Rome is not Latin America, and its not North America. Italian is not Spanish. This is my first time in Rome. These are pretty obvious things, but it ends up meaning that I am a beginner, una bambina, and that is something I haven't been for a very long time. Yes, I know, that was the whole point! Seeing different things, learning about the world outside of the Americas, but I really subconsciously didn't expect all that to start until the countries AFTER Italy.
Rome is a big city, so the people are big city people: pushy, rude, and impatient. Of course, there are many exceptions and many nice people, but on the whole they are neither midwestern friendly nor Central American friendly. I found myself surprised by that last part. Also, its taken me two weeks to realize that because of their accent and intonation pattern, they're not yeling at you or each other like you think they are; they're just talking! That takes some getting used to.
Also Italian is not Spanish. It comes as a shock to me not to be able to communicate! Especially when I only catch some or almost nothing of what people say to me! Or to not be able to tell my landlady I need clean sheets or know how to ask where to put trash or be able to understand the labels of the detergent at the supermarket at first glance! In class I make mistakes, because Italian is ten times more fussy than Spanish about agreement and the past tense is different! I now understand student frustration with wave and slash! My teacher of course is Roman, so he corrects us and doesn' realize that in our culture he is being overly harsh: for him its normal I've finally figured out!
I am learning a lot, though. Yesterday at the grocery I understood everything the self check out machine said (all the vocab words, like sconto for coupon, etc.) Whereas a week ago I messed up six times and was desperately confused. Today I successfully communicated with my landlady about clean sheets and have learned the word for towel (asciuggamano--an impossible word) and have learned so many other things. And its only been ywelve days! I can now correctly say where I'm from, where I've been, what I will do in the future, and what I would like. That's a lot for twelve days. I know where the best neighborhood restaurant is and which kind of transportation to take where areound the city. I only pull out my map once per trip rather than twice per block. I've almost broken myself of the habit of saying cerca (spanish-close; Italian-he looks for) and say vicino (Italian for close) instead. Hopefully soon I will even be thinking in Italian! In the meantime I will keep learning and try to see the small victories, not the many things I still don't know.
