Ciao for Now, USA

Hello, friends!

Well, the time is officially almost here: on Wednesday, I finally make my journey over to Rome to study interreligious studies for a year at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. The past few weeks have been fairly busy. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which things absolutely need to come along in my suitcase (Splenda) and which I can probably leave behind (both pairs of my way-too-high high heels). I managed to navigate the less-than-user-friendly Italian consulate system and finally managed to get my "visto" (good through next July). And I've reminded myself numerous times that no matter how nervous I may get in the next few days, I really do remember how to speak Italian fairly well and so won't be completely lost in my new home for the next year.

But what about the things I'm not realizing? I've now been fortunate enough to move to Europe twice (in 2011 for a study abroad semester in Florence, Italy, and in 2012 for an internship with the Welsh Assembly in Wales, UK), so I'm feeling a little bit too calm for my own good. A little too confident in my ability to handle a move across the pond. I've intentionally spent this summer trying to appreciate how much I love the place where I grew up--Long Island, with the beautiful light on the East End when the sun sets, the look of the beach when it's hazy out. I don't think I've fully succeeded. I predict the adrenaline will kick in as soon as I leave my parents behind at security (and immediately remember ten absolutely essential American products I forgot to pack).

Me in the Colosseum in Rome, Italy back in 2011

There are a few things about this move that should really be getting me a little more nervous than I am. The first is that I've never gone away to Europe for this long, a whole year. Sure, I've lived abroad, but always with an end date in mind, and that date only a few months in the future. Which brings up the second new thing for me...I have not purchased a return flight. I mean, I'll be home for Christmas and New Year's for two weeks in December, and I vaguely plan to come stateside for part of July next year, but past that, it's a little up in the air. Some people may know my ideal next step would be to continue on to get my Master's in the UK in interreligious or Judaic studies. If that miraculously works out, what will I end up doing next summer? Working for a Jewish community in Scotland? Helping out at an interfaith organization in London? Bumming around the states?

The third thing that has me a little uncomfortable is the lack of a liberal Jewish community in Rome. As religion has grown more important to me over the past few years, I've realized that living in a place like Rome for a prolonged period of time probably wouldn't be ideal. I loved my college, but living in a place where I did not find my religious community made me realize that in my "adult" life I ideally hope to live in a place with liberal Jews. Which really means some places in the US or the UK. I figure that this course of study in Rome is so important to and fitting for me that I'm willing to forsake my earlier pledge to live near liberal Jews for this year, but it would be so easy to then say that again if something else comes up next year, and then the year after that, and on and on. If it's important enough to me, though, at some point I'll have to make the decision about whether or not I need a liberal Jewish community in my life constantly. I have certainly valued being home this month, because I was able to spend both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with my family and my home synagogue for the first time in four years. We shall see.

So what do I expect this coming year? I expect to be hit a little bit with culture shock, given my current (unwise) lack of nervousness. I expect to field a lot of questions from other students at my Catholic university, since I will be one of, if not the only, Jewish person in the group (which I am always happy to answer, yet can sometimes be tiring when there's no one else there who can fully understand my perspective). I expect to miss home, family, and friends, as I always do, but also to adopt the sense of independence I so value whenever I live in a city. And I expect to start figuring out what to do with the rest of my life...or at least with the next few years.

So for now, arrivederci! The next time I post, it will be from Rome. It might take me two or three weeks to get settled enough to write, but never fear--I imagine I'll have a lot of comments once I really get entrenched in the city that houses the center of Catholicism. And I'll do my best to avoid too many kitschy Italian phrases in my posts (okay, maybe just a few).

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson