Hey guys~ as I mentioned before, I'm going to be adding some of my journal entries from the Intercultural Communications class I took this semester. In the class we were required to write one journal entry per week about our experiences abroad. We also read Charting A Hero's Journey, a collection of journal entries by writers who traveled abroad for work, study, or no particular reason at all. The book was divided up into 12 stages that generally make up cultural assimilation (i.e. Stage 1- Leaving Home, Stage 5-Facing the Challenges, Stage 12-Returning Home...). We were encouraged to write honestly about what we love and hate about our experience and tell the stories of our journey. Since I don't have much time to add entries during my last week I hope these will suffice! Here are a few of my entries (sorry if some of the spacing is messed up, I'm copying the text from a Word document. Talk to you all soon!
----------
Intercultural Communications
02/10/2004
Stage 4: Winkler
As our plane hovered above the runway at Leonardo da Vinci Airport I couldn’t help but be reminded of a line from a movie I once saw. The line said, “Everything’s always cooler in a foreign country.” I don’t really know what made me remember the line because it really didn’t mean anything to me when I first heard it, but for some reason the memory of it came back to me at the precise moment when I could finally understand its meaning. To my foreign eyes everything in the landscape below really did seem cooler than anything I’d seen before. The trees were beautiful! The air traffic controllers looked friendly! The color of the runway pavement was the perfect shade of grey! As we made our final approach my body felt as stiff as the pavement I had been admiring. It felt physically impossible to turn my head away from the plane window. I kept my eyes glued to the unfamiliar landscape below. Looking back I realize that what I was seeing was nothing exotic, but the thought that I was thousands of miles from anywhere I’d ever been before was more than enough to keep my attention. Seconds later, the screech of the wheels and landing gear startled me, waking me from what had felt like an elaborate daydream. But to my surprise I woke to the same reality I’d thought I had been daydreaming about. I was finally here in Italy and everything really was beautiful.
Although many of those thoughts now seem little more than idiotic musings of a naïve traveler, the seconds before landing in Rome will forever remain one of my first and fondest memories of this trip. A couple days later I would be disappointed to find out that my pre-landing experience had been already been pigeonholed by psychologists as little more than the gleeful first stage of culture shock. How sad, I thought, that few days later the trash on Roman streets would seem decidedly less charming. -----------------------------------------------------------------
Intercultural Comm.
Stage X: Discovering the Boon
3/30/04
Being in Europe has allowed me to experience things I never thought I’d be able to experience in my lifetime, let alone all in the matter of three months. More than that, however, it has taught me how quickly our human nature allows us to adapt to our surroundings. In just a short time, the Villa has truly started to feel like home and my classmates like a close, if not, slightly dysfunctional, family. What’s surprising is that all the things I thought I could never live without have become distant memories in a mind preoccupied with making Eurail reservations, booking hostels in foreign countries, and finding out when schoperas are going to take place.
It has actually been quite humbling to learn that my home and my family- my entire lifeblood in the U.S., is relatively meaningless in Europe. The world doesn’t care where I come from. It doesn’t matter to anyone in Italy that I come from a small suburban Ohio town that’s only brush with fame happened four years ago when Senator John McCain held a political rally in my high school gym during his unsuccessful bid for the 2000 presidency. In many ways it’s been nice being in a section of the world that has no idea who I am. I’m happy to know that there’s an entire population of people who don’t know personal details of my life. Frankly, I’m glad that the checkout lady at the Supermercato only cares that I pay with exact change and ----EDITED FOR CONTENT BY MY DAD-----) Being apart from everything I know and once thought that I needed has allowed me to truly realize my existence in the context of the world.
I never thought I’d say this, but I might just be able to live without Starbucks caramel frappuchinos, must see television, and being logged on to AOL Instant Messenger 24/7, now if only I could learn a little Italian!
----------------------------------------
Stage IX- Emily Bronson Conger
Journal 9
March 23, 2004
For the most part, I found myself agreeing with Emily Bronson Conger’s journal entry about feeling safer and more at ease in the places that felt more European. I too, have often found myself feeling more comfortable in places that remind me of my home in the good old Western hemisphere. However, there are times when I can’t stand hearing complaints about all the aspects of Italian life that are slightly less desirable than what one would find at home. As I see it, there are a lot less things to complain about here at the Italian campus than at Duquesne’s home campus in Pittsburgh. Here, I have come to detest the members of our group who can never seem to stop talking about missing the food and atmosphere of home. I especially hate the nightly dinner conversations about how bad Italian food is. Sick of pasta?! You’re eating the best in world! Your friends and family would absolutely love having the authentic Italian meal that’s sitting in front of you!*
What really gets to me, however, are the unrelenting discussions about Heinz ketchup and Ranch dressing. Never have I heard such affection for a garnish that comes in a 16 ounce plastic bottle. At dinner I often feel like I’m proctoring a meeting for people with an addiction to condiments. (“My name is Carrie and it’s been six weeks since my last taste of Heinz ketchup.”) At this point I’m embarrassed to admit that I know of more than few people who’d probably auction off their grandmothers in return
for a dab of ketchup on a hamburger and Ranch-drenched salad. It sometimes takes all of my willpower to stop myself from asking my “tablemates” if whether they require daily injections of the ranch dressing and ketchup at home.
I won’t kid myself and say that I don’t miss the food and atmosphere of home at all, because I certainly do. There are have been times when I would much prefer eating a dinner of mom’s meatloaf while watching old episodes of Full House instead of spending the evening racing down to Pizza Rustica and back up Vitinia hill in time to book a hotel in a city where I’ll be arriving in no less than twelve hours. I am, however, proud to say that I will be spending my first day home from Italy with my family rather than soaking in a bath of Heinz ketchup and Ranch dressing.
*This, of course, excludes all Villa meals containing seafood, eggs, and the infamous breaded mystery meat
--------------------------
Until next time~
-Carrie
| 
Our entire group is going out dancing tonight and we need to check out of the hotel tomorrow after the Papal audience at St. Peter's in the morning. My flight leaves Thursday morning and I'll be arriving in Pittsburgh that night.