Cape Town, London, Cairo — they were dots on a map to me
when Winter Quarter began last year; fantasies and stereotypes. I wanted to
make them something more, or at least one of them. I had no idea where I would
study abroad. Perhaps Turkey, Italy or China. At the time, the task of choosing
seemed impossible.
Having taken Italian language classes for a few years, Italy
had been an obvious choice in my study-abroad selection. I was learning the
culture from a textbook and had spent my summer between community college and
UCSD wandering the country’s northern parts. Italy was tangible, but I wanted
the unknown.
Now, on my winter break from the American University in
Cairo, I find myself wondering about the experience of studying in another
city, particularly one I have now spent nearly two weeks exploring on my winter
vacation and one that appears to be more unknown than I had assumed a year ago:
Rome.
Hotel Laurentia, with its red-carpeted lobby, bulky hotel
key chains, dual twin beds, collection of tiny shampoo bottles and housekeeping
service, made my first six nights in Rome feel like a vacation. And, I suppose,
rightfully so.
The complimentary platter of breads, cheese, cereals, fruit
and coffee available every morning, immaculately clean bathrooms, tucked bed
corners, ever-lasting supply of fresh towels and friendly welcomes from the
hotel’s staff prompted my contemplations of what it might have been like
studying at the university down the street instead of passing through on
vacation.
I spent the second half of my trip to Italy in a friend’s
small, third floor apartment. The ripe-tangerine couch, covered in a soft
flower print sheet, sat adjacent to a small, classically decorated Christmas
tree donning red -and-gold globes and an unevenly spun golden sash.
When I spent the third of January wandering through the
farmland countryside near my host’s apartment, which divides the city from the
mountains, the quiet, suburban and un-trampled aspects of Rome one isn’t able
to fully discover, even during an 11-night stay, settled back into my thoughts.
During the less-eventful moments of my Roman vacation, like
a bus ride across town or a supermarket run for orange juice and a pack of
Camel Lights, I think about the little moments that separate visitors from residents.
Hearing about someone’s day trip to Florence and another
person’s last-minute train ride from Paris, it’s easy to envy the simplicity of
travel through Europe compared to the restrictions in Egypt: visas, border
checks and regulations dictating foreigner’s travel; rundown trains, reckless
minibus drivers and tourist convoys.
Having spent four months in Cairo, my routine has become
much like it was in San Diego. I go to classes, study, distract myself with
movies and spend time with friends at restaurants, coffee shops or bars.
However, trips to the pyramids, down the Nile, into the Sahara — they are all
interspersed between commonplace activities. I certainly would not have such
opportunities had I remained my whole college career at UCSD.
But the routine has another side, one that is changing my
perspectives and my view of the world: casually dodging cars as I cross the
street at a walk signal, being careful not to accidentally board the women’s
car on the metro, hearing the five calls to prayer each day ringing out from
the hundreds and maybe thousands of mosques throughout the city, being easily
pegged as an outsider and overcoming a language barrier in even the most
mundane of everyday tasks.
How would this routine, and with it my world perspective,
have been shaped differently had I studied in Rome? Enjoying penne
all’arrabiata and bruschetta instead of falafel and hummus, red and white wines
instead of mango juice and tea; miniskirts, stilettos and Dolce and Gabbana
instead of hijabs, burkas and poorly made knock-offs; Catholicism instead of
Islam.
On Jan. 3, I spent the night drinking wine on a gaudy orange
couch, staring at the 19-inch television under the four-foot plastic Christmas
tree. Watching “Natural Born Killers,” I thought to myself, “I could do this
anywhere.” Cape Town, Ankara, London or Moscow. I could have done this in
Buenos Aires, Mexico City or Cairo. I could do this in San Diego.
It was a 30-minute bus ride from the Coliseum, the Vatican,
the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. It may as well have been a 30-minute bus
ride from the pyramids, the Sphinx or the shores of the Nile. It may as well
have been 30 minutes from the Gaslamp Quarter or the San Diego Zoo.
Even in 12 days, a routine started to emerge. But weaved
among the work, the television and the pub was life as a foreigner: the
challenge of language barriers, discovering history and understanding custom.
It’s the routine, together with the struggles, the clashes and adventures that
make up experience and alter perspective. Studying in Cairo has been just the
challenge and experience, the journey into the unknown that I sought during the
long challenge of choosing where to study abroad. The routine is a part of that
experience, and I am thrilled to have it.
This Winter Quarter, students all over UCSD will be staring
down at maps, wondering where they might be next year. If faced with dots on a
map again, I would still choose Cairo. I believe it is the place that
challenged my world perspective the most, and helped me learn not just in the
classroom, but also in the streets and the community. But all those other dots,
those fantasies and stereotypes, they offer whole worlds to explore as well. So
perhaps, next time, I’ll choose Rome.