Ankle Deep

"I'm Roman..."Well, not quite. Actually, not at all. But I have a whiteboard outside of my room, and that is the phrase that someone decided to write on it. My conservative self proceeded to write a response message of, "Ehhh..." (Picture my response with a slight side head tilt, and in a high pitched voice indicating my uncertainty). Anyway, my thought process, as obvious as it may seem, it that we are in Rome. Correct. And that continually blows my mind as we walk the streets around and see Embassies from Afghanistan, Russia, Qatar, and tons of other places. It blows my mind that the Coliseum, Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain are just a bus ride away. I'm definitely loving the program so far (even as we are only finishing orientation stuff), but we stick out like sore thumbs here. We travel in large groups; we're loud in stores; we're professional butchers of the Italian language. Don't get me wrong, every chance that I get, I try my Italian phrases and embrace the food differences and want to travel, but it will take some time. Before I reminded myself of that, I was beginning to feel anxious because I feel that I need to know my way around town already. We have a whole semester. Good plans for trips and great relationships are already in the works, but Rome wasn't built in a day....sorry for the cheesy reference, what I mean is that both of those things take time. It's the third day. We don't need to play mundane things up as being incredible; except for the fact that it's all happening in Rome. I guess that's where my confused feelings are coming in. Right now, I'm going to just be in the moment, take it all in, and enjoy the experience wholeheartedly. I'm going to be shaped by the whole process, not just the first 3 days...

Again, don't read into this as cynicism. I'm just flushing out my anxious, and honestly confused, feelings that I've felt with everyone taking about buses and trains and being kindof hyped up on planning their perfect Spring Break. I can't wait to travel, and I never appreciated everything that went into it. But honestly for Spring break, I don't need to see 7 places in 10 days. Like everyone else who heard the words, "Plan now" from our SD, I wanted to plan the past few days too, but could barely think, and felt anxious when everyone started spewing out ideas and flights. I'm not confident enough to travel alone really, but the selfish introvert in me says that it will be easier to just do what you want an avoid the planning with other people. The good thing is that I've found some people whom I get along with and who want to go to similar places as me, so it will be sweet to share those once-in-a-lifetime experiences with them. Writing through this helps me; I don't need to worry about that right now. We'll sit down one day, find our deals, and go.

The past few days we've finished up orientation. We took a trip to the grocery store, bought our first gelato....Here's the post-original post picture:

I don't know if you can see, but I'm doing my best Italian model face...

We did a scavenger hunt through the neighborhood, which was really fun and was great for the group. We watched a slideshow of all the pictures and were cracking up at all the great poses. Here are some of my favorite from my group:

This dog runs the store, so watch out!

 Our group: Spaghetti Westerns

 In front of Mussolini's house!

 Gotta be careful at ATMs...

AS ROMA pride!

This orientation stuff is great because it bring our group together and gets us familiar with the area. But we're still not in the full swing of things. I am planning to go to Eataly tomorrow as well as the center of the city to check out the main spots, so I will definitely post about that. But for now, being less than a week in, I'm still feeling caught in an "in between" spot. I haven't dived headfirst into culture as a Roman. I am slowly getting familiar with Rome, and right now, I feel about the same as my feet felt this morning in the shower when the drain was slightly clogged - ankle deep in Italian water.

Micah 6:8 -"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."