Expectations

Eight years of thinking about it, six years of working, two years of procrastinating and 50,000 frequent flyer miles, and here I am, in Rome.

I came with a set of expectations, knowing fully that those expections would be met or exceeded, or that I would experience things I had never even expected. What I didn't expect was exactly how those original expectations would have to be put aside.

I expected space. Green spaces in the large parks around the city, space in my schedule to study music and language and leisure, the space of a quiet piazza filled up with blue sky. I didn't remember how too much space and solitude can make you absolutely crazy. Away from friends, family, and a life I was happy with, all the beauty in the world couldn't stop me from being unhappy.

So that was the first four days. But I got over it, and slowly I've been finding a balance between studying Italian, socializing (which doesn't always overlap), walking around town, practicing (more and more occasionally), and enjoying this baroque town. I had some bad first impressions (graffiti, sunburn, tourist mobs, men urinating on antiquities), but I've started to find the parts of this town that have enchanted people for ages.

I thought I would be writing phrases like "in my mind's iPod I hear Resphigi's Pines of Rome," when in fact there is generally so much car and motorcycle noise in this town that I can't hear myself think. When I come to quiet corner I'm most content to enjoy the silence. The traffic is stressful here, to say the least, and one wrong turn can put you on a street as busy as the West Side Highway but in the space of Spring Street. I spent the first few days taking the most direct route (which meant where the cars are) and being immediately plagued with stinging eyes and sneezing fits. I've started taking extra asthma medication.

I'm slowly slowly beginning to be able to leave the house without looking at my map, though navigating the streets around here is like walking through spaghetti, so I still get lost or need to retrace my steps.

The whole point of this trip was to learn Italian, but even that's harder than I expected. When I arrived in Germany in January 1997, there were no Americans there on long term vacations. In Rome, on the other hand, I'm not the only one who came up with the idea of spending some time here, and the piazzas resound with English chatters. Storekeepers and most everyone else can manage some English, and will do so even when I'm talking to them in Italian. It's so frustrating! At least, when I called the Casa di Goethe, they broke into German instead.

I am making some progress, and I am happy with my twice weekly course at ItaliaIdea. I might look into another supplementary course too. I have found a few Italians who are studying English, so I've been meeting with them once a week each to do a language exchange. It's been quite successful, and I'm also slowly starting to make Italian friends, but they need to have patience. Many men seem to be eager to be my friend....