Exactly two weeks from now, I will be on a transatlantic flight back to reality. A 10-hour wake-up call reminding me that the last three months of my life have been spent on an incredible, yet terminal, journey. A jet-lagged smack in face shocking me back into the world I left in the B.I. years (Before Italy). And I have no idea what the A.I. years will look like.
What I do know is that the journey back is going to be the most bittersweet experience of my life, one final extreme on a trip full of extremes. There are many things I look forward to about home: home-cooked meals, my dogs, college and the work I’m doing there, family, friends. The people are easily what I’ve missed the most from home, and I can’t wait to share my experiences over here with them.
Yet I know as soon as I step on that plane, just like I realized it when we first departed JFK on August 18th, I’ll know that this time it’s real. It won’t be an imagined scenario gone over and over and over in my head. It won’t be a bad dream where I’m suddenly removed from everything I’ve known and done in the past three months. It will be real.
To be excited to go and sad to leave at the same time is a weird dichotomy. Sometimes I feel like a pregnant squirrel dashing around trying to find all those acorns I told myself I’d get to before I left, all while dealing with mood swings and the occasional hot flash. I dramatize, of course, but it’s still a lot to think about as these last two weeks come barreling at me.
Good thing I have music to keep me going through it all. Safetysuit was supposed to release a new album back in October, but it got pushed back to January 2012. Of the three songs released so far, this one is easily my favorite and has been on repeat for the past week. I wish I could sing the lyrics to Italy and to my study abroad experiences as if they were real people, because the chorus is exactly what I would tell them.
Ahhhhh… Fall Break abroad… That special time of year when one has unbridled access to the wonders of Europe and beyond, without the tethers of work, class, or tests. A glorious time, spent traveling unhindered with friends and significant others, indulging completely in the cultures of new, exotic lands.
The first half of my break was spent in Florence, with my girlfriend visiting from Elon (because she is awesome). I showed her around the city that for the past two months I’ve called home, exploring famous piazzas, markets, and statues. We did a weekend in Rome, which was filled with wonderful touristy things like the Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and Trevi Fountain, as well as some unorthodox things like the OccupyRome protests.
I felt like such a photojournalist, taking pictures of the marchers before the event got violent. Fortunately we weren’t in the area where cars were exploding and windows were smashing. The head of my program over here made sure of that. The phone call went something like this:
A lone student walking in the OccupyRome protests.
Rinnnnnng.
“Hello?”
“Hello Sean! It’s Edy! How are you?”
“Great, Edy! How are you?”
“Oh I’m just great. Um, where are you right now?”
(Slowly) “I’m in Rome…”
“Oh that’s fantastic! Um… Where in Rome?”
“Um… I’m not so sure, right now we’re on a little side street. We just saw some protest or something a few streets over.”
“Oh great! Sounds good… So listen, uh, don’t go over to Piazza San Giovanni. Things are exploding over there.”
“Ohhh okay Edy, sounds good. Thanks!”
“Okay Sean, have a great time in Rome!”
“Ciao Edy!”
Click.
The second half of my break was spent in Paris with other Communications Fellows abroad, which was fun but also incredibly stressful (for reasons I’ll get into in a bit). The major highlights included the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the Champs Elysees. The lesser highlights (which I find are often the defining moments of any given trip) included several paradoxes for which I can only offer description, not explanation. They include:
1) Paris is the City of Love, but we determined that it’s really the City of Louvre and people just got the saying mixed up.
2) After eating a plate of raw ground beef (tartare), the Champs
View of Paris at night from the Eiffel Tower
Elysees becomes the Champs Elys-ehhghghghgh.
3) The city smelled either really great or really bad at any given time, on a scale of fresh baked pastries to bodily discharges.
4) Parisians are either they are very friendly, outgoing, and willing to help you, or they want absolutely NOTHING to do with you.
5) Paris food is good, but all those euros you’re paying are for the experience of EATING in Paris rather than EATING AMAZING FOOD in Paris.
6) Navigating within the city is easy (great metro system), but getting in or out of the city can be a major hassle.
7) Paris is HUGE, but can feel like a small town depending on what section you are in.
8) For all the crap American tourists get abroad, I thought the loudest groups in Paris were the French teenagers, who would scream over each other in the metro tunnels and feed city birds five feet away from us before deciding they were gross and scaring them off in our direction.
Overall, my break was great. Except for the very last day, which will emphasize Paradox #6. My flight to Milan was set for 8:30 am, so I planned on getting to Beauvais Airport at 6:30 am, meaning I had to take the 5:30 am shuttle from Porte Maillot to make the one hour journey, meaning I had to leave my hotel at 4:30 am to make the one hour journey to Porte Maillot on the other side of the city, which ultimately meant I had to wake up around 3:30 to give myself enough time to get ready and leave myself room for error.
And my alarm didn’t go off.
I woke up at 7:30 am and literally blew a fuse. How the hell was I supposed to get back to Florence? Sure, there were other shuttles going to Beauvais, but I wouldn’t come even close to catching my flight and the only other one going to Milan would have gotten me there at 8:00 pm, long after my train was supposed to leave at 5:45 pm. Sure, I could try to find another flight, but that would mean spending hundreds of dollars I didn’t have not only getting back to Italy, but also getting from wherever I landed in Italy to Florence. Sure, I could have waited another day and tried to get back the next day, but at that point I was done with the City of Louvre and would have had to spend hundreds of dollars I didn’t have on a hotel room for another night, an equally expensive flight, AND transportation from wherever I landed in Italy to Florence.
Long story short, I found a way to get from Paris to Milan that day without missing my train. Dumping an unnecessary $300, I booked a flight from Charles De Gualle to Frankfurt, with a two hour layover before flying to Milan and landing about an hour before my train was supposed to leave. Sounds like a simple plan, right? Except this new journey included getting on incorrect trains, getting peddled by a gypsy who saw me holding a series of coins in my hand, getting to the other airport in Milan that wasn’t close to the train station, and listening to two Italian teenage girls ramble about some undoubtedly meaningless gossip not too distant in theme from the gossip of American teenage girls. But SOMEHOW, I made it back to Florence in one piece that Sunday night.
And all the while during break, this song was in my head:
In the words of my professor Tom Nelson: “Sean, you just had a moment. That was your moment.”
It has been one month since I landed in Florence a jet-lagged stranger in a foreign land. By now I know the ropes of the city: the piazzas, the restaurants, the monuments (can’t say I’m quite up to speed on the Italian language just yet).
But in some ways, I’ve actually been underwhelmed with Florence over the past few days. By now, the novelty of a new place to live is gone. The adrenaline rush that was kicking for the first month of study abroad is starting to wane, and as I leave the city to explore other parts of Italy, I begin to see and understand things about Florence that aren’t so appealing.
Basilica outside Ravenna
For example, I found Ravenna to be a beautiful city that seemed to have all the charms of Florence, but without the hoards of tourists, crowded streets, or noise pollution (or ANY pollution for that matter). In Ravenna there were no English-speaking tour guides, no obnoxious American college students, no crowds of people jockeying for the chance to take the same picture of the same monument as everyone else. I thought Ravenna was authentic, a place where Italian culture actually thrives without being suffocated by tourism and imported American behaviors. Places like Ravenna, or Positano, or San Gimignano almost make Florence seem like a bad place to live.
Now I’m not trying to be a cultural snob; it’s not like the Renaissance never happened and Florence has no cultural significance and I’m having the worst time of my life here. The city is still an amazing place to be, especially as a college student learning Italian history, art, and language. But when you can barely walk a mile without hearing someone speaking English, or hearing a contemporary top 40 single from the U.S, there’s something to be saidabout the presence of American culture in Florence.
The Duomo Cathedral and Campanile
So what about this “moment” you mentioned, Sean? Didn’t you say you had a “moment” at the beginning of this post? That’s correct, anonymous reader! And that moment directly contradicts everything I just said about my changing perception of Florence.
Walking back from a park this evening, a small group of us stopped in the Piazza del Duomo when we heard a chorus of cheers and applause coming from under the Campanile. A street performer was singing classical songs in Italian, and had amassed quite a crowd with her powerful voice, which could be heard three blocks away (and she wasn’t using a microphone). We stopped and listened as she performed a rendition of Ave Maria, and the hairs on my neck began to stand up. I looked around: listeners sitting on the steps of the cathedral, families taking pictures, couples blissfully wandering the piazza, the Duomo towering behind this beautiful classically-trained voice.
That was the point at which I felt indulged in all that Florence is. An instance of true appreciation for everything that’s going on in my life right now. I’m a third of the way through my time here in Italy, and these are the things that I’ll be looking for the rest of the way: points at which I stop and just drink it all in.
I have been astounded, absolutely astounded, at the amount of classic rock I’ve heard over the past few days around Florence.
I’m not even just talking about the major vendors in the most touristy parts of the city, either, because those are a given. I’m talking about small-scale, open-air market stalls selling things from leather jackets to stationary to handbags to cheap clothing. San Lorenzo, the famous market a few blocks from the Duomo, is normally one of the most culturally authentic places I’ve been in the city, aside from the stream of Coldplay and Adele coming from what must be a linked stereo system between stalls.
Look, I’m not blind to why this happens. I know this music is playing everywhere because it attracts American tourists. But as far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to play American music, I can’t complain if you choose from the classic rock genre. So, to sum up, here is my top-5 list of classic rock songs I have heard the past few days around the city.
I heard this in passing just last night as we crossed the Ponte Vecchio on the way to dinner. The band thatplays there on weekends always covers well-known Americanized songs (such as Knocking on Heaven’s Door and Under the Bridge), so I can’t say I was too surprised to hear this U2 classic. But, being my co-favorite U2 song with Where The Streets Have No Name, I couldn’t help but sing along as we power walked across the bridge.
Again, I heard this song in passing on my way back from San Lorenzo. I only caught the beginning, but it wasloud enough and distinctive enough that I turned to see where it was coming from: a small gelateria.
This Rolling Stones classic was blasting from a meat shop in the San Lorenzo food market. Go figure. Also for some reason I can picture two or three butchers in the back air banding to this song with slabs of meat…… Don’t be so incredulous, you know it would be funny if you saw it (and you know some butcher somewhere has done it).
I almost bought a shirt from a store because I heard them playing Bruce inside. I decided against it, but I’llremember that shop for my Florentine clothing needs. To think I found Bruce in Florence… It literally made my day.
I only caught the tail end of this song (“Nothing really matters…”) as I walked by a fruit vendor in San Lorenzo. But honestly, that’s all I needed to hear; at that point I became convinced that Italians truly know their classic rock. Because everyone knows of bands like The Who, The Rolling Stones, and U2 even if you’ve never really listened to their stuff. Not to say that Queen isn’t in the same category of elite classic rock bands, just that something about Freddy Mercury & Co. adds a new dynamic to the playlist, a unique well-roundedness that other bands can’t really contribute.
Your last weekend was literally the best weekend of your life. How do you follow it up one weekend later?
You don’t.
Coast of Capri
Exactly one week ago right now, I was on a bus leaving Pompeii to return to Florence. That whole weekend was spent at the Amalfi Coast, including Sorrento, Capri, Positano, among other places. I had just climbed Mt. Vesuvius, walked through 2,000 year old ruins, gone kayaking on the Mediterranean, and gotten over a head cold all in the same weekend. I would have crashed and burned on the bus ride back, but they were playing I Love You Man on DVD, and God knows I wasn’t going to sleep through that.
Small marina in Vernazza
Fast forward now, through a week of Italian tests, history papers, and public speeches. The weekend starts off right where the last one left off, with a Friday day trip through Cinque Terre. Vineyards on cliffs, small towns with peaceful marinas, an hour and a half hike across the cliffs between Monarola and Vernazza… At that point, not even a Japanese porno was going to keep me awake on the bud ride back.
But speaking of…
The past two days have been mostly geared towards recovery. I’ve intended to be purposefully lazy this weekend to recharge and regroup for the next few weeks, which will include midterms and class trips to Ravenna, Pisa, and Lucca before fall break. I needed to cut myself off from those kinds of experiences for a bit.
But you know those moments where timing just isn’t on your side, but it’s comical enough that you don’t really mind? That’s how I felt when this video was passed along to my travel-weary, bloodshot eyes…
This is pretty much exactly how I’d say the past two weeks have felt at times, except in retrospect I can view them as some of the best experiences I’ve ever had. If only I could honestly say the same about this video…
New York to North Carolina 