On the Road with Julie

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Well, I have spent a week sustaining myself on pizza and gelato and I feel fantastic. If I didn’t believe Italy had magic in it before, I did after I realized I lost three pounds this week. How is that possible?

Let’s not question good things.

Speaking of miracles, though those of SIGNIFICANTLY greater import and impact, I am writing this from the thick of a jam-packed crowd surrounding the Duomo in the center of Florence to celebrate Easter as only an Italian city can do. Being only 5 feet tall, all I can see are backs and butts and the glorious architecture of the Duomo stretching heavenward. But I can feel the reverence in the air and hear the celestial voices rising skyward in prayer. I am neither Catholic nor Christian nor religious in any way, but I have tremendous respect for faith and the value it brings to many lives and communities, so I am still reveling in the opportunity to be present for this remarkable gathering. For someone that is not religious, my timing on this trip so far seems to be pretty in sync with a catholic itinerary. I’ll be in both Florence AND Rome on Easter and I have already been in one procession in honor of a patron saint! And, if the camera that just swung by my spot in the crowd caught me waving along with the rest of the throngs of onlookers, it would be the second time on this trip that I would end up on catholic TV! I will consider it all a tribute to my catholic mother-in-law, whom I adore- for many reasons- not the least of which is the fantastic job she did raising the best man I know!

And, I may have just had one of the highlights of my week when I had an impromptu conversation in Italian with the caretaker of the massive and beautiful Florentine cows that were all dressed up for the occasion.

I was standing, gawking at these colossal and beautiful creatures chowing on their pre-game meal, getting ready for their grand entrance in the ceremony’s proceedings. This man, with a warm and weathered Italian smile, said something to me in the language of the land. I didn’t understand what he said. I was pretty sure he was either complimenting my boots or telling me to back the f×@# up as I gawked at the beasts under his charge. I stared with a face absent of comprehension. He repeated himself with a smile and a nod down towards my boots and I decided it was a happy nod and that I was safe where I stood. What motivation to keep studying – I can’t leave an un-understood compliment on the table!

“Mi dispiace.” I said. “Im sorry. Non capisco. Non parlo molto buono l’italiano.” “I don’t speak much Italian.”

He smiled and nodded in acceptance. I get the sense that he spends most of his time outside of this tourist-clogged streets of central Florence, but that once I said I didn’t understand, he remembered he was one of the parts of Italy where Italian was not necessarily the primary language being spoken by most of the people in sight. Over the course of my week in Florence, while walking the crowded streets in the center of town, I heard more English than Italian – by a long shot. Mixed in with German, French, Chinese, Japanese and every other language that the tourists that overflowed the sidewalks and visit-worthy sights were spouting.

“Va bene.” he assured me with another sincere smile. “Its okay.”

He saw me staring wild-eyed at the huge beasts behind him.

“Che bello!” I proclaimed – reinitiating contact and letting him know that, while I didn’t speak enough Italian to understand his prior comment, I still wanted to give it a shot.

“Si!” he agreed.

“E che grande!”, I continued. “Che sono?” “What are they?”

I had never seen animals like this. They looked kind of like bulls, but like bulls out of a science fiction novel where the animal life in a fictionally created world was out-sized and marvelous compared to what we know in our real world. But, there they were, standing at least 6 feet tall, maybe more and I would guess at least 7 or 8 feet long. These creatures were truly massive. And gorgeous.

“Vacche Fiorentine.” he said. “Sono le vacche da cui proviene la bistecca alla fiorentina.”

Okay, now I understand why Florentine steak is famous and why I missed out for not having tried any.

The conversation continued. He asked me how long I was here, if I was in Italy for work. He asked me if I had horses. I told him, no, I just love animals. He concurred that they are wonderful. I told him about my trip a little. I was just in heaven. What an amazing way to close up my first week in Italy! With an actual conversation with a real Italian. Not a teacher, not a fellow student, a real Italian conversation.

Che bello!

But, the beauty of my final morning in Florence wasn’t over yet. Being a good herder, he encouraged me to make my way up to join the crowds just ahead that were watching the festivities. I followed his prompts and landed myself shoulder to shoulder in the thick of the crowd. Not being able to see anything and realizing that the minutes available for writing my Florence post were ticking by, I decided to consider this the perfect writing spot – surrounded by the vibes, the sounds and the festive air. It is now a few hours later and I am now writing on the train en route to Rome. I stopped writing in the crowds when the climactic even of this yearly Florentine ritual was about to happen – the exploding of the cart. It was pretty special to be present to witness the ceremony smashed somewhere between shoulders and elbows on all sides.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I felt myself getting a little choked up when the daytime fireworks began. I may not be a believer in the technical sense, but I believe in believing and I am moved by anything that moves others. I felt the love and the passion and the meaning of the festivity in the place and that was enough for me! And maybe, it was the overwhelm of gratitude that matched the feeling of those fireworks climbing high towards the top of the stunning bell tower in front of me that seemed to encapsulate how lucky I feel to be getting to have all of these experiences. Every day is another pinch-me moment and I’m so grateful to be alive and getting to live this dream.

It was time, now, for the Florentine cows to make their ceremonial entrance with their beautiful headdresses. Every once in a while, they let out a marvelous “Moooo!” and the crowd laughed.

I was stuck behind the two tallest people I’ve seen in a while. I tried to just a look at their camera screens as they videoed the events. In this ridiculous sardine can of a moment, I found myself joking with the Americans standing right behind me. We ended up having a grand old conversation smushed between a couple hundred bodies – talking about life’s twists and turns, our travels, our dreams and what the future will hold. We exchanged contact information. I hope we stay in touch, not just because they were lovely humans, but because, what an awesome “how-we-met” story!

Yes, my final morning in Florence was a great cap to a wonderful week. A week filled with learning, savoring, experience, beauty and discovery of all kinds in the charming, potent and historic twists and turns of Florence. 

It’s definitely a town that can capture your heart. The whole town is a work of art.

Well, it will capture your heart as long as your heart can stand it doing so alongside the hearts of reams and reams of other tourists crawling in and out of every nook and cranny you find yourself in. The sidewalks in Florence are more like suggestions than rules. The tourists leak into the roads like water following the easiest pass through a textured landscape. The bicycles, motorcycles and cars all have to use various forms of intimidation and insistence to take back the space to move through the streets that are there for them. It was wonderful to be in the city center, but also a fairly constant tight squeeze where you are very aware of what you are. You are, like everyone else around you, a tourist. You are a tourist in a place that is built to cater for people just like you – people that have come to gawk and wonder at the romance and history and culture of this incredible place.

I was really grateful for the afternoon trip I took myself on to the outskirts of town to go for a hike to Mount Ceceri. I got a chance to get out of the culturally enriching amusement park that is the city center into places where I felt the relaxed authenticity of real Italian life. I also got a chance to get myself into the woods for a little breathing room and fresh air, and it was lovely – not to mention, historically pretty neat. Mount Ceceri is where, if the legend is true, Leonardo da Vinci tested one of his flying machines back in the 1500s. Regardless of what did or did not happen there, the views of Florence and the mountains around them were absolutely breathtaking and so energizing to get to experience outside of the enriching madness of the streets below. None of the pictures I took even came close to capturing what it looked like in person.

I was lucky that the airbnb I found was right in the center of it all that glorious madness in the city center. Even though it was nice to get out of it a time or two, it was also super fun to be right in and I quickly found myself feeling right at home. It’s wonderful being in a place where every turn you make, you feel surrounded by some kind of poetry in three-dimensional form. All of the buildings are an ode to something elevated.

And, of course, there is the food. You could have pizza, or pizza, or PIZZA! Of course, there were other things to eat, but I quite enjoyed being in a place where it was not uncommon to be looking at 5 different pizzerias right next to each other!

Of course, occasionally the pizzerias were separated by gelato shops, or trattorias. Regardless of what was there, you knew when you went inside, you were going to eat well. I ate pizza, pasta and gelato. Then, after that, I ate more pizza, pasta and gelato. You may be wondering how I managed these things, since these words are basically interchangeable with gluten, cheese and milk. I had thought, at first, that Italy might be the hardest place for me to find food to eat. It turned out to be just the opposite! Perhaps because their food is largely about gluten and dairy, they have needed to make gluten and dairy free options more available than places where you can just say to someone, well, order something else. I had some of the BEST gluten free pizza ever. There was a 100% gluten free restaurant 3 minutes from my front door. And, I found more than my fair share of vegan gelato, thank goodness! I must say. so far, nothing has come close to the vegan gelato I stumbled upon in Venice. I will surely be dreaming about it for years to come. But the gelato I did find more than sufficed. 

I spent the week in a lovely little attic apartment. It was nothing special, but it checked all the boxes and was a great homebase. Most importantly, it provided me with the ultimate luxury on a trip through Europe – a washer AND a dryer. Making my way around the world with only 2 small suitcases, laundry that can dry pretty quickly is absolutely key. When I was in my apartment, I could have been anywhere in the world. That just made it even cooler when I would descend the 6 flights of stairs and open the massive wooden grand door and find myself on the streets of Florence. The memory of that moment repeated each day, is another one of my highlights of the week. Being inside, pulling open that big grand door, and finding myself in the middle of this incredible Florentine world was like Dorothy opening the door of her black-and-white little house into the technicolor wonders of Munchkinland. It was a discovery every time.

Yes, I would say, for only being in Florence for a week, I did manage to make good of every minute I was there.

One of the great things about this trip is the people I meet. That includes the locals and also my fellow students. I am quite confident I’ve gathered up more than a few friends for life from around the world. My time in Florence followed suit! Our language class was made up of lovely folks from Germany, France, Poland, Amsterdam, Brasil and 3 Americans, including myself. I didn’t get a chance to know everyone, but I did grab a couple of keepers, as I call ’em – people you know you’ll keep in touch with even after the whirlwind is all passed.

I got a chance to have a conversation with a few Germans to do my best to keep my recently acquired German alive. I knew I was butchering the sentence order – but I was just happy that I know enough now to even be aware that I was butchering it! And, Renatta, the wonderful German I was speaking with gave me the best compliment I could receive. It will fuel me for weeks to come! While we were talking, she asked me, in German, where I was from. When I said I was American, her eyes went wide. “You don’t sound like an American!” she said to me in German. “Your pronunciation is great.” she said. Wow! Let me be clear, I am happy to BE an American, but, when I’m speaking another language, to me, the highest possible height I could reach is to not sound like one. I was over the moon to hear her say it.

One of my favorite parts of language study is the sounds. I just love the taste of them and the ring of them in my ears. So many different sounds. I have also found a new joy and comfort in the sounds of American English as well. I so enjoy all of the different languages, and the more I do, the more I appreciate the familiar sounds of home. When I’m learning and speaking another language, though, I do my best to stretch my American mouth around all of the different pronunciations that are not native to me. I find that to be one of the hardest parts of any language. The mouth is stubborn – it likes to make the shapes it knows. To will my own to twist into new shapes that are foreign to me, that is the ultimate goal. So, I was pretty happy about that. 

I got to speak a little bit of Russian with Andzrej, a Polish deputy working with the European Parliament there in class to brush up on his Italian to be able to speak with colleagues and friends from Italy.

I spent the majority of my week laughing with my new Swedish friend, Marie. We had at least one meal with each other every single day I was in Florence! Some people you just click with. The only downside is, this probably means I’ll need to go to Sweden someday (which sounds like a place I will absolutely love), which means I’ll feel compelled to start to study Swedish. Uh-oh. 

Then there was Hugo, the Frenchman from Montpelier and Salomè, the Québécoise. They became fast friends with each other like Marie and I had. On the last day of class, Marie, who also speaks French and I got chatting with Hugo and Salomé. Before you know it, we are all out to dinner and having the best time, talking, laughing and living it up, in French! It sounds like the beginning of a really good joke. What do you get when a Frenchman, a Québécoise, a Swede and an American walk into an Italian restaurant? Turns out – a really great time! Not much of a punchline, but a lovely experience to have. I was so relieved to find out that I can still speak French. With my French immersion now a full two months behind me, I was feeling worried that my comfort speaking the language had drifted away with my distance from it and my immersion into German. It was just the opposite. I found myself feeling more comfortable speaking French than I ever have before. This trip is working! It’s working! The immersions are definitely taking me to new levels I have only dreamed of!

Marie and I made our way mid-week to L’Accademia, the famous museum that is home to Michelangelo’s renowned opus, David. Wow is that a sight to behold. There are some famous pieces of art that, when you see them, you realize you are only appreciating them because they are famous and someone else told you, “This is good.”. Then there are those like the David. When you come around the corner and see it, it hits you all at once. Wow. 

Then, there were my piano lessons. One of the reasons I chose Scuola Leonardo da Vinci as my Italian language school was that they offered the option to learn Italian through music study. Yes please! For my first three days of class in Florence, after morning classes with our lovely Italian teacher, Cristina, I also had piano lessons at Il Trillo, a music school just a few minutes walk away. My lessons were such a joy. I already mentioned in another post, the linguistic joys of my lessons. But there were musical joys to be had too! When I took piano in Austria, my piano teacher taught me so much about technique and fundamentals. We learned lots of practice exercises that will help me build a base as a piano player. And I loved it. BUT, I did come out of it hungry to just spend some time playing songs. And that’s exactly what my classes with my teacher, Matteo, were made of in Italy! It was the perfect balance. We did 5 hours worth of lessons in the 3 days, and we spent all of them just playing music – rags, Mozart, Bach. One of my favorite exercises was playing four handed pieces where my teacher and I would play together. It was actually really difficult only because both of my hands were in the treble clef and I am so used to thinking in terms of my left hand being the bass clef and my right hand being the treble clef. But, I got through it! It was a blast and my teacher was so encouraging of my continued piano education – which meant a lot to me. 

After a wonderful week in the city center, I decided to take my last full day in Florence to venture out to the coast. I signed up for a tour with Get My Guide to tour the Cinque Terre. I saw on the description the words “Hike”, “Boatride” and “Swim in the Sea”. That was all a “heck, yes!” for me. The water was cold, but I was dead set on getting in it. And I was so psyched that when I mentioned the trip to Marie, she got herself a ticket too! We could not have had a more beautiful day, and the colors of the Italian coast under a smiling sun are burned into my brain forever.

For all that I managed to stuff into my time in Florence, one of the highlights of my week was one afternoon, after language classes and piano classes were done, I opted against fitting in another visit or sight. I found a bench in the Piazza Santa Croce and I just sat. It was a gorgeous sunny day – and I just sat and soaked it up. I breathed. I watched. I reveled. I sat. I let the hours tick by while I just steeped in the moment, soaking in the feeling of gratitude for the tremendous fortune to be able to be having this experience.

That’s what it’s all about – after all. At least, to me. Life is short. If you have the good fortune to be able to savor it and revel in the sunshine every once in a while, I think it is well worth doing.

And, Italy is good for that. Savoring the beauty and the pleasures of being alive is a value that drips from the treetops and rooftops of every square inch of Italy – at least the square inches that I’ve gotten a chance to see. And I’m feeling pretty grateful that I got a chance to partake.

Next stop – where all roads lead. Rome, here I come! Caio, Firenze. Il piacere è statto tutto mio!