Day 14 - Coconut and Banana

Buena Sera!

Welcome back to my blog. Thanks for reading, as per usual.

The Walking Trend

I have been keeping track of my activity over the course of my time in Rome with a FitBit purchased in preparation for the trip. Week three has just started, and I am starting to notice a trend. All last week, I was consistently hitting well over 15,000 steps, or around seven miles. Starting a couple days ago, however, I have been walking around less and less.

Isn't this bar graph neat though?

I am still walking a ton, admittedly. Due to the exploratory nature of class time, we end up walking around a bunch. However, I have been much less inclined to do things outside of class, on my own or with others. It seems to me like many of the people in my group feel the same.

Excitement vs Fatigue 

It has been a great deal of fun to walk around in Rome. Personally, I am fine going out by myself if the situation presents itself, and I have been doing plenty of going out with my group or my roommates as well. However, recently I have been returning to the apartment after class ends, maybe stopping for gelato, and calling it a day. I am guessing that is not what my teachers had in mind when they planned out the schedule.

Early on, the group would meet and be together until 5 or so. We would get home sweaty and tired, but most of the time people would hop into the shower and then go out to dinner, or go to the Trevi Fountain. Now, our apartment is quiet as people take naps and eat cereal or home-cooked pasta. Personally, I sit in bed, watch videos online, and fall asleep on occasion. 

That really was not what I expected when I signed up.

The first week, I did a lot of sleeping. I was jet-lagged and unused to the amount of walking we were putting in on a daily basis. The second week, I did a lot of walking. I had sites to see and things to do. I was happy to just be in Rome. I took pictures because I had never seen so many nude statues in my life. That sort of thing.

Now, walking around Rome is taking on more of a been-there-done-that feel. Hey, there's the Roman Forum, again. And the Colosseum. Isn't the metro big? Hey, this gelato place has a bunch of flavors I have seen before. You know you are suffering from something when you are cynical about the most wondrful ice cream in the world.

Seriously, this stuff is so good.

At this point, I am beginning to wonder if I have been spending too much time in Rome. This is a possible explanation for the fatigue I am feeling. After all, there is only so many times one can pay 5 euro for pizza before getting tired of it. Stop charging me five euro for pizza. I can get the same amount for two.

A Proposed Solution

I wonder if Lisa, our instructor who looks at the blogs, will read this post. It is not a blog day, so she doesn't HAVE to. But I have been thinking about my experience a lot in the last couple of days. 

One of the ways that I would get more out of this trip, rather than spending the day in my room where the only difference between here and home is that at home I have A/C, would be going outside of Rome more. We got three "free days" on the trip. One was spent in Pompeii for most of us, which while technically optional, is not really something I consider "missable" on my trip. There are a couple of days where we start late or end early, and I wish those were used more efficiently. I would hike for hours a day in the Italian heat if it meant that I got to see Florence, Milan, Venice. 

I have seen so many museums I can occasionally dream of frozen people made out of white marble. There is very little to distinguish one museum from another, besides maybe a headlining piece that no other museum has. That really isn't enough, in my opinion, for the price of admission and the hours wandering aimlessly around. 

Maybe I am on the wrong trip if I wanted to see more of Italy than just Rome. Maybe I could have just gone out on my own for a couple of weeks, going around Italy or even Europe and experiencing more than just the gelato, the traffic, the tourists of Rome. Then again, before this trip I am not sure if I would be capable of doing that, either alone or with family or friends. Maybe the planning of this trip could have taken into account budding wanderlust. Or maybe it's just me.

I've gotten 100% on my last two weeks of participation grades. I wonder if losing out on the third week's points would hurt my grade any... There's a train station nearby.

Coming Up Next Time

I may or may not be in France by then. We'll see. Until then,

Ciao!