Last Week in Rome

This is one of the journal entries I had to write for my English class. The last journal was supposed to be about saying goodbye to Rome. I thought I would share with you guys what I wrote. It's not my best writing by any means, but enjoy!

Wake up at 8. Eat yogurt with granola and a banana with peanut butter. Get dressed. Walk to school. Go to class. Eat lunch. Go for a run. Do homework. Eat dinner. Go to sleep.  Repeat Monday through Thursday.  But on the weekends, Rome comes alive. This is when I have the time to really experience the city. I can walk to Porta Portese or the Christmas markets in Piazza Navona. I can buy chocolate at the Trastevere chocolate festival or walk into a random church and admire the ornate architecture that is bound to decorate the walls.

            Or maybe I will get out of Rome and go somewhere I have never seen before. Two hours later I can be walking the streets of Monaco, enjoying a crepe in Paris, or climbing to the top of the Duomo in Florence. The weekends are when I can see the world. When I can really take advantage of this amazing opportunity that has presented itself to me. This amazing opportunity that is coming to an end in less than two weeks.

            I arrived in Rome on my birthday. I had no friends, no family and knew nothing about the city except for a few memories that had stuck with me from my trip that here I had taken with my Latin class in eighth grade. I really hated it. I hate change and this was definitely a change from the comfortable summer that I had spent at home. But with each walk I took on the cobblestone streets, with each pastry I tried, and with each person I talked to, Rome started to grow on me. A seed was planted within me and with each day it grew and grew into a love for a city that I had initially despised.

            But even with the love that grew within me for the city, I still found it necessary to leave and discover new places. Each weekend I ventured away from the comfort of my little apartment and saw a new city, embracing the fact that I was the type of traveler that Henry James and Edith Wharton detested. I was taking pictures of monuments that I really knew nothing about. But I loved every second of it. I was always happy to come back to Rome, though, because I had established a home here.

Rome really has become my home.  I have a greater understanding of the Italian culture, as it no longer frustrates me when the buses don’t come or the cashier refuses to break my 50-euro bill. I have accepted it and embraced it. And now I can’t imagine not being here. I can’t imagine not having the opportunities to travel all over Europe and see the some most famous monuments in the world on the way to get my gelato.  Rome has transformed me. It has made me more independent, more secure, and has increased my cultural knowledge. It is everything I could have wanted from this abroad experience.