A Morning in Roma
Each morning begins with warmth: with a cheerful buonjuorno, the clattering of utensils, and the most beautiful fruit I have ever seen. After leisurely drinking large carafes of cafe latte and eating gorgeous croissants, we head out to the chilly streets of Rome with drawing pencils and anticipation. Our days are filled with reverent gazing—reverence for the colors of Titian, the dynamism of Bernini, and the drama of Caravaggio. Every day makes me glad to be alive.
An Afternoon in Roma
Most days we take the metro, joining the throngs of locals and tourists as we begin our daily pilgrimage to see something spectacular: one day Bernini's Ecstacy of St. Teresa at Santa Maria Della Vittoria and the next Michelangelo's Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one day the tree-lined streets of Borghese Gardens and the next the aerial view of Rome from the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. These are the wonders that have filled our hours in art history classes and our dreams for weeks, months, and years. Our daily route often takes us past multiple things that we have only read about in books. We visit the Trevi Fountain, round the corner to see the Pantheon, wander into a little church to see a fresco by Raphael and follow in a line through cobbled streets to a church holding Caravaggio's Calling of St. Matthew. On our tired trek back, we stuff our faces with hot slices of pizza, mere feet from some magnificent wonder and contemplate how we will go on.
An Evening in Roma
Walking past the Fountain of the Naiads on the way to our sweet little welcoming hotel, our happy exhaustion hit us—some immediately napped for an hour or so, while others downed the most incredible cups of espresso and drew for several hours together in the golden floral breakfast room. Dinner was late, eight o'clock at the earliest, and we were all famished for big bowls of pasta by the time we head out. Our group of 11—occasionally plus our incredible leaders Ben and Sarah and their bella bambino Vine—is shockingly close and often we unintentionally ended up spending the evening in each other's company. Dinner naturally transitioned into group gelato outings and hours drawing together, the Roman moon peering through the window to catch a glimpse of the soft moment: new friendships, the scratch of graphite pencils, and the awe of living out the true dolce vita.