Seventh Inning Stretch Already???

Well things have been great!  There have been a few struggles, like I knew there would be, but I can't say that there has been a time since living here that things haven't been great.  A few weekends ago, I visited the Accademia and saw what else, but Michelangelo's David.  There really isn't much else to see in the Accademia but it was definitely still cool to be in the place where Michelangelo studied and became a sculptor.  Not to mention that the David actually IS amazing...it's just really huge and kind of perfect.  That same weekend was the weekend we went to the Firenze vs. Lazio soccer game(!!) which was exactly what you would expect it to be, although I would've loved to be in the general admission seats because it seemed similar to KU's student section...except rowdier.  Since then, the search has been on to figure out which team I like so I can finally have a reason to follow soccer like the entire rest of the world does.

This past weekend, I visited the Uffizi Gallery and after seeing the Birth of Venus and other paintings that I was told to admire, I have to admit that I was not as blown away by Italian paintings as I was by the paintings I saw in Paris.  Our guide described Michelangelo, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci as some of the greatest painters to ever live and, not that I claim to be knowledgable (to any degree) about art, but I can definitely say now that my personal preferences lean toward French art.  After the Uffizi Gallery, we took a day trip to Orvieto, which looks like a storybook version of a sleepy, small Italian village with a lot of history.  It's as isolated as a small island because it's on top of a high plateau made of volcanic rock.

The view was amazing!

Underground Estruscan city

I'm in a well, what's up!

A few days ago, I walked up to Piazzale Michelangelo which overlooks the entire city of Florence.  There was a guy singing and playing guitar on the steps, which was perfect because he sang all the great stuff!  Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," Phil Collins' "True Colors," John Lennon's "Imagine," and Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"...you know, to name a few. 

He was fantastic...

It was a good day for my camera and I :)

I have midterms next week which, in itself, is extremely bizarre.  If I were home in Lawrence, I'd be pulling all-nighters at the library with Stephanie and doing very unhealthy things to my body to try and get through the week.  So, I know I'll be in for a rude awakening next semester when I have to return to real school (oddly enough, part of me misses real school).  But because I'm here, midterms are a reminder of how quickly the time is racing by me.  Even at home, I notice how fast the semesters fly, but I'm sincerely convinced that the days here actually consist of fewer hours because there's no way that I only have two months left in this place.  I've just started settling in!  I know that, especially after Midterms and Fall Break are over, December 18th is going to come as quickly as I can snap my fingers...which SUCKS!  Wasn't it just yesterday that we were touring Rome, anxious to move into our Florence apartments?

However, I will admit...the Cardinals are REALLY giving me some reasons to miss home.  Not only are there no Cardinals fans here, but there are no baseball fans and all the games begin at 2am.  What I would give to teleport back (even just for one game) to drink a Budweiser and watch the game with all my St. Louis friends who understand me!  Go Cards!!

"Every notice how 'What the hell' is always the right answer?" - Marilyn Monroe

"Set your sights high, the higher the better.  Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future but right now.  Realize that nothing is too good.  Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you up in any way." - Eileen Caddy


Some more photos...just for kicks:

Cool grafitti in Orvieto

Vintage Market that I love

View from where I sit, mmhmm

Arno River

We Just Got Swallowed Up by the Whole Damn World

I usually leave my writing class feeling really inspired and there's no reason why I should've waited until a month in to let the inspiration take me where it pleases, but I guess better late than never.  Normally after class, I simply go home and I don't know why I do that.  I have no more obligations for the day so why don't I do more exploring?  I don't know where my thirst for these things has been hiding recently but thank god it's back because in case I forgot...I'm in Italy!

Today after class, I walked.  I accidentally walked to cross the bridge much farther away than the one behind me, the one I meant to cross.  But the good news is that I have nowhere to be!  And I think I just decided to start bringing my camera with me to class because I just saw a man, at least fifty years of age, rowing down the river and I wish I could've taken a picture because that was cool.

I should probably describe my location.  I crossed the bridge and once I did I found a shady spot to sit on the wall that lines the river.  The wall steps down which makes it perfect for leaning on.  I can see the entire city from here.  I can see the towering bell towers of Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Croce.  In front of Palazzo Vecchio I can see the two towers of the library that's right by the class I just came from.  And behind Santa Croce I can see my Duomo.  It looks much better from here, where I can actually appreciate it.  When I'm simply trying to get from point A to point B, I'm always too busy fighting through tourists, artists or horsedrawn carriages and littering the ground with my cigarette butts trying to look unapproachable for the sake of being left alone just once.

The Arno looks better from here as well.  When the sun shines the water actually looks blue.  You have to look at a distance though.  Don't look at the water right below you, unless you like the sight of dirty green water, in which case, go ahead.  I don't think I've been so peacefully alone since I've been here and it feels great.  The occasional bikers or small groups of Italian friends pass by, which I like because I love eavesdropping on Italian conversations, but there isn't an abundance of Americans!  They're all over there on the main side taking photos of these ancient landmarks and taking guided tours where they're being told what to look at and what to appreciate and what to rave about later.  It's a bit of a game that goes on here.  People marvel at what their touring books have told them to marvel at.  They go to the Gucci and Prada stores, take rides on the horsedrawn carriages, buy the miniature versions of the David, always always always buy gelato, and enjoy their vacation to "Renaissance Disneyland."  I admit that sometimes it's fun to play along with the game because after all, there is a reason so many people come here to marvel and take pictures.  When I walk past these places I sincerely try to remember to appreciate the architecure, the art and the history that make these buildings so famous.  But the games does make it difficult to see things through your own eyes and and admit that those famous buildings are definitely looking mighty fine from far away where they're not being such a burden.


In class today, we discussed the idea of distinguishing ourselves as either a nomad or a settler.  A settler being someone who has, or desires to have, a place to call home.  And a nomad being someone who is always moving and never stays in one place long enough to call it home.  I said that I think I'm a wannabe nomad because while travelling makes my heart smile and I get ancy if I stay in one place for too long without at least a weekend getaway, I have always had a place to call home.  I've lived in St. Louis my entire life.  I'm happy to have a place to call home, but is St. Louis STILL home?  We've talked about this in my class before as well.  Where is home?  Your hometown?  College town? Current town?  For me...

St. Louis equals home because my parents have lived there my whole life.  It's where I grew up, went to high school and met my best friends.  It's the city that has made me a Cardinal for life who will stay up until 5am watching a playoff game while the rest of Florence is fast asleep.

But Kentucky equals family.  I feel just as much at home at my grandparents' house in my dad's hometown as I do at my house in my hometown.  Since being in Italy, I'm discovering that my Kentuckian family has had more influence on me than I knew.  When I listen to stories upon stories of my dad's life, my uncle's life, my grandparents' lives, and even my grandaunts' and granduncles' lives in Kentucky, I can see the sense of pride.  They probably don't notice what I notice but I've definitely noticed that I come from a family that likes to live simply and work hard, aspects of life that I like to apply to my own.  Oh...and family always comes first.  I love that and I love them.  Go UK basketball!! 

My other home though is in Lawrence, Kansas where I will be able to say that I spent four amazing years and experienced everything wonderful and awful that is college.  My Kansas home is what causes me to come here and boast with more school pride than my friends can understand.  It's where I met more of my best friends and for the past three years, it's been my home away from home because it's where I live independently from my family and my friends from high school.

But now, Florence is my current home.  It's the home that's undoubtedly changing me, and being here is an experience I'm going to take with me always.  Florence is the city that's caused me to wonder where else I might someday call home.  It's my present, but it too, like St. Louis, Kentucky and Kansas, will change the way I feel about my future.  So add it to the list of places I call home because I love it here!

I'M NEVER COMING BACK!!
(kidding...but really...)

"The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself." - W. S. Gilbert

A Whole New World

Clearly I haven't been keeping up in the slightest with my blog.  I've been out, you know...living my new life.  I'll try to do better, folks.

This past weekend I went to Munich for what else other than Oktoberfest.  And for those of you who have never been, Oktoberfest is kind of like Vegas in the sense that it really is exactly how you imagine it to be.  It consisted of a lot of beer drinking, pork eating, singing, table dancing and my favorite...friend making.  Although Germans tend to get a bad reputation of rudeness and poor senses of humor, I severely beg to differ.  Everyone from the waitresses to the forty-year-old German couple we met to the group of our new German friends seemed concerned only with being reassured that we were having fun.  Those Germans love to cheers (and I do mean about every five minutes).  So "Prost" everybody!

Aside from a festival revolving around beer (which was, in fact, beautiful), the city of Munich was also really beautiful...not to mention the beauty of seeing it all via bike tour.  Now, I hadn't ridden a bike since about the age of ten, but even while recovering from a less-than-mild hangover, seeing the city on peddle was so alluring and surprisingly relaxing.  We biked through the English Garden, which is ten times larger than Central Park (yep!), and I wish I could pack it up and bring it home with me because needless to say, we don't have anything like it in good ole' Lawrence, Kansas.  I wanted to switch places for a day with the girl laying on a blanket next to the river with her dog and her book.

Germany is understatedly an entirely different world from Italy.  The first things I noticed about Munich were its space and its cleanliness.  Munich had wide streets with bike lanes and sidewalks.  In Florence, they are all the same.  The streets are cluttered with pedestrians and bikers and you simply say good riddance to those who actually attempt to navigate in a car.  The streets in downtown Munich also aren't lined with graffitti, tourist groups, gypsies and street vendors like those in Florence.  One of the guys we met pointed out that one of the reasons for this, which made more sense after the bike tour, is that Germany can't exactly be proud of their past, therefore they focus on their present.  Whereas Italy has a fantastically rich history that sometimes prevents its citizens from worrying, or even caring, about their present.  Maybe this bores you and maybe I'm a nerd but I like thinking about things like that.

But make no mistake...after a soothing and thought-inspiring tour of the city, it was right back to the festival we went.  That's why were REALLY there after all.  And the lovely theme song of the weekend went as follows:

I'm a Local!

"There is no foreign land, it is only the traveller that is foreign." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Yesterday a guy told me that I look Sicilian (which might have just been to butter me up, but I don't care).  And today, an Italian girl, who I assume speaks no English, stopped ME to ask for directions, which I successfully gave her...in Italian.  It's official.  I'm a local!! : )

Things I've learned since living here...

• Florence has a LOT of tourists, which gets annoying when walking to class means fighting through crowds with cameras.
• The people who live in my building really hate Americans.
• Cars, mopeds and even horsedrawn carraiges will run you over if you are in their way.
• Evaluating wine is actually pretty difficult and I'm really bad at it...for now.
• Spraining your ankle and not being able to walk is so much harder than you think it will be.
• Strawberries make for better chasers than limes.
• Going out nearly every night for more than 3 weeks really will wear your body down...whoda thunk.
• Italians truly are more attractive and more well-dressed than Americans.
• Likewise, Italian children are more adorable than American children.
• Gelato > Ice cream
• Cab drivers are angry people.
• A guy will always walk a girl home without being asked, solely out of habitual politeness.
• On the other hand, occasional rudeness is not only recommended...it's necessary, because 70% of the male attention is extremely annoying.
• Bar owners make for sketchy bosses.
• Gypsies are fascinating.
• Eating after 8pm actually is okay.  Dinner at 10pm is becoming a habit.
• Watching a bartender make your drink with fresh fruit is way better than watching him make it with juice.
• I really really enjoy my Travel Writing class even though every one in it is a much better writer than I am.
• People in America complain about EVERYTHING.

Things I miss (so far) from home...

• My dog
• My car
• Milk sold by the gallon
• My bed
• Baseball
• Cold weather

..and that's about it.  I love it here.

Mission Accomplished

So I've been abroad for exactly one week and so far...this is already the best thing I have ever done.  I've met amazing people and I've seen the most beautiful places that I don’t even know how to describe with words how happy I am.  All my problems at home are suddenly behind me and the only thing that matters is making sure that my time here is the best that it could possibly be.  And so far...mission accomplished. 

I’m one of those people who, although I love (and need) my alone time, I thrive on social interactions.  When arriving into Italy, I already knew that “Step One” for me was to meet a lot of people and make friends.  Done.  All six of my roommates are awesome and we pretty much love each other already.  I was nervous about living with six girls because I assumed that they were likely to have six equally strong personalities...and they do, but in the best way possible.  Aside from them, I have met so many people since we’ve been in Florence.  We have all gone out together every single night since we’ve been in Italy, and every night I meet at least two handfuls of new people...all of whom, are extremely nice and extremely fun.  Turns out that not all the boys are as creepy as I've been warned (emphasis on ALL because obviously some of them are pretty creepy).

Aside from social interactions, I also thrive on new experiences.  I’m sure this will sound corny and cheesy and all the other equivalent words but hopefully someone will understand what I mean when I say that I feel as if and I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  Before I left, I told some of my friends that I felt like I was homesick for a place I’ve never been (and yes, I stole that line from “The Mechanic”) but now, I feel like I actually am home.  Life is just so much simpler here.  I’m living in an apartment with no dryer, no microwave, no working television, internet that allows only one person online at a time, a tiny tiny washing machine, a phone that allows for hardly any usage, a bed that’s exponentially less comfortable than my bed at school, and neighbors who complain about us walking too loudly in the stairwell...and yet I struggle to justify any complaints.  I’ve recently felt a bit uncomfortable with America’s materialism because I feel as if I’ve gotten pretty good at living on nothing...in other words, I’m used to being broke.  But here, life is just simple.  I even live on a street that doesn’t allow cars and I love it, which is a big deal to those of you who understand how much I love driving and blasting my music.  I’m sure I’ll miss the luxuries of America at some point but at least for now, I absolutely adore this lifestyle because it’s slower, more relaxed and again...so much simpler.

Two of my goals when coming here were to become fluent in Italian (which will happen because I made it into the Advance Italian class!) and to learn how to cook.  Look at this picture of my first homemade italian meal and try to tell me that I’m NOT going to come home as a master chef. 

Pesto pasta with shrimp, tomatoes and peas

It's also worth mentioning that we have NOTHING in America like they have in Italy.  I thought I saw some beautiful places in France, which I did, but after taking a guided tour of Rome and now being in Florence it just seems crazy to me that in America, when a building gets old, we tear it down and build a strip mall.  Here, when a building gets old, they strive to update it by either cleaning it or making it even more beautiful.

You're Waving Goodbye, Well at Least You're Having Fun..

I'm reading a book right now titled "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us" (don't ask why) which says that one in 25 people have no conscience.  One in 25 people have no sense of guilt or accountability and no sense of right and wrong.  One in 25...that's 4% of the population.  One is more likely to be sociopathic than to be anorexic.  The book talks about how unfathomable this is to the "normal human" because we're taught that a conscience is something that everybody instinctively has.  One of the hardest things for me to accept is that there is such a thing as a person who has no conscience.  It's even more unpleasant to accept that someone I trusted is one of those people.  I've been told that I have an "overly active conscience."  This makes me a sucker in relationships with these people because one can so easily appeal to my sense of guilt...which leads me to take responsibility for an irredeemable relationship and sometimes even feel guilty for my own hurt feelings.

NEWSFLASH TO MYSELF: Stop.

I get so passionate about things and sometimes that gets me into trouble.  My dad calls it "eternal optimism."  Eternal optimism is the reason why my dog, Bear, thinks that every time someone leaves the house he too will get to go, although 99.9% of the time...that boy's staying home.  Besides comparing myself to my dog, eternal optimism is also the reason why I can try for years to fix something that never wanted to be fixed.  Eternal optimism also causes me to do this with so much passion that it hurts.

I don't mean to sound bitter or cynical...I don't feel either of those things.  But learning that not all are good people is a difficult thing for me to accept.  I tend to put an insurmountable amount of faith in people.  I believe that people are good despite their mistakes.  To learn that some people genuinely don't care to redeem their mistakes because they don't see them as such is a tough pill for me to swallow.  But I also believe that knowledge is power and I have learned that continuing to participate in these kinds of relationships is simply not an option for me...now or ever.  THE GOOD NEWS is that on Sunday (that's five days away!!) I get to leave home, go abroad, and continue living my life the way I prefer to...in peace.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."


Side note: I'm handing out virtual high fives to those who picked up on the Something Corporate reference.

Take...Due!

"Even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."

Yesterday I wrote a post about my family issues that after re-reading a few hours later, I had to remove.  Not because I didn't mean everything I said, but because I don't want my blog tainted by all that anger...and also because I didn't want you to have to read that shit.

SO TODAY I downloaded GoogleEarth and looked at where I'll be living, which turns out, is right smack dab in the middle of heaven!

If you can see the blue square in the very center...that's my apartment.  Yep, that's right, the blue square that's right in between the two huge churches!  That's the Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in the right corner.  I'll be walking by this every day to go to class.  In the left corner is the Basilica di San Lorenzo.  I'll be walking by this every time I go to my cooking class or my wine appreciation class.  Not to mention that my writing class is right on the river and is a block away from a different church.  Yeah...life is going to be AWESOME!