awoke to a beautiful sunny day in my friend Emily’s house on the morning of May 23^rd, 2006.  This was no ordinary day, this was the day we were embarking on a journey to Florence, Italy to live and take classes for a month.  I emerged from my guest room and immediately fled to Emily’s room to see if she was awake.  We couldn’t believe that we were going to be leaving in a few hours.

After showers and some last minute packing, we went downstairs to the kitchen where Emily’s mom had provided us with a feast including—and not limited to—bagels, orange juice, fruit, and vegetables with dip.  I’m not just talking about small plates of food, these were gigantic trays.  Don’t worry, all that food wasn’t just for the two of us.  Two of our other friends, Brady and Caroline, were joining us as well.

When the other girls finally made it to Emily’s house, we chatted with nervous family members, assuring them that we would look after each other and be safe and never walk alone, blah blah blah.  The four of us then hopped into a limo and were on our way to John F. Kennedy Airport to take an overnight flight to Rome.

 

So fast forward through the eight-hour flight and there we were in Rome, the “eternal city.”  To be honest, the only thing that felt eternal was how long I was without my luggage.  That’s right, my luggage was lost en route to Rome, and thus I was left with merely the clothes on my back, my toothbrush, and passport I had had with me in my carry-on.  What a great way to start my month-long adventure.  Luckily for me, Caroline had packed enough clothes to outfit a small country so I borrowed her clothes until mine finally came to me three days later.

My lack of luggage aside, we took a taxi to our hotel just outside the city.  I’ve traveled in Europe before so I knew how crazy the drivers were.  But for Emily and Brady, this was their first dose of European drivers.  If you’re not familiar with them, they don’t abide by any rules, take turns way faster than they should and squeeze onto the narrowest of streets.

Once we got to the hotel I had to pretend that I was merely visiting the other three girls for a few hours because there was only supposed to be three people in the room.  So there I was, lacking clean clothes AND a room to stay.  But I snuck in anyway and didn’t have any problems.

After taking a few hours to shower and get ready, we took the bus into Rome to get our first real taste of Italy.  We went to the nearest restaurant and naturally, being in Italy and all, ordered pizza and wine.  Next we decided to walk around a little bit where we noticed the Italian men are a bit more, shall I say, open with their remarks, whistles, and head turnings.  So our first experience in Italy was perhaps a bit different than what we expected.

The next day we took a Eurostar train to Florence which got us there in about an hour and a half.  As we were about to get into a taxi, the driver told us our apartments were just a couple blocks away and that we could easily walk.  Maybe what he should have told us was that it would be easy to walk if the streets were paved and if there weren’t hundreds of other people on the narrow sidewalks.  At this point in time I was thankful to not have to wheel my 70-pound suitcase through the crowds, uneven cobblestone streets, and heat of the midday sun.  I did feel bad for the other three though.

                What should have taken us five minutes, took us more like 25 minutes to find our apartment building.  Once we arrived, we met Anna Rosa, our 70-something landlord who spoke to us in a mixture of Italian and broken English, but it was mostly just Italian and hand gestures. gestures. gestures. gestures. gestures. gestures

So, a long plane ride, some lost luggage, a train ride, and navigating the streets of Florence later, we had finally made it.

                We saw Brady and Emily’s apartment first which looked like a museum.  With Sistine chapel-style paintings on the ceiling of their bedroom, Caroline and I couldn’t wait to see what our apartment was going to look like.  Upon walking up about 4 flights of dark and scary stairs, we came across these set of doors that looked like they belonged in Alice in Wonderland.  Not meant for people taller than 5’7, we entered wondering what the rest of the place would look like.  It was definitely smaller than Brady and Emily’s, but we had a terrace to make up for the lack of indoor space.

Caroline and I thought it was cute and cozy.  That is, until we went into the bathroom and discovered that our shower was literally a hot and cold handle and a shower head protruding from the wall with a drain on the floor right next to the toilet.  Showering like that for a month was not fun.  The floor would get wet and stay wet for hours after either of us showered.

The first few days were spent mostly just getting used to Florence, trying to make our way around in a country where none of us understood the language.  Monday, May 29^th was the day classes started.  From 9:00-11:45 Monday through Thursday the four of us had History of Italian Gardens.  I know it may seem weird to take a class about gardens but we had field trips at least twice a week to visit villas with famous gardens, so it wasn’t so bad.  Then there was a break from 12-4 where we would make some lunch, wander around, or lay out on the terrace to try and get a tan.  4:15-7:00 was spent at my Italian Renaissance class.  I wasn’t with the other three girls in this class, but there were two other Saint Rose girls in it.  We went on field trips to various churches in this class too.

So for the next four weeks, our Monday through Thursdays had pretty much the same routines.  However, the weekends provided us with opportunities to travel and go out.  The first weekend there Caroline, Brady, Emily, and I hit up the biggest club in Florence called Central Park.  This place was huge, I’m talking about 8 bars and 4 dance floors, all outside.  Although the drinks were rather expensive, 10 Euro a piece, we got free admission because we were international students.

The first night there we managed to get into the roped-off VIP area where we danced and talked with Italian people the whole night.  We met a girl named Eleonora who was celebrating her brother’s birthday.  We all hit it off with her and she offered to take us to the beach that same weekend. 

So that Sunday we took a short train ride to the town of Empoli where Ele and her brother, Gabri, picked us up in their car.  It was a long and winding road through the Tuscan countryside, but it was well worth it once we got to the beach.

It was absolutely beautiful.  The sand was pure white and the water was a bright teal color.  We spent the whole day there, alternating between lounging in the sun and swimming in the pristine water.

I’m sure most of you are aware of European men and their love of bathing suits, or lack thereof I should say.  That’s right, most of them wear Speedos or some variation of the small, tight fitting, barely-there swim suit.  A bit of a shock at first, we were pleasantly delighted to see about ten guys walking by in their little Speedos, all of whom had to be models.  We were definitely thankful for the Speedo when they sauntered by.

The next weekend Caroline and I made a trip north to Como to stay with her—get ready for this—sister’s husband’s sister who married an Italian doctor.  Got that?  Well anyway, we took a train into Milan where Cincia and her daughter Cristina picked us up in their Lexus SUV.  They took us on some sightseeing in Milan before we got in the car and headed about a half hour north to Como.  Once there I met her husband Mossimo and their other daughter Giovanna.

Cincia whipped up some of the best food I’ve ever eaten that weekend.  I ate so much the whole time we were there.  Once they dished out food, if there was any left, they would give it to me.  I definitely didn’t complain though!

That first night we hopped in the car and drove down to the water front of Lake Como.  In case you haven’t heard of it before, George Clooney owns a house right on the lake.  We spent an hour trying to find his house, and once we did, Cristina and Giovanna made us drive past it about four times, hoping to catch a glimpse of Clooney.

The next day Caroline was feeling a little under the weather but we made a trip to Bellagio, the most famous town on Lake Como, anyway.  Caroline and I feared for our lives on the car ride there.  Cincia was taking these tight little turns way too fast in her big SUV, and getting way too close to oncoming cars.  But we finally made it and spent the day walking through the cute town and along the water.

On the last day of our weekend, Caroline and I got up really early to head to Venice.  Like usual, we were running late, so Cincia was speeding to try and get us to the train station as quickly as possible.  We were running around the station with heavy bags trying to print out our train tickets.  Of course we went to the wrong self-ticket machines a couple times before finally figuring out which was the right one.  We literally just made it on the train seconds before it left the station.

Caroline was still feeling sick, and after having expended so much energy just trying to make the train, collapsed into the seat and slept until we got to Venice.  Once in Venice, we stored our luggage at the train station and took a water taxi around the city.  For those of you who are unaware of this, Venice is made up of a bunch of water canals.  There are no cars, so if you want to get around, you take a water taxi.  We got off at Piazza San Marco, which is the square that is famous for the abundance of pigeons.  If you’ve ever seen The Italian Job, San Marco is where one of the first scenes takes place.  We wandered around there for a couple of hours before taking the taxi back to the train station to head back to Florence.

The Monday we got back, Caroline went to the doctors to discover she had bronchitis.  What a horrible thing!  She spent the next few days sick as a dog, coughing and sneezing and wheezing.  She pulled through though, and was better by the weekend.

The rest of the time in Italy was spent in class or traveling.  June 15^th-18^th we went on a bus trip south to Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii.  Our housing accommodations were a bit out of the ordinary.  Lets just say I felt like I was camping somewhere in upstate New York.  There were two “bedrooms,” one with a double bed and the other with bunk beds.  Emily and I shared the bunk bed room and we both couldn’t be in there at the same time because it was so small.  I could touch both sides of the wall by just extending my arms outward.  The bungalow was raised up on bricks and cinderblocks, no joke.

Housing issues aside, that trip was awesome.  The boat ride to Capri and the whole day we spent on the island was my favorite part.  We took a chairlift ride up to the highest point of Capri where you could look down and see the entire island.  It was so nice there; I definitely want to go back someday.

So fast forward through the last week of school and finals.  Emily, Brady, and I were flying out of Rome on Saturday, June 24^th at 6 am.  (Caroline’s mom flew over and she stayed an extra week with her.)  Because we had only seen Rome when we first landed, we thought it would be fun to head back the day before our flight to do some sightseeing.  Bad idea.

First of all, the day had a bad start when it took us forever just to get out of the apartment and return our cell phones.  By that time it was already 1 in the afternoon.  Caroline had called us a cab to bring us to the train station so we could avoid the hassle of dragging our luggage 8 blocks on that hot day.  Well, something got mixed up because the cab never came.  So we decided to walk there ourselves.  After living in Italy for a month, we each had accumulated quite a bit of stuff so our bags were super heavy.  We had to stop every block or so to switch hands and give our bodies a break.  Plus it was about 90 degrees on that doomed day.

We finally made it to the train station only to discover that every other person living in Florence decided to take the train that day.  Originally we had wanted to take a Eurostar train at about 2:00.  Once we saw that was sold out, we were left with one option: take a regular, slower train that left around 3:30.  So we decided to take that, and figured we would get to Rome by 5:30 or 6:00.  Wrong again.

The fatal train was, no joke, about 100 degrees and there wasn’t a food car on it.  Exhausted from dragging our luggage through the streets of Florence, I immediately fell asleep.  I would awake occasionally because it was so hot and there was absolutely no air movement throughout the car.  As soon as I would shift positions I would succumb to sleep once again.

I had a water bottle on me that literally had about three sips left.  My throat was sore and so dry, but I would only let myself have a sip at a time so I could ration it to last as long as possible.  What a horrible train ride.

I finally came out of my slumber sometime after 6:00 when I figured we would be getting into Rome.  I pretty much crawled my way up to where Brady was sitting (we had to separate because the train was so crowded at first) to see how she was doing.  She laughed at the sorry sight of me.  Then Emily came back to talk to us and we were all in the same condition: dehydrated, hot, tired, and annoyed.

After four hours of being on that awful train, we finally got to Rome.  Now it was after 7:00 at night and getting dark.  We still wanted to try and see at least something in Rome since our flight wasn’t leaving until early the next morning. 

So we made our way to the luggage drop-off where we soon discovered our bags were more than the allowed weight limit for leaving them there.

We were in shock and wondering what we could do.  As we were walking away, the guy behind the counter came running after us and said he would lock them up in a special room for 20 Euro a piece, but only for three hours.  We were thankful for him letting us do that otherwise we would have been stuck going to the airport.

So Emily, Brady, and I took a taxi to the Trevi Fountain because we figured that would be the only tourist attraction that was still open.  The fountain is absolutely gorgeous.  We each threw two coins over our shoulders because there’s a tradition saying that the first coin is for anything you wish and the second coin will ensure your return to the eternal city someday.

After spending some time at the fountain we had one last Italian meal before heading back to the train station.  We picked up our luggage and proceeded to take a taxi to the airport.  The ride took about 45 minutes and cost us 60 Euro, but we finally made it.  There was only one thing: it was merely 11:00 at night, and our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 6:00am.  There wasn’t anyone at the check-in counter so we waited at the airport for six long hours.

The whole time we just kept making fun of ourselves and the situation we were in.  There we were in Rome, one of the most famous cities in the world, and we were just sitting in the airport.  We spent six hours sitting in those uncomfortable airport chairs, sleeping and waiting until we could finally board our plane to return to America.

When we finally made it back to Emily’s house, we were beyond exhausted but happy and relieved to be home.

As excited as I was to return to my familiar lifestyle, it took a few days for me to adjust back to the life that I had only been away from for 4 weeks.

After all is said and done, living in Florence for a month was the best experience of my life.  I can’t speak for the other girls, but I’m sure they would agree.  You can’t beat being in a foreign country with your three friends.  Even after all our mishaps and misfortunes, the good definitely outweighed the bad!  Viva l’Italia!  ■