Living in this Place

So, I was musing today that it becomes so easy to be completely acclimated to a place. Here I am in Rome, one of the oldest cities in the world, and a place so full of magnificent art and architecture, yet I am surprised to realize that most of the grandeur of the city is just blocked out by the mind. After that initial break-in period where everything that you look at ends up being some amazing sight, I think that you end up blocking it out so you can get down to business and go about your activities. It just amazes me that this is happening, but I think that in a way it is an important adaptation to make. If you were to walk about everyday with your eyes always scanning the sights, you would arrive at the day you had to leave without doing anything else! There is so much to do and see in a big city like this (or any big city if you think about it), that to live life without being selective between sightseeing scrutiny and productive behavior would just leave you without accomplishing anything.

I guess that perhaps the root of this thinking began in the past with our field trips/drawing sessions. Here we are, taking in sights and places that we have never seen before, yet we are supposed to be stopping our inquisitive investigations to capture specified things through drawing media. It just ends up leaving you feeling almost uninspired because the sheer quantity of things to see makes you feel like you really can't study anything. Sure, you might snap some photos to review later (and hopefully you can sort of capture the memories so that you might reminisce), but in the moment you never seem to fully absorb that situation. It is weird, but I can only hope that I am making enough memories between my work to be able to appreciate what I see and do here.

The other side of living here is something that I fully expected to surface at some point. When one lives somewhere for long enough they begin to notice things that really irk their person. I find this the most true when you live with people. No matter how much you enjoy their company, the little things root in and can drive you up a wall. I have begun to experience these things, and some are to be fully expected when living with a large group in the middle of a popular location. The first thing that started to bug me was really something that at first I enjoyed. Being that we are situated in the Campo De Fiori, we are every day treated to the morning madness that is the open market. While this a great way to get some odd produce, it does make traveling through and around the piazza annoying since people slowly mill about shopping for deals and wondering what they need. It is also fun to deal with the cacophony of yells as the people peddle their wares. The square clears out around 2ish so there is some respite before the evening comes and now the piazza is treated to the same music over and over and over and over from warbling musicians who make enough to decide they have a full selection of musical knowledge upon learning that 4th song...

Other gripes are simple things about living with 8 other guys, and really isn't of interest other than to point out the nice things about living with responsible adults. I realize as i read over this entry that I guess I might be a little moody about some of these things, but I think it is helpful to vent these feelings and people usually enjoy hearing about silly trivialities. This weekend I am off to Florence (Firenze), so hopefully I will return with something cool to say about that adventure. Ci vediamo!