Student Bloggers

It’s been a little bit since I’ve been able to blog - which is to say, I’ve been busy and having a great time in Rome (and devoting time and energy to navigating my own comfort zone here). Orientation is finally complete, and my first week of classes is now a thing of the ever-fleeting past. That said, this blog entry will largely catch you up on the things I’ve been doing during these first weeks. For starters, I’ve traveled outside of Rome twice now: once to Sperlonga for a beach day (just an hour and a half south of the city) and once to Cascate delle Marmore in Umbria for a rafting trip (just an hour north). Both spaces were gorgeous, and it felt great to get outside of the big city and into the countryside/small town Lazio. This was my first time rafting, and I’m happy to say that I’d do it again! Next weekend, I'll get even farther outside of Rome for a field study in Tuscany's mountains for one of my classes.

In between those small trips, scheduled Arcadia activities, and classes, I’ve been taking time to explore and observe pieces of Rome itself. I spend most of my time in Garbatella (where my apartment and campus is) but took the chance to see different areas last Sunday. Most notably, Gianicolo Hill, which is nestled above Trastevere and not far from the Vatican, at sunset. After an afternoon of visiting a museum’s photography exhibit and several small bookstores in Trastevere, two friends and I found ourselves climbing some random stairs and eventually with a stunning view of Rome with mountains in the distance.

Having lived in Michigan for all of my life, the first time I saw mountains was when I studied in Spain a year ago. After twenty years of never seeing a mountain in real life, I felt and continue to feel awestruck and safe when I see them on a horizon. On this hill, we spent an hour watching the quiet rooftops. Dusk fell over the city before we stepped down from the view, caught another bookstore (where we received free Italian word magnets!), and headed home. This was a sunday very well spent, and I’ll spare you the details of the cat colony in Largo dell’Argentina (also the place where Julius Caesar was stabbed) about which I got way too excited.

The first week of classes always feels the longest, primarily because these classes are brand new to me and that’s just the way it goes. This is not to say that the classes dragged on - in fact, I’m even more excited about the rest of the semester after these first exposures to Food Studies, Museum Practices, Sketching in Rome, Advanced Italian Language, and Modern Life in the Eternal City (our cornerstone course, which actually started before all of the other classes). With this courseload, I’m looking forward to experiencing the city through avenues of my own interest (food, museums, art, exploration) while learning about where I fit into this complex city. I don’t like to create expectations of my experiences that aren’t yet complete, but I also can’t express how excited I am about the rest of the semester without assuming that it will all be lots of fun. However, I've already had class twice this week inside the Pantheon, so it seems impossible to not expect incredible class sessions for the rest of the semester.

Between classes, I’ve been getting involved and have started to tackle two co-curricular learning activities (learning outside the classroom): community service and tutoring Italian families with English language. I’ve attended three weeks of the community service, but will start to do it every other week now that I have a handle on the process. In this activity, I meet up with a community of volunteers who devote their time to making and serving food to a much larger community of refugees and people experiencing homelessness in the area. During this activity, we don’t communicate with the servees as much as I had expected: instead, we sometimes chat with the other volunteers, and then are paired with one of the more experienced volunteers to distribute food outside of the secure “kitchen” area. Through this, I’m gaining lots of insight as well as some new local friends from the group of volunteers.

As for the Italian families activity, I met my family for the first time this past week: two parents and two daughters in 3rd and 5th grades of primary school. They’re all so kind, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them more. We agreed that I would help them practice English and that they would help me practice Italian as well. My number one goal coming to Italy was to communicate with the locals, and through each of these activities in addition to making friends with Italian students in my courses, I’m already achieving this goal. I'm also already eons more involved than I usually am at University of Michigan, from taking 16 credits instead of 12 to tackling these extra and co-curricular activities instead of spending my free time at home.

With a more stabilized schedule coming into fruition, you can expect more regular blogs from me! Now that I've caught you all up on my first few weeks here, it's time for me to catch up on my homework.