Ci vediamo dopo, l'Italia!

After:

almost 4 months, countless new great friends, traveling to Florence, Venice, Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Pompeii, Siena, Perugia, Chianti, Paris, and back to Prague, learning a solid basic Italian, lots of gelato, pizza, pasta, and stir fry (our apartment specialty), giving over 50 tours at Palazzo Vecchio, completing 5 paintings and a portfolio of fashion photography, gaining 10 pounds (see gelato, etc. above!), and traveling back to the U.S. for over 20 hours........

.........I'm home.

Il mio ultimo giorno.

(My last day.)

Well, this is it. Today I have to finish my bucket list - see the last things to see, eat the last things to eat, say the last goodbyes to be said. :(

The past couple weeks have been really busy and really fun. I finished up all my schoolwork, most notably all of my artwork. Finished tour guiding at Palazzo Vecchio. Had my last monday lunch date with Amanda (a running tradition). Had my last drink at our favorite bar. Went out to dinner with all of my housemates for the last time.

Even though this program made it more difficult to assimilate into the culture, I still feel great about the experiences I've come away with. I saw so much art I feel like my head might explode! I ate so much I feel like there's two of me coming home (I even tried traditional Florentine steak this week - rare almost to the point of walking around). I think I successfully learned a bit of Italian! It only happened in the last few weeks, but I feel like I broke through the wall and can actually speak and understand. What a great feeling! I've been having a bunch of long conversations with Italians...in Italian! The only problem is that we can only talk about the past or the present because I never learned future tense in my class. I've never felt so comfortable with a language before and I'm really sad that I can't keep going with it.

Mostly, I'm so bummed to leave the people here. The most amazing thing happened with our apartment: our program threw 6 random girls together who lived together perfectly. Seriously, it was a dream. We all complimented each other so well and got along great, without having to spend all of our time together. I'm so going to miss hearing Sara and Kayla laugh hysterically in the kitchen while Ashley does art, helping Liat with her hair, coming home to Lauren asleep on the couch by accident. I'm going to miss cooking together, even when we weren't all making the same thing (most likely some form of stir fry). I'll even miss this rundown apartment, along with all the yelling in the street or the guys' music blasting in the apartment below us. It felt like a big family, which I guess is a big part of Italian culture anyway. I feel so lucky to have found that here.

Tonight my taxi is picking me up at 3am for my 6:50 flight. After another 18 hours of flying and layovers, hopefully I'll be at home!

Whoops.

I broke my bed.

Well, Sara, Kayla, Amanda and I broke my bed.

My stupid stupid bed.

(The bed that I hate with a burning passion...it's so uncomfortable that I've had re-occuring dreams that I'm getting shot in the back!)

We broke it while watching the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun," eating cereal, and drinking tea together.

It broke as soon as Ashley walked in the apartment.

(Who has been having the most ridiculous luck this semester - breaking everything from her phone charger 3 times to her computer, her foot, and an olive oil bottle...poor girl.)

And without warning one of the plastic legs of my stupid stupid bed completely broke off.

Causing the entire bed to collapse on one side, sending all of us screaming.

And then into fits of giggles.

Now I have that corner of my stupid stupid bed held up by my bedside table underneath.

This entire apartment is falling apart.

(Have I mentioned the massive mold monsters coming from the scary water damage in our bathroom and kitchen? It's literally making me sick!)

Anyway, whoops!

"Ciao, Bella!"

Saying that I hear this popular phrase (called out to young women by usually older men) all the time is a serious understatement. Who knew that being called beautiful could be so annoying?

I know what you're thinking - that I should take this as a compliment, to feel good about myself. But if you walked out your front door in the morning to a creepy man looking you up and down, yelling "Ciao, Bella!", you'd be seriously sick of it too. And it's not like they discriminate either. Every girl hears this all day, every day.

Sometime they change it up a little; "Hey, babyyy!", "Come here, sweetie!", simply "Ciao!" or "Bella!" (most of the time whispered creepily in your ear), and once a man popped up from behind a cart and said, "You are sooo..........(long pause)............CUTE!" (he had forgotten the word for cute). Sometimes they don't say anything at all...they just grab my butt instead, met with a slap to move their hand and a shrill, "SCUSA!", from me.

Clearly these alternative catcalls are no better than the good old, "Ciao, Bella!"

The other day, though, one particular man took the cake for his very original come-on. I was walking down the street right by my house with a group of people and this particular man, probably in his 40s, walked right across my path. He proceeded to look me up and down with a flirty look, and then...

...HE POKED ME IN THE BELLY!

This is easily the strangest out of all the pick up attempts I've received in three months. He didn't even say anything. Now I've thought about this a lot and I still have no idea what he meant by this poke. He didn't even poke me in the pudgy part, instead it was in the upper abs. Was I supposed to find this attractive? To think he was funny? Was he saying that I'm fat? Or maybe that I just have a rather nice tummy?

I still have no idea. You're guess is as good as mine.

What did I do, you may ask? Well, other than stop dead in my tracks with a look of utter shock on my face, my only reaction was to sputter out a very surprised, "Noooooooo!"

As weird as this interaction was, it's actually one of my favorite and silliest stories from Florence this whole semester.

In fact, last night I was out with my friend Amanda and we were approached by two 20-something Italian men. They were making valiant attempts at conversation and so we decided to practice our Italian language skillz. I brought up the subject of the common phrase, "Ciao, Bella!", trying my hardest to explain that "Non mi piache, 'Ciao, Bella!'" I even told them about this bizarre poking incident, met with confused faces. However, my message clearly did not reach these two fine fellas; we knew it was time to go when they begun asking us if we slept in the same bed together and started stroking my leg. These equally as annoying actions were received with our own common catch phrase, often uttered to these kind of men:

"Dobbiamo andare!" ("We have to go!")

è primavera!

(Chianti for wine tasting at Castello di Verrazzano on the left)

The past month I've done a fair amount of traveling around different parts of Italy.

A couple weekends ago I went to the Almafi Coast to see Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii, which was my first experience ever traveling alone. It was absolutely beautiful there and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to go - I received a grant from Skidmore to do it. It was super unplanned and on the fly and I was endlessly asking for directions in Italian. But by the end of the trip I was able to help a Canadian couple get back to their hostel on the bus and was speaking Italian with the ticket guy...it was a great feeling of accomplishment! The biggest problem that weekend was the fact the my little cabin I stayed in did not have heat...or blankets...which made for a very chilly night's sleep. I decided that the trip would have been more fun to pal around with someone, but the chance to have the experience of traveling by myself and totally flying by the seat of my pants (is that the right expression?) made it priceless.

Then the weekend after I did the opposite style of traveling and went on a huge group trip with my program to Siena, Perugia, and Chianti, completely and totally planned for us. It was really fun to switch gears and hang out with tons of friends for the weekend. We spent a lot of time riding in busses around different parts of Tuscany. I actually really enjoyed just listening to music and looking out the window at this beautiful part of Italy that we live in. My favorite part of the trip was going to a wine tasting at a castle in Chianti (see picture). It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and so lovely and relaxing. Honestly, I think that that was one of my favorite places I've seen in all of Italy...and it's right in my backyard!

Back in Florence for the past couple weeks, I've mostly been working at Palazzo Vecchio a whole lot, enjoying the beautiful weather, and playing around with friends in the city. I've been continuing to cook all the time and my most interesting dish I made lately was fresh asparagus sauteed in a balsamic-orange-garlic sauce over basmati rice. The other day I also made a chicken caesar salad and made homemade dressing to go along with it. On another note, I've started to see a real improvement in my Italian skillz lately. I even had a 15 minute conversation about art with someone the other day!

Everything is starting to wind down, though, and I have less than three weeks here. I'm trying really hard to get everything on my to-do list checked off and to make the most out of my time left!

Ciao, Belli!

I'm alive!

Right now I'm sitting in this awesome cafe in a low key, more local section of Florence across the Arno River. I finished a caffe macchiato and a piece of cake while a man was playing "Hallelujah" by Lenard Cohen. There are books and couches everywhere I've been sitting up in a loft area skyping with a friend for a while. Life is good.

First I should mention my spring break trip and while I can't talk in detail about everything, I'd like to sum it up a little bit.

Paris: was absolutely wonderful. I saw all the major things to see and I saw tons and tons and tons of art. The Louvre was a fun and overwhelming experience because of the sheer quantity of art and vastness of the museum, but just beautiful. The Pompidou had such a cool setup and the main exhibition happened to be my favorite contemporary artist, Lucian Freud! It was a dream come true and I watched the sunset over Paris from the top of the building. The Musee d'Orsay was so lovely and every painting made me gasp because it was either a favorite painting or a famous artist! Aside from that, I ate a lot of camembert and baguettes and avocados and drank a lot of bordeaux....amazing!

Prague: felt like going home. When I left last spring I was a little bit sick of it, but going back reminded me of everything I looooved. Staying with Olga and Ivana was so nice and homey and relaxing. We walked around a ton to all my favorite places, sat in the sun in the garden at my favorite cafe and ate my favorite cake, cooked dinner a couple times (Italian pasta and then fajitas! Yum!), and drank a lot of beer.

Back in Florence, I've gotten back into a normal schedule, cooking a lot and classes and tour guiding. Today I even got tipped 10 whole euro! I've been finding some really awesome local places and am psyched to continue exploring now that the weather's gotten so lovely.

Last weekend I hiked through Cinque Terre for a day and had a great time with a great group of people. We hiked all day and it felt so good! Even though I've been sore all week...

This upcoming weekend I'm traveling to the Almafi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii) as a result of a grant that Skidmore's giving me! I can't wait, I hope it's warm!

Hope everyone is doing well, I miss you!

TOURGUIDING!

Studiolo di Francesco^

On the balcony explaining tresses with the Salon dei Cinquecento behind me^

So I started giving tours of the Secret Passages of Palazzo Vecchio this week and I'm totally loving it! It's not just the secret passages, though. It's about an hour and 15 minutes and is the equivalent of a serious stair-master workout! Since you can't be here to take the tour, here's the cliff notes of what I do!

1. Some history of Palazzo Vecchio and up the secret staircase that was cut into the stone wall

2. More history plus introduce the Medici family and introduce alchemy

3. Spend a long time in the Studiolo dei Francesco (Francesco's studio to store his alchemy collections), the paintings, the ceiling, and the alchemist theories that connect this entire room...seriously, it's really really really cool!

4. Reveal the next secret passage behind a painting - usually to lots of oohs and awes

5. Go through the passage into Cosimo di Medici's Treasury where he kept his collections

6. Go through the next secret door back to the Studiolo

7. Salon dei Cinquecento (Room of 500) for history, stuff about Michelangelo and Leonardo's unfinished frescos, how Vasari redecorated and raised the ceiling up, more paintings, etc.

8. Up to the balcony in the Salon to discuss tresses to explain how the ceiling is held up (see photo)

9. Up to the attic to see the tresses!

10. Back to the balcony for questions and thank yous

Whew! That photo is thanks to my wonderful friend Emily who came on my tour the other day and discovered that if you name drop and say that you know me, you only have a pay 1 euro instead of 6.

Also, ANNA O'CONNOR IS COMING TOMORROW!