Fall Break

Mom and Sarah came to visit me for my fall break, but it wasn't easy for them to get here. As soon as they got in, we went to my home at Rosanna's where she had dinner waiting for us. I'm glad Mom got to taste what every meal is like for me, so now she can a) stop worrying about me being well-fed and b) be extremely jealous. We headed to our hotel via taxi around 10 p.m., and upon arriving the man at the front desk informed us that "there was a problem with the bathroom in your room so we booked you at another hotel." We walked the five blocks to that hotel, handled all the passport-exchanging business, settled into our room and then went to sleep. I was feeling consciously stressed out about trying to entertain Mom and Sarah, not having a hotel for that night, not knowing what our travel plans were--essentially, a general sense of not-knowing what was going on. Although I was feeling stressed, I knew at the same time that the experiences we were going to have trying to find hotels and deciding where to travel would help me learn to be more relaxed. And they did.

We left Florence for Como and Belaggio, via train to Milan. There we basically drank wine, enjoyed the view and talked to an Australian couple sitting next to us. Dinner that night was awful. I had lumps of fatty beef in melted hard cheese. We spent the night in the hotel and woke pu the next morning to head to Venice.

Venice is truly magical. Everyone knows they have water instead of roads, but you can't appreciate how different and almost bizarre it is until you see it for yourself. We spent an evening sitting in St. Mark's square, enjoying cocktails at the first cafe to serve coffee in Italy, listening to the competeing orchestras and watching people dance romantically in the square. That night we had dinner on the water, and it besides the waiter trying to convince Mom that the 12% service charge was in fact a "food tax", it was a lovely evening. The next morning started off with me realizing I left my medication in the hotel in Como, so we spent a few hours calling around to see how I could get it back. Once they guaranteed that they could mail it to our hotel inFlorence, I was relieved and able to appreciate being in Venice again.

The hotel clerk told us we got a free boat ride to Murano, where the infamous Murano glass is made. The boat would pick us up right at the hotel and take us down the Grand Canal, giving us on a tour of Murano and explaining how the glass is made. Well, the boat did pick us up. And it did take us to Murano. But once we were there, we were shuffled through 8 different show rooms where an older man explained to us the prices and value of items for sale. I certainly couldn't afford a 110 Euro pair of earrings, so we snuck out behind their scowls and eventually found our way to the boat that would take us back to Venice, a ride that took at least 45 minutes. When we went to visit "Doge's Palace", we discovered it was closed because the survellience team was on strike. After these bad experiences, however, we did find a nice older man who sold hand-made Murano glass items and had a lovely chat with him about America and democracy and many other important things.

From Venice, we returned to Florence to stay in a great hotel near the Arno where we were served a breakfast buffet and the staff was extra-accomodating. The rest of our vacation consisted of leisurely mornings in our hotel, day trips to places near Florence like Siena, Assisi and Greve, and relaxing evenings at restaurants in Florence. It was all slow-paced and enjoyable; exactly what I needed.

Recounting everything that happened in our ten days together would take more than one post, and I am much too lazy to devote that much time. I will say it was a much-needed break, and especially much-needed time with family and best friend. I've been having a hard time with some personal issues here, and getting to talk to them and think out loud made all the difference in my outlook for the next month and a half. Even though I was sad that they left, the next day I felt energized and excited about being here.