....

At some point on every weekend trip I find myself watching the Tuscan countryside fly by with my nose squished against the smudged glass window of a Eurostar bus. It’s one of those in between details, the unaccounted for and subsequently forgotten moments of transition that come between airports and train stations, hostels and home. Despite the hassle of the extra 7,50 and added hour of travel I love these bus rides. Caught in the handover between my home in Florence and adventures in a new place I am often inspired, prompted to consider my current life with the clarity of an outside perspective. It is during these jaunts that I make the majority of my notes for later writing, hunched over my journal squinting in the dark as my pen scribbles in even worse handwriting than usual, thrown off course by speed bumps and sudden turns. I’m in awe of everything I am experiencing and newly resolute to harden every detail into a flawless unbreakable memory of the moment. I take in every curve of blue silhouetted mountains in the distance, plowed fields of symmetrical rows of skinny leaved trees, and clotheslines burdened with sheets speckling the hills as they puff up and try to elope with the breeze.

One day I saw an entire patch of dead sunflowers. Hundreds and hundreds of them still standing but withered and brown, their heads all dropped in surrender the same direction as if they had met their end as the result of some mass suicide or a Medusa like sighting that instead of stone transformed them all to decay at the exact same moment. The image of this field has haunted me and even without effort I can still conjure it up as if I were back against that bus window what must have been two months ago now. For a long time I could not figure out what it was that made me so sad about this sight. Sunflowers are not among my preferred flowers and the enjoyment I get from them is mostly in that they remind me of one of my best friends who considers them among her own reasons d’être. No, it was not the sunflowers themselves at all that saddened me but instead the skeleton of a beautiful thing lost.

As the epitome of a hopeless romantic, I love flowers. Neatly pruned blooms along sidewalks, mismatched grocery store bouquets on sale for $9.99, untamed and unnamed wildflowers in a field, a single tiny blossom poking through a crack in a slab of concrete, I’ll take them all. Peonies, orchids and poppies are best but even carnations will do. When I have been lucky enough to receive flowers I have done everything I can to make them last. Sniping stems, adding plant food and goggling the species for tips and optimal lighting suggestions. Of course within a couple weeks they all die and I find myself a bit more upset about this than is probably healthy or normal. I also (in true failure-to-let-go fashion) refuse to throw them away. I leave them there until all of the petals have fallen off, the stems have dried out and hardened and the water in the vase has begun to grow some type of white mold. I refuse to admit that my flowers are gone, still hesitant to admit that I have lost such a beautiful thing.

This peculiarity of mine is also why I find myself sliding into depression whenever I leave San Diego. I am sorry to withdraw from a magnificent life of laughter, sunshine, kindred spirits, and ocean spray, sad to have such a beautiful thing taken back from me much as mother nature takes back her flowers. The first weeks back in Arizona, I find myself in mourning, afraid I have lost something and can’t get it back. This anxiety over having something beautiful and then losing it has nurtured my desperate wish for a better memory. Lamenting my departure from San Diego, I recall sand in the bottom of the shower, watching life unfold in the reflection of the mirrored wall in Emma and Brittany’s kitchen and the exact ratio of powdered sugar to butter in Laguna 201 homemade frosting. A vivid and carefully cultivated memory is something that can never be lost or taken from me and I take comfort in the clarity of these details.

This is why I try to take pictures as often as possible, and more importantly why I write. Because despite my most ardent and unyielding attempts to notice every detail and lock it away for later, so often my memory fails and I can no longer remember if the vase of flowers was blue or green and whether we were in Lauren or Erin’s car when we brought home our Christmas tree. So I write. I write about the way that traveling has, for the first time in my life, given me a kind of solidarity with my own thoughts that makes being alone sometimes not feel lonely anymore. I write about bath room talks with roommates where alcohol loosened our tongues and brought the swelling on our egos down. I write about people I meet on planes and how the clocks on the buses are always inexplicably set to the wrong time. I write and I take pictures in the hopes that when this incredible adventure is over I will not feel that I have lost something that I had and loved but instead gained a collection of glorious experiences, carefully documented to later supplement omissions in rose colored cob-webby memories.

* Image from We heart it tumbler

Roaming Rome

A hand to her forehead as she speaks Maria tousles her hair and returns to kneading the air like dough, speaking with every muscle from the waist up as only Italians can. Her frizzy ash blonde bangs float back to her brow in a rumpled mess, seemingly aware that they will soon be disturbed again and so there is no need to look presentable. The rest of her hair is twisted haphazardly into a tangled knot of scraggly ends and forgotten bobby pins, which could have been secured this morning or the day before it’s impossible to tell. As usual Maria has on an array of neutral colored, loose, draping clothing arbitrarily layered together in a way that makes it difficult to identify on any given day what she is actually wearing. Today however, she is also wearing very baggy blue jeans whose frayed bottoms drag on the ground over clogs with a heel bringing her to around 5” 4’. She rummages through a large olive green canvas bag, clinking a chunky silver ring on her index finger against keys or coins as she forages for a cigarette, her fourth of the morning. Like the excessive fabric used for her clothes everything she does is intemperate. Her movements are leisurely and overindulgent, limbs never choosing the quickest route between two points, cigarettes drawing rings through the air on the way to her lips. All loose strands of hair, no make up, grandiose gestures and loud thickly accented English devoid of prepositions, Maria is equal parts animated and disheveled. The perfect picture of the single bohemian Italian woman, who is a little crazy and maybe a little bit drunk most of the time. She is a fascinating and fantastic mess. She is also, my theology professor.

As part of the Women and Religion class Maria seems to frequently confuse with an art history course, our saucy (and possibly sauced) professor herded us onto a seven am train Friday morning and guided us through a nine-hour tour of Rome. The Coliseum, Pantheon, Forums, Capitol Hill, Castel Sant’Angelo and six or seven churches all of which blur together in a muddle of frescos, filigree and fervently whispered prayers. They were however all very beautiful and afforded me the opportunity to see some relics for the first time1. It rained sporadically throughout the day, which allowed us to see first hand the pitfalls to having a hole in your roof (the Pantheon) and to take cute umbrella pictures during a deluge in front of the Coliseum. I won’t bore you with the history of these places but I will say there is something remarkable about standing on the stones where gladiators fought and individuals built a civilization that would influence the world for thousands of years to come. The Coliseum in particular was a marvelous thing to see. Rome, although very beautiful particularly with all of the fall leaves and history, is incredibly different from Florence. It is really amazing that the two are not only in the same country but a mere hour and a half train ride apart. I was secretly pleased to find that I much prefer the quaint beauty and accessibility of Florence to the dirty busy streets of Rome. After nearly three months, Florence feels like home in a way I believe Rome never could have.

At the end of a long day trekking all around Rome with Maria, my friend Sarah and I wandered off to find our host for the evening. Feeling very much like we weren’t in Kansas anymore and pooling together our limited Italian vocabulary we got tremendously lost and finally made it to Michael’s apartment in great need of a nap. One hour of sleep, two kebabs, and three bottles of wine later Sarah and I found ourselves in a situation that never happens in Florence and rarely at USD: we were outnumbered by American boys 3 to 1. Thus began a typical evening of bathroom talks, overpriced drinks, unoriginal Italian pick up lines and Sarah playing chess with a Columbian in a bar called the Drunken Ship. Huh? When in Rome? The night ended with Sarah and I pathetically huddled atop a make shift bed on the floor in our coats fighting over who would be big spoon and freezing after Sarah lost our blanket to a blacked out boy from Boston. It was too hilarious to even be upset about.

On Saturday we woke up bleary-eyed and grateful that we had opted for the later tour and set off in the pouring rain to grab a cappuccino and a cannoli, make a wish in the Trevi fountain, and complete the full 50-euro tour of the Vatican museums. Even running on five hours of sleep in two days, the three-hour tour flew by. The Vatican is the second largest collection of art in the world (the Louve is the first) and I was perpetually in awe of all the famous and incredible things I was seeing. The Sistine Chapel was absolutely phenomenal. Even with all of the build up and all of the expectation it did not disappoint. Especially when you learn all of the historical meaning and the anecdotes of its creation. Sarah and I also got to see the apartments of the scandalous Pope Alexander the VI, whose wild orgies and concealed murders had been the subject of a presentation assigned to us by Maria the week before. So all in all we were pretty excited.

Lastly, and rather embarrassingly, I had hoped to see the Fountana de Amora from the movie When in Rome. After several fruitless attempts to find it I finally asked our Vatican guide for it’s location and our conversation went like this.
“Excuse me can you tell me where the Fountana de Amora is?”
Blank stare. “Isn’t that in a movie?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed excitedly “When in Rome! Have you seen it?”
“No but I heard about it. They made that up. The Fountana de Amora doesn’t exist.”
I was too disappointed to feel stupid.

One hour and about three false alarm panic attacks later2 we are homeward bound. I stare out the window of the only seating car on an overnight train curiously ending in Germany, and I decide our little Roman Holiday was a success. Much like the intrepid Maria who started us on our adventure, we had navigated Rome with a careless and unmethodical attitude and a sense of humor. Minor set backs only added to the experience and all the must sees of Rome were accounted for. Leaving the city behind for God knows how long I decide that Rome is nothing like the movies and most people have no idea what the expression “When in Rome” really means. Except maybe Professor Maria.






1. I stood next to aged Italian women silently weeping and wondered who on earth decided this, really not very old looking, piece of wood had come from the manger Jesus laid in or why an iron chain was in a glass case with people kneeling in front of it.

2. Since Sarah and I bought a two-person ticket, it did not include the train number or time and it took several inquires to acquire this information. Then when the conductor asked for our ticket it seemed we had lost it and right as he was about to throw us off the train I found it soggy and folded in the forgotten outside pocket of my bag.

After five hours of class I come home and gracelessly throw myself down on one of our comfy green couches, sliding to the middle because as usual the pillows are out of place and it sags. I attempt to summon a last vestige of patience as I wait for the Internet to load. Wednesdays are long and my usual homecoming routine is to pour myself a glass of wine and vege in front of the computer. That is until my roommates return to our apartment with the necessary buoyancy for me to rally for a carb loaded dinner and a late night of Florence shenanigans. As I roll my neck in a fruitless endeavor to alleviate the knots from a day of bending over child sized desks something catches my eye on one of the blogs I frequently stalk. A quote by my favorite author Nicole Krauss that is cited from Great House.
Great House? I wonder. This must be a mistake. She has only written two books both of which are among my favorites and one of which happens to be the only book of mine that I brought to Florence. A Wikipedia search is obviously necessary. I am shocked and in all honestly slightly outraged to find that she has in fact released a new book just 12 days prior. A new book? Why was I not told!?!?! I know I am not in America right now but still someone really should have called me. My outrage turns immediately to panic. How am I supposed to get her book over here? I begin to consider the possibilities and wish this issue had arisen last month when my mother could have brought it to me on her visit. After several Firefox and safari reloads I have the numbers for the only two international bookstores in Florence. I dial hastily. Please have it. Please Please have it. The first number goes to a machine. I dial the second. Please Please Please. I beg in a whisper. A calm Italian woman tells me that the line is busy and if I will please wait an associate will be with me soon. Five minutes later she tells me again. And again. Elevator music is not any better in Italy than it is in America. Finally someone picks up and after much hemming and hawing as to whether he must really get off his butt and look he tells me yes they do have a copy and he will hold it for me at the front desk. I tell him I will be RIGHT there, literally skip out the door squealing and nearly forget the keys to my apartment.

The walk to the Duomo seems to take longer than usual as I am practically shaking with excitement. I cannot remember a time that I was more excited about anything in my life. Thanksgiving mashed potatoes tomorrow? Amsterdam the next day? Paris the following weekend? They don’t compare. I scurry through the streets like an animal. I’m a literary addict thisclose to my next fix. I throw open the bookstore doors with an excessive amount of force and rush up to the desk. A crinkled twenty and some change is exchanged “I don’t need a bag!!” I snap a little too forcefully then smile apologetically as I stretch a hand across the counter just inches from the crisp red and white binding waiting to be broken in. He hands it over with a shrug and I resist the urge to let out another trademark squeal of delight. I clutch it to my chest, arms crossed in protection and walk out of the store and into the cold but thankful rainless night. I try to exercise self-restraint but only make it to the corner before I crack the cover. I vow to read only the first sentence but three blocks later I’m on page four and barely looking up. I try to walk with my feet flexed since I have a history of tripping on independently minded cobblestones but Italian people usually tend to barrel through the streets without regard for people or cars in their way so I have little issue as I make my way home. Every sentence is like a present just for me a beautifully crafted line in language I adore. I feel like I am reading through my list of favorite quotes and find myself folding over the corner of almost every page to copy and paste to this collection later. In my life there have been few surprise gifts which I actually adored but tonight I hold in my hands a present just for me and it’s wonderful and unexpected. I suppose the Italians find me strange peering down at a book as I walk through poorly lit streets and weave through the crowds around Billa (our nearby grocery store). I begin to think of the opening scene in The Beauty and the Beast when Belle is declared “Nothing like the rest of us” for having her nose in a book. If they are thinking this they are right.

There might not be a single person in Florence tonight or any night for that matter who is remotely excited about a new Nicole Krauss novel but that is more than alright with me. I am insanely happy because having a new novel by a favorite author is being reunited with a friend and soul mate. Someone who doesn’t know you but somehow knows the very essence of your being to a minute detail. With this book, I have just been returned a part of my heart and soul that I had left in America. I would not have thought it would travel well but in fact the streets of Florence and a cold November night on my own make it that much more beautiful. I wonder as I write this if Great House will live up to the legacy left by Nicole’s last two books. I wonder if I will forever think of Florence when I look at this book months from now. If all the beautiful joys and sorrows of my life abroad will be pressed in between the pages like dried flowers. One thing however is for certain: either I won’t be in class tomorrow or I won’t make it out tonight. If you’re looking for me I’ll be on the couch healing my heart and crying with Nicole.


I promise my post about Rome is coming soon! Actually that's a lie. It probably won't get done untill after this book! :)
HAPPY THANKSGIING EVERYONE I MISS YOU ALL AND WISH I WAS WITH YOU

Belated Reflections on Venice

The One in Love
On a gondola floating serenely down the waterways of Venice reality loses it’s faculty. Calm stillness replaces the rumbling of engines and the pinging of Blackberry’s. Red and white candy cane poles perform the duties of traffic lights. Concrete is traded for cobblestones. The noise and bustle of our busy city seems far away. A distant memory, a dream. The specific details of what, where, when and why melt away like the sense of time and concern for consequences. All that remains is the sheer beauty of the moment and the who. You and I on an island captained by a charming man with a striped shirt and throaty heart wrenching singing voice in a place designed just for us.

The Cynic
When on the subject of Romance wet, dirty, and smelly are not the first things that come to mind. It is therefore rather curious that a place where these adjectives have pervaded every nook and cranny is a prime destination for self-proclaimed victims of cupid. A city idiotically built on water, Venice has the unique odor of something that is always damp and slightly moldy. Constantly grey skies and morose silence accompany the faint aroma of decay as the buildings begin to deteriorate, growing more and more dirty and sinking further into water that seeps up through the cobblestones. Most days platform sidewalks a foot of the ground are erected but it is still impossible to make it through the day with dry feet as decrepit front entryways flood and the delusional people that populate the city slowly go down with the sinking ship of that supposed phenomenon know as love.

The Hopeful
The timeless stone buildings garnished with shuddered windows and wrought iron balconies housing cheery red geraniums cozy up to each other like old friends whispering secrets. Angles connect to reveal waterways, roads clogged not with pollution and yelled obscenities but gondolas, seemingly all filled with couples kissing. Their drivers silently stroke the water and glide by with barely a ripple in the distorted beauty of Venice’s reflection. There is a kind of stillness, even St. Mark’s Piazza with it’s tours, it’s tea services, pigeons and string quartet seems to be at a lower volume than everywhere in Florence. Venice is peaceful and the seldom interrupted quiet allows thoughts to slide in and out like silk through fingertips. Easy come, easy go. No impression left. What a lonely place to be by oneself I think as a solitaire figure crosses a arced bridge up a ways and fumbles in his pocket for keys. What an odd place to call ones home. Another gondola of the lucky in love floats by What a beautiful place to bring the one you love. Someday. My mind stills like the water below me on the bridge after the gondola is out of sight.



My assignment for Travel Writing this week was to write about a place I had been from three differnt perspectives. Having spent a day and a night in Venice last weekend when my mother visited I decided to play on it's reputation as one of the most romantic cities in the world.
Can you tell which one is me?

Hold your own, know your name and go your own way... and everything will be fine.

Recently I've been letting myself get bogged down by a lot of stuff, to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite authors, My boots have been heavy. My heart has been hurting, my smiles have been less frequent and I occasionally find myself sleepwalking through my life, choosing to be numb to all my feelings rather than wrestle with the ones casting a dark shadow on a beautiful life. My moodiness pulls me down like quicksand, sucking me into a pit of failures, mistakes and people lost that makes it hard to realize how lucky and loved I really am. Being abroad is the greatest experience I've had so far in life but it's also sometimes the loneliest and scariest. I've always fancied myself brave enough to walk the tightrope of independence but I've never actually had to do so without a safety net to fall into.

But... as a good friend of mine remarked recently in a much needed cross continental note of love and encouragement via my e-mail inbox: happiness is a choice. So as I reflect on the tears and insecurities of the past few weeks I'm instead choosing to be happy, grateful for the beautiful moments that transpired even before I reminded myself of a favorite quote of mine "It's not as hard to be happy as you're making it" (especially in Italy).


Fifteen things that made me happy in the past Fifteen Days
1. Curling up on the couch with across the universe, a bottle of red wine, visiting friends and, lots of blankets as the rain came down outside.
2. Taylor Swift's Speak Now CD on repeat
3. A phone call to my eternal roommate and soulmate Erin whose high pitched "LeeN" always makes the world feel right again.
4. Experimenting in the kitchen and then sitting down with a glass of wine and a dinner I made myself that is slightly more refined than PB and J pasta or grilled cheese (although I did make that recently as well).
5. Finding out that garlic isn't green when I cooked with it for the first time.
6. Venice. So beautiful and romantic.
7. Four days of meals at all my favorite restaurants for free while my mother was in town, including a dinner with just the two of us that was full of honesty and (for once) non-combative conversation.
8. Details in the fabric by Jason Mraz (source for this blog title)
9.A care package from my Theta fam complete with Theta tanks, holiday candle, Halloween socks, a fourth of July flag filled with confetti and some fabulously drawn stick figure cartoons of my adventures in Europe furnished with creepy Italian men.
10. Splashing in the twinkling reflections of lights captured in cobblestone puddles with my sky blue rain-boots as I walk home at night without an umbrella.
11. My ugly, old, dirty, embarrassingly pink, gloriously warm, and comfy Ugg boots (yes, that was a sentence with six adjectives and no verb).
12. A lit candle and the serenity prayer in Orasanmichael (my favorite church in the world)
13. A sweet heartfelt compliment from a new acquaintance with no ulterior motives for giving it.
14. Finally knowing my way around Firenze without a map and being able to show my home to visiting friends and my mother.
15. A visit from the only friend I've retained since preschool and the reassuring realization (during a conversation about who would be the bride and who would be the bridesmaid first) that sometimes friendships do last forever and it's possible for people to grow up without growing apart.

:)

The most beautiful place in the world

Resplendent and overbearing the sun begins to set, unfurling its plumage of colors through the sky like a peacock: without hesitation, without inhibition. Clouds blister and squirm mismatched for strength in a game of peek-a boo, a rock paper scissors where sun trumps cloud always and even the grumpiest, grayest cloud has no choice but to dissipate in patches, giving way to orange and pink rays as if someone had pulled them aside like curtains. Sunset brings out the grandeur in everything: bathing the horizon in pink, turning the remaining clouds into no more then silhouettes, causing the water to glitter with it’s reflection, highlighting various white and blue Cliffside buildings in Fira like a realtor showing off the best property. A sunset anywhere is beautiful, but a sunset in Santorini is like a bottle of Cristal when you are used to drinking Andre.

Most people visit the island of Santorini in the summer months and at late October the people that dot the picturesque landscape are like specks in spackle. Traffic is sparse: there are no honking horns, few exhaust pipes spewing clouds of suffocating black soot. Many of the places are boarded up until next season. Forgotten fliers boast parties that happened months ago and blackboards of restaurant specials left unerased offer air conditioning and deals on ice cream. The locals complain about the “bad weather” of occasional cloudy skies and temperatures below 70, weather that feels like paradise compared to my freezing apartment in Florence but does not afford one many opportunities to bring out their bikini. However the end of the season is prime for deals and with only a handful of tourists we have the run of the island and less danger of collisions as we ATV from the jagged cliffs of the lighthouse on one end to the village Oia made famous in movies on the other end. Even without many companions some of the curves and cliffs of the narrow roads are frightening and my friend Jordan gets into a small fender bender with a fourteen year old on a borrowed motorcycle. Still the feeling of the wind in our hair and view of the open road can not be equaled and five days give us just enough time to cartogram the entire island as our own with the amiable assistance of many gas station attendants, our three ATV’s and our tiny rental car whom we name “Shelby”. Getting around is effortless and inexpensive many ways but the best transportation of all on Santorini is the donkeys.

On the only day during our stay that actually constituted bad weather we had resolved to take a boat to the active volcano and hot springs about twenty minutes from the island. Winds churned the waters and cut through my sundress and sweater as the boat is tossed by the waves which spew icy water all over my sandaled feet as I try to ease my qualms about seasickness. After a hike around the volcano’s craters and charred rocks and a motion sick affected boat ride back we stand dismayed at the foot of the wide 588 stone stairs up from the port. Luckily we are soon accosted by a wrinkled old Greek man with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. “You want to take the donkey taxi? Five Euros? Donkey’s yes?” Skills as a salesman are not necessary to convince us and we eagerly pass over crinkled bills. Saddled and ready the donkeys trudge up the steep stairs leaving a trail of their poo and our squeals behind them. This was an experience repeated twice more during our stay, later with whisky to ease the terror of facing straight down the steep side of a cliff on the back of an animal that liked to get as close to the edge as possible, charge directly into a traffic jam of several of it’s immobile friends, and change it’s speed more than Greek people yell Opa!


When we were not trekking around feeling as if we had magically hoped into a postcard a la Mary Poppins, traipsing through turquoise shutters and white domes followed by packs of friendly and adorable stray dogs, and exploring the black, red, and white beaches we were eating. There were twice-daily visits to the 24 hour bakery by our hotel for one euro nutella filled cream pastries and giant fluffy sugar covered doughnuts fresh from the oven. There were Greek salads of fresh vegetables and seasoned feta, flavorful stuffed grape leaves, juicy chicken and formerly undiscovered Greek dishes like Fava and baked Feta which maybe the single greatest thing on the planet and is actually just feta wrapped in pastry dough and baked in honey and sesame seeds. In the tradition of Germany, England, and Italy Greece also had amazing French fries (or “fried potatoes). While many people would probably think of French fries as an American food to be had with a cheeseburger at McDonalds I have eaten more in Europe then I ever do back at home, partially because they always seem to be magically included in whatever I order. On the subject of McDonalds we resigned ourselves to one of the more upscale European ones and had McFlurry’s both jaunts in the Athens airport as we made our way to and from the Acropolis and Athens markets.


After all of the laughter and adventures as well as the burial of my gold gladiator sandals (or “gold sports shoes” as one tittering hiker called them before adding “I kid, I kid, they work.”) it was time to say goodbye. With each step offering a new and more picturesque view, it is not at all an exaggeration to say that Santorini is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Leaving had all the finality of our final sunset from the lighthouse, a beautiful ending but bittersweet in it’s farewell. However just as the sunset brings promise of a sunrise to come I hold onto the belief that I will someday return to collect the pieces of my heart sown about the island and Saturday’s sunset will not be my last in Santorini.