It’s hard to think it’s already been an entire year since I started my journey to live and study in Rome. Looking back, it was an experience that I never fully appreciated until returning to the U.S.  Being able to walk through a city of vast art and history everyday as I walked to and from a school right in the heart of Rome wasn’t something at the time that I could fully comprehend. However, once you leave a place like that, it all seems to be put into perspective.

Ciao!

I’m happy to say that I’ve been successfully fighting the temptation to say  ”Well, I can just go see this later.  I just got here anyway…” because before I knew it, three weeks have gone by.  Three wonderful weeks that have been filled with adventure (both good and bad- I had some bank troubles but all is well now).

Of the very little research on Spain I did before coming here, a great majority focused on Spanish food. I read that a key principle of Spanish cooking is to use the freshest and finest ingredients and interfere with them as little as possible. My observations so far have confirmed this.

Today my host mother took me to the monthly morning market near her tofu factory outside Nagoya. There were rice, vegetables, and various types of tofu on sale. I learned about tsumihoudais for the first time – you pay a fixed amount of money and stack as much food on top of one another as possible, and leave with the amount you manage to stack without the whole thing falling over at the end.

I turned 21 last Sunday. It was pretty anticlimactic.

I don’t usually get very excited about nature. I can appreciate a nice view, I can smell the pretty flowers, but sooner or later I lose interest and want to go back inside to cocoa and blankets.

Imagine my surprise when a day of looking at rocks and saltwater turned out to be the most spectacular experience of my trip so far.

It’s been an incredibly emotional week, but nonetheless, these last few days have also been filled with so much growth, laughter, and joy. For the past month, I have been participating in the IES Rome JTerm and taking a class entitled From Pontius Pilate to Theodosius: The Advent of Christianity. As part of this course we have spent as much time in the classroom as we have in this ancient city of Rome studying the beginnings of Christianity.

Last night we got to go to a the Technical University Ball at the Hofburg. We made the journey via tram in our long gowns and tuxes and arrived at around 11:00 pm. It was so beautiful inside the building and there were several different rooms dedicated to different kind of dancing. There was the main ballroom, which was more formal and it was mostly couples who actually knew how to dance. There was also a salsa room and a disco room. It was all very elegant and so so fun.