This Sunday marks my first month in Rome, so I thought it would be nice to reflect on some experiences so far.

Studying abroad in a city such as Rome is a clash between the temporal and the permanent. Different from how it is when we travel to other countries as tourists, studying abroad really helps (and demands) you to delve into the daily life of the country that is hosting you. Touristy sites visited, classes started, italian on its way to becoming my go-to language, I’m starting to fall into conscience that this is not just a “visit,” it’s an actual move. An, although only for a few months, complete change of life.

Today I decided to take a break from English and all things Loyola and walk deeper into the neighborhood. Not the casual walk to the nearby cafe, or the little trip to the supermercato (supermarket in italian). This exploration walk was going to be for real. Instead of taking the usual right at the JFRC’s entrance, which would eventually take you to all the already known places, I decided to take a left and let the streets take me wherever they wanted. After a while I ended up in one of Rome’s main “vias,” Trionfale. I kept walking. The cars and motorcycles speeding on my right, the wind of the fresh evening blowing, making my walk the more pleasant.

Trionfale is quite an interesting road, boarded by trees, residences, and moving up and down the hill of Monte Mario. As the afternoon sun disappeared to give way to the windy, humid night, I reached Via Igea, with it’s genuinely italian cafes (no English whatsoever, mission accomplished!), salumerias (where you buy fine cuts of meet, cheeses and, at least in this case, bread), and farmacias (pharmacies). A few turns and twists into the little streets that cut through Trionfale, I got to a market, tucked away, almost hidden, in a typical mid-twentieth century italian residential area. It was not a fancy market, it was not big. There were no tourists on sight. Nothing that could have betrayed the normality of everyday italian life. Nothing.

As I walked on some of the narrow, curvy streets of the residential areas, I heard someone play the piano from a second-floor apartment (the only one that had the lights on at that time of the evening), I saw a girl laughing at the TV while eating a panino inside her apartment on the basement floor (the basement window was actually quite big). I could even catch an elderly couple seating in their living room couch. It was like being the omniscient observer, the invisible eyes that peak inside the normal lives of normal people as they perform their regular, everyday activities.

This may be kind of cheesy, or poetic, depends on how you see it, but as the piano produced its melody, and the girl laughed, and the couple sat together, at that precise moment, I realized that we are here, not as aliens, not as tourists or to be forever tagged with the “studenti americani” label. We are not even here to just embrace italian culture and life, falling into the stereotypes of liveliness, passion, loudness, and craziness. This study abroad experience is more about letting ourselves be embraced by this hectic country.

What is this culture like? You may ask. Well… it is definitely more profound and “normal” than the usual stereotypes of italian people and cities (although some stereotypes are indeed true). Rome is not the caricature we may be tempted to make of it. It is beyond all the ruins and touristy sites, to be just a city that moves like any other. With its elderly couples, its hungry teenagers and its kids practicing the piano.

The city  is indeed less “orderly” than any city in the US, making this experience even the more exciting. Conversations between people on the street, cars parked on the sidewalks, the eventual couple kissing or fighting or just walking around. The mother with her child (although I’ve seem more dads than moms around here). People walking their dogs up and down the hill…the occasional jogger. The rain that comes out of nowhere and goes the way it came, six minutes later…and of course, me, lost on my way back to the JFRC.

I guess I expected this city to be wonderful, but I don’t think I could have ever imagined that the wonderful I was so eager to find rests precisely in the city’s normality and its everyday rhythm.

Ci vediamo amici, baci a tutti!

Esther

For those of you that don’t  know me, you should know that I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Paris! Due to this burning need to explore the world and see all of its beautiful sites, I decided to use my study abroad trip as an excuse to see the beautiful city of Paris, France.

I found two girls at JFRC that wanted to go to Paris with me, so we booked our flights and ventured to a country where neither of us knew the language or anything about the region. Which was scary and thrilling at the same time. Even though this might have seemed a bit spontaneous, we definitely did our research before flying off to Paris for a weekend. One thing that everyone should do before going on any quick trip is PLAN PLAN PLAN!! We first wrote down all of the places that we wanted to see and printed out a map of the city. After figuring out that together we wanted to see about 10 different attraction within a 48 hour time period we knew we had to find a way to travel the city easily and with the little money that we had. We found and bought a Paris Museum Pass (everyone should do this!), it was only 39 Euro and included entrance to over 50 museums and gave us the ability to skip the lines! In the 48 hours we were there we were able to see Notre Dame, the lover’s lock bridge,  the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre, the  Champs-Elysees, and still have time to walk the city. It is in your best interest when you are traveling somewhere for such a short time to really plan out your days. You will have to rush through things, but you will see more in the time you have there.

My favorite place that I went to through out my entire study abroad was in Paris, Notre Dame. I have always wanted to see it and it was the most beautiful piece of architecture that I have ever set my eyes on. Pictures will never do it any justice, but I took about 100 of just the interior and spent about an hour inside just staring at everything and being on the verge of tears because it was so beautiful (I’m kind of an emotional person haha).  My group had to pull me away from it because I was wasting our day staring at every detail… Whoops!

After Notre Dame we ran over the entire city in one day. Putting a lock on the lover’s bridge and throwing the key in the river, running around the Louvre to try to find the Mona Lisa before it closed, walking the Champs-Elysees, climbing to the top of the Arc de Triumph, waiting in line for 3 hours to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower and ending the day with dinner at 1am… Needless to say, it was a long and eventful day, but one of my favorite days of the entire month! The next day we traveled to Versailles and ate macaroons at McDonald’s. Yes, McDonald’s in France has Macaroons and they were delicious! (Most people say to never have fast food when in other countries because it is a waste, but I like seeing the different things on the menus. It’s quite comical) Versailles was beautiful and it probably would have taken us days to be able to see everything, but we were on a tight schedule. Another tip and side note for all of you potential study abroaders out there… Make sure to have a very specific meeting place! We lost one of out girls in the palace and spent 12 hours looking for her and calling the US embassy and not being able to communicate to the French-speaking police… SHE WAS FINE, but we wasted our second day over a little misunderstanding which was a tad upsetting. That being sad, don’t be scared to travel! You can have an amazing, safe time, just make plans and be smart 🙂

After an amazing/stressful 2 days in Paris we flew back to Rome actually excited to hear Italian (which we could kind of understand) and not French (which we couldn’t understand at all) haha. With only 1 more week in Rome to go, I definitely knew I had to make the most of this last week and was extremely excited for my boyfriend to come visit me in Roma. On to the next adventure! (Also, hope you like the pics)