Roma -- 05/06/07

After a long night of staying up and watching the Oscar de la Hoya fight live at “The Pack” sports pub in Prague with a few foreign ex-pats, I went back to the apartment I rented on Karoliny Svetle #9 and gathered my things. I only got about 45 minutes of shut eye before the taxi came. The flight to Rome was pretty uneventful other than the fact it was packed with Italians.

During my time at Accenture’s training facility in St. Charles, Illinois, in between training sessions we’d often find video clips to play for the trainees in order to provide brief moments of entertainment. I clearly remember one animated video in which it showed how Italians different from other citizens of the European Union. In this video clip it pokes fun at Italians as loud and unruly, which so far I find to be less of a jest and more of an accurate stereotype. As I learned in my cross-cultural communications course last module, stereotypes are great “shortcuts” into gleaning insight into a foreign culture.

On my way to the apartment where I’ll be staying, I saw several scooters (“motorini”) and plenty of Pizza joints. I’m staying with a middle-aged German woman who has been living in Rome for the past 30 years. She’s a journalist and still writes for various German publications. I would classify her as a former hippie, and one who is still very much a woman grounded deeply in reality. Quite the intellectual, she speaks German (natively), (excellent) English, French, Italian, and a little Russian and Portuguese! A woman after my own heart! She admitted that she formerly had anti-American sentiments, but confessed that was not her reason for never having visited the US. She confessed that she has a sincere fear of flying and prefers the 17 hour train ride to Germany over the much cheaper and faster option of flying.

After not having slept much from the night before, I decided to take a long nap. I was awoken to being called for dinner. My host mother prepared me spaghetti with pesto, a green salad and fresh “salata caprese.” My host mother and I talked about various things about Rome. She loaned me her map and I decided to walk around the neighborhood to familiarize myself with the surroundings. My neighborhood, Monteverde Vecchio, is a little far from the city center. Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking the Tram #8 from Piazza San Giovanni di Dio to the final stop on the line, Largo Argentina.Time to get some sleep for my big day tomorrow...