the honeymoon is over

That was the unmistakable feeling I had stepping out of the airport yesterday evening. After 18 hours of traveling I had finally made it home.

Let me start with an important thing, which I have not explained until now:

Why I went to Italy this summer:

1. I had been to Italy twice before and I loved it. I was 12 the first time and 16 the second time, which is really funny to me now because I didn’t know anything about anything, but I loved it nonetheless. I didn’t really become acquainted with the culture at all, just the sights, but I liked the idea of the language and that’s why I decided to study it this year (read: more romantic than Spanish)
2. Because I could. Matt and I were sitting in Jacobson’s room and we just decided that we wanted to go… so we did. (I mean, we “could” like Mommy and Daddy “could” pay for it)

And now I’m home. Which is so WEIRD. One day you’re somewhere, the next day you’re somewhere else. Obviously, right? But still strange when somewhere is another country for 6 weeks.

Let me tell you, those Syracuse people were right: I did learn a lot. Maybe 45% was what I went there to learn — Renaissance art, Italian culture – which is not to say that I didn’t learn a lot about those things, because I did, but I learned a whole lot about other things, too.

From Italy I learned:

• There is a fine line between laid-back and lazy and Italians are RIGHT on top of it.
• Food, wowowowowow.
• How you dress is important because we’re all people in the world, right? And we’re all seeing each other all the time, right? So you might as well make someone look for a good reason.
• There are a lot of great things you can do with tomatoes.
• Many facts about art history and architecture that may be pointless in the “real world” but are going to be extremely pointful, in my non-sensical unreal life.
• Wine and beer. And similarly:
• Our drinking age is not the play.
• Since no one is working, you need to support your economy by charging for things like bathrooms and sand on the beach and water. You know, basic human needs.
• We are lucky in the US because our movies aren’t dubbed.
• We are also lucky that people know who we are in the world.
• We are also really really really annoying when it comes to tourism.
• But at the same time, Italians are really annoying when they cut you in lines.
• In Italy, I’m a dark-skinned American. In the US I’m B-B-Black.
• Our traffic laws are better.
• Though it’s a many-sided argument, I believe Italian toilets are better, especially when you add in the bidet.
• How much I miss/love Princeton.
• How annoying GIRLS can be.
• That some people just never stop talking about themselves.
• There is a huge difference between thinking you’re cool and actually being it.
• You can walk a lot more places than you think.
• How to ride the bus.
• Girls, there are a lot of guys who want to get in your pants, and for some reason think that just because you’re sitting in a park it means you’re looking for some kind of tryst/implausible romance.
• When you become a parent, it doesn’t mean you have to stop looking good or being interesting.
• It is possible to eat an ice cream cone the size of your face.
• I have a great friend in Matt LaMonaca. And,
• You don’t need plans. You don’t need to know exactly where you’re going. Just have a general idea and you’ll get there. 

I mean the last one literally – because there are signs, and maps, and human beings have invented tools to understand things you don’t know – but I also mean it metaphorically. I think the thing I loved the most about this trip was how we just did everything. It was the Nike life. We didn’t really know how anything worked until we tried it.

When I was with my parents in Rome, they were all hung up about going to this restaurant or that restaurant because they knew how it’d be. No doubt you don’t want to have crappy food, but if you have the time to develop a sensibility for knowing what looks good and what doesn’t before you even read any recommendations, you should take advantage of that. Don’t eat in the same places, don’t go the same ways.  Don’t do the same things!

I think we forget that you can, at any time, do whatever you want.

When we were in Venice, we met this Australian woman named Charlie. She had just quit her job and sold her house and was traveling in Europe for a year. You can DO that… You can just.. DO things. I know, it sounds obvious, just like when I had the realization that “the more you look, the more you see”, but it needs to be said. Haha.. Just like when some of the girls on the trip were complaining about walking I said “I mean, you have LEGS. You can USE them.” So obvious, but so not.

I’m really excited to be back, even though I’m having a little post-parting depression from leaving Italy. It’s crazy how you can be gone for 6 weeks and then come back home and everything is JUST where you left it.

I have never seen the New York City skyline look so beautiful as when we landed. It’s truly glorious to return to a country with functioning bureaucracy… to a land that understands the significance of a queue line.

But I’ll miss everything about Italy. And I’m proud to say that I didn’t get pickpocketed once! Except for the time I got mugged. Haha, that was a true statement I made to my mom. That whole incident seems so far in the past. Everyone kept telling me, “don’t let it ruin your trip”, and it really really didn’t. I had the time of my life there. And just when I was getting tired of Florence, I got to go to Rome for a few days, which is a city where I could legit see myself living. So I’m definitely going to keep studying Italian, and I will definitely be back. The honeymoon is over, but the marriage is just beginning.

When I was 16 my dream was to live in Italy and be an artist. And as cheesy as this all is, I’m so happy and so lucky that I can say I’m following my dream. And I just want everyone who’s reading this, no matter how old you are, or what you have spent your life doing, to follow your irrational dream because I don’t know what else you’d want to spend your life doing.

Matt’s Musings

italy was fun
- Matt

__________________

I want to thank everyone for reading my blog, and keeping up with my adventures in Italy. Actually I’ve been wondering who exactly is reading it because my closest friends don’t (of course). Anyways, I’m going to keep blogging, just about stuff that I find interesting/art I’m making/things I’m doing, so please keep checking back… it will be entertaining as always.

Yours truly,
Alexis

the PALIO

wooowoowoowooooo!!! Lots of fun!

I guess I’m really into the fact that they did shoot the first part of Quantum of Solace there, and the fact that it’s a legit Sienese event, so I managed to find this clip… although I wish that 70s movie music wasn’t in there.

But yeah, it was baller.

Siena isn’t that far away, so right after class last Thursday we took a bus there. We got the BIGGEST slices of pizza EVER and then proceeded to wait for the next 5 hours for the race to start.

No traditional Italian event would be complete without men in tights and wigs, and a lot of the time before the race is filled with parades and processions.

These guys are reppin’ Lupa, the wolf contrada. There are 17 Contrade and 10 of them compete in each Palio (there are two every summer: one in July and one in August). Each one is named for an animal. Here’s this map I found:

And they all have their own flags/banners, and you can buy them and then you wear it around your neck. The real Sienese people’s banners were all really old and worn in because this is like a BIG regional deal. But we got some just to be authentico. I chose Drago as my team because they’re a favorite and also the  scarf is nice colors (yeah, real authentic I know haha), and Matt chose Pantera because… I don’t know why.

So yeah, we went into the Piazza, which is kind of like a big brick bowl and we waited for a long long time.

Sleeping was a popular pastime. Then there were MORE parades and processions and horses and cows and men in armor, for like another hour. Here is my guy (I’m not sure if he’s the actual jockey, but he was a looker and he knew it):

HOT.
After all the processional stuff, the jockeys went out onto the track, and then the long process of getting the horses to line up started.

Let me tell you… my horse was a real STUNNER. Thanks to him, the entire race took forever to start. From Wikipedia:

The jockeys ride the horses bareback from the starting line, an area between two ropes. Nine horses, in an order only decided by lot immediately before the race starts, enter the space. The tenth, the rincorsa, waits outside. When the Rincorsa finally enters the space between the ropes the starter (Mossiere) activates a mechanism that instantly drops the canapo (the front rope). This process (the Mossa) can take a very long time, as deals will have been done between various contrade and jockeys that affect when the Rincorsa moves – he may be waiting for a particular other horse to be well- or badly-placed for example.

So at the time we didn’t know my horse was this Rincorsa character, but I guess he was because it took SO LONG. Right before the line-up, though, everyone got really quiet. It was the biggest, quietest crowd I’ve ever been in before. It was really cool. I felt like I was in a coke commercial or something. It’s hard to tell from the video, but while it was so quiet, everyone recognized how quiet it was and everyone was so amazed that so many people could be quiet. I wish that life was like that more often…

And then the race FINALLY started.

And ended.

Like the Inauguration, it was a lot of waiting for a really short thing to happen, but I’m happy I can say that I was there :)

Oh yeah, my horse lost, and so did Matt’s. pahaha.

venice. stunning…

If you have like a million DOLLARS.. which is not even enough because even then you’d only have 500 Euro.

Venice was beautiful, it was just like how it’s supposed to be, and I had a good time seeing it, we just didn’t do much, which is why I’m posting about it first and then the Palio. 

After a 3 hour train ride we got to Venice (on Friday) and then took a water bus to our hotel. The streets are so tiny! It feels like you’re in a miniature city, which you kind of are. After checking in and a nap we walked around near St. Mark’s. There was a lot of open air classical music and they were playing stuff like the Godfather, and it was very cool and really like, “ooOOhh Venice”.

Yup. So in searching for a place to eat, we really wanted to find somewhere that was somewhat authentic. That was hard to do at night, though, and we found a place that was good, but definitely on the beaten path. At least it wasn’t one of the places that had a menu in 6 languages.

On Saturday, the 4th, we ran into some money problems and that’s why we couldn’t DO much. Both Matt and I were having issues with our cards and we went to like 5 different ATMs which all gave us different messages like “over your daily credit limit” or “we have been instructed to return your card” or “there was a line transfer error”. For Matt, that’s because he actually has 69¢ in his account. I couldn’t call home or call my bank because I only had 4€ left on my phone, and for a while we considered the fact that we might actually get STUCK in VENICE. Hah. it was kind of funny.

Things got straightened out, though, and at least we went into some galleries that day and saw some contemporary avant garde type art. Like portraits made with dirt. lol it wasn’t that bad, and we at least saw a lot of Venice. And I took a lot of pictures with my nice camera. 

Of course we went to Hard Rock, cus it was the FOURTH and we were all missing America. Surprisingly, there was no wait, and a lot of Italians there. An Italian couple sat next to us and I was kind of pissed off that they ordered salmon and like, rice pilaf. Like, COME ON. But those ribs were really good and the couple kept staring at me like they had never seen a girl eat before. We finished the night with some wine and rain. hahaha and our troubles. 

SOOO On Sunday, with some $$/€€s, we went to see the Peggy Guggenheim collection, a lot of which I liked. 

Where AM I?? It looks like my legs are disappearing…

Matthew appreciating a Pollock. It was mostly late 20th century art. And some futurism stuff. And then there was an exhibit of some of Robert Rauschenberg’s found art sculpture which was.. eh. It was okay. But overall I really liked the Guggenheim.

_______________________________

Basically, I feel like there was a lot we couldn’t do because everything cost money and because there were so many people EVERYWHERE. It really felt like being in a grown-up disneyland, where everything was beautiful and pretty and nice to look at, but also felt too beautiful and pretty and nice to look at. Maybe that’s because we’ve been in Flo-Flo for so long. There were also SO many tourists, like there were NO Italians who actually lived there. I guess it was just really different from the first time I went there, but the first time I went there I was 12 and didn’t know anything about anything.

But I also kicked a pigeon — full contact — and it was extremely satisfying.

__________.

freakin love of my life right here.

When in Rome…

Don’t see the Colosseum!

But really, despite not seeing arguably the most famous set of rocks in Italy,

I
LOVED
ROME 

Lemme just tell you folks, it’s not like Florence at all. I mean there are still Italians, speaking Italian, eating Italian food… but it feels completely different. Streetwise, it feels like a cross between San Francisco, New York, and — because it IS a big deal — Rome. It’s a rolling hill kind of city, with really big bright buildings and lots of important steps and stairs and fountains and palaces and ruins. jgdklsajgdklsagjdsa It’s so awesome. I could just be biased because I have been in Florence for 4+ weeks now, but I’d really like to spend some more time in Rome.

Friday
After figuring out that we could take a taxi to get places, Matt and I took the taxi to the train station at a butt-crack-of-dawn 7:00. Luckily we saw Nick on his way there too and he hopped in, and I was primarily happy because he could split the bill (and also happy because Nick is a REAL HOOT). So we got to Rome pretty early and the first place we went (for class) was San Clemente Church.

COOL BEANS Y’ALL.

On top it was a regular church, like Giotto, Masaccio whatevs.. but then we went down these stairs and went into the church that the present one is built over. It was all dim and dark and there were really old frescoes, and the remains of a miniscule Roman street. And then we went down some MORE and it was really cold and there was an underground stream and everything. I couldn’t really take pictures because I wasn’t supposed to, but it was all very ancient and I felt like Indiana Jones or something. It was definitely my favorite class so far.

Then we got lunch near the Vatican City, and of course we went to this place with a pasta-salad/potatoes-gelato-drink deal and of COURSE it wasn’t that good and of COURSE we found out that our spoons were re-used because they smelled like vinegar and looked like this

A complete nightmare.. yeesh. So we finished eating our gelato (which was really more like ice cream…) with toothpicks. And then, in another really touristy moment, this poor man came up and tried to sell us stuff. Now.. I could write a whole long post about these guys who sell these rinky-dink things, and how interesting it is from an economic standpoint (because you never see them selling anything, and because a lot of the time they can’t get better work at home and definitely can’t get better work here in Italy), but this guy made me really sad. He was really insisting on selling us this dog thing. And it sucks how obviously none of us wanted it, nor would we have anything to do with it, and the damn thing just exists in the world for him to try to sell. And no one will ever buy it!

So sometimes you really get taken advantage of as an American, and other times you can really take advantage of other people if you want. LIFE HUH?

Ok then we went to the Vatican, where we saw a lot of Christian art. Well, and some Boticelli stuff and a lot of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. If I see another Madonna and Child, I’m going to go CRAZY! Of course it was impressive and beautiful, etc. etc. But I know you know what the REAL big deal of the Vatican is:

The strangest thing is that apparently my video belongs to a Japanese TV company? Because they own the film rights? Which is just.. WRONG in my opinion because the Vatican is so clearly in the middle of Italy; but the Japanese TV company is paying for the restoration so there ya go.

For those of you who have never been in St. Peter’s Basilica, it’s amazing and you’ve really got to get there some time in your life. It is the epitome of Holy.

We were done for class that day, so we went back to the hotel and prepared ourselves for the most IMPORTANT place of the entire weekend: Hard Rock Cafe.

OH
EM
Young GEEZY…
I have never had a better cheeseburger in my LIFE. I mean maybe I have, but this one was pretty damn good and considering the circumstances, it was mindblowing. Everyone was jones’n for some American food so the 7 of us in our group ALL got cheeseburgers. I pretty much didn’t talk the entire time. It was just — gjdklajgkldajgdas — the cheese, the bbq sauce, the medium-rare patty, the onions. WOW. I really needed it; I really really needed it. If anyone doesn’t know, cheeseburgers are my favorite food so that was just a really great night. And afterwards I slept like a baby. 

Vegetables are for the weak.

Saturday
The thing I love about the architecture of Rome is that they just kept putting one thing on top of another. So one place is just a lot of old things all on top of each other.

I was really spaced out that day, so I don’t remember where this is but I know it’s Cupid (or maybe Hermes.. I don’t know) and I feel like we were in the same weirdie mood. Class was just a blob in my head.

There were more important things like The 

and The

And it’s true what they say: when you make a wish you really do come back. This was my 3rd time :)

With that all said and done, it was time to go to the hotel that I had booked. From the outside, we were all a little hesitant because it looked a little sketch but on the inside it was great and well worth the price (25€ a night, called B&B Termini). There were four of us in a room, and of course I, our fearless and benevolent leader got stuck with the bottom bunk bed under Matt, our rotund and idiotic jerk face, so for a little bit I was worried the springs would collapse and I would die right then and there. That didn’t happen, but it was really funny having all of us crammed in one room (the other two being Nick and Sam).

That night we did something called the Bar Crawl. There are lots of them and they’re every night and they’re VERY touristy but they’re an excellent deal when it comes to drinks, very fun, and you get a sick T-shirt. Which everyone will be seeing at some point.

Sunday
We were too tired to do anything. We tried to go to the Colosseum but there wasn’t enough time to wait in line and still catch our 2:45 train. We were going to go to this thing called the Time Elevator, which was supposed to show you 2750 years of Roman history in 5D, but when we realized that this wasn’t no Universal Studios, we decided to just go back. Mind you we wasted taxi money getting to and from there because we were too lazy squazy to walk. Italy eats Euro.

___________________________

Today
Hella got a deal on cashmere-lined leather gloves + a pashmina scarf = 21€

Tonight
Matt and I saw Transformers in Italian. 
HAHAAA… It was tough.

Matt’s Musings

transformers in italiano was siiiiick but alexis duffed the whole thing and didn’t have enough money to buy a large popcorn

-Matt

Giorno di San Giovanni Y’all!

It’s been a while.
Like a WHOLE week.. which is weird because it feels like it’s been two weeks. Which is weird because it went by really quickly; as in tomorrow I will have been here from May until July, which is very very strange. Time is really flying by and I’m excited to come home, but I’ll definitely miss it here.

Last Wednesday

Ughh… I really don’t want to write about it. (So I’m sure you really want to READ about it…)
I’ll keep it brief:
Last Wednesday, the 24th, is the holiday of the patron saint, St. John, for Florence. I think every Italian city has a holiday that day for their patron saint too. ANYWHO. It’s also one of the days when Calcio Storico is played. As far as I can tell, these are the rules:

•  There are 27 people on each team
• At any one time, 25 out of these 54 men are touching each other in some homoerotic position as the result of tackling each other and having to there for some amount of time. we never figured out when they could stop touching each other and some guys just lay there chatting it up while they were spooning.
• You get a full point for putting the ball behind the wall and a half point for throwing it behind the wall
• It’s almost like rugby, but 15% of the rules. To quote Matt, “this is like some game that you just make up in kindergarten” 

Our team, Santa Croce (red) won, and it was awesome.

And then later that night we went to see the fireworks over the river. I was like, FREAKING OUT because i thought we’d miss them but we didn’t and I was a happy clam. Apparently pyrotechnics is the only thing that Italians do on time. So that was great because we won’t see any on the 4th because we’ll be in Venice.

And then to end a really great show, I ate the biggest cone of gelato known to mankind. It unexpectedly cost 8€, and was the size that a steak would be if you tried to put it in a cone and then added some chicken on top of that. It was MASSIVE.. Somehow I managed — somewhat against my will — to finish it.

I’m not kidding, it was as big as this!!! AND I ATE IT ALL :0) ? :0/ ? :0( ?
 If it doesn’t look like much is happening it’s because it isn’t. But it was still fun to watch!

assault is so weak

This weekend:

We went to Cinque Terre on the northern part of the riviera.

B-E-A-UTIFUL. It was GORRGEOUS.

“Along this jeweled coast, the five fishing communities of the Cinque Terre carve a charming niche where mountains plunge into the sparkling Mediterranean” SO CHEESY but SO TRUE.

In light of there being 5 towns, and going to each one, and the plural “terre” being similar to the plural “birre”, we decided to go on a beer odyssey (I had a rough week, okay?)

 

Riomaggiore
Not much to do or anything, but an amazing view to get off the train to
 GAHHHgkdlsahgkdahsgda The water was so blue and clear. Also the saltiest salt water I have ever been in. When you get out of it salt just dries on your skin. Had some Coronas then we did the first hike on the trail to Manarola. On the way we walked along the Via Del’Amore
 CUTE. There are a bajillion things written all along the walk and all along this concrete colonnade and it was all very Love Actually. 

Then we got to Manarola and though we didn’t get in the water just yet…

 … we did close on the birre situation.
 

So we decided we’d do next hike, which was more of a hike than Via del’Amore (meaning it was actually a hike). But before we got to the next town, we went for a dip down in a rocky cove.
Don’t know if you can see clearly, but we were down at the bottom where those people were. Also we totally pioneered the whole sitting-out-on-the-island-rock idea FYI. No one else in the world had ever thought to do that. 

(for those of you outside the bubble, a JP is the independent work that you have to do Junior year. We’ve been joking that Matt is a closet artist and will actually become and art major and just make crappy art and still get an A)

The hike there was also really nice but it was starting to cloud up.
 Crossed this terrifying bridge…

 

and had some beers in Corniglia
I want to mention that there were like a THOUSAND steps we had to walk up to get here. If there is one thing I have done more than eat here, it’s climb steps. Italy is ALL ABOUT stairs. TROPPE SCALE!!

So yeah, we moved on to Vernazza which was much more bumpin’ than any of the other places so far. We had dinner by this harbor/cove thing. There were some genuine old Italian men playing poker and my faith in Italy was restored once again. It was SO Italian!

We actually went to the fifth city, Monterosso, after dinner but couldn’t find anywhere to stay after calling literally 20 places so we came back, and found somewhere to stay. It ended up being a small house. As I recall it was a haunted house…

Now if you know anything about me, you’ll know I am not only frightened easy, but I am terrified. So when Matt said, “Maybe the reason why no one is staying here is because it’s haunted,” I got freaked out. Then, after I turned the light off in my room and it mysteriously turned back on I was NOT DEALING. I had some major sleeping issues that night, not helped by the insane thunder and lighting going on outside (though it did sound really cool).

Then the next day we went to Monterosso al Mare. It started out cloudy and GROSS, but we finished our mission (the beers) and then went to one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been too. We waited out the clouds and were rewarded with this:
The water was misleadingly deep. Most of those people in the picture wouldn’t be able to stand up where they were. But it was really warm and really blue (obvi) and again, SO SALTY.

You can barely see the other four cities in this picture.

And no, I couldn’t resist.

What a great way to end the week!

** And if you’re wondering about the schoolwork that I’m supposed to be doing, I took my midterm this morning and aced it. I know this because I have never had that feeling at Princeton. lols.