Rome via Brooklyn

On the train from the airport to my apartment, one of the first things I had noticed was how similar Rome looked to other european cities I had visited before. The whole look was the same to me as if you had dropped me in Barcelona, Prague, or Vienna. The roads, street signs, and the whole lot were the same as any other cities. I also saw before getting to my apartment, I saw the Roman ruins in the city center. It was shocking seeing the busy street, different stores and people going along their day alongisde these ancient gorgeous Roman ruins. It made the city feel like a living museum seeing these ruins right next to greatest place on earth, McDonalds! What I learned from CultureSmart was that getting around was not as difficult as I expected. I was half expecting non-walkable cities on hard cobblestone streets but it honestly looked like any other cities especially with how traffic flowed. It may sound backwards and a little prejudiced from me but really and truly I expected an ancient city to not be so well designed. I also noticed how nice people generally are. I tried to talk in Italian and people were so sweet and understanding. ” A third reality is that the ancient city was very large, measuring 3-5 km from side to side in any one doirectiom- far larger than its medieval and renaissance successors. It did not become large again until C20.”. I chose this quote because its true the city is huge. For reference , I saw all of Prague in one, albeit long, but still a single day. The train ride alone from FCO to the Trastevere station was almost 30 minutes on a rather fast train.

My strongest taste and scent memoryy of today has to be the smell of this Pastecceria on my corner and the taste of Frizzante water. I am not used to drinking sparkling water but here it’s quite common and its very tasty. The smell of the fresh pastries and the fresh air gave me an oddly warm and inviting feeling. I was rather hungry so I ended up getting a Cornetto con Cioccolatto.

Parts of today definetly reminded me of New York City. The traffic, the general dirtyness, and the city energy did remind me of home. It kind of felt like we were just in a different backdrop. Rather than the train overhead, I see the tram here. I still do see the electric scooters that we find in New York here in Rome. However instead of tall skyscrapers and glass buildings all I saw were churches, old Roman ruins and vintage stone buildings that are older than anything even on the Continental United States. This was an overall grand first day and I am super excited for the rest of this trip!