Once upon a time, when I was a young freshman, excited for classes, eager to meet people and enthusiastic about involvement with cool things like Freshman Council, I thought I had a good definition of “a long walk.” A long walk was from my house on Hyland to the rec center, or worse yet, to Industrial Ed II, the far edge of the earth.

If there’s one thing that Rome has changed about me now, it’s my perception of distance. If you’re going to live in Roma, you have to walk a little — or a lot. Iowa State’s studio is a twenty-five minute hike from my apartment. The nearest supermarket is twenty minutes in the other direction. I bet I easily spend between an hour and two hours every day just walking to different destinations. I have a theory that all of this is part of the Italian theory of city planning —nothing like that after-dinner hike from the Pantheon to the Vatican post office to help you burn off those pasta calories.

With all the huge historic monuments in Rome, it’s easy to overlook the nature of the paths you walk on to get around. But in reality, this streetscape is a critical part of the Rome experience.

Streets have been an important element of the shaping of the city for thousands of years, from the significance of the Via Sacre in the centuries before Christ to the creation of new thoroughfares like the Via Julia by Pope Julius II in the 1500s or the Via Dei Fori Imperiali by Mussolini in 1933.

Instead of using blacktop or concrete for Roman streets, they use these little 3 1/2 inch square cobblestones for streets and sidewalks.

They’re usually laid in a diagonal pattern. What’s really neat is that there is no mortar holding them together. They’re placed in tightly packed sand, and they’re all laid entirely by hand by crews of dark-skinned, big-bellied Italian construction workers who seem to spend more time yelling at women walking by then pounding in cobblestones.

Since there’s no mortar, the stones can be torn up very easily as well.

Which is great, because Italians seem to have a real passion for continuous construction work. One day, I’ll be walking to class, and a huge hole with construction fencing will have suddenly appeared in the middle of the sidewalk Two days later, it will be completely gone, with no traces, apparent significance or long-term results.

This passion for construction extends not only to pavement and holes, but also to the erection of scaffolding. It must be a status symbol of sorts to have your building covered in scaffolding, because everybody is doing it these days. Huge layers of scaffolding coat almost every other building in some areas of town. On major streets, if you observe carefully, you’ll see that they re-arrange the scaffolding slightly each day. This creates all sorts of interesting, narrow, dark, little passageways underneath on the street level.

Beyond the pavement and the construction, there is also lots of life on Roman streets. Traffic and tourists are everywhere. When I see a big tour bus that has just pulled up to the sidewalk, I have a mental image of my mom’s cat right before he is going to puke. Have you ever seen a cat gagging, making jerking motions with his head before anything comes out? I can almost see the bus doing that, convulsing a little, and then this unending spew of elderly couples with golf pants and camera bags comes flooding out onto the sidewalk, snapping photos and standing innocently in the way of the passing foot traffic.

Rome is a city of entrepreneurs, and there are many characters on the streets that follow this spirit. Little stands with souvenirs, t-shirts, flowers and fruit clutter the sidewalk wherever you go. There are guys that dress up as ancient Roman gladiators and emperors. They walk around taking photos with tourists for a small fee. What’s really funny is to see a guy in ancient Roman body armor but wearing Nikes and sitting in a cafe having a smoke.

Then there are the organized bands of Pakistani men who wander the sidewalks selling merchandise. They all have the exact same items to sell.

During the day, it’s battery-operated toy soldiers or colorful bandanas.

In the evening, it’s crazy, silly lighters of all sorts, most involving little figures in sexual positions with body parts that shoot flames. And when it rains, all of a sudden they have big bags of umbrellas. They run from person to person, waving them in your face, yelling “Umbrelli! Umbrelli!” to get people who forgot their own to pay a horrendous price for some cover. Umbrellas make great tools for fighting off tourist crowds, even in good weather.

Finally, there are the animals. Everybody in Rome has a dog, and they all like to walk them frequently. There are also the huge herds of wild cats that roam the city, eating and sleeping where they will. It is illegal in the city to hurt or kill a cat, so they spread without restraint.

It wasn’t that hard to adjust to this new streetscape, but my big concern now is what is going to happen when I return to Ames. I’m concerned that I’ll be a little too assertive on the sidewalks on my way to class, having been used to dealing with all of these distractions and characters. So keep a lookout for me. If you’re blocking the sidewalk, I might just knock you out of the way with my umbrelli!

Matt Ostanik is a senior in architecture from Washington, Ill.