when in rome...

Last weekend I went to Rome, and fell in LOVE with the city. I saw the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, and many other sights. When we were inside the Vatican Museum, we were out in the courtyard about to begin our tour when I noticed all of the signs about the Sistine Chapel. I realized that every sign was in a different language- I counted it up, and there were 8 languages in all! As I was wandering through the rooms of artwork and old relics, I indeed heard many different languages. I really wasn't too shocked by this revelation, because Rome is definitely known to be an international attraction.




Later, when we were walking around the Forum, I saw a couple that were holding up their camera to take a picture. I offered to take their picture, and the man replied thank you in a very British accent (I thought of you Professor Standish!) After I took their picture, I handed back their camera and him and his wife didn't say goodbye or thank you...instead, in their very Bristish way, they said "cheers!" My friends and I walked away giggling- I hope they didn't think we were rude!





Saturday night in Rome, I decided to go on a pub crawl with a girl from New Zealand I had just met that morning at my hostel...maybe not my safest decision, but I had a GREAT time. We all met up at the Spanish Steps and headed to the first bar. I heard thick Austrailian and New Zealand accents everywhere! We talked in my English class about how Austrailians are big travelers, and I have ran into them in every city I have been in thus far. In fact, my New Zealand friend and I are meeting up in Venice tonight- such a small world!



This picture is of my New Zealand friend Lonneke, and my Brazilian friend Helen...three cultures in one picture!

Italian Chinese?

Because I am an RA, I often have to go on trips to the local towns to supervise. Last night a small group of us went to Bassano del Grappa...I think this was my favorite "local" town yet. We wandering through the streets and made it to the bridge as the sun was beginning to set, and it really was a beautiful scene. Since the majority of us were sick of the cafeteria food, we decided to go to one of the Italian Chinese restaurants there. To me this seems like such an oxymoron...Italian Chinese, really? I wasn't sure what to expect of the food or of the staff. Would it be Italians making Chinese, or Chinese making Chinese?

We got a big table outside and waited for the servers to come. When I saw that it was indeed Chinese people, I wasn't sure whether to use my English, Italian, or just wild hand gestures. Turns out that they did speak Italian, but to each other they spoke their normal language. Most of us weren't exactly sure how to communicate, so we resorted to pathetically pronouncing the Italian words and mixing in some "Grazie's" and "Thank you's". A really cool intercultural experience happened when the one international student with us, Zhou, began speaking to her and what I assumed was a dialect of Chinese. As he kept switching from Chinese to English to a little Italian, it really dawned on me just how much cultures are mixing, and what we can do to be able to effectively communicate with everyone we encounter. Just for future reference, the "Italian" Chinese was absolutely delicious- I will be going back again for sure!



This is a view from the bridge in Bassano...I highly recommend seeing it!

my journey across the pond.

I left Indianapolis, IN at 12:30 pm on Tuesday the 8th of May. Twenty eight hours later, I set my huge, overstuffed, 50lb bag down in my dorm room at Paderno del Grappa. My journey here consisted of planes, trains, and buses- whew! I flew from Indianapolis to JFK in New York then to Madrid and finally to Venice. For the purpose of this blog post, I am supposed to discuss the intercultural communication incidents that may have occurred during my travels. I can for sure say that MANY occurred. My first intercultural experience happened in JFK. When I was trying to get from one terminal to another, I heard so many different languages- I already felt like I was in another world. On my flight to Madrid, I was at first concerned when the flight staff were speaking mainly Spanish. As I mentioned before, I actually do speak Spanish well enough to get around. My brain turned on (traveling tends to make me tired, therefore my brain shuts off) and I asked for cream and sugar with my coffee. First intercultural communication experience= success.

After switching flights and making it to Venice, I heard my first words of Italian and it really hit me- I'm in Italy! After that realization was the fleeting thought of "Crap........I can't speak Italian." My first encounter with the language barrier resulted in me doing wild gestures to find out where the bus was to pick us up, and sticking my nose in my Italian phrase book like the tourist that I am. Being a communications major, it really bothered me that I couldn't speak the language. I wanted to make small talk, to know the stories of the people that were helping me get to my final destination of Paderno. All in all, my travel to Paderno went extremely smoothly. After the bus incident, we (myself and the other RAs) made it to the train station, got on the train, then got a bus, and made it to Paderno. I have now been in Italy one week, and the only other intercultural communication fail I have had happened in my day trip to Venice last weekend. I would like to say that I really do consider myself a traveler- I have been to 15+ countries, which I consider to be a fairly good amount.

On the train to Venice, I bought a large bottle of water to drink knowing that I would get dehydrated walking around Venice all day. By the time I got there, I really, really had to go. As my group of friends were walking down the tiny streets of Venice (more like foot paths really) I was looking for the usual symbol for restroom, the male and female figures. After a good half an hour of searching, I stopped at a restaurant and asked, "Bano???" The waiter pointed to a sign nearly directly above my head that had a "WC" on it. I was really frustrated and said "no, bano!" At that point I REALLY had to go though, so I went down the narrow sidestreet to where the sign pointed. Lo and behold, it was a bathroom. Even though it wasn't the type of communication that is typically thought of (such as speaking or the language barrier) I did have intercultural communication issues because I wasn't aware of the meaning of the WC sign. I am quickly learning that in order to not be a nervous wreck when traveling in a country that is speaking a language I do not know (or have signs I don't recognize) that I must realize communication errors will happen, and I just have to roll with the punches. Until next time, ciao!