HAPPY EASTER! BUONA PASQUA!

While you probably won't see the Easter bunny if you're in Italy for Easter, you will see that this is a major holiday in Italy, taken so seriously that even those who don't enter a church all year long will go on Easter Sunday.

Solemn religious celebrations are held in many towns on the Friday or Saturday before Easter and on Easter Sunday. On Good Friday, the Pope celebrates the Via Crucis in Rome near the Colosseum. A huge cross with burning torches lights the sky as the stations of the cross are described in several languages. While Easter mass will be held in every church in Italy, the biggest and most popular mass is held by the Pope at St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday morning, Mass is celebrated in Saint Peter's Square, and hence it can have a stadium feeling. Afterwards the Pope delivers the blessing known as the "Urbi et Orbi - to the City and to the World" from the balcony on the façade of Saint Peter's.

Obviously, also food plays a key part in the celebrations. Lamb and eggs are found on tables around the country along with seasonal vegetables and salad. Local dolci specialities join with the national uovo di cioccolata and la Colomba, a dove-shaped cake covered with icing and almonds.

If they are not already away from home, it is often on Lunedi dell'Angelo - also called Pasquetta, that full-stomached Italians head for their favourite places. In Rome the thing to do is to go fuori porta - out of the gates of Rome - and wander about the countryside picking wild chicory and feasting on lamb that has been roasted on an open spit.

As Pantheon Institute, we want to wish Happy Easter to everybody! Enjoy our beautiful city now, when finally the warmer, sunnier days of spring have come! BUONA PASQUA!

A night at the bowling!

Bowling is not exactly the most practiced sport in Italy. That’s maybe why there are only two or three bowling places in a city as big as Rome. Brunswick in the north part of it, close to the Olimpic stadium and therefore quite far from the Pantheon Institute offices and dorms in the historic center. In spite of this, we decided to organize a bowling night for our students there: Brunswick is the biggest bowling in Rome with its 24 lanes, a mini-golf and a beautiful restaurant.

Right after Wednesday’s Italian class was over, we left the Pantheon office and we headed towards Piazza San Silvestro to take bus n. 53 that would lead us straight to our destination. As soon as we reached the stop, we got on the bus but the driver immediately asked us to get off…the bus was going to the deposit! These are the inconveniences of using public transportation in Rome, a city that’s as beautiful as much as it is chaotic, from this point of view! After chatting for a while, our bus finally got to there. It took us about one hour to get to the bowling, but it was worth it!

Rome’s Brunswick is really cool and our students felt “a little bit like home”…After renting the shoes, the PI students decided to take two lanes and the competition started! I have to say, as a spectator, that the show was really exciting! Many of the Pantheon Institute bowlers proved to be very good. With excellent techniques and powerful shots, almost all of them scored way more than 100 points…with just few exceptions.

Between one shot and another, we had also some time to eat something…also in this case, the students felt like home: everybody had either an hamburger with French fries, fish and chips or a slice of pizza, and everything was delicious!

After bowling, we tried also a little basketball. Our students from Clemson University proved to be real champions! Their score was amazing…

After two very nice hours spent at Brunswick, we decided to go back home. We had a pleasant walk along the Tiber and we reached Piazza Mancini, a square that’s right in front of the Olimpic stadium and we caught bus n. 2 which led us right to Piazza del Popolo.

Bowling was so much fun! And it is definitely an activity we will propose again to the future students of the Pantheon Institute.

Come on, Pantheon Institute!

Those who think that American kids cannot play soccer make a big mistake. Seven Pantheon Institute quality players challenged an Italian team to a soccer game on a beautiful spring day last Saturday. Everybody was anxious to play, so they arrived early at the soccer field, and had even time to make some pictures and sunbathe…

The Italian teacher Maurizio was also there to see his kids playing and was the team’s orchestrator, motivating and keeping them moving forward. Italy team proved to be a tough nut to crack, and yet the Pantheon Institute were constructive, and after a little while they took the lead with two goals.

American kids were more aggressive, and pressed much higher up the pitch, but unfortunately commitment was not enough, and the goals sparkled Italy into action,: at the end of the game, Italians took home a 3-2 scoreline, albeit with a touch of luck… Was it really important? The real winner was the wish of have fun!

Live music at Big Mama club!

Some students from the Pantheon Institute had the chance to see a live performance by the Burning Bright, the official Italian Doors tribute band, last night at Big Mama club in Trastevere. Open since 1984, Big Mama is considered as one of the best places to listen to live music in Rome.

The Burning Bright, led by a charismatic singer who really resembles Jim Morrison, played for over two hours and performed the Doors’ most famous songs for an enthusiastic and very loud public: among the others, Light My Fire, LA Woman, Touch Me and Riders on the Storm.

Essere o non essere, questo è il problema!

Some “brave” Pantheon Institute students agreed to come with us and see a play performed in Italian on Thursday night.

They had two options to choose from: “La Locandiera”, by the famous 18th century Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni or “Hamlet”, the masterpiece by William Shakespeare.

The students promptly opted for the second possibility: knowing the story already, they said, it would be easier to understand the actors playing in Italian. But Shakespeare’s cues translated into another language aren’t exactly the easiest thing to hear for an English-speaking person. Nevertheless, our students tried very hard to understand what the different characters appearing on stage were telling each other and they managed to get most of the speeches performed by the actors.

Hamlet was put on stage by the “Teatro del Carretto” actors company; they performed a very interesting adaptation of this celebrated bloody melodrama on the theme of revenge.

This experience was also interesting from an architectural point of view: Teatro India, where the play was performed, is indeed located in the citadel of the former Mira Lanza factory, a large industrial site on the banks of the River Tiber in an extremely evocative part of the city. The great gasometer that visually dominates the theatre has come to be a contemporary monument and a symbol of twentieth century Rome associated with this building.

Do you speak English? Parli Italiano?

“Quando sei a Roma, vivi come i romani” (When you are in Rome, live as a Roman”): easy to say, but not always to do, especially if you live in Piazza Navona and spend most of your time between this charming square and Campo dè Fiori, and you feel that the city is in the hands of Japanese tourists…

This is why we decided to contact the University of Rome, “Roma tre”, and invited some Italians of the Department of Foreign Languages to meet our American students in the center at via del Pantheon in a safe, encouraging atmosphere.

Our marvellous Italian teachers, Barbara and Maurizio, were there to help to facillitate conversation, but after a little while, some good food and drinks, everybody started immediately to talk and practise their Italian and/or their English. No matter if someone said something wrong! It was even more fun!

At the end of the day, everybody was sorry to leave… but hopefully this was just the beginning of new friendships!!

8 March International Women's Day: a little history

Even in Ancient Rome a day dedicated to women was celebrated. March 8 was one of the first of the springtime festae, a day sacred to Ariadne, whom Thesius had abandoned on the Island of Naxos after promising to marry her if she helped him slay her father's pet Minotaur. Seduced and abandoned, she was a prototype for ancient Mediterranean womanhood.

On March 8th 1857, women of New York gathered to hold their first protest for improved work conditions and raised wages. March 8th 1908, another historical moment for women took place in New York, fifteen thousand women protested shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. Finally as of March 8th 1975, the United Nations declared this day an International Women’s Day.

Authorities don't agree how or why, but the custom started in Italy -- some sources say in Rome in 1946 -- of men giving their wives, mothers, daughters, and other women friends sprigs of bright yellow Mimosa flowers on March 8. Women have since also started to give Mimosa to each other. The flowers are intended as a sign of respect for the women and also an expression of solidarity with the women in their support for oppressed women worldwide.

What is it that we women were so desperately trying to obtain? We wanted to be equal to men: to work, be entrepreneurs, deal with financial problems, etc. We have achieved all that we sought after. Are we happy now?

Alas, women can never be completely satisfied. We are too smart for our own good. Today we lack the most important element of life – TIME! We are so busy with that which we sought so hard to achieve. Today we must deal with our work and financial status, but no one took away our inherited responsibility for our family and children….

Don't give up! Happy Women's day to all!!