Riley’s Journals

December 10, 2024

Same Holiday, Different Home

    I know it is no longer November, however this journal is set in that time frame. Stay posted for the December update which will be coming soon!

The greatest experiences I've encountered in my exchange have not been due to random occurrences or sudden fortune. Certainly, I have been incredibly fortunate in a multitude of ways while I've been here; for instance, my incredible host family that has provided me with numerous opportunities to travel, improve my Italian, and, perhaps most importantly, form relationships with people in a place where I once knew no one.

However, even this was not something that has been simply given to me. In order to have this connection with my host family, I had to be able to speak Italian. And without the months I spent learning Italian every day to prepare for my exchange, very little of what I have experienced here would have been possible.

So, in this month of thanks (we will pretend it is still November for a moment here), I want to express my gratitude to my Rotary district who pushed me so hard to learn my language because it has been the most helpful advantage I've had, and also of course to my wonderful parents for making this exchange and all the opportunities that came with it possible in the first place. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank myself for the effort that I put in because I find too often that I disregard the work I've done. Not to sound narcissistic or anything.

At the beginning of this month I went to a baptism for my host niece and attended an event with all of the exchange students in my area and another district, sponsored by Rotary. I explored Milan with a group of friends and then we all met up for lunch. Afterwards I left because I had to leave to head to Verona with my host family. Verona was an amazing experience between the people, the places, and, of course, the food. I was lucky enough to stay with an amazing family who knew a lot about the city of Verona, so in addition to a bed to sleep in and a home to eat in I also received free tour guides of one of the most beautiful cities I've seen in my life. I was able to walk upon a road so ancient it was used by the Romans to transport goods throughout all of the Lombardy region and is still used today and see an arena (Arena di Verona) built before the Colosseum. Verona was absolutely one of my favorite parts of this month and I would love to go back another time.

Two days after I returned from Verona, it became birthday season without my knowledge. We celebrated my host sister's birthday and my host mom's birthday in quick succession, and only two weeks later we celebrated my host father, my host cousin, and my host aunt's birthdays. We ate a lot (probably too much, but who asked?) and shared many gifts. With Christmas just around the corner and more people than ever to give presents to I am constantly trying to find gifts, however it will be rewarding to give them all once it is all said and done.

There were two major events this month that were quite important and food was very prominent in both of them. One of them is a mildly popular holiday in the US that comes at the end of November and revolves almost entirely around food. Yes, we celebrated Thanksgiving. In Italy. Who knew it was possible? I, too, had my doubts as every recipe I have tried to recreate so far has missed crucial ingredients or flavors that altered the taste or degraded the quality of the dish. However, we were extraordinarily fortunate with Thanksgiving as (by my count) we only had to substitute two: corn syrup and Kahlua. Somehow, we managed to find evaporated milk, and I do believe I’ve become an expert on it—between trying to explain what it is in Italian (when I barely understand it in English) and figuring out how it differs from condensed milk (it’s the same, just without the sugar). We ate so much and, ignoring the salami with cheese at the start of the meal, everything was American. We celebrated with all of my host families and at the end we all anonymously wrote down somebody we were thankful for on pieces of paper and placed them in a bag. Then we passed the bag around and read aloud one piece each and it was a very sweet and meaningful way to end our meal. It was their way of adapting to the spirit and purpose of Thanksgiving and it is one I would like to continue even after I leave. They also promised to make Thanksgiving an annual celebration between the families, and I believe this exchange of traditions is one of the biggest reasons to go on exchange. It isn't always about showing your culture but sometimes also about sharing and adapting your culture to your surroundings. It's about merging cultures so that the similarities work in harmony and the differences are given a place as well.

The second big food event was mini-Christmas. Before you get worried, no, this is not an Italian tradition. However, it is Italian tradition to spend Christmas with your family (as it is in many places), and since we are going to Sicily for Christmas this year to see my host dad's family, we won't be able to celebrate with my host mom's family, so we celebrated early instead. At the same time we celebrated my host dad's and a cousin's birthdays and ate. A lot. We celebrated with most of my host mom's family and we played many games, including Spoons (iykyk). And of course, I wouldn't want to leave out the two newer members of the family (I'm the newest, obviously), the children of my host mom's cousins. They were adorable and won honorary medals in all of the games we played (better than a participation reward: an existence reward).

To conclude, I have realized more than anything in these months away from home how many people there are in the world. Every person has their own little network of other people: their family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, classmates, boy/girlfriends, teachers, neighbors, and everything in between. How many people do you know at least the name of? How many people can you say 'hi' to in passing? How many people are you actually close with? Being tossed into another city with a family that has all of these things, as I'm sure all of those reading this do, with the knowledge that I still have two more families to go with just as many connections, makes me realize how close yet how far apart we all are. We all know hundreds, if not thousands, of people, yet somehow no one from my hometown of Decatur, Georgia, has ever met anyone from my town in Lecco or any of the exchange students that I come into contact with every day. But being tossed into this place with so many new people has led to so many relationships that I am slightly dreading any future Christmases. I used to struggle with buying presents for one family and a few friends, and now I will multiply that by three, plus all the friends I make. But meeting all of these new people has made me rethink what we can do in life. We don't need to go meet people all the time to make new connections. We have all the connections we need at right next to us. Because even if you don't know your neighbor 50 houses down (maybe they don't qualify as your neighbor at that point) your next-door neighbor might know their next-door neighbor and that neighbor their's, until you get 50 houses down and suddenly you find out that you've known each other all along. Or that someone did. And that is how we are all connected: not because one person knows everyone, but because together we all know everybody else. And the beauty of exchange is connecting with the people that live not only 50 houses down, but oceans apart.