Dreams stay dreams

This entry has been revised multiple times. I started writing this when I came back to Seattle, but life really had a handle on me these past two years. I have finally completed my Bachelors through WSU and now I will be going after my Masters; I've watched friends and family weave in and out, and my father fight for his life. Life is onneee heck of a ride! But the last day of my Italian adventure is one that I will never forget, I still remember that day like it was yesterday. 

Our last night in Sardegna we made a home cooked meal, it was one of our best:

(Chicken fried steak, salad with mozzarella and bits of prosciutto, deep friend eggplant, peppers and onions, and of course bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, droool)

We called Alessandro for one more beach adventure. We went to the beach that Alessandro called "Picture Perfect"- I beg to differ though. I think this was my least favorite beach. It reminded me a lot of the beaches in the PNW. There were a ton of rocks and seaweed in the water where you could barely walk, although the water was still crystal clear. 

 [Our umbrellas are the green ones, Danielle is on the left :)]

Danielle and Alessandro

 Alessandro and myself

It was so hard to focus that morning, I was trying to start a new book but I was just in disbelief I was leaving paradise; let alone Italy. The emotions were running full sail. As we were in the car driving back Alessandro played Jack Johnson and I remember driving along the coast in awe- I’ll never forget what I was feeling at that moment.

When we got to the guest house there were three new girls waiting in the living room, they were from Houston, Texas that were studying abroad in Germany. Apparently the people who ran the guest house overbooked them. Danielle and I were waiting on a taxi to take us to the airport and we watched as they tried to shove the girls and their luggage in a smart car, it created quite the ruckus. Our taxi never came so the man who owned the guest house drove us. This was a ride that I will never forget. He didn't know a lick of English and he was definitely the epitome of a gay Italian man. He drove a bright yellow bug and was swaying in and out of the lanes. When we would hit traffic he would yell in Italian and we had no idea what he was saying.  During the whole car ride there was crazy, circus, Italian music playing; it was outrageous. I was thrilled while this was happening, meanwhile Danielle was having a near panic attack. Another moment I will never forget..

The flight took forever but we finally made it back to Pisa and caught the bus. The drive reminded me of home, driving on I-90 back to the West side. The roads and hills looked all so familiar. The sun had started to set and there were sunflowers everywhere.

Once we got back to Florence, we walked back to Ganzo where we stored our luggage. Luckily, we got back in time right as the soccer game was coming to an end and Ganzo was closing. They handed us a glass of Prosecco (I miss all that free Prosecco) and let us relax a bit before we took off to a hotel.

The one on the left was taken the first day we arrived in Italy, and the right side is our last night. We stored our luggage in this phone booth inside the hotel with the creepy old man that loved Danielle and I so much, I remember he kept on trying to kiss us, yuck!  We then roamed around Florence one last time. We went to our number one restaurant where our favorite server, Laapo gave us our last Italian meal.

 (Danielle, Laapo and I)

After dinner we walked around Florence. It was crazy to realize that everyone in our group wasn't in Florence with us anymore and it was just us two there. It had a whole different feeling to it; I actually felt like a tourist and was in a deep depression that I was leaving. Of course I visited my main gelato man Roberto! Had to get one last scoop of gelato, boy do I miss Bob :(

He loved me :)

As it began to get later in the night, Danielle and I headed back to our hotel. I'm still in awe to remember the first day/night in town in Florence compared to the last. We were extremely lost trying to find our way to the Outside Bistrot to meet Chef and everyone for dinner. It took us forever to find it. Comparing that to our last night, we knew Florence like the back of our hand.

Galileo's Museum 

Down the walkway on the left side of the Ponte Vecchio 

Duomo

Duomo

Italy seems like such a daze now. I cannot believe that it has been over two years since I lived there. It literally feels like a dream. In my life, dreams seem to stay dreams. You dream it up, you make it happen and if you are not continuously living that dream every day, it goes back into the dream category where you are wishing you could go back. There is nothing that compares to the richness of traveling and exploitation of the diversity in cultures that we don’t come across in our daily routine. I have paid a large penny for all my travels and believe that there is not one car, no pair of shoes, or house that compares to what I have received out every experience.

In the past two years since Italy, I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in the US but none overseas. Visited family in Texas, visited LA a few times, helped move a friend to Arizona, and this past Labor Day weekend I visited an old colleague in DC- first time on the East Coast and definitely not the last! It has been a full plate for me but I always manage to fit traveling in. I have a few trips under my belt these next couple months, hopefully I can make time in between travels to share more of my experiences. Until next time, Ciao Ciao!

The sun goes down . . .

Another day at the beach. This time Alessandro took us to his very own "private beach".

Alessandro is quite the character. I want to say he's in his mid-30's, he has a wife and a blonde baby girl (his wife is French and blonde as well) Supposedly he was very happy when we called the first day; he has never had American's on his beach tours. We've learned that he's a strong swimmer and is in love with the ocean and absolutely adores Jack Johnson.

Today was another relaxing day on the beach. It's crazy how much you can take in when you're sitting on a beach just starring out at an open sea with nothing to look at but pure blue. It felt like a dream and it still does. The pictures I take do not do justice. This whole trip to Italy feels like it's been a dream. As I sat out on the beach I watched Alessandro in awe; he treats Danielle and I like princesses going out of his way to make sure that we're comfortable and have everything we need. He says we are stubborn because we're always trying to help him carry things to and from the car, it's funny... "we're not like Italian women" he claims. As we arrived to the beach he went on a mission to pick up all the garbage along the shore and swept away all the seaweed plants on the beach.. It was a little odd. After that he just dove into the ocean like it was a big pool. I admire how majority Italians have done this. I'm quite scared of the ocean and could never just dive in and swim to the deep blue part of the sea. I envy Alessandro and his ease into everything, almost like he doesn't have a care in the world besides Italy winning their soccer games.


Anyway, that completes our last full day in Sardegna. We made a nice family dinner and watched "Under the Tuscan sun". Cheesiest movie with horrible acting, but as we were watching we kept recognizing places we've been. For example once she steps off the tour bus, the main character arrives in front of the Duomo and it was in that moment I realized how much I am going to truly, miss Florence. As much as I hated that two mile walk to school, the heat, the sweat, the tourists, the hustle of businesses... I am sad that I won't be waking up to that. I am not anticipating getting off the plane and becoming a blubbery mess realizing I'm home. But I've missed home oh so much as well.. This Thursday is going to be heavy with emotions.

On a happier note, here's a picture of the sunset from last night (Monday):

 and here's some pictures of the beach I took today and a happy Italian song that I've learned to love :)

Our plan for tomorrow is to go to one last beach, the beach Americans call "The Painted Beach". It is gorgeous from the cliffs that we’ve driven on.  I don't think I'll be enjoying the water as much though because our flight leaves at 6:40 pm back to Pisa. Then we have to catch the Terrevision bus back to Florence which is an hour drive. We left our luggage at our internship we’ll catch a cab straight there and collect it and theeen.. well we don't really know. We're thinking about going out to eat somewhere close, have one last meal in Florece, the airport doesn't open until 5AM and our flight doesn't leave until 7:20 AM. sooo we're thinking about staying at a local bar/caffe until 2am and then catching a cab to camp out at the airport until it opens. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. Another night and another day in paradise, time to climb into bed.. Until I step foot on America... Ciao Ciao!

On an island in my bed . . .

Yes in my bed :( I woke up this morning in so much pain & agony. I believe the sun had drained all the energy out of me and the fact that I forgot to drink water yesterday added onto the Italy Vs England game at a local bar... learned my lesson, always hydrate! Anyway, spent the day inside today which kind of sucked but it was nice to give my skin a nice break from the warm Italian sun. And I didn't mind sleeping all day, felt really good and refreshed when I woke up.

This morning we had to switch from our guesthouse (due to an insect infestation) down the street to a local apartment which we consider an upgrade. 

Guesthouse:

New apartment: 

Since I have time on my hands from being sick I can give you an inside on our day trip to Parma and Modena (if I can remember)

I'm not quite sure what we did that Friday during the day but I do remember that Chef told us not to go out because of the drive to Parma... little did some of us listen. Our struggle bus took us to Parmiggiano Reggiano factory, (not as big as I imagined) in Parma, Italy. We had to wear plastic on our heads, a poncho over our clothes, plastic on our shoes and masks, pretty intense.

And that's how they make the famous Parmesan cheese! Next we went over to the families museum where we had a tasting of the cheese.

(Kari, Brynn and I .. it was bright)

(A mistress's castle built from a king)

Our next stop was the Parma known for their prosciutto.We met Stefano Fanti, a very well-known and he gave us a tour of how prosciutto is made in his factory

Most of the group, ready for the photo op! The two oldest people in this group picture are Alumnis. I thought this was really cool because I didn't know that WSU offers a study abroad program for Alumni to partake; I will definitely look into that once I'm graduated. 

(The mistress's castle is now a bed and breakfast)

Danielle and I. 

I don't remember the specific details that he told us. He has rooms on rooms on rooms filled with pig thighs. They hang there for months on end (I believe) and he does a stick test to see if the smell is perfect or something along those lines. The rooms smelt horrid of raw meat sitting there, the stench became unbearable. After the tour, his crew and himself set up a lunch for us with red wine, prosciutto of course, cheese and penne pasta. Stefano is a very busy man, he helped with serving our meal as well helping out his crew, he is very devoted.   

Our next stop was the town of Modena! Home of the balsamic vinegar: 

Our tour guide for this tour didn't show us exactly how it was made but led us to an attic where they store multiple barrels of balsamic vinegar to age that her family produces. It was a small attic but there was tons of barrels, maybe 100. The oldest barrel they had was from the 1800s. We had a tasting outside in their backyard of multiple, different balsamic vinegar. I bought 2 of them. I shipped them home a week ago and they made it safely to my house along with a extra dry virgin olive oil. I cannot wait to come home and start cooking all the things I've learned here.  

After Modena, we left and went back to Florence. I went out with the guys and we met some girls from Florida. There were about five of them that were extremely nice and tons of fun. The next day a few of us found a local flee-market that only happens on the last Sunday of every month. It has a bunch of knick-knacks and random gadgets that the local Florentines were selling. Here are a few shots of the market I took:

After the market we found some sort of festival which reminded me of the Puyallup fair-minus all the rides.

And that was Parma weekend... I finished this blog pretty late. Not sure if blogging is for me but it helps to keep track of the days and look back what I have done here in Italy. I cannot believe I have 2 full days left. It feels like just yesterday I was being followed by some creeper in Amsterdam. This was definitely the best decision of my life and I think everyone should live abroad at some point in theirs. Never get comfortable in your environment and learn how to live in a complete stranger’s shoes is truly gratifying.  Looking back, five years ago or even two, I never saw myself living in Italy or even thought about visiting Italy. I have learned so much and gained so much respect not only for Italians but for America and WSU too. This has been a life changing experience. I must go to bed; Alessandro is picking us up bright in early for our new adventures tomorrow! Ciao Ciao!