GL 350; week Cinque

The Gving of Thanks          

  Week five already, wow! The time has sure passed by. It is starting to feel like yesterday that I just rrived.We have seen a lot of amazing sites in Rome, around every corner, you are able to find a site marked historic or found in a history book. In Rome there are no skyscrapers and plenty of green space, more than I had expected. Now, last week I was able to go to the Roma zoo located in Borghese gardens and then this week Gabby and Aubree took us on a tour which included the gardens. We also saw a private museum owned by the Borghese family and it was very impressive.

            Now, at the start of Gabby and Aubree’s tour we walked from Termani to Barbarini and then to the entrance of the gardens. Along the way we stopped at several churches, which were beautiful, Santa Andrea was the name of one of them I do believe, right beside Santa Susanna, the American catholic church of Rome. We were able to walk past the United States Embassy, the American flag waving through the wind and it seemed very special to see for me. We finally made it to the gardens and while we were not given a tour of the gardens, due to the size of the gardens, we were given a summary of them. In relating our readings to what we saw, in “the Smiles of Rome”, the article was about the Italians and their gardens. “These gardens have excited so much admiration that little thought has been given to the house…”, now, the house the museum was located in had a private garden attached, gated in, not to mention the rest of the gardens located around the building. Unlike the quote from the book, this house looked, I think, detailed and expensive, a quite impressive site with the garden filled with fruit and flowers attached. “The result is extraordinarily romantic and beautiful…”, the Borghese gardens were beautiful, well maintained trees, shrubs and flowers, beautiful playgrounds for children to play and a beautiful zoo to attach people of all ages.

            Now, in the readings from “The Italians”, one little passage in chapter nine really caught my attention. “How old are the little boys in Naples who steal nags from parked cars…The eight year old boy who was kidnapped by the Mafia, a few years ago, with his grandfather, one of the great Sicilian landowners, knew, without being told by anybody, that he must show no fear, see nothing, hear nothing, and later remember nothing of what had happened to him.” First the little boys at Naples stealing stuff, well, this coming weekend I am we are traveling to Sorrento, and having to pass through Naples. Apperently, Naples is not exactly know to be that safe of a place to vist so luckly we are only passing through Naples. Second, the other part where the grandfather had to forget about his grandson, well, that was absolutely horrible and just because of the Mafia. I have seen television documentaries about mafias all over the world and they are not the people to mess with or cross paths with. There was another quote in the readings that caught my attention, “These people, however, also discover that all official institutions are weak and unstable in Italy; the law is flexible and unreliable…”, I have noticed here that the Italian law really is flexible, for instance to parking and the driving laws, I have seen people park in the craziest spots where anywhere else in the world, they would have been towed. As for speeding , I have not seen one person pulled over for it and people fly here or that a two lane road really means four lanes, two cars in one lane. I want to try this in the United States but I would prefer to not cause an accident and get arrested because when I tell the nice police officer that they do it in Rome, that is a bad excuse! Now, the one thing we have been told that the police are strict on are the men selling knock off bags, it is illegal and they crack the whip of this activity.

            This week we celebrated Thanksgiving, a holiday all about being thankful for what you are given in life, the family and friends you have and the freedom of living in one of the greatest countries in the world, the United States. We started off that Thursday going to a thanksgiving mass, something I have never done before. The mass was just like any other mass except for at the end the ambassador of the United States to the Holy see read the proclamation of Thanksgiving by President Barrack Obama and then we sang Oh beautiful. The proclamation was not very exciting for me, possibly blaming it on the fact that I am not a fan of Obama but changing the subject, when we sang Oh Beautiful, I was tearing up and it gave me goosebumps. Then it was time to head back to campus and take a nap before dinner. Thanksgiving dinner in Rome was better than I thought. I expected the food to look Italian and taste Italian not like our thanksgiving dinners back home but wow, were my expectations blown away. It was amazing and we all sat around a table eating our thanksgiving dinner together as a family, along with some guests.

            To end this blog I am going to talk about what I am thankful for. First and most importantly I am thankful for my family and friends that I have. Without my family well, I would not be at Walsh, be on this trip and not have all the loving support that I have. Second, I am thankful for the beautiful county that I live in, the United States, while I strongly, very strongly dislike the way the country is going and who is running it, America is still my home, where I was born and where I belong, being in Rome has made me discover this about myself. Third I am thankful for the life I am given and the opportunities given to me, four years ago, I could have never been alive to be doing what I am now and breathing, just plain breathing but I am thankful everyday for this opportunity to be living. To give a little short story I was in an accident and broke my neck, not knowing if I was going to live or die and or function normally again. I am also thankful for this experience and opportunity of going and being in Rome because well, it’s Rome, who wouldn’t want to go to Rome?