Illustration by Mike Padilla

This summer I was expecting to go back home to recuperate from the long school year. My only ambitions for the summer lay in avoiding mowing my family's massive lawn and catching up on the last few seasons of The Sopranos. However, things don't always go like we plan. It all happened on the way to a class that - surprise - I would actually be on time for. Instead of my usual route, I decided to mix it up.

It's funny how something as simple as changing your walking route can make such a big difference. It just so happened that this detour led to me bump into my former-first year English composition teacher, Patrick Baliani. Chit-chat ensued, which led to him giving me some helpful advice as teachers are wont to do. I told him about mychange from an engineering major to English, which prompted him to give me a stack of papers, as teachers are also wont to do, before he rushed off to his next class. Amongst this mess of documents lay a document with a beautiful photograph of a green countryside crowned by a medieval-looking city. Interested, mainly because readings for my other classes didn't have any pictures in them, I read on.

The brochure pertained to a UA study abroad program called the Istituto Internazionale di Studi Classici di Orvieto - the Orvieto Institute, for us Anglo-speakers. Directed by Dr. David Soren of the classics department, the Orvieto Institute is primarily focused on classical studies with more in-depth classes pertaining to Roman and Etruscan art and archaeology.

This year an English class option was available (the reason why I'm across the pond today), which gave UA students the opportunity to puzzle everyone around as to why they would study English in Italy.

The program's location is in the central Italian hill town of Orvieto, hence the name.

And, if you compile a list of just about every stereotype you could think of for a quaint Italian town, then you would have Orvieto. As if mandated by civic law, about every fifth window is adorned with flower boxes filled with vibrant reds and yellows. Elderly ladies in thick, nude pantyhose and sensible shoes hobble throughout the windy cobblestone streets. Meanwhile, their male counterparts (all of them dressed up in formal suits mind you) spend their time sitting in the piazza, looking at the young, vibrant things that pass. The town is so perfect that at times I feel like I've stepped onto the set of some movie.

At the same time, however, modernity rears it head. The same young people who participate in medieval parades in full costume are the kinds of kids who sport the latest Italian fashions, one if which is unfortunately the dread mullet - and on this side of the Atlantic the trend is unisex. Medieval buildings are home to a number of high-speed Internet access cafes, but, gratefully, Starbucks has not invaded. Yet.

Despite the idyllic image of the town, I was afraid. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous about this trip. Though I've traveled abroad before, I was more apprehensive now, given the fact that most countries oppose our actions in Iraq.

After two missed trains and a near hernia from lugging around my overstuffed rolling luggage, I finally arrived in town. Perched upon a cliff with gothic cathedral lording over it all, the town was breathtaking.

Fully armed with warnings that everyone across the world was against the U.S., I felt very much alone and unprepared for the possible slings that would come my way. Though I was slightly consoled by the fact that I wasn't going to France, I still was more than ready to claim Canadian citizenship and to proudly sew its formidable looking red maple leaf flag to my backpack just in case of any anti-American flak.

Yet none came.

Despite the misdeeds of our government and elected officials, the rest of the world does not carry the anti-American mentality that we hold so dear. I can't hide my American-ness. For some unknown reason, in Europe Americans stick out like a good-looking girl at a Star Trek convention.

Despite this, all of us on the trip have been treated with the utmost respect and courtesy. The natives' annoyance only extends so far as the fact that most of our knowledge of the Italian language comes from the menu at the Olive Garden.

If anything, the real problem of the antagonism between Americans and non-Americans is a self-inflicted one. That is, we're the ones with the problem, not the rest of the world. Even in the ominous French region, which a few students visited before coming here, the people were more than willing to point out the right metro line to take or to help the hapless visitors with their luggage.

Perhaps the American feeling that the U.S. is alone without an ally in sight stems from the guilt of imperialist action, or maybe because the fabled WMDs that justified our military action have yet to appear.

Either way, the rational human mind wins out over all, and the global community will not stone American tourists while they're gleefully photographing everything in sight.

The international outcry regarding American foreign policy ends there. Stepping back, it would be ridiculous to judge the character of a nation's citizens with that of its government.

Granted, not everyone adopts a pro-Yankee stance, but overall the world is a welcoming place. Even France.

Susan Bonicillo is an English junior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.