"Rome, a lifetime is not enough."

Sensory overload. That's how I would describe Rome. The hundreds of monuments that span from imperial to medieval  and Renaissance are simply overwhelming. It is at turns chaotic and coordinated, exhilarating and exasperating. Although I was here ten years ago with my parents, touring it as an adult was like seeing it for the first time.

Of all the beautiful places I have visited in the last week, this is the only one where I can see myself living. If I wasn't already studying abroad, I would want to come here. And I think one has to be a resident of Rome (for at least a few months) to appreciate everything that it has to offer. Granted, in a matter of three hours we walked to most of the major historic sites. But the whirlwind tour merely entailed gapping at a series of imposing stone structures. The richness of the history and art simply overwhelmes the senses.

To know Rome you would need to savour each piazza, fountain and basilica individually. The rich detail and history of the Roman Forum alone are enough to keep you engaged for days on end. And maybe that's the mark of a great city; it can't be seen in a day or a week- that's when you make it's acquaintance but, you need to develop a relationship with it.  The city of Rome seems like a community- an outsider can admire it but only an insider can appreciate it. With a community, you need to get to know each individual in the group- learn about their history, their passions, their sorrows and their talents. Then you need to learn how the individuals are interwoven by shared history and intertwined by relationships. Rome was the site where successive empires overlaid one another, artistic movements clashed and religions vied for influence. To understand any monument you would need to appreciate the complicated context and then see the details and styles that elevate a church from a mere place of worship into an artistic masterpiece.

But most of us don't have this awareness- we are like a gaggle of tourist starring at Einstein's theory of relativity. We know it's impressive because the textbooks said so but we would be hard pressed to articulate why. Yet instead of pleading ignorance everyone wanders around oohing and ahhing and taking pictures to impress their friends. Because that's what sophisticated people do- they travel  around as if traversing the same ground as Caesar and Michelangelo would make them more cultured or sitting in the same basilica as the Pope and the tomb of St. Peter would make them more holy. But it doesn't work that way- these aren't traits we learn from osmosis, they are qualities we gain from application.

This is all probably a long winded way of saying that I have become disenchanted with my camera and am frustrated by my superficial exposure to a city that obviously has so much more richness to offer. So for the moment I am going to adopt a paradigm shift. Perhaps I need to accept that most of us travel for enjoyment, to get a break from our hectic lives, and to enjoy the company of those we care about. Maybe enrichment doesn't have to come from developing new expertise, maybe it comes from experiencing beautiful moments, even when we can't articulate what beauty is.