Part 1 – A Kitchen Is Just A Kitchen
It’s my first time out of the country. That said, watching “Interstellar” on the 9-hour flight from SLC to Paris was probably a bad idea. Getting off the plane made me feel like I had actually crossed into another dimension. I landed in a place where time was not only ahead the only life I’d ever known by 8 hours, but had also slowed down immensely.
That was made even more evident the moment I landed in Florence. No one was rushing but us Americans and no one seemed to be in any hurry. Buses come late, people eat out for hours, stores close for lunch. In fact, the only thing Italians seem to do quickly is talk. I had been here for a total of four hours before I felt as if I had made a huge mistake. Two semesters of Italian gave me but a cup o’ gelato’s worth of knowledge and, overwhelmed by the craziness of it, I all but repacked my things to return to the States.
However, with the first week behind me and at least two gelatos a day moving forward, I’m beginning to think this dimension is definitely worth exploring. Can we talk about architecture? I still can’t get over the fact that I walk past buildings built hundreds of years ago in order to attend classes at my school in the center of Siena, also built hundreds of years ago. The language? One of the most beautiful (albeit confusing) languages I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing.
The food? Easily the best I’ve ever had. I cannot describe the care with which these people create their meals. Although Italians are some of the most easygoing people I’ve ever met, they are definitely also among the most passionate. My class was able to meet a man who has owned and operated a meat, wine and cheese shop for his entire life. The passion with which he spoke cannot be exaggerated. Neither can the perfection that is his mustache.
Anyway, during our visit to Antonio’s meat shop he told us some very helpful things about life. He talked a lot about how as Americans we do things too quickly: we rush, we don’t care what it looks like, feels like, tastes like, we want something done and we do it as fast as we can. Here in Italy you can go to lunch and sit for hours talking with your friends, tasting and appreciating every bite of food, and it will allow you to live a happier life. He said that even more than eating, cooking and creating are his passion.
“A kitchen is just a kitchen. If you mess up, you can always just wash your hands of it, and begin again.”
“When you go into the kitchen, you wash your hands and prepare to create something. Then you clean up and wash your hands again. If you take the time to make something beautiful and you make the time to enjoy it, that is very good, no?”
When I told him sometimes I’m overwhelmed by how much goes into cooking and how much work can be done in a kitchen he said, “A kitchen is just a kitchen. If you mess up, you can always just wash your hands of it, and begin again.”
Although Antonio has no idea how impossible it seems to me that I will ever understand his language or the bus schedule or how to make pasta, I think he’d be proud to know that his words may have taught me the greatest lesson of all: don’t be afraid to wash your hands and start over.
Part 2 – Everything Will Work Out Just Fine
“Ho bisogno usare una telefono… mi sono perso – ah… sono persa?” The gelato girl looked at me like I had thrown up on the floor of her shop. In a way I had; my jumbled, poorly pronounced word vomit was probably akin to nails on a chalkboard for her but I really didn’t care. I was lost and I needed a phone.
After a brief and confusing few sentences something in my terrified expression finally resonated with her and she thrust her phone into my hand. “Hurry. I get in trouble,” she barked.
Ignoring the sting of embarrassment I dialed my professor’s number with shaking hands. It wasn’t ringing. I tried dialing again pretending not to hear gelato girl’s exasperated sighs as I fumbled with the foreign device. Nothing.
I looked to her for help and she snatched the phone from me and said, “Just let me.” I held out the scrap of paper with my professor’s number on it and waited for a hole in the ground to open up and save me from the soul-crushing humiliation of being myself.
We got a hold of my professor and she assured me she would meet me momentarily in the piazza. As I handed the phone to gelato girl and thanked her profusely for her help she said, “You want a gelato, no?” and looked at me so purposefully I just nodded, “yes,” and handed over my two euros.
I now refer to that first gelato in Italy as “the gelato of shame.” I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t. However, since that first day I have learned a valuable lesson about Italy’s lifestyle. By the time my teacher met up with me in the piazza I was on the verge of tears, but she was just happy to see me.
She called a cab for me, got me home to my host mom — who fed me four courses of the most incredible food I’ve ever tasted — and the next day I didn’t even get lost once on the way to school.
Everything worked out just fine. So fine, in fact, that when I took the wrong bus on the way home after a night out just a week later, I wasn’t even worried. I knew everything was going to be fine.
If I didn’t find my way home at 2 a.m., I would just walk around until the sun came up and I’d take the first bus to my apartment. No problem. And, as luck or life or whatever would have it, two police officers drove by and asked if everything was okay before taking me right to my doorstep.
While some aspects of this culture would never succeed back in the States (I’m fairly certain I’ll never get school to start half an hour later on Mondays and stores to close for naps midday, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try) there is one part of their attitude that I hope to take home with me: everything works out in the end.
More so here than in any other culture I’ve ever experienced, people are so assured that life will proceed how it’s meant to. It’s not that Italians don’t care; it’s just that they worry less. They understand that worrying doesn’t help anyone in the situation and at the end of the day, being 30 minutes late isn’t worth the emotional exertion of caring about that.
This weekend, everyone in my program decided to go to Rome and Venice for the long holiday. I stayed behind to try to enjoy my city and planned to go to the beach on Sunday, but after some terrible planning and a failed reservation, I experienced a serious case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and felt like I was just going to spend the holiday weekend bored out of my mind.
But after half an hour with my Italian professor, I suddenly had a reservation in a lake town at a bed and breakfast that was two miles away from a beach I’d never heard of. She sent me off to the train station waving and smiling: “Take pictures for me!”
Life can change at a moment’s notice and Italy has taught me that’s okay. Rolling with the punches and stresses that inevitably accompany daily life is necessary to overall happiness. While it may seem easier for me to say these things with a beach down the road calling my name, I can assure you that no matter where you are, no matter your circumstances, everything will work out just fine.
Part 3 – One Step At A Time
“Toscana is a ‘fitness country,’” said my host mom as I dragged myself, panting, up the mountainous flight of stairs to her apartment. “You don’t say…” I huffed before collapsing on the couch. I’ve been in Tuscany for the last five weeks and have walked nearly 26,000 steps a day. My fitbit broke the second week (thanks to an impromptu dive into the ocean — #firstworldprobs) but my stepping hasn’t faltered for a moment. All this exercise could probably do wonders for my overall health if it weren’t for the incredible three course meals I have daily, but hey, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Actually, I’m always down for more cake. And so are the Italians.
Maybe if I stopped taking the offered second (and sometimes third) helpings of dessert, all the trouble of just getting around wouldn’t be so exhausting, but I’m not ready to make that sacrifice quite yet. However, there have been times I really didn’t think I was going to make it. Huffing and puffing, thighs and calves burning, stumbling my way up the endless steps to see sights does not an ideal experience make, but I’ve seen some pretty incredible things nonetheless.
My first weekend in Italy, we visited Florence and climbed the 400 some odd steps to the top of the tower of the Duomo. It was crowded, cramped and claustrophobic to say the least but the views were worth it. Or so we thought, until we followed a crowd to a different line for a mysterious exhibit and ended up in a small stairway climbing another 400 steps to the top of the largest masonry dome ever built.
I guess I have Filippo Brunelleschi to thank for my new smoking hot thighs because that was one of the hardest climbs I’ve ever experienced, made even more difficult by my clumsy nature. I was so tired on the way down I didn’t even care when I slipped and fell backwards onto my (thankfully) large backpack. The Italian couple in front of me panicked and rushed to make sure I was okay while my own classmates laughed uncontrollably. All I could think while sweating on those steps was, “I’m so glad I’m not on my feet right now.”
But I did it.
“Forget the amount of stairs you’re climbing, don’t worry about what floor you’re on, put your head down, breathe and just take one step at a time.”
And I’ve done it countless times since. I’ve climbed up and down the four flights of stairs to my classroom every day of the week. I’ve climbed to the top of the tower in Piazza Del Campo in Siena and seen my city in its entirety. I climbed 10 flights of stairs at least twice a day for 3 days when I stayed in an apartment in Paris. I dragged myself up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and had my breath taken away. (Literally. I couldn’t breathe. So many stairs.) And I now live on the sixth floor of an apartment overlooking Genova and I climb up and down those steps every single day.
There’s a trick to being able to handle the insanity of ancient ruins being used as regular living spaces and it’s shockingly applicable to daily life: Forget the amount of stairs you’re climbing, don’t worry about what floor you’re on, put your head down, breathe and just take it one step at a time. In the end, it’s worth it.
Part 4 – “Tutto Bene”: All Is Well
My roommates want to kill me, we probably have bed bugs and my hands smell perpetually of garlic. I’ll explain in sequence.
Arriving in Genova two weeks ago was a nightmare. I rode four hours on two different trains with my hiking backpack so packed that I had to squat down and lift up just to get it on my back, a smaller backpack strapped to my front and a bag that broke balanced in my arms.
Pro-tip: Having a backpack instead of a suitcase has been great and I would do it again. However, just remember not to try and pack your entire life in there or you will hate everyone and everything. Which is kind of what happened when I met one of my five new roommates – she thought I was going to be the worst person in the world to share a space with.
Who knows, maybe I am the worst person to live with, but at least my attitude has shifted back to normal since that hellish day. I’d just spent the previous 5 weeks in a medieval town learning Italian and had already adjusted to the culture. These fresh-faced roommates of mine rolled up thinking they were going to walk into Eat, Pray, Love and were sorely disappointed within the first 48 hours.
After attempting to eat out at multiple places and not being able to order correctly because of the language barrier, the girls were convinced that this was nothing like the movies. The food wasn’t what they expected and they hated it all. The streets, the people, the 13 flights of stairs to our apartment, the weather, the grocery lady. Everything. Not one to remain negative for long, I assured them that culture shock wears off and it gets easier. They just shook their heads and slept for the next fourteen hours to adjust to European time.
The second night found us tired and weary, but we quickly broke the ice by examining a ridiculous number of bug bites on two of the girls and realizing we might have a bed bug infestation. The next three hours were spent with flashlights and Google as we tried to see what to do if you have bed bugs. Amidst the chaos, I kept shouting, “It gets better!” because it does and I didn’t want them to think this was what their experience in Italy would consist of, but was quickly silenced by one of my roommates screaming, “Shut. UP. Katherine!”
After that things spiraled out of control. We slept uneasily that night, squirming in our possibly infested beds, and the girls were ready to take the first flight back to the States in the morning. Several terrible dinners, getting hopelessly lost, a water-balloon hate crime and two weeks later, the girls are doing just fine. Whenever something went wrong, I chimed in with a peppy, “It gets better!” and I have to say, I think I finally wore them down. I mean, check out that view from our apartment. Seriously?
We’ve learned a lot in two short weeks. We’ve learned what places to eat at and what places to avoid. We’ve learned that we don’t have bed bugs and we bought a mosquito net. We’ve learned that in order to cook anything here you need loads of garlic, which explains why my hands will never smell like anything else ever again. I’ve also taught them one of my favorite phrases in Italian, “Tutto bene,” which means “all is well.” Because all is well, and if it’s not, I promise it will be.
Part 5 – It’s The Little Things
I’ve known this was coming since the beginning of my time here in Italy. I haven’t acknowledged it, though. I couldn’t bring myself to. But it’s here — my last week, staring me in the face, challenging me to live the next seven days like they’re my last.
I’ve had unparalleled experiences, made countless memories and befriended people from all over the world. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to survive coming home.
One of the biggest lessons someone has to learn when studying abroad is the ability to let things go. To let go of the emotional turmoil that inevitably accompanies travel, to let go of familiarity and embrace cultural change, to let go of people and places and the past and just enjoy the present.
“All the gelatos will be eaten, and all the beaches will be visited.”
I can’t say that this experience has been easy, but it has been worthwhile. My favorite memories have primarily involved frustration and confusion in the moment, followed by laughter and relief after the conundrum was resolved.
I’ve been lost so many times, miscommunicated my order, almost perished in a subway door and I have climbed so. Many. Stairs. I miss certain things about the States, sure: air conditioning, cold water, my cat.
But I’ve learned so much here. I’ve learned that it’s okay to sleep in, also to take a nap, and eat gelato twice in the same day. I’ve learned to take in the sun and soak in these experiences before they are gone. I’ve learned how humbling it is to try to communicate in another language and how inspiring it is that so many of my new friends speak multiple languages. I’ve learned that it is possible to crave hamburgers even in a place that is famous for its food. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I will take with me the lessons I’ve learned here for the rest of my life.
These programs allowed me to grow and experience the world at the perfect time and while I’m sad the time is coming to an end, I am thrilled to have been able to participate at all. You better believe that these next seven days will be lived to their fullest — all the gelatos will be eaten and all the beaches will be visited and even the church bells that ring so loud and early in the morning will be appreciated. I guess that’s what happens when you learn to love the little things; even the annoying ones have sentimental value if you open yourself up to them.
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