When I first arrived in Rome, it amazed me to see so many different types of nuns and priest walking in the streets. I guess then, I didn’t realize the Vatican was a State and Rome are by the sea, as I was also ignorant of the culture, food, and language (I knew a little about paintings). There was a bliss in ignorance that I wish I still had because I was like a child amazed and thrilled to learn and absorb my surroundings.
When I first arrived in Rome, it amazed me to see so many different types of nuns and priest walking in the streets.It took years to digest what I saw the first couple of weeks in Rome, the first day I arrived I walked from eight in the morning until midnight (being 24 years old helped) and nothing else; walking as a blissful kid without any intent on seeing anything in particular just engulfed by smells, sights, foreign language was exhilarating! It was if somehow I knew I had a life to spend in this city at the rate I went into learning about it, especially the language. “Rome is a bottomless pit!” that’s what one of my professors from Yale told me once he knew that I was going to Rome after graduating. A simple, blunt phrase, but one I have found truthful because I’m still learning every day new things about this immortal city. I’m not a scholar, but rather consider myself as an observer; a spongy guy that loves food and absorbs all that he can, and then spit out a few paintings.
I now live near one of the most visually bizarre and fascinating monuments in Rome, the Pyramid; a 2000 year old tomb of a roman diplomat to Egypt. I have a Roman wife and a nine-year old daughter that I walk to school on the Aventino in front of the Orange Garden. The Italian people and the bottomless pit of beauty, art, food and culture embraced me and I will always be grateful for their genuine warmth and hospitality.
Steven Meek, Teaching Assistant 2015