The End

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot.

^(First picture I took while looking out the window as we landed in Italy on August 25). 

   Ironically, a quote I chose at random at the beginning of the semester (literally by googling “travel quotes”) became precisely the quote I’d want to end my semester with. I think of the United Sates, of home, differently now than I did before coming abroad. I have come to realize that I do not have to cross the seas to fulfill my longing for travel and adventure. 

That sort of desperate frenzy I spoke of in my first post, a frenzy I thought could only be fulfilled by travelling around Europe, I’ve realized is simply a longing for knowledge and exploration.  I now have just as strong an urge to see the mountains in Colorado as I did to see the Alps. I haven’t seen the United States or attempted to understand cities in the United States with nearly as much energy and excitement as I have visiting cities in Europe.  While travelling, so many Europeans said to me, “Oh, the United States! I love New York City.  And California is incredible.  Do you know Boston seems very European to me?”  I’ve seen New York City, but not like they have.  Not as a beautiful city of unlimited possibilities. I’ve never even been to California.  And I’ve grown up my entire life half an hour away from Boston, but I haven’t tried to experience the city as I tried to experience cities in Europe, as an explorer and as a student.  I don’t know the history of my own city in nearly the same way that I know the histories of Munich, Barcelona, Interlaken and, of course, Florence.  

I am immensely excited for the possibility of everything I have yet to see at home.  The new restaurants I’ve never thought of trying near my house because I think I “know” the good places; the people I assume I’ve met because I’ve met people “like” them. I truly believe I will know my home for the first time, just as T.S. Eliot says: as a place that can offer me so much if I explore it with the same fervor I had for my time abroad. 

I think I learned, or at least contemplated, a few things while studying abroad.  Here’s a general list: 

            I think studying abroad has shown me how important it is not to “waste” time.  I think as long as time feels wasted, that’s a good sign. I had a few days where I would just do homework and watch TV and never leave my apartment; but I felt guilty for doing so, and overcompensated the next day by visiting a museum or going for a bike ride.  I think you get into trouble when you stop recognising “wasted” time.  It is so easy to fall into a routine, to fall into the comfort of an expected day.  Even here, while abroad, I found myself returning to the same coffee shops everyday, studying in the same places, eating at the same restaurants.  But I was lucky, because in the back of my head I had this quiet voice saying, “don’t miss out on anything.  See everything.  Experience everything.”  Of course, I only heard this voice because of the brevity of my time in Florence. 

            I don’t think this voice should only exist for certain intervals of a person’s life.  I think if I take anything away from this trip, it’s that I shouldn’t stop following paths that lead me to new experiences.  I shouldn’t stop searching, every day, for those things that aren’t conventional or expected or comforting.  Here’s an example: I love Starbucks.  But it wasn’t until I stepped away from that “comforting” coffee shop (I didn’t have a choice – they don’t have Starbucks in Florence) that I found a few other small local spots here in Florence – and the thing is, I can’t remember any other time I knew the barista by name, or the last time he knew me by mine.  And there is nothing better than eating their croissants right out of the oven, or getting them half-off because they know me. 

 

Another thing I’ve learned from study abroad: thoughts are habits.  Every day, we have to consciously choose what we think about and how.  And that’s a great amount of control. I want to fall into the habit of thinking in the present. I don't want to get stuck in the habit of worrying. One of my best friend’s here has a tattoo that says, “He who hesitates is lost.”  I’ve also heard the phrase “presence is strength,” a lot in the past few months.  And here’s what I think about when I hear these phrases:

A lot of people I met on my travels – kids my age – were so concerned with anything they could think of to be worried about.  They would stress about schoolwork, and when there was no schoolwork, they would stress about schoolwork as-yet-undetermined; when they couldn’t think of a single bit of schoolwork, they’d begin worrying about the state of their apartment and how many dishes were stacking up, or how they didn’t have enough sweaters and needed to buy more, or when would they have time to go to an ATM, and speaking of money, they didn’t have any, and how would they even get a job after graduation, and would their lives turn out okay? 

I think that’s why being present seems like such a crucial concept to me now.  Here we are, for a fleeting moment, in a place that can change our lives if we let it.  There is so much to learn.  There is so much to gain.  And it’s the only chance we have at this moment in this place with these people.  There were times when I felt like these kids were falling back on these worries as a sort of safety – something to say just for the sake of speaking, or maybe as a way to feel like they had control?

Or more likely, they just didn’t notice.  That’s what I mean when I say thoughts are habits.  Some of these kids are in the habit of worrying.  They are in the habit of complaining and stressing.  And they are in the habit of missing out. 

One of the best ways I knew to stay present, to stay focused, was by learning.  And most of this learning took place outside the classroom. I don’t just mean learning travel survival skills and universal truths.  Actually, I learned a lot of facts outside the classroom from people who were far more passionate about their culture than my teachers (often) were.  I learned about art and history; I heard some fascinating stories about how things came to be, stories that stacked together in order to create a picture of the history of a city far more vivid than what I could find in a textbook.  For instance: remember the man who worked at the wine tasting place my friend and I went to?  Slowly and cautiously, he began unfolding pieces of his life for us.  I learned more about wine from him than I did in three months of a Food and Culture class.  Because yes, I can only learn about the DOCG label or the science of how grapes are harvested in the classroom, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about why I should care about any of it until I talked to this man. He was lit on fire by it.  It was his passion, and in turn, for a moment, it was ours. And then on our drive back, our tour guide told us that legend about how the Florence-Siena lines came to be, and yes, it might have been completely inaccurate. Maybe I could have gotten firmer facts from a class. But what couldn’t be mistaken was the pride he had for Florence.  He shared this legend with us because he was proud of where he’d come from.  For an instant, we were able to connect on that. 

People have a lot to offer you, I am learning. 

            Another thing these passionate people taught me is that you must look for things and ideas that move you.  That can even change your perspective on life.  

            When I read Eat, Pray, Love, this summer, something Elizabeth Gilbert said stuck with me and still resonates.  She spent some time in India on a religious mission – she was in pursuit of a God that she could recognize and know.  She was given this piece of advice: “Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.”  When I read this, I didn’t think it just applied to religion.  I think it applies to the discoveries we can make in our lives and the way in which we do it.  This semester I tried my hardest to look for energetic people and adventurous places in the same frantic way a man on fire would look for water – like he was going crazy without it.  But there’s also something to be said about not looking for it, about realizing that some of it can be manifested at anytime and anywhere.  

For instance, the other day I went outside and kept my head down; I had my earphones in. I was thinking about homework and barely paying attention to where I was going.  Then I got to this shop where I was looking for Christmas gifts.  Of course, when I left the shop I was elated.  I’d found a lot of great gifts and I’d had fun – the woman in the shop had helped me in the same way a friend might’ve helped me. So when I walked out of this shop and into the leather market, I started smiling and saying “ciao” to the men and women who had bag stands or jacket stands or scarf stands.  I hadn’t even noticed these men and women before.  And, in turn, they said hi back.  But it was more than that.  It was this feeling that we were able to feed off each other’s moods.  My good mood could lift theirs, and vice versa.  They were so eager to respond in kind when I smiled and said, “Hi, how are you?”  They would say, “ciao, bella, come stai?” with this grand smile on their faces. And I would say, “bene” (and that would be about all I could say before we switched to English).  But there was energy in the space that hadn’t been there before. The city can come alive when you let it, and in turn, it can bring you to life. 

            Another thing.  Most of the people I know personally in this city are American students, and we are very blessed.  We come for a great country.  I miss America.  I miss the passion and the drive most Americans have for work, for getting things done, for changing things.  I think our country was founded on the concept of change, and I now understand the downside of these “leisurely afternoons of pleasure” spent in Italy: there are many Italian’s I’ve met who are frustrated that there aren’t many exciting work opportunities for them here.  They don’t have the same drive to change their lives because no one around them is pushing them.  One man told me all he wants to do is go to New York City, but he’s 30-years-old and thinks, “it is too late for me now.”  I don’t think he could be more wrong, but I also think this is the result of a mindset in Italy, the mindset that work comes second to family and leisure. 

             Elizabeth Gilbert said, “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.  You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.”  I think this is brilliant.  I think a lot of people forget the effort you have to put in to fight against those human instincts to not be happy, to be worried or afraid.  But I think if you insist hard enough, like a man on fire might insist for water, you can find it anywhere.  

            Reading back on my first post and thinking about how I used to think, I realize that I was wrong about a few things.  Europe definitely does not hold all the answers.  America holds plenty of them.  But if you start exploring, if you ask people to share their thoughts and share with them your own, if you read and travel and test theories and question everything, then you can start to get somewhere.  Mainly, I found that people are truly the ones who hold the answers.  Every time they told me something I hadn’t heard before or hadn’t heard from their perspective, a part of me saw the world differently.  

            I also don’t think I am different like I thought I’d be.  I think I know more.  I think my perspective has expanded. But I already know who I am.  And if I’m going to improve myself, I only need to discover more things I find joy in. I don’t think I needed study abroad to “discover myself.”  I think I needed study abroad to discover the world – or, at least, a grander part of it.

The world is an incredibly beautiful place if we allow ourselves to see it. 

^Venice 

^Tuscan countryside

^Barcelona

^Chianti Wine Tour - Tuscan countryside

^Florence in the fog

         

            
^Thankful for these three - "Pogessi girls" - who made my experience 10x more incredible. 

Paris

Paris is a city that brings you to life.

I can’t think of a more fitting ending to my study abroad than a weekend spent in this city.  I didn’t have very high expectations for it, either.  I’d thought that Paris – the very idea of it – was too good to be true, and that it must be overrated because the alternative was unimaginable.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

            We landed late Thursday night, so the only thing I have to say about that night is that I tried duck for the first time.  It tasted like beef – a little worse than beef, actually.  I prefer steak.  I also got to see one of my good friends from Elon, Sophia.  I was so excited to travel with her, because she is so sweet and so much fun.  I visited her two winters ago in D.C., so I know she is a great travel buddy.

            

            Friday morning we ate our free hostel breakfast (sidenote: Sophia and I had the LOUDEST room in the hostel.  6 foreigners – a Ukrainian, an Argentinian, and who knows what else – and us.  I think they had agreed ahead of time to have a schedule worked out so that one person left the room or came back into the room every half hour).  

            

            Anyways, so the first thing we did after breakfast was meet on St. Michel for a free walking tour offered to us by our hostel.  I’m glad we did the tour – we saw Notre Dame and learned about the very gargoyles I’d seen years and years before on The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  I found out these gargoyles were actually “nice monsters,” meant to protect the church and those inside from evil spirits.  We then saw the lock bridge (which is, ironically, closing down because the keys are weighing the bridge down to the point of collapse), as well as the Louvre.  We saw this bridge where a king put the heads of all his drunken friends on the side to memorialize them – “the first Facebook.”  However, our tour guide, as informative as she was, took forever at each spot.  So we ditched her around 2 p.m. in pursuit of lunch. 

I had a salad with warm goat cheese on toast – the French, like the Italians, are big on cheese and small portions.  After, we began walking around Paris on our own terms, stopping to look in shop windows and enjoying Paris during Christmas season.  Lights were strung everywhere.  The city twinkled.  We walked towards the Arc de Triomphe, and on our way we spotted a long line of people outside this magnificent cream-colored French building.  I could see a huge chandelier inside.  A man approached us and said, “they’re in line for the special exhibit, but the normal exhibit is breathtaking.  It’s just around the side there.”  He pointed us in the direction, and luckily – so luckily – we took his advice. 

            The inside of this building was surreal.  It was enchanting.  It was cream-colored and the walls had a swirly design etched into them, like frosting on a cake. The frescos on the ceiling were watercolor pastels – they were so light and creamy, it was as if someone had splashed a bucket of pastel water from the ground up.  Impossible to describe, other than saying it was what I would’ve envisioned my dream-house to be when I was a little girl… and probably still now. 

            The outside had a garden in the middle and it was surrounded by a hallway that curved around it.  On the walls were these beautiful pictures of nature and people, and hanging from the ceiling were these pieces of silk translucent fabric with people’s faces – depending on where you walked, you could see them and then, in another instant, you couldn’t anymore.

             

 After, my friends and I walked slowly and leisurely over the water (who knew Paris was all canals – I didn’t), to a Christmas Festival.  It’s not that I didn’t think Europe did Christmas.  I just didn’t think Europe did Christmas better than us.  In America, Christmas is all about decorations and lights, but it’s about decorations and lights in Department stores, for example, or shops around town.  In Paris, Christmas had flooded the streets, taking over every tree, taking over entire roads, hanging from rooftops and trees and monuments.  An entire road in Paris was dedicated to this Christmas celebration, like a massive party.  Carnival stands were selling things I had never heard of and things I’d eaten every year – gingerbread cookies but also strange melted sugar cookies, brownies that tasted like fudge and hot dogs and sausages and cheese stands with gourmet cheese.  They played American Christmas music, Elvis and classics like Silent Night.  The energy was palpable. 

            We saw the Arc.  It was incredible.  The designs on the side of the Arc were incredible.  

 Finally, we made our way to the Eiffel tower.  Here’s the thing: the Eiffel tower, in no way, is overrated.  It is truly remarkably dazzling, enchanting, grandiose.  There aren’t words, really.  It just felt like I’d made it, standing in front of the Eiffel tower… like my trip could end now, I could go home now.  I’d seen the very thing that, for so many years, encapsulated Europe for me. 

            We climbed to the top, in the dark, and as the Eiffel tower lit up, so did the city.  The canal was wide and clearly divided two sides.  We could see a soccer game happening below us.  We took pictures.  We were absolutely freezing, and some sides of the tower were extra windy.  We couldn’t really feel our toes.  We were indescribably happy.

     We got dinner after this – I tried snails.  I loved them (who knew?).  I had beef stew, which probably isn’t a French delicacy but was great anyway.  And it wasn’t pasta… thank god.  After, exhausted and cold, we walked for half an hour to a jazz club.  The singer, this woman, was so talented.  But I was too tired to really enjoy it, though I tried my best.  Finally, around midnight, we got back to the Hostel and went to bed.

 The next day, Catherine, Sophia, and I took the metro and then the train to Versailles.  This is one of the hardest things I’ve had to describe thus far.  Because, outwardly, Versailles is just this grand palace expanded by King Louis XIV, who got sick of living in the Louvre (poor guy).  But truthfully, there isn’t another place like it.  It transports you.  We all felt like we were in a movie – the Titanic, maybe, or the Great Gatsby, or any movie you’ve seen where you think, “there isn’t actually a place like that in real life.”  There is.  

            To start, the gate at the opening is this pure, rich gold.  I didn’t know gold could be that gold.  The entrance is elaborate and extensive – the colors, besides this rich gold, were browns and dark blues and whites.  It was the best outside of a building I’ve ever seen.  The steps were all marble.  It was magic.

 The inside was even better. Each room transported me to a time in the past that I’ve read about, and seen movies about, but never really seen like this: a time of extravagant wealth, excessive power, and unbelievable luxuries.  There were these red felt benches that sat in front of the table where King Louis XIV ate his meals, just so people could watch him eat. That’s how otherworldly his life was. And the chandelier room, this huge ballroom, was exactly as I imagined the ballroom from Beauty and the Beast to be like when I was young.  It was a fairytale.  

            The gardens were even grander.  Elaborate designs were carved into the grass, and this long pathway led down to grand fountains and then these big pools of water.  You could get lost for years in these gardens – and probably wouldn’t mind it.  

We decided to eat a “typical French lunch” here, so my friends and I brought wine, cheese, a baguette, grapes, peppers, and nuts.  We sat in the gardens and ate for two hours.

            While Catherine and Sophia finished eating, I took a walk by myself down a pathway flanked by trees on either side.  And I had this moment – walking in between rows of green shrubs, a grandiose palace behind me and a gold statue fountain in front of me, the sky pink and orange and fading, the water a pastel blue, and the moon ahead of me – where I was unshakably happy.   A happiness so large and so beyond me that it was overwhelming to the point where I could hardly think straight.  I’m happy a lot - what's not to be happy about - but this moment is so much more rare.  I can only think of a few times over the course of the semester where I felt like this – so lucky, so blessed, and so undeniably and undoubtedly alive.  Like I’ve forgotten reality and myself for a moment.  Like everything around and beyond me is so beautiful.  I can vividly remember some other times this moment occurred: while sitting on the beach in Cinque Terre, while walking down an Autumn leaf-covered ground in Switzerland, and while dancing at a night club in Barcelona.  

            I think there is a big difference between existing and living.  I think existing just happens, either way.  But I think living is what you strive for, and it’s what I felt when I felt like this.

            

 Another way to describe it: like the first time you hear a song and you think, that is the first time I’ve ever heard something described in that way, and I agree completely.  And it moves you.  Or when you read the end of a novel and you think it’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever read and ever will read, and it has described for you precisely what you’ve always thought but never been able to vocalize, and it touches you to your very core.  

            As the sun set over Versailles, the palace lit up.  The inside became warmer as the lights went on, but we only watched from the outside.  The gold literally glowed.  It became another place entirely.  Like the Eiffel tower, Versailles is a place you have to see at night.  The sky was also absolutely beautiful and striking and unusually colorful. 

Eventually we left.  We took the train back to Paris.  Some guy on the train with a young child told us where to get crepes for dinner.  But first, we wanted to go to the Shakespeare Company bookstore we’d heard so much about.  I didn’t know much about it, just that it had Shakespeare in the name and books inside.  So I was plenty excited.  When we arrived, the outside looked like a cottage, maybe.  Green shutters, a slanted roof, a hand painted sign.  Books were on display outside.  This place was stunningly old-fashioned.  It had some new books but also plenty of old classics: sections dedicated to Hemingway, to Fitzgerald, to Jane Austen and Orson Welles and James Joyce and many, many others. It had some old books not for sale, just to look at.  It had two floors, and when I climbed the very narrow wooden bookshelf, teetering with books on either side, I found a different scene upstairs.  There was a little nook with pillows for reading, as well as a cubby with an old typewriter.  Someone was playing the piano. There were benches set up against the bookshelves, and everyone sitting on them was either reading or writing in a journal.  It was like a different corner of the universe, with Paris, wide and open and extravagant, just outside. 

            I couldn’t take pictures in the bookstore – there was a rule – and it’s probably for the best.  Pictures couldn’t capture the details, like how there was handwritten letters on some of the walls, even some love letters.  Or how the books looked more classical and important in this bookstore, surrounded by people who wanted to just sit and read or write for hours with a piano player in the corner.

            After, we got great crepes from this little spot near St. Michel.  Apparently everything in the world that happens in Paris happens on or near St. Michel.

            We walked back to our area, this fun university street with great restaurants and bars lining either side.  Young kids are always hanging around outside, which I guess is a good sign.  Anyways, we decided to stop in one of the little cafes.  My friends ordered tea and I tried “hot milk with honey.”  Actually delicious, but probably didn’t need to spend money on it.  We sat and talked for a while.  My friends were nervous about their futures, about graduation.  One of them said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to find a job I’m passionate about, and that’s okay.  My family will be my passion.  That’s enough for me.” 

This didn’t sit right with me but I couldn’t figure out why, so I didn’t say anything for a couple minutes.  Then, as we were walking back to my hostel, I figured it out.  I thought about my dad, how he loves his family – loves – but he can also get inexplicably excited about his other passions, about making a difference at work.  Making progress, affecting other people’s lives, moving things forward.  “Most of the adults I know – they light up in a conversation when they talk about two things: their family, their children, yes.  But also their job.  They light up talking about their job.  And it isn’t an either/or, thing, really.  It’s your one life.  It’s your only chance at this.  We are twenty years old.  We haven’t even begun to uncover what kind of jobs are out there for us, but please, please, don’t stop searching for a job to be passionate about.  You can be passionate about your job and your family, but don’t be afraid to ask the universe for both.  Don’t be afraid to want both.  You are so young to want to sacrifice that love for work that you can find if you search for it.”  I can’t imagine not being excited for my future, even if I can’t see it yet. 

Anyways, then the next day Catherine left around 4 a.m.  Sophia and I got crepes with eggs and ham and tomatoes, and then we walked around a bit before ending up at the metro, where we said goodbye.  The thing about me is, I get really nervous if I think I might be late to something.  So at about noon, I got on the metro and headed to the airport.  I got to the airport around 1:00.  My flight was at 5:30.  So I studied in Starbucks for two hours.  I didn’t want to give up a moment of Paris, but I also wanted the weekend to stay in my memory the way it was.  I didn’t need to do anything else.  I would’ve loved weeks or years more in Paris, but I was also so happy to have the weekend I did.