SPEAK
La Vita Dolce: When Amanda spent a semester abroad in Venice, Italy, she had doubts that the new culture would welcome her. However, after an "uncomfortable encounter" and three months of being immersed in the Italian way of life, she not only found a home away from home, but discovered a different side of herself, as well.
"The captain has just turned on the faster seatbelts sign, and we will be starting our descent to the Marco Polo airport shortly. The time is 9:05 a.m. on Sunday, the 17th of January. All of us here on Air Italia hope you enjoyed your flight." The flight attendant's announcement roused me from a dead sleep. I had finally arrived in Venice, Italy, after 24 hours of layovers and flights. It was hard to grasp that I had just left Kansas yesterday at 6 a.m., and arrived at what was going to be my new home for the next four months. I was studying abroad in the CIMBA journalism program in Paderno del Grappa, Italy, and I came a day early to get my bearings on this new country and see the city.
I could feel the butterflies in my stomach stir with each step I took on the jetway taking me closer to Venice. This was the first time I had ever been to Europe. A vast number of conflicting emotions raced through my body: I was excited to finally be here, yet nervous for being away from home for so long. I was tired from the long plane ride, and downright terrified because I knew nothing about the culture and never studied Italian. But no matter how I felt, I knew it would all be worth it in the end.
I found the other 16 students I was traveling with, and after picking up our luggage we were ready to head to our hotel. It was a slow-moving struggle for each of us to pull our 100 pounds of luggage to the two water taxis that were waiting for us "only eight minutes away" according to the travel information desk. Twenty minutes and many rest stops later, we finally arrived, panting, at the speedboats ready to drop us off right in front of our hotel. We piled our 40 bags
into them and began the ride to the island.
As the boat sliced through the choppy water, the brisk January-morning air and salt-water spray hit my face, while the hundreds of seagulls that flew overhead called loudly. About half an hour later I started to see the outline of shapes on the horizon through the fog. As we drew closer I was greeted with five-story white-and peach buildings topped with bright red-tile roofs. We traveled through the vibrant Grand Canal bustling with locals and boats. Gondolas were everywhere and tourists crowded the bridges. I strained my neck trying to take in all the sights of this new world.
We traveled under low bridges and through tight alleyways. Potted plants graced the windowsills and the water splashed up over algae growing on the side of the weathered buildings that had been slowly stripped of their paint.
We pulled up to a huge dock off Piazza San Marco. After we were completely unloaded and the taxis drove away, I turned around. Facing rows of old buildings and the flurry of the morning crowd, I noticed every cart vendor and local in the square was staring at us. I glanced back to see what intrigued them. There we were, 17 young Americans, exhausted from a long plane ride, standing on one of the busiest docks in Italy, looking dumbfounded, and with a pile of luggage about 20-feet wide by 4-feet tall — what a sight we must have been.
We started walking toward our hotel, very slowly, through tight alleys lined with tiny shops full of Murano glass and Carnevale masks, and tratorias, pizzerias and ristorantes. Dragging my suitcases up some stairs, I crossed over a short
canal, and back down more stairs, ending up right in front of our hotel, Casa Verardo. After checking in and completely filling the entire lobby with luggage, the concierge screamed up to the maids, "The Americans are here!" This was only the beginning of the self-consciousness I felt as an ignorant American tourist. One-by-one we took the tiny elevator up to the minuscule rooms, and finished settling in.
Two of the other students and I headed out to explore the city. We wandered aimlessly over bridges and through small alleys. When we got hungry, we started to look for somewhere to eat. I checked one of the many menus stationed outside the restaurants and we decided to try one. We stood in the doorway of the silent, empty room awkwardly, and couldn't see any waiters. We turned to leave, but someone came out from the back, so we quickly sat down. We sat patiently for awhile, chatting and looking at the menu. A short time later after discussing how we were supposed to order food, we motioned for our waiter and she promptly walked over. We ordered an 8.50-euro pizza to split and two 3.50-euro bottles of water.
She placed a simple pepperoni pizza down in front of us. We were expecting some amazing Italian cuisine, but for my first Italian pizza, it tasted very American. I had heard they topped their pizzas with tomatoes and never used sauce. We joked they gave us regular sauce because we were American. I imagined them all in the back laughing and saying "zay are American, give zem ze special sauce!"
We finished as quickly as we could, wondering the whole time if we were doing it wrong
and were supposed to eat the pizza with the fork and knife next to the plate, or our hands. I felt like a child who didn't know what to do. I was already overwhelmed by culture shock only hours after stepping off the plane, and briefly thought, what did I get myself into? I can't do this.
But it turns out I could do it. I learned to adapt to a culture I knew absolutely nothing about. Three months later when the program ended I realized I had grown so much since my first uncomfortable encounter, and experienced more complex aspects of life in Italy than I had in the past 10 years. I was staying an extra two weeks to travel around Italy by myself, and after having visited eight different countries and cultures, I knew I wouldn't be nervous.
Seeing a different city every day and staying in hostels at night, I was able to experience the Italian culture first-hand and interact with the locals in a language that was not my own. Halfway through my solitary two-week journey, I sat alone in a small restaurant in Bologna. I felt right at home, knowing what to order and the etiquette on how to eat it. What I couldn't imagine being able to do before, I had done. I now know that no matter how difficult something may seem to be at first, I will have the strength to get through it.
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