Rome via Brooklyn

636 words, 3 minutes read time (Double post + Palatine extra credit)

As Day 6 began, I speedwalked from the bus stop to our meeting point to get there in time, only to turn back around to find a different entrance for our class to begin. My feet were and still are very sore, but I’m growing used to all the walking. The Roman Forum acts as a retrospective view into the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, particularly through structures like Caesar’s Temple blocking our view of the Regia, and it was intriguing to see this and the various other stages of development or disarray the other spots we looked at were in. When studying history, transitional periods are often some of the most interesting to me: What changes stuck and which were abandoned?

Thinking back to the present, I’ve found that I’ve set nigh-impossible guidelines for myself without realizing. Though I’d love to speak more about all the little things that have bothered me this day or the weird hairbrush I bought or how small I still feel amongst this deep history after a week of being entrenched in it, another part of me feels like those things wouldn’t be “correct” to write about. Once I’m handed a seemingly-right way to do things, I’m too scared to veer off that path. So once Professor Yarrow encouraged us to venture outside of the suggested prompts, I felt that same sense of anxiety. I set a mental goal for myself to try to put as many prompts aside as I can for this post and to just write without overthinking it.

Our class today ended earlier than I thought, so we were given the rest of the day to spend as we please. Like several others, I decided to continue my time on the site by visiting the Palatine, but I wanted to remember it by the things that made me the most attuned to it, not by what I or others expect it to be remembered by. Stopping to ask Khadija if she knew what kind of flowers were growing on the railings overlooking the Palatine Stadium, viewing the Domus Transitoria and snapping a picture of its description before catching up with everyone else, and stopping in the shade on a bench outside the Palatine museum for our group to eat our packed lunches when we weren’t supposed to be (thanks to that museum worker for turning a blind eye) are a few highlights I’m remembering while writing this.

Once I and a couple others decided to head back home from our Palatine visit instead of exploring longer and grabbing a few things off my shopping list, I was completely exhausted. I napped for two hours while the repairmen took a look at our apartment’s broken ACs, but I still don’t feel awake. Hoping for a good night’s sleep and more energy for tomorrow!