The Pantheon Institute has new spaces!

The Pantheon Institute has always been proud of his unique location in Rome, being in the very heart of Rome and giving everybody the possibility of exploring the ancientest area of this marvellous city.

In particolar, our Center at via del Pantheon has always been a place where studente could stop for asking information, finding useful forms about Rome and Italy, or simply taking a break from their demanding classes….

Now the Student Office has a new space they can enjoy: our reading room, a comfortable and quiet place where they will find newspapers, magazines, brochures about Rome and Italy. A little hub to run away from the hustle and bustle of the hords of tourists who are litterally invading the Eternal City…

And this is not the only news we have: our Housing Office has just moved to vicolo S.Maria in Cappella in Trastevere, leaving the former seat at Piazza Navona. Look at the pictures we have taken and see that we will not miss the other space! It is really impossibile not to feel the charme of the gourgeous garden, with the smell of fruits and flowers, and the sunlight which makes all the colours so brightful…

The Housing Office has also a little studio in the same floor, although we guess it might be difficult to be concentrated in such a special space… Learning, but also feeling the magic of Rome – that’s the Pantheon Institute!

For more pictures, see also our photo album and website!

Our special cooking class

Cooking classes are definitely the extra-curricular activities that attract our students the most: they get to cook an entire meal and eat what they prepare for just as low as 5 euros! And everybody wants to participate…cooking classes are so much fun!

We organized a very special cooking class for the Penn state HDFS program students on Thursday, May 20th: we met at the Trastevere dorms in the morning and we went to the famous market of Testaccio for food shopping. This was a really unique experience for our students to immerse themselves in the genuine life of one of the most enchanting and old neighborhoods of the city. The HDFS girls had the chance to see what these people’s daily life is like and I think they really enjoyed spending the morning at the market.

Just after that, we decided to go to one of the best bakeries of the area: the students were literally amazed by the quantity and the variety of bread, pizza and desserts that were sold there…the closer we got to the bakery, the more we were attracted by the delicious smell of these home-made products!

So, we had a little snack before going back to the dorms of Santa Maria in Cappella and, as soon as we got there, we immediately started to work. I decided to divide the girls into 2 groups as a lot of people were participating , and the first thing we decided to prepare was the tiramisu. Everybody was doing something: some students were beating the eggs, some prepared espresso and some others whipped the egg whites.

And I have to admit that most of the girls seemed to be quite comfortable with cooking! We all had a great time preparing our menu: pasta alla carbonara - with eggs and bacon or with zucchini for vegetarian people - a very good salad with Parmesan cheese, pears and balsamic vinegar and finally, our famous tiramisu.

Everything was delicious and we all had a really good time together!

A trip to EUR

EUR (the Esposizione Universale Roma) is a large suburban area and business centre in the south of Rome. It was started in 1935 by Benito Mussolini and planned to open in 1942 to celebrate twenty years of Fascism. In urban planning terms, EUR was designed to direct the expansion of the city towards the south-west, connecting it to the sea. The planned exhibition never took place due to World War II.

Besides other attractions such as the Museum of Roman Civilization and the sports arena PalaEUR (now Palalottomatica) , designed by architects Pier Luigi Nervi and Marcello Piacentini for the 1960 Summer Olympics, we can’t forget to mention the big artificial lake that is found right in the center of this area.

And that’s just the place were we brought our students for a nice and relaxing ride on a little boat on Monday. After days and days of rain and cold wheater, the sun finally came out and it gave us the chance to see an area of Rome that visitors to Rome don’t usually go to...But our students really enjoyed this modern but, at the same time, extremely green neighborhood.

After the ride on the boat we all went to the Giolitti ice-cream shop for a delicious gelato! Giolitti is definitely one of the best places to get an ice-cream here in Rome...that’s probably the reason why our students were so fast in eating their cones!!!

May 2010 Photo Competition

Just like we did in the last few months, we have invited again the Pantheon Institute students to send us the best pictures they are taking during their stay in the Eternal City. The theme of May’s photo competition is: Impressions on Rome.

And this month’s contest prize is a huge and delicious 5 kg Nutella jar! This fabulous and absolutely sweet prize will be joined by a useful selection of the best Nutella recipes…just in case the winner doesn’t want to eat all of the Nutella with plain bread only!

Among the others, we have included recipes such as French Nutella toast, banana and Nutella brownies and baked Nutella cheesecake.

Our students still have a week to submit their pictures and who knows who the winner is going to be, this time!

Good luck to all of you.