Author: danielkraemer

This summer enabled me to meet people and have conversations I would have never thought to have. I went to Timisoara, Romania for a weekend without knowing a soul there. I walked around cities older than anything I had ever seen before.

            This summer ignited my already growing interests in City Planning. Seeing how different a city can be and weighing the pros and cons of different layouts was fascinating. I could never have imagined how easy train travel could be between cities thousands of miles apart. I didn’t realize a massive city like Milan could ban personal cars in their downtown areas. I now want to study more and find out how I can give American cities the same feeling of walkability with small local shops, plenty of public transportation, and frequent cultural events. Every household broke their trash into 6 categories for compost, different recycling, and trash. I love composting and having to go back to throwing away my food waste since returning has been very difficult. I am inspired to bring to the US the same sustainable standards that Italy holds itself to and keep trying until the entire country has more livable and sustainable cities.

            Being abroad opened my food palate and allowed me to try incredible foods. I had pasta at least once a day which was amazing because I didn’t gain weight. The biggest surprise was going from not liking mozzarella cheese and tomatoes to having them be my favorite food abroad. Everything was so fresh I couldn’t believe it.

            These 3 months in Italy included some of the best days of my life. It also included a lot of very lonely days where I felt very far from home and very hopeless. Having such a large language barrier is difficult, because I would want to have the same deep, complex conversations as I do with people in the US, but my vocabulary would limit many of my statements into more obvious, simplistic statements. I had to get used to being seen as a hopeless child in certain situations that followed along without knowing where I was going or what was being discussed. I grew frustrated multiple times with how I was messing up different Italian grammar and was at times very nervous to talk in fear of getting judged.

            By the end, my Italian had improved by a lot, as I went from only studying grammar and asking broken questions with my private teacher, to having 2-hour conversations about immigration, transportation, politics, and culture. That last week of class has been one of my proudest moments, and I’m glad I was able to reach that level of Italian proficiency. I look forward to continuing taking Italian classes now after gaining such a great insight into Italian life. 

After asking a 30-year-old priest, a 23-year-old local, and a few different retired people, the concepts brought up the most were: trump, guns, breakfast, and Chicago.

            Everyone wants to know my opinions on Trump as well as whether I want to buy a gun. I tried to give a balanced perspective on both sides. It was still hard for them to understand how we allow for so many school shootings. They literally couldn’t understand why America loves guns so much. They also wanted to know how an American views Trump. They listened intently and shared their own perspectives on what direction their country is going in. 

            Italians love American Breakfast. The idea of waking up and having a plate full of waffles, pancakes, bacon, and eggs is a dream. Many people said it was their favorite food despite only having it a few times.

            Additionally, when I said I was from the US many people said that was the only place they visited in the US, that, and Chicago. I find this very interesting because those are very Italian cities. Additionally, whenever I said I was from Chicago, I would get “Al Capone!” “Blues Brothers!” “The Bean” and “Michael Jordan.” It was humbling to see my city to be simplified into these small parts of the larger culture and history of Chicago. However, on the other hand, them knowing anything about Chicago gave me pride in my city. People from the other side of the ocean new a few famous people and artifacts in MY city.

            I don’t expect them to know anything more than that, especially as I know very little about any world geography.

Siena has an incredibly strong cultural identity completely surrounding the “Palio,” a 10 minute horse race that is in reality a 4 month cultural celebration. Siena is broken into different neighborhoods or “contradas” and each one has its own flag, mascot, and horse in the race. Palio occurs every year in “Piazza del Campo,” an oddly shaped track that causes many injuries during the race.

Palio is something that affects every person in Siena, and I am convinced they have an entire class on it at some point during their education because each person I talked to about Palio knew everything there was to know about it. In a country where soccer dominates all sports conversations, to see a town where the biggest thing was a race that only happened once a year and only by residents of this small town of 80,000 people is pretty special. I wondered what they would think about an ND tailgate

In Italy, there are many social problems. Two that I found particularly interesting is their extreme drought as well as their dealing with refugees.

On the conversation of refugees, I talked to people working at refugee camps, Refugees, and native Italians without any direct insight into the issue. Many people mentioned the peculiar situation of Italy going from a country with huge portions of the populations fleeing poverty and going to the US and Brazil to a country with millions of people trying to sneak into the country every year through dangerous, overpacked boats from Africa. Italy is also not a country with a flourishing economy as I originally imagined. Therefore, the idea of people going to Italy for better job opportunity is very unexpected.

One idea that I heard about during my Italian class in the fall and then researched more since being over here is the 1 Euro houses in southern Italy. These are attempts to protect small towns currently abandoned due to young Italians fleeing to big cities like Milan, Rome, or leaving Italy entirely in search of work. There has been a recent movement to try to integrate many of the incoming immigrants into these places to reduce the depopulation currently occurring there. While this is a good idea for depopulation, it doesn’t address the fact that these people are trying to get into Italy for economic opportunity not present in the South.

When I first arrived, I realized that the difference between vocabulary used in class and what is used on a day-to-day basis in real conversation don’t perfectly overlap. Needing to find the word for different cooking utensils, directions, etc. were vocabulary we covered but not practiced repeatedly was a struggle. Additionally, the imperative tense is used very infrequently in an academic setting but in daily conversations it is used every other sentence. 

Additionally, I had never realized that the phrases used by my professors weren’t just indirect translations, instead, they were active parts of native speaker’s day-to-day. For instance, “Dimmi!”, meaning “tell me,” is a staple of an Italian conversation. While the direct translation continues to sound demanding and rude to my ears, Italians use it in the same way as “yeah what’s up?” when someone addresses you by name. Every person I have met uses dimmi, and while I will need to intentionally think to use it, I will be trying to integrate this more and more into my Italian.

Furthermore, people use the word “Vabbé” constantly. Meaning something close to “oh well,” it is a slang from the phrase “Va bene” and has now turned into an active part of their vocabulary. This is something I have begun to say, even muttering to myself when alone. Knowing how the word was created makes me appreciate it, and using this and other small phrases repeatedly throughout the day helps keep me into an Italian mindset.

I believe that continuing to learn is a crucial part of a person’s life. Becoming satisfied with only what one knows can cause them to become ignorant. As I have aged, I find myself interacting with a larger amount of people from different backgrounds than myself. Going to Notre Dame, I have interacted with people from across the world with diverse interests of study. Diving into countless conversations with these people different from me has introduced me to a multitude of different ways one could view life. Therefore, I imagine living and studying in a different country can lead to a greater understanding of the people and their culture.

Studying in Italy as an outsider should be very challenging. I will have to ask for help every time I don’t know where to go or what to do, and nothing will be familiar. While I am usually very talkative and social, I don’t know how intimidated I will be when forced to communicate through a language I am not as comfortable with. Through this experience, I should be able to take a step back and really appreciate how impressive it is to be bilingual.

When abroad, I am really interested in hearing local’s perspectives on their current and past political situations. In my most recent Italian class, “Exploring Italian Culture,” we talked about the important historical events that occurred and how they affected Italy. Having the chance to speak to Italians about how they view their country is an opportunity I will be sure not to pass up. Furthermore, I hope to be able to find some of their favorite shows and music to take as recommendations. There is so much music, TV shows, and movies that I have only found through friends recommending them. Therefore, there must be a lot of Italian media that I would also enjoy. I am extremely excited and looking forward to the moment I land in Italy.