goodbye, florence.

A summary of my three days in Alicante, Spain requires really only one photo:

I literally did nothing but lay on the beach, eat, sleep, and the occasional crossword puzzle. Now that's my kind of vacation! I walked away with minimal sunburn (it's hard to get your whole back, doing it by yourself), feeling very relaxed and ready to face the difficult week ahead of me.

On the other hand, my time in Florence can barely be summed up in the thousands of pictures I have taken since January. How is it possibly May 25 right now? When I booked this flight seven months ago, all the way back in November, I really thought this day would never come.

In this entry, I will attempt both poignancy and humor...but it could get a little mushy. Bear with me.

I have moved before, and we all know that it is quite a sad experience to pick up and leave everything you know behind. I would never claim that I "know"' Florence. It is a city full of so many surprises, both modern and historic, that it would take years of exploration to truly conquer it. In these past four months, though, I have come to know my cozy corner of the city, and leaving it, as well as my experiences here, behind is proving to be more emotional than I had expected.

As much as I have enjoyed my time abroad, I have on occasion found myself wishing I could go home. Wishing that I lived in a place where asking for directions wasn't such a trial. Wishing that I could just get a freakin' iced coffee, not a caffe americano. Wishing for my own room. Wishing for my car back. Wishing I was with my friends back home as they celebrated Gator gymnastics victories and 21st birthdays.

As big as all of those details seemed at the time, it has taken all of four months for me to realize that what I've learned here far outweighs the cultural discomfort, homesickness, irritation, and frustration that I experienced here.


The experiences I have had in Florence (and elsewhere!) can never be replicated. That was why I decided to study abroad in the first place! When else would I ever get the opportunity to pick up my life for four months and live in a foreign country, with relative financial security? Answer: Never.

Leaving this part of my life behind is only slightly more difficult than leaving the people I've met along the way (mostly because I know it's an inevitability that I will see them again). Not to get all emotional and affectionate, but living together in a foreign country will bond you, no matter how different you may be. And let me tell you, differences abounded in our little dysfunctional Palace family.

But these girls have seen me laugh and cry, they've dealt with me drunk and hungover, consoled me, self-conscious and emotional, and more. Together, we have traveled all over Italy, exploring its culinary gifts, ancient ruins, and cultural history. Together, we took Barcelona by storm, one of the greatest experiences of my life. I cried as each of them got into cabs and drove to the airport, leaving me here, alone at last.

This experience has taught me more about myself that I thought. Even though this was one argument I used to convince my slightly reticent father to let me study abroad, I never imagined the kind of soul-searching I would have to do while living in one of the most beautiful countries on Earth. Stressful? Living in Italy at 20? Really?

The truth is that a lot of issues came to the fore while I was here. I had to confront my problems with food, self-esteem, and self-worth, as well as my feelings about alcohol, dating, and my friendships back home.

Being here introduced me to a lot of new interests, and rekindled some of my old ones (writing, for example). I learned the basics of a new language, and though far from fluent, my parents can attest that I am competent enough to navigate the complexities of Italian travel (and restaurants).

I didn't know what to expect, coming here. I kind of walked into this semester thinking that it was going to be all fun and games, all partying and playing. Honestly, most of it was. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been truly upset in the past four months.

Walking away from my life in America and into Italy gave me new appreciation for the things that I have back home, while also allowing me to emotionally separate myself from problems I have been dealing with. Coming home, I feel more emotionally complete, more mentally prepared to handle problems that come my way. And I will credit that to living with four complete strangers, and the necessity of developing patience when living in a country where there are essentially no traffic laws and no one knows what a clothes dryer looks like. [Exaggeration.]

Tonight, I will board a plane bound for London. From there, I will fly back to Tampa, where I will be reunited with my family and friends.

While part of me is not ready to come home, and probably never will be, while it is incredibly sad to turn the page on this chapter of my life, I know that what I've learned here and experienced here will be with me for the rest of my life.

And not just because I'm a compulsive photographer, or because I blogged about all of it along the way.

But because when you get to know another foreign country as I have come to know and appreciate (though not necessarily understand) Italy, it is a lesson that is impossible to forget.

So thank you to my parents, who supported me (both in financing and encouraging this whole shenanigan) throughout these four months...and through the planning stages, dating all the way back to April of 2009. Thank you to my friends for not forgetting about me while I was gone. Thank you to my Florence roommates who got more than they signed up for when I was assigned to be their roommate. Thank you to Sergio and Mario for being the only Italian men I could trust.

And thanks to all of you for reading. It's been real.

exotic.

It's been a fairly uninteresting day thus far, so I'll share a short piece we worked on in writing class today. We had to go out and find something about Florence that we consider "exotic" or different. Of course, I focused on food.

[I have to polish this up more for class next week, so any suggestions are welcome! But also keep in mind that it is a work in progress...]

In the middle of the largest outdoor market in Florence, and therefore the largest collection of tourists in Florence, there is a single stall that attracts none of them. An obviously Italian mob crowds at the open window of the tiny stand, which is ironically adorned with both the Florentine coat of arms and the highly recognizable red logo of Coca Cola.

My objective today is to search out the exotic parts of Florence, and even without traditionally exotic displays as colorfully plumed birds, bejeweled belly dancers or tasty tropical fruit, this minute stand has captured my attention, and mine alone.

The woman running the show is small, much smaller than the young man working with her, who is likely her son. She smiles the entire time I am watching, even as the grabby hands of the crowd snatch the white paper-covered plastic bags she is patiently handing to customer after customer, who devour the contents, leaning against the stainless steel of the bar before disappearing into the mass of tourists.

These Italians obviously know something that the tourists do not. No English signs are visible; there is no way for an American to discern precisely what is in these mystery sandwiches that the smiling woman is selling, yet somehow, they seem to understand that the advertised lampredotto is something to be avoided. They likely make no connection between the appetizing smell of cooking meat that wafts through the open window of the cart and the mounds of intimidating fleecy white meat piled indelicately in the displays of butchers less than 20 yards away in il Mercato Centrale. If they did, even the most gung-ho of tourists, sporting backpacks, aluminum water bottles, and Rick Steves’ guide to Florence, would be daunted by the answer to the question that no one will ask the woman running the stand: What exactly is lampredotto?
For the answer to this question would be likely to ruin any appetite: what you’d be putting in your stomach is cow stomach.

my life encapsulated.

I just had to share the kind of beauty that my days are made of:

Tell me that is not one of the prettiest things you've ever seen.

No gelato left behind. That's my motto.

Now I'm off to work on something less beautiful...a writing assignment that's due tomorrow. Whoopee!

fiesole, falafel, and fickle weather.

Florence's weather has been playing games with our hearts. After a teasing few days of sunny, warm goodness, I woke up today to a stubbornly overcast sky, with a side of chilly wind. Not the best weather for my writing class field trip to Fiesole, but we made do.

Fiesole is a small town loacted in the hills that surround Florence, famous for its ancient Roman ruins and spectacular views of Florence. I took a 20 minute bus ride up to the city and was welcomed with some pretty spectacular landscapes that refused to be captured on film. Rest assured that the real thing is so much better.

Yep, that sprawl of building is Florence. Hard to believe.

It was an uphill hike to get those shots, but compared to the hike in Cinque Terre on Sunday, this was nothing.


We settled in the courtyard outside an old Franciscan monastery to write. The topic was the clash between our expectations of life in Florence and the reality of actually living here. I wasn't fond of how my writing turned out the first time around, but with some tweaking, I feel like it could work. I'll probably share the piece I wrote on London before spring break first, but maybe you'll get to see both if you're lucky.

I spent most of the afternoon just bumming around the apartment before the roommates and I headed out for our usual Ethnic Tuesday dinner. Tonight's ethnicity?...Jewish? Haha. Gillian and I have been craving hummus like none other, so when she found a local kosher vegetarian place with HUMMUS as an antipasto, we had to go.

Now that I'm done enjoying my hummus and falafel, Sam and I are drinking wine in preparation for heading out to the bars. I'm already exhausted, so I'm steeling myself for a very long night out...wish me luck!

a little inspiration.

Prepare yourselves. This may get sappy.

Italy is fully of beautiful sights, though few of them compare to the building in the photo above. That is the Basilica di Santa Maria di Fiore (or something like that) and is better known around here as il Duomo. I'm trying not to allow myself to become desensitized to sights like that, to allow them to become a part of my every day routine, because I want to feel everything here as much as I can, while I am here. I am also trying not to ever wish anything to go by faster, which is kind of hard. I often wish for the weekdays to go by faster so that I can reach the weekends, which are filled with wonders like the chocolate festival, Pisa, roomie time, and this upcoming weekend, Carnivale in Venice. I also sometimes, secretly, wish for these four months to go by faster simply because I miss my family and friends, which is something people who know me may be shocked by...as I don't often admit to these kinds of affectionate feelings. Baaawwww.

But being here has given me back something that I thought I'd lost way back in high school. I gave up English as a major when I reached college because I let my horrible experience in AP Literature color my views of what I truly love. It turns out that two years at UF was enough to remind me of my love of literature, but even since returning to English, the only writing I've truly done is the occasional scribble in a journal and the faux-academic papers I dash off in the middle of the night for my classes. I have often felt like a fraud, listing "writing" as a hobby when asked what I do for fun, since I haven't truly written something for myself in so long. I chose to take a Travel Writing course here because, honestly, it seemed like the easiest and funnest option that would count toward my major. I didn't truly consider what it would be like to write again for the first time in years.

It turns out that I love it. I am writing creatively again, and enjoying it. Our teacher, Kate Bolton, gave us our first out-of-class writing assignment today, and I am looking forward to doing it. To perfecting what I write. To sharing with a teacher what I have created. To hearing praise about something that I have done. I used to base a lot of my self-worth and self-esteem on how well I write, but that was something that I somehow let slip away from me.

Italy is beautiful; the food, art, and architecture are overwhelming, and though it is hard to be away from home, being here, for only two weeks, has already given me so much. This is the end of my sappy post. Don't expect to see another any time soon.

:)