I hurried to get ready, while still trying to maintain the silence of the early morning, as I pulled open the creaky drawer under Beth's bed to retrieve my clothes for the day, put in my contacts, threw up my hair, gathered up my possessions, and headed downstairs to meet my classmates to head downtown for Art In Rome class. (You'll notice there was no mention of taking a shower, but honestly, that was not even a consideration after my late evening the night before. When the decision is between sleep and being clean, unfortunately, sometimes the less hygienic option must prevail.)
As I walked with my classmates to the bus stop, we were mostly quiet, still waking up and taking in the day. There were always debates about which bus (the less reliable 990 or the more frequent 913) would get us closer to our destination in a timely manner, and we would stand waiting impatiently--just like the Americans we were and still are--for it to arrive once our decision had finally been made. The bus--just like the streets of the city centro--was usually crowded, and there always seemed to be that person who wanted to stand just a little too close to you for comfort; it's not like Italians are known for their sense of personal space. As we navigated our way around the city, the sun continued to rise, as well as the temperature. The bus began to feel a bit stuffy and claustrophobic, but in a slightly comfortable way. Just like the "real" Italians, we were part of the life of the city in that moment.
Eventually, we would arrive at our destination for the day's class, which usually consisted of some type of ancient Roman ruin or Baroque church. While at the beginning of the semester these places were always very exciting to us, by the mid-point of our time in Rome, we had grown relatively nonchalant about them. It was just another class we had to wake up entirely too early for, another struggle to stay awake, another few hours of note-taking, another weekly occurrence, one of the rare routines in our chaotic Roman lives.
However, our first real order of business before class even began was one of humanity's most primitive needs: food and drink. We would scour the streets nearby for any sign of a cafe (known as a bar in Italy) and hurry off to satisfy our early morning urges for cornettos and cappuccino before class.
Eventually, we would all drag ourselves away from our impromptu breakfasts, collect the day's handouts, stick in our earpieces so we could hear our elderly, bald professor lecture in the midst of the crowds of tourists, and begin another day of classes. As we strolled around some of humanity's most beautiful creations, I would like to say that I spent my time in awe of these aesthetic masterpieces, but in reality, I spent most of my time wishing I was still asleep, looking forward to lunch at Mensa, or dreaming about where the next weekend would take me.
It was just another day in the life after all.
