Well, we’re all but done. Our last final ended a little over an hour ago, we have our farewell dinner tonight, and that’s the show, folks. Maybe it’s just because we’ve been in a “the trip’s almost over” mindset all week, but it does feel like it’s time. I think we’re getting complacent – we’ve established a daily routine, we’ve picked out our favorite places to eat, to hang out, to get gelato (Georgio’s 4 lyfe), we’ve seen almost all of the sites there are to see either in class or on our own, and as a result, we’ve lost that sense of exploration that made the trip so exciting when we first got here. It’s nothing we can complain about or change, because that’s just what happens when you’ve been in the same place for a long enough time. It happened in Spain, it happened in Austin, and now it’s happening in Rome. I still don’t feel like I belong here, but I don’t quite feel like a guest anymore, either.
I realized last night that I’m tired of being intellectual. I’ve spent the last month surrounded by Plan II kids, taking classes and visiting monuments, writing essays, reading entire textbooks, and even reading what might widely be considered “literature” instead of “books” in my free time. My brain’s tired. When I get home, I’m gonna plop down in the recliner and watch Anchorman, Zoolander, and Wedding Crashers back to back to back. Follow that up with some Scrubs and Simpsons, and I should be feeling better. All of this is while I’m eating my own body weight in cheeseburgers and Tex-Mex, of course. And sweet tea. Chick-Fil-A sweet tea. Mmmm….
In our first week here, after we got adjusted to our new lives but before classes started killing us, a group of us were meandering around the city one night. I think it was Amanda Jones that asked, “So, why are you guys here?” Various answers followed – “To see the world” was one, I think “The classes looked amazing” was another. When my turn came, I said, “To make friends,” with a dreamy, sarcastic smile on my face, the only way to pull that line off. Everyone laughed, including me, but they knew I was serious. As amazing as Rome is, as great a time as we’ve had here, in twenty years, I’m not gonna remember that the Cult of Isis was the most popular cult in the Roman empire in the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D. or that the museum housing the Ara Pacis was controversial because it was designed by an American Modernist. I will, however, most likely remember that Magown wants to be a rock star when he grows up (if that ever happens), that Cheuk makes a mean plate of stir-fried rice, that the Amandas are two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Our group as a whole hasn’t become as cohesive as I thought it might. No one dislikes each other, but interests are so varied that the whole group doesn’t spend a lot of time together outside of class. We don’t really have a group dynamic, each of us with our own unique niche to fill, as much as fifteen students that mutually respect each other. This trip’s been all about forming individual relationships, and in that respect, it’s been amazing.
Leaving Rome is weirder for me than anyone else, I think, because I have no idea when I’m actually leaving. Nonreving’s tricky. I’m supposed to catch a bus to the airport with five others at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch either a 10:10 or a 10:55 flight. Those are the only two flights of the day, though, so if I don’t make it on either of them, I’m stuck till Monday. There’s a flight tomorrow afternoon that looks better, but it’s not an American Airlines flight, it’s still not definite, and there’s the issue of paying somewhere in the range of fifty euros for a taxi out to the airport. Also, no one else is leaving until Sunday, so I feel like I’d be bailing out a day early if I do that. I could be gone twenty-four hours from now, I could still be here forty-eight hours from now. It’ll work itself out, I’m sure, I’m not worrying unnecessarily about it, but the lack of a definite departure time is my biggest concern right now.
I wasn’t really excited about coming to Rome when I first got accepted into the program (I was the first alternate, I got in because Allison Devereux dropped out. I owe you one, Allison). At the time, “The Rome Trip” seemed like just another massive amount of work heaped onto my plate – health forms, meetings, going to Houston to get a visa, buying textbooks, etc. The first time it really hit me that I was coming to Rome was when our philosophy professor met with a few of us outside of class to give us some tips. She talked about food, the cheapest way to get into museums, stuff like that, and only then did it hit me – “Oh, yeah. I’m living in Europe for a month.”
I’m trying to remember all the little things that make the trip what it was. Stealing internet from Friends’ café by sitting on the steps of the plaza, hidden behind the newspaper stand. Filling up water bottles in public fountains. Missing the soccer game to write an essay and knowing when Italy scores by the explosion of noise from outside. Making coffee in the reverse French-press. Cooking dinner with Cheuk. Haggling with street vendors to save a little bit of cash on t-shirts or sunglasses. Secretly rating form and technique of couples we see making out in public, and there are a lot of them. Jaywalking, not that that doesn’t happen in Austin. 10:30 runs to Georgio’s, Georgio recognizing us and almost expecting us when we show up right before he closes, giving us three scoops, panna (sugarless whipped cream) and a cookie. Complaining about how expensive everything is and how much work we have. Galinsky’s jokes about Gladiator, Titanic, and President Bush. The list goes on.
I’ve learned a lot about myself on this trip. I hear people say that all the time, and I have to admit that I never had any clue what it meant. But with the “fresh start” we got when we all stepped on the plane, I’ve been thinking about how I interact with people, the way I integrate myself into a group, the pride (or, sometimes, lack thereof) that I take in my schoolwork, my inexplicable desire to make every moment count, the way I think about money, and more highly metaphysical issues that no one but me really cares about. Some of the things I learned surprised me a little bit, though.
I do believe that might be it for now. Not sure if this is my last entry, it depends on if I come up with anything else to say. If not, just know that I had a good time. No complaints, no regrets, no worries.
Except about whether I get to fly home or not.
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