Oh Rome, I Hate To Go

I had to take a lyric from Jet Plane again for my last blog post. The writer in me wanted to come full circle and that song pretty much captures how I feel about having left Rome.

I’ve been in the States for over a week now and while I honestly haven’t had a second to miss Rome, it’s definitely been in the back of my mind. When I got home, I had to rapidly unpack and repack everything so I could move to Maryland for my summer internship. In a way, being this busy has been great because I didn’t give myself time to be jetlagged and I jumped into my new job. But now that I’ve had two days off, it’s hitting me how exhausted I am and how much I miss Rome. Getting to live in a city that had so much going on and so much history for 12 weeks was absolutely amazing. The experience was incredible and I fell in love with Rome. I miss walking past the Vatican on my way to school, I miss how busy some of the streets were, and the sights of the city. Everywhere you look in Rome there is something interesting to see. The architecture styles are so different than anything in the US and are so colorful compared to some of our buildings here.

But I can’t just reminisce about Rome, even though I would absolutely love to. I’ve been adjusting back to life in the States and not living in a city. It is a little weird having to drive everywhere instead of walking and looking at large expanses of fields instead of city buildings. It has been fun though. I’ve gotten to eat a deli sandwich again, see some of my family, and make a couple trips to Wawa, a staple in New Jersey and thankfully Maryland. Like I said earlier, I threw myself into repacking and moving for my internship so I didn’t really experience any jetlag. Keeping myself busy and making myself adjust back to Eastern Standard Time definitely made the time change easier, so keep that in mind. My other advice is to set your watch to the time zone you’re traveling to and follow that time when you are on the plane. So sleep a little at the beginning of the trip and then stay up and keep busy the rest of the time.

Other than the rush of unpacking, repacking, and moving life has been pretty simple for me. I miss Rome, but my internship keeps me busy enough to not think about it too much. During my free time though I do find myself thinking about Rome and Italy and subconsciously planning my next trip to Europe. As I said in my last post, study abroad if you can. I can’t explain how amazing it was to be able to travel and visit other countries in the time it takes me to drive to another state here in the US. Exploring other countries and learning how to travel on my own has been an invaluable lesson for me. I’m so much more comfortable going places on my own and being by myself. I still love to hang out with friends and family, but I won’t shy away from a solo trip either. That’s definitely something that changed during my time abroad.

It would be a mistake to not mention my roommates in this post. Alyssa, Cate, Keri, and Bekah: it was amazing to get to know you and experience Rome together. I will always remember breakfast for dinner when we didn’t know what else to cook, discovering our pull out couch, the gecko rule, and our roomie trip to Bucharest. Thank you for an amazing experience and remember, this is goodnight and not goodbye. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon.

And to Rome, thank you for an amazing 12 weeks. Thank you for helping me reconnect with my Italian skills, for all the adventures when I got a little turned around, and for all the amazing memories and pictures. I’ll be back to you soon Rome, definitely. Saying goodbye and leaving was difficult, Rome really became another home for me while I studied there, but I know I’ll be back. So thank you for the memories and the experience of a lifetime Rome, I can’t wait to go back.

P.S - if you went to Girl Scout camp at any point in your life, I hope you picked up on my campfire song titles. Every title except for my blog about Easter Mass at the Vatican came from a camp song, my own little scavenger hunt