Perhaps I best expressed my experience in Rome with this letter to a friend:

The Italians have been so incredible. They look at us with sympathy. When I was watching the story unfold, my dear padrona a casa, Gina, was just wonderful. Though she has known me a mere week and a half, she held me in her arms while I sobbed. She is a simple woman, I think not greatly educated, but she sat with me watching television and translated for me (IN Italian, of course) in simpler words that I could understand because following the coverage on Italian t.v. was very difficult. This morning, I awoke early to pick up newspapers, both Italian and English. I began to weep as I read the headlines. When I went into class this morning, I told the teacher that I could not possibly just resume studying what we were studying the day before. That if we could take a moment to talk, in Italian, about our feelings, it would be very meaningful for me. So, I sat there, struggling with words I had never hoped to learn in this language, to express how I feel. Of course, heartbreak and grief are universal and the words came to me, but the entire class just sat there in silence while I wept, and spoke of my experience. The teacher turned the lesson around, still in Italian (other languages are forbidden in the classroom), and brought in copies of the Italian papers. Asked each one of us to take an article and read it, then explain to the other students what we learned.