The trip that is, ITALY.

It is my last night in Italia and I must say I am confused about how to feel right now. As I right this I am sitting in one of my favorite cafés called Serafini, it is down the street pretty much of my apartment on Via Gioberti. I am sitting here thinking about all the good times I have had in this fabulous country while eating some delicious apperitivi and drinking “Spritz.” I could not be happier at this moment because of my present state but it is tomorrow’s departure that has a dark cloud looming over the evening. I am sitting here alone just thinking…and eating…of course. I have almost no regrets about making this trip. It has been one of the best three months of my life. I have seen things I would have never imagined I would see. I walked in the Coliseum, I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, I had a picnic in the Gardens of Bobili, I stood under theEffielTower, and I saw the rolling hills ofTuscanywith my own eyes. I feel truly blessed to have experienced all these things. I will never forget what I have seen and experienced here inItaly. It has been an eye opening experience.  I do not know how to put the way I am feeling right now in words and I may sound like the typical person reminiscing but I think I have personally learned a lot from this trip. I learned that it really is possible to just jump up and go, and I say possible because it is not easy, but it is definitely possible. It is possible to fulfill your dreams, even those that seem small. Every walk I took along the long and turning roads of Italy I thought about life, about the lives of those people walking besides me, about the lives of the people I left back home. It was very hard enjoying my trip here to the max knowing that I was the only one in my family doing it. That is something that will always bother me and I suppose that is my one regret, that I did it alone. I believe what people say, it isn’t about where you are it is about who you are with and how you are as a person when you are with those you love. I can understand now why some Italians look at me in awe when I mention the trips I have gone on and my other study abroad program. They stay close to their families because that is simply where they feel the most comfortable. I think this is shown in their cooking styles. There are certain foods that must be eaten together and there are others that one must never mix. They put pleasure in to their meals and throughout the pastry shops and the restaurants you can see the time and detail that have been put into the masterpieces they are creating. It isn’t simply eating because your body needs the food; it is a lot more then that. It is about placing all the right ingredients into the right mix to create the perfect meal. It is about what is familiar, what is comfortable, what is home. I will deeply regret leavingItalybut, I have faith that I will be back soon enough. I may not know where life will take me in the years to come but what I do know is that everything I have lived through here inItalyis now a part of my life and will always be seen that way. I do miss my life and all of my loved ones in the States, don’t get me wrong. But, there was just an interesting connection I made withTuscany. We’ll see where life goes from here. Until later everyone, this will be my last post while in Italia. Ciao Bella.

One of the assignments we had as part of the program was to read a book that kind of described the past and present of Italian culture. The book is called The Italians and for the most part it was an entertaining read, did skip over a few parts though, I must admit. Our assignment was to jot down some of the stereotypes described in the book and see whether those stereotypes stand or not. Before I begin I will say that these are some small observations that I noticed while living inItaly for three months and I do not believe that the things I will outline are “stereotypes” but, as I mentioned, observations of what I have seen inFlorence.

            One of the first quotes in the book that caught my attention was: “IsItalylove? Or isItaly, as some say, art? Like the Italian scene, art, too, can be intoxicating, can transform people, can transport them far from themselves, can be delightfully aphrodisiastic. But can an ancient country, a peninsula stretching from the Alps to theMediterranean, filled with fifty million busy people and their historical problems, be seriously compared to a delicate sentiment, to a primeval urge, or to the highest flowering of the human spirit? Can geography be mixed up with psychology or with aesthetics?” (Page 55) After getting off the plane in Rome (we had a connecting flight) I can not help but remember that feeling of euphoria when I realized that I was no longer in North America, I wasn’t in the Caribbean, I was in Europe! On the other side of the globe! InItaly! It was the craziest thing in the world to me to believe it was actually happening that I was actually here. I do believe that geography, especially in this case, was the cause of my excitement so when I read this sentence I immediately knew it to be true. That’s what was so interesting about it, it wasn’t just that the author was letting his readers know that by traveling toItalyone is faced with these feelings that they can’t help but feel. The wording was very captivating and I had similar thoughts on why I felt the way I did inItaly, although I definitely could not have phrased it so well.

            Through the various exchanges I have had inItalyeye contact always had to be done. For one thing, because I barely speak the language so everyone pretty much guessed what I was saying by reading my facial expressions and interpreting my body language. When I say I played charades almost every day I’m not joking with you. So when I ran into this phrase in the book I was a little surprised: “When negotiating even the smallest deal, the Italians must always look at each others faces. They read in their opponent’s eyes the signs of his stubborn decision or hidden timidity.”  (Page 186) My surprise mainly lay in the negative connotations behind the sentence because from the authors perspective it seems that the Italians for the most part must see the faces of those they do business with in order to manipulate their way around certain situations. I do not think this is a ‘talent’ that should only be attributed to Italians because I think this poker face game is played on several continents by many people. I was a little uncomfortable in reading the text because of all of the stereotypes and trying to determine and analyze a nationality doesn’t sit easy with me. For the author to try to attribute things such as “looking at each others faces” as an ‘Italian thing’ doesn’t make sense to me.

            Chapter 11 begins with a discussion on how the Italian life style revolves around the family unit. One thing I did notice a lot here inFlorence, which may be the case even more so in other cities, is that there were many people walking around the streets with their elderly parents. I thought it was interesting that I saw so many couples like this because it isn’t something you see everyday you know besides the casual dinners or house visits. Seeing so many people in their thirties and perhaps forties walking around the streets hand in hand with their parents was quite adorable. “Fathers, brothers, sons, grandsons daily risk death to protect their women from outrage and themselves from dishonor. Many of these champions of family respectably end up in prison for life, but with a clear conscious.” (Page 194) Again, I think this same phrase could be used to describe other nationalities but, as far as what I have seen inItaly, it does seem true that Italians take great pride in seeing to the needs of their families. In this chapter the author also describes the Mafia being linked to family ties which today is still the case. CAPA held a lecture one afternoon where the author of a book on the mafia came to talk about the general role of the mafia inItaly, where their territories are, and how they are hindering proper governmental administration. The mafia, as one can see, is still a terrorizing problem inItalyand does not seem to be disappearing or diminishing any time soon. It was interesting to read about hints to the mafia throughout the book because I would have thought that it wouldn’t be something found in any literature but apparently it is.

It seems that the last couple of days inFlorencewill be plagued with rain and cold weather so I have been very hesitant in planning my day to day activities. A major problem is that I don’t have any shoes that are good in the rain so it doesn’t matter which shoes I am wearing my feet will get wet no matter what if I am in the rain for too long. It has been quite a dilemma. But, our last professor from the University ofFloridahad proposed a walk up toFiesoleand there was no way I was going to miss out on that! The last walk we had up there had been magical so rain or shine I would go. It turned out to be a group of six of us that were up to taking the walk in the rain. It wasn’t that serious though because it was very light rain and it kept us from getting too hot when walking up all those hills. We started off at the Duomo and walked for about two hours to get to the city hall area ofFiesole, way past where we had walked last time. The walk up there was mesmerizing. I will say that the umbrella kept me from seeing some beautiful views, but what I did see was just amazing. We walked up there and I’m not going to lie there was one point where I though I wasn’t going to make it hahaa because it was really really steep once we got higher and higher. But, we did it! And it was worth it. Once we got to the top we went to see a Roman Amphitheatre!!!! Whoooo hoooo!!!! If you can remember I love seeing things from theRoman Empiresooo I was very very excited to see this. I was very surprised to see that the amphitheatre itself was very well preserved. InParisthey had ruins from an amphitheatre but it was literally nothing. InFiesolethough it looked very well kept so I was finally able to see an actual amphitheatre. I did have that moment where I just wanted to sit there and imagine the way things were back in the Roman times haha imagining what kind of shows were put on for the people there. Behind the amphitheatre were Roman baths that were used as swimming pools and as a fitness area apparently. What was really cool about these pools was that they were built above ground and so there was a gap between the pool floor and the actual floor. In this gap there were heated furnaces that were used to heat the water! Can you believe that! The Romans had heated swimming pools! It was amazing! The walk down the hill was another adventure because we were literally able to touch the pine trees that we had only ever seen at a great distance. The whole time it was raining and that didn’t bother us because the views were just so beautiful that you just forgot you were in the rain. To end our adventure inFiesolewe ate at this Italian restaurant where I had the most amazing pizza! It was pizza Bianca con tartufo e porcini (white pizza with truffle sauce and porcini mushrooms) It tasted like I was eating pasta because of how freakin good it was. It was ridiculously good!!! I recommend anyone who comes toItalyto find this place and eat this same exact pizza because trust me, you will not regret it.