Personal Excursion

On June 18^th we were initially going to go to Rome but some of the people thought the train tickets were too much. A round trip to Venice was still cheaper than a going to Rome one-way. Natali, Martha, Jazmin, Jada, Zach, Jessica, Lisa, and I, all decided we wanted to go to Venice, Italy. We didn’t all get to stay in a group together but somehow things worked out. Natali, Martha, Jazmin and I went the day before to book our fast train tickets through a company called Trenitalia.

This had actually been the second time I went to Venice, but the first time I went I didn’t do much exploring. I was still a bit young so I was afraid that I would get lost from the group we were with. I didn’t have a phone or even a map to get around the city and I also didn’t have the confidence to act like I knew where I was going.

This time I got to do all of the things I wanted to do like walk through the center of Venice and go into different shops and get souvenirs for my loved ones. Another thing I always wanted to do was go on a gondola which we did get to do. The gondola ride was about 45 minutes long and we got to see some interesting sites. We got to see Antonio Vivaldi’s childhood home. Antonio Vivaldi is one of the greatest Baroque composers and I have been in choirs in high school and in college so I was very excited when I found out. I was also very interested in seeing the famous Teatro La Fenice. This is the most famous opera house in the history of Italian theatre and also in history as a whole. We also got to see the bridge of Sighs, Basilica San Marco, and the Prison that is under the Doge’s Palace. So this was definitely a fun and educational trip for all of those who went.

Language Issues

Before coming on this trip I did try to learn some Italian, just so that I wouldn’t be completely lost. When we first got to Milan we were lucky enough to find people that knew English so that helped. I am also bilingual, I know English and Spanish so that helped. Spanish and Italian are both Romance languages so they are very similar which was both good and frustrating. It was nice because I understood most of it but then it was frustrating because I couldn’t respond very well.

But as the trip went along it was very interesting to find Hispanics or Italian people that knew Spanish. We went out to eat and then a young man that was also waiting for his food asked where we were from (in Spanish). I explained we were here on a study abroad from the United States. As the conversation went on he shared with us that he was working in some type of office and had been living here for about three years. He and his family are originally from Honduras which I thought was pretty cool. I never would’ve thought that I would come across a person from Honduras in Italy.

Another embarrassing yet nice experience we had was meeting our night guard. We may have locked ourselves out of our rooms occasionally. That is how I met a very kind lady from Colombia. She and her family moved here two years ago, and she was very kind. She told us about a cool tour bus we could take and so we did and there we also met more Colombians that were very fun and helpful! Obviously not everyone that went on this tour spoke Spanish so it was funny to see them try to speak English and for those in our group to speak Italian. So I thought it was neat how I was able to find people who preferred to speak Spanish over English, because I never thought I would find that around Italy.

Daily Lifestyle

From the moment I stepped foot out of that airplane in Malpensa Airport I knew I was no longer in familiar territory. Everything looked different. The people looked different, the language was definitely different, the process was different, and even the airport itself was different.

Getting from the airport to the hotel was a bit of a struggle at first but thankfully I have a good pair of eyes that saw a chart of all of the types of transportation to Milan and by asking a woman which way was the most affordable and easy way, is how we decided to take a bus to the central station and then the metro closest to our hotel. It was a little scary at first because we had no GPS or actual map of the city. I just had to trust my gut and trust others around me as well. I did, however, have one good idea before we left the airport which was to screenshot the path we had to walk to get to our hotel. However, even then we were a bit lost so I decided to ask someone in a cafe about hotel Zumbini 6 and she pointed me in the right direction. Once we got to the hotel we dropped off our bags, rested for about 20 to 30 minutes and then walked to our first class. Then after class we walked back. That was when I realized the long walks were just getting started… Luckily I am a smart girl and I bought a SIM card which allows my phone to access the internet. So I made a few Italian friends and one of them told me to download a really helpful app to find my way back home. This helps me find my ways back to the hotel the easiest and shortest way or by least walking and so on. So you can say that after living here for a week I have become very familiar with what metro and what buses to ride. I even had some tourists ask me how to get to a certain metro station, and that was when I realized I was really living that Italian lifestyle.

A few other difference I have noticed is, the way things are in buildings. Like for example, the restrooms have bidets. Another strange difference is how they have coffee vending machines everywhere. The way their education system and teacher-student rules are so much different than what we are used to. The food is also different from what I'm used to. At this point, I'm pretty happy I get to eat her food in like 2 weeks. But overall I am enjoying it and enjoying the fact that Milan has a lot of cool things like art and culture.

Cultural Comparisons

I must admit haven’t had a lot of culture shock coming into the country just because I have traveled a lot and seen a lot, but I can definitely still pick out cultural differences between here and Nebraska. One thing about life here in Milan that was different from what I am used to is that Italians eat pasta, spaghetti, and pizza almost every day! It’s crazy! I am just so used to variation in food that it seems a bit torturing sometimes. This caused me to become quite homesick because I’m used to eating a lot of good food. So my goal this week was to go and eat some Mexican food, so I did and that helped a lot! Something I noticed at the end of our meal was that even the proportions at the Mexican restaurant were smaller and the waitress that spoke Spanish and Italian mentioned that this was the reason most females were very thin and very skinny. They do not eat much but man do they smoke and drink. This is also different than what I am used to. Not many women in the United States smoke as much as they do here, I get the sense that it is still something that is seen as an elegant or classy thing to do. This is probably why so many women look so old. Their skin becomes very wrinkly and their teeth all yellow, but hey to them they are so cute and attractive because they’re not fat like most Americans.

Also I Italians don’t seem to see PDA (personal display of affection) is something that is to be more private like they do in the States. There have been many times when we have come across couples that are kissing for long periods of time and are very touchy with one another. I guess people here just kind of mind their own business and don’t care much about what you do with your life. If you chose to smoke, drink, have sex that is very much your problem and in the United States, everyone wants to be in everybody’s business. So this week has definitely shown me that Italian culture is much more different from American culture, it actually really reminds me of the way things are in Mexico, but that's just my personal opinion

.