***Warning: This is a long post, I had a lot to say **
Sitting on the train to Rome right now, and I honestly cannot believe that for the past 105 days, I Have been living in Italy. Not just visiting, but living. This experience has been like nothing else, and though I plan to travel again, nothing will ever be the same as this. One of our professors told us that even if we came back to Macerata as a group, it would not be the same, because we wouldn’t greet Macerata with the same eyes as our first moments (and months) here. This experience changed all of us, even the people who had studied abroad before. In many ways, I have refined who I am, and what I want out of life, but sometimes I feel like I have no idea how to process everything that I have taken in.
My last week in Macerata flew by. Monday we had the last of our classes, and Tuesday I had 2 final exams. Tuesday night, I went over to Giulia’s apartment and we baked a Sachretorte, which is a delicious chocolate cake with a marmalade filling. While we were baking, I helped her decorate the Christmas tree and we listened to Christmas music and opera music. It was like the best girl’s night ever, especially when the cake was finally done and we got to eat it. Wednesday, I made my last rounds around the Macerata market, and I walked through the entire thing. I had my last final for music history on Thursday, so I did my best to do some studying, but cleaning the apartment, walking around town with Lisa, and beginning to pack seemed like such better options. That night, there was a concert at the same small concert hall that I went to before. It was a piano concert, with Chopin, Debussy, and others, and it was lovely. There were several of us AHA American kids there, and we decided to get front row seats. From my seat I could see the hammers reflected in the deep black cover of the piano, which was quite cool. There was an older Italian man who was also sitting in the front row, the only Italian there, and he was talking to one of us. He said that we all had very particular eyes, not necessarily that they were prettier than others, but they were so open and curious, and he felt that he didn’t see that in the eyes of European kids.
After the concert, we started out towards Maga Cacao… but they were quite busy and we had eight people, so we headed to Pathos instead. We hung out there for a while, I got tiramisu (trying to soak that up while I can) and then headed home, since I a handful of us had our last exam the next day. I felt ok going out to the concert since my last exam was Music History, so I felt that going to such a musical performance would actually be studying in some way…
So Thursday, I took that last exam and really started working on packing and cleaning. Thursday night was our farewell dinner, at the Trattoria da Ezio, where we had our welcome dinner back in September. Before dinner, Erin, Carlye and I started playing dress up, thoroughly discussing the pros and cons of particular accessories, and helping each other with make up and such things. Then we set the timer on my camera and took some family photos. While we were in the process of taking pictures, our bell rang and it was Chelsea, who came up and took a few photos for us, and then a few with us, before we had to run out the door and down the street to dinner. Dinner, was of course just as delicious as we had hoped and imagined. Hand made pasta, grilled chicken, the best eggplant on the planet, roasted potatoes, and a red spumante. There was also pannetone for dessert, which is a cake that is traditionally prepared in Italy around Christmas. They are narrow and quite tall, and you can buy them everywhere starting right around December 1. At dinner, a few people gave little speeches, and there were lots of tears, but also plenty of laughs and hugs to go with them. Marc and Gina did a wonderful little awards ceremony, and everyone got an award and a small memento. Erin, Lisa and I got awards for being Sweet and Quiet (proof that I do know how to behave at least sometimes if the professors think I am quiet…) But my little memento is a small notebook with butterflies on it, because Gina knows that I never leave the house without one, since I am almost always wearing my high school class ring with butterflies on one side and dancers on the other) Filiberto and Angelica gave us a bottle of olive oil. Filiberto owns an olive grove, and traditionally fall students get to go pick olives there, but this year the weather did not agree with our schedule (prime time happened during our 10 day break. But the label says “Olio Nostro” which means “Our Oil” and I plan to only use it for something very special… and save the bottle forever.
After dinner, lots of the students went out to all the favorite haunts from the semester, one last final hurrah. The teacher of the beginning Italian class, joined us for the first couple stops, and some of the first tearful goodbyes happened when she left.
Friday, I spent much of the day packing and cleaning, but met up with some friends and hung out for a while too. Friday night, I made dinner with Lisa and Chelsea, and then met up with Giulia to se her before I left. We got gelato and chatted about life, I am going to miss that girl, but I will see her again someday, I just know it. Perhaps when she comes to visit…
After hanging out with Giulia, it was time for a midnight trip to Maga Cacao. They close at 2 AM, and I have gone there and left at midnight before but never arrived at midnight. So, Lisa, Erin and I went and got some awesome hot chocolates to top off our trip. I got a dark chocolate with fresh pineapple pieces, and it was fantastic.
Have finally made it to Gate G-12… as far as where I am sitting goes. Can’t wait to tell you about the process of getting here. But that will be a few minutes, so Read On McDuff! (My apologies for any oddities in the following half of the entry… In the past 24 hours I have had 4.5 hours of sleep in a real bed, a few on a train, and a couple naps in an airport café, head on table style)
So after returning from Maga Cacao, Erin gave me a little Christmas gift, a pair of super cute earrings, and a very small owl figurine, but not just any owl figurine, an owl figurine that is a representation of my future self, because it is playing accordion. His name is Marco Rossi, and he is adorable.
It was also particularly windy that night, and the wind was “wuthering” according to Erin, mostly because there are too few opportunities to use that lovely word, but viciously howling, menacing and powerful, is more how I felt about it… but maybe that is just me. It pulled one of our shutters that was secured in its open position out, so it was swinging free, and banging into things…. So Erin and I had to open the window and try to secure it in its closed position, which was quite an adventure, for sure. But we were successful, and no other shudders blew open that night, and our neighborlady who has a multitude of plats that are perched rather precariously outside her window didn’t lose any! But, Erin and I stayed up until 3:30 talking and listening to the wind, and I woke up around 8 to finish cleaning and packing on Saturday. Which I did manage to successfully do. So then Lisa, Chelsea and I walked around the Saturday Market, and Lisa bought herself a beautiful of leather wing tip heels. Then, we helped Chelea haul her three very, very large, very, very full bags down to the train station, since it is only a couple blocks for her. There there were several students taking that train to Rome, including Erin and Carlye, and so there were lots of hugs as AHA kids overtook the train platform. Many of the kids on the train had people there to help them carry their bags… and one of the helpers got on the train with the bag she was carrying, and did not hop off in time, and the train left…. I still don’t know quite how she handled that one, but Lisa, Matty and I could see her face when the train started to move, and I have to say it was rather priceless.
Another brief interjection, I just witnessed a lovely moment sitting here at Gate 12. Somethings Nevere change no matter what your language barriers are, and a couple of airline workers were trying to communicate to a handicapped woman and her 10 year old granddaughter that her suitcase was too big for the overhead bin and would have to be stowed. The woman did not speak Italian or English, and the airline employee was simply repeating “Big. Grande.” And this was going nowhere, and then a woman also sitting near me says, “Excuse me, I speak Arabic” (which would be the language I was hearing that I could not place) and proceeds to translate for them. I love it when we can all help each other out.
After dropping Chelsea off, Lisa and I went to try a new restaurant, one that I have always kind of wanted to try, but was afraid it was too expensive. It is tucked up next to the wall, with a gated courtyard in front of it. To get to it, you have to walk under a big arch (and currently scaffolding for restoration work) and through the “courtyard,” I use the “ ------“ because there is not any vegetation in this courtyard just a large empty area surrounded by walls, but no roof.
Lunch was incredible. We walked in and there was a group of people standing around chatting in the middle of the restaurant, never sure whether we should seat ourselves or not, we just stood awkwardly until someone took notice of us, which is usually an effective technique. I swear Italians are born with this innate sense of what to do and where to go, and what everything means, not something that I have been able to pick up in my 3.5 months. We soon figured out that we were the only people in the restaurant that were not regulars, which is perhaps why the members of the crowd laughed and lit up when they saw us, they dispersed and made way for us to pick a table. A short while later, the woman in charge arrived, and she listed off the options of the day. This is always a good sign. There is no written menu, only what she felt like making today. We both opted for a ravioli with spinach and speck, and oh my lanta was that a good choice. It came in this sauce that was like a buttery gravy, there really is no way to describe it, but it was so terribly delicious, we both sopped it up ith the remainder of the bread basket. Then the woman returned to offer us an out of this world delicious, freshmade this morning tiramisu (and that is how she described it by the way) And of course how could you resist such an offer?
The saga continues now with another change in my writing venue. Now seated on my final plane, on the tarmac in Atlanta. We are delayed about 15 minutes…. And so were given perminssion to use our electronic devices again for a bit.
Anyway, Lunch was hands down one of my best meals in Italy, which is great because it was also my last for a while. I ate dinner at the airport, but I don’t consider airports to be part of the city or state/country thy are in, because having been to LAZ, I do not claim that I have visited the state of California. The airport is a separate entity entirely.
After lunch, I finished up packing, and did the last of the dishes, took the trash out, and said a rather tearful goodbye to my apartment. Then I took my stuff downstairs and waited for my taxi, which AHA had helped me to schedule since I no longer had an Italian phone. Well, Enrico. Our usual driver was busy, so he had a friend come pick me up, but it was a little chaotic, and there were a couple miscommunications, but when I was literally one minute from walking into Maga Cacao and begging them to drive me to the station, the driver and I found each other. And so Lisa and I began our journey to HOME.
We left macerata a little after 5 PM (just after 11 AM Michigan time) on Saturday, under the cover of darkness, which is exactly how I entered Macerata many moons ago. We then took the train to Fabriano, and then on to Rome, we accidentally sati n a first class car, but it was empty so we were hoping the conductor would let us slide, she didn’t. She told us we could sit anywhere but where we were… so we carted our 6 bags into the next car over….. Then we got to Termini with about 25 minutes before the last airport shuttle left. We quick grabbed tickets, and then booked it from platform 1 (thankfully not 1 East) to platform 24. Before getting on an Italian train, you have to validate your ticket. There are little yellow boxes along the platform that will stamp your ticket for you. We tried 3 or 4 different ones, and none of them seemed to be working… so the conductor came, noticed instantly that we were American, and reminded us to do that everytime, but we told him the machines didn’t work, and he let us go on that one, which was great because I was still a little scared that we would have gotten the wonderful 100 euro fee for screwing up.
So we made it to the airport a little before midnight (6PM Saturday in Michigan), after some wandering about, we found an area with an open café, and lots of other people camped out, near terminal three where Lisa’s flight would beleaving from in the morning. Mine was leaving from Terminal 5, but almost 2 hours after hers, so I would have plenty of time to get there after she checked in. We ended up taking over a table at the little 24 hour café. There was a woman sitting at the otherside, but she didn’t have any food or drinks, she was just using the table. So we took over the other half. I said “Buona Sera” to here, which means good evening, and then we ended up talking to her for most of the night. She’s married, lives down south in Calabria, has a 27 year old son, and is some how of Russian decent. I did not fully understand what she was telling me there, but I got that she had been living in Italy for about 12 years. The night went by much faster than I thought it would and before we knew it, it was time to check Lisa in. She got her bag checked and such, and then we found out that my terminal wouldn’t even be open for another hour. Things seemed to be moving at a fairly easy pace around the airport at that hour, so we sat and people watched for a while, playing “spot the American” (which is no longer a fun game, considering I am surrounded by them)
Then I headed off to terminal 5. Now way back in the day, my flight left from Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 5, and I was told be a reliable source that this was a desolate wasteland of airport terminals, lacking amenities common in other locales. It is Hilton compared to Rome’s Terminal 5. First I took a shuttle bus to the middle of nowhere, and it left us in a warehouse with some benches and “desks” that looks more like airline themed circus booths that would just collapse if you looked at them funny. From there, we started to check in, and then went to check our baggage, and got to take another shuttle to the actual terminal. This whole process was so odd to my very tired brain that I do not even know how much my suitcase weighed in at… Then we got to the actual gates, and there were all sorts of duty free type places (bought myself some kinder bars) but the layout was circular, and I felt like we were in some sort of space module. That is also where I witnessed the lovely little human interaction I mentioned earlier.
While waiting to board I bumped into two girls from my program, Beth and Kasey Harris, who were also on my flight, but we didn’t sit by each other. I got on the plane at 9:40 AM (3:40 AM Michigan time) When I checked in that morning, I was given the choice between window and aisle seats, and I chose an aisle, because I wanted to be able to get up easily and we were going to be over the ocean most of the time. I got my aisle seat, but there was no one directly next to me, so the guy next to me and I shared the middle seat as kind of a storage area on our 11 hour and 40 minutes flight. That’s a long time to be in a plane my friends. I took a couple Nyquil when I got one, and I did sleep a lot, which is probably why I am not completely toasted right now. There is a little part of me that knows that I am (and should be) exhausted, but 95% of me is just sooo excited to be home and see everyone for the first time in 3.5 months.
When we landed in Atlanta, I turned my phone on, and it worked, and I was so happy. I am making sure that we now get our money’s worth out of the December texting portion of the cell phone bill…because you hate to pay for something you never use.
But then, there was a small issue that I had to get through customs in Atlanta and on another flight in 1 hour and 55 minutes from the moment we landed. But I did it! I kind of cut in line every time I would turn a corner in a cattle coral … and smiled sweetly for the Homeland security Agents, because I was legitimately happy to be walking on carpeted American soil. No carpet in Italy, like anywhere. I also was the luckiest human being alive at the baggage claim for customs. As I was walking up to the belt, my bag was just coming around the first curve like it was waiting for me. It was beautiful. While I was standing at my gate waiting to board my last flight, I was just so full of happy bubbly energy, I really wanted to just give someone a hug, but even if Americans are more open, I somehow feel as though that would not have gone over well. Our last plane apparently has an engine that sounds like a barking dog while on the ground, and our pilot took a moment before we got rolling to warn us about this fact. It was quite odd indeed.
Been an amazing first 24 hours. I have seen Mom, Dad, Alex, Heidi, Morgan, Grandma Cheadle, and Syd, and also talked to Marissa and Tanis, and Grandpa and Grandma De Young. Home is beautiful.
One or two more blog posts still to come about my overall experience!
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