La Disposizione Terra (The Lay of the Land)

Will and I started our Italian Lessons today. Among many options, we chose Centro Linguistico Italiano Dante Alighieri as our language school. It is at Piazza Bologna, which is a few stops from our house, so we get to become familiar with another part of the city. We got there in just enough time today to have a quick espresso at the bar across the street from the school.

He thinks that I will learn faster than he, since I have a working knowledge of Spanish. I think that he already has a basic knowledge of the language from hearing it from his mom and family all the time.

Will we both pass the test straight to Level II? Will Will try to cheat off of my paper? Will I ever stop confusing Italian with Spanish? Tune in after eighteen more hours of individual lessons and find out!

One thing I never knew about the Italian Language is that the alfabeto contains only 21 letters-- there is no J, K, W, X or Y. Italians use words and names that contain those letters, but only those borrowed from languages. The sounds are present, but only by combinations of other letters.

Before our class, we spent the day exploring the neighborhood just next to ours. We are in Testaccio, which, if it were New York, is like the Lower East Side to Trastevere's East Village.






Just over the bridge to Trastevere, a gigantic Campari sign. This made me very happy. This made Will nearly nauseous.






We had the apperativo here the other night, just a few blocks from our apartment. From 630p-8p, people go after work, have a couple of drinks and feast on the amazing buffet of little sandwiches, pizzas, pasta and salad. It's complimentary. We skipped dinner that night.










The metro hearkens back to New York in the 1970s and 80s.








But the ads are totally contemporary. This one lines an entire escalator path at the Tiburtina stop (near Piazza Navona). It seems like the longest escalator outside of Moscow. Maybe it's because this ad just kept rolling by.





And everywhere you go, the Romans are totally scooter happy, especially near the university where these photos were taken. They park them on the sidewalk, behind cars, anywhere! The seemingly hippest thing is to wear a very expensive suit, smoke a cigarette and wedge your mobile phone under your helmet to talk while you scoot. I'm trying to get a photo of that one.


Here, Will's and my favorite, the BMW Executive.