Submitted by Kaitlyn McConeghy on the 2018 spring semester program in Rome, Italy…
The past couple weeks have been “midterm” weeks here at JCU, and we’ve ended up spending pretty much every day studying. After a particularly tough day at the library the other day (it was a Saturday, it was beautiful out and the library was absolutely the last place that I wanted to be), I had a moment of clarity. My friend and I were heading back home together and on our way home, we started talking about how disappointed we get sometimes when we feel like we are missing out on Rome and abroad things because we’re studying so much. When we got to the point where we would turn right to head back to our apartment, on a whim, we decided to hook a left and head into the city.
We ended up wandering over to the Colosseum which was absolutely stunning at night. It was really cool to walk around uninhibited by the crowds of tourists, street performers and people getting up in your face trying to sell you fake tickets to “cut the line.” We were able to chill, breathe and actually just enjoy the site.
We ended up doing lap after lap around the Colosseum, talking about our experience so far—the highs and the lows—and what we hope the rest of our experience will be like. When I’m having a rough day here in Rome, I try to remind myself that there are good and bad days at home, and there will be good and bad days here. When you see people studying abroad on Instagram, you only see the good—the insta-worthy pics of them eating delicious pizza and seeing beautiful sites, but you don’t see the bad or the scary or the difficult—the trams that never come, the laundry machines that lock with all of your clothes inside, the dropped Facetime calls when all you want to do is talk to your best friend at home. On a “bad” day at home, I probably would have stayed at Club Morris until closing, and then walked home to my apartment and fell asleep. On a “bad” day in Rome, I left the library and headed to see the Colosseum in the moonlight. I’m learning that there are good and bad days wherever you are, but here’s hoping that the good will far outweigh the bad.