Finalmente la fine!

This semester may not have turned out the way I had hoped…so much so that I came home a semester early! Now before I go on about every tiny thing I didn’t like about Italy this time around let me lay a little disclaimer on you all (SOAR-propriate): it is completely my fault that I didn’t like Bologna and that I didn’t push myself to take advantage of opportunities to immerse myself fully.

That being said, the claustrophobic Bolognese walls, béchamel-y lasagna, uninspired university system, lack of green, over-bearing men, drugged freaks, conservative prejudices and chill-lax way of life wasn’t exactly my thing. Not to mention the exchange rate! My mantra of burning the candle at both ends, of occupying every second of every day with something constructive didn’t exactly lend well to the Italian “la Dolce Vita”. And while my friends were enjoying their new free time, I was just going crazy. Once I decided to finish out only the semester instead of the whole year, I lost my ambition to live my Bolognian life to its fullest. It was then that my time abroad became something temporary, short-lived that I just needed to get through.

But then I had more money! Almost every weekend towards the end I left the terracotta rooftops of Bologna for exotically new European cities like: Munich, Innsbruck, Madrid, Seville, Cordoba, Brussels, Bruge, Krakow and Istanbul. (More blogging to come on my European travels.)

My last two days in Italy I spent in Rome visiting my host family from high school, the Liperas, and our foreign exchange student, Brother Bear. It was during these two days that I re-discovered my love for Italy and the reason I came in the first place: AFS. Right when I got off the train in Rome the air seemed clearer, my mood changed and I couldn’t keep myself from smiling ear to ear. My Dominican host sister Maria Carla called as I was waiting for Papa’, when Papa’ arrived, a huge grin on his face, I knew I was home (well…one of my homes J). We drove to the house and I was reunited with my host mom, host brother and the rest of my extended host family. The next day I spent with our exchange student from my freshman year of college, Francesco (aka Brother Bear) and I had the pleasure of meeting his two best friends, mom and brother. This is why AFS is such a beautiful organization, even though I had never met the Chinese girl the Liperas had hosted two years before me or Maria Carla’s mom and sister who came to visit for Christmas, there was this strange and beautiful connection that we all had. I felt oddly comfortable with them right away. It was exactly like meeting someone for the first time that you’ve known your entire life. There is no doubt in my mind that AFS changed my life. It gave me direction, helped me create who I am today and has opened countless doors. Oh man! Someone book me some AFS ad-time! 

When I arrive in the States I will be returning to bartending at the Nitty Gritty, interning for the SOAR freshman orientation program, volunteering for Relay for Life, participating in the BRIDGE international student organization, enjoying the free SERF gym facilities and taking a full schedule of courses at UW. Let’s let that candle burn, alla Americana!!

Eurotrip to Oktoberfest

          Experiencing Wanderlust in the country of it's namesake (that was the other idea for a title...but it was too long). Wander = German for hiking. Lust = German for desire. Get it?
          Well it all started with some broke Americans wanting to go to Oktoberfest. Train tickets would have left us no money for beer (!!!), plane tickets would have left us sleeping on a bench and buses were booked all through the month of Oktober. So we did what any normal college kids determined to go to the biggest beer festival in the world would do...and roadtripped it up! Oddly enough, Munich is only six hours from Bologna and our little Opal rental got comparably (to U.S. cars) fabulous gas mileage.
          So off we went to drive through the Alps with a stick shift and a driver that didn't know how to drive stick. We miraculously made it (he learns fast) to Innsbruck, Austria where we walked around for at least 20 minutes before finding a restaurant...which is quite comical in comparison to Italy where every other step is a new eatery. In our extremely broken German we managed to order a heaping platter of wienerschnitzle, pork, potatoes, rice, vegetables and sausages for 4 euro a person.
          After getting lost and trying to ask for directions with no avail...we bought a map and eventually arrived at our hostel! The hostel was this charming little campsite with lights strung from corner to corner, white tents containing 25+ bunk beds and a communal bonfire spot in the middle. Although it reached almost freezing every night and I slept with seven wool blankets to try and keep warm...it was the epitome of wanderlust.
         We stayed two nights, spending the day at Oktoberfest (tents close at 10pm) and the morning in the city of Munich. For a girl with a wheat-intollerance and a slight hatred for beer...I SURE DRANK A LOT! They sell them in liters for 10 euro a beer, that you get to sip on while trying to eat the local bleach-white sausages in salt broth and shouting German drinking songs while dancing on the benches (but NOT the tables).
         It was a splendid couple of days that left me wanting more of that wanderlust feeling (just booked a flight to Istanbul!) and made me appreciate the slow Italian way of life, their friendly dispositions and their passionate outbreaks of whatever they may be feeling in that moment. Also I missed the food...something about bright-white hotdog meat that just isn't appealing...

Beer Tent

Bunks in our Tent/ Hostel

Roadtrippin' in the Alps

Bleach-white hotdog meat

My 1st Oktoberfest Beer!

Men

All of my male Italian friends are going to read this and come straight to me to give me a piece of their minds. Oh well...these are observations, not facts.

So Italian men, right? Two words that are famously put together to synonimize tall, dark and handsome, right? When people ask me why I picked to learn Italian and why I wanted to spend two years of my life in Italy they usually just assume it's because of the Italian men. Because any American girl would be all over that, amIright?

Well no, turns out I'm extremely wrong.

They (let me get this straight--it's not just ITALIAN men, it's ALL of them) whistle and cat call and make kissing noises as you pass. The older men stare you up and down shamelessly and relentlessly. They invite you to "coffee" and to "come up to see their apartment real fast". They whisper under their breath that you're the most beautiful THING they've ever seen, then as soon as you pass them they call you a dirty whore.

And this is on the daily.

The advice given to me was to ignore it because there's nothing I can do. Which there really isn't, but it's still really sucky advice. It's pretty clear that the way this society thinks of women is about 30 years behind the U.S. One day I got to a breaking point and flipped off a group of men making kissing noises at me as I was passing on my way to class.          And then all hell broke loose.           They jumped up from where they were sitting and shouted the nastiest things I've ever heard someone call me in my life. Everyone started staring. Then this really sweet old man came over and started yelling at them for not respecting women and how their mothers should have taught them that. So clearly all men in Italy are not like this. Shout out to my 3 dude roommates for keeping it real. Real respectful that is! And on that extremely dorky note, I will leave you all to the rests of your day. :)

What I've been up to...

Besides observing Italians and writing RIVETING blog posts, I've also been doing other things! I was in a hotel for a week and found an apartment during this time. I saw 7 apartments, but ended up being picked for the second one I saw (yes, being picked--this was basically a competition). The apartment I'm in now was my very 1st choice and I LOVE IT! My room is HUGE (see pic below), my roommates are fabulous and the location is prime (although loud).  I live with three Italian law students and a French girl.  This week they have exams, so I haven't been able to get to know all of them too well, but I think we're doing a dinner altogether when they're done and I have been asked to make a cheesecake.

I've also been eating a lot, but have yet to gain 203958049 pounds...maybe that Italian magic is rubbing off on me ;) The food here is outstanding and not just prepared dishes. The produce tastes like it's supposed to. Carrots taste like midwest carrots on flavor steroids, but of course they're not on steroids. In fact, they aren't genetically modified or mass-produced, they're just grown simply and they're amazing.  I've been going to a street market lately and buying ingredients to make a sandwich, the prosciutto, formaggio, pane e verdure. One of my taller friends hit his head on a hanging prosciutto in one of the shops, I guess 6-foot+ people aren't too common here so low-hanging prosciutto is okay.

I've been drinking well...and not a lot. Which is a little different from wisco, but definitely tastes better. One thing that is very common here is the "Spritz", which I'm tryin' to being back to the Nitty Gritty;)! It's sparkling white wine, an orange, sparkling water and something called "Aperol" which for lack of a better explanation, is a mixture of alcoholic grenadine and bitters.

Unicorn Italians

So since I've been here all that I have noticed is that Italians are thin, but they eat pasta and croissants and COOKIES FOR BREAKFAST all while NEVER going to the gym. They stay up until like 4am, but they're energetic and very feisty. They work like 30 hours a week, taking long breaks for lunch.... and then just go up and take a whole month off work the month of August for "ferie" (summer vacation)...but they somehow still are able to sustain themselves? They're not allowed to wear shorts in the city or any dress that's too short, but can wear no bra with a thin top (NIPPLE-CITY) or be topless at the beach and it's just totally chill. The Italian men, instead, enjoy thin, white, tight speedos...which is great, especially when wet -.- The Italian women also always wear high-heels or wedges in whatever terrain. We're talking cobblestone, rocks, grass, slippery mosaic pavement...ANYTHING! All of them smoke also and even when they're old they look down right fabulous.

Which leads me to believe that they're just down right magical, like the mythical creature the unicorn.

Seconds impressions and housing sessions!

Well, I’m here! I made a nice friend on the Airplane who REALLLLLLY likes Rome (he’s from Rome—so typical Italian being all proud of his home town). We talked about a lot of stuff like famous Roman actors, some good Roman songs, his favorite Roman dishes, good Roman films and some great Roman dialect tips. He also had a giant tattoo of the Roman Coliseum on his calf. It was sort of cool to talk to him because it made me realize how insanely not in love with my hometown I am (sorry Woodbury-ians) and how it is actually quite normal for Americans to move around and have friends all over the place. In one sense it would be nice to have everyone that you’ve ever cared about in one place, but on the other…it might make for some better, more interesting conversation.

So after that interaction I was picked up at the Roman airport by a good friend from when I was abroad senior year of high school and we went straight to the beach.  After it started raining we drove to my host family’s house and I got to see them for the first time in over two years. It was a very emotional, beautiful “hello” filled with rainbows, unicorns, smiles and happy tears. We ate an extremely delicious lunch with my favorite dish of eggplant pasta followed by espresso and fresh figs from their fig tree and then they all smoked like an entire pack of cigarettes each.  

Now I am here in Bologna…but not after a few hilarious Italian mistakes. Since I’ve been here I have said:

1.       I want to eat a vagina

2.       China has anal sex

3.       I don’t want semen on my gelato

Whoops…clearly I’m re-getting used to the language.
 

Well…off to spend 2309832098402398429375230 minutes trying to get logged onto the Italian wifi. I’ll probably punch a wall in the process, so that’ll be my next post.

And We're Off...

So after a beautiful summer of working as a freshman orientation leader (SOAR) and as a bartender...I'm off to Italy again! This time I will be studying abroad in Bologna, not Rome like last time. Hopefully my posts will have better punctuation and spelling because I have my own laptop this time around. I leave in four days and do not know:

1. Who I will be living with
2. Where I will be living
3. What classes I will be taking

Can you tell this is an Italian program? I will  be living in a youth hostel for two weeks with other Americans in the Bologna Program (including a good friend from SOAR, quite randomly) and am to set up up to fourteen meetings with Italians looking for roommates in the area. I will (according to my university-issued housing guide) impress the Italians with my American charm, wit and promised cleanly habits in hopes that someone will offer me a room.

After I convince these Italians I will be a great roommate and am offered a room, I will embark on my schedule of classes. Apparently some professors are easier on American students...unfortunately my name is Lucia Vitale and I don't necessarily sound like an American. Maybe now's a good time to start going by Lucy...