You start with a plain tortilla shell. Next you add Salami, sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, and spinach. You then roll it all up into one large burrito and fry it in a pan with olive oil. When the burrito reaches a brown crisp, you take it out of the pan, put it on a plate, and drizzle it with balsamic. This is how you make the perfect Italian burrito. When I first signed up to study abroad in Rome, I did not imagine the majority of my meals would be this ridiculous concoction I invented myself. In fact, my entire experience in Italy turned out to be one big fat Italian burrito; messy, overfilled, slightly absurd, and is fragilely being held together by a thin shell that could burst at any moment; and at the same time, savory and wonderful in its own unique way.
If you think the streets of Rome are crowded, dirty, and full of garbage, you should see the inside of my apartment. I live in a small four-bedroom three-bathroom apartment with eight other girls. Zoey and Rachel are in my room, to the right of us are Ashley and Lyndsey, to the left of us are Hannah and Julie, in the front of the apartment are Jillian and Olivia. Our honorary roommate Hannah’s boyfriend Alex lives on our couch. Each morning I sit at the kitchen table and eat my cereal over Alex because the couch and the kitchen table are right next to each other. At first it was just super uncomfortable, but I have grown to enjoy are morning conversations and I think he enjoys waking up to the sound of my cereal crunching.
The first thing you notice when you enter the apartment is the massive pileup of trash by the door. We have a chore schedule, but no one knows whose week it is, so we just let the pile build by the door; and yes, it does smell repulsive. The narrow hallway is lined with four overfilled drying racks and our ironing board that we use as a drying rack because four racks is simply not enough, and no one knows how to iron anyway. Although, the drying racks do make for a very original and colorful interior design.
The bedrooms are even more cramped. My room consists of three “beds” which are promoted as twin sized, although I would argue they are small enough to be considered cots. My roommates and live one on top of the other. Our beds are all lined up in a row and there is only a foot and a half of space between each of our beds, we measured. We are constantly bumping into one another to move about the room. Lucky for me, I sleep in the bed directly next to the door. I will be the first to know if someone tries to break into our room because my body hangs over the side of my bed and the door hits me every time anyone comes in or out, which on average is about three times a night. We were given one closet and one dresser for all three of us to share. This means 90% of my clothing is still in my suitcase under my cot of a bed.
Our kitchen started out with a full set of pots, pans, dishes, and silverware. By the fourth week we were down to one fork two knives and a single mug that is chipped on one side. All of our spoons and plates are still intact. I have come to the conclusion that all of the mugs were broken over the course of the semester, but it is really difficult to break a fork so I have no explanation for that, and as far as the knives go, I would rather know who is stealing them or for what reason. Our fridge is smaller than the mini fridge in my freshman year dorm room. We divided it into shelves based off rooms. Storage in general in the kitchen is a nightmare. Every shelf is packed full of groceries. It is so bad that Rachel actually keeps her food in the cupboard above the tv stand. She has to climb onto the tv stand to reach her food. She never complained about this until one night she came home late and climbed up for a late-night snack. Reaching for her food she dropped her Nutella onto the ground causing it to shatter below her. She had no shoes on and couldn’t get down, so she slept on the tv stand that night until someone woke up the next morning and rescued her.
It would make the most sense for us to all pitch in for groceries and make our meals together, but instead we each buy our own food and cram into the kitchen together to cook our own meals. This is because we all have very different very obscure eating habits. Zoey is a vegetarian who is disgusted by the sight of meat, so Zoey makes vegetable stir fry for every meal. Meanwhile, I am anemic who needs to eat a significant amount of meat to keep my iron at a healthy level so I make my Italian burrito for most meals. Hannah puts a mozzarella ball into a bowl filled of balsamic for dinner and usually leaves it half eaten somewhere in the apartment, Oliva and Jillian eat take out from Pico’s, the Mexican restaurant around the corner, Julie cooks a different elaborate meal very night, and Rachel eats Ramen Noodles. Cooking dinner in our apartment is like a poorly orchestrated dance. We duck and weave our way around one another, like the mopeds in the streets, just barely avoiding collision with each maneuver. Every burner is on high and every pot, pan, and plate is being used. There is no way to explain dinner in our house other than just one big fire hazard. We alternate each night who gets to use the fork based depending on whose dish requires it most. It is not a traditional Italian dinner you will witness here in Santa Rufina unit 7, but it is our tradition and it works for us.
Surviving in these conditions takes a lot of creativity and a lot of innovation. For example, everyone in my room was provided with a towel and a wash cloth that was nicely placed at the foot of their bed when they moved in. I for whatever reason was not provided with the same luxury. When I shower, I bring my entire bed sheet to the bathroom with me. We all know the expression, “when in Rome…” So being my true authentic Roman self, when I get out of the shower, I wrap my bedsheet around me like a toga to dry off and prance about my palace like a Roman Empress.
The only thing more comedic than our lifestyles is our room group chat. We don’t use it often except for urgent announcements such as, “My friend is sleeping on our bathroom floor… don’t be frazzled if you see her… sorry for the inconvenience” or “Someone’s food (I think stir fry) fell out of the trash and is all over the kitchen floor.” There was also the time I checked my phone in class to a message reading, “Who are these random middle-aged men speaking Hebrew in our apartment and can someone get them out?” My concern was not put to ease in the slightest by Julie’s response, “I found them in the street they are from Jerusalem and didn’t have any data so I told them they could come use our wifi.” The most concerning message I received was at 3am reading, “hey guys can we please stop leaving the front door wide open.” Although, if a burglar did break into our apartment, it’s not like we have anything of that much value for him to take. What is he going to steal, our last fork? He would probably take one look at the place and run out in disgust. Just to give you an idea of how disorderly and chaotic the place is; my roommate Rachel and I one night thought it would be funny to flip all of the paintings throughout the place upside down, that was three months ago, and no one has noticed yet.
My lifestyle in Rome Italy is not exactly a traditional Italian lifestyle. It also is not exactly what I imagined my study abroad experience to be like. But when you take these loud, messy, mug shattering, dish stealing girls and wrap them up into a little apartment, what you get is a lot of laughs and a lot of memories. To outsiders this may not seem like the ideal living situation, just like my burrito may not seem like the ideal Italian meal, but when you actually experience this jam packed, messy, slight absurd burrito of a lifestyle you wouldn’t trade it for the best cacio e pepe in all of Italy.
Italian Burrito
1 White flower tortilla shell 1 ball of mozzarella cheese
5 slices of salami ½ cup of Spinach
1 tomato thinly sliced 2 Tbs Olive Oil
2 Tbs Balsamic Dressing
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