Submitted by Thomas Pinto on the 2019 winter session study abroad program in Italy sponsored by the Department of English…
As I stood in the elevator on the way down to the main lobby of the hotel, I pulled up the playlist on my phone that I created, called “Real-Life Movie Soundtrack.” The playlist solely consists of songs that you would see right at the end of a movie before the credits role, so it’s essentially what I do to make myself feel like I’m the star in my own little movie.
As I walked through the revolving doors leaving the hotel, I made my first directional decision, to walk towards the Colosseum. In all honesty, walking through the streets of Rome by myself for the first time was a little odd. Do people still think I’m a tourist if I’m not in a huge group of Americans? At first, I was overwhelmed by the freedom I had, feeling vulnerable in a city as huge and ancient as Rome. The Colosseum began to tower over me as got closer, until I suddenly found myself cemented to the ground in front of the structure, staring up in awe and unable to comprehend how something so massive existed almost 2,000 years ago. I couldn’t help, but think of all of the people that have walked into the Colosseum, imagining what they were wearing, what they were saying, and what they were feeling. However, after staring up at the Colosseum for a few minutes, I began to be bombarded by the massive number of tour groups surrounding me, so I decided to head on out in hopes of ending up somewhere new.
After about 20 minutes of aimless wandering, I came to the conclusion that I had, in fact, gotten lost. I’m a bit of a rookie when it comes to world travel, so I guess this should have been expected. I told myself that if I didn’t find my way in the next 20 minutes, I would ask for help or use my GPS. Seemingly out of nowhere, I stumbled across a little church, which I later found out was called the Church of San Giorgio in Velabro. I saw a woman walk inside and for some reason, I felt the courage to walk in after her to check it out. At this point, dusk was showing its face to the city of Rome, and this made my journey into this 7th century church a tad more eerie, as the only source of light were the candles lining the alter at the front of the church, the opposite end from where I was standing. Nonetheless, walking into this church lit the fire inside of me that made me want to continue wandering, so I did just that.
After another 30 minutes of wandering, I found my way over to the Roman Forum, a place I had visited with my class just the day before. As I began making my way back to the hotel, I saw a building within the Roman Forum that opened to the main road with its front door open. I walked closer to read the words on the building that read, “Basilica S. Cosma E. Damiano” which initially didn’t tell me much except for the fact that it’s a church. As I walked inside, I felt like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. Did someone leave the door open on accident? If someone questions me I’ll just say that I’m American and I didn’t know any better, right? The building was silent, causing each footstep to echo off of the walls around me. I eventually came to a dead end with wooden doors closed in front of me. Hoping that I wouldn’t walk into something I wasn’t supposed to, I held my breath as I pushed the door open.
My jaw whacked against the floor. The Basilica S. Cosma E. Damiano wasn’t just any church, it was a Roman temple within the Roman Forum that was built in the 4th century and was later converted into the church. The paintings on the walls created a beautiful rainbow of colors while the walls and ceiling were decorated in gold that shimmered as the lights of the room and candles reflected off of them. I spent about 20 minutes here, sitting, thinking, and trying to take it all in so I could remember the feeling I had while being in there forever.
I’ve always told people that I want to travel the world, however, I’ve only really been out of the country twice, and that includes my journey to Italy. This walk around Rome is exactly what I needed to show myself why this is my dream. I can watch all of the videos I want and share all of the pictures with friends and family that I have from my program,, but nothing will compare to sitting there in the moment and being present in a place as beautiful as Rome.
