Welcome to beautiful Thailand! Filled with stunning temples, smiling locals, spicy food, and a tai-kadai language, this authentic culture craves study from all disciplines. While sharing my unique adventures and pretty pictures, I aim more to delve into the vast abyss that is Thai culture, too often assumed to be pad thai, pretty girls, and white beaches. With my background studying cultural anthropology, paired with language and political science, my time in Thailand will be focused on deconstructing the importance Thais place around their food, as well as how tourism has changed the meaning, practice, quality, and importance of eating as a Thai. Since a little kid drinking ชาเย็น chaa yen (Thai iced-tea), my mom instilled a passion for Thai cuisine. It is important for us, as humans who require sustenance, to appreciate the food we choose to eat. Anthropologist Gillian Crowther, author of Eating Culture (2013), reminds us of the function food plays in our lives. “Food is our everyday creative and meaningful engagement with nature through culture…humans don’t just randomly feed; we select, fashion, concoct, and make an edible assemblage that fits our imagining of food” (Crowther 2013:XVIII). Food, therefore, is the simplest form of the selective choice of environmental manipulation for human advancement. Changing the environment from object to artifact for the sole purpose of consumption creates the basic definition of a culture; placing hierarchical importance on objective material in a human’s life. Food, therefore, is vital for understanding any culture.
My first week in Thailand was overloaded with new flavors, textures, smells, and sights. With a home base at Uniloft in the neighborhood of สุเทพ Suthep close to the campus of Chiang Mai University, I am luckily far away from the touristy center of Old Town, where authenticity within cuisine is quickly diminishing. On ซอยเจ็ด Soi 7, carts serve dishes from ข้าวซอย Khao Soi (traditional chicken bone & beef liver soup) to ข้าวไก่ทอด Khaw Gai Koah (fried chicken on rice). At my favorite restaurant, ขนมจีนหล่มเก่า หลัง มช kah nom thien loo khaw laam ngoo, I order ส้มตำ Som Tam, spicy papaya salad–crisp, refreshing, sour, sweet, salty, and spicy, all masterfully combined together in perfect proportions, leaving your mouth in awe of its magic.
ส้มตำ Som Tam
All these dishes are prepared by one woman cooking on a single burner stove, with 1 wok, 1 knife, and 1 spoon. Watching these chefs prepare the 30 orders that come in at the same time is a miracle in itself. No measurements, just different spoonfuls of น้ำปลา nam plaa (fish sauce), น้ำตาล shugar, น้ำมะนาว nam manow (lemon juice), พริก prik (chili), and ถั่วเหลืองหมัก khoon loo mak (fermented soy paste). It is amazing that different combinations of these simple ingredients create such a varying palate that defines Thai food.
Since I have been here, two Thai students have reached out to help me and Christian, an ethnographic film major, with our Thai and learning the ins and outs of Chiang Mai on their motorbikes. Recently, Mew and Chitsa took us out to try a Thai dessert, ขนม kha-nom (literally ‘dessert’). This cereal of coconut milk, ice shavings, corn, stale bread, green noodles, and fermented water chestnuts coated in a waxy red sugar was devoured by my new friends. Even for my adventurous diet, watery coconut milk with salty corn didn’t sit well with me. Despite my intolerance for the dish, Mew and Chitsa were ecstatic that two Americans were willing to try something so foreign. Their positive attitude and excitement made me feel at home in such a new environment. Their smiles and laughs were parallel to that of many Thais, where my desire to share in their local culture makes thems proud of their heritage and traditions. That makes me feel great, showing someone that what makes them who they are is valued in the eyes of someone completely different from them. So, I look forward to continue try new things, learn more Thai, and become as local as possible with my three new adventurers.
“I’ll be leaving the country in January.” “Oh, where to/what for?” “I’ll be studying abroad in Vietnam for four months”.
A nice thought, this more or less summarizes more than half of the conversations I’ve been having over the past month or two in preparing to leave for my first semester abroad. It never fully felt real, although I heard myself saying the words and the excitement in my voice. I had traveled before, and had in fact led a trip abroad for high school students to Costa Rica, so of course I was ready for my time abroad.
Hell no.
I boarded the plane just over a week ago, said goodbye to friends and family I wouldn’t see until May, and set off for what I thought would just start to push me outside of my comfort zone. After making great friends with the people next to me, handling the first 15 hour leg of the flight like an old pro (even giving advice to people who hadn’t done it before – I am a straight fraud, everything I know I learned from Pinterest), and enjoying a free hotel because of a missed connecting flight, I believed I had it all figured out.
To give you context, I’m a biology major turned international studies circa sophomore year with another major in sociology, and if I’m passionate about two things, it’s about pushing outside of my comfort zone and building authentic, raw relationships with people. I chose the Vietnam center for a combination of reasons, ranging from the fact that my scholarship applies to this program to not having any prior context for Vietnam to wanting the most intense adventure I could find. I’m a lead facilitator for Loyola’s experiential education office, Ramble Outdoors, and am pursuing a career in adventure education. More or less, the combination of outdoor adventure and working with people is kind of my thing. Even in the first week I have absolutely seen how lucky I am to have the opportunity to study abroad in a country like Vietnam.
Meeting some of our partners for the first time and exploring district 10 together!
I was the first to arrive for our program, which has a total of 16 people. No emotion had hit me yet of the fact that I was leaving for a few months and it won’t fully hit me for a few weeks more. That night I walked around by myself trying to do my best to look like I knew what I was doing. The air tasted sweet although the fumes of the motorbikes often overpower it. Vietnam has already flipped my world upside down in some ways and I love it. With having a smaller program, there are so many perks, especially having Vietnamese partner students. Their kindness has been overwhelming and I’ll talk a little bit more about them later on. Vietnam is a lot to take in at once, and in 7 days I’ve already been drenched in a rainstorm while riding on the back of a motorbike, struggled through language barriers to the point of frustration, made travel plans for the upcoming holiday, maneuvered through a few of the districts of the city, and tasted more food than I could have imagined. While I still have an incredible amount of cultural and linguistic wisdom to catch up on, I couldn’t be happier to be studying at the Loyola Vietnam Center.
As someone passionate about adventure and having been challenged and pushed to my limits in several other aspects of my life, I’m so excited to start my journey through Vietnam and discover what this semester is going to mean for me. I firmly believe that travel holds such powerful meaning for one’s life and keeps one from limiting their own life to a narrow worldview.
Life is not meant to be lived in one place, and while traveling this melcouth world takes courage, life is meant to be lived creatively and the benefits of studying abroad have already proved to be ineffable.
As Maslow once revered, “In any given moment we have two options: To step forward into growth or step back into safety.”
Today, and for the rest of the semester, I’m choosing to step forward.
Ever since my fourth grade heritage report, I knew I wanted to someday travel to Ireland. Everything about the culture and the people fascinated me. From then on, I did every report I could on some facet of Ireland and with every fact I learned, I fell more and more in love with the country. Thus, when the opportunity came to study abroad in Limerick, I jumped at it!
From the minute we landed in the Shannon Airport, I was ready for my adventure to start! It was slow going at first as my roommate Abby and I were locked out of our apartment when all we wanted to do was sleep, but even in our jet-lagged and cranky states, we could still admire the open, friendly nature of everyone we encountered. I can’t even begin to remember how many times we were wished “céad míle fáilte,” or “one hundred thousand welcomes” by the locals. Everyone was so willing to help the frazzled Americans settle in!
Our first weekend in Ireland was spent wandering around the city center of Limerick doing touristy things like exploring the shops. We did go to a fantastic market in the heart of the city called the Milk Market. (No milk is sold there, surprisingly.) The Limerick Milk Market is a weekly event held every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday where local merchants can come and display their products. There were books, jewelry, fresh meats, baked treats, clothes, and everything in between! Abby and I went with another American girl named Ellise and two Danes named Trine and Laura. We had a great time wandering the aisles looking at everything and ended the day with a perfectly prepared meal of fish and chips. It was a little drizzly, but that is to be expected in January in Ireland. Regardless, it was a unique experience that was a great way to start the semester!
A stall selling homemade soaps and lotions at the Milk Market.
Some pottery for sale at the Milk Market.
The biggest struggle I’ve had in transitioning to school in Ireland is the rotating schedules. Classes are not at the same time each class meeting and they can be in different rooms, as well. My schedule is full of gaps and free time where I’m waiting for my next class to begin, but this does leave time for me to become better acquainted with the local pubs around the campus! There are several that a few of us have had a chance to try out, including Dolans and Fennesseys, where I had my first ever pint of Guinness! Pubs are a central gathering place for the neighborhood and being an American is a great way to start a conversation with anyone at the bar. They are also a great gathering place for students and often have live music, traditional and otherwise, so don’t be afraid to go out and have fun!
When in Ireland, you can’t escape trying a Guinness!
So far, studying in Limerick has been a whirlwind of meeting new people, having new experiences, and wandering around castle ruins. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the semester will bring!
Ciao! What a busy two months I have had… Since I last posted, I have been to 10 cities in five different countries. Each weekend I slept in a different place and saw and did so many incredible things! This past weekend in particular was one of my favorites of the semester.
Last Thursday night I flew to Sicily. My aunt and I arranged this trip about three months ago. This has been the longest I have gone without seeing someone in my family so to spend time with a familiar face was comforting.
During our four-day trip we visited three cities, and I would say they are definitely places you must go if you ever find yourself in Sicily.
Palermo: This is the largest city on the island, with a total metropolitan population just under a million people. We stayed at a hotel in the old part of town, and were very close to many of the historical sites. On Friday morning we took a tour of the city. This is when we learned about the town’s history, from the fragile beginning to the violent mafia era that ruled the area until recently. We also saw some of the city’s most popular sites, such as Via della Liberta, the main shopping street; Teatro Massimo, a large theater built to entertain 3,000 or more people; and the Palermo Cathedral, a unique church that looks unlike any cathedral I have ever seen because of its unique exterior. After our tour we ate pizza while catching up. We wandered around for the rest of the day, eventually finding some gelato. Saturday night we went to Teatro Massimo to see the Martha Graham Dance Company. It was the first time this semester I had been inside a theater and Teatro Massimo did not disappoint. It was beautiful and so was the show.
Shops, restaurants and churches line each street, especially Via Roma and Via Vittorio Emanuele. Palermo has many street markets overflowing with fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood. One of the most popular markets is called Il Capo and it is located directly behind the Teatro Massimo. I have been to a few markets while in Europe, but this one was by far my favorite. When I say the produce was fresh, I mean it was fresh. The fish had been caught that morning and the clams were still alive and spitting water out of the bucket. Many varieties of fruits and vegetables line the stands. There were some things we had never seen before, such as the Italian broccoli, which does not look like broccoli at all, as well some items we have at home but look very different thousands of miles away. We found out that Sicilian eggplants are round instead of elongated and the average pear is about the size of two regular pears at home.
While we walked through the market we noticed a church. On a whim we decided to go in and were completely blown away. The entire interior was made exclusively of marble and completely decorated in small designs. It was the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and even the altars depicted famous scenes all in marble. Many of the churches in the city have the same style. Arab influences mixed with the time period of when the specific church was built created very beautiful facades. They are all worth seeing! There are so many churches in the city that you can’t go wrong with visiting any of them.
Friday night was also the night of the Paris terrorist attack. I will admit that this shook me up because I was in Paris just two weeks before. What was comforting, however; was how the world responded to the attacks. The amount of love and support people all over the world gave to the beautiful city of light was very heartwarming. Palermo was one of these supporters. Saturday night when we arrived at Teatro Massimo it was lit up with the colors of the French flag and people had arranged candles and flowers in the piazza. It was a very moving sight.
Fruita!
Teatro Massimo
Church of the Immaculate Conception
Monreale: Sitting on a hill overlooking Palermo, Monreale is a must see, not only for its views of the valley and the sea but for its food and buildings. My aunt and I decided to visit this city because it is the town where her grandparents, so my great grandparents, were born. It is only about a 25-minute drive up the hill from the center of Palermo. We first went to the Cathedral, which is being restored. Inside we saw many mosaics, including one of Jesus that is the largest of its kind in the world. Just his hand is six feet tall. The cathedral is also the burial place of some of the area’s royalty, including King William I and William II. After we left we went to a spot where we could see the clearing, all the way down through Palermo and to the sea. Then it was time for coffee. While we sat and enjoyed some Sicilian cookies an older gentleman our guide knew came and sat with us. During our conversation (translated by our wonderful guide) my aunt and I found out that he might have known our ancestors. He said they had lived not far from where we were and that they were shoemakers and iron workers. We were so excited! Neither my aunt nor I had planned on doing any research into the family history while we were there; we only wanted to see the town. However, the new information was great! Who would have known that we would meet someone who had a small family connection to us over coffee!
Our next stop in Monreale was the local convent. Here we spent a lot of time admiring the columns in the courtyard because of how decorated they were. As I have mentioned, Sicily is filled with mosaics. These columns were no exception. Each was decorated uniquely with small tiles, with biblical tales and local stories carved into the tops of the columns. For example, I recognized a carving right away, the Starbucks mermaid (or a siren as she was known before the coffee powerhouse adopted her).
Before we left we stopped at a bakery that our guide said was the only one in the area to still use a wood-fired oven. There we got some bread and peeked into the kitchen to see the oven at work. You definitely don’t see that at Panera…
Siren that we all know now as the Starbucks mermaid.
The colors on the mosaics were amazing.
The view from Monreale looking out into Palermo and the valley.
Monreale’s cathedral is different than churches in other parts of Italy because of the many different ethnic influences the island received as it grew hundreds of years ago.
The Jesus mosaic is the largest of its kind.
Cefalu: Sunday morning we hopped on a train and traveled 50 minutes east of Palermo to Cefalu. This tiny coastal town was great for a quick stop. All in all, we spent about three and a half hours there. We saw the cathedral, which was similar to Monreale’s, walked to the edge of the town and ate pizza by the beach. It was not warm enough for swimming, as it was definitely the off-season. A lot of the small shops were closed and it was pretty quiet. I can only imagine how the city is during the summer. It was beautiful anyway. It was definitely great for a little “trip within a trip”!
Cefalu sat between the hills and the coast.
While November is the off season for beaching and fishing, the weather was still nice for sitting and admiring the coast.
Monday morning saw me flying back to Rome and bidding my aunt farewell in the airport. I will admit that I immediately missed eggplant pizza, Cassata (a Sicilian cake) and the picturesque hillside as soon as I got back to campus.
There is less than a month left of school and I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone by. Soon I will be home about to celebrate Christmas! I can’t wait to share stories of Sicily and other places with my family.
Utah was the NCAA basketball champion, Pensive won the 70th Kentucky Derby, the Oscar for best picture went to Casablanca, FDR was re-elected President, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was a five star general for the American Army serving as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe as World War II started to wind down.
The United States has been very fortunate not to have had many modern wars fought on domestic soil. Europe, however, is a different story.
For two days, myself and 40 other students witnessed first hand the graves, troop landing sites, battle sites, and museums of WWII. It is one thing to read about these things in history books; it is quite another to see the actual battlefields and read all of the names, ages, and hometowns of the men and women who fought and died. It is a strange and sobering feeling that creeps into your stomach when you realize that you are the same age as they were.
On the first day, we visited Pomezia, the German War Cemetery. The sheer simplicity of the layout, the entrance, and the tombstones perfectly reflect a classic German style. The space is somewhat small for being the final resting place of 2,740 soldiers, but it looks that way because three individuals are buried in each plot. I found two soldiers that I share a birthday with. They died at the young ages of 21 and 22–only one and two years older than me. If that doesn’t make you appreciate the life you have, then I don’t know what will.
Our next stop was the Museo Piana dell Orme. This was no ordinary museum. This museum had life-size replicas of scenes from the war, complete with real artifacts and chilling sound effects. There were authentic uniforms, war vehicles, audio tapes of bombs exploding, men shouting, planes, cars, and tanks. We went scene by scene through the war exactly as it happened in Italy: from the invasion of Sicily in July of 1943, to the Allied landing at Anzio that began in January 1944, and finally to the liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944.
After the museum, we traveled to the site of an actual battle, Isola Bella. While the area is now occupied by houses and farm land, it was once littered with bullets and ash as the Axis forces residing on the hills surrounding the area targeted the Allied powers down below. The only remaining clues that a war was fought there 71 years ago, are two columns that had obvious damage from the conflict. Otherwise, Isola Bella is a now quiet and peaceful street.
It was then time to visit another cemetery. The Sicily Rome American Cemetery is located in Nettuno, just outside of Rome, and is the site for 7,861 American servicemen burials. In contrast to the German cemetery in Pomezia, the Sicily Rome American Cemetery had larger crosses, a fountain, a two room memorial, and only one person buried in each grave space. It was a peaceful and moving tribute to the fallen soldiers.
As a group we laid flowers at the grave of John Burke, a Loyola University of Chicago student who was killed near Cisturna in January of 1944. We also saw and read about others buried at the site: Ellen Ainsworth, a nurse who died while helping patients during a gun fight; Sylvester Antolak, a Medal of Honor recipient, and Henry T. Waskow, whose death was emotionally depicted in a widely-read column written by Ernie Pyle (who died in Japan in 1945).
We placed a wreath beneath the Brothers Statue (one man represents the Navy and the other represents the Army–they symbolize the bond American service men and women have) in the memorial, and were able to lower and fold the American flags as representatives of the John Felice Rome Center. It was an incredibly moving experience, and one I won’t soon forget.
Next on the itinerary was the beach at Nuttuno, close to where the Allies stormed the beach in Anzio. This was a nice change of pace compared to the rest of the day. The sound of waves replaced the loud roar of bombs, and the view of a luminous sunset replaced the visions of wounded and dead soldiers, the destruction of bombs and tombstones. After recounting my trip later to my dad, I found out that my great-great-uncle (my Grandpa’s uncle) had been a part of the landing at Anzio. This was so exciting! My dad said that my great-great-uncle lived through the fighting and made it back to the United States in one piece. I had no idea that I had a personal connection to WWII in Italy.
After the beach it was time for pizza and bed. To say that I was tired would be an understatement.
Day two was spent in Rome as we recounted the events that took place on March 23 and 24, 1944. Our first stop was a neighborhood in the city that houses a memorial called Fosse Ardeatine. This is the location of a massacre of over 330 Italian men on March 24, 1944. The events that occurred on March 23rd lead to the mass killing: A group of Italians bombed a German police force as they marched along a narrow street in Rome called Via Rasella, killing 33. The Germans sought reprisal for the attack: 10 Italians killed for each German killed. You can walk through the underground caves to see where the Italians were shot.
Interestingly enough, the group of Germans responsible for the massacre had never before killed anyone, and so it is said that they were most likely pretty drunk when they shot the Italians. The victims were concealed in the caves when the Germans set off explosives to seal the openings. The bodies were found after the war and given proper burials. Each of the victims had a plot in the large memorial that included their name, age, occupation, and pictures. The eerie silence that surrounded this memorial was chilling.
After Fosse Ardeatine, we went to the Museo della Liberazione. The entire museum was just the three small floors that were the German SS headquarters during the war. Prisoners, and those involved in the resistance of the German occupation in Italy, were imprisoned, interrogated, and even tortured there. Two of the floors were small, windowless rooms that looked like closets. These rooms acted as solitary confinement spaces, where a prisoner would spend hours, or even days, in the room. It was chilling to walk into these rooms and see the carvings the people made on the wall.
The building was abandoned by the Germans when they found out the Allies were going to liberate Rome. They took a lot of important papers (the Germans were incredibly good at keeping records-for instance, all of the people killed in the Fosse Ardeatine massacre were listed by name and checked off when they were apprehended). Many other items in the building were well preserved.
The final stop for day two was Via Rasella. This was the street where the bomb went off on March 23. Our two leaders for the trip, Jim and Phil, (who both attended the JFRC as students), recounted the story of the bombing for us while we walked. After the explosion of nails and other shrapnel, the Germans started firing their weapons at anyone and anything around the site. Their bullets hit houses and buildings along the narrow street. There are still holes in some of the structures today.
What struck me the most during the tour of Via Rasella, was that I had ventured along the same streets two days before, but I was completely unaware of the historical significance. Friday. I decided to venture into the city by myself, partly as a challenge to see if I could navigate my way around, and partly because I was restless and anxious to be in the city center after a long week of classes. I started off by the Vatican and made my way to Via del Corso. I eventually found myself in front of the Trevi Fountain. It was breathtaking to be honest- partly due to the realization that I was standing next to the Trevi Fountain, and partly because there were hundreds of people in that tiny piazza and it was hard to move. Anyway, I then thought I would get to the Spanish Steps and take the metro train back to Balduina and JFRC. However, I was completely lost somewhere in between the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps with no wifi and only a package of blackberries I had picked up at a market earlier. That was when I stumbled upon Via Rasella. Of course I had no idea that it was the site of an infamous bombing that lead to a massacre. During my time living in Rome, I have found that this is the case with most of the city. You walk around and admire the ancient architecture that so naturally blends with the modern tones, then you find out there is a story behind everything. Maybe that story is from the age of Constantine in the fourth century, or maybe it’s from the year 1944 and the end of WWII.
This weekend was an emotional one. Seeing cemeteries, battle sites and museums dedicated to the deadliest and most destructive war of all time definitely stirred my emotions and brought out feelings that I cannot begin to accurately describe. There was pride, mixed with sadness, mixed with wonder. Next weekend will also be a busy one for me because it is the start of Fall Break! We are very fortunate to get nine days off from class to go out and explore. I will be traveling to to Munich, Vienna and Prague!
My first 20 days in Italy have been extremely busy but productive! Since arriving all of us at the JFRC have been learning how things work in Rome and on campus, and we all got to spend a weekend in the beautiful region of Umbria! Now that classes are picking up and routines are settling in, I have found I have more time to relax.
This past friday I spent the day roaming around Rome; shopping and sipping cappuccinos in a cute cafe while watching the rain. Friday night, however, was one of my favorite nights so far. Earlier in the week we had the chance to sign up to distribute Panini’s to the homeless in St. Peter’s Square. I signed up, excited about visiting Vatican City.
When I first walked into the square, I was taken aback by how massive it is. I have been in some pretty big stadiums and buildings, but combining the size and historical significance made it feel tremendously magical. It was strange knowing Pope Francis was somewhere in the Papal Apartments right above me.
I was assigned to bag fruit for the homeless to take with them after they got their meal. A few of us set ourselves up in an assembly line and started filling bags with apples, peaches and plums. They all gladly accepted the additional food and thanked us profusely. It was eye-opening how a few small pieces of fruit put such a big smile on their faces and hopefully, eased some of their stress. Everyday at the dining hall there are apples to take and I don’t blink an eye, but there in the middle of Vatican City, apples were revealed to be much more valuable than I assumed.
After that night I could not stop thinking about how important small things are. For example, on Saturday a few friends and I took a day trip to Pompeii. Last semester I took a class on Pompeii for my history minor, so walking around the streets I had read about was something I had been looking forward to for a while!
Toward the end of the day, we were standing in the forum when something caught my eye. On the ground in the middle of the large open space was the imprint of a sea shell in the stone. It was so small and the only reason I saw it was because I noticed a hole in my shoe.
It was such a sharp contrast to everything else we had seen. I felt like I had been looking up the whole day, admiring the mountains outside of the city and the architecture that had been so well preserved after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. After seeing the shell I started to notice details that I might have missed, like the carving of a gladiator in a home and a stone that looked like a lego.
Overall I had another amazing weekend!
I am excited to get to know Rome better in the coming weeks and will hopefully notice more of the small and unconventional details while still gazing at the bigger things.
Buongiorno! My name is Amanda and I will be writing about my adventures on this blog while living in the beautiful and eternal city of Rome! I had never been to Italy before, but I have to say, I am entranced. The people, food, architecture and overall atmosphere are unlike anything I have ever experienced! While I have been able to spend a little bit of time exploring the most famous sites of Rome, I still have a lot of things I want to do. Keeping this in mind, I wrote a “bucket list” to try and complete before I leave in December. A few are popular tourist destinations, a few are things I saw online, and the rest consists of anything my mind could dream up, but I want to do it all!
1. Get aperitivo (appetizers) at a rooftop restaurant.
2. Watch the sunset from the top of Piazza del Popolo.
3. Stare up at the Sistine Chapel for such a long time I get neck pain.
4. Buy a water-colour painting from a vendor in Piazza Navona.
5. Visit the Trevi Fountain while it is under construction and again when it re-opens in October.
6. Eat the largest size gelato I can get while people-watching on the Spanish Steps.
7. Get lost.
8. Tour the Castel Sant’Angelo at night.
9. Stand under the dome in the Pantheon.
10. Watch a sunrise over the whole city somewhere.
11. Buy my own Vespa.
12. Befriend Pope Francis and get invited to dine at the Vatican.
13. Discover an ancient artifact while strolling through the Roman Forum.
14. Get asked if I am Italian by a local.
I am very determined to finish all the things on this list, and will post updates all the time! Sadly I’m only kidding about the Vespa…
Nonetheless, “When in Rome” is truly a phrase I am living out for the next few months. So if that means getting gelato every night, so be it!
Even after living here for about one week, it still takes me by surprise when I wake up and realize that I am in a whole different country. Small occurrences keep me from forgetting where I am! For example, while I was typing this, the computer auto-corrected water color to water-colour. I am definitely not in America anymore!
As I get ready to go to class, I will leave you with a beautiful shot of the Spanish Steps I took two days ago.
Ciao tutti! My name is Aleksandra Wysocki, but please, know me as my Polish nickname, Ola. It’s what I’ve been called my entire life and it was one of the reasons I chose to study Italian vs. Spanish (because Hola, me llamo Ola! seemed a bit annoying to me…. Okay, that’s not the reason I chose to study Italian, but it’s definitely one of them).
Moving on.
This is my fourth time in the eternal city. I’ve been lucky enough in my life to have been here three times previously; six weeks during the summer when I was thirteen years old, a winter break vacation when I was fourteen, and a ten day choral tour through Loyola this past summer. Disregarding the most recent trip, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve grown up a lot both physically (thankfully, because middle school me had a lot of work to get to where I am now) and emotionally between my previous visits and now. I look at the world in a different way than I did back when I was thirteen and (hopefully) people see me differently.
Ola a Roma, natale 2010.Assisi. giugno 2015.
You may be wondering why Roma again? Why not somewhere new? Well… I’ve definitely thought about it, to be honest. There are a lot of places I could have gone, but yet, I’ve always gone back to the thought of living it up in la citta eterna.
Despite being here before, I can’t tell you street names where certain things are. I can’t tell you where the best gelato is (although right now Giolitti’s is at the top of my list) or where you can get the best dish of bucatini all’amatriciana (it’s to die for). I don’t know all of the names of the neighborhoods other than Trastevere, Centocelle (where I happen to have family, which is the reason I’ve been here before) and now Balduina, thanks to being a student at the JFRC.
During my last trip here this past summer, I got the opportunity to travel outside of Rome. Thanks to the generosity of the university, Loyola’s choir got to not only stay at the JFRC, but travel to Napoli, Pompeii, Assisi and Firenze and for the first time, I got to travel around Italy without my family. I didn’t only stay in the touristy areas of cities. I got the opportunity to explore on my own and with people my age, and for me that was life changing.
That is why Roma again. I want to better my Italian and to spend time with my family here as well, but I truly love Italian culture. I love their way of life, at least what I perceive it to be. I want to discover this beautiful nation personally. If I can see other places in Europe, that’d be amazing too, but my focus will be Roma. Not only will I be interning at an Italian film production company (which I’m psyched for) but I’m also hoping to tutor Italian students with English.
I’m excited to be back and see where this adventures will take me! Jet lag and orientations have rendered me ridiculously tired these first few days and I feel like I’ve been running on adrenaline. Yet, that exhaustion isn’t complete, as I’ve been out almost every other night, chilling in Piazza del Popolo and eating some delicious pizza. The beach trip to Maccarese was also a blast, despite the fact that it resulted in a slightly sunburnt Ola.
To wrap up this somewhat long post (I’m actually quite surprised with myself, seeing how much I ended up writing) as mensa just opened up and I’m quite hungry, here are two pictures from my Sunday walk in the city center with some new friends.
Bucatini all’amatriciana. Definitely order it if you love yourself. Originally, it was known as more of a poor man’s dish, because it was so simple and had few ingredients, but I see it as more of a triumphant ode to simplicity, as IT IS DELICIOUS.Hidden corner off of via Cavour.
Well, I’m making a go of becoming a true Londoner and I think I’m making some real progress! I’ve started to feel true annoyance at those who stand on the wrong side of tube escalators (the left side is reserved exclusively for those willing to risk their lives on the incredibly long and steep escalators to be on time), I now wear scarves as stylized, belted blankets in order to fend off the damp chills of February, and I have tried every type of cider I can think of at every type of pub. I also eat sandwiches multiple times a day, I am addicted to Cadbury chocolate Oreo bars (& had a moment of genuine panic at the Cadbury ban in America), and I have blown the dust off of my two years of Deutsch, much to the entertainment of a few German friends. But perhaps, most importantly, I have finally started discovering the fun, authentic, and commonplace pasttimes of my British neighbors!
Midway through the week, I ventured out to appease on of my favorite guilty pleasures at an independent bookstore. The London Review Bookstore is the most wonderful place- no one tried to rush me out the door once I found what I was looking for, there are chairs in the basement to sample your reading material, and, most charmingly of all, I happened in on one of their monthly Late Night shopping events and was offered a complimentary glass of wine for my trouble. It was the perfect way to spend a Wednesday night.
I also spent quite a lot of time at the V&A Museum with my sister, which is often skipped during short visits to London; however, Taylor and I both found the museum and its exhibits to be truly incredible- so much so that we will be headed back soon to see what we didn’t have time for.
On a slightly more important note, we also tried our first authentic dessert at the beautiful cafe. The scone I ate (my first one!) certainly would have been life-altering, had the stain glassed windows and luxurious atmosphere of the cafe itself hadn’t already done it. Not to mention I almost shed a tear at Taylor’s perfect Victorian sponge cake. 10/10 would recommend making this stop a priority.
Finally, I am a true sucker for the ambiance of a building; therefore, I have begun my search for the perfect study space.
So far the Reading Room of the Wellcome Center is taking first with its plush staircase littered with pillows and its interactive distractions. If you need a break from Tolstoy, there are truly terrifying dentistry tools to examine, straightjackets to try on, and a postcard table to tell your mom about all the fun you’re having.
A close second is the British Library, where one can ogle original Charlotte Bronte manuscripts, Leonardo Da Vinci notebooks, and unfinished Beethoven pieces. I just went through the rather rigorous process of getting my own Reading Pass this afternoon -I had high hopes that the countless esteemed individuals whose work is on display would give me the strength to focus on the “study” in study abroad 😉
Tomorrow I am heading off to Cambridge to see what else the UK has to offer! Stay tuned 🙂
