Tonight is my last night in New York for four months! To celebrate this momentous occasion my parents and I ordered Chinese food from my favorite place in the city and watched a documentary about Rome. I also had my last Starbucks (okay 2nd to last—let’s be real I’m going to get some in the airport tomorrow) for maybe four months because, as I recently found out, there is literally no Starbucks in Italy!
On a more serious note though, this will be the longest I’ll have ever been away from home in my life. At school there’s the Thanksgiving break and spring break and while there is a spring break in the IES Rome program I’m not going to be going home for it. I’m nervous about this but I’m also looking forward to the challenge. Besides which being away from home can make you appreciate certain things about your town/state/country that you had taken for granted before.
I’ve been trying to prepare by watching films and shows about Rome, and even trying an Italian language program online but all of that has now fallen to the wayside in favor of packing. As mentioned in my first post, packing can a bit of an art. Still, I’ve managed to squeeze some time in to watch some of “I, Claudius,” (a somewhat melodramatic television series produced by the BBC in the 1970s), “Meet the Romans with Mary Beard,” another BBC series, this time a documentary series made in 2012 about life in ancient Rome, and “Francesco’s Italy,” a really fun, again—BBC (this wasn’t intentional I swear) documentary program about contemporary Italy.
Despite this (really pretty meager) preparation I’m not really sure what to expect when I arrive in Rome. In London, where I studied last term, I felt like I could blend in with the other Londoners as long as I wasn’t walking around the city in a North Face, wearing Lululemon yoga pants. In Rome I feel like somehow it will be much more apparent that I’m American, even before I open my mouth to no doubt stutter really horrifically butchered, clunky Italian. I don’t think this will necessarily be a bad thing—maybe it will encourage people to overlook any faux pas I make?
I will let you know how it goes in my next post which will be after a week (my first week!) in Rome! Hopefully there will also be a few pretty pictures. Until then, ciao!
P.S. For anyone else planning on visiting/studying abroad in Rome I found a really great blog by an American who has been living there for several years. Here’s the link: http://www.revealedrome.com/rome-travel-planning.html