Fall Break: Discovering Rome and Rediscovering Florence

Although I do believe I have not been in any way unappreciative of my time in Florence, and although I have done my best to thoroughly enjoy all that my life here can offer me, I don’t believe I have ever been as in love with Florence as I am now after Fall Break. 

            Part (actually, most) of this newfound appreciation is due to my parent’s visiting.  They spoke and looked at Florence the way I spoke and looked at it when I first arrived: the ancient beauty, the amazement one experiences when church bells ring at every hour, the people who smile and say hi to you because why wouldn’t they; the shopping, the man on the street who follows you and begs you to buy his bag, his jacket, this same man who allows you to bargain it down to a fraction of the cost; the art you see when you are inside a building and look up to find the ceiling has a painted fresco of Jesus and Mary; the sensation you feel when you look out from a San Miniato and realize you can see all of Florence in your horizon; the drinks you can order everywhere, at anytime, even atop a building overlooking the Duomo; the fresh tomatoes that are on top of your appetizer, the freshest of fruits that you find at your corner market, sitting atop a couple of upside-down bins; the way the city shines when it rains. 

            Their appreciation for it all certainly intensified my own.  

            When they arrived the first day, I took them to Il Gato e Volpe, a new restaurant I hadn’t been to but had heard about.  They drank wine and ate fresh vegetables and homemade pasta and listened as I shared my stories of my time here so far.  We got gelato on the way back.  They weren’t as impressed as I am with gelato.  I still love it. 

            I also showed them the spot on the river where I sit often (twice).  My mom bought a bag from a street vendor.  She bargained it down to 20 euro.  

            It rained during dinner and the streets glistened as we walked home.  I felt a rare sort of pride over this place, my temporary home, something I’d never felt walking through the city by myself.  We walked back to the hotel and went to sleep.

            We did a lot the next day: I showed them my school, we got coffee at my favorite café next door, they remarked over the small espresso “thimbles” as my dad called them, like I knew they would.  We snuck into a classroom so I could show them the fresco on the ceiling.  Then I showed them the same church Catherine and I found a while ago.  They were as amazed, I believe, as I’d been.

            We walked to San Miniato after.  Climbing the Duomo is important for tourists because it is something you want to say you’ve done, and it gives you a view of the whole city from right above the city streets.  But I still prefer the view looking out from the San Miniato church.  You can see the city streets and the Duomo and the whole city as it stretches out infinitely in the distance, but you can also see a cut-off, the point where the city melts into trees and grass and more spacious land, separated in spaces by a brown stone wall.  The San Miniato church is also beautiful, enchanting every time I enter.  It is only lit by natural light coming from the windows, and the inside has ancient paintings on the walls that are half-rubbed off but are too sacred to be repainted. 

            After, I took them to my favorite pizza spot, Gusto Pizza.  They loved the pizza as I loved it the first time I ate it.  We went back to the hotel and changed before heading out again to the Uffizi museum.  Honestly, I thought the museum was pretty boring.  It is a place you have to go because some of the art, especially the statues, are magnificent.  It is ancient and beautiful.  But three whole floors with art depicting the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus on the Cross, and Mary holding Jesus can get very, very repetitive.  

            We got drinks on the top of Rinascente (a department store) after, and drank to the view of the city. 

            We got dinner after this at Aque al Due, a great place with blueberry steak, homemade pasta, and great tiramisu.  This was a great week for eating for me – I didn’t have to budget my money for once, and I got to try new restaurants every day. I also always got dessert.

            After, we went to a different spot that I’d been on the first night.  It has outdoor sitting and we sat and drank more wine.  Then my mom and I rode the carousal, which I probably can’t do ever again, because it is incredibly slow and because everyone else on it is usually under 6 years old. 

            But it was fun.  As we drank, I watched a large group of high school-college kids standing around the carousal, drinking and being young.  It made me sad that I haven’t had the chance to experience Florence on a weekend yet, so this weekend I am vowing to give it my all.

            The next morning we took the train to Rome.  

            Here’s what I expected Rome to be: a city of pure magic.  A city of ancient ruins and beautiful ancient architecture and the most delicious food and the most romantic scenery.  I expected views that invoked the past, a remarkable past of Ancient Romans and chariot races and the most powerful government and art and religion.

            Honestly, it wasn’t what I expected.

            The ancient places we saw were often breathtaking, but they were dispersed along busy modern-looking streets littered with traffic and heat and angry people.  It was like whiplash to go from the Coliseum to the dirty subway, from the Vatican to places crowded with tourists and screaming people and high skyscrapers.  It was a lot more like New York City than Florence is.  Much more modern, ironically, considering I’d thought it was some sort of ancient city rising from the dust. 

            The food that we ate (although I can’t say too much about this – three days only gives us 9 meals, so I’m no Rome-food expert) was much less fresh and homemade and delicious than in Florence.  It was usually pretty gross, actually.  The pizza was especially bad, like pizza from Chuckie Cheese.  We ate at one great place, a fun and new restaurant where we didn't know what exactly we were ordering (some sort of red cheese soup; a cheeseburger with the cheese in the middle), but it was fun to try something different.  

            This isn’t to say I didn’t love the places we saw in Rome.  The first day we saw the Coliseum, which was as big and grand as I’d expected.  I’d wished we could’ve walked along the Coliseum ground, which we obviously couldn’t, but it was still astounding.  Then we saw the ancient ruins beside it.  I loved imagining the life one must’ve lived when these ruins were not ruins but real buildings, standing tall as ours do.  We don’t have experiences like this in America – if something is becoming old it is only a few hundred years old, not exactly ancient, and it is often torn down and replaced.

            My favorite experience in Rome was the Vatican museum.  We took a three-hour tour and it still didn't cover everything – the museum is huge.  Every square inch was decorated in ornate detailing; sculptures looked down at you from every vantage point, tapestry hung on some walls and large drawn maps (drawn before technology/satellite images and with 80% accuracy) hung on others.  The artwork was incredible.  My favorite area was the Raphael rooms, which we’ve learned about in class.  Raphael, a painter, painted this one room for the Pope and used each wall to display a “theme” that went along with the bookcases that stood against the wall.  One wall was theology, another justice/government, another philosophy, another poetry.  Anyway, my favorite was the philosophy wall because it contains so many of the greats: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Donatello.  Raphael even put himself up there. 

            After, we saw the Sistine Chapel and then Saint Peter’s Bascilica.  Both were incredible.  There is no way I can explain their beauty properly, or their immensity.  

            We also saw the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Trevy Fountain (pretty uneventful while under construction), and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  We visited the Travestere neighbourhood, written about in Eat, Pray, Love and also advised by one of our tour guides as the place with the "truest Romans."  We saw a lot in three days. 

            I made my mom trek to a spot where Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love author) said the best gelato was from.  It was delicious but couldn’t compare to the gelato I’ve had in Florence.  

            

            I was very excited to return to Florence. 

            At first I speculated that part of the reason for my not loving Rome was that I’m “not a city girl,” but I don’t think that explains it at all.  I love the inescapable energy you find in Florence, in Boston, and in New York City.  I love talking to people.  I love always having something to look at.  I love walking everywhere.  I love walking by places and just going inside them because I can.  I love that you don’t need a destination in a city like you do in a town (walking around Hamilton-Wenham wouldn’t be the same – I’d have to know where I wanted to go or I could simply be walking for miles with open fields and random stores such as CVS that I’d visited millions of times before.  It would be hard to find secret unknown locations).  I love adventuring. 

            

            There is also a lot I don’t like about cities: the constant noise, the suffocating crowds, and the areas aimed at “tourists” and thus tacky and over-priced.  The smells.  The heat.  This constant feeling of claustrophobia that you can only overcome by finding a small patch of grass, perhaps, or a little side alley that is, for whatever reason, uninhabited.  

            But returning to Florence made me realize that I can fall in love with a city, “city-girl” or not.  After seeing Rome, I realize how lucky I am to be studying abroad in Florence.  And it is the hardest thing in the world to explain.  Florence is a city.  It has crowds, it has tourist areas, it has smells and heat and everything that I dislike about cities in general.  

            But it also has these places that I never saw in Rome and that you won’t see right away in Florence if you only visit for a few days.  It has places that must be discovered patiently and slowly.  It has little bakeries with old couples that have lived here their whole lives.  Side streets that expand out from the center like a spider web, each getting more vacant and more quaint as they stretch outwards, with cobblestone streets and colorful buildings and shops that are local and unique.  Places where an old man has spent his life painting little hand-painted glass cups and bowls and will sell you one for cheaper because he’s seen you before.  Places where the pizza (the most delicious pizza in the world), is given to you in the shape of a heart because the owner remembers you.  Streets that hum at night with the quiet sounds of a city closing it’s shops and heading home.  Churches that show you more powerful art than any museum ever could.  Organs randomly playing in churches as you pass.  Empty candle-lit restaurants and tiny white lights strung along trees.  

            

            Sometimes Florence is exactly the magic city I’d expected from Rome.  

            

            My favorite moment of the week with my parents was when we went to the Boboli gardens.  As much as I’ve said that I love Florence as a city more now (which I do, completely and entirely), it was nice to find this escape into nature.  These gardens are a little ways out from the city.  You enter (after paying 10 euro, of course), to sculptures spitting water out into a fountain and ducks swimming and people sleeping on grass.  This is the only place in Florence I’ve found with an emphasis on nature: big fields and long narrow walkways planked on either side by trees hanging down like they’re providing you personal shade. 

            The Boboli gardens also had a building with old dresses from the 19^th century and earlier, which was fun to see. 

I also took my parents to the Bargello, with Donatello's Davids.  We compared to Michaelangelo's David, which we'd seen the night before.  One morning, my mom and I got coffee at 7:30 a.m. and walked around, buying scarfs from street vendors and looking over the bridges at the Arno's clear water.

            There are some other things I realized while my parents were visiting.  First of all, it doesn’t take anything special to appreciate the city.  You don’t need to climb the Duomo or walk to the gardens or see David.   A few afternoons, we simply sat at a café overlooking the Duomo and we ordered cappuccinos (for them) and green tea (for me).  We didn’t bring anything to do (I would’ve brought homework or a book if I was alone).  We just sat and watched people and talked.  At restaurants we were the same way.  We might sit at dinner for two hours or more, ordering bottles of wine and a few courses (the Italian’s were still unimpressed with us at the end, when we didn’t want to order more than an appetizer and one main dish.  Who could eat more?)  My mom wanted to walk into most stores and look around, just for the sake of it.  She bought the first purse on the street that she saw.  It reminded me that I don’t always have to be so careful with my money (not that I’m going to go buy a Prada bag now, or anything).  But sometimes, it’s worth the money to order a coffee and sit for a while.  And it’s worth the money to walk inside one of these shops and buy a bag just because you like it – without being so logistical about it, as I’ve been (“well, what if I like a bag down the street better? I’ll wait another month.”)  I am very, very excited for the month I have ahead in Florence.  I hope to see and appreciate Florence on a deeper level than what I already have: on a level of more immense beauty, a level of going to trickier-to-find restaurants because they’re well-liked by the locals, of drinking atop buildings and walking inside stores and really throwing myself into the midst of the perfect chaos of it all.  

^Me and dad in my school classroom

 ^San Miniato

 ^San Miniato church

 ^Forsey's written in a table at Gusto Pizza

^Best tiramisu

 ^First stop in Rome!

 ^Artist trick... his eyes follow you as you move

^The Greats: Raphael's Rooms

 ^St. Peter's Basilica

 ^Hi from Spanish Steps!

 ^Il Crispino - Best Gelato says Elizabeth Gilbert

 ^Back home in Florence... the Duomo at night

 ^By the side of the Arno

 ^The Boboli Gardens

 ^The Boboli Gardens!

 ^Dad and I in front of my apartment building

 ^Mom and I on a bath in the Boboli gardens

^Great last dinner at La Giostra! 

            

Glad to the Brink of Fear

“I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson.

            A perfect exhilaration came over me this weekend in Switzerland.  I have found, through all my travelling and exploring, that searching for happiness is not necessary.  Happiness can be found everywhere and in everything: on a rainy day, for example, it can be found in hot chocolate, running through the streets with my friends to find cover, or in the beauty of a city deserted of people, the ground sparkling with rainwater and the glow of street lamps.  I never could’ve known that Switzerland would’ve brought me such happiness.  It was almost by chance that we travelled there, simply a place to fill one last free weekend before Fall Break.  Thus, I never could’ve sought out the joy I found in Switzerland; I needed only to embrace it when I felt it, deeply and purely. 

            The first moment I felt uncontrollably, exhilaratingly free and happy was when we were walking along a river near our hostel in Interlaken.  It occurred to me this is what I was missing in Florence, and everywhere else for that matter.  How do I explain how turquoise the water was?  How green the trees were?  Even the red and yellow leaves of autumn were stark and brilliant.  Everything was in technicolor.  The mountains were covered with white snow so white and pure that they blended in with the clouds.  The view I had beside the river was powerful enough to invoke in me this thought: if this place can look like this, why doesn’t anywhere else?

            I can slightly compare the town and the mountain views to Maine or New Hampshire, and I think this might have contributed to my fond feelings for Switzerland.  I have only the best memories of Maine and New Hampshire: beautiful, stark, and vivid summer days and nights filled with the whitest of stars and the bluest of oceans in Maine; and exhilarating, exciting, and invigorating days skiing along the pure white slopes of New Hampshire.  Switzerland was most like Maine out of any place I’ve been.  I cannot compare the two, surely, but I also can’t separate them completely, since they are both so firmly rooted in nature. 

            We hiked up a mountain because we were told we could see views of all Interlaken and the Alps from the top.  This was true.  They did, of course, manage to leave out the difficulty of the hike.  We hiked without stopping from 10 to 12:30.  It was at such an incline, I sometimes had to put my hands down to climb up the rocks.  It was unbearably difficult.  We watched a few Swiss hikers come by with hiking sticks and heavy-duty equipment, so perhaps we should’ve searched for the trail the young kids and old couples had used.  But we reached the top and couldn’t complain.

            The restaurant at the top of the mountain looked like it was floating: a heavy fog had surrounded it temporarily, and you could only see it faintly, like a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean.  The fog lifted shortly, and as we ate our lunch (16 dollar sandwiches from Subway… Switzerland is the most expensive place I’ve been), we were able to look out at a view so incredible it felt surreal, like the back of a postcard or a 3D movie. 

            I wish I could explain it better, but all I can do to explain it is to say that thinking back now, I have a sense that I never saw this at all; it was so dream-like, it might’ve been a mirage.  It wouldn’t surprise me. 

            We sat at the top of the mountain and ordered hot chocolate.  As my friends slept, I sat back and stared at the view in front of me.  Mountains higher than peaks I’ll ever reach, covered with a thick white dusting that might’ve been snow or might’ve been clouds, it was so difficult to differentiate.  Trees with colors so dramatic and striking they looked like they’d been filtered on Instagram.  The water far below us so solidly turquoise it shimmered like diamonds.  I watched a few paragliders jump off the side of the mountain and wondered what life could be like here.  What the people who lived in the small cottages on the side of the mountain were doing right now.  If simple really is better.  A few cows were wandering the side of the mountain without direction, it seemed.  I wondered if the people from Switzerland enjoy their home as much as I did: if they wake up early just to enjoy the sights a little sooner, if they go to bed a little earlier because they can’t wait to see their world as soon as the sun hits the mountains from the east in the morning.

            After our hike, we ate dinner and walked over to a suburban neighborhood around 7:30.  We’d signed up for a mystery game that went something like this: we got locked into one room and had an hour (a timer was ticking on a wall).  We had to use clues around the room to figure out how to unlock things (for example, Morse code helped us unlock a journal, with a piece of paper inside coordinating us to look at symbols through a telescope on a light post outside – these symbols needed to be converted into months of the year using the horoscope chart on the wall; this helped us unlock the next key).  Anyways, that was a lot of fun, although entirely stressful with the timer on the wall and the tricky clues. 

            So that was exciting.  Then, around 9:30, exhausted, we fell asleep. 

            In the morning I awoke at 6:30 with a burning desire to see Interlaken early in the morning.  I walked outside to find it was raining, but it didn’t deter me in the slightest.  I walked determinedly to the river.  As amazing as it had been yesterday under the glow of the midday sun, it was just as surreal and mystical early in the morning.  The entire town was otherworldly.  The glow from the streetlamps sparkled across the rainy pavement.  A few shops were lazily opening their doors, but the streets were deserted.  An older couple passed me, linking arms and holding umbrellas.  Other than them, I was alone. 

           

            I walked along the river until I got the sudden craving to run, so I did.  I ran until I had gone under two bridges, and then I stopped and walked back.  I was entirely at ease, breathing in the cool morning air that felt like it had come straight to me from the mountaintops.  For a while, I thought I might want to listen to my music as I ran, so I brought headphones.  It dawned on me as I ran that I’d be missing out on the sounds of nature if I did that, so I didn’t listen to music: it was the first time I’ve ever run without music (intentionally).  The birds were chirping, the rainwater was dropping softly on the river, the church bells rang at 8, and the wind occasionally rustled the leaves on the trees.  It was one of the most peaceful mornings I’ve ever had.

           

            When I got back to the hostel my friends were awake, so we got breakfast together.  Then, two of my friends and I hopped on a train in pursuit of a place we’d heard about up the mountain a ways that offered gondola rides and zip-lining.  Even the train ride was fascinating.  The views as we weaved around the mountain were astounding: so few times did we pass houses and people; so often was it only trees and rivers. 

            The gondola ride to the top was great, if for no other reason than it was our first experience getting to see some snowy parts of the mountains.  As we rode we past houses and cattle, and I wondered what kind of life one lives on the side of a mountain like this, so segregated from life as I know it.  When we reached the top of the mountain (it was freezing), we were quickly coaxed into the zip-liner seats.  With barely time to sign any sort of waiver, the guys said, “ready?”

            I said, “Anything we need to know before we go?”  They didn’t even answer.  They just pulled down a crank that unlocked a door and suddenly we were flying through the freezing air, parallel to the mountainside.  We held our arms out and screamed, exhilarated and terrified.  It was over way too soon. 

            After our gondola ride to the bottom, we realized we had plenty of time (nearly two hours) to eat lunch before heading home.  We picked a cozy cabin-looking restaurant.  It had a stuffed black bear out front and wooden walls and tables on the inside, very Maine-esque.  We ordered burgers and tea.  The entire experience was unlike any other I’ve had in Europe: it was much less urban and modern, and much more nature-centered and comforting. 

            When we got back to our hostel I went on another run, because running along the river beats any other run I’ve done in my life. Also, Switzerland motivates you to be outside every second of every day - how can you miss it? Then we all walked to a chocolate shop where we’d signed up for a chocolate tasting along with a how-to on making chocolate.  The lesson wasn’t that interesting (we didn’t get to do anything and just watched a guy say, “this is how you put it in the fridge, and then in 3 minutes… ta-da! All done!”) but the testers were incredible.  The best chocolate I’ve ever had, and I’m not saying that simply because I’ve heard Swiss chocolate is good.  It was so rich and creamy.  Amazing.  After, we got pizza down the road (because we don’t get enough in Italy), and then returned for dessert at this same chocolate shop. 

            This morning, our last day, I knew we didn’t have much time – we needed to start our train travelling at 9 a.m. in order to make our 3 p.m. flight.  So I had another early wake-up at 7 a.m., got dressed in my running clothes in the dark, and escaped to the glowing streets of Interlaken by 7:15.  I chose to run in the opposite direction of the river today, because I wanted to explore other places.  I ran through town, watching as a few people stepped out of their still-closed shops and onto the sidewalks to talk with their neighbors.  Some tourists were exploring, but it was still mostly deserted.  I found a park right near the chocolate shop and ran here, running past statues and fountains and around autumn trees, the mountains forever in my view.  I was enchanted by it all.  Out of all the places I’ve been, Switzerland, by far, has been my favourite.