This is what Dreams are made of: Visit to Rome

St. Peter's Basilica

I woke up EARLY Thursday morning and headed to the train station. I managed to pack only my backpack for the entire weekend. I know, shocker. I'm usually the girl to bring a whole suitcase for a week stay and a backpack for just spending the night. But I tried something new this time.  I’m proud that I was able to consolidate into just a backpack though. It was really convenient.

At the Santa Maria Novella train station, Sarah, Taylor and I validated our tickets and hopped aboard the train to Rome.

Don’t forget to validate your ticket!! There is a huge fine if you forget.

We arrived in Rome and made our way to our hostel, the Rose B&B and hostel to check in. They were very friendly and accommodating. Since we had a half of day left, we decided to go to Vatican City and see St. Peter's Basilica.

Fun Fact: Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. It is located in the middle of Rome.

We had to figure out the metro but it wasn't too hard. We just had to make sure we were going in the right direction. It was like taking the subway in New York, which I wouldn't say I'm a pro at it. But after this summer, I know a thing or two.

While at St. Peter's Basilica, we took pictures and attended a mass. (Mostly everyone in Italy is Catholic). This was my first church service in Italy, so in my mind I thought that it was going to be spoken in English. I patiently waited for the service to start thinking I was going to be able to listen and follow along. Imagine my surprise, when the priest started speaking in Italian. I had no idea why I was thinking the service would be in English. Since I could only understand a few words all I could do was follow the gestures and actions of what the rest of the congregation did. It was a nice service and I’m glad that I was able to experience it.

Friday

We took the subway to a bus stop that was far away and tried to catch the bus to go see the catacombs.

I didn’t know this but apparently, you're supposed to go see those while in Rome. Personally, I never knew that but my roommate, Sarah was super excited about it. After missing 3 busses because they drove past us with out of order signs on them, we decided to go check out the Colosseum instead. The Colosseum was awesome! Luckily, we bought an audio guide and were able to listen to all the history that went along with it. There was no way I was going to be able to enjoy the colosseum without knowing all the background information. I learned so much.

Fun Fact: They used to fill the entire first floor with water and have naval battles.

After another emperor came into power, he built elevators that animals or people would come out of from a lower floor and battle. Think when your favorite singer comes out of the floor at at music awards show or concert.

They would also hold executions and make people fight to the death.

After the colosseum, we went outside to the Palentino. I think those are ruins of a nearby neighborhood but i'm not sure so don't quote me on it.

Palentino

After lunch near the colosseum, we walked back over to catch the bus to the catacombs. We arrived at the catacombs and had a tour around.

We went underground and looked at the catacombs. It was interesting and I learned something new though. People were a lot shorter back then... and unfortunately, the life expectancy was like 19 years old. Something that was not so cool to find out was a lot of children died.

Catacombs

On Saturday, we woke up ridiculously early to catch the train to Naples. When I say ridiculous, I mean we woke up at like 4 am to catch like a 5 am train. Once in Naples, we had to take the circumvesuviana, which was like the subway except it is above ground. We arrived at Pompeii. Waking up and catching the train that early was totally worth it. I was incredibly excited to be at Pompeii because I remember learning about this in grade school. We each paid to get an audio guide that looked like a telephone and we were able to listen to the history of each cite. There is like no way you can go to Pompeii and not buy one of these things, unless you want to have a good walk.

Pompeii

Pompeii is huge. It is a whole town that you can wall all over. You could easily spend an entire day there walking around listening to the history. If you do decide to go to Pompeii, wear proper walking shoes, as there are uneven/hilly roads that you have to climb up and lots of gravel.

We spent the morning there and then in the afternoon we signed up to go up Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted and covered all of Pompeii. We rode in vehicles most of the way up and we were able to hike 15 to 20 minutes to the top and see the crater. You could even see steam (smoke) coming out of the crater because the volcano is still active.

 

On top of Mt. Vesuvius

On Sunday, we covered the rest of Rome. We walked to Piazza della Repubblica, the Rome version, and took pictures. (We have one in Florence as well.) I think that this is the place where Paolo takes Lizzie on his Vespa, in The Lizzie McGuire movie, (if you remember watching that movie) but I’m not 100% sure.  We took the Metro to meet Alessio and his friends for breakfast. Alessio is my friend, who did a study abroad year at my high school during my senior year. He is originally from Rome. We had a traditional Italian breakfast. He explained that he and his friends like to go bar hopping on Sunday mornings because it is the only time that they can all get together.

 Fun fact: In Italy, bars are considered coffee shops and cafes. Not the bar that serves alcohol.

I had caffe e cornetto (coffee and a croissant). It was nice to hang out in a big group and sit around, drink cappuccinos and eat pastries. The only difficulty was we only spoke a little Italian and Alessio’s friends only spoke a little English so there was a big language barrier. Alessio speaks really good English from his year abroad in the States. So he was able to translate back and forth some of the things said.

After that bar, we went to a pastry shop where the majority of things are 30 or 40 centesimi (euro cents). Of course, what I picked out ended up being more expensive but it was very worth it. I can say that I will miss Italian pastries when I get home to the states. After saying goodbye to Alessio and his friends, we walked to the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona and the Trevi Fountain.

The Lizzie McGuire movie has been one of my favorites since middle school so I’ve always wanted to see the Trevi Fountain. I’ve wanted to throw a coin into the fountain and make a wish for quite sometime now. For those of you who don’t know, the Trevi fountain is currently under construction and will be until next year so that means there is no water in the fountain and there is scaffolding covering the statue part of the fountain. This was a huge disappointment. Looking on the positive side, I was able to walk over the fountain and not many people can say the same thing. 

Unfortunately, I was not able to throw my coin into the fountain and make a wish so I’m going to have to come back to Italy one day and accomplish that goal.

After walking back to our hostel, we grabbed our bags and headed to the train. It was time to go home to Florence.

Transportation in Italy

         Tomorrow, it will be a month until I go home. I feel all weird saying that because I swear it was just midterms week. My study abroad journey is almost over.

          This past weekend, I went to Rome. That is an adventure that I will have to tell you about a different time. It involved little sleep and lots of sight seeing.

           I’m going to explain about the types of transportation here in Italy.

           

Vespa

Bike

           For daily activities throughout town, most people opt to walk or ride a bike. I walk but study abroad students do have the option to rent bikes for the semester. Most Florentines have Vespa’s because it is the most convenient. For living in the city, there are many streets that are narrow and it is hard to get around, if you have a car. There are people who have smaller cars that look like smart cars or hybrids but those are less common and the least common of all is a regular sized car. The driver has to pay very close attention to turn very carefully and adjust themselves on the smaller streets to make sure they aren’t turning into a building or crowd of people.

Taxi

           There are taxis that you can take but taxis cannot be hailed or stopped suddenly like you’ve seen in the movies. You must go to a taxi stand or call ahead of time for one to come pick you up. In Italy, they are not allowed to stop on the street and pick up someone. It is actually illegal. 

           For day trips through tour companies, the group usually takes a regular coach bus. The differences between coach buses here and in the states are: the bathroom is located in the middle of the bus instead of being in the very back. It is located directly in front of a second door that passengers can use to get in an out. Also it is a rule that the bus driver cannot leave passengers on the bus unattended so when we stop at rest stops, every one must get off and the bus is locked until the bus driver come back. The space to put your backs overhead of you is also significantly smaller. So small to the point where your backpack does not fit.

Local Bus

            A couple of weeks ago, I took the local bus. In order to get a bus ticket you must either go to the tabacchi store, which is like almost the equivalent of going to a small convenient store, or you can buy one on the bus. The benefit of going to the tabacchi store is the bus ticket only costs 1.20 euro. If you buy it directly on the bus, it costs 2. Conveniently, the store was a 3-minute walk away from my apartment and just across the street was the bus stop that I needed to get on. Once you get on the bus you need to stick your ticket into a machine and get a stamp, which will validate your ticket. If you forget, you will be fined 240 euro and that is only if you pay on the bus right then and there. If you don’t have the money on you and get off the bus, the fine goes up almost doubling in cost. You can also choose between taking a city center bus or a regional bus that will take you out of the city center towards the outer cities.

             Rome was my first time that I took the train system here in Italy. The trains are what people take in between different cities in Rome.  You can buy your tickets online, at a ticket machine or at the ticket counter at the train station. Depending on the speed of the train determines how much your ticket costs. The most expensive train ticket from Florence to Rome gets you to Rome in an hour and 10 minutes. The slowest and least expensive train gets you to Rome in 3 hours and 30 minutes. People who take the faster train are usually are going somewhere for work.

Car

            Once I got to Rome, I took the metro. Unfortunately, Florence doesn’t have one but then again Florence is small enough to walk mostly everywhere within 20 minutes. The metro is pretty much just like the subway in New York. The only difference is they only have two lines, A and B. It’s not very big at all. You buy a ticket just as you would get a metro card for the subway at the ticket machine. Good news, you don’t have to validate it. You could walk everywhere in Rome but to get to some places would be an hour or more walk.  

Vespa Parking

            
The biggest thing that you have to remember about taking the train and the buses in Italy is to validate your ticket. To validate your train ticket, you must validate it before you get on the train. There will be validation machines every couple of platforms just make sure to stick it in there and it will print a number on the end of your ticket. Over the past week, I rode the train four times and the conductors only looked at it one or two times out of four.  I ended up going to Pompeii for a day trip from Rome. If you end up on the train without a ticket or a validated ticket, you will have to pay a fine and the same rules apply, as if you were on a bus. If you pay immediately, the fine is significantly less then when you get off the train. So don’t forget to validate your ticket and you should be fine.

            This is a run down of how transportation works throughout Italy. The train is really convenient to use if you need to get to other cities. I wish that we had something like that in the states. Could you imagine taking public transportation around the states? Could you imagine taking the train to Mount Pleasant instead of driving from your hometown? I know I would enjoy it way more.

Classes

I have 5 classes in total. I have only been to 3 of them so far. I’ll explain why, shortly.

1. Communicating in Italian: I love my Communicating in Italian class. At first, I wished that I was in Italian Language Beginning (those are the two options for beginner Italian classes) But I soon was grateful to be placed in Communicating in Italian. I feel like I know so much more Italian then everyone who is in Italian Language Beginning. Their class is more grammar based while my class is more, well… Communicating based. My class is focused more on speaking and I think that I am able to understand more in conversations during daily activities. The grammar class is more focused on spelling and sentence structure. When picking between the two options: it depends on what you want to learn. My professor is super nice and really understanding. She really pushes us. We stopped using English directions in class the second week. At first, I thought that was way too early but it has forced me to remember what a lot more words mean.
2. Fashion Marketing: I’m learning a lot about marketing. At Central, I am both an Apparel Merchandising and Apparel Design concentration major but I tend to lean more towards the Apparel Design side. So this is different than what I am used to. We are currently working on a project for this company called Exclusive Fashion Tours. We are helping them construct a blog and writing blog posts for their clients. It is fun because I get to see places in Florence that I wouldn’t have normally gone to or even known about without this assignment. My first assignment was going to Scuola del Cuoio, which is a leather school that has been around for many years. The students and artisans work side by side to learn how to make a variety of different leather products. My professor is really nice. She owns an accessory company called Nannini Accessories. The class is actually supposed to be taking a tour, there in a couple of weeks.
3.  Fashion Photography: I’ve learned so much about a DSLR camera in such a short amount of time. I now understand what the terms aperture, shutter speed and ISO are and how to adjust them. We have had an impromptu photo shoot for a Chinese designer for department store advertisements. One of our assignments is called Street Style. We walk around Florence taking picture of people street style that we like. The key to the street style photography is to have a connection with the subject. It is challenging because when you walk up to a person to ask them, you’re not exactly sure what language they will be able to speak. Sometimes they do speak English, sometimes they only speak Italian and sometimes they do not speak either of the two.

My last two classes are Florence Food and Culture and Magazine Editing and Publishing. I have not started these two classes but I can’t wait to start them. They are intensive classes, which means they will begin on November 17^th and go for two and a half hours everyday Monday through Friday for three weeks straight.

I was originally supposed to be taking Shoe Construction and Handbag Construction but because there was not enough students to run the class. Both were cancelled, unfortunately. So my two alternative classes are Magazine Editing and Publishing and Fashion Marketing. 

I am a firm believer that everything happening for a reason so there is a reason why my schedule was changed. Even though, I was super sad that those were cancelled. I was going to be having class Monday - Friday every day for the whole semester. So in a way it was a blessing because I have been able to travel on the weekends and see some amazing places. 

Addicted to the Internet

A big part of my study abroad experience has been to get out of my comfort zone. I can successfully say that I have been getting out of my comfort zone very frequently and I’ve been trying a variety of new things that I wouldn’t regularly try.

If you know me well, I always try and play it safe. I calculate the risks of each situation and I try to calculate every single possibility of results that could occur. If I can’t calculate the outcome or the risk is too high, most of the time I don’t end up doing the activity. I also like to be very much in control of each situation. If I can’t control the outcome, once again I won’t participate. For example, you won’t find me on a roller coaster or any rides for that matter, walking outside after dark unless I absolutely have to or talking to people that I don’t know in foreign countries.

By doing things out of my comfort zone on this trip, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I usually psych myself out in situations; I overthink a lot of things. I am stronger that I thought I was and I am grateful that I had the guts to try new things. There hasn’t been one thing that I’ve tried that I’ve hated. I have been thankful that I tried them. All of them. In the past, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what if. What if about certain events, once in a lifetime opportunities, and what if I let go of my fears and just had fun.

I also have been letting go of controlling every situation. I’m learning there is no sense in me trying to control every situation especially when a lot of situations that have presented themselves to me are out of my control.

For the past two weeks, I basically lived without constant Internet access. I haven’t lived without 24/7 Internet access since I was 8 years old and at that time, I was not dependent on using the Internet as my main source of communication. I had no control over the situation nor did I have control of when it was going to be fixed.

The wifi in my apartment broke on Wednesday night right before I was going to sleep. No big deal, I was going to sleep anyways. When I woke up, I tried to do my daily check of social media. I clicked on my Facebook app realized that wasn’t working so I decided to check my twitter app, that didn’t work as well so I moved on to Instagram. It wasn’t until waiting for Instagram to load for a couple of minutes that I remembered that our entire Internet was down so nothing was going to work. I continued this same routine every single day, when I woke up and before I went to sleep, until our wifi was fixed.

Thursday morning, it really hit me after I put in a request to get the Internet fixed. This was the weekend before midterms and while I was concerned with communicating with friends and family. I also had a terrible time trying to study for midterms because everything that I needed to study was online. Talk about the irony and terrible timing. We don’t even buy books over here. We go to the library and scan all the pages and email them to ourselves so even our books are technically online. Since when did everything for classes switch over to being online?

A man came Thursday afternoon to look at it and said that he would give me a call the following day, Friday. He did not call me on Friday and I was devastated. Getting the Internet fixed was my number one priority. It was my lifeline: communication, schoolwork, general knowledge, and entertainment. The Internet is not as important here in Italy. That is definitely low on their priority list. If something happens to the Internet, you are extremely lucky to have it fixed in a week. When I walk around or go to a restaurant, I do not see Italian’s glued to their phones. They are actually having conversations with each other.

 In the states, I am constantly connected to wifi and if not wifi then I have a data plan that allows me to use Internet on the go. There is never a moment when I am not connected.  The school is closed on Saturday’s and Sunday’s but I hoped that he would call on Saturday even though I knew that it was going to be a long shot.

I had a birthday dinner right before I left for Italy. At one point of the dinner, I remember I put my phone down and looked around the table, there was not one person who was not on their phone. Everyone was glued to his or her phone scrolling away. It stayed this was for a good 10-15 minutes and all the while, I just silently watched everyone. It actually shocked me that we could sit at a dinner in a restaurant and not have any conversations for a good 15 minutes. At the time, I didn’t think that it was that bad. I just started a conversation and most people put their phones down and we started to talk again.

Chat Pals

Starting today, we will be taking midterms. The sad part about that previous sentence is it feels like I just got here. So that means that time is going by way too quickly. I only have a month and a half left.

I signed up for this program called Chat Pals. The Chat Pal program at FUA is where you get paired with an Italian person trying to learn English or your native language (There are some students who speak Portuguese and other things here.) You are supposed to meet with them at least once a week and speak 30 mins in Italian and then 30 mins in English.

My Chat Pal’s name is Martina. She is super nice and around the same age as me. I am very lucky to have her because she knows English pretty well. She has been the United States a couple of times, to larger places like New York, Las Vegas and some cities in California. We talked about a great deal of things like her family, what types of food she likes and what her and her friends do when they hang out. She says that the amount of Italian that I do know is very good because I told her that I came here without ever taking an Italian class. I feel that there is still so much Italian that I have to learn and she understands English like perfectly. I only need to help her with her English when she forgets a word or provide her with an alternative word or phrase for saying something.

Dante's Rock

Michaelangelo's Self Portrait

For our first meeting, I met Martina, in Piazza della Repubblica and we went for a walk around the city square. She showed me things that most tourist don’t know about like the rock that Dante would sit on and watch the Duomo being built and a self-portrait of Michelangelo scratched into the side of Palazzo Vecchio, which is actually the town hall in Florence. We also went to see Dante’s church and house. She was surprised that I didn’t know much about Dante and hadn’t read any of the books such as Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. That only made me wish that I had read Dante’s Inferno in high school.

Dante's Church

I learned a great deal by just walking around with her, aside from more Italian. She told me about history in Florence and also about other things about Italy in general. I didn’t know that different cities in Italy had different dialects depending on what country they were under until they became a part of Italy. Other countries such as Switzerland and Austria controlled different cities in Italy and that affects the ability of a person from Florence from being able to talk to a person from Naples (they can barely understand them. Only a couple of words are similar,) I also learned that they only started teaching English in schools approximately 20 years ago. Before that, children were taught French in school, so that is primarily why older generations don’t really know English. 

My main goal is to be able to understand what people are saying during daily activities but I know that it is going to take lots and lots of practice. Hopefully, this Chat Pal partnership will help me speed the process up. I also hope to gain a lifelong friend as well.