Tag: Florence

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For the Pursuit of Fun

When I was in school, everyday was another day. Every single day and every single hour was different, exciting, unexpected, fun. When I came home at the end of a long day, it would be hard for me to run out of stories to tell my roommates as we sat in our dark room on the shoreline, listening to the waves come in and our old crappy apartment rattle in the wind.

Those days, fun came pretty naturally, because even the work you did involved all of your friends. I guess because you’re surrounded by kids all day, you kind of feel like you deserve to have fun, like it’s just an expected everyday occurrence. Even still, you knew it was special. You knew you were happy, you knew this was the life, and you also knew it wasn’t going to last forever.

The moment I graduated, everything switched around. All of a sudden I felt guilty for having fun, even for just spending a lazy day having breakfast with friends and bsing with the neighbors and harassing the cat. As I peer over at my looming to-do list, I always feel like I should be doing something else. 

This is an easy mindset to fall into once we quietly tiptoe into the real world – it’s easy to get caught up in running errands and making sure the laundry is done and you took your vitamins and the car has a full tank of gas. Soon, you’re spending everyday just preparing for the next, and you’re not even really sure what the point of preparing is if you’re just going to do the same thing tomorrow.

I miss the days where I lived life for the pursuit of fun. I miss when I felt like it was normal to hop on a bus to go to another country, or spend the day window shopping on the streets of Florence, the most beautiful city in the world, or it was just another day when you turned off your shower radio in the morning to listen to the man playing the accordion in the piazza outside the window.

So you know what? Let’s forget about the laundry and a dish in the sink never killed anyone. It may be a while before I’m out of my parent’s house and back in a real live city again and, oddly, actually live in the real world and maintain a real life, but I’m sick of that being the reason that I feel bad for wanting to remember what I did yesterday.

Never get so busy living that you forget to make a life. 

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How To Haggle Like a Pro

One pretty cool part of traveling the world is that instead of wandering the mall on an otherwise boring Sunday, you can cruise the local markets of the world instead, whether it be the San Lorenzo Market of Florence, Italy, the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, Turkey, or the German Christmas Markets. However, unlike the mall, you need to learn how to haggle like a pro in order to score some cool stuff without accidentally spending your dinner money. And, you need to do it while having fun – there’s no reason to be nervous about wanting to pay a price you think is reasonable and not being afraid to ask for it.

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1. Make someone laugh. Everyone, even seemingly conniving shopkeepers, are looking for a laugh, especially at their day jobs. So while haggling, if you can get a little personal with the shopkeeper; talk to him about the cool stuff he’s got or entertain his lame pickup lines with a friendly smile, you’re golden. He will be more willing to entertain your offers if he sees you as a friend instead of just another tourist.

2. Never be the first to name a price. There’s been many times when I was willing to offer a much higher initial price but then I heard the shopkeeper’s price before I even said a word. For this reason, don’t be afraid to ask, in a non-desperate way, how much something costs. And if they ask you in return how much you want to pay, either go for a major low-ball or ask, “Well how much are you looking to sell it for?”

3. Don’t be afraid to walk away. The best move you can make, even for an item you’re absolutely in love with, is to walk away when a haggle is totally not going your way because the shopkeeper isn’t budging. There will be times you will walk away, seemingly without a care, and no one will call you back. Guess what? Come back around in ten minutes and no one is going to remember you anyway. However, more often than not, you’ll get a frantic Wait! Wait! Trust me, they want to sell that crap just as much as you want to buy it.

4. Enlist a partner. It’s always good to have someone on your side who is as awesome at haggling as you are to say, only to strengthen your case, “Come on, that’s too much money. It’s not worth it.” There’s strength in numbers. If a shopkeeper knows it’s going to be two against one he is more likely to compromise. Pick a code to signal to your partner when you’re in need of some help.

5. Don’t be stupid. In Canal Street, especially if you’re a dumb looking girl with a fancy bag, people are going to mob you and try to get you to follow them for blocks and blocks to come to their shop (one that most likely is hidden in a basement or behind a fake wall). Be careful with this kind of stuff. Never get too close to a van, no matter how cute those bags are, and never wander down those sketchy stairwells. It’s never going to be worth it.

6. Lie. Twenty bucks too much for that crappy bracelet? Yes, I agree. Because you saw it down the street for $10… except not really. Don’t be afraid to make up a little white lie to get the price you want. No one is ever gonna know that you haven’t even seen the item yet besides in this shop.

7. Don’t allow yourself to be charmed. Obviously, it’s OK to flirt – this goes hand-in-hand with haggling. However, don’t think you’re the only one who is trying to charm – usually these suave shopkeepers know their game just as well and will tell you anything you want to hear to get you to buy that $300 leather jacket. Keep in mind that yes, laugh, smile, and be friendly, but you’re also the 18th person today that they have told has beautiful eyes.

8. Take your time. If you feel like you may be getting too caught up in the fun and are going to make a regrettable purchase, you can always say you’re going to think about it and come back later. I particularly like doing this for huge, overwhelming markets, because I don’t want to spend a ton on one item only to see it ten minutes later being sported for half the price. Take your time. Trust me, it isn’t going anywhere, especially if they tell you that it is.

9. Keep those wandering hands at bay. It may seem easy enough to grab something off a table when the keeper isn’t looking, but this is a really bad idea. All of these shopkeepers are friends, people, and even if yours doesn’t spot you lifting, somebody else will, and trust me, you’re going to be wishing there was a cop around if you get mixed up in this kind of sketchy business.

10. Never be taken for a schlub. Especially when you’re a girl, people think that you have money to spend and it’s easy to be taken advantage of. Show them that this is not the case. Speak confidently, don’t be afraid to bargain or walk away, and hold tight to the price that you want.

3 Continue reading “How To Haggle Like a Pro”

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The Best Meal I Ever Had

Due to my journalism training, I tend to stay away from grandiose statements such as the best place I’ve ever been, because unlike blog posts, it is very difficult to numerically list such abstract things in life, especially when you’ve been around the block a few times and you’re getting up there in age. When people ask me where I would like to live or who my favorite writer is, I’m often left sitting there speechless like some sort of imbecile. However, when someone asks me what the best meal I ever had was, I already know my answer before the question is out of their mouth.

If there is a Heaven, the rest of us will spend eternity enjoying the cooking of those with dark hair, loud voices, and beautiful accents – the Italians. When I studied abroad in Florence, Italy last fall, I could easily declare the dinner I ate each and every night the best meal I ever had. Because hell, let’s be serious, when you’re a beautiful Italian man dishing out red wines, limoncello, tiramasu, fresh bread, and every kind of pasta I have ever seen, it’s hard to not be overcome with dinner emotion. However, I didn’t know what I was talking about until I visited Acqua al 2 located on a narrow side street, Via della Vigna Vecchia, in the heart of Florence near the Duomo.

Study abroad students and Italian visitors in general are known for saying “Oh, you just have to go to this restaurant, best food I ever had, except hold on, can’t quite remember what it’s called….” but the blueberry steak at this place makes it a difficult restaurant to forget.

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My roommate Andrea and I visited Acqua al 2 on several occasions, however now looking back, I wish we had gone a lot more often. We started out sharing a dry house red wine with our freshly baked unsalted bread before moving onto the pumpkin pasta, one of the chef’s daily new creations. This pasta was coated with what appeared to be a red-orange vodka sauce, but instead, had been enveloped in this fall flavored pumpkin topping. The pasta sampler is another great option, giving you the chance to try basically whatever the chef feels like making, which is good enough for me.

Then, we moved onto the main course – the blueberry steak, a small lump of steak about the size of one’s fist that in size, does not measure up to the typical Florentine t-bone steak, however this tender and girthy piece of meat is also soaked in a thick blueberry sauce who’s deep taste and texture are only emboldened by the steak’s flavor. A steak sampler is also offered, which contains the blueberry steak, the balsamic steak, and a classic steak, however blueberry is really the way to go due to its oddness.

And then, finally, we would always cap the whole thing off with the dessert sampler, which contained a cookies and marshmallow cake, homemade tiramasu,  a vanilla and raspberry cheesecake, and, of course, cannolis.

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Great. Now I’m hungry and all I have to eat is damn Elio’s pizza.

Acqua al 2 also has another location located at 212 7th St SE, Washington, DC. You can call at (202) 525-4375 for more information. 

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The Best Travel Words of Wisdom

All day long, myself, and many other travel bloggers alike, spew our pretty words to you about how Beautiful! Exciting! Extraordinary! a place is. We tell you about how Anything is possible! and The world is your oyster! However I, or anyone else, for that matter, am not the only one(s) with some useful travel words of wisdom. So, see here some of the best travel quotes in the business.

“Travel is the only buy that makes you richer.”

“Life is not a journey with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a ride.'”

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

“We must take adventures to know where we truly belong.”

“Live the life you want. Let nothing stop you.”

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.”

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

“To travel is to discover everyone is wrong about everywhere else.”

“The first condition to understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.”

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The Best Place I’ve Ever Been

Being that I spend a lot of free time scourging travel blogs on the Internet, there is one phrase that I often come across that really gets under my skin…

It was the best place I’ve ever been. 

Oh yeah, really? The best place you’ve ever been, huh? The most beautiful, fraught with culture and life, brimming with excitement hiding underneath the budding underbelly? Somehow, I doubt that.

Not that I don’t believe a place can be like that, because they are. And that may be the exact issue… that there are many places like this. There cannot be one best place you’ve ever been, because that’s like throwing every destination into prepackaged, nicely organized ribboned boxes, when let’s get real here, Seattle doesn’t have a whole lot in common with Sydney. More accurate phrases would be New Orleans is the craziest city I’ve ever been to. Paris is the most lovely and lacy city I can imagine. I’ve never had so much barbecue as I did in Kansas City. 

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I can’t really blame people though when they ask me what’s the best place you’ve ever been? because as a journalist, it is exactly these questions that must be asked, this searching for extremes, simply because we want to hear what the hell you can possibly say. On the contrary, being trained as a journalist, you learn to never yourself state these extremes, because you lose your credibility with these dramatic and overused phrases when you’re supposed to stay without a side at all times possible.

However, the way a person responds to these questions says a lot. But a quiet wonder, a shrug of the shoulders, a damnnn I really have no idea… Now it’s those responses I listen awfully closely too. Because those are the ones who have seen the world and live to tell it enough that you have to ask first.

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Rushing the Road Trip of Life

Road trips are difficult for a lot of reasons. You’re trapped in a car filled with Cheerios crumbs (ew), you’re trapped in a car with other people, you’re trapped in a car with weird fake air, and, oh yeah, you’re trapped in a car. When you’re from New Jersey, and the East Coast in general, I assume, you’re up against a whole new demon: People Who Drive Like My Grandparents. 

In the South, people speak slower. They walk slower. They eat slower. And, most annoyingly, they drive slower. They actually go the speed limit. Now what the hell is that? And most frustrating of all, when I finally pass them flying by going 85 with the music blasting and the windows open, I can see that they’re happy. 

One thing that really hit me in study abroad in Florence, Italy was that after sitting down for three hours for a meal, casually sipping a glass of wine, and even strolling about the city, I realized that I had never really experienced anything before because I had never stopped to. In Italy, I tasted food I had one hundred times before that I felt I had never tasted one of those past times. I breathed in air and actually noticed it. I spoke to people and I was listening to what they were saying.

Now America is no Italy, let’s get that straight, but the South does have something on their side that goes beyond driving annoyingly slow. Southerners drive slow, talk slow, and eat slow because they’re enjoying it. They’re not always in a psychotic rush looking for the next best thing; the next most interesting person to talk to at a party, the next best meal they can ever have, or the next meeting they can squeeze into an already packed day.

Instead, they’re happy to be where they are. They can enjoy that cornbread or that nice breeze or the old lady they’re chatting with next door. Somehow, in that nice, sunny, downtime, I think they got a little farther than us up here going 20 over the 65 speed limit ever did, even if I do get to my destination five minutes quicker. 

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Il Dolce Far Niente

I remember my final days in Florence. I remember how as the weeks added up, how I missed more and more having responsibilities, jobs, basically just being accountable for more than just getting on a plane on time. I missed being important to someone, to something.

Well now, here I am. It’s 4:45 on a Tuesday and I have been up since 7:30 am, and after this too-short hour I have off, I will work until 9:00 pm (then I’ll probably go to the bar, which is besides the point).

I miss the days when if I felt like it, I could linger in a cafe for an hour. I miss when I could walk into a museum, just because. I miss when I could meet a stranger and just chat with them for a little, not trying to occupy my mind with what else I had to do that day. At the time, I missed serving a purpose. Now here I am, trying to fit in when the hell I can possibly eat breakfast (which usually ends up being a piece of fruit I eat while I’m sitting at the traffic light on Ocean Ave).

What the hell was I thinking? Yes, having things to do is great. I’m not saying I want to be unemployed, or the worst sin of them all, bored. But with more longing than I have ever felt for any person, I miss being able to be. I miss thinking about the taste of the food that I am eating and thinking about the conversation I am having. I miss the sweetness of doing nothing. Il dolce far niente. 

In America, we hustle, hustle, hustle. We work three jobs and we try to get the kids to soccer, lacrosse, and track and we get to the gym at 6:30 am and we eat lunch at the drive-thru and we take long hours because we really need the money but what is it for, really? What are we working for, honestly? When is the payoff going to come?

You let me know when you find out. In the meantime, I’ll be looking up one-way flights back to Italy.

Nothing.

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La Famiglia e Tutto

Today I had a meeting to go to (shocker). And as with most of my meetings, I didn’t really feel like going, mostly because I would just rather be in my room pinning things on Pinterest. However, also with most of my meetings, I still showed up.

However this one was a little bit different- a study abroad luncheon for my Italy group, in the exact same room that we all sat in about six months ago, when we were complete strangers. I remember trying to be a brave and sitting at a table with the girls, none of whom I had ever seen before or even knew what to say to them. I sat there and quietly ate my free sandwich (I did show up, didn’t I?) and got out as soon as I could. Thinking of my upcoming semester in Italy, I never felt so scared and unsure in my life. Looking back now, I’ve never been so confident and proud of any other decision I have ever made.

Funny how this time when I walked into the room, I was greeted by smiling faces of all ages and from all different backgrounds, all of whom I had only ever known within my ancient city of Florence. Odd how things change. To see all of us out of our elements, struggling to fit into what feels like this new culture, was scary yet comforting, knowing that once again, we weren’t alone.

And just like now, we weren’t alone the first time we set off to meet a new culture in a new country, either– we had each other. To think we will always be as close as we once were is pretty ridiculous, but I don’t think that really matters. No matter how much time goes by and how long we stay best friends with our childhood neighbors, our kindergarten playmates, our college roommates, our high school boyfriends– they will never have what we all had together. Strangers who, in relying on one another as family, friends, and comrades, became a little globe-trotting family.

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How To Live

So right now I am in my NEW BED! Well, not really new. Actually it’s borrowed from our realtor but whatever it’s new to me. The point is that I have moved once again, but this time it’s back to school for my LAST SEMESTER! Great now I’m depressed.

Anyway, as I was moving in, I looked at the piles of junk that my mother and I deposited on my bed. Bags and bags of clothes, printers, fans, jewelry boxes, backpacks… and two lone suitcases. The two suitcases that I was allowed to bring for my semester in Italy. That’s it. Two suitcases.

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And you know what’s funny? As I looked at this giant pile that was ever-growing on my bed, I wondered how much of that stuff I actually really needed. I went to Italy with two suitcases, and never missed a thing. These new perfectly content suitcases that had the chance to see the world. I visited seven other countries during my semester abroad and 15 Italian cities and had plenty to prepare me for the cold, the heat, and the ugly. So did I really need all of this stuff? No. I didn’t.

Am I going to send it back? Uhh, no. As I explained to my mother I had already spent a semester wearing the same shirt basically every day and that was just fine but I like having my closet back. But looking at that pile and sorting through my junk, it became clear that although travel teaches you how to deal with new people, new cultures, and new habits, it also teaches you how to live.

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There’s No Place Like Home.

Having returned to America from my semester in Florence, Italy last Saturday, I have clearly taken my time in posting anything about my farewell to Italy and my return back to this strange country I call home. This is because all that I can articulate about the whole thing is

I am sad

And happy

The end.

Because honestly, how do you sum up the strangest, most exciting, tiresome, scary, and thrilling three and a half months of your life? How do you put that into pre-packaged little words that you scramble away on your laptop back at home in your childhood bed?

Sitting in this bed with my stuffed animals and my best friend Dona, the same thing I have done for the last god-knows-how-many years, makes me feel like those three and a half months in Italy weren’t even real. When people ask me the much-anticipated question how was Italy? I just want to ask them, wait, I was in Italy? That was me in my own life? What? 

And at the same time, I feel like kind of a jerk when I’m standing in line in Starbucks chatting with my friends and I say Oh, in Istanbul, Starbucks has way better holiday drinks and the woman in front of me turns around and gives me a confused look. I feel even worse when I ask my family, Hey, what’s new? and they have nothing to report, when all I want to do is tell them about how I spent the weekend before last in Ireland. I feel spoiled, awful. For a second, saying Florence sounds so natural and it rolls off my tongue because it was where I called home. Now, it is a faraway place that people dream of visiting.

At the same time, I remind myself that I made this decision to go, and it was scary and exciting and I did it, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of to not want to be the same person I was back in August. It’s okay to come home and not be happy anymore with going to Applebee’s for dinner when I could be at a family-run hole-in-the-wall place or go on yet another vacation to Florida. It’s okay to not want to wear sweats and Uggs and look like every other cookie-cutter girl in their Victoria’s Secret gear and it’s okay to want to explore the cities that are in your own backyard that you now see that you haven’t really experienced yet.

And yet it’s also okay to take back the life that was yours- your friends, your jobs, your much-loved responsibilities and your big bed and your pets and your obscene amount of purses that still have tags on them. It’s okay to appreciate your television set in English and the fact you can now send text messages without asking what’s the wifi password? I missed my friends and my cat and the fact that I am needed here in America, that people rely on me and I’m not just flitting about aimlessly just because I felt like it.

On this note, I feel like some of the things I wanted so badly to come home to maybe weren’t so great after all. I craved pancakes and bacon and buffalo sauce and driving, and now that I have it, I miss my beautiful pastas and fresh croissants and taking a nice walk to class. It’s funny how the things that once seemed so important really aren’t so important at all. I used to wish I had my dryer back and that I had all my clothes in my closet back to wear. Now I see I wear all the same outfits I wore in Italy anyway.

So what am I getting at here? Um, that’s a good question. I was hoping this was something I would be answering at the end of this post but maybe it’s just not possible to make these grandiose conclusions after something profound. I’m happy to be home, to have my life back and my friends back. Yet I am saddened by the problems I see in America that I was blind to in the past. All I can think of is that day we got in our taxi at the ripe time of 7:00 am in the much-fitting pouring rain and bid farewell to our beautiful Duomo, our beautiful home, that we will never return to, that feels like a dream.

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