Global Studies Rome

Ciao! Today is our final day in Rome (so sad!) and we are taking a day trip outside the city to the ancient Roman port of Ostia. First, though, we visited the Temple of Mithra, which is underneath the Circus Maximus.  Mithraism is an ancient East Asian cult brought back by the Roman soldiers. Their religious practice is covert and therefore saved them from persecutions of other religious factions.  The Christian and Mithras stories highly resemble each other; for example, the story of Mithras killing a bull is the creation of the universe—-the blood became wine, the flesh became bread. Every year on December 25th, they would recreate the scene of Mithras killing the bull and store the blood for baptism. The killing of the bull also gave rise to the beginning of time, space, sun, and moon.  The sites of Mithras temples are mostly underground because of two reasons: 1 - it was replicating the original cave from mythology and 2 - it removed them from public sight, therefore ...

Hi everyone!!! We had a super jam packed day this Wednesday, and we covered a lot of the city.  This morning, our day started off with a hotel breakfast before heading off to the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center. At the Refugee center, we were able to spend time talking to volunteers from Italy, Sweden, and other countries.  We spent time in the supply rooms for women and men, where we talked about the importance of balancing giving and receiving at the center. As well as learning about their focus on integrating refugees into life in Italy, whether that be by offering English and Italian classes at the center, or by learning how to write resumes and participating in various group activities.  After our trip to the center, we had a presentation from Sofie on more of how the center works, and what the differences are between asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees. Then, we heard a personal experience and story from a refugee’s journey to Rome from Iraq. It was an incredibly rema...

Hello again! We woke up this morning about a half hour earlier than normal to go tour the FAO, which is a United Nations organization dedicated to bettering food, quality, and access to food around the world. We got to learn about how this organization operates using three delegates from each country involved. This photo below is one of the beautiful artworks hanging above one of the three main conference rooms! We then went to the Colosseum where we toured the site, learning all about gladiators, the impact of entertainment on politics, and the ancient site's architecture! We had an incredible tour guide who spent the morning with us answering all of our questions. After that, we explored the beautiful Palentine Hill, which holds the remains of where the emperor lived. We walked through the various buildings and explored the different rooms including a very fancy dining room. The dinning room floor was elevated above the ground to allow warm air from the kitchen fire to pass under...