My Big Italian Adventure, T-Minus 18 Days
Congratulations, folks! We’ve made it to the teens! Woot Woot! As of tomorrow, I have officially been out of the country for three entire weeks. While I doubt you can put into words the amount that you miss me, I’ll rest assured that it is a great deal.
Normally, I blog for the universe on Monday and Wednesday Mornings, when I have class later and nothing to do for the first few hours of the day. However, Study Abroad is named such because we do (very reluctantly, I might add), have to attend class. And this week, tragically, is midterm week. Which means tomorrow morning, when I normally would be resting my little head until 8:30 am or so, I need to get up and go to the library and start memorizing some facts about monuments and resisting the tempting call of the interwebs.
My newest hobby in Rome is jogging. For those of you who know me at home, I’m a pretty active runner. I really, really enjoy a nice long run. Or I don’t so much as enjoy the actual run, but I love how I feel afterwards. I keep myself on a pretty rigorous schedule and my favorite days are Mondays and Thursdays, when I get to weight train too. I’m not very strong, but it’s still fun to do. While I’m usually pretty dedicated, for the past two and a half weeks, running really hasn’t been an option for a few reasons. First off, I didn’t know where I was really. The last thing I wanted to do was go running, get lost in this huge city, and have no idea where I am or how to get home. It took me the first five days just to learn how to pronounce my street name in a way Italians could understand! The other thing holding me back was that Italians do not really work out. Or they do, but it’s not like in America where you see joggers on street corners, or in DeWitt, when walkers are commonplace at night, circling the town loop. So, I saw maybe one jogger in two weeks. In fact, I actually asked my Italian teacher about it, who told me that women and men are not obsessed with their bodies like we are in the US and that jogging on streets is very odd. They’ll go to gyms and they’ll run in parks (but never in shorts, always long pants), but many do not. Plus, with all the walking I do here (really, I’m walking so much I give myself charley horses), running wasn’t really necessary to keep myself from exploding from italian carbs. That said, Sunday morning I woke up and I wanted to run. I put off the urge until four in the afternoon, when I finally just did it.
I did everything wrong. I ran on my street, instead of in a park. I ran in shorts, a huge no-no. There are traffic lights, so I run in place as I wait–guaranteed to get funny looks. The results? People looked at me funny. Men leered. Elderly men actually mocked me. A few kids pointed. No one gets out of your way like in America where runners typically have the right of way. Oh no, there is a lot of darting and people glaring at you for being so inconsiderate as to run around them or even worse, do a kind of little dance to get between crowds. After the first day when I heard something along the lines of “silly american girl” from a couple who were dining, I put on my ipod. Now, I can see them mocking, but at least I don’t have to listen.
The other secret to running here, besides the ipod, is to NOT run on the cobblestone. The cobblestone, even if you only run on it for a few minutes, is going to mess up your knees. My neighbor recently got inspired to do a five mile run (ha! I’m totally not that motivated. It’s 89 degrees here when we run!) and did some of her trek on cobblestone. Her knee is now swollen like a balloon! Luckily, we live on a street with concrete sidewalks, so my knees are looking the same.
On a more serious note, the past few days I’ve really felt like I wanted to be home. Not because I don’t like Rome–I love it!–but because family occasions have made me think that I could do with some family bonding to celebrate life, new opportunities, and of course, a little brother’s birthday. While flying home for the weekend isn’t exactly an option, it has made me rethink what living abroad permanently would be like. I’ve always toyed with the idea of moving to Florence after school’s done. After a few weeks here, I’ve realized the language barrier is not impossible, but would be frustrating to deal with. Moreover, while the historical perception of Italy is glamorous, the reality is that many people here live in poor conditions with poor political leadership and that there is no current art movements or academic successes that would make Italy attractive for a younger crowd. In fact, Italy has the lowest birthrate in the EU–less than 0. It’s an old generation that live in Italy. Furthermore, living here, compared to the the US, is extremely inconvenient. There’s grocery shopping almost every single day and nothing is cheap! Except wine. And frankly, if I had to grocery shop every day just to keep some snack food in the cupboards and to have dinner, I’d need cheap wine to keep my sanity.
Welllllll, hopefully I will be getting back to you all soon. Hopefully, midterms will be successfully over and we can celebrate the two week mark to my homecoming. Mother, if you’re reading this: I would really, really, really love some paella when I come home. And some diet coke. And a chocolate chip cookies.
Loves.