Riflessione

During dinnertime, I just sat and listened to my friends while they talked about mythology and classic Roman history. In my head, I tried to figure out the subject they were discussing, but I did not understand their conversation at all. Before I came to college, I never thought I knew enough about the city as a famous place for tours. I knew that there were a lot of ancient ruins from thousands of years ago and the pope lives in Vatican City in Rome. Of course, I was surprised at how little knowledge I have about the city when I could not engage in my friends’ conversations. Afterwards, I could not cease my desire to travel Rome and explore this ancient city that I learned about in history class when I was younger, but never studied it deeply.

I was ecstatic when I came across the poster regarding the travel seminar last year. My first thoughts were: it is finally time for me to go to Rome and explore the land of history. Immediately, I told my friends about the travel seminar to see if they were interested. While money was not much of a problem in my decision to apply for the seminar, I was worried that my shallow knowledge about the city of Rome would not be enough for me to survive the class. Since I grew up in Korea, I did not have the chance to learn about the city, because it was not part of the school curriculum. My doubts were resolved after I realize this is the perfect time to learn about Rom.

Over the course of Reading Rome, I was overwhelmed by the immense amount of readings about Rome. Despite my willingness to learn about Rome, at times, I could not help but regret signing up for the class.  Even so, my disappointments about the course were nothing compared to my tremendous desire to go to Rome. As I learned more about Rome, my passion to experience the Roman life escalated. I am especially fascinated by the fact that Rome has a history that spans from the ancient times to the modern era. When I go to Rome in a few days, I would like to find out how the citizens of Rome feel about living in such a great city that contains so many aspects of magnificence in its history.

From the last group discussion, I was surprised to find out that each individual had distinctive attitudes and expectations toward going to Rome. In fact, my expectations of going to the city changed from “let’s study Italy as the root of western culture” to “let’s stand among the ancient structures and feel like we are a part of the ancient Roman lifestyle.” If I didn’t take this course, I wouldn’t appreciate the city as much as I would do now. Also, I can’t wait to imagine the full structures of destroyed ancient ruins when I am looking at the actual ruins not looking at the pictures.