Home Sweet Home

AMERICA! Well, it took me long enough but I made it back to the land of the free..the home of the brave. I didn't think jet lag would get me but it definitely creeped up on me. I got come on the 3rd around 1:55. Customs wasn't as bad as I had thought and I made it through with my Italian veno! My parents were teary eyed and excited, as was I.

I noticed many changes though that I am still overcoming... My ears were really confused because all I heard was english... English? So you mean I dont have to decipher one word at a time? I dont need my little pocket translator anymore? Then the money. You see, when we first left, euros (pronounced correctly A-oo-rose) seemed like monopoly money and the coins were big and heavy.. Now dollars look like crazy small pieces of paper and the coins (especially quarters) feel like I could bend them in half they are so thin.

Food is definitely different here, but I knew that would be a compromise. I guess the difference is that food there is so simple compared to here. There isn't much meat, but lots of carbs and vegetables. Drink options are generally water or wine, plus a few sodas. Coming back the first thing I wanted was good ole Texas Barbeque. We chose a bad place though, because it wasnt the best and my stomach agreed.

Using a phone before this trip was a necessity for me. I was always calling/texting/checking/updating/etc. Sure it would have been a convenience on the trip. but it wasnt THAT important to have. Well now I couldn't be more distant from it. I have called and texted a few people to tell them I am home but besides that I am not attached to it like I once was. There is life outside of texting and I am so glad to be living as phone-free as possible.

Alas, from all the changes I noticed, I made it home to the Burg safely. There were a couple surprises.. Italian flags on the ranch entrance and on our little house with signs saying "Tuscany in Texas" and "Benevenuto a casa Nina"..I am sure the guests were a little confused but I felt so welcomed and excited! I almost took one of the little hand-held flags to the 4th of July parade but I resisted..

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Today is the last I will spend in the beautiful town of Castiglion Fiorentino. Its weird because my body is in the habit, I feel like I am here for longer but my mind is like.. no, you are leaving today. Its weird trying to convince myself that I am leaving. I am SO excited to come home though.

If anything this trip has made me appreciate the beauty of Fredericksburg more. There are SO many parallels between the Hill Country and Tuscany.. It really is the Tuscany of Texas. I am so lucky that I get to call Fbg home and I am so excited to see my friends and family. Also I am so glad that its 4th of July when I get home, what better welcoming party to America!?

Anyway, I haven't gotten really sad about today yet, but as soon as I see someone else start crying or being sad I will probably be drawn in too. Or it will all just hit me like a slap in the face when I am back in my bed at home. Either way I wouldn't trade this trip and experience for the world. I have learned so much about myself and I have changed for the better- more optimistic and outgoing for sure... I plan to use some Italian phrases (out of habit and just for fun) when I get back and maybe continue my Italian studies.

I had planned to go to Florence today while we are to be packing and stuff but decided I should not be rushed to get back. I would rather spend my last hours with my favorite people, in my favorite place, eating my favorite food, looking at my favorite view. Its no wonder Italians dont travel, there is nothing in this earth more beautiful to see.. but then again, maybe the Texas Hill Country...

La Dolce Vita

This is a poem I wrote while waiting for a train in Chiusi, Italy. (yes, I am a closet poet) It kinda goes along with my last post so I thought it was relevant to add... Enjoy!


La Dolce Vita

Laying on a bench waiting for a distant train,
I wonder how far I've come and if I'll see this place again.

Five weeks may have seemed long at first,
but now I beg to differ.
To see this world in all entirety
could take, at best, forever.

Will I make it back to my daily streets?
See the sights I took for granted?
Will the memories flood when I arive once more?
Will a seed sprout from the roots I'd planted?

For in this place I find myself,
I'm exactly who I want to be.
Apart from stresses of the distant real world
I'm living la dolce vita in Italy.

note: the words in the picture are drawn on my thumb from boredom of a long train ride. no tattoos here

Indecisive Feelings

I couldn't be more torn right now. Last week I was a sob fest because the thought of leaving this place was killing me. This week I am more excited than ever to come back to my small town world and family and friends. I am right in the middle of the gauge.. flip a coin for me?

It feels like these past weeks have just flown so fast. The only way I can grasp the true length is to read my journal from the first several days and then I realize, "Wow, I have been here a while." I have made some amazing friends that I hope to stay in touch with back at A&M. Its hard because we've lived in this environment where we are all each other has. When we go back it is back to the same ole groups and organizations and distractions, and As much as we want to keep in touch its going to be difficult. I guess thats the tough part for me.. well that and leaving my home of Castiglion Fiorentino.

I have gotten attached to this little town and finally know it like the back of my hand. Some of the locals are even starting to look familiar. I have the stores' siesta times down and we know exactly which day the Coco Palm (gelateria) and Pirate Bar (pizza) are closed. We know the exact amount of time it takes to walk to the train station from the center and how much time can be allotted to make it to anywhere else on time. The food. oh the lunches and dinners.. I dont know how I am going to overcome the distance of that. I will forever CRAVE Santa Chiara caprese, lentil stew, salmon, potatoes, and chocolate salami. Its going to be hard eating/cooking Italian when I get back due to the highest standards ever that have been created while here.

Ah, now all this talk of my home here is making me miss it already. Fail... but on the optimistic point of view, I dont think this is my last trip to Italy ever. I've tied to many roots here to never visit again (besides I threw the coins in the Trevi Fountain in Rome and rubbed the pigs nose in the Florence market... I'm golden.) Also I want to keep up with the lingo- the language. I think its awesome to know another language and I feel like I have about a half semester of knowledge just from being submersed in the culture. And as much as I want to broaden my horizons and travel to other countries, I have become SO familiar with Castiglion Fiorentino, Florence, and Rome that I want to come back and walk the familiar streets again.

All this makes me wish I could have studied after the trip. I know that before I left America, traveling by myself was a huge no-go and even I wouldnt have trusted myself with a week by myself in a foreign country. But now I am SO confident in how to get around this country and wise of my belongings and myself that I think that traveling by myself after this trip would have been the best part of it all. If you know me then you know I am independent and like to do things for myself (if you didnt know that well now you do..) and I feel the most liberated when I accomplish something bigger than myself. In our huge group, I have so much fun and good conversations, but by myself I think I can actually take in everything better. There is always a rush with a group and I feel like I dont see the sights to their full capacity. Anyway.. thats just a little tangent.

All in all, this trip has been the most amazing thing I've done my entire life. Hands down. Its been a dream of mine and I know looking back it will all seem like a fairy tale that I made up. I cant express how grateful I am to have made it this far - my parents and myself will surely be in debt for some time to come... Oh well.. I wouldnt have missed this experience for anything in the world. I have learned so much and have changed A LOT. I cant wait to share the million more stories I have when I get back and share the thousands of pictures I have taken. Have a wonderful day!
Buona Sera!

Oh Gosh... Girls Weekend from Transportation Hell

Oh boy… this weekend was a roller coaster, fun at times but there were definitely some steep, twisting failures.

Saturday our plan was to go to Perugia - home of Perugina Chocolates… Well we made it to the train station a little late so we missed our train. The next one came in two hours so we debated for a while what to do and decided to go on the next train instead of waste our day. When we got to Perugia we had to take a scala mobile - escalator thing - up to the top of the city. We hopped on whatever we saw first, which was a “mini metro” that looked like a giant ski lift. It was super hi-tech. We rode that to the top, where we found the escalators that took us up farther. Of course it started raining when we reached the top plus we were hungry plus we needed a bano stat for a small bladdered emergen-pee. So after finding a W.C. and stopping by the tourist office to grab a pamphlet, we searched for Allan’s Paninoteca. There they had cheap and amazing sandwiches, and a crazy guy named Allan. Alas, his brother was working today, but he still made us AMAZING caprese sandwiches that were HUGE and only 3.50 because we got a studentessa sconti (student discout). Yes, you see Perugia is a college town, a.k.a where the attractive Italians are. So after we scarfed our paninos we frolicked around a little bit. We went to the café that is said to be the best cappuccino in Italy. It definitely held strong to those standards and I should have gotten 8 of them because they were only one euro! Soon after we went to the main chocolate store and to our luck it is taking a summer break and is closed for a month. Hmm.. well, we had passed a little store that advertised the Baci brand near the train station so we went back there…it was closed too. But this one was just on a daily siesta, not a month long siesta, so we happily fulfilled our chocolate needs (and he gave us all two chocolates for free!). We headed down the mini metro after that to make sure we didn’t miss our train, but we had almost an hour to kill so we headed to the Co-op across the way. There we bought Ciobar - which is the most amazing hot chocolate you will have in your life. Its not even really a drink, its more of warm pudding in a coffee cup that you have to slurp and lick out. Just trust me, its comes from heaven… We made it back for nightly dinner at the center and boy was it the best dinner yet. Not particulary because of the food, but it was so nice because we had our own table and our own portions and our own EVERYTHING. Don’t get me wrong, I love our giant group. But it was nice to be selfish with our pasta for once and be able to stuff ourselves to our heart’s content.

Sunday…..oh man…now this is when it got interesting. Today our plan was to go to Montepulciano- home of the famous (and AMAZING) Vino Nobile wine and where they filmed for Twilight’s New Moon movie. Well, transportation was yet another issue today and I am so glad to say that we made it out alive and got back for dinner all in one piece. That being said, now I can tell you the trials we had since you know there is a good ending…

So we made it to the train station on time this morning, ha, and our train there was short and fine. Montepulciano is really only like an hour away, but you have to take a train to Chiusi and then get off and have a layover and get on another train from there… or so we thought. We were excited because our train from Chuisi to Montepulciano was a high-tech baby train. It was really short (baby) and had a chill couch-like vibe on the inside, air conditioned, and had the most amazing train bathroom I’ve seen in my life. Note: You may not understand the obsession with this bathroom, but once you ride a inner-city train across Europe and use their restrooms that have no toilet paper, no soap, no hand towels, no room to stand up or rotate, and basically no sanitary air to breathe then you will understand. So this W.C. was HUGE, had a toilet seat that rotated and squeegee cleaned itself for you, it didn’t have soap but I didn’t hold that against it since it hand a hand dryer. It was a heavenly experience and we all walked out of it like our lives had been changed forever. Anyway, so high-tech baby train took us to Montepulciano…except not really.
You see, Montepulciano is the highest city in Tuscany, and where we were was flat ground and I didn’t see the town walls ANYWHERE. So we ask someone walking where the main Piazza was and they gave us hand sign directions - this way and then that way basically. So we follow that until we start walking down a seemingly never ending country road. And in fact we saw a sign that said Montepulciano 9…meaning 9 kilometers which is roughly 5 and ½ miles. Um, no..There was a little wine store on the corner so we rung the doorbell to see if we could get some help. It was an older woman who didn’t speak English (of course) but she told us that if we walked 1 kilometer there would be a ospedale (hospital) that was nearby a bus station. Ah, well we decided why not. We had come this far so might as well suck it up for the .6214 mile walk we had ahead of us. I was in a particularly optimistic mood, though. I mean, we were walking through Tuscan grape country. Vineyards were on both sides of us, housing the grapes that produce the best wine in the entire WORLD! How cool is that?

But there is only so much optimism when you keep walking and walking and walking and feel like you are getting farther and farther from civilization. So as we are walking we see a woman walking down to the road from her house, just on a leisurely afternoon stroll. We are getting ansty by now so we went to ask her where the town was and if there was indeed a bus that grandma didn’t know about. She informed us that no buses ran on Sunday (great..) and that the town was 10 miles down the road. Oh joy. We just looked at each other helplessly thinking, “Well, that was fun, looks like we are going back to the train station cause there is no way we are walking 10 miles for Robert Pattinson.” She obviously saw this and told us to wait there while she went to go do something - we weren’t sure at the time. But we hear a car door slam and an engine purr and here she comes in her little car to take us to Montepulciano. Now I know you may be freaking out, but this was definitely not a scene from Taken at all. She had a beautiful house, was really sweet, and -heck- when we got in the car she handed us her purse to put in the back seat. She trusted us just as much as we trusted her… We tried to talk with her but the language barrier was so bad that we didn’t talk much of the way. Its okay thought because A) it was the most amazing drive through the Tuscan countryside and B) we were all excited to be in sitting in a car for the first time in what seems like forever. Music, fresh air, scenery, control - cars have it all, and you don’t realize that until you are sent into a world of trains, buses, and boats that you don’t get to drive. Anyway, so she took us up to the city (yeah we would have never made it because it was FAR) and dropped us off outside the walls. We told her Grazie Mille like 800 times and she told us she was sorry because she didn’t speak English even though she had no need to apologize since we were the ones being the inconvenience!! All in all, most amazing woman ever… she has some good karma coming her way.

So we got to the town and hunger struck so we stopped at a trattoria and ate AMAZING gnocci (potato dumplings in crème sauce) and pici ( thick hand-made spaghetti, best known in Montepulciano). After we stopped by a wine store and tried some of the Vino Nobile to check that off our list. Then we headed… I mean, hiked, up to the Piazza Grande. This is where they filmed New Moon at the Volturri Castle or something (I haven’t read it yet) but Sara and Hayley were freaking out so I figured it was significant. We tried to decipher where all Robert Pattinson had gone and filmed (yeah we are mature) and took lots of pictures so after the movie comes out we can be like, “WE WERE THERE!!! LOOK!!” and have proof. It was a gorgeous little town and a beautiful beautiful day (even though we all brought our umbrellas cause weather channel said 95% rain… LIAR). We didn’t have much time though because we REALLY didn’t want to mess up getting home and we realized that this time we were going to need to take a bus to the Chiusi stop instead of going to the train station and then taking baby train. Finding the bus station was chaotic, and once again, we missed our bus. It all worked out though because the train we thought we would catch (that would have been cutting it close) doesn’t run on Sundays. So we had an hour to chill and breathe before our train came. I found an US Weekly in English and felt soooo out of the loop reading American gossip. I mean really? I leave for 6 weeks and 2 media legends die on me (oh and Billy Mays too!?) and I don’t even want to know what songs/movies/etc is new. Ah I am so out of the loop. Oh well, we made it back alive and just before the main course was served. Perfecto! The day was highlighted when we got ice cream cones for dessert. I, chocolate obsessed, followed that with a hazelnut Baci chocolate and am now perfectly content with the day. Livin la doce vita!

note: Picture taken during 2 hour wait after missing our train to Perugia. We took lots of artsy shots using the self timer to, well, pass the time.

In Fair Verona Where We Lay Our Scene..

Yes, if you remember freshman english class.. I visited the home of Giulietta, the setting for one of Shakespeares most tragic love story, and one of Italy's hidden gems. It has a wonderfully cozy atmosphere. There are shops - expensive and cheap- down a main street alongside cute cafes, restaurants, and bars. This town is in love with theater.. well duh. But they have an arena that is the home for many plays throughout the year. What is so awesome about this theater is that the props and stage equipment are kept uncovered right outside. The play currently being shown was Carmen.. but the props outside that we saw were giant iron roses, sphinxes and eqyptian platforms, and shanghai houses... a wonderful compilation I would say. Later we went to the Casa di Giulietta where the famous balcony is along with a statue of Juliet herself. Its good luck in love to rub her left breast (no i did not make that up), so we all did and took awkward, breast-rubbing pictures. haha... Later we hit up the shopping, I didnt come home with any winners, but we tried on the latest in Italian styles. Alas, it was a good trip to Verona. Ole' Bill Shakespeare would be proud, as I assume my english teacher mom is too ;)

Reports from the Lido deck..

I could have stayed in Venice another week. The Venetian islands have so much to offer and were so intriguing that they require a full day each to be adequately seen. Our hotel was on Lido - yes we said many "Lido deck" jokes and no there is no nude beach there. Thats a big fat rumor. There is a beach though and I dipped my toes in the Adriatic just to expand my toes' horizons. Lido is not bery touristy, but had the cheapest food of all the islands so we made our lunch and dinners end up there. Two of the three nights I must admit we ate at a Chinese restaurant. Before you judge, think about eating the SAME genre of food for 5 weeks straight. Then, alas, a new type of food appears that is half the price of the norm. Well, if you are still judging, think that from Italy, I am alot closer to China then in the U.S. therefore it MUST be better than Pei Wei... Ok I'm done...Nights at Lido mainly consisted of going to the BluMoon Cafe at the beach. It was the most chill atmosphere, playing fun music with a bar, rooms with bean bags, and an outside patio (next to the beach of course). It was nice to be able to sip some wine, dance a little, walk the beach, or just sit and chat. I took a ton of pictures of it because I love the decor and plan on imitating some of it for my room.

So Venice! I had a mediocre expectations because I only knew of what I'd heard: St. Mark's, gondolas, and pigeons. Well, St. Mark's was golden (literally) and the square was filled during the day with people and pigeons, and we took a gondola ride for an amazing price. Honestly besides that, Venice is really small and quiet. As soon as you wonder a street off of St. Mark's Square it is quietly open with a few local italians here and there. Thats what I liked about it- that though it had one touristy area it still felt like a smaller town.
My favorite part of the trip though was our day ventures to the surrounding islands of Torcello, Burano, and Murano. Torcello was somewhat abandoned- the Luckenback of Italy. People go to see a couple sights just to say they did and very very few live there (maybe 10).
The highlight for me was our next island: Burano. I'd watched some travel channel special on Burano so I was excited to finally see it with my own eyes. I was definately blown away when we docked from our boat,

-- oh yeah, p.s. getting around Venice = taking a Vaporetto, which is like a bus but on water. This trip has cultured my travel styles.. train, metro, bus, boat, mini metro, town escalators)--

anyway, Burano is gorgeous. Its the home of handmade lace but that wasnt a very big deal for me. The houses are all painted different colors. From hot pink to a passionate purple, eye-stinging yellow to sky blue, every color of the rainbow was represented. I had so much fun getting lost in teh colorful town and taking 8 million artsy pictures. It was one of my favorites for sure, not so touristy but insanely gorgeous. There is no way people living there could ever be sad. I mean with a hot pink house? No way..

Our next idland hop was Murano, home of glss. We saw men molding glass at a factory and thenwalked among the shops to see the creations of their handiwork. You had to be careful though because some stores sold fake Murano glass that was actually from China. It was mostly very expensive but it was neat to se glass art and jewelry that was "imported" from the furnace next door. Shipping and handling for their inventory was probably a man named Francesco, holding a box of hot, fresh glass.. or at least thats how I imagine it.

I was sad to leave the island on Friday, but by taking the number 1 Vaporetto I got a chance to see it all (it stops at every stop along the Grand Canal) and say ciao ciao Venice!