Having been in Rome for just about two months now, I've experienced only recently the inevitable and undesirable homesickness that I'd been dreading ever since my plane landed back in August. Homesickness is something that I had only thought about before coming to Rome, an afterthought at best, and certainly something I'd never given much serious thought to.
I never, ever wanted to be "that guy," either. You know, the guy who goes abroad, has all kinds of wild adventures in a huge city and then has the nerve to complain that he misses the slower pace and scenery of life back home. Believe me, though, in spite of all my to-the-contrary expectations, contending with homesickness has been a hell of a challenge -- one that's allowed me to reflect on what I really value about life back in Charlottesville. In the absence of all that is C'ville, here's what I consider to be "the good stuff" -- the stuff I miss.
Grass. Having never lived in a big city in my life, naturally the shift from vibrant color in Charlottesville to the lifeless concrete in Rome was a big change. Initially, I thought I adapted to it well. I was very mistaken. Now, every time I see a park I'm drawn to it, much more so than I ever was back home. When I see green I'm constantly reminded of places like the Lawn and the big field by Brooks Hall and the Corner
The sparseness of trees and flowers also gets to you after a while. Don't get me wrong, the plant life in Rome is plentiful, if you know where to look. But in most areas there is not a leaf in sight. I'm more or less used to this, but I seize any opportunity I can get to be near something that hasn't been poured by concrete trucks or reinforced with steel framework.
Gus Burgers. This is painful -- and I'm sure, obnoxious -- to admit, but yes, it is possible to get tired of the food in Italy. Italian food is my favorite, but frankly, it can get repetitive. Imagine eating a different variety of hamburger every night for two months. Naturally, you'd get sick of it, no matter how good those variations were.
Italian food is the same way -- you can only eat so many different types of pastas and sauces and grilled meats and vegetables until the cable-TV watching, grease-loving American in you leaps up and screams, "Can we eat something non-healthy and delicious, for once!?"
I'll admit, too, that I've broken down a couple times and bought some fries from McDonald's. Being abroad, these type of impulses are something that you learn both to quell and to respect, in spite of the countless times you promised yourself that you would never, ever eat fast food in your host country.
Reliability. I know this sounds vague and obscure, so let me give you a few examples. Buses in Rome run on 15-minute cycles -- ideally. Waiting for a bus for as long as an hour, though, is far from unheard of -- it's commonplace.
On most streets, you would expect to see a sign indicating the name of the street. Here, that's not necessarily so. It's normal to encounter problems in your apartment, call your landlord, and have them resolved within a reasonable period of time -- back home, at least. Here, if you complain, you're lucky if your concern is even acknowledged. You must insist, for example, that the water gushing out of your washing machine onto the floor is not a normal event. Or you must insist that you are paying the price that all Italians pay for a cup of coffee -- not the "special American price" that is triple the usual one.
There is an expression in Italian, "Fai da te," which translates as "Do-It-Yourself." This seems to be the Roman philosophy for living: Find out what you need, get it, move on with your life. This idea seems simple enough, until you encounter it in practice, and you find that many things you could count on back home are completely absent here. It's a new concept, and one that I'm still having a lot of trouble with.
Oftentimes the challenges of studying abroad are incredible headaches, and make you want nothing more than the Stateside comforts you left behind. You have to remember, though, that losing the comfort zone was part of the package in coming to college. So I guess it follows that losing that comfort zone again is another step in learning how to deal with different challenges life throws at you.
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