running headphone-less along the tiber

Don't worry Mom and Dad, I didn't run with my headphones in. Aside from safety reasons, here's another little story about why that was a good decision.

I managed to drag myself out of bed early Thursday morning for a run along the Tiber river before the August heat set in. After about 15 minutes, another runner turned the corner in front of me who seemed to look like he knew where he was going, so I latched onto his pace and ran a few feet behind him. We came to a fence in the sidewalk, stopped, and looked at each other to see if we should go around it or down the path closer to the river. After a few seconds of awkward nodding at each other, he goes, "Do you speak English?" An American! We ran together for another few miles down the river and he is from Evanston! We chatted for a bit until I realized I still had to run back, so we said our goodbyes and I headed back to the Cenci.

That is only one of the stories from my first week here and each day feels a little more unreal than the last. I live in the Cenci, a building sandwiched by the Tiber river, the Jewish ghetto with more Kosher restaurants than the North shore of Chicago, and the ruins of Pompeii where Caesar was killed. I can wake up and walk five minutes to the Pantheon. Five minutes the other direction and I hit Campo de Fiore with a fresh foods market. The other direction and there's the Colosseum. Right around the corner is a plaque locating where the Jews were rounded up this time of year in 1943. I explore a little more from home base each day as I get more comfortable here and expand my neighborhood.

The Cenci is named for the Cenci family that lived here in the 17th century. The story goes that Beatrice Cenci and her brother murdered their abusive father and were consequently beheaded in the main square in front of an audience of a few thousand. Past EHPers say her spirit still haunts the Cenci today, but I have yet to see anything suspicious.

Not only am I learning how to live here (as opposed to travel here), but I am here with a group of inspiring and creative RISD students. Each person brings a unique way of traveling, experiencing, and processing the world. While the majority of our studio work is independent, we have one initial group assignment: with 3 meters of fish line, we go to different piazzas and take photos of us using the fish line in some way that affects the space. The rest is up to us! Photos to come.

Nearing the end of week one with a limited, but growing, amount of Italian vocabulary (I can say I like peaches and one coffee please...and almost all of the gelato flavors), a semester of adventure awaits. We beach to Sperlonga tomorrow and head to the mountain towns surrounding Rome next week to cool off. I am starting my individual research simply by collecting and observing the things that interest me. I am particularly looking into the idea of Rome as a cannibal, or a city that eats itself. It recycles, layers, rebuilds, destroys and erodes. Nature takes back over the city and then the city takes over itself again and again. Hopefully more to come on that, but for now arrivaderci!