I thought it was called summer BREAK?

"I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. " ~Winston Churchill

 I've been thinking what we will be doing the most over here in Italy. I've come to the conclusion that it will be learning. We will be learning a lot. Not just our minds in the course we are enrolled in, but their society rules, along with Italian living and speaking and also our bodies will be learning to cope with the difference in food, weather, exercise and all else that comes to a new environment.

Now what does this really pertain to? I have been realizing that there are things that I have to learn to do, kind of out of necessity and out of respect. To live here the way of life is different from that in the United States. As the days pass by I start to realize I am becoming more and more "Italian" while still keeping, obviously, my American traits. This week has been a big week, as it is our first full week living here, for my compadres and I. Now I can only really talk about myself and my roommates here because that is who I am around. Now besides learning how to order and buy stuff there are more important things to learn while living abroad.

As I said there are societal rules to learn. One is don't be afraid of the cars. They are going to be crazy drivers and they most likely will stop if you do get out in front of them. However, do not rely on the whole American: Pedistrian has the right of way. This is not the right way. Now that was easier than others to learn because you just observe the people around you and follow their examples. The most interesting learning experience I've encountered has to be our living style. Yes, we have all the necessities we need plus a few extras, like that of wi-fi. However, "things" may be the same but the directions are not. This week my roommates and I in a collaborative effort have learned how to work an Italian oven and an Italian washing machine. These appliances you may think should be easy for us to use, but not really. The knobs are different, the symbols are different, the whole process is different. *Side note: We learned to use the oven for one purpose so far: toast. We had to be creative to get toast since we don't have a toaster.* Aside from just appliances to learn, computers are also a new experience. I come to the ISA office to use their computer lab to type up these wonderful blogs. This is always an adventure for me. Let's just say that their keyboards are Italian. Now we can switch the keyboard keys to English, but that still means you have to kind of use your muscle memory to remember where the "normal" keys are for an English keyboard. Also, all the pop-ups and websites are in Italian. Let's just say I have learned how to understand the context of things without exactly knowing what they are saying.

The last thing on my list of learning was our bodies. Now it definitely is a lot easier evolving to the eating style here. Last night a few friends of mine and I had made homemade pizza, brucchetti and nutella crepes for dessert. Now this type of eating, the freshness, the love put into the time making delicious food seems so unique to this country. At home I have been able to enjoy homemade meals from my parents almost every night of the week. But yet what we eat in Michigan is completely different from what I've been eating in Italy. For those of you who know me, I tend to be a picky eater, but over the years I have shown improvement. Italy has so much fresh food that I have been up to trying pretty much everything! Yes there are things I don't enjoy, but come on, I can't like everything I eat. In addition to our stomachs adjusting, our muscles have to adjust too. Now I live on the top floor with an amazing view, without an elevator. I walk up 100 stairs (I counted) to get up to our door. The first times having to go up were a struggle and had to take breaks after this one certain flight of stairs. After having to do this daily and multiple times, I have had to take less and less stops and now I am very proud to say I have made it up without stopping now and my pace has gotten slowly quicker. Yesterday after returning from the market with my roommate Sarah, I was very proud for my accomplishment of not only carrying back a 6 pack of 1L bottles of water from the market, but all the way up the stairs without stopping once. These stairs have been the biggest challenge for me and eveyday I see my progress and keep staying proud of my accomplishments.


I have another story to share another time about something else I learned. Hopefully I'll post it next week.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."~Proverbs 1:7