Final Thoughts On My Italian Adventure

The one thing I have been thinking about a lot this week is something that Laura said in her blog: “I think I am homesick for a place that doesn’t exist.”  I completely agree.  My trip has come to an end, and I have been thinking back to everywhere we went, everything we saw, everyone we met, and I can not think of a better experience I have ever had.  I lucked out with such a great traveling partner in Laura.  She pushed me to get outside my comfort zone a lot!  Those of you who know me know that I am a planner.  I like having a plan, I like knowing where I am going, who I will be with, where I am, and what we are doing.  When we got on the plane to Italy, I knew we would be in Venice until June 22nd when we would meet Melissa in Florence for a few days.  After that I was supposed to have about 3 1/2 weeks left that were unplanned.   This is a huge problem for me and made me super anxious.  My mom had to talk me down from the ledge a few times with how nervous I was.  I had even told Laura at one point that if we didn’t have something planned by June 17th, I was changing my ticket and flying back with Melissa.

It all worked out.  Three weeks into Venice when we were out to dinner at Sanchit’s restaurant and we talking about how we couldn’t believe it had already been almost a month and what we were going to do afterwards.  We decided then that we had to go back to Venice.  There were too much we hadn’t done, too much we hadn’t seen, and we weren’t ready to say goodbye to our new friends.  In fact, we would have just stayed an extra week directly after we were scheduled to leave if it had not been for our plans with Melissa.  I actually think I liked how it turned out better though, because it was like a mini vacation within our vacation.  Going back to Venice was like going home.

One night when Laura and I were out at the bar with Slava, we created this kind of Utopia that we wanted to live in.  It was called Marslavchilauria or something similar.  It was going to have a little something for everyone, and the best part was that it didn’t matter where the location was.  We all want something different in our lives, but this place would have it all.  It is impossible to create a Utopia for the whole world, but for 4 people, we could make it work.  At least for a while.  After that, when you start to miss your family and friends, and you want them to join you in your new home, you realize that there is more you need to add and build and then in the end, you wind up with our current world anyway.  It would be nice to have a little escape though, a place where you can return to nostalgia and remember how life was when you were in a happy place.

That is the end of that tangent though.  Back to my trip.  If you’ve been following this blog, you know where I went, but if you need a refresher, here is a quick break down.
May 24-June 22 Venice
June 23-26 Greve (Sienna, Cinque Terre, Lucca, Chianti)
June 27-30 Florence
July 1-7 Venice
July 8-10 Rimini
July 11-15 Atina (Picinisco, Sora)
July 16 Rome (Hotel)
That brings us to today.  If you did the math, you know that it is not quite 3 1/2 weeks after my plan ended like I said.  In the end, I did end up changing my flight to come back early.  Not much, but it was cheaper to come home half a week early than to stay.  Laura will still be traveling around until the beginning of August.  It is weird to not have her around.  Last night was the first night I have spent without a roommate since we left Venice the first time.  That is crazy to me!

Don’t get me wrong, I am excited to be coming back.  I was definitely getting homesick and I was ready to be done traveling.  I do good with being stationary.  If I had been able to stay in one place that I was comfortable for a more extended period of time I think I would have been fine.  But considering I can not drive stick and I would have been alone, that essentially would only leave Venice.  My goal before I return to Italy is therefore to learn how to drive a manual. I am half surprised that wasn’t covered at Istituto Venezia since they took care of basically every other one of my issues.

This post is a little scatterbrained, I apologize.  I’m writing it on the plane.  Basically, I guess you should think of each paragraph as a new lead in.

I have learned a lot about myself in the past 2 months, and I hope that I can take some of it with me as I continue, and I hope that I can learn to deal and cope with other parts of myself.  For example, I hope to go forward with the calmer lifestyle of Italy and to not always be so rushed.  I want to enjoy life more while I have the time.  I want to be able to look back and see that I have met more people and learned more about their lives.  I need to become more involved in community activities and get out there.  I also would like to work on being calmer when I am stressed.  Some situations I think I dealt with great, and other times I know I could have kept my cool a little better.  I also need to be more proactive with things that I want.  A late night conversation with a more than tipsy Laura and Melissa may have really put that into perspective.  This will be the hardest one for me, but piano, piano… (slowly, slowly) I hope to make it happen.

I don’t know what else I can say about this.  Life is good and plane rides are long.

Memories From Half My Life Ago And Saying Goodbye

So this has been 12 years in the making.  It has been almost exactly 12 years since I was last in Atina.  Ever since we came last time, I have been begging my grandma to bring me back.  I didn’t appreciate it last time I was there.  Though I had had fun with my cousins, I was too young to really appreciate where we were and the history of the place and what it meant to my family.  Now I am older and I really care about out family history and where we come from.  A huge reason of why I wanted to learn Italian was to be able to communicate with my family and to be able to come back here.

Our first day here we kind of explored the city center a bit and I was trying to remember some of the places we came to when I was younger.  The restaurant we went to for breakfast I remember being constantly filled with the older men (this has not changed for the most part), I remember the shape of the center and the ramp leading up to the arch, and I thought I remembered where the good pizza place was (I did not).  I also could not remember which road down led to Uncle Ollie’s house.  We went to Sora for a little jaunt and it happened to be the day of the mercato!  We briefly walked around as we tried to find WiFi.  I had assumed that Atina would not have any anywhere, though later we discovered that was not true.  Instead, we got to have some coffee and pastries at this rad and modern cafe that used a french press to infuse tea with different flavors.  It was on our list of places to hopefully revisit before we leave.

The next morning at breakfast we met Uncle Ollie’s brother, who I have always heard referred to as Gelarduce (sp?) but who introduced himself as Gerardo and now Laura doesn’t believe that we call him by his nickname.  He told us that whenever we were ready he would take us to see the house and anywhere else we wanted to go.  After lunch it was.  He took us to the house and showed us around.  It is amazing how your mind remembers things.  The house is so much bigger than I remember, but the patio was so much smaller.  I remember sitting on the ledge above the driveway talking to Ollie.  I remember all of us kids sitting in a circle in the driveway talking to Tommy as he told us stories.  I remember a huge party on the patio and in this extra garage where we had a huge dinner every night it seemed.  I remember when some/all of my cousins decided to climb up this huge hill to check out this ruin castle thing.  It all started coming back to me.  However, now, I have no idea how all those people fit there.  Someday, I hope we can all try again. (I’m looking at you, DeLucas, next time come with me!)  Then we went back to his house and looked at more pictures and heard more stories.  Antonella, his daughter, had told us that he could talk all day and that when we wanted him to stop to turn off the switch, but I loved hearing everything he had to say and Laura can talk to anyone.  Along with Atina, Gerardo also took us to Picinisco on Friday so that I could see where my grandma had grown up.  We didn’t go to the house because it is up a steep hill, but he did take us to what is left of the castle up on top of the hill.

Overall our time in Atina was very peaceful.  We got to rest and explore at our own rate because we had a car.  That was one thing I loved about Greve, we weren’t tied to the timetables of public transportation.  We went for a couple drives, just to see what was around, we went to the beach for a couple hours and didn’t have to leave like 3 hours early for a 1 hour trip in order to account for bus stops, and we were going to go to the Abruzzo National Park, but we waited too late so instead we just drove around to Cassino and then back up to Sora.  Driving in the mountains was less terrifying than I remembered, but still scary at times.  Siri liked to give us directions that included like a tiny gravel road at what seemed like a 50 degree incline only wide enough for one car and no guardrails. I was actually pretty impressed that google maps knew about these roads, but I also wish there was an “Avoid death trap roads” option.  It was like my phone knew that I was leaving Italy soon and was trying to take matters into it’s own hands to keep me there.

Our last day there was like the day that everything went wrong.  The place for Laura to print her ticket didn’t have internet so we had to go find another place, the place we went for gelato in Sora was awful, Antonella had to go to Naples for a few hours for something and so the restaurant was closed that night and we couldn’t have dinner there (such good food! Did I mention how good the food was?), Gerardo was late saying goodbye to us so we went to another place for dinner but it was closed, then we were going to get pizza but we thought that was closed too, and then as we ate at the cafe next door we saw other people with pizza.  Oh, I almost forgot, we also got stopped by the police!  I think it was just random stops, because they were set up on the road and stopping people going both directions.  I was worried because I didn’t have my passport (Fun Fact: I actually did, I just didn’t realize it) and I didn’t know what they were doing.  Basically though, the man loved us because we talked in Italian and because Laura shares a last name with a famous Italian singer and everyone gets excited about it.  He just looked over our documents, asked why we were in Italy and where we got the car from, and then sent us on our way.

Today Laura and I parted ways.  After waking up at 3:30 to get the car back before getting to the airport in time for her morning flight, we said our goodbyes.  Here is a brief breakdown of my day: wake up at 3:30, hit the road by 4, return car around 5:30, get to the airport by 6, part ways at 7:30, shuttle from one airport to the train station at 8, shuttle from train station to other airport at 9:30, shuttle from airport to hotel at 10:30, internet things and Facebook time until lunch, awful lunch at the hotel, nap for 4 hours, dinner, and not a single moment spent sight seeing.  Now I am laying in my hotel room alone for the first time in a month and Laura is with her family in Sicily.  Tomorrow will be another day of traveling as I go back to the hotel and then the long long LONG flight home.  As sad as I am to go home, I am also really excited.  I have more thoughts, but this post has gone on long enough.

Staying Up All Night And Eating Too Much Gelato

Ok, I promise this post will not be as long as the last one.  That just means you will have to ask me about the missing week in Venice.  It was fun, but the highlight was the little party we had for Slava’s birthday.  It started with Laura and I trying to mape these Ukrainian dishes with no recipe or picture to go off of, just a list of ingredients and what we remembered of Slava’s explanations.  It all turned out pretty good though.  Highlights of the night included: the food, the dessert (I made caramelized figs and bananas and served them over gelato), dancing to a wide variety of music including Ukrainian folk music and modern music, Italian ballads, funny Italian songs I have on my computer (“Mama Get The Hammer (There’s a Fly on Papa’s Head)” “Show Me The Way To Go Home” “Tici Ti Tici To Tici Ta”), and some American music, sitting on the canal talking about anything and everything, staying up all night and watching the sunrise over the canal, taking pictures and an ungodly hour when we all looked ragged and tired, and then grabbing a coffee in the morning after being up for almost 24 hours.

The next stop on our adventure was Rimini to visit with Laura’s family.  Getting from Venice to Rimini was the most stressful train exchange we had.  We had about 20 minutes, ended up running up and down the 3 floors of the station twice and making it to our correct platform about 5 seconds after our train was scheduled to pull away.  Luckily for us our train was 7 minutes late.  


Laura had been in correspondence with her cousin Lucia, and we were staying at Lucia’s parents house.  They were so funny.  So my grandparents are Romeo and Julie(t), right?  Well Lucia’s parents are Anthony (Marc Antony) and Cleopatra.  One thing I can say about our time in Rimini is that we were never hungry.  I thought my grandma was a food pusher…she’s got nothing on Cleopatra.  I have never felt so constantly full in my life.  At least 3 full meals a day and snacks.  We had food fresh from their garden and figs right off their tree (which is almost the height of their two story house, for a frame of reference).  Everything was delicious.

They were also hilarious.  Just watching them interact with each other was a show for the most part.  They lived in Germany for about 25 years, and so sometimes they would start talking in German.  They would watch German tv sometimes, and cook German food.  Cleopatra was a Renaissance woman when it came to languages. She speaks Italian, German, Greek, some English, some Spanish, some French, and I think at least another one but I forget. Maybe Russian.  She gave us massages, offered to do our laundry, and told me to use their towels and not the ones I brought because I was on vacation.  She also ironed some of Laura’s clothes.  I felt bad about all the stuff she did for us.  We tried to help out as much as we could.  We did the dishes and Laura helped in the garden and cleaned the kitchen.  I also played Rummy with them one night when we got back.  I was impressed with myself for knowing what they were playing.  After some vague discussions about what their rules were, I got the swing of things.  Cleopatra won like 4 hands in a row, and then on the last game I won.  I was so excited, I threw my hands up and said “VINTO!” which means “I win/won”.  They just laughed at me.

We also met Noah, the newest member of the family.  He is an adorable 10 month old baby complete with a permanent smile and eyelashes I would give my right arm for.  Ugh, literally I was so jealous of the baby's eyelashes that I cannot even explain it.  His dad, Loreno, had them too.  We only had a few days there but we did get to see the city and the famous Rimini beaches.  Everything was so beautiful and we also had some great gelato because Lucia has a sweet tooth, haha!  "Sometimes in the summer, the people in this area just eat gelato for dinner because it is so hot.  This means you have to get a BIG gelato, though!"  The day we went to the beach, we had gelato twice.

Travel days are always hard, and the trip to Atina was no different.  Getting to the train was fine, and for once our train switch was over a half hour and at a small station so we didn’t actually have to freak out and run around with our heads cut off.  Our total train time though was about 5 hours and then we had 40 minutes until our shuttle bus from the train station to the airport.  The shuttle was longer than I thought it would be, and then the phone numbers to the shuttle to pick us up to take us to the car rental weren’t right.  Luckily the guy who picks up people for every other car rental knew the number we needed by heart and told us what it was.  Then my credit card wouldn’t work at the actual rental place even though it had worked online for the deposit.  Apparently they had put a security hold on my card because they couldn’t get a hold of my mom even though we had told them that I would be in Italy until the end of July.  The phone numbers to call Visa/Chase on the card also weren’t going through.  Then the car we thought we had rented was not the same one we got so we didn’t have a GPS in the car and had to use my phone.  Once we got close to Atina, my phone just dropped us on this street that was not where we needed to be and I wasn’t quite sure where the restaurant was.  After a call to Antonella, a stop at a caffe that was open, and a second call to Antonella, we found it.


More to come on Atina later.

That time I actually liked nature more than the city.

Ok, I am in love.  I am stating it here for the world to know.  I am in love with Toscana.  This place is beautiful and I do not know where these natives would go to travel, because I don’t know why they would ever leave.  Maybe I should start from the beginning.  Laura and I caught our train from Venezia to Firenze and I was ecstatic for the air conditioning.  This clearly means that everyone else was probably freezing, but I loved it and was just content.  Then when we arrived in Firenze it was a free for all for everyone.  The conductor had come through and I heard him say that we had 10 minutes once we got to Florence for everyone to get off who needed to.  This clearly resulted in everyone forming a straight orderly line and walking calmly to the exits, right?  No, it resulted in me trying to lug my gigantic suitcase and duffle through the aisle without hitting anyone in the head.  Then when we got to the door Laura said to me “Save yourself and just get off the train” but that was easier said than done because everyone before us had made a mess of the entrance way and I had to lift my suitcase up over everyone else’s.  (It was not that bad really, but in the moment I always have that panic of “what if”.)  Laura and I both made it, and Laura even got her suitcase off the train without any help because she is woman, hear her roar.

Then began the time to try and figure out where Melissa was.  “I just got here and I’m near the stazione..parked at the moment.  Text me when you get outside and I will drive by hoping to see you.  I have a dark gray fiat panda.”  This was my clue for us to find her.  Now for those of you who know me, you know that I can only recognize Ford cars.  So already I was waiting for Laura to point out a panda.  My extent of panda knowledges are limited to the black and white bears, so I was basically just looking around for any gray car and going “Is that Melissa? Nope, that is a man.”  But we found her and packed up all of our bags into the tiny European car and headed out.

When we arrived in Greve it took us a few tries to get to our B&B.  The directions basically say “Don’t look for our address, but instead go down this unmarked road at the end of this other road.  Good luck!”  We drove around and it wasn’t actually too bad.  We did find it, and it was beautiful!  I could live there forever.  The building was classic stone architecture and covered in flowers.  There were also big giant wine barrels everywhere for decoration, which was a nice touch.  We were next to a vineyard and everything smelled amazing-maybe jasmine? We kept calling the flowers sassafras, but I don’t know if we ever really figured out what it was.  After a bit of R&R we went to explore the town.  There was a little town center with some stores and restaurants that was so cute.  We ended up eating at this restaurant and the food was ok.  Melissa and Laura had good food if I remember correctly, but I had gotten spaghetti with clams and it just didn’t live up to the ones I had in Venice.  Same thing with dessert.  I got tiramisu, but it was too dry for me.  Melissa’s limoncello gelato/sundae thing was amazing, and Laura’s strawberry thing was good too.  Then we headed back to the room and sat outside and had some wine.  We played some music and ended up having a little dance party “Put you hands up their playing our song…It’s a party in Italia!”.  Inside we also pushed all of our beds together so it was like one big slumber party.  Night one was in the books.

The next day we went to Sienna.  So for those of you who have been following this blog and found my story about being confused in the grocery store funny, let me tell you about our adventure trying to get gas.  It was basically right out of “How many [insert stereotype]s does it take to change a lightbulb?”  We pulled up to the pump and just kind of had to take a moment to look at it and see what we were supposed to do.  There were three buttons on the pump €5, €20, and Cancel.  Then we couldn’t figure out if we had to pay first or pump first.  We tried several different options, and my card wasn’t working.  There was a man there with a coach bus also trying to fill up.  He tried to help us but later we were thinking maybe he didn’t know what he was doing either because he was still there when we left and then again when we realized we were going the wrong way and turned around and passed the gas station again.  Anyway, we tried several different times and different combinations of things.  Finally another man came to get gas and he did it for us.  I have no idea what he did because I was by the car and they were all by the payment machine (because of course the two are not connected), but he actually pumped our gas for us which was so nice.  It turned out my card wasn’t working because of the clearly marked sign that said they did not accept Visa.  Then we were on our way…and then again after we turned around and actually faced the correct way.

Now I didn’t know much about the city, but Melissa had read a book about the Palio so she gave us the 411 on Sienna.  A condensed version to understand what we did is as follows: The city is divided into 17 different contradas, each with their own church, flag, colors, mascot, etc.  The communities are very close knit and it is still frowned upon to marry outside of your contrada.  We walked around and tried to find as many different contradas as we could.  We also got to see one of the contrada’s banner carriers practicing.  It was really interesting and impressive.  My favorite contrada was the Swan until I found out it was actually a Goose.  Then it became the Tower because it’s mascot is also an Elephant.  There were also a ton of beautiful alleyways (which if you have looked through my pictures, you know that I love).  This may have been my favorite place that we have been thus far.

The next day we hung around the B&B and just relaxed.  We went into town and got a ton of different kinds of meat and some cheeses, then we picked up some wine from the B&B (they had their own brand) and made our own spread.  This was the day that except for breakfast, I only drank wine.  This was an awful decision, but my nap was a very deep sleep.  This was the only day we ran into some rain.  After my nap, I woke up to both Melissa and Laura gone on runs/walks and the sound of thunder rumbling in.  I love rain, so I was fine with this, but I didn’t want the girls to get stuck someplace.  The weather must have ended up clearing up, because we went to dinner in town and I believe we walked.  It was a small place with a lovely older woman who took care of us.  The food here was AMAZING!  Everyone’s meals were delicious and I wish we would have had time to go back there again.  All in all it was the perfect lead in to the next day, which was sure to be a long one.

Tuesday morning we all woke up early and started our day.  We grabbed a quick breakfast at the main villa and then started our drive to Cinque Terre.  Well, before we left Laura thought she might get motion sickness so I offered her some of my medicine.  It ended up with me basically drugging her and her sleeping for most of our drive.  Oops!  At one point after we figured out what had happened Melissa said “That was our plan. ‘How can we get Laura to be quiet for 5 hours? Let’s drug her.’”  It was really funny, but I still felt bad.  On the plus side, she didn’t feel sick!  We stopped at Lucca on our way.  This place was cool!  The whole city was inclosed within a huge wall, and part of it looked touristy, but part of it looked really residential.  We were on a time crunch so we only spent a couple hours there, but I am glad we went.  I had some of the best pastries at a little bakery there of my whole trip.  I can still taste the glaze.

After Lucca we continued on to Cinque Terre.  Here are my thoughts on CT: Not worth it.  I got some really great pictures and I am glad we went, but I probably wouldn’t go again.  However, if you like to hike, this will be a completely different experience for you.  There are a bunch of different trails and a time estimate for how long each one would take.  One trail estimated about 12 hours.  Obviously, this was not the place for me.  But the way that everyone talked about it, I know I would have been sad if we didn’t go.  On the way back we had briefly talked about making another stop but I am glad we opted against it.  We did pass Viareggio though on the way and I wish I would have planned better and maybe we could have gone there.  Oh well, next time.

Wednesday was probably the best day we have had so far while traveling by bus.  After breakfast and one last jaunt around the town, Melissa drove us to the bus stop and we said our goodbyes. Sad times.  This week with Melissa had been great, I love that lady.  She had some setbacks on the trip, but she powered through and didn’t let it ruin the rest of her trip.  When the bus came, it was the first bus we have taken that was more like a coach bus AND the real bonus was that the driver was able to put our luggage underneath.  For once we were not crammed into a little space with multiple bags while other people were trying to walk up and down the bus to get on/off.  However, I had forgotten to take any motion sickness medicine so I spent the ride staring at the bald bald head of the bus driver in the mirror to have something to focus on.  He was the nicest public transportation driver I have met in Italy.
So our accommodations in Florence were through AirBNB, and so the woman who owned the place had to move us to a different apartment because the person currently in the room we had booked wanted to stay another night.  She said she could move the other guy, but the other apartment was going to be the same price and only five minutes away so we were troopers and agreed to it.  Up 5 flights of stairs later, let me tell you I was regretting this.  Then we saw the apartment and it was really nice and very modern.  Everything was fine.  We went out for a little bit, but basically ended up catching up on WIFI and relaxing.

The next day we set out to explore a little bit and also find the school where I was having a meeting a next day.  If I had thought Venice was confusing, Florence was just as bad.  If you were looking for big things like the Duomo, it was no big deal, just look up any and you can probably see it.  But I was looking for a specific address on a street.  They have TWO sets of numbers and no one seems to find this weird.  I was looking for number 85, but I didn’t know if I was looking for Blue 85 or the stone 85.  Laura and I walked this street the whole length, and I asked a man in a store for help.  He was not helpful.  Finally he just asked what it was I was looking for and I said a school. His response: “Just go down this road and it’s towards the end.” “Ok, is it on the left or the right?” “It’s not on a side, it’s just at the end of the road.  It’s not a very long road, just keep going.” “It’s not on a side?” “No, it’s not.  It’s just at the end.  There is a school there.” “Ok…thank you?”  Needless to say, we just walked until we found it.  At this point I was convinced I hated Florence.  I even said that to Laura essentially right before she found the building.  She reminded me that every new place is hard to navigate and you just have to get used to the city.

That night we went out to dinner with Ailun (the hostess) and a couple of her other guests staying at the apartments (Jessica and Natasha).  It was nice and fun.  We went to a local restaurant that had some really good food.  After dinner we moved to the other apartment.  It was weird because Ailun had made it seem like we would be staying in the one place since the other room had been occupied, and so we had unpacked all our stuck and gotten a few groceries, and then we had to pack everything up again, lug all our stuff down the 5 flights of stairs, and go to the other apartment.  Luckily the other apartment was close and on the first floor (which in Italy still means one flight of stairs, but not bad) and it meant that we got to hang out with Natasha!  She is basically the best.

Friday morning I left for my meeting.  I got there a few minutes early, I looked presentable, and I was ready to see what this program had to offer.  The woman gave me a tour of the facilities in both buildings, took me to the pastry shop that is run by the students, got me a free coffee, and went over what classes were in the program.  Let me just tell you that this program has everything I have been looking for.  It focuses solely on Italian breads, cookies, and pastries. It also has an Italian language intensive program, internships available, and classes/seminars in topics such as gelato, chocolate artistry, and different wines.  Downsides are: Florence was not my favorite place, but I could live outside the city; I am really homesick right now and I would like to stay home for a while, but if I do this program I would be home for about a month before I would have to come back, and I kind of feel like this trip has already taken a chunk of my savings, I will have to review my financial situation before I make an official decision.

Other than that, we did some exploring and hung out with Natasha and Karan when he came into Florence to start a class he is taking there.  All in all, the weather was nice, cool but not cold and still sunny, and the city started to grow on me.  I still think if I were to go there I would want to stay outside the city, but who knows.  Ailun flipped the last night on the other guests and was basically completely irresponsible and immature.  She had never been completely responsible while we were there but we were mainly self dependent so it wasn’t a huge deal, but about 8 hours before we were getting ready to leave, she flipped the switch and went to crazy town (this included yelling at the new guest from the Ukraine who was a total sweetheart about something that was her own fault).  Let’s just say, we were all thankful to be leaving that next morning and to be done with her.

Now we are back in Venice and I feel almost like I have come home.  We are staying where Laura had stayed before, so I kind of feel like a guest more than I am back in the safe cocoon of familiarity, but that might just be because I am tired.  I am really happy to be back.  Next week when we leave for good will be rough.