Good morning from sunny Roma! Since I arrived, I have felt
very much faced with complications and frustrations, and I am yearning for the
adjustment phase that I know I will eventually reach. Some of these elements of
“culture shock” are my focus in writing today.
My luggage was, of course, lost immediately, and I had to
wait nearly three days until it was delivered. This was rather irritating, since my carry-on
bag was entirely comprised of shoes, and I barely packed an extra outfit. If
ever you are traveling abroad, I beg of you not to make this same mistake. I
was not very inclined to venture out and explore Roma before I had any of my belongings,
understandably enough. So, I spent the first couple of days mostly contained to my
apartment, while my roommates were mostly not.
Speaking of roommates, I did express concern over my living
situation in my last post in which I was anticipating the prospect of living
with others for the first time in quite a while. Four of us are strangers, and two are friends from home. Thus far I do not feel particularly drawn to nor
offended by any of them, though only time will tell how our relationships might develop, and surely for this some co-venturing is in order. On the whole, I am satisfied with our arrangements. Our apartment is lovely and only a fifteen minute walk from AUR campus. We are situated in the mostly residential area of Monteverde, where I can hear the conversations of Italian families through paper-thin walls and gaze at the surrounding terracota for hours.
I did actually have to venture out to the Salvator Mundi
International Hospital on my second day in Rome in order to have removed some
stitches, which had been placed in the U.S.
Finding the hospital was much easier than expected, and I found it to be
a pleasurable visit despite that I was there under unfortunate premises. The
nurses were old-fashioned, wearing headdresses in a style similar to Catholic
nuns, and my Italian doctor was so lovely and kind. I sat, content, listening to discourse of their
Italian chatter, noting whichever cognates and recognizable linguistic traits I
could. The environment was sterile, but the experience was certainly not.
This was the same day that orientation activities took
place, and I was very much lost on my way back from campus to my
apartment. I certainly stuck out like a
sore thumb as I checked each street sign, walking twenty meters before throwing
my hands up in the air and turning around, making my way down the same streets
over and over again. I eventually wound
back up at campus, where I found my roommates and walked home with them. It was frustrating, mostly because I was in a
residential area, but in most of Rome half the fun lies in getting completely
lost. I was lost again a couple of days later when I took the wrong bus, or rather, I took the correct bus but in the wrong direction. Although this resulted in my missing an obligation, I decided to view this as an opportunity to acquaint myself with foreign parts of the city as I rode all the way down the line, and then all the way back. I do think it is important to view these frustrations in a positive light; such learning experiences are necessary in order to reach adjustment.
Now that I’ve been reunited with my belongings, I am quite willing to get lost – and to lose myself – in the city. Today I start classes, with Italian 101 at 4
o’clock. I am enthusiastically awaiting
this course, since language difficulties have been some of the most frustrating
of all so far. Each time I go out I try
to prepare myself for whichever social customs I should expect to comply with and whichever words and phrases I may need to use, but
whenever I use them I am suddenly faced with a rapidly-speaking Italian whose
vernacular baffles me. Fortunately
enough, the Italians are very kind and appreciate the effort I put in to speak
their language. When I went to the
farmacia to get some toiletries while I was still awaiting my luggage, the
Italian-speaking attendant was patient and cooperated with me until we
understood each other.
So now I will try to prepare myself for another day learning
Rome and the Roman way – expect a progress update in a few day’s time.
Ciao!
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