Firstly and most importantly, we need to incorporate brioche con gelato into our daily routines. Basically, it’s an ice cream sandwich, but not at all like the ones that we have. It’s an actual roll that’s got gelato piled inside of it. The best part is, Sicilians eat it for breakfast – daily. I’d like to hear someone come up with a better way to start the day.

 

Thirdly, and surprisingly not having to do with food, is our use of English. Even if it is the most widely spoken language in the world, L'italiano è molto più bello. Take the word chocolate, for example. It’s cioccolato, pronounced “chee-oh-coh-la-to.” Isn’t that just more fun to say? 

One more thing is the way we dress. I expected Europeans to dress much better than me, obviously, but it still was kind of shocking. Even on the nine hour flight from Atlanta to Rome, I felt awkward in my sweatpants next to the Italian in her stiletto boots and sweater dress. After that I definitely ditched the sweatpants. What might have surprised me the most was what men wore. I knew that girls would put more effort into their clothes than Americans typically do, but seeing guys with designer coats, bags, sunglasses, etc. was a bit unexpected. 

And then there’s all of the ancient ruins and typical tourist sights that Wauwatosa sort of lacks, but what can you do about that? I guess there’s The Little Red Store.

 

                              *A couple suggestions...

I’ve just started packing, and I’m already beginning to feel culture shock: I’m not supposed to bring sweatpants.

Over spring break, I’m going to Italy on a school trip. I think it goes without saying that I’m super excited, especially because I’ve never been out of the country before. I’ve been preparing for awhile now, buying things and trying to learn some Italian. I think that “vorrei un gelato al cioccolato, por favore” (“I would like a chocolate gelato, please”) should be enough to get me by.

But then there’s this whole sweatpants problem. My Latin teacher who’s taking us on the trip says that people in Europe don’t wear sweatpants, so we shouldn’t waste space in our suitcase packing them. She also says that in her opinion, wearing sweatpants is like saying “I give up.”

If you watch Project Runway, you could say that Wisconsin fashion isn’t very fierce, but it is comfortable. It's nice to have the option to go nearly anywhere in sweatpants and not look out of place. If you go to Sendik’s, there’s sweatpants; Mayfair, there’s sweatpants; church, there’s sweatpants. It’s going to be interesting to see how differently the Italians dress. I'm guessing that there are no green and gold zuba pants.

Anyway, needing something other than sweatpants to wear is a good excuse to go shopping. And, of course, it’s Italy. I’ve got no reason to complain. It’ll definitely be worth sacrificing a little comfort.

I just heard a news reporter say that many people were getting upset over this picture of Barack Obama visiting Kenya:

 

I disregarded this as yet another petty topic of controversy that actually should have nothing to do with the election, but then the reporter said something that really shocked me and made me think. He said that the picture caused many to wonder if Obama is actually Muslim and then went on to assure the audience not to worry, because he is, in fact, a Christian.

Not only did this make me livid, it made me question the judgment of many voters. The blatant prejudice behind this statement makes me wonder how separate church and state really are. Is it just a coincidence that every single president (and all of those in the current election) has been a Christian?

It’s sad if many immediately associate Islam with the extremists who are constantly seen on the news, especially when this country has 5 million to 8 million Muslim citizens. If we are to be an accepting and just society, we must at least understand that, just as a Christian radical is nothing like the majority of Christians, “Muslim” does not mean radical jihadist by any means. By the way, the two religions are actually pretty similar.

This election proves that our country has matured enough to consider a woman and an African American as the next president, but how long will it take for us to be truly open-minded?

I know that I should tie Tosa into every post I write, but for this one, it’s difficult. This is about a world so opposite of everything that I have known growing up, and I think that it’s safe to say the same about most Tosans. But I have been inspired by a cause that I think needs, more than anything else, attention.

I saw a documentary featuring what has been described as the “most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world” called Invisible Children: Rough Cut (it inspired the Invisible Children organization). The film is about three college students who went to Africa to help people in Sudan, but instead stumbled upon hundreds of children sleeping huddled together in the streets of a city in Uganda.

These children, with no parents or adult figures of any sort, are fleeing a rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army that has been violently trying to overthrow the Ugandan government for twenty-two years. Despite its brutal guerrilla fighting, the most shocking aspect of the army is who actually is fighting: over 90 percent of their soldiers are children, mostly boys between ages five and twelve.

This does not seem real to me, even though I know it is. I find it mind-blowing that this is such an underground issue. The name Invisible Children came from that fact that not even the creators of the documentary knew anything about this before they accidentally witnessed it themselves.

While there is a need for financial and humanitarian intervention, I believe that for such a hidden atrocity, awareness is an urgent first step. The documentary points out that if people had known about the Holocaust, hopefully they would have done something about it. Even though Uganda seems (and pretty much is) on the other end of the Earth, we can still make a difference just by resisting the easy inclination many Americans have towards apathy.

Of course there is no way that we can know everything that is happening in the world, even in this digital age where communication and information have almost no boundaries. Currently, Uganda is closer to peace that it has been in twenty years, but if and when the country does end the war, there will still be the children who lost family and homes in the fighting and the boys struggling with the psychological effects of being abducted into the army. I guess the tie-in to Wauwatosa is that, as Americans, we are some of the luckiest people on Earth.