an eternal blogpost about the eternal city

PLOT TWIST: this time I actually talk about relevant events that happened in my life.

I FINALLY WENT TO ROME.

May 15th

We started off by me waking up at 7 and my host mom knocking on my door at 7:05 asking if I was ready because we had to go. Always behind schedule, right on schedule. We picked up Vincent (Hong Kong) and his host mom Paola (the lady who organized the whole trip) at their house and then went to the airport, where all of us would eventually meet in a group. The whole procedure of the Catania airport has no interest or value so I'll just skip to the good part.

Since we all bought separate tickets we were spread throughout the plane, and I got a window seat on the right side. I was next to a Catanese couple that were very friendly, and we talked off and on through the trip of around and hour. On the plane, I actually saw Mount Vesuvius and the sixth grade me died a little. Spoiler alert: IT'S REALLY FREAKING SMALL FOR THE AMOUNT OF SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE IT DID. 

Upon landing in Rome I got separated from the group at the airport and had to wait for all of them to get off the plane. We only were in Rome for three days so the terrible baggage claim was avoided (thank sweet Jesus) and we caught a train into the center city terminal. To get to the train station (connected to the airport), we had to walk the same exact path that we walked on our first day in Italy. It was the weirdest feeling ever. I wanted to die standing RIGHT THERE! 

Since we're Sicilians we missed the first train and had to wait for the next one that came 15 minutes later.

Upon arriving at the train station, we had to take the metro to our apartment, which was outside of Rome but still close enough to reach with the metro. We exited the terminal and found our hotel, settled in, ran to the grocery store to buy some crappy deli meats and bread for a makeshift lunch, and we exited quickly to go to the Catacombs of Priscilla.

These Catacombs Paola had seen as a kid and she wanted to go back to see them again, and you know....none of us were really excited because they're like....catacombs. But they turned out to be really awesome. We walked there (only like 3/4 of a mile) and we split into two different groups: some went in an English speaking group because there was a group of Indian nuns that spoke only English, and then me, Andrea (Paraguay), Mook (Thailand), Maria (other AFS volunteer) and Paola stuck behind and took the Italian tour. The tourguide had a heavy Roman accent and spoke at the speed of light, so it was harder to understand than a normal tour. I wasn't allowed to take pictures and with such a small group I didn't want to chance getting yelled at. But they were built in the 2-5 centuries BC and used by the Roman Christians because they weren't allowed to be buried above ground. All the lighting was by oil lamps, there were tombs for all types: family tombs, child tombs, infant tombs, adult tombs, closed tombs, open tombs, buy-one-get-one-free tombs (okay maybe not) but it was HUGE. And since they just took dead bodies and stuck them on shelves to rot away, there were holes in the walls for flowers or incense to fight off the rancid smell that you could only imagine came from the catacombs.

\

After the catacombs a little after 5, we decided to take the metro into the city to see the Trevi Fountain and some of the plazas that Rome has to offer. The metro closest to the Trevi Fountain was a little hike through some tourist trap streets, and once we approached the corner of it I told Grace (Australia) and Roosa (Finland) (since they had already been to the Trevi) that I was going to close my eyes and they should steer me so I will open my eyes and it will just be RIGHT THERE. So I did, and it was the coolest moment ever. 

When I saw both the Duomo di Milano and the Colusseum I had to walk up to them and it wasn't nearly as much of a shock cause I was able to adjust to it mentally. But when you see something for the first time that you've dreamed of seeing for EVER, you gotta do it right. And it's an amazing feeling to just get hit with this "holy crap I'm here" feeling all at once. Now that's what dreams are made of.

We ate at a half decent restaurant and visited Piazza di Spagna for about 10 seconds, returned to the Trevi at night, and went back to the house at midnight.

May 16th

We woke up at 7:30 to get ready and left around 9ish if I remember correctly to go to the Vatican. The Vatican is on the other side of the Tiber River, a long enough hike with the metro. We got to the Vatican Museums first, where there was a line that stretched a couple of blocks down the street. We waited for about a half an hour or so to get in, and then we flew to the beginning of the Museums. There was a constant flow of people through the Museums because it was set on a track, not in a building, which led to the Sistine Chapel. We chose the long track because you're not gonna come to the Vatican and not see everything. It was spectacular and this ended up being my favorite day in Rome (for many reasons to follow). 

Il Discobolo, which I studied in art history and had a mini heart attack when I saw it. 

Hall of Geography.

Sicily as viewed from Rome. Interesting because there is the volcanic island called Vulcano in the Aeolian Islands that is no longer active, but at the time this was painted it was active. Ah, history.

One of the rooms of Raffaele

Take a guess at what this is! (We all coughed to cover up each other's camera clicks because taking these photos is prohibited)

After exiting the Vatican Museums, we went to Saint Peter's Basilica. The line stretched 3/4 of the way around the circle thing, because you have to go through a metal detector to get into the cathedral (thank you 9/11). It only took 15 minutes to get there, however. Then, we spent 3 hours in the cathedral itself. We went up to where you could go to the top of the dome, and then we went down to the crypt of all the past popes and I was able to witness the crypt of the first pope and apostle (if you already know this good for you), Peter, as in Pietro, as in San Pietro. Awesome? Yeah I know.

View from the roof

these are Jesus and his 12 apostles, each of which have a plaque on the back with their name. (roof of San Peter's)

After our popetacular visit to Popeland, we grabbed some dinner at a touristic restaurant and decided to visit the Colusseum at night. I was peeing my pants the whole bus ride there, and my jaw literally dropped when I saw it from Piazza Venezia. I walked with Grace and Roosa VERY QUICKLY towards it, kind of ditching the group but I HAD MY OBLIGATIONS, PEOPLE.

On the way I just kept on shrieking and swearing in two languages about it's the freakin' Colusseum! I'm staring at the Colusseum! I've only dreamed about this since I wa-OH MY GOD THAT'S THE ROMAN FORUM RIGHT THERE. And so on.

I may have just been a teeny tiny bit excited.

Roosa, Grace and I got so "in the moment" that we literally dropped to the ground and just looked up at the Colusseum, using our purses as pillows. And of course I took a selfie.

May 17th

This was our last day in Rome. We headed off to tour the Colusseum first thing in the morning (after dropping our bags off at the train station for later), and then visited the Roman Forum before lunch. 

So....this may or may not have been where they burned Julius Caesar's corpse.....(hint...it was.)

When we took this, we heard a British woman mutter to her friend.....

Christian tourists. 

Nearing the end of our final day, we finished at the Pantheon, where Mook met up with her BIOLOGICAL family (well, her father, sister, and grandmother), which was the sweetest thing ever. The dad and sister spoke english, but the grandmother didn't speak anything, and I am telling you, I want an Asian grandmother. Cutest thing I have ever seen.

There is a hole in the ceiling for sunlight to come through, but astonishingly, when it rains, it doesn't enter?!?!11?

At the very end, Roosa, Grace, Marie and I went for a little bit of shopping and then we went back to the train station. This entry "broke my balls" writing and uploading every painfully slow picture. Hope you enjoyed it and I'll catch you on the flipside with a potentially depressing post about going home! Probably! 

if you're from america, then why are you so cultured?

oh my god Karen you can't just ask people why they're so cultured.

Hello my fellow Americans.

You all probably are aware of the fact we are one of the most powerful, populated, and structured countries the world has to offer. We have one of the strongest military forces in the world, a democracy that has birthed one of the most internationally-known presidencies there has ever been (Obama [duh]), an economy that runs fairly well and doesn't throw an entire country into a downward plunge, a standard of living that is optimal in comparison to some other countries, and an abundance of exports, imports, and products that we have access to every minute of every day.

Some of those things were an overshot, I know. But y'all can't be pessimists with this one.

I digress...you all probably are also aware that those reasons are the exact same reasons that we are one of the most hated countries on the planet. Love us or hate us, you know us as the Americans.

Believe it or not we are one of the most mistreated, stereotyped, and misinterpreted ethnicities there are on this planet. We talk a lot about racism in our every-day lives, about acceptance, about understanding, about knowledge of other cultures surrounding us, but no one really seems to talk about us. In all reality the American culture (as it really is) is a taboo subject abroad. So many are educated from television shows and settings of them, like Glee, How I Met Your Mother, The Simpsons/Cleveland Show/Family Guy, and The Big Bang Theory. Or, I hate to say it but even worse, educated from vacationing in America. 

Aiuto.

As I said in that one post from November about all the stereotypes that Americans have of Italians, let's name a few from Italy about the grand ol' Nifty Fifty.

• "But what do you mean you don't eat McDonald's every day?!" This one I couldn't take seriously until I finally thought it through. Americans have the stereotype of Italians that eat a strict diet of pasta every day for almost every meal, which is 95% accurate, in all honesty. The mindset here is that every culture has a food, and it eats that food every day. What is America's food, you ask? HAMBURGERS! FRENCH FRIES! HOT DOGS! PANCAKES! Half of the people here ask if we really do eat McDonald's every day, the other half warn me that when I go back I can't return to my diet of Whoppers and curly fries every day that apparently we are portrayed of having globally.
• "Is school really like it is in the movies?" If I had a euro for every single time I have heard this question I could afford first class flights from NYC to Catania for the rest of my life and the consecutive lives of my children, grandchildren, and all of their children. So many people, in fact, have asked me this question, I have had to start lying (slightly) to keep away from the whole spiel of "it's nothing like the movies" and wasting an hour trying to convince them that we do not break out in random dance numbers, nerds don't get shoved in lockers, cheerleaders really do exist and they're not jackwagons, and we have school dances. 
• "You all are such a happy country!" This one I got from the friend of my mom who went to New York City for New Years.In the month of January we all know surely that NYC is pumping with adrenaline like heck yes we just dropped a metal ball and the whole world saw it and January is just a super refreshing month. It's a restart. Plus, NYC is a touristic paradise all year round, so anyone who goes there is going to go head over heels for any piece of it. We seem like such a happy population to any tourist that comes. It's all a part of the illusion created by the grapevine. America is rainbows and smiley faces raining down from the skies for some communities of people.
• "Do you eat pancakes every morning? And bacon? And eggs?" Thanks for movies for creating this one. They're relieved to know that we don't eat it every morning, but we do actually eat all of this for breakfast. (Sweet baby Jesus my mouth is watering as I type this)

Foreigners, or shall it be more correctly said as non-Americans, have the mindset that we are overly-patriotic, egotistical, air-headed bastards that think the universe revolves around our existence. Well, at least some of them do. From time to time when I am introduced to someone as an American, I get the "oh god, not one of you" look at first. Normally, this introduction is followed with the person trying to muster up some English, because of the sad-but-yet-pretty-much-true stereotype that we don't learn other languages, let alone such an isolated language like Italian. I'll give them credit and say that there are Americans abroad that do speak "cazzi per mazzi", kind of the offensive equivalent to "not even jack squat". Way to help our stereotype, guys! A+!

There's another thing about being an American abroad, while also surrounded by other foreigners abroad. For example, EXCHANGE.

Here's a story.

At the AFS Camp in Palermo back in October (holy crap that's like 7 months ago), every country had to make a poster of their country and all of the significant items of the culture of their country. Then, we went around with post it notes and wrote what we knew about the country and stuck it to the poster. Anyways, while the Americans (there were 6 of us but now there are 4 of us in Sicily) presented our poster, I forget completely how it rolled around, but a girl from Latin/South America stood up (everyone could ask questions) and asked us why we call ourselves Americans and we don't classify them as Americans. And then all of them clapped, and we looked like douchebags.

This got the Americans, meaning me and the five others, pretty frustrated. Here's how it goes.

We are open people. We may be one of the most open cultures that you will encounter. Yes, there's a large amount of ignorance in our culture but you know what? It's what makes us up. We deal with it and the human race is going to have to deal with it too. In a bunch of languages, there are words that are substitutions for the word "American". Like in Italian its "statiunese" and I know there's one in Spanish as well. We don't have this word or something like it. Hop off of it. It's our language, not our ignorance. The world knows us as the "Americans". We don't have a reason when you think about it to go out of our way to not use the word "American" in our vocabulary. I have personally tried to use the words "United States" or "people of the United States" for the sake of not offending an entire continent but really, I think we can all be a little less sensitive over this whole thing.

Rant over.

It's almost an immediate assumption as an American abroad that you are completely oblivious to the world around you. Yes, there are people that can't tell you the capital of Canada (hint, it's Ottawa) that live in the US. There are probably people who can't tell you the capital of the state they live in. There are people who can't point out where Egypt is on a map. There are people who didn't know Africa is a freaking continent and not a country. Point being, these people exist, but don't let them define us.

I said these exact words in Italian about two weeks ago at an AFS meeting. As you all know I went up to Bergamo for a week and I encountered the stereotype that they have of Sicily and the people there that we are all "mafiosi" (part of the Mafia) or homeless that steal money from the rich and wealthy up in the north by not working. I, being a reincarnation of a full-blooded Sicilian, defended my Madreterra by saying "Si, noi abbiamo la mafia e anche i barboni in Sicilia, ma non ci definiscono." (Yes, we have the mafia and the homeless in Sicily, but they do not define us.)

Moral of the story is, be you American, Asian, European, Australian, or African, for the love of all that the planet provides for us, hop off of each other's backs for little things. It's one thing to get mildly aggrivated when someone may or may not call you by a prefered name. It's another thing if someone is calling you or your ethnicity/nationality in the means of slander. You know how many times my name has been mispronounced in Italy? So many times that it's now pronounced "Carah" instead of the Americanized "Keruh". It's like that. Let's focus on the bigger things in life, because we are lucky to be in the situations we are.