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Stuff That I Learned on a Bus

I probably say this about eighteen times a day (rough guess) but I literally CANNOT BELIEVE that I really only have a few more weeks here. Before getting on my plane to Italy, as my mother cried at the airport, I thought to myself, Wow, a semester. That’s a long effing time. Guess what. It’s not. Not in the least. In a few short weeks I will be sitting on yet another plane, waving goodbye to beautiful Italy and saying hello again to my New Jersey, praying that it is still in one piece and that the world doesn’t end in December. Anyway, having been here a fair amount of time thus far, I thought I would share with you some things that I have learned as of now, mostly which I have mused on while sitting on six-hour bus rides to random places. I really hope this doesn’t sound like mom advice.

1. Sometimes, you have to hunt for reasons to like people. When you’re studying abroad, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll be with a group of other kids from your University. And, inevitably, you will find reasons to dislike some of them. Well guess what. Unlike being at school, you can’t just avoid these people. Whether you like it or not, this is your family for the next three months, and you better get used to it. With this in mind, and knowing there is no option to make someone disappear from your life, you’ll find that it’s actually pretty easy to find reasons to like anyone. And not only will this make your whole experience less stressful, but it’ll make you find values that you want to create in yourself. BOOM.

2. Nobody’s way of life is better or worse than yours. Being that the only place I have ever lived is the United States, I was under the extremely ignorant impression that more or less, everyone kind of does things the same way. This is not true. Depending on what country you’re lucky enough to call home, I’m guessing you’re drastically different, solely from the point that you live somewhere else. And this doesn’t make your way better, or their way better. It’s just another way, and just as your way is second nature to you, so is theirs. When studying abroad, there is a lot of talk on having an open mind, which makes you watch cultures intently instead of just shunning them.

3. Don’t stress the small things. Think of your last trip. Think of all the ways that you messed up, all the little things that make you go UGHHH because you wished you planned a little better or did something differently. Now multiply this by fifteen weeks of a semester, and that is studying abroad. When being in another country, it’s easy to want to get frustrated enough to want to punch a baby because you’re lost, you can’t figure out where the bathroom is, you haven’t eaten in sixteen hours, you missed the plane… well guess what, people. THIS STUFF HAPPENS. And if you let it get you down, it will kill you. Best to just be happy you’re there at all, sick and covered in odd red hives or not.

4. You are so obscenely lucky. All throughout my life, I kinda felt like I was getting screwed over. I always felt like I was working so hard and still not getting the respect I thought I deserved from my peers, my professors, my bosses, my family. I always felt like I was getting the short end of the stick and it just wasn’t fair. Now when I walk down the street from my class to my apartment and see this view, I am so humbled that I want to cry. I literally cannot believe how blessed I am to be here and I wonder why the hell, out of all people, that I was given the opportunity to live in such a magnificent place. This is how you should feel no matter where you are.

5. You don’t always have to be on the verge of an anxiety attack. Speaking of working my ass off, I am always working my ass off. This is a fact. And now that I’m here, where people eat three hour lunches and bike to work and fall asleep at 2:00 pm, I feel like an idiot. Not that being a hard worker is entirely bad, but if you stop working at 11:00 pm and get up at 7:00 am just to do it all again tomorrow, there may be a problem. Life is short. Chill out. Sit down.

6. Make the most of it. It’s easy to hear those dumb quotes at home like No regrets. Live your life. and it’s also easy to abide by them… from time to time. Unlike life, though, in study abroad, you know your expiration date. This makes it much easier to say, Okay. I have six more weeks here. That’s it. Better make it count. Now if only we could say that in the grand scheme of our lives.

7. Wherever you are, be all there. Even though I love Italy with all my heart, sometimes I get a little homesick. Sometimes I miss my friends and speaking English and feeling not so much like an outsider, and I think to the day when I get back on my plane to New Jersey (provided that it’s still there, thanks for nothing Sandy). But the truth is this- you can be miserable no matter where you are. You can wish you were doing something else or being someone else or with someone else. This doesn’t make where you are any less of a reality. No matter what you do, whether it’s cry to your mom or go out and get smashed with your new friends, you will still be home the exact same day. This is a promise. So… what do you want to do?

8. Spend your time (and money) doing things that matter. When abroad, it’s pretty easy to piss away your budget on badly mixed drinks and gelato. Trust me, I am well aware. But, when standing at that counter, slurring your words to the bartender, hopefully you can think ahead to where else that money could be going. So, when home, before dropping dollars on a new pair of shoes the second you get your paycheck, look at the big picture. See beyond the obvious so that you can do something worthwhile.

That’s all I have for now. I wanted to get to ten but I couldn’t really think of any more right now and I really should be packing for my trip to Ireland tomorrow. LEARN SOMETHING PEOPLE! Knowledge is power!

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Just a Weekend at the Beach…

Early on Saturday (and when I mean early, I don’t mean MY early, i.e. 9:00 am. I mean actually early) at 5:00 am, I unfortunately had to wake up to drag myself to a bus in a place where I had never been before to go to the French Riviera. Somehow, myself, Andrea, and Juliana (my two other roommates) made it to the little square and sat on the bus for about five hours to get to our first stop in Monaco, on the French Riviera.

Personally, I think Monaco is pretty cool (but I am a huge nerd, as you will soon see). Monaco isn’t really a part of France, it’s its own principality, its own state. If I was to be princess or duchess or whatever you want to call it of a place, it would be Monaco. I mean, how many problems can the second-smallest state in the world (only second to Vatican City) have to deal with?

Monaco itself looks like a place out of a storybook, very reminiscent of Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy with its pastel buildings and quaint fountains and views. The second we stepped off the bus, we climbed what felt like a mountain to old city Monaco, where we passed the Cathedral and the Palace of Justice before watching the once-daily changing of the guard right before noon.

After Monaco, we headed right to Nice, where we were staying (thank the Lord). Nice has much more of a big-city feel than Monaco did, with huge towering buildings (still in their pastel colors) and people that actually live there, jogging getting ready for the marathon that day and walking their dogs. Andrea and I missed the tour (what a surprise) so after miraculously finding Juliana and Nicole, who were also lost, we gave ourselves our own little tour and snapped pictures of the buildings that looked like they were probably something important.

As the sun went down, we finally neared the beach, which had a few sets of couples making out on the rocky beach itself as the waves crashed in. It was pretty cool to look out from the coast to see the rest of the French Riviera and Nice, sparkling in all of its rich glory.

That night, we stayed in actual hotel rooms (!) and had a free dinner sponsored by the tour itself, which was hosted by my study abroad school, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and paid for by my University back home. We once again had to get up at an ungodly hour (7:00 am) for some breakfast before getting back on the bus and heading to St. Paul de Vence, a medieval town sitting atop a hill which boasts the best views of the Riviera and the surrounding countryside.

The town itself, which resembles Siena of Italy, remained closed for most of the time we were there because it was a Sunday morning, but it was actually kind of nice to wander the abandoned streets and look out at the land with drifting clouds and fog hanging overhead. Looking out, I wondered who owned the beautiful mansions that dotted the land, what movie stars had the chance to spend however long they felt like here.

Then, we went to Cannes, which honestly sounds a lot better in theory than it is in person. Maybe because it was raining. Maybe because there were no movie stars in sight. Whatevs. Anyway, when we got there, we strolled the streets for a while, glancing at the big-name designers that crowd the road that lines the water, before hopping onto the actually sandy beach and gazing over the water and down the coastline of the rest of the Riviera.

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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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We Have Come for the Chocolate.

Yet another reason why I believe that Italy was made for me– the Perugia Chocolate Festival is a real, in-the-flesh, once-a-year occurrence.

Ever since I heard about this mystical being, I made it my quest to get there. On my list of “must-see” places that I keep, alongside Transylvania and Oxford University, is the annual Eurochocolate of Perugia, located in Umbria, where this gourmet chocolate is famous. So when the last two weeks in October came around that the Festival fell on and my grandma Sissel and my cousin Kristin happened to be visiting me in Florence, I literally begged them to come (not that it takes much begging to get people to come with you to eat chocolate all day long).

A two-and-a-half hour train ride will get you from Florence in Tuscany to Perugia in Umbria, often with a transfer in Terantola-Cortona (because for some reason, Umbria is lacking in a lot of public transportation). This doesn’t sound like too much. But when you’re hungry for chocolate and you’re sitting on a dirty bus, it kind of is.

When we first got to Perugia, I was feeling a little sorry for my friends who have studied abroad there, because the ground near the train station isn’t very pretty (but then again, when is it near public transportation). However, after taking a bus to Piazza Italia, where the Festival takes place, the views get some better.

Unfortunately, the sites that I read about the Festival didn’t lie when they said it was a bit commercialized. There really aren’t any free samples so it’s not like the free-for-all I was imagining, and it’s more or less just a ton of booths with overpriced goodies lying about. REALLY overpriced. We walked up and down the streets the Festival resides on (doesn’t take more than an hour, really) and then decided what we wanted and went back and got it. One chocolate splurge while you’re in Perugia is worth the seven or eight euros, even though I wouldn’t have minded a Triple Chocolate Meltdown from Applebee’s, either.

However, one thing that is cool about this Festival is that even if you can’t afford to buy it all, you can see all the mouthwatering things they can make with chocolate, all of the huge bars of it swarming with bees, stuffed with hazelnut and coconut in a variety of colors. And there’s also the grandiose displays– the classic Chocolate cars, the giant Lindt dancing bears and the boxes of Baci chocolate that are as big as my house.

Unfortunately, this too sticks out to me as extra touristy– why not give the little family shops a try, a chance to make something really cool for us all to see? This is what Italy is about– kicking the big bullies out and keeping the quaint and quality-ridden shops in. This is why you won’t see too many chain restaurants or other chain companies roaming around Italy. Instead of boo-hooing your way about the cliche tourism that is Eurochocolate, though, eat your chocolate bar, shut up, and then get back on the train.

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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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Krka National Park

It is our final day in Croatia. We pack up our stuff skip the shitty hostel breakfast of stale coffee and cold bread and get on the bus, where we go to Krka National Park, which is about two hours north of Split so it’s on our way back to Italy anyway.

Krka National Park is actually kind of overwhelming. Our bus teeters on the edge of cliffs overlooking a jungle, in which a small wooden path weaves in and out around the various waterfalls that make the place famous. We stop to look at all of them, taking pictures of the little fish darting around the clear green-blue waters, pieces of the jungle trees blowing back and forth.

The biggest and most famous part of Krka National Park are the big waterfalls that are at the summit of the entire park. They are huge, thundering waterfalls that fall in and out of one another in the freezing water that look like someone strung them together like a piece of blue jewelry. After making sad faces, we strip and slowly walk into the freezing water to take cheesy pictures before attempting to swim towards them, a nearly impossible feat with such roaring water coming towards us.

This is not a vacation. This is not the Bahamas, Bermuda, a cruise to Florida. This is a whole new animal.

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The Renaissance Theory of Love

I have a confession to make. I am in love. He is a big, strong, strapping lad with lean muscles and a twinkle in his eye. He also happens to be around 511 years old.

One of the things in Florence that I have made my way over to see- twice- is my biffle the David, made by Michelangelo around 1501. Back then, Florence had this huge, yet sort of thinnish piece of marble they were trying to get sculpted into something to be a symbol of freedom and strength for Florence. But all the artists said, “That piece of marble? Puh-lease.”

Well not Michelangelo. He said let’s GOLO and he sculpted David, of the story David and Goliath, although according to him, he only set David free from the marble itself. Michelangelo said that he didn’t really sculpt anything. Instead, he said that his job as an artist was to set the image free that wants to be freed. Originally, the statue stood outside the Palazzo Vecchio (which was kind of like the town hall, where the Medici family worked) in Piazza della Signora, but somewhere along the way, someone figured out that keeping a priceless statue outside probably wasn’t the best plan.

So nowadays, David sits in his nude glory inside the Accademia, where you will literally stand in a line for at least two hours unless you make a reservation. But when you finally get inside, if you turn immediately left… there he is. Right there. Boom. Down the hallway of the Michelangelo room, past the Pietas and a few of Michelangelo’s paintings, is my beautiful man.

I seriously love the David. Fiercely independent and self-assured, nobody messes with him, not even a giant. He doesn’t even care that all he has is a slingshot and seems to have left his tight-whities at home. This is totally okay with him. David wasn’t scared at all when he fought Goliath, even though he was a skinny 17-year-old, because he had God on his side. He says, “Do you know who I am? No seriously, do you?”

And it is in this way that David showcases Florence. Florence is the same way– it doesn’t need anyone else, it doesn’t care if you think it’s old or sort of dirty or smells kind of like garbage sometimes. It says, “Umm, I am really ancient and beautiful and you can like me or not, but I am still going to be my awesome self.” And now that is the real spirit of the Renaissance.

 

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The Cheapest Thing I Could Find

So since I have gotten to Italy, everyone has been telling me that I just have to go Lucca, a small city that is only a half an hour from Pisa and thus, pretty close to Florence. Everyone says that it is a classic Italian town that hasn’t been destroyed by tourists yet, and sits on top of a hill, almost like a plateaued town, with a wall built around it that is great for wandering about.

According to Rick, there is a bus to Lucca from the outside wall of Pisa, right behind the Field of Miracles. Actually, it is a miracle that I found this 3.50 euro bus at all, which just happened to be cruising by as we left the Field of Miracles on a Friday afternoon.

Anyway, we got on good ol Vai Bus and took the half an hour journey before arriving in Lucca and then disembarking and beginning to see the city, courtesy of the Rick Steves map. Unfortunately, Rick was a little drunk when he made this map, because all it did was get my boyfriend and I hopelessly lost in a town that is as small as it is precious. This gave us a good chance to spot some of the sights, of course I had no idea what any of them were because I also had no idea where we were.

We miraculously found a station for renting bikes about an hour before it closed, so we happily forked over three euros a person to get on the rickety bikes and cruise along the Ramparts, which is the wall that lines the city, as the sun went down. What a great view of the Tuscan countryside, all from… bike! Hanging out on the Ramparts, surrounded by trees and dogs and grass, made me feel right at home all over again.

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Classic Florence

I am very lucky. As some of my roommates gloom about in homesickness, I feel like I am home. This is because somehow, I have persuaded an army of people to come and visit me in Florence.

This is good for two reasons. One, I get to see the people that I care about and I’m not totally alone as I wander about Europe. And two, it forces me to stop messing around and go see actually Florence stuff!

When you’re studying here, you live here. This is home. And just like any other home, you start to take it for granted. Have I been to the Uffizi Gallery? Uh, no. Have I been inside the Duomo Cathedral? Um…no. Have I have Florentine steak? Nope. Have I eaten a ton of gelato? YES! Yes I have.

But anyway, my point that I was getting at is that when people visit you, you are forced to actually do something during the week besides sit on your ass. You are forced to do the same cool stuff that tourists do, even though even the word “tourist” fights the word “cool.”

So when my boyfriend visited me last week (Grandma comes this week!) one of the first things that we did was trek up to Piazza Michelangelo, a pleasant little square, as Rick Steves informed me, that boasts one of the best views of the city. Unfortunately for him and myself, I was feeling it a little bit after some wine at lunch and I literally took us an hour in the opposite direction of this famous square across the Arno. And “an hour” is being gratuitous to me.

Quick and easy hike, Rick? Um, I think not. Seriously this is a goddamn JOURNEY. I thought I was in shape. I was sadly mistaken. I was sweating just looking at the pile of steps that led up the Square that is adorned with a fake David and tons of tourist shops. When we finally got there, I wanted to stay for hours just to make it worth it, but there isnt really much to do besides take a couple of pictures, listen to some music, eat some gelato, and watch the occasional wedding. Sounds awful, doesn’t it?

Another thing that I dragged my boyfriend into doing is climbing the Duomo, the beautiful landmark that chills right outside my window. I figured it was about time I climbed the 463 steps, being that I live there and all and I love it like its my parents. So we paid the eight euros, stood in the line that- take note here- clears out by the afternoon, and began the trek up the ancient and tiny steps that circle the Duomo.

Once in a while throughout your steps, you have the chance to glance out the little windows, which tease you with their ascending views as you climb Florence. Whenever you start to feel a little tired, you see the encouraging messages people have scratched all over the walls, like…

Keep going. The view is seriously worth it. 

And then when you finally get to the top… you’re there. This is way better than lame Piazza Michelangelo, because you’re getting a 360 degree view of this fantastic countryside and the Tuscan hills that surround it. Yet another reason why the Duomo is seriously awesome.