This morning we woke up to a little rain which may or may not have reminded us a little bit of Seattle, but despite the weather we all met up at 9:30am and headed out on our journey to visit Rome's mosque. We stopped for a quick cup of coffee and a pastry at a cute little bakery on the way, and then continued to the bus stop. We rode the bus through the city to another area full of trees and parks and passed the Villa Borghese which is beautiful! We got on another bus or subway or train or tram or whatever it was called and ended up at the mosque!

Once we arrived, we all put a scarf over our heads in order to respect the traditional attire worn by Muslim women. Our tour guide didn't speak much English at all, so Stephanie translated for us. He began by explaining to us how the mosque was built by an Iraqi and an Italian who were in a competition surrounding architectural techniques. It was constructed in 1995. The mosque is located up on a hill overlooking the city, and the location was chosen because it is near the diplomatic neighborhood and it is isolated from the rest of the city so it is incredibly peaceful. The construction of the mosque was a 40 million euro project, and aims to represent the "new Islam of Europe" and all the different cultures represented in the congregation. At this particular mosque,  The mosque hosts between two and three-thousand people for prayer from over 25 countries each Friday, the holy day in the Islamic religion. Prayer is done five times per day, and Muslims have a strong focus on the relationship between the mind and the body, emphasizing the importance of hygiene through ritual washings that allow people to regain the purity they may have lost. There are public baths within the mosque for men and for women so that they can cleanse themselves before prayer. The space for prayer fits 300 people and is a casual space, heavily carpeted and in which you can eat, drink, sleep and talk. This is because there is no distinction between the sacred and the common according to their beliefs. They always pray in the direction of Mecca, and prayer is led by an Imam who is nominated by the congregation based on merit. The Imam is an important figure not only because he or she leads prayer, but because the job of the Imam is also to remind those in attendance of the first Imam, Muhammad.

After the tour, we headed back to central Rome and all went our separate ways to enjoy the sunshine! After a couple of early mornings this week, I took a much-needed accidental four hour nap, and now I'm ready for the night ahead! Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Ciao!!

Jessica Pickering

May 2

Today we visited the Jewish Ghetto. Our tour guide first led us through the museum, and the first room of the museum was surrounded by beautifully designed cloth that the museum had restored. What is amazing about these fabrics is that they are all able to be traced back to the original families that had owned them, which I think is really cool that the museum knows their origin. As we walked through the museum, our tour guide explained to the group the basics of Jewish life, including holidays like Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and Jewish marriage and birth. She then moved on to telling us more about the history behind the Jewish Community here in Rome. The Jewish Ghetto was built here in 1556 and lasted until 1870. The Ghetto was enclosed by a large barrier, and the Jews who lived here had a curfew and were locked in at night. The Ghetto was below the level of the river close by so when the River flooded, so did the Ghetto.  The Jews were released from the Ghetto in 1870 because of the unification of Italy, and the Jews were now recognized members of Italian society. Soon after came WWII. There were 10,000 Jews living in Rome at the time, and unfortunately around 2,000 of them were taken by the Nazis to concentration camps where they didn’t survive. However, the remaining 8,000 Jews were taken into hiding by Roman Christians. This speaks volumes on the kind of relationship these two religious groups had back then, which continues on today. We visited two synagogues, both of which were absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures, but like most beautiful buildings in Rome, a picture doesn’t do it justice. After our museum tour Stephanie bought us ‘Jewish Pizza’ from a little bakery in the Ghetto. The bakery smelled absolutely delicious, like freshly baked bread, raisins and cinnamon. A few hours later we had a guest speaker come talk to our group. Her name is Lisa Billig, an Austrian born Jew who grew up in America and then moved to Italy where she raised a family. She was born right before the war started, and said her father who traveled a lot for work could ‘sense’ what was happening throughout Europe and didn’t see a future there for his family. He went to Cuba and got visas so he could move his family to New York. She spoke about the many intercultural religion and peace organizations she has been a part of, and her opinions of what is happening today in Rome. One of the most memorable things she said in my opinion was that the only way to save our world is to cultivate individual thought and responsibility. Overall, today was a great day; one that I had been looking forward to since the beginning of the trip.

Madeleine 

May 1st

Today is international worker day and we have one day can have a rest. I saw Stephanie in the morning talking about the research project. It is really helpful for me to establish a structure of my research paper and I am also excited about this research paper because this would be my first time to write a research paper. Later on, we went to Vatican. Last week we took the bus to Vatican and it took us about 40 minutes. So we thought it might be far away to our apartment. However, Claudia told us that Vatican just took 20 minutes by foot. That is so funny because the bus took a detour. When we arrived there, the line was really long to enter the church. The line-ups to get into St. Peter's made it an event to enter and enjoy this truly remarkable basilica. Luckily, people moves really fast and we went into St. Peter's soon. The inside is massive. It is the largest interior of any Christian church. Climbing to the top of the church and seeing the overview of Rome is a good choice for anyone who want to go to Vatican. The climbing way is tiny but it is already the most comfortable way for church. There are too many people there and all from all over the world. It is so interesting even though we are still in Rome, in Italy, however, we are already in another country.

Tuesday, April 29th

Today was a nice and sunny day. We didn’t do anything too exciting besides going to service learning. For the first hour of service learning Lorraine, James, and I played with many kids from different classes on the playground because the classes we’re assigned to were on a lunch break. The kids that I play with on the playground always give me flowers and bracelets and I find it very sweet. They’re super nice and are trying their best to communicate with me even though we have a language barrier. After the playground I went to the dance class with my class where I got to observe their interactions. It’s very pleasant to see little first-graders get along with each so well. They always help each other, play with each other, and are very considerate of each others needs. Closer to the end of the class I got to participate in some of their activities, which has only distracted them from what they were supposed to be doing but it was a lot of fun. Also, this upcoming Monday, my class is having an open lesson for parents and I was asked to come as well in order to help out and watch the kids while the teachers spend some time with parents. I am definitely looking forward to it.

When we got back home from service learning we decided to go to a local coffee shop to study for the Italian midterm. So Lorraine, Rebecca, Sydney, James, and I went to our favorite “No Name Bar” and spent a couple hours studying for the Italian midterm. We also got some help from the owners son Stefano who works at the coffee shop. After spending a few hours on getting ready for the midterm we got some gelato and headed back to the apartment.

April 30, 2014

April 30, 2014

Lorraine Yu

            We took our Italian midterm this morning.  It was short and mainly consisted of greetings/introductions, articles, and food vocabulary.  It wasn’t too difficult, but I did have some trouble remembering a couple of words.  After the midterm we had a short lesson that consisted of translating paragraphs into English.

            After a one-hour lunch break, we had class with Stephanie.  We talked about immigrants’ struggle with Catholicism as the dominant religion, especially in schools.  This is something that I can really relate to since I attended a Catholic school from Kindergarten up until I graduated from high school.  I felt like Catholicism was forced upon me, especially when I had to write essays about my belief in the religion.  However, I think the big difference between my experience and that of the immigrants is that my family chose to send me to this school.  If my parents were extremely uncomfortable with learning about Catholicism, I could have attended a different school.

            We had a half-hour break between class with Stephanie and our guest lecturer.  Some of us really needed some coffee to keep us going through our long day, so Stephanie took us to her favorite bar (coffee shop) in Campo dei Fiori.  It reminded me of the coffee shops back in the States because there were lots of tables where you could sit for no extra cost, a rarity here in Rome.

            For our last hour of class, we had a guest speaker, Silvio Daneo, come in.  He talked to us about the immigrants’ experiences taking religion classes.  Someone asked whether he thought religion classes should be mandatory for all students, regardless of their personal beliefs.  His opinion is that they should learn the history of Catholicism but the teachings of the faith should be left out of the curriculum since they have their own set of beliefs.  All in all, I really enjoyed his lecture and agreed with a lot of his ideas.

Monday 28-4-14

Woke up this morning and couldn't believe it was monday. I had just spent the weekend in Zagreb, Croatia with some awesome friends and really hadn't wanted to leave. Since it was Monday, I headed from my apartment to Italian Class. Italian was good, we started getting ready for the midterm we have on wednesday. I feel okay about it, we'll see how it goes. After Italian class I got my classic panino pomodoro e mozzarella from my favorite shop around the corner from campo dei fiori. I love just walking around the market and taking in the smells between classes. After lunch I headed back to class, this week is all about religion. Today we had an overview of Judaism, Catholicism and Islam in Rome. We mostly talked about the Isalmic religion since we were having a guest speaker who practices Islam come and speak to us later in the day. Class was really interesting, but I can still how this week is going to be tough. Religion is such a difficult topic for people to have non heated discussions about, I'm interested to see how the rest of the week goes, especially friday. I'm nervous to find out more about the Jewish religion in Roma and how people react to the history of the city.
After our lecture, Ejaz came and spoke to us about what it was like to immigrate from Pakistan to Rome in the late 1980's. He also spoke to us about his job, he is a cultural mediator (which comes with several tasks). It was really nice to speak with someone who went through what we have been studying and is a first hand account. I also really enjoyed listening about what he teaches to various teachers and students across the country. I'm super intrigued to see what the rest of the week looks like, until next time. Ciao!

This Saturday, because of all the excitement from last night’s football game, I had a late start. In the afternoon around 3pm, me, Julie and Christina decided to go to Vatican. 

By the time we got there, it was all packed at Piazza San Pietro. We could tell there were many people from other countries because they brought their countries flag with them, and some people were singing songs from their own country. We thought to ourselves that there must be having some kind of events. As expected, we found out later that there were two popes who have already passed away would become saints on Sunday, so I guessed people came here early to celebrate. However, we didn’t make it into the St. Peter’s Basilica since the line was incredibly long.

We thought there would be some kind of border line between Vatican and Rome, and we really wanted to take a picture of that line. So we spent a lot of time walking around and looking for the border line, but we didn’t find it and I am still wondering if there is an actual one. We saw the security men guarding the entrance to vatican, and the way they dressed was very different. Something I didn’t expect to happen was Julie asked one of the security man that if she could take a picture with him, since the way he dressed was very different, and he refused her. They also seemed to speak better English. We wondered if they were more educated and if they lived in Vatican. 

Before we left Vatican, there were many Spanish people singing and dancing at Piazza San Pietro, so we joined them. It was really fun and we enjoyed it a lot. We really like how we can see people dancing and singing freely in Italy.

So that’s our simple and relaxing Saturday in Rome.