Roma and Reginaldus

I've been here in Rome about two and a half weeks now and I'm more than due to post again on how things have been going. My stay at the Centro has been quite enjoyable. The place is right by Piazza San Pancrazio and close to Villa Doria Pamphilli. It's about a thirty minute walk to St. Peter's and a little bit more to the Forum/Coliseum. The area is a bit quieter than the rest of town; not that many tourists come out this way, so we're pretty much surrounded by Italians living their lives normally. It's an excellent combination of residential and commercial. The only thing I haven't been able to find so far is a decent grocery store, but apparently Italians keep hours that usually have those closed during the afternoon, which is the only time I search for them.

Class with Reginald Foster takes place in the afternoon at a small, gated elementary school that's run by nuns. The class takes place in a basement/auditorium underneath the church which seems to be barely used when it's not used by us. The class consists of about 50 people from a plethora of backgrounds: there are priests, teachers, students, people who want to do classics as a profession and a few who do it as a hobby, Americans, Canadians, and Europeans. It's great talking to different people to find out why they're taking his class. Most people hear about it by word of mouth.

Reginald is a character. He's extremely intelligent and well-versed in all things Latin. Every day he comes in wearing the same blue shirt and jeans. He's told us before that some of the bishops refer to him as the "electrista" since he looks more like an electrician than a priest. At first, Reginald can come off as loud, harsh, short tempered, and set in his ways. He constantly threatens that those who get the easy stuff wrong should talk to him after class since he's "got money stashed away for a taxi cab back to the airport". "Latin will kill you!" he remarks whenever a tough intricacy is explained. Once you start to get past his rough exterior, he's a lovable, hilarious man who really wants to see his students succeed. He's got the old school, taught-by-nuns way of learning, but just like those nuns, his heart is really in the right place. Once we sit down, after a few introductory exercises, we begin with his infamous "sheets", huge 1x2 foot pieces of paper filled to the brim with Latin from every age from classical to modern day. Some of the old stuff we read is Tibullus' anti-war poetry (Let another man dig up gold from the ground!) and Ovid's Heroides. Some of the newer things we've read were "De Fumo", concerning the health issues inherent in smoking cigarettes, and "quomoda ad gubernandum autoraedora adeptus sim", or, "how I got my driver's license". Canonical law, miracle plays, Augustan poets, medicine, letters praising God, death, and infamy all come into play. We sing songs and talk about things that are happening right now, in Latin. We've visited museums and walked the steps Caesar took on the Ides of March. All in all, it's been a pretty good few weeks. I'm excited for the next few. I'll update this more regularly in the future about my escapades in class and add a couple posts about what else I did earlier on. Until then, I'll be out enjoying the Roman sun for as long as it's out today. Ciao!