Buona sera!
This is the Italian for "good evening," and a good evening it is
indeed. Evening, it is, because I have already adjusted my electronics to
Central European Time, so although my flight only just took off, it is 3:30 AM
in Rome, and so, it is 3:30 AM to me.
And this evening is certainly a good one, for although I am an emotional
rollercoaster in anticipation of my arrival in Italy, it is, above all, ecstasy
and euphoria that overwhelm me now that transantlanticism becomes reality.
The last
time I studied abroad, which is nearly two years past, my flight to Rome
was disgustingly packed. It was summer, it was hot, and it was certainly
stuffy. But now it is January, and our flight is scant in numbers. There are a
few Americans, certainly some Italians, but we all have space to move. Most
seats are empty. No one is in the seat next to me, which will (hopefully) be
conducive to my earning some sleep this good evening. It appears that, while I
did nearly miss both of my flights,
we are still off to a good start. I imagine that I can expect the same general
vacancy in Rome as I am experiencing on the flight; it is not tourist season,
but rather, it is January in Rome.
This
prospect, I think, is what has enthused me most in recent days. If I died and
went to something of a heaven, I think I would arrive at the ethereal version
of Italy in wintertime. That, to me, is idyllic. It is rainy and in the forties
or fifties fahrenheit in Rome at the moment. If I thought the Roman ruins did
not beckon me already, that weather certainly does. Not that I do not enjoy the
below zero temperatures in Michigan, for I certainly do, but Rome still manages
to tempt me with some of my favorite climactic conditions. It seems Italy is ready to welcome me home.
It is
poignant to leave Michigan, mostly because once I return I will be graduated
and moving on, and thus Mount Pleasant might as well be as distant as Rome is.
I am very fond of Mount Pleasant and the CMU community. I adore the Midwest
niceties, cruising down dirt roads, the simple life, the desolate feel of
summer in mid-Michigan, the battles between four seasons, hula-hooping in
frosty weather at Warriner Mall, and so on. Mount Pleasant is my home, and I am
apprehensive to leave it, but it is not negative apprehension. It is scary in a
positive and pivotal sense. I feel ready to abandon what feels comfortable. I
feel ready to understand Italy, and to become a Roman, if I can.
What has
been most disconcerting for me thus far is the lack of detailed information
about my living situation while in Rome. I know that I will be living in an
apartment within a reasonable distance from the American University of Rome
(AUR) campus, and that the apartments each have either four or six same-sex
residents. But I do not know precisely where I will be living, nor with whom. I
suppose that even if I had been put into touch with my roommates in advance, it
would not have made much of a difference, because personalities cannot transmit
via technology, at least not with complete accuracy. I know that simple e-mail
correspondence could not quite prepare my roommates for the personality that is
about to hit them (ahem...that's me). So there's no use in complaining, and to
do so is not my intention; in fact, I think it will be quite interesting and
perhaps beneficial for my roommates and I to learn of each other right as we
are shuffled into the apartment. But my point is that, as a fairly introverted
and reclusive individual, yet with a very strong and assertive personality, the
roommate situation is one that has most occupied my mind in weeks past.
In about six hours I will deboard my flight,
search for the AUR group, head to AUR campus, then, if I understand correctly,
our entire group will board a bus that will take us to our various apartments.
After unpacking, I intend to immediately leave my apartment, return to familiar
locations in Roma, and begin writing. I will be composing my first book while
in Italy. The memoir will be a series of vignettes. That I plan to write it
while in Rome is by no means a coincidence, but rather a plan of attack. I
noticed a marked and dramatic spurt in my motivation and inspiration when in
Rome, and this I found quite remarkable, since I am already rather a
self-motivated individual. But Rome carries a power over me like no other
entity quite can. To read and write about Rome, while actually sitting within
the city, perhaps gazing at the Baths of Caracalla or Domitian's ruins or the
Arch of Septimius Severus...these are acts that penetrate my soul and mind
deeper than any lecture ever does.
And so,
in Rome, my two goals, above all, are to speak and to write. I will be
conversational in Italian by May, if it is the last thing I do. I am much less
concerned with going out to engage in social festivities of the American sort
than I am to go out and engage the Italian people, to perceive their nuances,
their particular pronunciations, the rollings of their tongues, their slang,
their intonation. I refuse to abandon any opportunity to absorb the Italian
language in the next four months. Next to writing, this is my prime purpose.
And so I
will now return myself to my Italian handbook to practice further my
pronunciation before I (hopefully) sleep...if I can stave off the elation.
Ciao!
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