Category: Observations

Some stuff I have come across while living out of my car.

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An Ode to Rudeness

I’m from New Jersey.

Go ahead, do it. Judge me. Think about how I’m rude, obnoxious, uneducated, loud, dirty, and I drive like a maniac. Am I some of these things? Yes, probably. But I also don’t look like this:

Just because you are from New Jersey, or really anywhere else in the world, means that you live up to their stereotypes, as I’m sure anyone with half a brain can figure out. But one thing I gotta say: as rude as New Jerseyans and New Yorkers are portrayed to be, Italy is much worse.

Don’t get me wrong here; there are tons of people in Italy who smile at me in a non-creepy way and yell out BUONGIORNO! when I walk by when I can barely even articulate words because it’s 9:00 am, but there the vast majority seem to be pissed that I’m even in the country. They’re pissed I don’t speak Italian, they’re pissed that I’m on the train, they seem to be pissed that I’m even breathing. So I have to ask, Italy; why so blue?

I’m sorry that sometimes I have to ask you for directions. I’m sorry that my Italian is mediocre at best, and I’m sorry that I literally cannot find one thing on this shitty map and I guess I’m sorry that my presence upsets you so much, because really people, I’m just trying to see the world here. Chin up, Italy. Have a cappuccino and put your best smile on.

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The Wonders of Sobriety

Being that most people who study abroad are juniors in college, many of them haven’t hit the much-coveted 21-year mark yet and feel the need to milk the bars in Europe for all they’re worth, blowing their money on beers before they are shipped back to the States and they have to go back to overcrowded frat parties and badly mixed drinks for a few more solid months.

Since I’m already 21, I don’t fit into this category (anymore). Don’t get me wrong, when I was 20 I would have killed (literally, actually killed people) to be at the bar with all my friends, where I heard, from my good 21-year-old friend Jesse, that “everything you could ever want is there, from rainbows and unicorns to all the best loot you can imagine.”

However, I’m grateful to have already been 21 for a good while before coming here, because I feel absolutely no impulse to blow all my money (and time) on getting drunk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for going out and having a good time… on the weekends. When I have nothing else of value to do. But when it’s Wednesday and I have class at 9:00 am the next day with my crazy Italian professor, then no, I don’t really feel like going to the bar with you. Sorry.

I totally understand that people come abroad for different reasons. Some people come to solely travel, like myself. Some come to live; to learn the culture and go out to eat and study Italian. Some come to shop and come home with a coveted new Italian wardrobe. And others come to party. This is okay.

But before you choose to spend yet another five euros at the bar (for the first twenty minutes…) think about this- all that spent money on shitty drinks on Monday nights could have gone towards your trip to Switzerland, a beautiful steak dinner with your new Italian friends, or a pair of fancy Italian leather boots bargained for at the San Lorenzo market. Your memories of Florence don’t have to be a haze for you to know that you had a good time. A balance exists, you just have to find it within the piles of pasta and gelato.

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Everything I drank for this night I did so in the comfort and cheapness of my own apartment. WIN.

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The Red White and… Green?

In the days of the bobble that we now live in, I will admit something very shameful- I used to be a plastic water bottle girl. Tragic, I know.

Anyway, (sorry, poor segue) Europe, among its eight zillion differences from the good ol US of A, loves the environment. Unlike in America, where we spend more time debating if global warming is real and talking about what a dbag Al Gore is, in Europe, they actually do this thing called recycling. And they don’t do it because a faux president made a video or because gas prices are obscenely high, but they do it just because they do it.

For example: In Italy, you have a limit of how much electricity you can use per household, and if you go over it, you don’t get some bullshit fee that you could probably argue your way out of at the end of the month but instead they simply shut off your electricity. In my apartment, this happens literally at least once a day. The washing machine and the oven can’t even be on at the same time and if someone is straightening their hair, just forget it. I have been trapped in the kitchen more than once in the dark, haunted by past American Horror Story episodes.

When throwing away garbage in Italy, you don’t have the opportunity to choose what is recycled and what isn’t. If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where a garbage man picks up your trash, you better sort it yourself into one of four categories or else the police will actually come looking for you. True story.

Also, since every grocery store is the size of my living room and you can only buy as much as you can carry on your back, huge cases of water are simply out of the question unless you could 1. find a pack of water and 2. be devoted enough to make two grocery store trips. Instead, most people invest in a cheap reusable water bottle, which is more cost-effective, green, and also colorful. Plus, you can refill it in the bathroom sink instead of pulling one out of your fridge. Who knew?

It’s always funny to me when people say “global warming doesn’t exist” or what we do the environment simply doesn’t matter. There are approximately 7 billion people in the world, overcrowding this world, and you think they have no effect on this planet? Really? The debate on if global warming exists is insignificant. The fact that one day, the trees that you’ll be saving are the ones in your yard is what should really matter. You don’t care about the environment for yourself? That’s fine. But when your grandkids have to go to a museum to see a tree and they’re pining away for the Lorax, you’ll be wishing you had the decency to put those papers in the blue bin instead of the green.

In Europe, recycling isn’t a choice or a nice thing to do. It’s simply what you do, as natural as brushing your teeth. Don’t get me wrong, I love America with all my heart, and I’m no hater. Red white and blue all the way. But we could learn a few things from our friends across the pond.

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Nomad Couture

“I don’t know anyone who breaks as many shoes as you do,” says my boyfriend, after I tell him that I broke my fourth pair of shoes this semester.

Which, may or may not be a valid observation. Studying abroad, aka traveling more than you most likely will travel in your entire life ever again within a three month timespan, takes a lot out of you, and a lot of out your… stuff. For example: I often find myself silently praying not that I have a safe flight or that the bus is on time, but instead that Please, PLEASE let my backpack make it, just one more week. That’s it. I promise I will stop drinking so much beer. 

And it doesn’t stop there with my backpack. Mostly, this applies for shoes, since those (and, come to think of it, basically everything I own) cost less than $20 and has the quality to reflect that. Not only do I just happen to break many things, but I also walk a lot and get lost a lot and lose my stuff a lot. SORRY OKAY!

Anyway, the great thing about studying abroad is even though you started accidentally dressing like a gypsy, you’re basically a nomad anyway so it’s kind of acceptable. (“This ten-year-old backpack is so handy.” “This shoes with these ginormous holes in them are so comfortable and it’s easier to tell when it’s raining.” “I love this big ugly jacket that some idiot must have accidentally left in the dumpster.”)

Now that I only have two pairs of shoes left when I came here with literally like ten, everyone keeps telling me that I have a great excuse to buy some nice Italian leather to take home. But what I’m really thinking is I could get myself a really nice steak with that money instead, and I’m gonna need the space in my suitcase that those shoes would have taken up since I plan on taking home a hell of a lot of four euro wine.

Also, this thought process makes you see that things are just that- things. Italian leather boots are still just a pile of leather you’ll be sick of in a few months, and a beautiful patterned jacket is just something you’ll need when it rains. Instead, the only thing fashion matters for when you have no money and no space in your suitcase is if your Facebook pictures will still look okay so all your friends can be jealous of all the fun you’re having.

So now, when my shoes break at the airport during the security check I’ll actually be glad, because this means I can take out my spare pair and that’s one less thing I’ll have to carry on my back. Will I still look like a crazy bag lady when I get back home and have my wonderful closet back? Probably not. But for now, it’s kind of nice to jump in the mud puddles, get soaked in the rain, and leave clothes in the hostel that you’ve been wearing for a week straight.

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I Think Romance Missed the Flight.

Today over some wine in my Pairing Food with Wine class (thank you, study abroad), I overheard this conversation, which really isn’t very out of the ordinary:

Girl 1: “I don’t do very well in relationships because I’m just like ‘The Man.’ He will always be texting me and I’m just like, ‘I don’t care.'”

Girl 2: “Well I mean, like, the only reason I said yes to my boyfriend because he was just like, ‘Everything is gonna stay exactly the same while you’re in Florence. Just email me like once a week to let me know you’re alive. ‘ Which is great for me because I just want to do my own thing.” (Also, to note, this girl also said that this boy surprised her by flying out to Florence to visit her and bought her a ticket to Paris and then asked her out on some famous bridge).

Girl 3: “I just want to be single because c’mon, I’m 20-years-old. I don’t want to be tied down because who knows where my job will take me? Or graduate school? My mom always says that a boy can follow me around if he wants to as I travel the world, but I better follow my own dreams.”

Fifty years ago, this conversation would have been jaw-dropping! Unbelievable! Coming of age for its time! And yet today, in a world where women rule anyway and the only thing you need a man to do is… well, nothing, it really just sounds a little silly to me.

Here’s the thing. I totally get that you want to be independent, free to do anything you want, go anywhere you want. But at what point did this mean that you had to cut any sort of romance out of the picture? When did romance lose its fun and just gain a hell of a lot of anchors?

I don’t think you have to be a bitch to be independent. I don’t think that you need to declare that you’re swearing off men because you want a career, or decide that you’re only going to do random hookups or pretend not to care about anyone because you don’t want to end up like Your Friend’s Mom’s Best Friend who got married at 21 and had five kids and now spends her days crying, watching soap operas, and doing laundry.

Being in a relationship or admitting to actually like someone isn’t what makes you uncool. What makes you uncool is when you stay holed up in your room all day Skyping your boyfriend and writing sad emails to your mom when you could be out exploring this beautiful city. Fortunately, the amount of these people is rather limited, so I think you can all stop declaring what awesome bitches you are and instead admit when you actually like someone because guess what? “Liking” is a natural human emotion. Who knew?

Now later on in the conversation, I heard this one:

Girl 3: “We were both so whatever about it, that now me and my guy back at home have been hooking up for like a year and haven’t done anything about it. I’m kind of over the random hookups and I got that out of my system freshmen year, but it would be weird to try for anything with him now.”

Girl 1: “Yeah, I get you. I have been hooking up with this older guy for a long time, but he has already graduated and has a job and I want to live in Chicago, so it’s a little late to try for anything.”

So, now the truth creeps out, just a little bit. What is odd to me is that these “empowered” women have no problem fighting for their careers, but yet they are so willing to let guys who they have come to care about actually walk on them a little bit by making them feel like a random hookup is all they can ask for if they want to have fulfilling lives outside of a serious relationship.

Guess what, ladies? You CAN have it all. The great thing about being an empowered woman in 2012 is that not only can you have a fulfilling career, caring friends, an extraordinary education, and a great family, but you can also have a dude alongside you that also serves as a best friend. A man doesn’t mean staying home and cooking and doing laundry anymore. It means another person, among many, to care about. It doesn’t make you lame or “tied down” or anything other than the person you already were, if you don’t choose to make it that way.

And this exactly qualifies for your time abroad, too. Okay, yes, if your boyfriend is getting pissed you can’t text him when you’re at the Florentine soccer game for one hour, that is a problem. A major problem. But no one ever said that because someone kind of likes you who happens to be 3000 miles away at the moment, you have to stay holed up and be lame. There are lots of secret American girlfriends, all over Florence, who have someone waiting for them at home and can still go out and get just as smashed as you. Trust me.

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In its Wake

When studying abroad, you often hear a lot of talk that sounds kind of like this–

“I am never going back.”

“America sucks.”

“I don’t miss anything about home.”

And I won’t lie, either, sometimes I say these things too. Maybe sometimes others feel differently, but I get the feeling that a lot of this kind of talk is a little dramatized. Okay, yes, I get it- Italy is awesome. Trust me, I am well aware. But when it comes down to it, we have only been here two months. I can barely say a full sentence in Italian and I go home in a month, so I think this keeps Florence outside the realm of my home. Because my real home, as always, will lie on the coast of New Jersey.

Last Monday, Hurricane Sandy kicked the shit out of New Jersey and New York. The largest hurricane to ever hit the Atlantic coast, it has caused $50 billion in damages, according to cnnmoney.com, and killed 88 people in the United States and 68 people in Cuba. Moreover, it has wiped out legendary landmark cities like Seaside Heights, Atlantic City, and Ocean City, and has devastated countless other towns that sit along the coastline like Long Branch, Brick Township, and Asbury Park.

As you sit at your computer and read this, these stats sound very distant from you. I’m sure that you do not hear, behind these figures, the sounds of people crying because everything they have ever owned is gone or because their boat sits five miles down the street on top of someone’s garage. I’m sure that you do not see people waiting in lines for gas for three hours or hear the beating in their hearts the first time that they step back inside the homes they had to evacuate last Monday.

Most of the time, when I hear about disasters like this, I feel the same way you do. I listen to the facts and the stories, but the truth is, I don’t know these people and I never will and I have no idea what the hell $50 billion in damages even looks like. When the tsunami rocked Japan in 2011 or Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005, I felt bad and all and would maybe drop some change into a collection jar outside Shop Rite, but I didn’t give it all too much thought. This time, though, it isn’t someone else’s home city that was destroyed.

Right now, my home University, which sits on the coast of Monmouth County, has been closed from last Monday (when the storm hit) to this coming Monday, as about 1,000 people take shelter in our Multipurpose Activity Center (which is currently being used as a state shelter) and the University itself remains without power. Thousands of students will have nowhere to go home to once school starts again, and it’s a miracle in itself my own apartment, only a feet away from the boardwalk (which lies in ruins) will even be livable upon next week.

Just like anyone else, I have visited my friends’ beach houses that run alongside the bay in Tom’s River next to Seaside Heights and we danced with their neighbors and biked to the bay when the sun was setting. In Wildwood, I rented hotel rooms with my friends and we hung out on balconies and cruised the sketchy boardwalks at night, playing Frisbee and going in the ocean even if it was raining. I have run the Long Branch boardwalk, alongside couples holding hands and kids riding their skateboards, probably more than 150 times. None of this exists anymore. It is simply not there.

To love a place so dearly, as one loves a home, and then have it disappear, is unreal. It’s just gone. That’s it. And as of now, I can only sit across the Atlantic Ocean, typing on my computer, stalking this freakshow that is Hurricane Sandy on the Internet. Please God, let there be a place to go home to.

To donate to relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy, you can visit the American Red Cross website for volunteering efforts or visit the iTunes Store homepage American Red Cross link, both of which give 100% of the proceeds to relief efforts.

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When I Missed the Days of Regular Showering

“Now backpacking,” the random girl I met on the train begins, “…it’s all about the layers.” With a smile and a wink, the girl with the grown-out highlights and greasy roots lifts up her jacket only to find a dingy sweater, and then a long sleeved shirt that has a couple holes that look suspiciously like bite marks, and then another shirt that may or may not have been found on the ground. Although I’ll admit, a lot of backpacking has to do with layers, it also has a lot to do with being really dirty and hanging out with people who have a good chance of being serial killers.

After my first year of college when I was 18, my good friend Fiona called me up one day and asked, “Hey, would you want to backpack across Europe with me?” It’s probably a good thing that at this point in time, I wasn’t thinking very clearly, because I said yes. I had never been on a plane alone, never been to Europe, hell, I had never even been camping. I think that this can be categorized with jumping in with both feet. Even still, though, I stuffed my clothes in an old backpack my grandma gave to me and Fiona and I ventured off to London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Rome, and Paris.

I remember before I left that I was complaining to my mother that I was sick of getting clean, getting dressed, and putting makeup on every day. AHA. I was lucky if I got a shower in every day when I was roaming abroad. Even though I am a big fan of yoga pants and lame t-shirts, I have never taken showers for granted since.

But I digress. Being backpacking is not like studying abroad, not in the least. As much as I love being abroad and having the chance to explore Italy, to live in beautiful Florence and walk by the Duomo each and every day, studying abroad is a pretty commercialized and is basically glorified tourism with a lot more drinking. If you haven’t noticed, sorority girls are all about going abroad (aka being international sluts) and mostly everything is planned out for you, from the study abroad student trips to the classes held all in English to your advisor being up your ass every ten minutes. In a way, this is nice. This is safe and it is stable. But it is not backpacking.

When someone tells me they studied abroad, my thoughts may wander to, Lucky for you that Daddy’s car sales have been good this year. But when someone tells me they backpacked, I know that they slept in a lot of dirty hostels. I know that they were lost most of the time, they washed their clothes in the sink, and they may have picked places to visit by picking up a map, closing their eyes, and pointing a finger. I know that instead of figuring out what the best drink specials were in their city of residence, they’re probably pretty good at falling asleep on cue in bus stations and don’t mind getting a little dirty.

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Sunday Strolls in the San Lorenzo Market

Similar to every other girl on the entire planet, I love to shop. I enjoy my time spent at any random mall with a cheap Icee in my hands and a credit card in my bag, happy to be among strangers who I don’t have to even make eye contact with. Maybe this is what makes what I like about shopping a little different than what other people do– I like that I can aimlessly browse shelves with really no solid motives at all and no one will pester me. This is also why I am the guru of online shopping– I like to find things cheaply and easily, pay with a card with a beach scene on it, and then go about my day– all within five minutes.

This is why I wasn’t really excited today to go to the San Lorenzo marketplace in Florence outside of the San Lorenzo church to actually find specific things- Christmas gifts! Usually, this important task is reserved for my best friend eBay.com, where I can grab a ton of crap at once, have it gift wrapped and shipped to my house, and then I don’t have to worry about it until December 25.

Like anything else in Italy, though, shopping is not an independent activity. And you know what? This is nice. This is refreshing. I am used to some sulky teenager snapping her gum and trolling Facebook while swiping my card from behind the counter for some mass-produced piece of junk I found on the sale rack. In the San Lorenzo market, vendors will tell you how they handmade their little journals and which ones are their favorite. They will tell you that the guy selling them down the street is kind of a douschebag. They will whisper their deals in your ear and tell you not to tell anyone else, and they will tell you that you have beautiful eyes and they will be able to guess every place you have ever lived based on the way you walk and the way you talk.

Is this quietly stalking through the mall on a Sunday afternoon? No, no it is not. But this is something better– this is making friends with students like you who study Interior Design, who will tell you the best bars to go to and beg you to come back tomorrow, and will remember your name when you do. This is Italy, where unlike in the United States, the people outnumber the credit cards.

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This Place

I am blessed to be in Europe and have the opportunity to see countries that I have only dreamt about every weekend. I cannot believe that me, of all people, was awarded such an obscene chance, to see places I have only read about in books. But let me tell you this– as beautiful as Europe is, as much as I literally love every city that I have visited so far, from Munich to Positano to Venice, I am so in love with Firenze that it’s a little embarrassing.

Other cities win you over with their individual masterpieces, like the Colosseum in Rome or the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Big Ben in London. Obviously, all of these cities, and every other city out there, has tons of cool stuff to see that I am itching to visit and take lame pictures with. But Florence is different. Florence, in and of itself, is a sight.

Florence does not try to convince you to love it with big words, big buildings, big promises and rainbows and sunshine. Florence says, “I’m pretty awesome. But that’s all I’m gonna tell you.” From the Secret Bakery to the century-old buildings that seriously litter this city and the uncanny amount of statues and timeless artwork and architecture, it certainly wasn’t built in a day, and you sure as hell can’t see it in one, or even 109, as I am.

Florence has a quiet confidence, an air of intelligence, that, like many of its women, knows that it is beautiful. And soon you will, too.

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Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

“Ignorant American.”

“I hate America.”

“Stupid Americans.”

You have probably heard phrases like this before. If you aren’t an “ignorant American,” I’m sure that you have heard how the rest of the world hates America, how our country lacks culture and substance, how we are a nation full of people who know nothing outside of their own world, who spend their days thinking of money and die unfulfilled.

Oddly enough, as it seems to me, it’s not the rest of the world who despises America so whole-heartedly (yet some parts of the world do, as there will always be people who hate another simply for their nationality, gender, religion, or race), yet sometimes, it is Americans themselves, bashing the country that gave them life, freedom, happiness, a land full of prosperity and opportunity. Most often, it is spoiled students who don’t feel like they got their deserved lot in life and instead of joining the rest of the world and making a change, they choose to take it out on the land that takes care of them, whining and complaining like brats.

Is everyone happy in America? Does every American belong there? No, of course not. Some people who are born there, just as anywhere else, don’t find it their cup of tea for a plethora of reasons and move to other beautiful places like Italy, France, Australia, Canada, Asia. This is all well and good. Wherever you want to go, that’s the great thing about planes, people. But to bash your own nation? This will not make foreigners like you more. It makes them wonder what’s wrong with you, that you could be so disloyal to the place that took care of you.

I love Florence. I feel like it is a piece of my home. I hope that one day when I take my kids here, I remember it as vividly as I do when I sleep in my apartment next to the Duomo and that I can smile when I think of the short amount of time that I was blessed enough to spend here. But I also remember that it was my American school that sent me here, a glorious opportunity at that.

And I have many other pieces of home too– down the coast of New Jersey where I spent the best three years of my life. Back in the countryside of Jersey where I grew up, which still felt like home even when I moved there knowing no one after my parents got divorced and life made a 180. No matter where I go, whenever I go, America is home.

The States has its problems. Our political system makes a mockery of itself, more people vote for American Idol than they do for the President, we grossly overspend and overuse. I’m not denying any of this or any more of the laundry list of problems anyone can attest to. But America isn’t the only country with problems. And making it the scapegoat for yours won’t fix your life, either.

So students abroad, I’ll tell you this. You don’t have to bash the place that you will be returning to in a few short months to get foreigners to like you. You don’t have to run around toting an American flag all day, but while you are learning the beauty of another culture, don’t be ashamed to share a little of yours too. It is the people that make up the United States, not the grass that grows there. Remember that next time someone says something nasty about the place you, and I, were born and raised, and show some respect.