Apparently Adjusting

The thing I love most about the hula-hooping community is its networking aspect. Wherever you may travel, a hooping friend awaits you. When I got to Rome, I joined the Italian Hooper group on a social networking site designed specifically for those of us who practice this art. I was able to link up with my new friend, Drew, who has lived in Rome (among other places) for many years. And as such, I have been able to learn Rome from an "Italian," though I put that into quotations, because he hates such labels :)

The first time Drew and I met, he took me on a ride on his scooter throughout the Monteverde and Trastevere neighborhoods, near my apartment. I was at first scared, for I am so usually inclined to avoid any possible danger. But, when in Rome, you must do as the Romans do, and so I did. It was exhilarating. Whenever I am riding around Rome on the scooter, I cannot wipe the smile off of my face. It must look like I slept with a hanger in my mouth.

The first time, Drew took me to a lovely little cafe where we discussed feminism and other mutual interests, followed by a short walk to a beautiful villa with an astounding view of the city. Then, a couple of days ago, he took me to a chocolate factory near San Lorenzo (a student district) that I'm sure I never would have found otherwise, and even if I had, communication would have been near impossible. He asked the lovely waitress to select five sweets she preferred, plus the one I wanted, and then we ate them off of a chic chocolate-drizzled plate at our table over drinks.

We also walked by a center of Roman ruins near the Argentina station in Trastevere, and he took me into a secret room that is essentially underground. In the room were dozens of kitties! Apparently, it's like a humane society, and you can go in and pet the cats (or a least the healthy ones) at any time. Many of the cats are allowed to wander out into the ruins, while humans are denied this privilege, and so Drew made the interesting point that this forum essentially belongs to the cats. I quite like that idea, and I quite like having an "Italian" friend, too.

When not privileged enough to explore the city with someone so experienced, I've enjoyed the solitary life. There is a restaurant only a few minutes walking distance from my apartment at which I've made friends with the waiters and the adorable grandfather who tends to the cash register. Whenever I walk in, he greets me with the informal "ciao" and a kiss on each cheek. I love to sit there for hours, slowly enjoying a glass of chianti classico, and scribbling poems onto napkins when I am suddenly hit with a burst of inspiration, as is so usual for me when in Rome.

My other favorite place to be alone is on public transport. Now that I've mostly gotten the system down, I am not afraid to hop on the tram or a bus for no reason other than to ride, to people watch, and perhaps to get off at a stop that appears an unexplored area. I must confess, however, that from time to time I must be more relaxed on public transport; I've jumped in fear of being pick-pocketed multiple times, when really I was just harmlessly nudged. There's really no need for paranoia at this time of year. Apparently it's too cold for the Romans, and all the pickpockets are inside, waiting for summer.

My favorite ancient site will forever be the Pantheon, which is also my favorite hooping destination. A couple of days ago, I threw down a solid jam sesh directly in front of it, and caught a decent audience. A lovely French teenager nervously walked up to me inside the Pantheon some twenty minutes later and said “tu es tres forte,” which means “you are very strong.” Fortunately, I was with a roommate who is fluent in French, so I could thank her properly. Then, upon exiting the great dome, one of the Roman "soldiers" in costume gave me the exact same compliment. I thought it was interesting that here I apparently seem "strong," since in America, I usually hear things like "awesome" or "skilled," but never strong. I prefer the European style of complimenting. I think I may try busking during tourist season and see if I can bring in a few euro, since I've certainly spent a bit more than budgeted, already, and of this I must be cautious.

Classes have been going quite well. My religion class took a tour through some of the churches and basilicas throughout the city, and I went to four on my own -- Santa Maria Maggiore, Basilica di Santa Prassede, Santa Maria della Vittoria, and San Pietro in Vincoli. They are breathtakingly formidable, ornately adorned, grandiose and enrapturing. You’re probably wondering at this point where the pictures are. I’m only somewhat pleased to say that I don’t have any! Well, at least none that I personally have taken. I’d hate to be looking through a lens, but not quite seeing. I will, however, end with a roommate’s photo, which succinctly captures my time in Rome thus far:

 

Ciao!

Cultural Complications

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!

Thinking In Transit

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!

First Thoughts

It really astounds me that I am about to be living in the midst of the history of one of the greatest civilizations that has ever been a part of humanity. Naturally, given my course of study, I'm inclined to consider Rome as the greatest. In Rome, the ancient and modern worlds collide. The twenty-first century meets the Roman Revolution. The curia is only some paces from the club. Walking through the forum, you are immersed in ancient Rome’s downtown district. Formidable feats of human architecture and technology - the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Baths of Caracalla - are situated in the city next to simple bakeries and cafes, where people speak Italian but still savor the traditional Latin greeting: salve.

The commands and legacies of emperors long dead still linger in the city and the provinces afar. Rome made her presence known up through Italy, over the Rhine into Germania and Gaul (modern France), even as far as Britain, where Hadrian’s wall told the world that Rome could go anywhere, conquer anyone. In Nîmes, southern France, Thomas Jefferson gazed at the Maison Carrée relishing in Rome’s power still to strike awe in the present. Then 250 years later so did I, on my first study abroad: The Grand Tour.

Two Central Michigan University professors and thirteen students travelled to Rome for a week, then went up to Florence for four days, followed by three days in a village in the south of France from which we took day trips to Nîmes and Arles, and ending with a week in Paris. It was, for me, a pivotal experience during that summer of 2011. It was an academic opportunity unmatched, to actually study the history of Rome on site, and to simultaneously read and discuss ancient and modern interpretations of such a grand civilization. Our group was intelligent, and our professors were both quite brilliant; it was all-around enriching, edifying, and to me, inspiring. I needed to be everywhere, and see everything, but at the same time, I needed to absorb very meticulously, to use all of my senses, to be patient and mindful. I felt very connected in Rome, especially. In Rome I never found myself facing writer’s block – still today when I think and write about Rome, it flows.

When I went on my first study abroad, I was already a history major, but at the time I was planning on attending law school. However, once I experienced such an immersion in history as I did in those three weeks abroad, there was no doubt in my mind that history was the only thing I wanted to do. I changed my plans and began pursuing relatively intensive preparation in classics. This has included study of Latin and Greek and extensive reading and writing of ancient (and medieval) history. Now my academic career is culminating with the spring 2013 semester in Rome, which will provide study and experiences rather conducive to my aim of attending graduate school after I graduate in May.

Not only will I be continuing my study of Latin in Rome this spring, but I will be studying archaeology on site with two courses, one on the general archaeology of Rome and the other analyzing Troy through literary (Homeric) and archaeological evidence.  I will also be learning Italian, not only in the classroom, but exercising it on a daily basis out in the city. Finally, I’ll be in an interdisciplinary religion course – All Roads Lead to Rome – which will evaluate Rome’s role as an importer, exporter, cultivator, and transformer of religious life. This will very much complement the study I’ve done in Roman religion over the past semester.

This time that I’m immersed in the study of ancient Rome while actually within the city limits, I won’t be cut off after a week. I have an entire semester, but already it doesn’t feel like quite enough. I leave one month from tomorrow, on January 23^rd. I’ve booked a ten-day spring break trip to Greece, a country which, although in economic turmoil, is not something I can pass up travelling to while already overseas. In fact, I’d expect that tourists would mostly be welcome in these tumultuous times, since capital needs to be invested in the economy if they are ever going to pull out of this. I’ve also booked a four-day trip to Dublin. For both trips I’ll be quite independent, which is something I’m apprehensive about, but that I also find exhilarating  I’ll be sure to practice caution, and I’ve necessarily read up on safety measures.

On the whole, I am so incredibly enthused and privileged to have this opportunity. I am going to learn, read, write, walk, talk, speak, and experience at an incredibly excessive rate. I don’t expect to take many photos; I wouldn’t want to find myself looking through a lens, but not quite seeing. I will very much be aiming to absorb. I do expect to chronicle much of the experience through writing, however. I may even start working on my first book. As I said, I feel very inspired when in Rome – and now once in Greece, too, I can’t even fathom the weight that the world will be holding over me. These are only the surface of the surface waves of the anticipations that come fleeting at me rather consistently now reaching into the month prior to my departure. More on academics next time, but for now I’ll say I’m spending winter break working on my languages. I of course plan to serve as a strong CMU ambassador while at the American University of Rome, so some fine-tuning in my Latin and a head start in Italian is in order. Time is moving quickly. Festina lente!