able to be considered improbable. I could sell myself out as a maid or something to friends. Also extremely improbable, but I guess it's good to have options.

Besides domestic wrangling with various housing authorities and resigning myself to the fact that it's going to involve rolling the dice and hedging my bets, the Rome front is quiet. Parents are apparently beginning the process of making reservations for a) my flight to Rome, b) their own flights to Europe in December, c) our accomodations for touring Europe after my program ends, and d) our collective flight home from Europe before Christmas, something that all has to be finalized before May 16th. Since this is a complex transaction, my mother has indeed begun the process of engaging the help of travel agents instead of simply trying to trust Expedia or something similar. My father has also apparently expressed reservations about trying to cram three European cities into two weeks, so the initial plan I related in my last post may be modified to cut out London or something. This makes me a bit sad, but Paris is just as cool as London, and as my father and I are both neophytes in European travel, one is as good as another to us right now. I'll be glad to go just about anywhere in Europe.

Meeting #1: The works

Today was it, the first official pre-departure planning meeting, as they called it. We got a folder brimming full of all the info we could ever want to know, everything from lodging info (we provide our own bath towels but that's about it) to electrical adapters to money to public transportation to who else is in the program. Most of the things told to us were things I had already learned, thanks to my "recon" meeting with my ex-housemate who went to Rome this past fall, so there's actually nothing really new to pass on. Our professors were also announced, but I don't recognize any of their names in particular. I do recognize some of the people going from classes, but I don't actually know any of them. Some seemed to know each other already, so hopefully the trip won't be too cliquey or anything. I have faith, however, that it will go well.

It turns out that for countries in what's called the Schengen Area (click for Wikipedia article--basically most of the EU, with the exception of the UK and Ireland), US citizens do not need a visa to travel or study as long as they are there for 90 days or fewer.  The time spent studying abroad will be about 74-75 days, so I am set. (Over 90 days and you need an official visa.) However, the latest plan is actually to kind of do a mini-tour of Europe after the program ends on December 4th, with my parents, since I don't think my dad has ever been to Europe, and my mom hasn't been for 10+ years. As the plan *very* tentatively goes right now, my parents would arrive in Rome at the beginning of December and see some sights while I am finishing up my program, and then we would go together to Paris and then to London and fly home to the states from London on December 13th or so, which still keeps me inside the 90-day visa-free zone (my 90 days are up on December 20th, assuming I arrive in the EU/Italy on September 22nd).

I am very excited to go, of course, and also excited to see some more of Europe, assuming that works out; I have never been across the Atlantic to the Old World, and I'd like to see Paris and London too. That way if I ever go back at some point, I can concentrate on visiting some less commonly visited countries after having seen the "big three" (London, Paris, and Rome) sites of Europe.

Now to book flights; my mother is considering getting a travel agent to help. This surprised me in part because I did not realize that travel agents still existed as part of the travel industry. I suppose it makes sense, though, crossing so many country borders and staying in different places and whatnot.

Me times 6

In preparation for Wednesday's meeting and the passing-in of much paperwork, I got my photo taken today (Monday, since I've begun this right before midnight but it has technically posted as Tuesday) at the ID and Privileges office on campus. ($8 will get a current student more passport-sized color photos than you ever imagined necessary, it appears.) I need a total of 5, but they only print them in batches of two, so that equals 6--the five needed plus one to spare, in case I ever want to look back on that moment at 10:30 central time this morning when they took my picture.

The photo is remarkably bad, in part because of my own lame attempts to be serious. With passport photos, they tell you not to smile (allegedly it distorts your facial features? something like that), and since I wasn't exactly sure for what these copies of me would be put to use (visas? something else official?) I took a similarly stolid, no-smile stance. Which just looks kind of foolish when combined with my hair, which was remarkably askew, probably still in protest against the annoying 9:45 a.m. fire drill we had this morning thanks to some jackanape in the dorm deciding to pull the fire alarm. (I was already awake when it went off, but it was less than pleasant outside.) A housemate of mine, however, who went to Athens last spring quarter believes the photos might be necessary for ID to get into ruins (we are going to Pompei, after all, at least so far as I know), which are strictly access-controlled in many countries. If so, it probably wouldn't have hurt to smile. At least they know I'm serious?

The rest of the paperwork is filled out; I just have to put it all together and get ready to see what is next in the process. I suspect flight-booking will be the (fun but absurdly expensive) next step, but I'm not going to put money on that or anything. We will see, we will see.