The Best Days of our Lives

Now that the dust has settled, you realize that something in you has changed over the course of this journey. You're left with a yearning to learn, to encapsulate every cultural nuance and adapt it to the new you. Inside, there's a new love for travel, to be in a constant state of motion, not letting anything catch up until....well, now. And now you sit and reflect on what has happened and you see that you're different. Little changes, so minute that you hadn't realized them until today. And tomorrow, they'll become magnified. You've acquired strength, in being away from loved ones. You've gained independence unmatched to any you have yet to experience. You have become friends with people who will be with you throughout the rest of your life. But most of all, you have achieved an entirely new perspective on life, your eyes are fresh with new vision. After today, you’ll bring back with you more than luggage and souvenirs. The real souvenirs from this trip will be the memories. The memories of catching awfully early trains, of sleeping in airports, of trying eclectic foods, of Murphy’s, of Jumping Jesters, of late night kebab, of Erasmus nights. You’re full of them, memories. Like Venice and Verona, and eating at the vineyard, of learning how to use those weird public toilets, not to mention bidets (or how to avoid those), of learning a language and hearing the words roll off your tongue, of drinking cappuccinos, of sunny days in the park. These, memories, are what you’re made of. Go home, and hold these tight, and live on in the voracity that you have come to learn in these past four months. And thank you, for being a part of my memories and my experience here to learn each and every one of these things about myself.

Love always,
Brianna

The Final Countdown

The past week, I've been preparing myself. Preparing for finals, which are quite stressful; preparing to say goodbye, and preparing for life back home. They weren't joking when they tell you before leaving that you will have a period of time where you are absolutely unsure about coming home. It will be ground-shaking. My life will be rocked from under my feet.

Yes, I'm scared. But, I'm also strong.

This past weekend was full of fun. Saturday, I went to Cinque Terre REALLY early in the morning. Left on the train at 7:15 AM and arrived around 11. Cinque Terre is a series of five little villages along the sea that are connected by train. You can only have a car there if you are a citizen of the town! These towns are famous mostly for an 11km trail that connects them. The trail winds through the cliffs by the sea and connects to each town and is filled with gorgeous wildlife and lemon groves and vineyards. Beautiful does not even begin to describe it. The hiking part on the other hand, is a whole different story. Think of thousands of steps in 70 degree heat. Then add all the huge chunks of rocks that were poor attempts of steps in centuries past. I apparently started out at the hardest part of the hike at the town of Monterosso. That section took me over 2 hours to complete! And I'm not in bad shape. It included a lot of straight up hiking and letting people pass on the scary path. Halfway on the path, a old man was selling fresh lemons from the tree for 50c and you better believe I bought one! It was so sour but it tasted so good since I'd forgotten to bring water. :) The hike was great the rest of the way, by the end, it was all straight and no hills! I was pretty glad that I started out on the side that was hardest and then went to the easiest. Reminded me of cross country in high school! I took the train home and low and behold, the Italians were having another bus strike! So I had to take a 13 euro cab ride home, which was the bummer of my day.

Sunday, my roommate, Sarah, and I stayed in since it was raining. We had been planning to see the Pope, but it seemed like that was not to be. The buses weren't running again, since it was a huge holiday here. So for dinner, we got pizza's from the kebab shop 2 blocks down from our apartment. We had to run, the rain was so bad! We were missing the food of America so we decided to get french fries on our pizzas! She got hers with hot dogs (wurstel) and I got mine with spicy sausage (salame piccante). Horrid for us, but delicious!

And since then I've been preparing for finals and enjoying the rain. Italy is just preparing me for Oregon! :) 5 days.

Warning: Not a Happy Blog

Recently, I've been feeling like I'm being blamed for a lot of things for being abroad. A lot has been going on back home while I've been here. I don't feel like I've been a good enough friend, and I've pretty much been told as much. It's just been so difficult keeping up with people with a 9 hour separation. I feel that I try so hard, but it's just not good enough for anyone involved. It's been a pattern in my life, me going somewhere and being different from the norm, losing people along the way has become natural. It kills me, to lose people like that. I just feel so stretched right now. I feel condescended upon. I feel as if I'm not strong enough to make the leap back into American life. I feel that too much has changed back home for me to handle it.

Deep down, I'm scared. And tired. And unsure of myself and where and who I will be when I go back. Sorry for the negativity. I just needed to...process.

Lightning!

Today was soooo hot in Torino! And nearing the end of the evening, my roommate and I spotted some lightning in the distance and were wondering if it was just an advertisement light. Then, we realized that there aren't any big stores to put on a light at 9PM. Let alone any stores other than PAM, the grocery store, are open.

This weekend I played soccer (football) in the park. It was such a lovely day and hearing the combination of accents of some the Erasmus people cracks me up. I had a yummy panino that had spicy salami on it and we topped the day off with a Popsicle.

I had plans to try to hike Cinque Terre, but I came down with the 24 hour flu that night and was stuck in bed all the next day. I managed to get out of bed at about 5 and go to the grocery store in search of chicken noodle soup. Just my luck, they don't have chicken noodle soup in Italy, so I grabbed one with some cool looking noodles. Ends up when I got home and pulled out my handy dandy Italian/English dictionary and found out that I bought chickpea soup (aka garbanzo beans). It was garbanzo beans and nothing else! I've never eaten them, but have always disliked their smell. Well, I manned up and ate the can today with my roommate, and it was good! I've been experimenting with some ingredients while I'm here and have become so enthralled with the art of cooking. I've started making creations and taking pictures of them and uploading them to facebook!

I'm just beginning to realize that my time here is coming to an end. I'm going to miss being here, although I'm very excited to go home. I just don't know how to process it all quite yet. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I know I'm going to have difficulties adjusting to the American rush, as I've been so relaxed here. I'm not going to get to travel as much, which will be different, but hopefully work will distract me this summer. Can't say I'm going to miss showering sitting down...lol. But I will miss the meals here, how the people treat you, as though you're family and I'll miss the sense of community with the students that I've met here. The people I've been surrounded by have taught me so much about myself, who I want to be and who I don't want to be. They've made me realize that Point Loma is really a bubble sometimes, although a good bubble to be in in your college years. Overall, my experience here has me on a high, and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to come down from that quite yet, but I miss my family. So, conflict it is for right now.

On a better note, this Friday we're taking a trip to wine country as a big group. We're going to a winery of a family and having lunch there with the USAC kids. I'm glad they planned a trip for this last weekend that we all can go out with a bang and get in a few last words.

Roma Ro-ma-maa

Whew!! A few crazy hectic days, and I got a chance to find a place that has internet and let you all know how its been. I apologize for the following typos and/or grammatical errors, as I am on an Italian computer and the keys are all crazy!

Day 1
This also includes the night before, since I spent it on the train. I got to the train station in Torino and bought my first overnight ticket for a train. It ends up the lovely first class that I could have gotten for the same price as first class was already filled, so I ended up in a coach with 6 seats, with two Italian ladies. They showed me how you could lean the seats down, pushing them together into a makeshift bed. So I slept. Well, attempted to sleep that is! The coach was FREEZING and one of the ladies was a chain smoker, common in Italy. She kept getting up to get out, and on top of that, I ended up putting my Pj's over my jeans to stay warm! Definitely not a comfortable or fufilling sleep. I arrived in Rome at around 8 AM. I found my hostel near the train station and dropped my stuff off and began my own tour of the city. I visited so many places and walked sooo far! (not so enjoyable with heeled cowboy boots and clothes that I had slept in) But all this comes with short term traveling. I went to the Vatican, saw Sistine chapel and everything was just plain gorgeous! Before I even made it there though, I stopped at the church of Saint Mary of Angels and Martyrs. The sheer beauty of this church made me cry. So much so, that I texted my dad back home that I was in tears and I hadn't even reached the Vatican! I lit two candles for my grandparents there, one for my grandpa, whom I never knew, and the other for his wife, my grandma who is soon going to join him... I saw Trevi Fountain, more like stumbled across it and vitited many other famous sites. That evening, I got back to the hostel and passed out before dinner, grabbed some free pizza, and then headed right back to bed.

Day 2
Woke up slightly early, nine, and went to the breakfast at my hostel. I have to rate this hostel with at least 4 stars out of 5. They had CEREAL!! and rolls that were yummy. I headed out and did the Colosseum and everything that surrounds it. Lots of walking! My feet were so sore that I gave up at around 4pm. Everything in the area is on such a grand scale. The buildings and columns and just everything is so big and grand and amazing. It's absolutely breathtaking.

I'm headed to grab some dinner, then off to the train station for another night train for me then class in the morning and a presentation! Talk about a long weekend.

Buona Pasqua

When I realized I had 5 whole days to go wherever for Easter Break, I went berserk trying to find a place to enjoy hopefully good weather. The easiest and cheapest vacation I was able to find in a short amount of time was to go to Nice, France and to Monaco/ Monte Carlo. The train ride is quite long (4.5 hours) with a few stops in between to change trains. I've become used to traveling by myself, although I definitely would not recommend it. It's boring and quite lonely with no one to share the experience with. Plus, I go through books like fiend, so I always have to pack several, which is slightly annoying when you're traveling with only a single backpack for 5 days. I got off the train in Nice and realized that there were some girls who were from my program getting off too. We ended up staying in the same hostel and they let me tag along with them. The first thing we did was grab some delicious Chinese food for lunch. There actually isn't that much Chinese food in Italy, so it was quite the treat, and cheap! Then, we headed to the beach. The beach in Nice is unlike any that I have ever seen in my life. It was completely rocks! Not little pebbles like some of the beaches in Oregon, but actual ROCKS. Granted, they were smooth rocks, not poky ones, but these babies were quite large and not comfortable to lay on. We gritted our teeth, determined that even though there was wind, we were going to get tan from the sun. After a few hours, we made our way back to the hostel, and changed for dinner. For dinner, we ate at an all you can eat tapas restaurant. It was the coolest thing ever! They bring out your dinner in a boat shaped tray. The first set is chosen by the chef, then, you're free to choose from the list. We got our ten euros worth, then headed to the movie theater. Earlier, we'd seen that they were showing a movie in English! It was Alice in Wonderland in 3D in English :) there were subtitles in French, but it was still worth it.
The next day, we went to a pastry shop for breakfast. This little shop was so cute! The ceilings had cloud decorations, and the pastries....unbelievable! I had ratatouille quiche, a chocolate eclair and a brioche (croissant) with Nutella inside. Next on our list to do: hike an old Celtic Medieval castle and get a panoramic view of the city. It began to rain as we made our way through a vibrant flower market, which dampened our hiking spirits. We finally made it to the top, got our pictures, and I skedaddled off towards the train station by myself to catch a train to Monaco/ Monte Carlo.

Monaco and Monte Carlo are only about 20 minutes away by train, and the ocean view is delightful to watch fly by. When I arrived in Monaco, the station opened up right onto the port. That, my friends, is where it finally hit me that this truly was a rich, rich town. The yachts towered over me and were completely decked out! They were from everywhere, and surrounded the entire port. The water was the prettiest blue, as it always is in the Mediterranean. I felt soooo under dressed compared to even the tourists in Monaco! Everyone seemed to be in nice shoes (compared to my Converse) and nice pants (compared to well worn jeans). All in all, I was terrified to even walk in the dress coded Casino. But I did take some pretty pictures of the outside! The buildings in Monaco were so crazy! They were built on odd angles, and the decoration was from an interesting time period. I heard a rumor that in order to live there, you have to have an income of at least 1,000,000 euro a year! After touring the city, walking through a few malls with a minimum item price of 100 euro, I took the train back to Nice. I grabbed a baguette for dinner then went out with some friends for a bit.

The next morning, I planned to have a long day ahead of me. 16 hours worth of trains, and I would be in Bern, Switzerland. I began my journey at 9:20 and ended up in Torino a little after 14:00. To make international transfers, you have to actually go into the ticket office instead of going to the self service kiosks. Also, the prices of tickets aren't listed on the trenitalia website, so initially I had no idea what the cost would be, but since it was only a few hours away, I was hoping for a cheap ride. Well, that was not the case. It was 70 euro one way! And I'd have to pay for the way back AND for skiing. There was no way I could afford that for a single day of fun. It would be about... $200 just for travel. Ouch!

So, instead of going to Switzerland, I went home on my lovely bus 35. We've become quite good friends over the past 3 months. It's crazy to realize that I've already lived here for 3 months! But, I'm ready to go home. I love it here and all, but I miss my friends and my family. It's one of those things that initially seems like you could live here your whole life and be fine, but then once you settle down, you see how much it isn't really in your future, how it feels more like a vacation than really living. The freedom is unbelievably scary too. Same with having to go grocery shopping. If you don't go, you don't eat, and that's your decision, up to you.

On a better note! I went out to Easter dinner (since it was Sunday) with my roommate at a local kebab shop. It was all that was open, but my kebab pizza was amazing. They should introduce more kebab shops in the States. Then yesterday, Monday, I spent the day with her and some of the Erasmus kids and a few of the other USAC kids playing football (soccer) in Parco Valentino. There were so many families out and it was like an amusement park. There were rides going and so many people were out!

I'm off to go grocery shopping :) we are in dire need of toilet paper. Never thought I would say this, but I'm glad that our break is over and the stores are open! No way am I using the bidet.

Good Morning!

Ach! My last blog just erased itself when my computer froze up. Anyways, today is a beautiful day! The sun is shining and I'm sitting on the communal balcony, which is not really a balcony, listening to Daughtry and eating stale bread. I keep forgetting that I have to be prepared to eat an entire loaf of bread in 2 days to keep it from going stale. Guess I'm just enamored by the fact that I can get an entire loaf of bakery fresh bread made just that morning for less than 60 euro cent. It's so nice to wear shorts again without tights. For the first time in three months, the weather is warm enough to wear them and a tank top! I was quite spoiled with Point Loma weather. It is a perfect gelato day.

Last night, I cooked spaghetti alla carbonara and cheesy potatoes with my friends, then we went out. I met an English rugby team! They were super nice and they hung out with our group of people. They were so relieved to hear people speaking English. Then, we went to the Murazzi and danced. The Murazzi is a huge wall that was constructed in order to hold in the overflow of the river in the winter when it floods. There are rooms there that were originally used to store wares. They flood along with the river and were made to withstand large amounts of water. But, recently, those rooms have been transformed into a bunch of dancing clubs along the river. They open as soon as the weather gets warm enough and the river is no longer flooding. The atmosphere is so thrilling! You get to meet many of the Torino locals there, as it's not a place frequented by Erasmus students. We got home around 4 in the morning and I woke up to the sun shining gorgeously into my window.

I decided not to go anywhere this weekend. I had originally planned to go on a Mediterranean cruise that was decently priced starting on Monday, but I was notified that I have a meeting with the authorities to get my official permit of stay this Wednesday, so that I'll officially be legally in Italy. But, I found out that it is really cheap and a short trip to Monaco, Nice and Monte Carlo. So, next weekend, I'll be on another train for a warm, sunny place!