Lists Part Due

Things That Make Rome Less Than Perfecto

1. Cigarettes-- And no, it's not just the Europeans. An entire contingent, what feels like at least 80% of the AUR population smokes. I think it's interesting that Americans get to Europe and suddenly are all uninhibited about this disgusting habit that many in the US probably guilt them about, so they downplay it. Not here. No, people will blow smoke right in your face, brazen as you please. It's gross, it's unhealthy, and it's making my inhaler my almost-constant companion. Now, I'm not that naive. I expected this coming to Europe, but it still grosses me out to no end. I'm proposing a new health initiative in which if you light a cigarette within 100 feet of me, and 500 if I'm downwind, I get to walk up to you and punch you as hard as I can in the body part of my choice for as long as it would take you to smoke that cigarette. I think it's only fair that you should know some semblance of the pain that inhaling your filthy second hand causes, and it might give you a premonition of how uncomfortable lung cancer is going to be. So just do us both a favor and stop. End of tirade.

2. Grafitti-- I'm actually getting used to this now, but when I got here I was astonished at the amount of grafitti all over everything, trees and sometimes timeless landmarks of human history included. I guess I should have expected it; grafitti is, after all, an Italian word. It made me sad at first, but I'm beginning to see it (optimistically and perhaps wrongly) as just another way in which the artistic and political history of this city is constantly manifesting itself, as it has done for centuries, millenia even.

3. Italians Who Insist On Speaking English To You-- Okay, bub. I can fully appreciate and respect that when the starving masses are practically knocking over your counter in hoards of millions to get a gelatto that it might be more expedient for you to speak English to the dumb Americana and get her out of the way. That's legit. But when I am the only person in the shop, trying valliantly to speak this language that I think is beautiful but am still in only the infantile, if not younger, stages of speaking, I wish you would let me try to figure it out. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to try to have an interaction with someone who is totally ignorant of your language, but if they're making a concerted and visible effort to improve, I think we should all have a little more empathy and admiration for that. You speak both languages, why can't I? That said, I am getting better, and so I think the more confident and less puppy-who-just-got-kicked look on my face is making people a little more amenable to letting me test my wings.

4. Obnoxiously Drunk American Kids-- These annoy me in the States, too, but I get positively mortified when I see it here. I understand more than I ever have why certain stereotypes are applied to American kids, and it makes me cringe to think that someone might ever make that assumption about me. Hence my concerted effort to treat alcohol as the Italians do: as an enjoyable and natural part of life and culture, and not merely as a means for me to make very bad decisions that I will then recount (provided I remember them) very loudly the next time I'm in a public place. Whoopee.

5. Being the Hermione-- I'd forgotten somewhat, after two years at K, just exactly what it feels like to make an observation in class that you think is fairly standard and not particularly brilliant and have everyone in the class stare at you like you just started speaking Venutian. I now sort of take it as a given that there will be at least a mildly interesting and in-depth class discussion in which people are willing to voice their opinions and analysis, and so it's disconcerting when that just doesn't happen. That said, I adore my professors on the whole, and all of my classes seem like they're going to be not only fascinating, but also really instrumental in my pursuit of a higher understanding of the practice and theory of art history, and also of writing. In short, I'm really jazzed about class, not so jazzed about having to censor myself a little for fear of looking like an obnoxious know-it-all.

These things aren't so serious that they're ruining this amazing experience for me; far from it. They're just sort of things I've noticed that I've been thinking about, and I think they're just as telling of what life is like here as all my gushing about famous works I've seen and idyllic moments on hilltops I've had. So there you are.