Four years out: A reflection

So it's been nearly four years since I departed for Rome. In the interest of making this full-circle, I thought I'd write a reflection piece. My final update, if you remember, was when I came home, jet-lagged like crazy, and started crying from culture shock. I attributed to it being too quiet, but thinking back, I think it was because I suddenly understood everything. I was getting good at Italian towards the end, but man, you forget how it feels to understand everything. Every passing conversation, the words on the radio, the billboards, music on the speakers- it gets overwhelming really fast.

So what's changed? I'm graduated now (got that sweet degree) with a real grown-up job. My cat is still around, and her expression is still perpetually anxious. I'm currently re-learning Spanish- I was fluent at one point, didn't use it for a few years, and got rusty.

(And knowing both Italian and Spanish still messes me up sometimes- I start in one and start sprinkling in words from the other)

But how did studying abroad change me? What did I come away with? After a few years, it's a little easier to see. Once you get off the plane everything is so chaotic you don't know which way is up.

• Independence- this is the most obvious one. I was never a shy kid, but I never did things alone. Somewhere, and I'm not sure where, but this shifted a little while I was abroad. I definitely didn't do things alone at first, but by the end I was visiting Sicily totally on my own. Recently, I took a vacation where I traveled to Canada on my own. Everyone seemed so surprised I wasn't going with anyone- but it doesn't even phase me anymore! I used to be so worried about doing stuff alone. Going out to eat, or seeing a movie, but after you travel through Europe on your own it just...doesn't matter anymore. (And for the record, where did this idea you need someone to do things with start? Sure, it's fun, but I kinda like traveling solo. And for stuff like going out to eat- why was I ever even worried about that?)
• A healthy appreciation for Catholicism- I'm still not a Catholic, and not planning on converting anytime soon. But those churches, man. It's like an art museum in every church. Other branches of religion gotta get on their level.
• Traveling, baby. I freaking love it. No matter if it's going to another city a half-hour away, or, as mentioned, going into Canada for a vacation, I love traveling! Exploring somewhere new, learning the local culture, picking up some new vocabulary... I can't wait until I get to see more of Europe. Or even somewhere further! My next big trip is going to be Spain, I think. I want to use my Spanish, finally. Or maybe Ireland- I have this dream of hiking the hills of Ireland.
• "It's a five-mile walk, so maybe-" "Oh, is that all? Let's go."
• I am a much less picky eater than I was when I left. Oh, sure, I still won't eat salad dressing (it's the texture) but I used to want to know every item in a new food before I would eat it. Or I wouldn't try new things at all. I'm much more receptive to trying new things now, especially if it's stuff from different cultures.
• Languages are a passion of mine- I never really knew when I left, although I knew I liked learning Spanish. But since I came back, I've really enjoyed exploring new languages. And that fact about how once you know one other language, the rest come easier? So true. 
• I still like The Godfather movies. Maybe more than I should.
• Honestly, cinema as a whole. I'm so glad I got the change to take some cinema classes in another country. It really gives you a new perspective on film in general. And since I'm a huge movie buff- even more than I was in 2015- it's been great knowledge to have.
• Things here seem so... temporary. Things in Italy are so ancient. And I don't just mean the ruins. The architecture, the culture, the traditions- everything dates back so far. Here in America, the 1800s are considered very old. But it's ridiculously young! It makes you realize how short-lived some things are, and how things that seem like a big deal today aren't going to matter a year from now, much less 100 years from now. In the blink of an eye, the temples of yesterday are the ruins of today. America is such a young county, it's kind of staggering once you realize it.
• I make my own pasta sauce now instead of using the pre-seasoned stuff from the jar. If it doesn't have enough garlic in it to taste it tomorrow, there's not enough garlic.

I miss Italy, sure. Rome is called the Eternal City, and you really get a sense of that eternity. I miss how you can casually hop to another country for a long weekend. I miss the food, dear lord do I miss the food. 

But really, what studying abroad does to you is teaches you to look through a traveler's eyes. Once you get home, everything is different. You find yourself discovering local quirks in your own hometown you never noticed. You want to visit the next city over and see what the local small businesses are. You end up visiting little ethnic celebrations you never gave a though to before (shout out to the Danish Festival in Greenville). 

Once you've seen more of the world, you realize that the world is simultaneously bigger and smaller than you thought. You explore your backyard and find things you never knew, and then you run into someone who lived in the same neighborhood as you in Italy.

There's a lot to see out there. That's how I can sum up my experience. There's a lot to see. And I've only gotten started.

Ciao!

I leave Italy kicking and screaming

The trash is taken out, everything is packed, we're all groggy because it's 5 A.M., and it's time to go back to America.

Oh my.

I am surprised how everything that is important can fit into a suitcase. Coming here, I had problems making it all fit. Coming back? I realize how little one really needs.

The airport is- well, you know how when you're a kid at Chuck. E Cheese and it's the best thing in the world? And then you go back as an adult and it's kind of...really loud and crowded and annoying? That's how international flights are on the way home.

At least the view is amazing.

Across a few time zones, the drink cart comes through. We get free drinks because it's a 10+ hour flight. I order a cocktail at 10 am. The lady next to me looks over judgmentally. Lady. I've flown like six flights in the past couple months. This one will be 8 hours more. Let me drink.

After hours and hours, we- oh my god- see American greenery.

That's one thing Europe doesn't have on us. This sheer amount of green is unique to America. And you know what? I kind of missed it.

We land, and of course it isn't done then.

There's customs. I have a bottle of limoncello I bought from duty free for my family. I am 20. The guy nearly confiscates it.

His error: I have been on a plane for 10 hours and I am very tired. I all but snarl at him that I bought this in Europe. where I can legally buy alcohol at 20, and this is for my family. He finally allows me to take it on the promise that my family will be right there to get it.

I arrive to my family. My mom hugs me so hard my ribs nearly crack. I am so jet-lagged that I nod off on the way home.

Culture shock is real. I cry at home that night. After the constant go-go-go of Rome, the quiet of home to too much and it overwhelms me. It'll get better but at first I need about 24 hours of sleep.

My cat keeps looking at me as if I'll vanish any moment.

Hi, baby. Yes, I'm home.

The last day

Is it really done? It feels like only a few days ago I just started. I know the guy at the downstairs grocery by name. I know that I buy a falafel weekly from the dude at my favorite shop. I know how I can get where I need to, I know my favorite churches, I know how to haggle in Italian.

Is it really time to go?

Exams, I did well. I studied, I stressed, they happened, but the grades hardly seem to matter when I have to bid goodbye to this eternal city.

I think I was strange because everyone else says they got homesick a month or two in and want to go home. And- well, mostly I miss peanut butter and breakfast food, but also...I could stay here forever. Everyone else wants to go back, and I would like to see my family, but. I could stay here forever. I really could.

It's the last day. How do I handle that?


Well, first by an epic last meal

This was described as pasta with "beef jowls". Yes, jowls. Don't look too far into it- it was delicious.

After that, we all got a second course. I chose a "fried zucchini flower", purely because it sounded strange. It wasn't something I'd have again, but I was glad I had it.

And then- GELATO

I tried the flor de creme flavor that my Paris friend suggested, as well as my favorite dark chocolate. A fitting goodbye to this lovely city.

Tomorrow I disembark. EARLY tomorrow. Very early. A cab will come. I know I should feel more happy than I am to see home but mostly- I just want to dig my hands in the land and refuse to go.

Pepperocini- no, autocorrect, I don't mean pepperoni

Let's talk about pepperocini.

Even as I write this my computer automatically changes it to "pepperoni". No, autocorrect. I don't want to say "pepperoni". I want to say PEPPEROCINI.

So. Pepperocini. What is it? Google says it's the Italian term for a hot pepper. Eh. In Rome, it means peppers in general. At least on pizzas. Like, banana pepper, green pepper, red pepper.

On our last week in Rome, my curiosity piqued, I ordered a pizza peperrocini.

Now, this is something American tourists in Italy get warned about a lot. Pepperoni isn't really a thing here. If you want something similar, you order salami, or a variety of some "hot sausage" kind.

Now, I like bell peppers. So I ordered this and it wasn't bad! If you like bell peppers, you'd like it. As mentioned, Roman pizzas are meant to be enjoyed one per person, so you aren't meant to slice it up and share it. That's why the peppers are distributed so randomly, because you're going to eat it all.

I haven't had a bad pizza in Rome yet, and this still adds to the total. It was magnificent. I think I could order a garbage pizza and Rome would make it taste good.

Life's a beach

Today the roommates and I took a trip by train and went down to one of those famous mediterranean beaches. After all, it's getting hot and sunny, it's time to enjoy that sweet ocean water.

One of the best beaches in the Roman area, Santa Marinella, is accessible by train from Rome. And that's it! Just a few bucks for the train and then you can easily walk to the beach. America has nothing on Rome public transport.

We each got some snacks and wine from the shop downstairs and headed out. We found a place on the beach (which wasn't even very crowded, despite being a weekend and a gorgeous sand beach), dug a hole so the wine would be kept cool, and spent the day mostly sunning but periodically swimming.

Imagine that kind of beach being a short train ride away. And not a bus, but a train, which isn't as bumpy and a lot more luggage can be carried on.

I didn't get burned because I have an obsessive need to apply sunscreen. I'm ridiculously white and even venturing out in the sun for a millisecond can turn me cinnamon red. However, while I applied copious amounts of sunscreen every half hour, my friends mocked me. How distressing. At least, until we got home and they had neon red sunburns on every part of themselves while I was still my pasty white unburned self.

Today's moral lesson is: public transport, but also apply more sunscreen than you think you need.

More gelato and I become a real Italian

My free days I've taken to wandering around the city, sometimes with a church in mind, sometimes not. When they say that Rome is the eternal city, I think it's true in the sense that it feels like a million years are coexisting at once. The newest shops and transportations are right next to ancient ruins or monuments that have been here for hundreds of years. And it's all taken so casually! Italians totally take for granted having centuries right next to them.

I genuinely think it isn't something that Americans can understand unless you travel. I'm not saying Americans are short-sighted or bad or anything, I just mean that it is truly a cultural consciousness. You don't understand how it feels to walk through these living centuries until you go, no matter how much you read about it.

Lately I've been going in and out of tiny shops, picking up gifts for some family and friends back home. Rome is full of tiny family-run stores and once you've been here awhile, you can pick out the mass-produced from the custom-made.

At one point I got hot and, in Roman fashion, it was time for gelato. I found a new place that looked good and had a decent crowd.

The crowd was enormous. I think a tour bus had come through since it seemed to be all Americans grouped together. 

And then, one of the most triumphant moments of my study abroad.

I fought my way to the gelato counter and the guy was obviously frustrated by all these Americans constantly asking "what's that? what's that mean? how much money is that? what's in that?" and I just shoved up (in true Italian fashion) and fired off, in pretty decent Italian, if I say so myself, "one medium with peach, limoncello, and grapefruit, thanks."

The guy looked SO RELIEVED to have someone who actually knew how to order. I got my gelato before most of the Americans, despite ordering towards the end.

I feel like a real Italian and I'm pretty dang proud. Victory gelato.

Ciao, Sicilia!

Friday 

This weekend I planned an impromptu solo trip to Sicily. Originally, when I got to Italy, I didn't really have an interest in seeing the island. But after taking my history of the Sicilian mafia class and spending some time hearing about it, I really wanted to go. But, nobody else did, so I decided to be miss independent and go on my own. The plane and hotel were pretty cheap (yes, I stayed in a hotel, not a hostel- I didn't want to stay in a hostel dorm room by myself and the private rooms were just as much as a hotel room (which still wasn't much) so I just did the hotel.)

Of course, when I get to the airport, I realize that I left my passport at the apartment and I don't have time to go back and get it. I'm hoping that because I'm flying within the country, they'll let it pass. But, of course, because I'm anxious literally all the time, it became a big Thing and I spent my time in the airport over thinking everything.

I get up to the front of the line and after a minute of deliberation, they let me fly with my driver's license as ID. Whew. (Hopefully they also let me fly back)

But I get to Sicily, take a bus from the airport, find my hotel alright. The hotel is a little strange, reception is on the fifth floor, and then my room is on the fourth. Also, instead of a keycard, I got a set of actual keys attached to this strange metal disk that is so heavy I could probably actually hit someone with it. The hotel isn't too glamorous, but that's fine, all I need is a place to sleep.

So after I get to the hotel, I decide to go out and find the catacombs of the capuchins, which I really wanted to see here, and also something to eat, because my plane got in around two and I was starving. I figure I'll find something on the walk down.

So I pull up the Palermo catacombs on my locations and away I go!

To get to the catacombs, I had to go through a few of the poorer neighborhoods- I felt a little out of place in my old navy collared t-shirt and bright pink phone, haha. But the catacombs of the capuchins were sooo worth it.

Honestly, I love creepy stuff, and I heard about these catacombs in some of the creepy blogs I read. Here's the deal about the catacombs of the capuchins: There were these monks, and one died, and the rest still wanted to pray with him. So they had his body preserved in order to still pray with him. They started doing this for more and more monks, and eventually it got super trendy to have your dead loved ones preserved. It became a symbol of being high society. If you were someone, you got your dead loved ones preserved.

They started in 1599 stopped doing this in the 1920s. It's been awhile since then, obviously, but a lot of the corpses in there are still in various levels of preservations. They're lined up on walls, lying in glass coffins, sitting on shelves. A lot have skin, some have hair, some even still have eyes. One of the most famous mummies is Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old girl who was one of the last to be admitted here, and who was preserved with a remarkable technique that was only rediscovered recently. To this day, she still looks as if she could simply be sleeping.

I'm not going to include any photos in here because quite frankly, I don't think everyone has the stomach for it. These are corpses in various states of preservation- it's not something everyone can handle. But if you've got interest in the bizarre and historic and macabre- it is well worth a visit.

So I leave the catacombs and decide to get something to eat. Problem: it turns out that this is national worker's day in Italy and freaking everything is closed.

It's nearly five. I haven't eaten since breakfast. I can't even find a gelato shop open. Finally I stumble across this really weird, hole-in-the-wall convenience store. Literally, hole in the wall. There was no door. But I was desperate, so I got some (pre-packaged) bread and crackers and wine (all for oddly cheap) and went back to my hotel. I had some work to do so I nibbled on my fancy Italian dinner of packaged rolls and planned out my day tomorrow.

Saturday

Today, I had one goal: See the Teatro Massimo, and just explore Sicily!

The Teatro Massimo is probably the most famous theater in all of Sicily. In addition to having a rich history of opera and art, there were scenes from The Godfather 2 filmed here! Most notably, the scene where someone gets shot in the theater- yep, that's this theater. Those of you who have been following my blog know how much I've fallen in love with The Godfather in my Italian film classes, so this was a must-see.

The theater was in this central hub of downtown Sicily, near all these shops and busy streets, so I spent the rest of the day just wandering! There was so much to see. Palermo knows that people come here because of its mafia history (and the mafia is still very active here, but nobody mentions that there) so I ended up getting some mafia souvenirs, some of my favorites from Italy. I'll forever treasure my "u mafiusu" bobblehead.

It was so incredibly hot that day- I discovered that Sicily isn't as into gelato as Rome is, but what they do have (and do very well) is granitas! The blend of frozen ice and fruit juice I explained in my Sorrento post. Well, Palermo is lemon country, and man, do they do good granitas! It was so hot, I must have had at least three.

This one was strawberry, lemon, and mint- the locals liked it! I couldn't get over the strawberry and mint combo.

I also came across this "American restaurant". It had "American meals" like chicken nuggets and salads named after the Empire State Building. It was so funny to see us from that point of view! I was so taken by it that I got dinner there, just to see what it was like. (It was American dishes, but also not? I was so entertained by the whole thing.)

Sunday

Not much to tell about today. The plane tickets were cheaper if I left earlier in the morning, so I checked out early and headed to the airport. I used the same bus system that I did to get here (again, proud of myself for figuring this out when I don't even speak the language) and flew back.

The mainland Italy and the island of Sicily are truly different lands, even if they are the same country. People here will tell you that but you don't really understand it until you visit both. When I got back to Italy, I just thought "it's nice to be home". Back to the mainland- I did miss the gelato!