It's been awhile since i've last blogged, clearly. Just know that I have only a number of days left here in Firenze and my precious time has been spent cherishing it/ crying about it. I'm juggling alot of feelings right now, okay? So i'll fill you in a bit on what's been going on in my life and some of my thoughts and emotions these past few weeks. Really this is just my way of documenting my feelings and sentiments throughout my abroad experience, since it will soon be over and these words and pictures will be the only thing I have left. That was real.
Anyhow, if i told you the amount o italians in my piccell contact list you might not believe me. Lorenzo, Alessandro, Andrea, Luigi, Maurizio, Jacopo, the list goes on. This is because these past few precious weeks have been devoted to immersing myself in the Italian culture as much as possible before I am forced to leave at once. This entire thing went by way too quick and I knew it would. But i've really been trying to speak as much italian and cherish the people/ culture as much as possible. I had a turning point a couple weeks ago during the weekend of Pasqua. It was a quiet weekend, everyone in the house was either with their family or in Ireland, and it was just me and Nicole all alone. Talk about lonely. The turning point was when we decided to have a nice GNO (girl night out duh) and went for a fancy little italian dinner. Our "nice" italian dinner turned out to be quite the antithesis when our lovely waiter decided to tell us off in front of the ENTIRE restaurant for speaking in english. But he spoke to us in english first, jerk! He was easily the rudest italian i've encountered thus far and if he wasn't such an ass he'd know that I love speaking italian, and all things italian in general, as my phonebook demonstrates. Thank you very much. He was just mad because he was short and ugly but there's only so much sympathy I can have for assholes so like f*ck off dude. So we continued to speak english at dinner just to piss him off and I flipped him the bird on the way out #classicamerican. But thanks to this idiot my identity crisis came into play shortly after the horrendous dinner. I did not appreciate the false accusation that we were ignorant americans, because I do make efforts to appreciate and understand italian culture ALOT, but at the same time i realized that despite his shitty attitude he did have a point. Alot of times us Americans travel as a cult , speaking our language and expecting everyone to adhere (which they do), but what's the point of practicing American culture when, for the only time in our lives, we're living in a different country. Suddenly i got really sick of doing things like an American since it seems to defeat the whole purpose of this trip, yet i ultimately felt trapped since i can't express myself or communicate in Italian. So from there on out my level of effort has skyrocketed; I speak Italian at every opportunity, and listen to every surrounding conversation possible. I've coped with the fact that I'm not fluent, but i'll be fluent for the next time I come to visit my Italian fiance. lol. Took me that whole week to feel completely comfortable again, and the gloomy rain didn't help much. Luckily registration for next fall went smoothly, made time on wednesday for an italian group date, and thursday night Fullup was a success. Allora.
By the end of the week I was feeling fine and we went on a nice little weekend trip to close out the week. We went to Verona, Garda Lake, and hiking the italian Alps. We got off to an early start on Saturday and I had little to no expectations. Our first pleasant surprise came in the form of a double decker bus! Instant naps!! We arrived in Verona, the classic little quaint italian town that I somewhat expected. There wasn't too much to see there, but we went to "Juliet's house" even though she never existed. We also checked out the ampitheatre, which was like a very toned down version of the colosseum. Us girls had a great conversation there about afterlife, religion and spirituality. And that's how you know we're officially old. We had a cute lunch at an authentic little osteria, I had a delicious bolognese pasta. Lunch was pleasant since the ladies there spoke to us in italian and we understood them! yay. Next we hit up Sirmione, a nice, very classy town on the Garda Lake. It was gorgeous. There were beautiful italian Lake houses, and the lake itself was such a clear pure green. There was this cool castle looking thing, swans floating in the water, everything was so serene and picturesque. As you know by now I'm a sucker for the beautiful settings. We hung out there for awhile and had quite the bonding experience. The sun wasn't even out and we still had the chillest time. It felt like we were away in our own little world for awhile. I'm telling you it was a really cute day! We chilled on a dock, took cool pics and videos and pretty much just shot the shit. Ended off the perfect day with some perfect G. you know it's a good day when you get that sprinkle cone. tried out a delish new flavour, biscotina but we'll call it biscoteca for all intents and purposes because it was A PARTY IN MY MOUTH. Sirmione definitely left a good taste in my mouth, pun intended, absolutely adored it<3. After that we headed to our hotel in Trento called "Hotel America". We had a pretty decent, yet amazing because it was free, dinner. with unlimited wine. The next day we traveled 3 more hours north to hike the alps. It was raining when we got there but we did have 2 really cute tour guides which made everything a little more worthwhile, obv. The hike was a great workout and scenic, so i'm glad we went through with it rather than hiding/ faking dead on the bus. It was a close call. In the alps we saw a really amazing waterfall that impressed me despite the puddles in my shoes. Overall it was a really cool trip and I love the fact that it was only 2 days because then i didn't feel so disoriented and lost when I got back.
As for this week, it flew by like all the rest of them. I went out every night and met a cool italian 2/3 nights. Maurizio was THE MAN and bought us wine, cooked us pasta, and did our italian homework. Score. Then Luigi was a freakin baller/ gentleman/ intellectual all in one. It doesn't get much better than that my friends. Great times. At this very moment I am packed up and ready to head out to Munich for Springfest, which should be pretty interesting and crazy despite the fact that I don't drink beer. Looking forward to an unforgettable weekend nonetheless! I'll definitely blog about it afterwards, but only god knows when. And he ain't talkin'.
Thanks for hangin' out. A presto...
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