My New Name

A new nickname has been coined for me here in Rome: the hobo. I'm not quite sure why my so called "friends" call me this, but they do with much joy. Here are some pictures. Maybe you can help me figure out why they call me a "hobo."

Supposedly a lady in Sicily asked Kara, Khang, and Robert if they were in any danger since I was following near them. The beard does wonders, I guess.

The Essence of Life

Throughout literature, men and women often have to go places to learn about themselves, life in general, and the world around them. In Moby Dick, Ishmael goes to the sea while in Frankenstein, Victor runs to nature. If I was smarter, I could name others but I'm not fully "UD" yet (maybe one day). For me, I always thought I leaned toward nature, like Victor. But after this last weekend, I realized I was completely wrong.

This weekend, I went to Milan. Some of you might think, since Milan is arguably the fashion capital of the world, that fashion now brings me to understand the world. Sorry Mom, but that is not quite right.

But instead of spending my time shopping at Gucci and Louis Vuitton to increase my fashion sense while decreasing my walet, Ali, Khang, and I basked in the glory of San Siro (the incredible stadium) for the Inter Milan/AC Milan football game. Inter, which is known historically to be the more inferior team, was in 1st place in the Italian league while AC Milan (sort of the Yankees of Italian football) was in 2nd. I have had a difficult time thinking of a way to describe this experience but I think what follows will suffice.

For you American football fans, it would be like going to the Michigan/Ohio State (or Texas/Oklahoma or Georgia/Florida, etc) game when both teams are ranked #1 and #2...on steroids. If you are a baseball fan, it would be the Yankees vs. Red Sox with them both on top of the AL East separated by only 2 games...on HGH+anabolic steroids+amphetamines.

To start off, while we were in line before the game (more like a mob) our gate consisted of all Inter fans with the gate next to us consisting of all AC Milan fans. The AC Milan fans began to sing, chant, and give the appropriate finger to the Inter fans in our gate. The Inter fans retaliated by whistling to drown out their singing. Even though I haven't seen the movie The West Side Story in its entirety, I have seen the part where they dance and sing when the gangs "fight." Think of it as something similar to that.

Also, while Ali, Khang, and myself were in the mob, Ali noticed that the guy next to me put a knife in his shoe. A little disconcerting, to say the least. But I haven't heard of any stab incidents from the game, so that is good.

Here are a few pictures and videos from before the game to show you what a game is like. I think they give it more justice than I ever could with my words:








This is UD: Reading Oedipus before the best football match in Italy.


Inter won the game 2-1 behind goals from Adriano and Stankovich. Pato, a 19 year old phenom, scored the only goal for AC Milan. Overall, it was a great match by two incredible teams.

Of course, I really don't find my existence, truth, and the such through a football game but it definitely was one of the cooler experiences of my life.

-Justin

"Ah Ha" #2

It is now time for the 2nd installment of the "Ah Ha" moments. I hope you enjoy.

1. Have you ever stood somewhere or seen something historically significant and imagined the events that took place there? As I stood in the Circus Maximus, I saw in my mind the crowds rise to their feet in the grandiose arena and roar as the chariots raced around each corner. I pictured Christians being martyred for their faith. And for the first time in my life, while I stood in the exact place of death, excitement, and magnitude, I realized the History of the place actually occurred. I began to understand that History is not just about teachers quizzing students about some random facts that seem to have no importance but it is something real that can teach you about your life, God, and the culture you live in. The same thing can be said for my experience in Pompeii as well (see previous post).

On top of that, this realization about History has helped me understand, just a little, about the struggles I have had in my Christian life. Since I grew up in the church and in a Christian school, I heard the stories of the Bible all the time. By the time I was a junior and senior in high school, it seemed as if I knew everything about the Bible and Christianity and the rules that applied to it. I absorbed the material given to me for the sake of either gaining a "Christly" reputation among my peers and elders or for the sake of making a good grade. I did not understand the gravity of the information itself.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "If the 'extraordinary' (righteousness) were important for its own sake, we should, like fanatics, be relying on our own fleshly strength and power, where as the disciple of Jesus acts simply in obedience to his Lord." To be a Christian is not to be wrapped up with the idea of righteousness or knowing about all the things of the Bible for the sake of it. In its fullness, Christianity means obedience to God, which comes through the realization that what is being told through the stories and parables and letters actually took place on the east part of the Mediterranean coast. Moses, Abraham, the Israelites, Jesus, Paul, and Peter all really did exist and their stories point us to the truth of God. I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, sorry.

2. In my last post, I wrote a story about a homeless man who decorated the statues in the airport lobby. There are also many men and women throughout the city of Rome begging for money. I'm always torn on what to do: give them money or look at your feet as you walk by. For one, they could be a scam and they are just trying to rip you off to fill their drug or alcohol addiction. But on the other hand, I am drawn to Jesus' words in Matthew where he says, "I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink...'Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You'...The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'"And I remember Brian Ward, the youth pastor I worked for, say who are we to judge who is scam or not? We are supposed to be like Jesus.

But my shoes look very nice, though. They are somewhat new.

-Justin

Pompeii and Sicily.

Yes, it has been a while since I updated. I apologize. This will probably be a little long so you can either bare with me or skip it all together. I'm a little lazy right now so I don't want to proofread all of this. If it is impossible to read, let me know and I'll go back and check it all.

Not this last weekend, but the weekend before, our entire class went to the city of Pompeii to check out the ruins. Pompeii is an incredible city to walk around. You are literally wandering into houses and walking on the exact stone of a city that was completely destroyed and covered in ash by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The most surreal moment was viewing the plastered bodies of people along the wall of the city who were attempting to escape the destruction. The place in which we viewed the bodies are in the exact place in which they died.
Weird...

Now, about the trip to Sicily. We had a flight to Palermo, Sicily early Friday morning so instead of waking up at 4:30 to catch a taxi, a few of us decided to spend the night in the airport on Thursday night. Here is where a few problems occur. First off, Kara, Khang, and I made it to Termini, the train station in Rome, 20 minutes after the last train left to the airport. After Kara tried to persuade the cab driver to lower his fare, to no avail, we decided to take the B line metro south with the hope of walking the rest of the way. On our way to the metro, the train security began to close the gate. We had to run to make it through the gate in time. When we made it in, we went to the side of the B line that was going north, instead of south. We only had two minutes until the train arrived so we had to run around to the other side where we barely arrived in time.

We had a map of where the airport was located, thanks to a map that Dr. Roper drew for us. Unknowingly and surprisingly of course, the map was not drawn to scale. But not knowing this, we hopped off of the B line at a stop we arbitrarily chose. Not only did we walk the wrong way out of the train station, but we realized that the airport was about a 3 hour walk on a highway. Oh ya, I forgot to say, it is midnight by now. So we decided to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi we found at a random Sheraton Hotel we ran into.

At the airport, we spent the 1:00 AM hour reading Aeschylus' The Eumenides. Good play but lets just say, I forgot most of the information of the play when I took the quiz on Monday. Oh well.

But we finally made it to Palermo, Sicily after little sleep and a short flight. We spent most of our time in Siracusa, which is on the eastern coast, and on the road enjoying the beautiful scenery of middle and eastern Sicily. When in Siracusa, we saw the 3rd oldest amphitheatre, a beautiful Greek theatre that looked out on the sea, and the "Ear of Dionysus" which is a large cave while staying in a nice, cheap, and quaint Bed and Breakfast.



Cool stuff, so I think.

Another airport story. Kara had a different flight than the rest of us so she was going to sleep in the airport again. So Khang and I decided we would join her and sleep in the airport. Lets just say that the Palermo airport isn't as nice as the Rome airport. I slept a few hours early while Kara and Khang stayed up and then we switched. They slept while I kept guard. As I was sitting and reading the Phaedo at 2ish AM, a homeless man makes his way into the airport. He wanders around attempting to get into every locked store and room. He fiddles around with the pay phones for about 15 minutes as well. After all the failed attempts to get into stores and rooms, he decided to attempt some art. Three or four statues stood in the middle of the airport and he thought it would be a good idea to decorate them.

So for around 30 minutes, he rummaged through the trash gathering paper and bottles for his masterpiece. To be honest, I was a little nervous to look his way so I was noticing most of this through my periphery. When he has finished and sat down out of my view, I decided to look at what he had done to the statues. He placed a water bottle in a horses' mouth along with putting a sheet of paper in horseman's hand. He had also scattered paper, cups, bottles, and other objects on all the other statues in the middle. Hands, arms, and heads had trash on them. All and all, it was a strange and somewhat nerve-racking experience to encounter at 2 am in the morning.

Also at the Palermo airport, my friend Steve tried to smuggle in a cheap bottle of wine that he was going to give his dad since he is Sicilian. Of course, the security caught it. When they retrieved the bottle, they made the mistake of putting the wine in the nearest trashcan. Steve and a few others decided they could get it out of the trash can with no one noticing. They scanned the area making sure the cameras didn't point near the trash can and checked to see where each guard was. When the moment was right, Steve made a run for the wine. Steve successfully obtains the wine and makes a dash for the gate.

While at the gate, I noticed a contingent of security guards congregating near the gate. I told Steve and he proceeded to sit and stay as unnoticeable as possible. Multiple guards then made their way too where we were sitting. As Steve sat nervously for what was to come, the guards called on 2 other guys and a random girl who wasn't even part of our group to bring their bags to them. The guards, of course, found nothing. They came back, seeming to be a little irritated, and went over to Steve's bag. They opened it up and found the bottle. A guard grabbed Steve by the neck and escorted him into an interrogation room while making a scene about it all in front of the entire Palermo airport. All of us sat in utter confusion on what was to come with Steve.

Steve said that most of the security guards of airport joined him in the interrogation room. They proceeded to scream at him in Italian which Steve knows none of. After noticing that his last name is Grosso, which is Sicilian, they become highly confused at how he can't speak any Italian. They can't believe it. They yell at him a little more. After all of the inaudible screaming, the cordially shake his hand at let him leave...without the wine. Crazy.

So those are my recent experiences. More to come I'm sure. I'm going to an AC Milan vs. Inter Milan soccer game this weekend so I'll probably have something to say about that.

If you would like, you can check my pictures to view what else I saw in Pompeii and the other places. I also put pictures of our trip to the Capitoline Museum, which was great, as well as pictures of my trip to Sicily. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

"Ah Ha" Moments

Have you ever seen, heard, or read something that on the surface seems to have very little potential to change the way you do or think about things but in reality it changes or enlightens your whole self? Since being in Rome, there have already been multiple occasions where this has happened to me. Because of this, I am going to make a serious of posts called the "'Ah Ha' Moments" ("Ah Ha" copyrighted by Zoe Ellen Azzi) over the semester mentioning these moments. These will not be detailed accounts of the moments, only snippets with brief commentary. Here are a few from my first 2 weeks here in Rome:

1. Acts 2:42-47

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

There is a little bit of this concept of the early church here on the Rome campus. Almost every meal is eaten together. The teachers and their kids eat with the students. There seems to be a unity among everyone that you usually don't get in a school setting. While great wonders and signs are not taking place, meals are shared, teaching is adhered to and everyone has a common goal/mind. I wouldn't call it a perfect community in a Christian sense, there are definitely signs of that here.

2. Dr. Roper, my English teacher, referred to a liberal arts education as a freeing experience. That it is intended to free you from the ideals that you grew up with. From that, two things happen. You either form a new way to look and deal with life or you come up with foundation of why you believe the things you always have. Him stating this helped me realize the time of struggles and growth I have experienced since my move to UD. Mrs. Legband once told me that I had great passions and desires to change things around me but that I had no substance to those passions. UD, I think, has helped start a foundation for my passions through the burning of a lot of chaff (which continues to this day and will continue in the future).

3. We just read Agamemnon by Aeschylus. The chorus mentions that suffering brings wisdom and that grace comes through violence. Suffering is a huge concept that Paul and Peter repeatedly exhort to their audiences, Gentile and Jews, while the grace given to us comes through the violent death of Christ on the Cross. I wonder if Paul and Peter and the Gospel writers used and focused on this terminology, especially to the Gentiles, because their audiences were accustomed to these ideas through these 4th and 5th century B.C. plays. I'm sure they were wiened on these works, especially the churches that Paul wrote too. Just a thought. I'm sure there is more to be hashed out but I've already written far to much.

More to come later, I'm sure. Sorry for the long windedness. Don't forget to check out my pictures if you want to.

-Justin

The Yellow One is the Sun

Lets go through a list of things that are normally used to help in ones navigation through a city or town:

Map
Mapsco
GPS device
Compass
An inherent understanding of how an ancient city is laid out
The sun?

This just to name a few. I'm sure there are some others that I am forgetting but I think you get the point.

On Sunday, six of us went into Rome. When we arrived into the city, three of the people made their way to St. Peters for Mass while the other three of us decided to explore a little.

As part of the exploratory group, we made the decision to try to find the Colosseum. You need to know a little bit of information before I continue. One of the difficult things about the transportation system in Rome is the metro does not run in many different directions because of the old buildings and such underneath the city you see today. Not only that, the city is not laid out on a nice square/rectangular grid like many of the modern cities of today. Also, there are rarely any signs designating which street is which. So if the metro does not run relatively close to your famous location of choice, you have to calculate precisely beforehand how to get there or you will get completely lost.

There are only 2 lines of the metro, the red and the blue. We our exploration from the red line which runs north of the Colosseum. We decided to exit the train at Repubblica thinking that it would be slightly northwest of it. We then attempted to determine, by the trajectory of the sun, our position in relationship to the Colosseum.

As you now know, the city is not on a nice and neat grid. So heading south on a street does not mean that the street will always be going south. Literally, after only a few blocks, we were headed in the wrong direction, due west(remember, going due south was imperative, not due west). But thanks to the astute eyes of Tim and Steve, we found landmarks along our misguided hike to help lead us down the correct path. While journeying west, we noticed the St. Maria Maggorie church far, far away in the distance. Also, we came to a clearing where we could see the front of St. Peters near the palace.

Thanks to the sun, and triangulating our position in conjuncture to our two other landmarks, we sojourned some more in what was now the correct direction. After only a 35 minute trek through the winding streets of Rome, we made our way to the famed Colosseum. I'm not going to lie, I felt kind of special for finding my way through the streets of Rome by using the sun and important landmarks. I guess a blind squirrel can really find a nut every once in a while.

The internet is way too slow to post pictures on the blog. So if you would like, click here to see the very few pics I have taken so far.

Lost Souls

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.

-Dante

First off, I made it safe to Rome. Over the past few days, we have been immersed into orientation activities along with a few trips to Rome in between. So far, it has been a lot of fun, even in spite of the jet lag. Sadly, each time I have gone out to Rome or to some bordering town, I have forgotten my camera. But pictures will be on their way once my friends post them on Facebook. When they do, I'll post some of the good ones here.

Now, to explain the quote above. Last night, 8 of us went to a town called Albano which is about a 10 minute bus ride from campus. When we were done eating and hanging out, we waited at the bus stop for 40 minutes hoping a bus would come pick us up. I heard that the transportation system was poor but having to wait 40 minutes for a bus is plain ridiculous. So, thinking that no bus would come, we decided to walk back (about 11:00 p.m).

As soon as we began to make the trek back to campus, a fork in the road preceeded us. Not really knowing how we got to Albano, we decided to veer right. We walked, and we walked, and we walked. We were told the walk would only take around 30 minutes but an hour later, we were still nowhere near the campus. People were frustrated, annoyed, and tired as we had walked a few miles uphill in a nice steady drizzle that made us late for curfew.

At that point, a few of us thought that we figured out which way to go while the others were fed up and called a cab. Of course, me being a stubborn one, thought I had figured out the right way. So me and two others continued on the journey back to campus in the dark, cold, wet night. We walked, and we walked, and we walked---farther out of the way.

We ended up in the town of Marino around 12:45, a town 3ish miles from campus. As we stood at a foreign intersection to rest, we noticed we were right in front of a fire station. The firemen were hanging out in the window facing the street. We screamed and waved our hands like madmen hoping to get their attention. They noticed us and let us in. Thankfully one of them knew just enough English to give us directions to campus. They also made us some tasty espresso to boost our energy for the 3 mile walk to come.

On our way from Marino to campus, we walked along dark, residential roads. Dogs continually barked from inside the broken fences that "held" them in. At least one time it seemed as if a large dog was going to come roaring from the holes in the fence toward our tired bodies. Thankfully, no dogs attacked and no cars hit us as they whizzed by.

We finally made it safely back to campus at 1:20 AM, only a mere 2 hours and 20 minutes after we started the so called "30 minute" walk back.

While there was the definite frustration of being lost in a foreign place where it is a struggle to communicate with the locals, there was also some excitement and fun to the adventure of last night. Sometimes a little adventure (even if it is not intentional) can be good for the lost soul. Just ask Dante. Dante and I both decided not to stay on the easy path: for him the life of God and for me the bus or a cab. In our pride, we ended up lost only to be lead by our Virgils when we had no where else to turn. Eventually, we each make it to the ultimate and final destination of our journeys. His journey revealed the truth of God to him. But what did my adventure reveal me? Nothing really. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

-Justin