Salve a tutti…
I’ve always felt that photos speak more than words… and Alex is a lot better with words than I am if I’m being completely honest.
It’s been 14 days now that we’ve been in Rome, we’ve done lots of sightseeing, LOTS of walking and lots of eating. It is amazingly stunning here… each day it blows me away. Alex and I are actually making a word cloud with the things we constantly say as a resource to look back on after TAB.
Some takeaways from these last 2 weeks:
- Siesta’s are real here
- Air conditioning is your best friend
- Groceries are surprisingly affordable
- Get your metro pass… it is a great resource and cheap!
- You will sweat, constantly, always, forever (while in Rome)
- Take a water bottle with you wherever you go, although the water may not be the coldest, there is fresh drinking water fountains all across Rome
- Men like to stare
- The transit gets PACKED
- Don’t eat near popular tourist spots
- Don’t take a rose or water from anyone walking around
- Cross the street with confidence
- Eat all the pizza and pasta possible (It doesn’t make you bloated here)
There are just as many highs as there are lows here, but its been a perfect balance and its kept us in sync. The language barrier has been difficult to navigate… I especially have high expectations for myself, so I keep setting the standards too high for what I need to know. It has been reassuring however that our Rome liaison Beatrice has helped us every step of the way!
In the next week, Alex and I will be continuing our orientation with the Rome YMCA before we are sent to some of the local schools (we are unsure at the moment if it will be one school or a couple while we are here). We now know that we’re teaching in English (or at least primarily) and that we will be teaching high school level students (yay!).
Alex and I have also had the opportunity to educate our Italian counterparts on the innerworkings of school and university in Canada, as they do the same with Italy. We have both been very intrigued about the similarities and differences between the two countries in those terms (more specifically the similarities)!
We now know when exactly we’ll be going to Catania, Sicily to take part in the YMCA Italy conference… Alex and I are very excited for that – but worries it may all be in Italian (which we cannot fully understand if spoken too fast).
All in all: there has been an obvious cultural change, time-table change, lifestyle change and I mean… I could go on, just a lot of change… but good change!!
Ciao for now,
