Mia Madre a Roma, Paola

Well it seems like Paola has changed. Adam and I were surprised that she has been at every meal, except on Thursdays. On Thursdays she goes out with friends, we think, we're not really sure. Shes an extremely popular person and gets phone calls all hours of the day. Even on Thursdays she still has a great dinner waiting for us which is nice to come back to. Thursdays Adam and I have turned into our night to relax, watch TV on my laptop at the dinner table and eat, a nice little break from the marathon that is speaking Italian all day.

I digress again, Paola is amazing, and her food is out of this world. We have not had a bad meal here yet, we haven't even had a meal that was just ok. Every night its something different, somethings I have never had before and its always fresh. The best is that there are always three courses, the prima which is usually a pasta or a soup, followed by a meat or a fish and then finally dessert which is usually a fruit, a fruit salad or some kind of dolce. The fruit here is amazing, most of it is unlike anything I've tried before. I've tried all different things that I never had before, two that come to mind are zucchini and pesto. I never really liked these at home nore have I ever really had any desire to like them, but they are great here. Paola makes her our fresh pesto sauce that is great too. She is a stereotypical Italian mother, she keeps feeding us more and more until there isn't anything left. I feel bad saying no, so I just keep eating but on the other hand its great, so its not really a problem.

She also sets out breakfast every morning. This usually consists of espresso (which I am now a fan of, it really gets me up and through the early Italian class), fruit, toast squares with the best strawberry marmalade, an individually wrapped pound cake and a juice box. I'm not really a big breakfast person in the US, I've always been busy or on the go, but this has been the best set up. I can grab something quick, I actually eat and its just enough to get me through the morning till lunch.

Over the past two weeks I've really gotten to know Paola and I honestly don't think that I could have had a better host mother. At dinner its really easy to tell that she was a school teacher; neither Adam nor I speak Italian very well and she is extremely patient with us. She speaks slowly, if we don't understand something she will try and figure out another way to phrase it and we'll usually get it. My favorite part of dinner is the lesson, she usually teaches us something in Italian at dinner, first it was the numbers then the days of the week and then the basics of how to say things in the past. Its great because going into class I will already know some of the things we're learning. It may sound kind of geeky but I'm here for the next four months, so the more I can learn and the faster, the better.

In the past few days we've moved onto games like hot and cold to learn vocabulary. We also have great conversation, its amazing that even with the language barrier we are able to have interesting conversations. Most of them are based around our families, history of Rome, what we did during the day and much more. Its easy to understand what she is saying, but I feel like a three year old again. I know what I want to say it but have no idea how to express it to her. Usually we'll figure ways to get through that and she'll be able to understand what I'm trying to say. I've really come to understand why Paola opens her home to students every semester and its explains why she is such a great host mother.

Her son is grown, he is training to be a pilot in the Italian Navy and she is lonely. She is semi-retired, we're not really sure what she does with her day, but she enjoys having us there, cooking for us, talking with us and doing whatever she can for us. It's hard to explain, but she gets really excited when we come home, she loves to hear what we did with our day and she loves to give us hugs goodbye when we leave. She's interested in what we like to eat and how we like things. Last weekend I came back from lunch and told her where I ate and what I had. It was mussels in a marinara sauce at a restaurant. She asked if I liked fish and I told her, I like all types of fish (mi piacciono tutti pesci), and the next night at dinner she had made linguini with mussels, calamari and shrimp, followed by cod with vegetables in a really good sauce. She just loves to see us happy and enjoying ourselves.

The other day Adam and I told her about how we went to the train station to buy our train tickets for Venice because the website didn't take our credit cards. She offered to buy the train tickets for us next time and then we could just pay her back, so that we didnt have to take the trip all the way down there. It just amazing how giving she is of herself and she's always willing to do anything she can. Living with a host family was one of the biggest hindrances I had when I was first thinking about applying to the Rome program, but now I can see that this is something that will make my experience here.

(I'll get a picture in the post as soon as I can of Paola and I)

Mia Casa

Its been a while since my last post, which means only one thing... I've been incredibly, incredibly busy. Its amazing where the time goes, but I'll get to that in one of my next posts. Each post so far has detailed a different part of how my trip started here, this will be the final post dedicated to the beginning.

The sunday of our first weekend we really didnt do much. We had an information session about living with a host family, what to expect, how life will be different and things that we should be sure to do and not to do. After this we had a break and then learned a little bit about traveling around rome and europe. This was definitely helpful, and somewhat gave us an idea of how to go about planning trips and where to start. By this time in the weekend we were all ready to get out of the classroom, settled in our homes and really start our experience in Rome.

After our last meeting was over we brought our luggage from the classroom down to the first floor and then just waited around. The lounge in the St. Johns building has one wall that is all glass and looks out into the hallway. We all piled into this room and waited as our families trickled in to pick us up one by one. The best way to explain it is that we felt like dogs at the pound waiting for someone to come and choose us. Families showed up here and there, every ten minutes or so someone new would arrive. We would all get excited and pensive, unsure if the person who had just shown up was coming to choose us or someone else. None of us had ever seen our families before, so we just didnt know who was coming for us. The first to show up were two Nonnas (grandmothers), adorable little italian women. Families ranged from nonnas who enjoy hosting students for company, to full families with children ranging from very young up into their 20's.

After about an hour of sitting around watching italian television, basketball actually, since it was the only thing we could understand, Paola our host mother arrived. We were by no means one of the last to leave, so like dogs in the pound, Adam and I had no idea if she was there for us or for someone else. We finally figured out that she was there for us, so we moved out into the hallway to meet her. She is a short woman, in her early 60's with blond hair, spoke no english and had what seemed like a loving personality, I'll touch on that a little more later. I was the first to introduce myself and that was greeted with a big hug and the traditional kiss on both cheeks.

We left with Paola in a taxi and headed to our new home. I would be lying if I said that Adam and I weren't petrified. It was something that I personally have never had to do, meet a stranger, someone who I can't easily communicate with and go off to live with them for four months. She spoke to us in the car in Italian, we tried to understand what we could, neither of us taking any Italian before. The fifteen minute ride was filled with a great deal of awkward laughter and si, hoping yes was the right answer to her questions and comments. We finally arrived on our street, a familiar place that we had been to the day before. Adam and I paid for the cab, luckily we looked at the meter before we got out or we would have had no idea what the driver and Paola were saying.

My home for the next four months.

The street signs in Roma are on the buildings.

We made it inside the building, up the stairs and into her house with the bags. She showed us where our room was, the kitchen and the bathroom, all within about ten feet of each other. In Rome what they consider houses we consider apartments and Paola's is on the smaller side, but it's in a great location. She said that the closer you get to the city the smaller the apartments get. I really don't mind, I'm used to living in dorms, even though Loyola has spoiled me. It's interesting to be fully immersed in another culture.

Our room, my beds the one on the left if you couldn't already guess.

Like I mentioned before the house is in an amazing location. If we walk to the end of the block to the main street you can see down to the Coliseum and we are one block from the metro station which connects us to the rest of the city. One block in the opposite direction is our bus to the Italian school or a ten minute walk, and we're above a pizza place, it honestly couldn't get any better. It is a very quiet and peaceful part of the city, a really nice neighborhood to just walk around and explore. When we go out at night or on weekends we are only about a ten minute walk home, so unlike almost everyone else, we do not need to take a night bus or a taxi. Our walk is amazing, we go past the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II, the Roman Forum and the Coliseum and I always feel safe. It's definitely a little different than the surrounding and streets of Baltimore at night.

But I digress, back to Paola. So I've covered her house and how wonderful that is, Paola is even better. Before arriving in Rome I had heard from past students that she cooks dinner but then doesn't eat with you. I was a little worried and hesitant about this, because this would be one of the only times that I would get to sit down and talk with her...

Getting Lost in Rome Isn't That Bad

It's been a few days since my last post, I have some time before dinner and so much has been going on that I need to write it down before I forget.

We're now at our first real day being in Rome. The day we flew in, although arriving in the morning, really doesn't count, I mean it blended together with the day before and we were all too tired to do anything substantial.

We walked from our hotel to the St. Johns building.

We had the general orientation, "this is where you will be living", "remember you're representing your school", "this is how to be safe", talk. I'm not knocking it, as an orientation leader I can appreciate its importance, it was just a lot to take in at 9:00 in the morning.

During the lunch break a bunch of the guys and I wandered around looking for a place to eat. We wandered a few blocks away and found this restaurant called San Marco. This was the first time that any of us were by ourselves, really knowing little to no italian. We were able to order, which wasn't that difficult and again the food was amazing. Being typical americans we forgot that there was no need to tip the waiter... thats the last time we'll be making that mistake.

Next came the fun part of the day. We all knew the address of our host family already but didn't exactly know how to get there. We were provided with a map of the city, a map of the public transportation and a little guidance on how to get around. We all split up into groups based on who would be living in the same neighborhood and then about 30 loyola students dispersed into the city. My roommate Adam and I had it pretty easy. Our house is one block away from a metro station and the St. John's and Italiaidea buildings are also only one block from a metro station. We took the metro from St. Johns, after five stops changed at the Termini station and then proceeded to get onto the blue line for one stop. We quickly were able to find our house, down a really short and narrow street in the oldest part of the city. The best part is that is only about 20 minutes door-to-door.

This is where the adventure gets interesting. We had heard from past students that our house was close, really close, within walking distance to Italiaidea. Since we already knew how to get to St. Johns we figured that we would learn how to get to Italiaidea. We walked to the end of our block and back towards the main street. When we got to the main street, we were amazed, all we could see was the Coliseum at the end of the street. It spread past the width of the street and rose above all the building tops. I really wish there was another word other than amazing because I feel like I'm over using that, but it is the best descriptor. We headed towards the Coliseum, thinking that we could take the main street toward Italiaidea or at least get us headed in the right direction. This couldn't have been more wrong. We spent the next hour and a half lost in the city.

We were told by Dr. Dawson (the site director), the only way to really go out and get to know the city was to get lost in it and thats exactly what we were doing day one. I could always find exactly where we were on the map, but could never really get a handle on how to get from there to where we were trying to go. Thats the great this about the old side of the city, roads just popped up over time, the whole road system wasn't planned, so there are small alley ways and side streets everywhere. While this is all really interesting it makes getting from point-a to point-b a little more difficult. Overall, our travels took us on what could only be explained as a zig-zag throughout the city. We started to head east, then we would take another road because maybe thats how we were going to get to our language school... it wasn't so we kept bouncing back and forth while continually making our way north.

It was totally worth it though, we saw the roman forum again, the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II (my favorite site here, don't know if I mentioned that earlier), the entrance to the Vatican and tons of really interesting sites. This is when it started to hit me, I'm living and going to be surrounded by some of the most historic sites in the world for four months.

By the end of hour one of being semi-lost, but always knowing where we were I started to get the hang of this map business. We made it to the river. Along the river we past an ice rink which looks like it was just set up for the winter season along, and it was blasting Usher. It seems that they are really into music from the early 2000's over here. Once we got past there we made it to familiar surroundings and back to the hotel. We were one of the earlier groups to get back and one of a select group to actually find our house easily. Our reward an hour and a half nap before dinner.

La Cita Eterna

We had finally arrived in Rome and the only initial reaction that I can explain is a mix of sheer amazement and awe. This was unlike anything most of us had ever seen, especially me since this was my first time to Europe. We dropped our bags off at the St. Johns University building, where Catholic University rents space. After this we went to the hotel, checked-in to our room and were free till 4 pm. The guys who I was rooming with for the night and I decided to get something to eat. I got a salami and cheese panino with a water for only 3 euro, not too bad. After we headed back to the hotel to take a nap till 4. Waking up at 4 pm was incredibly, incredibly hard but we made our way to the lobby.

As soon as we walked outside it started to downpour, of course. After a little while it turned into drizzle, but by that time our walking tour turned into our first public transportation adventure on one of the rome buses. Packing 50 students onto a bus in just a few seconds was interesting experience. We saw a good amount of the city and then began to walk again. We saw the Trevi Fountain, made our way to our Italian language school (Italiaidea) and the Spanish Sqaure. About a block from our italian school are the spanish steps, we got a little history on that and then headed for our second public transportation experiment, getting the entire group onto the metro (Rome's subway system). We took the metro from the spanish steps, learned where and how to cross over from the A line to the B line and then continued on. When we exited the metro station the first thing we saw was this.

The Coliseum.

It was amazing, we got out of the metro station and it was all that you could see. It took all of us by surprise. From there we headed up to the Roman forum and the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of Unified Italy. It has been one of the most amazing sites that I have seen so far, just the sheer size and construction is mind blowing.

Finally, we reached the restaurant where the group was going to have dinner. It was a little early by Italian standards but, it was our first authentic Italian meal. I don't remember the name of it, or where it was really, but the food was amazing. We had 3 courses, the antipasto, which consisted of italian meats and different fried italian vegetables. Then the primo, which was pasta with two different sauces and finally the dolce, which was tiramisu and of course wine. It was one of the best and freshest meals I have ever had. We walked back to the hotel and basically passed out. By that time it had felt like I had been up for two days.

With that, my first day in Rome was over...

Flying to Rome, an experience in itself

My trip to Rome began last thursday, Jan. 7th. We got to the airport around 1:45pm. Luckily I check in and checked my bags downstairs, which no else in the airport apparently knew about because it took less than five minutes. After that I headed up to security. I said goodbye to mom and dad and then got on line to go through security. After about a half hour I was through and at the gate. I was one of the only students to be there that early, but at least I was there. Slowly everyone started to show up and before we knew it we were boarding.

I boarded and found my seat. Being that I was the beginning of the alphabet I was one of the only people who wasn't surrounded by Loyola people. I had a very nice, but also large gentleman who slept very loudly throughout the flight. My seat was the center of the center section, easily the most uncomfortable seat possible. Earlier in the week I read a post by a friend who left for Ireland had tried the beef on the plane and it wasn't exactly the best. When dinner rolled around I figured that I would be daring and try the beef for myself to see what all the hype was about... He was right, it was awful, mushy, grey, but at least there was rice. Other than that the flight was pretty uneventful, I fell in and out of consciousness a few times, definitely no substantial sleep.

After eight and a half hours we arrived at Rome's Fiumicino/ Leonardo da Vinci airport. After being caged for almost nine hours we were all ready to go although none of us knew how to get where we were going. Luckily there was a tram, that took us from the terminal to passport control. Once we got there we were forced into four lines for not only our plane but probably about two other ones, easily a few hundred people. After about 20 minutes and a little line jumping we made it through. We picked up our bags met with Dr. Dawson (our program director who was flying in from Atlanta) and headed out to customs. I'm not completely sure what customs is, but here it was just a sliding door that separated baggage claim from the outside. We then met Aurora, our program's cultural assistant. She took us to the bus and before we knew it we were in Italy on our way to Rome.