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Working it out in the world, and sometimes writing about it.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Neither Here nor There

“Where are you from?”

In the land of hostels and travels, this is invariably the first thing asked of you and by you as you check in and out of cities and countries. Accents pique interest and catch ears’ attentions; clearly foreign fashion makes one look twice and notice a difference in the stranger and themselves.

But where are you from? It’s not always a straightforward question, is it?

Yesterday, three girls lugged their suitcases into our six-person room. A mixture of American and UK English mixed in the air.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Well, we’re from England,” one said, motioning to herself and another girl.

“I’m from America,” said one more.

“But we’re all teaching English in Spain. In Madrid, actually,” one of them clarified.

I see.

And so, I’m not sure what answer I was looking for. Did I want to know where they were originally from or did I want to know the last destination from which they’d departed?

It seems, too, that sometimes people aren’t from a place, but from something else. Some people come from sadness. Some people come from losing a parent. Some people come from university, or teaching, or from a place of adventure and reflection. Some people don’t belong to places, but situations or emotions. Some people are simply in a perpetual state of arriving and never leaving, their trail a Mobius band of continual motion and never-wasted energy.

These people are typically those who have the most to give, the most curiosity for what’s out there, and who are the most interesting.

This makes me wonder: where do I come from? Do I come from a specific place or am I one of those who comes from a feeling that helps to shape herself?


Saturday, February 19, 2011

Milano, What Are Your Intentions With Me?

What is it they say about best laid plans? Oh, right—just don’t make them. So I didn’t. At first.

A former colleague recently asked me if I had plans or intentions while abroad. What a wonderful sentiment. It implies a decision between spontaneity and minute planning, but allows flexibility so that you may continue to be the master of your fate. Plans or intentions.

So far, I have intentions. My run-through of countries prior to my departure had been Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, and Montenegro. Now, I’ve added at least one or two countries, and I have the intention of adding more, so should I choose.

I used to be more of a planner. But since this trip began, I realized how much it pays off to have intentions and no plans. For example, I was planning on being on my way to Portugal earlier this week. But my train from Lugano was incredibly late, and caused me to miss my train to Barcelona…had I made reservations. Instead, I didn’t, saved myself some Euro, and spent the day tooling about Milan with some East coast boys, Robert and Luke. The best laid plans are those that are unearthed liked old cobblestones and thrown down the rubbish chute. Instead, feel the earth beneath your feet.

Hard not to notice the private school class covered in umbrellas.


I was thinking that when the earth seemed to move. We were being given a tour by Matteo, some permutation of a friend of a friend of Luke’s mother’s. Matteo was pointing something out in the piazza and the earth vibrated beneath me, a harsh whisper of the metro coursing below us like water, just as quick and heavy as a river.

Matteo pointed out blown-out buildings from World War II, new battlements on the old castle, and Milanese fashion and café institutions populated by the well-dressed modern Milanese. I saw a city that I had previously snubbed for its cement buildings and exhaustive and expensive fashion. I’d been to Milan when I was 13, and had felt no desire to return. But there I found myself, standing in a piazza with the metro pulsing beneath me and gothic spires pushing upward from the roof of the duomo, away from one another like tectonic plates. Milan wasn’t my first choice, but ok, I could go with it. What else could I do?

Saint Bartholomew: He was skinned alive. This very statue depicts that. Nice. 


The boys and I spent the afternoon eating pizza and trying to get ourselves out the door of our hostel for aperitivo. But a soccer match was on, we were tired of the rain and being wet, and we just decided to stay in. By the evening’s end, I was thoroughly looking forward to getting out of Milan and getting to Portugal. The next day was my out, and I was ready for it.

And this was our evening. Cheese, bread, meat, and good posture. 

My intention—no plan yet, I hadn’t made reservations—was to catch the evening train to Barcelona, catch another train to Madrid, and catch a final one to Lisbon. When I arrived in Milan earlier in the week, I had been assured by the ticket agent that there was a train later in the week I’d be able to catch. Great, no problem.

Unfortunately, it was. For some reason I couldn’t quite understand—something about the French train lacking the necessary technology to arrive at the Milano station—the train was cancelled. But wait! There was a bus! Although, it was small. And full.

Fantastic.

I’d had it. My attitude was no longer pliable and infinitely malleable, like taffy. I wanted to get to Portugal, dammit, and the Italian train system was impeding that want in a terrible way.

So I did what every frustrated female would’ve done.

I cried.

The boys were great. Robert and Luke sat me down and helped me talk about a game plan for getting to Barcelona. But I didn’t want to just get to Barcelona. I wanted to get to Portugal; Barca was just a place to change trains. I hated Milan, I hated the rain, I hated the gross shower in the bathroom at our hostel. I didn’t want to see another Luis Vuitton bag or another Missoni scarf. I needed out.

Ah, the lovely boys. Robert and Luke.

I got back to the hostel and booked a next-day flight to Lisbon. Sorry, Milan. F you. You lose.

Typically, I am not a next-day flyer. I am not even a same-week traveler. I take time to plan, to find the best price. Not this time. My intention to go to Portugal, with a few pieces of information and some not-so-insignificant Euros, became a plan. I had my damn ticket, and by 4 PM the next day, I would be gone.

My last day in Milan was surprising. My attitude had yet again changed. I was still in a city I was so ready to leave, but I was hopeful that what was ahead was better than what was behind. The sun peaked out a bit, I had made friends, and we climbed the duomo to see all of Milan spread out like a blanket. A blanket of Chanel and Hermes and factories, all the same, but a blanket nonetheless.

Part of the top of the duomo. It's vast. 

Some apostles and Milan in the background. 

We climbed down the stairs, I hugged my friends goodbye, and trotted to the metro. All I had to do was pick up my bag, get to the train station, get to the airport, and get on the plane. Then, I would be in Portugal.

And I was. I am. I intend plan on being here for a while. 


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Lost in Lugano

Lugano is not what I thought it would be, but it has not been a disappointment either. Instead, it’s been a welcome break from the regularity of what I expected and to which I was accustomed in Italy. It’s been somewhat of a transition city that has taken me from where I was to where I am about to go.  

66.6% of the time, I feel comfortable with the language in Lugano. I can order, ask for directions, wish people well. I am not so out of my element here. Three languages are spoken primarily in this small border town of Switzerland: Italian, first and foremost, supplemented with German and English. The air is electric with languages lighting up a circuit board somewhere above, and making new paths to familiar ears.

Lugano has been in my future since I was 14 or so, right after my first trip abroad to Italy. I read Bloomability by Sharon Creech, one of my favorite authors from my childhood. Her main character arrives in Lugano for a year abroad with her aunt and uncle. She explores the streets lined with palm trees, takes the funicolare from the main square up to the train station, and she climbs Mont San Salvatore and completes the percorso fitness route with her friend, Guthrie. It all sounded so mythical and worldly to me. This book was my Narnia, and so I took the train through the wardrobe and here I arrived.



The city center is small and rich. Overpriced cafes with heat lamps dot the piazzas and weekend strollers tote their Louis Vuitton and Rolex bags in one hand, and a leash to their happy canine in the other. Lush palm trees mix with bare, trimmed trees along the lake street, where city workers brush the sidewalk with legit stick brooms. Somehow, this place combines bourgeois European living with old world “whatever works” mentality. It’s an impressive amalgam, but one I can’t quite delve into, as I don’t really belong to either.

Along the lake path.

Lugano by night. Mont San Salvatore in the background.

Regardless of socioeconomic status or nationality, this city creates a challenge for even the most geographically gifted. Tiny streets meander and jog in the town center, and eventually spit you out in the main piazza or along the waterfront. I was armed with a map from the moment I arrived, but this small town has undone and outsmarted me. I have involuntarily taken many crisscrossing routes and passed unmarked alleys only to wind up where I started. Instead of find this new inability to navigate unsettling, I’ve found it to be more of a quirk of the city (unmarked streets? Poor city planning?), and less user error.

Lugano is also known for its gorgeous foliage and vegetation, though I must assume this is more of a summer time you’ve-gotta-see-this-place kind of thing. Today, it is foggy and misty, and an impenetrable wall of fog begins at the water’s edge of Lake Lugano. This time of year, the city is not seriously touristy or experiencing seriously good weather. It’s winter in a southern Swiss town on a lake.

Lake Lugano.



Instead of shopping or banking (whatever that is and what Lugano is known for, after Zurich and Geneva), I’ve sat in cafes, gotten lost, eaten amazing dairy, climbed Mont San Salvatore, and made a few friends here, despite the weather. Peter from Zurich, and Robert from Annapolis. My company seems to reflect the city’s eclectic attitude.

That's me, on top of Mont San Salvatore, and Lugano below.

This was dinner my first night. Wine and chocolate and writing-->amazing.


As I write, Robert and I are sitting in one of those overpriced cafes that dot the piazzas. We are sitting directly beside the heat lamp, and my ears are warm from the flame and listening to all sorts of languages with all sorts of accents. The town has finally woken up a little on this sleepy, drizzly Sunday, and every now and then I look up to see a running toddler or chic Swiss couples, scarves wound expertly around their necks.

Before my trip began, this is what I imagined my days as. Cafes, coffee, writing, piazzas. That’s it. And now here I am. This pleases me to no end, and I have the fog and brutto tempo to thank for it.

The next part of my adventure begins tomorrow. I’ve unfolded and refolded my EurRail map numerous times today, counting the hours, looking up connecting trains. On my radar at the moment is how to get to Portugal in the fewest days possible. It’s become a game of Tetrus, and pieces are constantly shifting to make the mass fit better. I still have no idea to where I will take my first train tomorrow, but I’m confident I’ll figure it out by tonight. And if not, I know of a good hostel in a town on a lake in Switzerland where I can spend the night, and maybe do some shopping, if all else fails. 

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Damn, It Feels Good to Eat Some Food

(pictures of the meal to come when Ashley sticks them up on facebook. I gave my camera a rest so I could just enjoy my meal and not worry about f-stops).

I made my first big purchase of this trip. I have passed by Massimo Dutti and Gucci and Chanel each day I’ve been here, and nothing has tempted me to take off my sexy money belt and fork over my cash. But good company and great food on my last night was a must. And so, I spent 25 on dinner.

It’s not a shocking amount of money, but still about four times more than I spend on food each day. Truly. It’s like I’m in college again.

Ashley and I had spent the day up at the Piazzale, Mercato Centrale, the various bookstores, sitting in Piazza Repubblica, and eating cheap sandwiches. Our conversation bubbled along and we covered our similar obsessions with weddings, shoes, our experiences when we met when we studied abroad together. As a result, I wanted some company for dinner. I have a bit of a fantasy eating alone in a trattoria or at a café, but my last night in my beloved city just didn’t feel like the time to do it.






We arrived at the restaurant—Celestino’s, right by the Ponte Vecchio, and totally reasonably priced—at 8, and I had to check my watch. The place was nearly empty. It was a Wednesday night, and relatively early, so who knows.

The waiter was eager to please us, and I wish he had introduced himself or I had asked his name. Forgive me, as I’ll have to call him “the waiter.”

Ashley was a great sport and ordered what I usually order, the porcini risotto in a champagne sauce, so I could order veal cutlets with tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella on top. We picked a bottle of the house wine, a 2007 Chianti, and the owner came by and threw in a free salad. We had bread, sea-green olive oil, and candlelight. We were all set.

Ashley and I had an amazing time together. We talked and talked, laughed, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. I couldn’t believe that we had, by 9:30, the entire restaurant to ourselves.

I also couldn’t help but notice that our waiter was staring. Hardcore. I didn’t pay much attention, and Ashley and I continued to enjoy our wine.

When the bill came, the first thing I saw was a note, written in penmanship incredibly similar to Caparbio's, my ex-boyfriend (“the Italians start hammering the kids with cursive immediately,” Ashley said). It said, in Italian,

“I like you a lot. I would like to see you alone later. See ya, Beautiful!”

He had even drawn a little smiley-face sunrise for me.

I wanted to keep the note.

But instead, I borrowed Ashley’s pen, and thanked him for the compliment, but I was not only engaged (not true) but also leaving in the morning (very true). I felt warm with wine and flattery.

After our successful dinner, we wandered to the nearby Ponte Vecchio, and we ran into Fabrizio, the tech guy from our old school. 30 seconds later, we found ourselves accompanying Fabrizio and his friend to a party near the Uffizi.

We spoke English and Italian, listened to a great Turkish guitarist and singer, watched Turkish dancing, and met other teachers from our old school. Fabrizio “bopped” my nose a few times, playfully, and leaned on me. I met an Ezra, a Valaria…I was surrounded by a world. I was happy. I was with Ashley on the second floor of an apartment in Florence in Italy. I felt clever—it’s hard not to as a female American who can dish out slang curse words—and that my strangeness belonged.

I was also about three glasses of wine in. Pretty rare for me, but in good company, I don’t mind.

The night was beautiful and I returned to my hostel with five minutes to spare before being locked out.

This may have been an important turning point. It proved that although I was in a strange place, I found comfort in company and was open to doing something totally foreign and new. I’d never before gone to a Turkish/German/Italian party before and hung out with all sorts. The experience proved I could do it.
I was also ready to get out of dodge. Florence holds a lot of ancient pain for me, and also some wistful memories (God, what is this? A teen book from the 50s?). I was looking forward to something new—Perugia; Lugano, Switzerland. I wanted to throw off the cloak of sad and fog and loneliness and dive into what was totally new.

There’s no reason, however, that I shouldn’t go out with a bang. And so I did. It was worth every hard-earned dollar, that changed to Euro through my bank, but not before being converted to British Pounds at the best rate of the day, and finally made it into the black bill folder at Celestino’s. No reason at all. 

Friday, February 11, 2011

A Totally Cliche' Story

Caparbio* is a very hard topic to write about. Not because thinking about him brings me impressive amounts of pain or because he throws me in a tizzy—I just don’t quite know what to make of it all.

A brief history: I met Caparbio through friends. He liked that I was a soccer-playing American, and I liked that he was a sweet, vibrant, Italian artist. We didn’t meet until I was to leave for a few weeks traveling. But when I returned, he met me at the train station and walked me to the house where I would au pair for only a month. He hadn’t forgotten about me while I was gone. We spent June watching the Euro Cup, eating pizza, and becoming a pair. There could be no way I could make up a more typical Italian study abroad story of meeting a boy. 

The view from his window.

The family I nannyed for was awful (that’ll be another post), and so Caparbio called his mama to see what he could do. 10 minutes later, I was calling my parents telling them that I was headed to Sicily in three days to stay with Caparbio’s family. I packed up my suitcase and was gone from the awful house on Via Giambologna.

The window from which I met him. My friends were across-the-way neighbors. That's how it all started.
I stayed with Caparbio’s family for three weeks in Sicily, on an island where they have a fishing business. Beaches, Vespa rides, and incredibly fresh seafood were my days, and I was absorbed with Caparbio. In the way I could at the time, I loved him. The way you can love a person who does not: speak your language, understand where you come from, your history, your wounds, your love, your life. He was kind, patient, protective, accepting, and open.

A month after returning home and going back to school, I broke up with him. In Italian, the phrase translates to “I left him.” In English, these phrases mean very different things. Caparbio felt the latter. He yelled at me on the phone and told me I had taken advantage of him, said that I had only used him because I needed him, and that I had lied to him—I had never loved him. He was sarcastic with me and mean. I had never seen that before from him.

Why did I break up with him? It never would have worked, and I knew that going in. That’s my fault.  But Caparbio was the first guy I’d dated since Stephen—that was big to me, because Stephen was so important to me. He was my version of testing the waters again, and I guess, too, that he was an innocent casualty of that.

Caparbio handled my vulnerability beautifully; he also gave me some of his. He showed me his home, he took me in, he took my hand and walked me around his town’s streets. He made sure I wore a helmet on the Vespa; he made sure I stayed away from the poisonous lizards on the wall that leech out in the evening. I felt safe with him, but I didn’t feel passionately toward him.

And so, when I told him I loved him, I was telling the truth. But to Caparbio, love can only ever mean one thing. Caparbio is not someone I could ever be with long-term. He adores his small corner of the world in Sicily. All he wants is to graduate and return home to his family (this, I can relate to). He hates travelling (this I can’t). He doesn’t make friends in Florence because he would rather not leave any behind. He goes to school, comes home, studies, and does it again the next day. Caparbio has a confined and bordered life in comparison to the one I want for myself. I want so much from life, and Caparbio wants so little; he just wants to get school over with so he can return to his Sicilian corner.

How is this not an ugly thing to say? Who am I to pass judgment on the way another human lives his life? Only because I see in Caparbio’s life what I do not want for myself. I could not live happily on an island, folding laundry, and waiting for him to come in with the night’s catch at 3 AM.

I want to live big. I want to take up space. I want to make my corner of the world the whole world.

So, I left him alone for a year. Eventually, he came around bit by bit. We chatted politely on the phone a few times a year later, and the year after that, this past spring, he added me on facebook, which was not only surprising that he would make such a gesture, but also because he’s totally computer illiterate. All the same, it was good to feel the searing Sicilian anger fall off my back. We were polite.

And then I told him I would be visiting in some months, and things changed. Suddenly, I was no longer the bad guy. He wanted to see me. He would make time.

We spent a nervous evening together trying to catch up a few days after I arrived. My Italian was rusty, and with my nerves, it all felt funny. But I stopped by the next evening and the next. We were coming to learn about one another. He would practice his drawing, and I would ask him questions from my perch on the couch. Things were beautiful.  

And then a perfect storm occurred. I was relaxed, we were bantering, and then Caparbio wrapped me in a quilt of blame, etched in the years since we’d been together. He was upset that I’d started dating Danny so soon after he and I had broken up. He didn’t yell, but he spoke slowly and emphatically, making sure I understood every Italian word coming out of his mouth. I had lied to him, played with his feelings, taken advantage of his family, he said. It was all just an adventure to me, he said. Me breaking up with him was happening again, over two years later. How had this happened?

I tried impossibly to defend myself. I couldn’t. Even in English, it would’ve been hard. I couldn’t tell Caparbio that I had loved him as best I could when we were together; though, that it was probably a different kind of love than the kind he wanted. I couldn’t say that I knew the distance would have made the relationship impossible. I couldn’t tell him how important he was to me and how much I appreciated all the things he and his family had done for me. I began to, and I started to cry.

So, in the place of my defense, he said many mean things, and I got up, whispered a “ciao” and left.
That’s how it ended.

At least for now. He’s since apologized over email, but with google translate, things are lost and intentions remain confusing. I think he regrets that night. But the apology is huge. Sicilians don’t apologize; instead, they patch things so they work again, like a leak in a boat. He wishes me well, but he does not understand why I am taking this trip. He does not understand why I’m here alone. He is confused by me.

I wonder why it’s so hard for me to let go of Caparbio. I have no romantic feelings left for him, but there is a genuine fondness and appreciation for him that will always be there. He was there for me in such a strange spot in my life. He made it ok to move on. He is part of my Florence.

I went by his house today while I was waiting for my train and while chomping down on some gelato. I had hope because his shutters were wide open and there was a window cracked. I rang the bell, nothing. I rang it again, two short spurts. Nothing. I imagine he was in school, but maybe he was inside, drawing human figures, his glasses on his nose, in his small apartment and ignoring the American downstairs who lied, lied, lied.

*Name has been changed…it’s probably a really good idea. Look up what it means in Italian. Bonus point!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

La Nebbia di Firenze

Remember all that sunny sun sunshine I was talking about? It was like a special present for me when I arrived. My black jacket soaked up the sun like a sun sponge and made it possible to read in the piazzas even when I could see my breath. The only thing not so great about the sun was that when I disappeared into the streets that radiated from the piazzas, I stepped into deep shadows from the tall buildings everywhere.

Piazza Repubblica. Also, the sun.

I don’t have to worry about that anymore, the shadows. Now they’re everywhere. There is no sun. Instead, a small phenomenon has occurred. Florence is cloaked in fog.

And I don’t mean the fog in the Bay or on Willows Road that dissipates around mid-day. This fog has staying power (like my tears, remember? Oh, to be self-referential…).

In all the time I lived here before, it wasn’t foggy once. Not once. This is a complete surprise to me, and continues to be each day I wake up to the pale colors outside that seemed to have been bled by some color-hating mortician.

View to the East of Piazzale Michelangelo.

I would like to challenge Google and Bing (sorry, Microsoft) to a weather prediction competition, as they have been wrong on several, several occasions. I would like to point out that 70 degrees F and sunny does not, in fact, look like this:



And 60 degrees F and “partly cloudy” does not, at all, look like this:

Taken at 2 PM. Bridge in foreground: Ponte Trinita'; bridge in background: Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge to survive WWII. 
Tomorrow is supposed to be “58 and sunny.” Hm. I am skeptical. 

However, despite the cold that the fog has brought, there is a new look to the city. It’s almost other-worldly. In a way, I think this is a good thing. I am most decidedly not studying abroad again. This is not the same experience it was two years ago; it would be impossible to recreate it. This time, the city is not holding my sadness and is not charged with taking care of me. Commerce happens here, there are other, different, students here that need Florence’s attention. I am different now, and it’s ok to let Florence go.

The fog is a way to let go of what I’ve been holding onto so tightly. I’ve come back to Florence like I always said I would, and now I can leave. My sage friend, Sara, prepared me so well for this return. We studied together two years ago, and we were chatting one night about coming back to Florence before we’d even left.

“Sara, we should all come back sometime soon and do this again.”

“Yes, we should. But it can’t ever be the same again.” She smiled and I think I only paused for a moment to take in what she had said, but even then, I knew she was right. Emily Dickinson said, “That it should never come again is what makes it so sweet.” Sara and Emily would have gotten along well together.

Florence had been my security blanket, and now I can release it into the blanket of fog and say goodbye for now. There are so many broken hearts here already, I shouldn’t crowd the space any more with my heart—finally—intact.

Which means: onto Perugia! I will be leaving Thursday or Friday, and will go only for a night. Hopefully, I’ll be greeted by blankets of sun and undulating hills. Or fog. 


Soccer, Wine, Writing...I know, I know.

Life is pretty hard as I sit in an Italian pub, surrounded by raucous Italians, drinking wine and watching the Inter-Milan v. Roma soccer game. It’s a Sunday night, the Italians are out in droves at local trattorias, and I have made a friend. Things are looking much better than the sun-drenched and lonely day I arrived four days earlier.

Why the sudden change? It’s a valid question you may be asking. And I’d say: four things.

First, I’m Feeling the Love. Thanks to you all lovely people who care about me; I have received quite a bit of support. It has come in many forms and in many different words, but the overwhelming sentiment is “We like you—we may even love you—and it’s ok how you feel. You’ll figure it out and make it happen.” Thank you. You’re totally right.

There's a tradition in Italy to write your name along with your lover's and clip the lock to a chain, fence post, whatever.  Thanks for your love, lovelies. 

Next, the sunshine. Having spent the last year in Seattle, I’ve been quite bramasole, thirsty for the sun. Here, it is atypically sunny this time of year. The sun has tricked me into many piazzas to read a book or write, and teased me onto many bridge rails, my legs dangling over the railing. It’s been quite the trouble-maker, the sun.
And finally, the realization that how I feel is ok. Expected, even. As my wise mother told me, feelings are just feelings. They are rarely permanent, and sometimes they only represent the truth of a moment, a pinprick in the cloth you weave. Instead of dwelling on it, accept it into your cloth, and see what comes next.

The view from Piazzale Michelangelo.
I’ve also drawn on my experience from the last time I was in Florence and the calming familiarity of some things. For a quick recap, I studied abroad here in Florence three years ago (please see the blog posts from 2008 if you’re curious). My boyfriend and I had just broken up and I was shaken—shaken in who I was, what I believed, what I wanted, what I was doing, and where I wanted to go. It seemed that everything was changing and I was like a stubborn horse—legs locked and being dragged along against my will. Then, too, I was feeling so phenomenally terrible. I woke up crying, I went to bed crying, I threw pottery crying. This went on for weeks. Just like this time, I wanted these feelings to end.

This time, I realized that I was having many of the same emotions just like the last time. I handily took a course when I studied abroad called The Psychology of Culture Shock (I thought I was just fulfilling a graduation requirement—how small of me). Finally—it hadn’t just been a bad break up those years ago. It had been a relocation and forced integration into a new society, and new way of things, and a new language. Just like this time (sans breakup). Got it.

Once I realized that I actually did indeed know what was going on, I knew how to mitigate it. I grabbed the sun by the hand and walked with it to the bookstore. I knew I needed people and familiarity, so I found some familiar books and students. I wrote, wrote, wrote. I accepted my feelings. I read. I made myself feel good, and I did those things which were accessible in any language, any city, any time.

With this new acceptance, things have gotten a lot easier. The loneliness has almost completely vanished. The excitement for being here has started to creep out cautiously, stepping into the sun with me. I walk miles every day, I sit and read in piazzas and bookstores, I eat panini with Italians, and I’ve made some friends. I am no longer alone, and once again, I am more of a citizen of the world. This is why I travel.

Today, Kevin, an excellent young guy I met in my hostel, and I walked all around Florence. We made it up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, but went a completely new way that wended us through quiet Florentine streets lined with villas and olive trees. I felt so content in the fact that I was in a city in which I lived and I found myself in a new neighborhood. This is why I travel.



I do realize that I’m in a state of fluctuating comfort, and in a city I can navigate. I know that when I decide to move on that I may have another day much like my first in Florence. I may cry, and I may feel the loneliness, and maybe I’ll go through that process every time. I hope not. Hopefully I get better at traveling and better at being alone.



Now, Kevin and I sit in a pub that grows more crowded by the goal. Details of the game must be making the rounds, and couples and friends must be finishing up their meals. We have a pretty shitty view of the TV, but at least there is a view. The Italians are yelling “Madooooooonaaaa” and “Dai, dai!”, come on, come on! We are not want for stimuli or entertainment.

My glass is empty, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I have vague plans to go with a student from my old school around the city. Maybe to Mercato Centrale with Kevin. Maybe I’ll hideout in this bar tomorrow all day long and only leave when the sun has sunk to its knees, ready for more playing tomorrow.

I feel better. 


Friday, February 4, 2011

Here's Why I (Sometimes) Suck at Traveling

Things haven’t started out quite as I’d planned.

When I first started thinking about taking this trip, I remembered the days I’d spent walking along cypress-lined roads in Assisi; the caprese salad I often made myself in my brilliant apartment that looked over all of Florence; the happy walk to classes along the Arno. I was happy, content, and delighted to be in such a world.



I did not think about the incredible displacement, loneliness, and fear I felt when I first arrived. Guess which emotions came first.

Ha! Fooled you. It was actually the first batch. But they only lasted a few hours until I was all alone in the hostel dorm, looking out the caged window at tall buildings that shielded my window from light. I felt like this trip was a mistake. What made me think that I could travel alone?

I’m such a homebody. My parents graciously let me live with them this past year after I graduated from college. My parents are a large reason I am on this trip—I was able to save the money to do it thanks to their generosity. But I also lived with them because they’re great people and I love our home. I love banging through the sometimes-there screen door and seeing my dad. I love walking up the path to see Emma, our beagle, scratching at the window like I’ve been gone for a thousand years. I love seeing my mom at work through her office window. I love the sound of our laughter combined. I love home.

Here, there is no home. I was reading a shitty travel writing book a couple of weeks back and the author claimed that his view of home was where “one spent the night.” I do not function under the same reasoning. Sure, home is where the heart is. But home is also where I go to cry, to bake, to cook with my dad, to play on the floor with Emma, to lean against my mom on the couch as we watch TV. More aptly, home is my heart.

Here, there is a desk for checking in. There is a decent kitchen with hot plates. There are rooms stuffed with beds and overflowing backpacks. There is a bathroom with a row of sterile white sinks. This is where I spend my nights, but it’s not home.

And so, I found myself typing through my tears to my boyfriend, my mom and dad, anyone who would entertain my tears. Why was I feeling this way? Why wasn’t I joyful and excited to be here?

I am alone here. Being alone is not a very common state for me, and never for more than a few hours. Loneliness is rarely something I feel.

Plus, as familiar as this city is to me, it is still foreign. While I understand the language, it is not my own. I am alone here.

After a fitful night of sleep, I woke up and did my best to start the day well. I ate with the German girls I’d met the night before. They hadn’t been to the epic Piazzale Michelangelo, and we walked up there together, the sunshine on our faces. I took them to the train station so they could be on their way to Nice. And then, alone, I went to the English bookstore. I found it with no problem, and went inside. A few of the first books I saw were titled Loneliness and Loneliness as a Way of Life. Perfect.


But then I met some girls that go to my former school in Florence, and I wound up giving them my email. We talked about getting dinner and maybe doing some yoga.

I read in Piazza Republica. I walked to the Italian bookstore. I people watched.

Finally, the familiar feeling of being happy amidst chaos and unfamiliarity came back. Just a little, but the tense knot in my chest had loosened a little. I finally was able to feel why I’d come back and what I’ve been looking forward to the past two years since I left.  

This trip isn’t about being comfortable. It’s the exact opposite. This is a challenge for me. I am not good at being entirely alone. I am not good at navigating train stations and timetables. I am not good at eating alone in hostels.

So here I am. I opened my computer this afternoon, scraped off my tears from the touchpad (apparently I have very, very salty tears with mighty staying power), and wrote. And I felt a little bit of home, a little bit of my mom and dad, and my heart a little bit calmer.