La Vita Italiana

The Italian Life

The uniqueness of our study abroad program here in Rome is that we are living in an area not overrun by tourists, so it feels more like an authentic living experience.  After one day we have already had to make a lot of adjustments and learn a lot about italian lifestyle, and I have a feeling this is only the very beginning.  

The apartment is exactly what you’d expect in a different country: completely foreign!  It took me a few minutes just to figure out how to flush the toilet!  Doing laundry, using the stove and the oven, washing dishes, and even using the computer for things like Pandora radio and Netflix are more complicated than I have been accustomed to.

The bathroom has a toilet and a bidet!  I have yet to use to try out the bidet- that should be quite an experience- but the toilet alone has been enough to confuse me for a few minutes at least.  There is no flusher on the side of the toilet tank; actually there is no toilet tank attached to the basin of the toilet.  There is a separate piece on the wall above the toilet, that, I guess, holds the water and also the flusher.  There is a little metal rod that sticks out of the bottom of the tank which flushes the toilet when it is pushed up.  Very different from an American toilet. Hopefully if your reading this and planning to travel to Italy some day, this will save you a few minutes of confusion!

Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, we (mostly Kevin) had some difficulty with the washing machine yesterday.  After a 20 minute google search about Italian washing machines, which gave us no helpful information, we have just been guessing about what the symbols on our machine mean.  The cycle that I used, which has a symbol that looks like a pair of jeans and indicates a 40°C water temperate did s good job of washing my clothes, but it takes over 2 hours!  The cycle that Kevin did his wash on has a mysteriously ambiguous looking symbol that kind of looks like a tub of water and indicates a water temperature of 30°C.  That cycle did a good job of washing his clothes, and also did a nice job of flooding our kitchen with water!  So I think we’ll stick to the “jeans cycle” and not experiment any more until our landlord can teach us how to use it.  And that’s just the washing portion of the whole ordeal!  Next, I have to hang halfway out the window in order to dry my clothes like this:

Clothes drying on our line.

But I have to admit, it’s a pretty adorable way to dry clothes.  I think I can manage.

Although I don’t usually have much time to dedicate to television and movies I do love a good Netflix marathon every once in a while, and I practically live off of Pandora radio while I’m at home.  So you can imagine, I was a little upset when I tried to listen to music today and was told, “this website is not available in this country,” and I was all like, “uh, wut?”  To make maters worse, Netflix isn’t available here either!  BUT, if you are ever traveling to a country where this happens to you, Alicia and Kevin told me how to unlock the websites, so I will do a good deed and share with you in case you ever need it one day- You’re welcome!  There is a plug-in that you can download called Hola unblocker which will let you access American websites that are unavailable in other countries.  LIFE.  SAVER.  Disaster avoided.

One last thing that we did today, and spent a lot of time doing it, was grocery shopping.  We left the apartment early this morning looking for the open air market that is usually open on Saturdays from 8AM-2PM.  Well, it turns out it was closed today for the holiday weekend so we spent the next hour meandering around Trasteve looking for a grocery store.  We didn’t find one.  We eventually went back to the apartment to look up directions and found a market not too far away; also not open when we walked over.  By chance, we found a large grocery store and did our shopping- and it was so cheap!  The highlight of my day was that I bought a bottle of wine for $2 and a dark chocolate bar for $.75!  That is just unheard of in America!  Another plus, they listen to music in English here so while grocery shopping we at least were able to sing along to some Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith.  It’s nice to at least have familiar music in the background while I have no idea what else is going on around me!

So, we are learning through error, but having a lot of fun, and all the while surrounded by some stellar views.  Here are some pictures of our charming little street and the square around the corner:

The square just around the corner

And for anyone concerned *cough my grandparents cough* I am eating very well!  Here is the deliciously cute European dinner I threw together tonight!  The best part is, it was super cheap!

Salad, olives, salmon, and cheese. Oh yeah, and wine!