Never Such Devoted Sisters

Sorry for the slacking on my part in terms of updating. It’s midterm week, and things have just been a little crazy over here on this side of the pond. I’ve been meaning to update, it is just that it normally takes me somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour and a half to write a blog post, I haven’t exactly had that time.

Last week on Tuesday, Sarah Butzer (one of my pledge sisters), came into visit from London. It was her fall break, so it was the perfect time to come to Roma. Her trip over here was quite an adventure, but that isn’t my story to tell. After she spent the day at the beach with another one of our sorority sisters who is studying in Rome, I met up with the two of them at the Trevi fountain. Sarah wanted to make sure that she had a chance to throw a coin into the fountain, because the legend says that if you do that you will be sure to return to Rome. I brought Sarah back to our apartment and we sat outside on our balcony for a good hour or so just talking. Then it was time for sleep!

In the morning I had class, but Sarah wanted to see my neighborhood before she set out on her day of sightseeing. So, I took her to our open-air market that is just down the street from us. I think she enjoyed it. I love it there – seeing that many fruits and veggies in one place is just a little slice of heaven for me. After that we both had out first bite of cannoli. So good.

In the afternoon after class I met up with Sarah at the pantheon so that we could spend a few hours together, eat gelato, and go to the Spanish Steps. Sarah remembered this gelato place that she had gone to when she was here in Rome a few years ago, so we set out to find it. Oh my goodness – I think that this place (Caffe Giolitti) had the best gelato that I have had thus far in Rome. My cone consisted of chocolate, raspberry, and lemon. YUMMY!

That night I had a make up class for Art of Rome because it is too difficult to try and go see the Sistine Chapel with a class. Apparently you aren’t allowed to speak in the actual chapel, so it would be quite pointless to go there. Instead, all 4 sections of Art of Rome had to gather in the AUR auditorium at 6:30 at night for 3 hours to hear about the chapel and the Rafael rooms. All in all it was quite interesting, I was just getting antsy. I wanted to get out of there and go meet up with Sarah and Lauren one last time. I was eventually able to meet them for a drink, and then I dragged myself reluctantly back to my apartment because I had class yet again the next morning – and a quiz no less!

On Saturday once again I woke up at the crack of dawn and headed to AUR in the hopes of actually reaching Pompeii. But, that is another post. So, moving on…

When I got back on Saturday evening I was lucky enough to have yet another one of my pledge sisters, Laura, in town. Although I wasn’t able to spend quite as much time with her, it was still nice to have her here.

The first night I met her and Lauren out in one of the piazzas and spent some time with them. The night was going beautifully until I went to get back on the tram to go home and discovered that one of my wallets and my phone was missing. This is what I categorize as a “lo tov” (or no good) situation. I don’t want to go into the details of the rest of that evening, but believe me when I say that everything turned out ok, and all was not lost.

After that crazy evening I woke up the next day with plans to meet the two girls at Bocca della Verita, or the Mouth of Truth. If you have ever seen Roman Holiday you know what I am talking about. Because I at this point had no phone, I made plans to meet them on a bridge right near the church where it is located. Yet, each of us wound up on the wrong bridge and we never were able to find each other. Finally I was able to get a nice shop keeper to let me use their phone and contact Lauren. Which was great, but by that point they had gone somewhere that I didn’t know how to get to on foot. An hour later, 2 buses and a cab later, I finally found them.

It was well worth it, because we went to San Pietro in Vincoli. This is where the chains that were supposedly used to shackle St Peter are housed. But, the more interesting thing for me was that this is the church where Michelangelo’s Moses statue is. This statue is the one that started the rumor that Jews have horns. This happened because of a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “ray (as in ray of light)” for the word horn. Good job whoever did that! You have condemned many generations of Jews to be asked where their horns are.

From there we headed to Trastevere to have dinner. Lauren said that she knew of this traditional Italian restaurant with good food. Oh, and man was it wonderful. I had fried zucchini flowers and spaghetti carbonara, two very traditional Roman dishes. When I said goodbye to them I left with a happy tummy.

I know that some people are always going to be skeptical of sororities and say that you are just paying for your friends. I don’t know how to convince them otherwise, but all I know is that I am thankful for the friends and the “family” that it has given me. I know that I am part of something that has helped to create generations of strong Jewish (and non Jewish) women. This is something to be proud of. This is all especially relevant because today is the 98th anniversary of the founding of Alpha Epsilon Phi. We are, no matter where we are in the world a part of our motto “many hearts, one purpose – multa corda, una causa.”