I am in Rome until December. I honestly have to keep repeating this phrase to myself every day, over and over, because it still seems surreal. I always knew I had to come back to this awe-inspiring place ever since I came here three summers ago with my dad’s whole side of the family. We saw the typical tourist favorites: The Colosseum, the gorgeous Trevi Fountain, St. Peter’s… and although it was wonderful I knew I wanted more. When Dr. Dawson came to Loyola to talk about studying in Rome for three and a half months, I was sold immediately. It just felt right. I definitely felt a little anxious as my departure date in August loomed over my head and summer came to a close, and I’ve already had my little bouts of homesickness here and there. But I cannot get over this immense opportunity that I’m so lucky to get to take.
Let’s see if I can summarize up until right now. We arrived around 8 A.M. Roman time on Friday August 27th. After checking into a hotel close to our new school, St. John’s, we had a chance to sleep a little bit until orientation began. We walked around the city with the whole group, and got our first gelato! SO delicious. After DDV (what I’ll be referring to Dr. Dawson as) showed us around what seemed like the entire country of Italy, we went back and got much needed sleep. On Saturday night after more orientation, we decide to bond with the group a little bit! A few casual glasses of wine on the roof terrace later, we all went out together to a fun bar in Piazza Navona! The next day, we left the hotel and departed for our host family’s house!
Rachel’s and my host mother is Paola Pippia, an older woman in her 60s who lives in such a lively neighborhood RIGHT near the Colosseum! Paola is lovely. We are the first girls she’s ever had, and she definitely seems a little shy still, but we don’t mind at all. She speaks no English, and at first Rach and I were intimidated by this communication barrier. But she is so incredibly patient with us, and thankfully she understands almost any hand gesture you could ever think of. She’s a fantastic cook too! Yesterday night we had fish that looked like they could have been caught minutes before, straight out of the ocean, but we still tried it! A few “no mi piace’s” later, all three of us were laughing about it. Other then that, the meals have been so, so good.
Our whole group went to Sperlonga the weekend of Sept. 4th, then Ponza the next weekend. Sperlonga was just a day trip and Aurora was there too, but by the end of the day all of us were ready to stay there for like a month, it was that beautiful. Little did we know we’d seen nothing yet – Ponza was stunning. Transportation got a little complicated to say the least, but once we were all there we had the most fun time. We stayed at Aurora’s friend’s houses. I stayed with a few girlfriends on the top floor of the first house, all the boys and four other girls stayed on the bottom half, and then the rest stayed in the second house just walking distance away. In my next entry I’ll be sure to put up pictures, because the view we woke up to was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was so nice to be all together. We all love our host families so much and we are getting to learn so much about the culture from staying with them; I absolutely love having my own bed, and it’s nice to just hang out with Rach and chill out at the end of our busy days. But it’s hard to get used to not going back to dorms after classes and all being able to hang out!
So far I think my Italian classes are my favorite. I like that we are all in the same building Monday-Friday, and I forgot how intriguing it is to learn a new language (I’ve been taking Spanish for years). Our teacher is hilarious, and she is extremely good at what she does. We already had our first midterm, which I felt really prepared for thanks to her.
I haven’t had too many Liturgy and Art and Architecture classes, but I can already tell they are going to be challenging. In a good way. Honestly, theology and history have always been my least favorite subjects, but I have to take my second level of both of them for Loyola’s core; and what better place to take these two subjects then ROME. I’m so excited that the city is basically my textbook. We’ve already been to a significant amount of churches for holy water – in one of them we drank holy water!? My favorite so far was Santa Croce, in Gerusalemme, Rome. This church is built on actual Jerusalem soil, and it’s breathtaking inside. There is a statue of St. Helen inside the church (Emperor Constantine’s mother who basically founded this church) and inside the glass case she’s in, the public can write prayers on scraps of paper, like any scrap of paper they can find in their bags, and place it next to Helen in the glass case. I wrote a prayer on my train ticket from Ponza.
Besides Liturgy, Art and Architecture, and my two Italian classes, I am also taking a Travel Writing course to satisfy my minor in Writing. This is a career I would love to pursue. We are assigned readings in two books, one of which is called “The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years.” In here are essays from Outside magazine that famous travel writers have compiled about their adventures abroad. In one essay called “Going Places,” by Jim Harrison, a quote really stuck out to me; I read it over and over.
“Moving targets are hard to hit. You are doing what you want, rather than what someone else wants. This is not the time to examine your short comings, which will certainly surface when you get home.”
So simply written, and yet so profound. I’ve felt so restless these past few months and I didn’t understand why. But this is what abroad is all about. You have to keep moving. We cannot let ourselves fall victim to habits and routines in this life. Being halfway across the world from my family and friends is a complete loss of my comfort zone. But this is essential. This is how you find out the person you want to be, and what’s truly important.
Until next time, CIAO!
