One Month Today

I've been living and studying in Florence, Italy for one month today.

It's been interesting, challenging, beautiful and inspiring.

More than anything I've learned here, I have come to a very acute realization of how much the people in my life mean to me, why they're such staples in my life, and why they've been there for so long.

I came to Europe alone. I didn't know anyone from Chapman or anywhere else that would be studying here - or anywhere else in Europe, for that matter. The three other girls living in my apartment all know each other from school and growing up together. It's become very clear that the incredible majority of students here have 'come with' someone else, whether it be a classmate or best friend, everyone seems to come with their niches pre-formed. It's a little bit rough for someone traveling alone, but I'm working on it.

I've been on two field trips with my university, Lorenzo de' Medici. The first was to Rome, where I met Kat, a girl from Chapman who I'd noticed was on my plane from Los Angeles to Frankfurt. When I told her that I had seen her on the plane, she asked me if I had seen the "crazy hot Welsh boy" who was also on the flight. When I affirmed, she burst, "We totally went at it in one of the Frankfurt Airport bathrooms." Oh, the impeccable caliber of your students, Chapman University. (Or, there's solid reasons why I don't know anyone over here from Chapman.)

On the Rome trip, I had the pleasure of meeting Katie and Taryn, roommates from Illinois State. After the day of non-stop travel, including a 4:45am meet for the bus, four hour ride and whirlwind tour of the Vatican, we seemed to be the only ones who could muster up enough energy to walk down to the Colosseum for some night shots.

Me, Katie and Taryn

Taryn shares my affinity for art, she was the first person I met who really did, and I'm so very grateful for it. She's in photography, painting and art restoration courses. She was actually in my Art Conservation Theory courses, but dropped it before we came to meet.

Katie is an all-around sweetheart, I'll be traveling through England, Ireland and Germany with her and a few of her friends over Spring Break. (We booked all our flights this afternoon, actually.) Taryn is hoping to catch up with us at the tail end of the week, hopefully in Germany.

My second field trip with LDM was to Venice for the opening weekend of Carnival. This one was an all around adventure, as my roommates and slept right through the 4:45am bus meet time, to wake up at 5:26am. (Horrifically precise, emblazoned in my memory.) The roommates (Lauren and Julie) were freaking out, so I called one of the instructors on the bus to let him know we were all ok, that we had simply overslept, and asked what he might have us do to catch up with them.

Julie, Lauren and Me (Disregard the Italian super-creeper.)

A few hours later we were on the two and a half hour train to Venice. Luckily I had brought my Italy travel guide to the train station, for entertainment when the train was delayed for an hour, as well as being perfectly informed as to how to navigate Venice and catch up with the rest of our group in San Marco's Square.

I had agreed to room with another girl, Karen, who I had also met on the Rome trip, but we caught a snag and I ended up with Lauren and Julie.

Karen is amazing. She's an artistic person as well, studying Interior Design at Colorado State. We went on an epic walk (something like five hours) last Sunday across the Arno to the South of Florence and we had a great time climbing on things and taking far too many photos of rusting metal and other remarkably beautiful things. We're heading back to the Boboli Gardens sometime next week.

An incredible rusting gate in a lucky Italian's driveway.

We spent some time together in Venice with another group of roommates, Erika, Melanie, Rachel and Laura, with whom I might travel with to Barcelona, Spain next weekend, and who live just around the corner from me.

Me, Erika, Melanie, Rachel, Laura and Karen

Venice was truly incredible, like walking through a fairytale, especially with all of the people dressed up so elaborately for Carnival. It was incredibly, outrageously, overwhelmingly crowded, but it was never uncomfortable. The whole city was jovial, excited for all the visitors and a weekend of merriment (and debauchery, to be sure).

I spent most of the second day we were in Venice with a boy named Nemo and a girl, Muriel. I don't remember where they were from, but Muriel works at Walt Disney World as a fuzzy, one of the indoctrinated and ill-informed ones. (Was that harsh?) Anyway, we had a great time wondering through the mobs and around the city, taking outrageous photos and looking for interesting things to eat or art to buy.

In Florence I bought three outstanding little watercolor pieces from artists around the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery and I thought I'd add a piece from Venice to my collection so I paid €10 for a brown monochromatic piece of a couple gondolas on the Grand Canal. When I opened it up later in the day and looked closely at it, it was easy to tell that it was a photocopy that had been water colored over. Pretty disappointing, but I know not to make that mistake again. I've looked very closely at the pieces I purchased here in Florence, and they're all legitimate.

Tomorrow I head to Paris with my roommates for the weekend. I want to see The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Musée d'Orsay and still get in a day at Disneyland Paris. (Though I'd much rather Megan and Jeff (or Brett, Sean, Graeme, Sean, Brittany, Jess, Santi, Harry, Beck, Chel or Tommy) were joining me, which could be said for all of these solitary adventures...)

We'll see how it goes!