A "quick" London recap

It's 5 minutes to midnight and I promised myself I would be asleep by that mystical witching hour...however, I also promised myself I would write something to document London. The bane of prioritizing...

It has officially been over two weeks since my trip, and directly proceeding, I rushed through two more big weekend excursions, so processing took a back seat (as it often does). I think I left off my recounting with a harried and angsty description of booking the flight. So now for the saga. 

Thursday afternoon, Jilli and I left to walk to the Florence train station with plenty of time to spare. We were taking a train to Milano Centrale, and a connecting bus to the Malpensa airport, where we would catch our EasyJet flight to London Gatwick. We made it onto our train, got settled, got very silly, and maintained the giggles for the whole ride, during which we marveled, multiple times, at how plush the train was and how proud we were of ourselves for getting on it. Too giddy to even close our eyes for a minute, we pulled into Milano Centrale in seemingly no time. We caught some views of a very drizzly Milan, and arrived just in time to see a bus waiting to make it's trip to the Malpensa airport. Another smooth transition made. Again, we reached the airport with ample time to spare before our flight. We were feeling golden. We were dumped from the mouth of the bus right into the EasyJet terminal where we were to check in, and so we bounced right up to the counter, placing our faces humorously close to a pair of well-made-up eyes and perfectly polished nails. This woman proceeded to squash the air out of our lungs (forgive her; it wasn't her fault). After a short call over to some other department, we were pitiably informed that our tickets were, in fact, for March 14th, not February 14th. The moment that followed was Kodak in the worst way. Jilli and I locked eyes, as our guts fell out through the gaping holes in our chests. Nothing was processing, so we probably made some pathetic and fully unintelligble noises, first to each other, and then in the general direction of the EasyJet employee. With all the understanding I'm sure she could muster, she told us to go over to the customer service desk. And so it began.

I can guarantee we bargained with the customer service window at least eight times. The two of us alternated between crying, sighing, angrily ranting to no one in particular, and marching up to the window, only to walk dejectedly back after we had made our latest case. And all to no avail. The string of emotions we were tugged through that night felt like living through a life cycle in its entirety. There were phone calls to parents, bleary-eyed glances exchanged, wretchedly sympathetic looks thrown our way, by people passing on their way to flights they had correctly booked...all the ingredients for a miserable night in the airport. We weighed options: get a hotel in Milan, explore the next day, spend too much money on buying tickets to London for that night, get back on the train back to Florence, arriving late at night, dejected and miserable. After painful deliberation, we decided to fork over our wilted credit cards and get ourselves to London.

The plane ride over was full of turbulence and gave new meaning to the expression "red-eye flight." The two of us sat in near silence, our eyes clouding with sleep, heavy and raw. Touching down in London brought quiet jubilance. As we got in quite late, were about as functional as a pair of newborns, and had no idea where we were going, we were strongly advised by a compassionate employee to spend the night in the airport. Alas, there would be no restful slumbers to alleviate our exhaustion. We found the least foreboding-looking benches in the place and settled ourselves there. From the hours of 12:30am to roughly 6am, we attempted to get some semblance of sleep amidst industrial lighting, never-ending foot traffic, and excessive air-conditioning that pushed us to wear every single article of clothing we brought with us. Around 4am, I craned my neck and looked next to me to see Jilli putting on a full-blown winter hat and gloves. We were strangely thankful when 6am rolled around and it was acceptable to get up and find a bus. However, sometime during the night, we had turned from young girls into walking dead. Everything was too much effort, it was nonverbally agreed upon that there was nothing important enough to say that required breaking the silence we had stumbled deep into, and there was no question that dragging our limp limbs was an acceptable form of walking. We changed and brushed our teeth in the airport bathroom and went downstairs to find our bus.

Sitting outside the terminal in the shockingly still, cold, deep blue dawn air, we tried to absorb the fact that we had made it to London. But nothing was penetrating the system. The yawning, sterile coach bus took us in warmly and we curled up in our respective seats, trying to steal back a few minutes of sleep. I ended up spending most of the ride looking out at the suburbian English landscape, as the morning rustled it from slumbers. There was no grand heralding of the day, as the sun stayed hidden behind mist and drizzle. At least this reassured us that we had made it to the right country. Our bus took us into Victoria, where we stepped off and into this fantastical city: suddenly, we were electrified. The streets were wide, the building facades were elegant, everything looked sparkling clean, and people were rushing by. The British accents made everyone seem important, as we found out during breakfast at a tiny cafe, and, of course, One Direction songs played in our heads from that point forward.

We were soon confronted with the minor snag of not knowing where our hosts for the night lived. It was a connection Jilli had made through her school, but she did not know this young man personally, and neither of us had any experience with the infamous tube...we somehow made our way out to the suburb where he lives. An American student studying at the London School of Economics, he shares an apartment with a rotating number of young Brits. When we arrived, we found Halloween decorations spinning on the ceiling and a bunch of wonderful people who urged us to the couch, covered us in blankets, and brought us Ramen, tea, and chocolate. We thought we had accidentally stumbled into heaven. It was everything we needed. We made conversation for a while, although I faded in and out, wanting nothing more than to close my eyes. Rain battered the window outside, so we tried to plan our day accordingly. We decided on possibly museums, and so we unpeeled ourselves from the couch and went back into the fray.

It had stopped raining by the time we got off the tube in Victoria again, so we made our way to Buckingham Palace, and wandered from there. London was already striking me as such a vivacious city, though with far more elegance and culture than the bustling metropoli of home. We caught glimpses of the London eye and Big Ben as we walked, promising ourselves, of course, that we would go to see them in earnest the next day. We made our way around Victoria for a few hours, doing nothing in particular but seeing a lot and making plans (echoes the way life can be sometimes, huh...). it began to rain again, the kind of rain that made our umbrellas thrash every which way, so we took shelter in first a coffee shop and then a little falafel place for dinner. When the rain subsided - and it eventually did - we got back on the streets, traipsing through pools of rain and streetlamp light. After a time, we returned home on the tube to where our temporary housemates were having a gathering that involved animal costumes, techno, and lots of wine. As much as I wanted to participate, drowsiness was calling me to bed.

Day two, we woke up ready to tackle absolutely everything. We first had to migrate to our next sleeping arrangement, which was a friend of Jilli's mom's cousin. As the description suggests, neither of us had ever met this woman before. Her and her family turned out to be the most lovely people imaginable, and Jilli and I still speak about them as if they are our closest friends. We were taken to a completely charming (sorry to be so cliche...) house in the suburbs, full of light and colorful furniture, given coffee and cake, and introduced to the father and son, both of whom could not have been more warm, funny, and loveable. Jilli and I kept exchanging incredulous looks, while resisting the urge to eat the whole cake. Our "new dad" wrote us out a list of places to go and a map of how to get there, while our wonderful host mother made us lunches to take with us. I will never fully understand why or how these beautifully special things happen to me, or anyone for that matter, or what makes certain people so generous, but we could not have been more grateful or downright elated. This was directly encouraged by the sunshine that greeted us when we stepped back outside. We got on the tube bound for Westminster and our day had begun. Now for the whirlwind: the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, the London Eye, Big Ben, the Westminster Abbey, Borough Market, the London Bridge, the Tower Bridge, Covent Garden and finally Camden. We even managed to put some (lots of) food in our mouths, have laughing fits on several bridges, look for One Direction around every corner, and meet up with my two friends from school at their apartment. I felt like I was in a pamphlet for the World Fair. Everything felt huge, exciting, important - like what I imagine some people must feel going to NYC for the first time. I never expected to feel so fondly for London (I always imagined myself to be more predisposed to Old World Europe), but the culture was amazing.

It was silly but fitting that we ended our Saturday night with Italian food. We just can't stay away. And coming back to Florence, that's exactly how it felt. I will refrain from employing the cheesiest sentiments, but there really is nothing like home sweet home.

** General disclaimer on the above events: through the lens of my previously discussed struggle to find meaning, truth, and honesty in my travels, I realize acutely that such "travel blunders" as the ones described should not be taken lightly, and I don't take them lightly. Another person  - probably even myself, in another situation - would not have been able to get out of that scenario because of a lack of resources, or any one of a whole host of obstacles. I am putting a lot of effort into learning what I need to learn here, and I understand the reprecussions and the context that accompany this particular kind of learning. 

peripatetic daydreams

There will be unrealized dreams of Europe.

There will be views unseen,

Light shows and dancing evenings missed,

Though they once dazzled your sleeping mind.

Villas, porches, gondolas left unoccupied

Sweetness in summer air and

Twinkling patio dew-drop seascapes

Will fall away into nothing but mist-air, and dust.

Fickle, symphonic passions of the heart

May evade you; may evade you ten dozen times.

Let your funny faded orbs watch them drip away

And on the morning that you close the door,

Seize it all;

Add the rest to your garden of unturned stones.

Having to run when you want to stroll

The Italians have a term for it: fare una passeggiata. And it refers to that beautiful, languid trip down the street, or around the piazza, or through the park: when your feet stick to and pull off the pavement, every step felt in your arches, the world passing in perfect time. The scene changes ever so slowly, like the turning of an ancient crank, and celestial bodies hover the way they're meant to, in ideal suspension. 

There's a time and place for the frenetic, but the aftermath - the winding down - is always jarring. I have just come off of two spectacular trips to major cities that have inspired entire canons of art, literature, music, film since their inception. Cities that have loomed large on my imaginative horizon since before I could ever conceive of visiting them. And despite all my efforts to relish every moment in them, they have since passed through my existence, leaving their sparkling contrails. Never the less spectacular for having been brief. But it is the splashdown back into familiar waters that invariably shakes me. Waking up in my bed again, having breakfast at home, going on facebook, doing homework...the droplets of an adventure evaporating rapidly from my skin. I'm left wondering where it all went and if I could have better preserved it, all the while turning one eye to the days ahead, and all that has to and will be done. This is a common theme in my life, this tension of paces, but one that has been magnified by concentrated travel. Of course, I am infinitely appreciative - to the point of incredulity and cognitive dissonance - of having such a "struggle" to contend with. I just wonder if I will be forever tumbling from one experience to the next...

The two cities in discussion are London and Rome, both of which captured my heart and mind in such drastically different ways. I will work to find words to describe them. 

Is eating, praying, and loving enough?

Let's start in the cafe. Everything worth talking about happens in cafes. The trip we booked to London was something of an accident. Some phantom red-boxed message kept poppping up, telling us we had entered incorrect card information. And then it would disappear. Ok, I thought to myself, maybe this would give us an extra couple of hours - a whole day, even - to remedy the complete lack of planning we had done. No such luck. We were going to London at the end of the week.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm here to learn. I know it's something, probably a lot of things. And I want to be sure I'm learning them. I'm privileged in my ability to study abroad, I know that, so my learning becomes a necessity, rather than a luxury. I am obligated to unpack my privilege in some form or another. Or at least that's what my cyclical anxieties about being in another country seem to be telling me. Booking tickets to London on a whim conjured particularly uncomfortable feelings about what my purpose here really is.

There has been a vast amount of surface level learning that I've done already. For starters, I've learned that one's tendency to generalize swells enormously when confronted with this level of sensory input. As a result, a lot of my processing has necessarily happened in the form of "Italians do this" or "Italians do that."

For example:

Italians never seem to be in a particular rush to get anywhere. Being in a city, of course, the pace is faster than that of surrounding towns. But the "stroll,"as I've taken to calling it, is alive and well. Food really is as important as you would imagine it to be. Food is love. A significant amount of thought goes into finding, preparing, eating, and enjoying food, every single day. Dieting is not a "cool thing to try" because "why not?" Dieting happens when your health is at risk. Otherwise, proscuitto is not worth giving up. However, high-quality olive oil is one of the best things you can do for your body. And it's everywhere here. Take our usage of ketchup or ranch and times that by a couple hundred and you arrive at the role of olive oil.

When out on the street, no one wants to hear your conversations or how funny you thought that joke was. That level of interaction is almost intimate and for that reason, is reserved for the home.

No one here seems to be a sub-par driver. If you operate a motor vehicle, you are a professional motorist. Side streets are meant for speeding down, sidewalks are made for parking on, and stopping on a dime for pedestrians - bolder, even, than the drivers - is a hard and fast requirement. There is almost no emphasis on being "obedient" when it comes to rules of the road. Italians are generally hardheaded and self-righteous.

Which sort of echoes the whole prevailing principle of tough, removed, but generous love. I've found that most Italians forego the whole performance of amicable politeness, because it's a waste of time and feels just as fake as it is. But you entirely get the sense that if you were in trouble, the average person on the street would drop everything to help you. Possibly a romanticized view but I stick to my guns about the "no time for nonsense." It's definitely endemic.

There are hundreds of other little idiosyncracies that, when taken together, create a palpable sense of culture. But there are bigger things too. There's the dangerously high youth unemployment rate, country-wide, the general dissatisfaction with government and the paultry measures taken to ameliorate glaring economic issues, the various ethnic groups that are in the country illegally, and a sense, depending on who you talk to, that Italians lack the drive to pull the country out of such a state.

I don't necessarily think I'm here to perform a scathing socio-economic critique, or to run workshops on how to pull a country out of a political quagmire. But I'm definitely here to learn.

I want to embody my experience in ways that make sense to me and in ways that could possibly make sense to the world. I need to have a lens of understanding: art, writing, poetry, music...something. Some way of making sense of all of it. I just haven't figured out what that medium is. In the meantime, I'll be putting as much effort as possible into being aware, present, and treading lightly as I go.

on Realizing You Are Everyone (and then pushing back)

Now THIS is Italy.

The sun is shining, after all.

Like in all the travel pamphlets.

Travel is, for many, a search for authenticity. We travel because we somehow see "realness" as belonging to other places, other things. We expect, even, to find the realness of ourselves in a new landscape. But we find we interact with the newness in the only way we know how: through a system of signifiers and signified. This system is what defines the tourist. Tourists look for proxies for culture - the landmarks that tell us we've reached a true point of immersion. We are all tourists. And yet, standing before the David, we somehow feel superior to those gawking next to us, with their guidebooks and hushed whispers about "gosh, I didn't know he was so tall!" We establish barriers between these people and ourselves, even as we both search for the same immersion. "Good thing we're not like them...that would be embarrassing." In doing so, we are solidifying our status as "tourist," by refusing to acknowledge the ways in which we, ourselves, are performing tourism.

So I wonder a lot about traveling "authentically." I wondered before I left and I wonder now, in the midst of my purported traveling. We tend to ascribe true authentic travel to some bygone era, when wealthy, young, cultured crowds boarded steamships, well-worn maps in hand, waving handkerchiefs to the shore, off to see the world. There is something to be said for this vision because it recalls a time before travel was a commodity like it is today. When the world felt as massive as it is and we hadn’t plastered images of its wonders on every magazine cover, potholder, coffee mug, and tote bag. But while this notion of travel had its advantages – and certainly its glamour – the downside was its exclusivity. In days of yore, embarking on adventure was reserved for only the most privileged. Few would argue that a more accessible world is a good thing. But then the question for the traveler becomes, how do we reclaim sights and experiences that have become products being sold to the masses? How do we find the wonderment and spontaneity that we seek in traveling?

As with most of the tough questions we ask, the answers come from looking to ourselves. Since I am now a well-seasoned world traveler after one full month in a foreign country, I have taken the liberty of assembling several obligations I see the traveler as having:

• Empty yourself of expectations. Do not project your preconceived landscape onto the landscape in front of you. This place you are in is far superior in its complexity and beauty to anything you could have imagined.
• In a similar vein, abandon the notion that this place somehow “owes” you an experience. You are not in a theme park. You are amongst real people, living their real lives, in a town/city/country that has no obligation to roll out the red carpet for you.
• Don’t worship “authentic.” Just because a restaurant/pub/café is off the beaten path, doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to become a citizen by patronizing said establishment. Besides, it will probably be full of other Americans looking for an “authentic” experience.
• Learn to be OK with being uncomfortable. Lean into it. You probably are long overdue for feeling this level of discomfort. Feeling awkward, out of place, clumsy, misunderstood, looked down on…these are all good things. You need to feel them. Stop trying to make yourself comfortable.
• Do what you can to understand present-day culture. This is especially relevant, being in Italy. Yes, know your art history. If nothing else, it will help you navigate the Uffizi like a pro. But realize that culture doesn’t end with Botticelli. Learn about the social fabric of the country/city. What are the big political issues? Race issues? Is unemployment a major concern? This will force you to travel consciously, as well as to truly understand the place you’re in.
• Try to avoid being obnoxious. At all costs. Pretty self-explanatory but it somehow always needs to be said. Stumbling through the streets, screaming as loud as humanly possible about how you “just want some gelato” in a country that is not your own is akin to walking into a strangers’ house, raiding their refrigerator and asking to change the channel. It’s rude and universally socially unacceptable. Don’t do it
• Travel lightly and travel sustainably. If you are leaving a giant footprint in your wake, try to reconsider your habits. This certainly varies from place to place and contrary to the cheeky statement above, I'm no expert. It just comes down to being mindful. 
• Last but not least, for those who have done all of the above: let yourself be swept away. Marvel at everything. Allow yourself to be moved by absolutely anything that moves you. Nourish the sense of wonderment you have and should have about the place you’re in. Everything is beautiful if you know how to appreciate it. You are responsible for crafting the experience you’re looking for, so seek out the things that make your heart swell and burst. Adventure often and deeply. You will find what you need.      

A Street with a View

This is a "piece" I had to write for my literary travels class - bear with the fact that it was dashed off mere minutes ago. I told you homework was not on the agenda.


It was a first-view. Came upon for the first time in the dark of night. I saw it only as a flash, while we clambered up the marble steps, luggage making us into flailing toddlers learning to climb. Now it sends me off every time I leave, and welcomes me back every time I return. The cream-white face of the home, with the grey framed windows and dusty red shutters; the darkened olive gate, clicking open and clanging shut; the wide marble steps - always damp as of late, and strewn with discarded petals and leaves from the bottoms of shoes: these, the first markers of home. I have favorite pieces of this view, of course. The gnarled, stoutly pruned tree just before the gate, arthritic in its bend, looking raw and exposed like a fresh shave; the recessed view of a cluster of pastry-crème homes across the street, their red-tiled roofs all slanted in the same direction, the laundry always draping ceremoniously on slack lines. I like that the homes are guarded on either side by towering trees. The ultimate sentinels. Trees that rise up from behind tiled roofs – vast needled tufts of foliage atop spindly trunks. I always like to see what the sky is doing behind these trees, beyond the pastry-crème houses. On mornings where the fickle sun decides to make an appearance, the patch of sky is a fresco: backlit with rose, melon, frosted blue. On mornings like this one, all the color has been drained, like old bathwater down a tub. Pale as a starched sheet, the backdrop leaves all the hues to the dampened plaster and slippery brick. I don’t mind. Makes the hedges wrapped around our little plot pulse with their own greenness. Even in the rain, people hurry by – flashes between the greenery. I wonder if they admire my view. I wonder if they say “what an odd little tree.” I wonder, too, if they look across the way at the vaulted mahogany doors of the cream-white house. They say the doors in Florence are really something to see. 

Fighting the Kitchen Clock

I still haven't determined if this is going to be an actively shared blog. So I suppose I'm not writing to anyone in particular. But that frees me up to explore the many voices that will inevtiably surface in the course of writing. One of them will most likely be the dreaded "blog voice:" sugar-coated, over-eager, with just enough wit as to be uncomfortable. I will make peace with the blog voice. It has some valuable things to say too.

Normally, (as in every single one of the probably dozen times I've started a blog) I would hurl a million qualifiers onto the page, in attempts to explain or validate why it is that I've taken on such a trite occupation as blogging. But I feel perfectly validated in repossessing this rather hackneyed form of expression for my own benefit.

I am in Italy...haven't you heard?

And I often remember to process but forget to record. And so, like a thrower's wheel with no clay, my mind spins round and round and I have nothing to show for it. Let this blog stand as my written record! Well, one of them anyway. Journals will never go out of style.

It would be exhausting and futile to recount all the grains of moments that have sifted through my fingers since arriving here in Florence. But I'll give the basics:

- I am studying abroad, through Syracuse University
- I am studying abroad through Syracuse University in Florence
- I have a host mother, host father, and two hospitable host cats
- I live with a lovely roommate, Gabby. We chose each other before coming here and I'm very grateful for her.
- We live right in the city, a 10 minute walk from campus, a 10 minute walk from the center
- I have done many beautiful, spectacular, life-affirming things. I have also questioned myself one million times and gone through the distinctive pain of adjustment. Which plagues even in Europe.
- I still feel like an outsider, but am working hard at walking down the street in the cool, detatched, painfully slow manner of the locals.


Being in Florence, homework is generally the last thing on the agenda. But at 11:15pm (5:15pm, for all you East Coasters), it does sort of have to figure in. So woefully, I drag myself to the books.

Until tomorrow!