Goodbye, Lyon

After almost five months in France, it's finally begun to feel familiar. Not until recently have I felt that when I'm away from Lyon, going back is like going "home." It's like when you first go to college and after a while, you realize that you feel more at home at school than you do in the place you've spent most of your life. I'm so incredibly excited to see my friends and family, but I know I'm leaving a wonderful family and friends here; a home I've created for myself. I'm not sure what I'll feel when I'm back in the US, but the words "reverse culture shock" do come to mind. However, I know that no matter what, I'll always been incredibly grateful for an experience that's taught me more than I could imagine. I've gained so much confidence in myself and my abilities to cope on my own, and to handle any situation. I feel like after coming to a foreign country completely alone and being okay, I'm really capable of anything. And not only am I okay, I have had the best semester of my life. I have absolutely zero regrets. From now on, my primary goal is to figure out how I'm going to get back to this ridiculous, wonderful place.

Florence, Italy

Florence is one of the most lovely towns I've visited yet. I got to see some incredible art (Botticelli, Michelangelo, etc) and taste some delicious REAL Italian pizza. 

Ponte Vecchio

Margherita pizza from a local joint

Ahh, Florence

Fl

Ciao Roma!

The Roman Forum

The Coliseum! And a random guy. Nice shot. 

My classes are finished, and now is the time when students usually embark upon a month-long traveling spree throughout Europe. As someone who has a tendency to be a homebody, I was somewhat overwhelmed by this concept and decided to limit my travels to Italy and the South of France, and ending up in Paris, where I’ll be flying out of. I really didn’t feel the need to have a frantic European tour like many of my classmates, as I’ve visited a lot of places this semester already, and don’t like traveling in a constrained time frame. As a result, this is my fourth day in Rome and I’m currently sitting in my hostel, writing this blog. Don’t worry, it’s 5:30 in the evening, and it’s raining outside.

            My first day, I wandered around a lot, trying to get a feel of the city. Rome is large, but doesn’t have the same somewhat stressful feel as other big European cities like Paris. It’s quite relaxed. Italians are also very friendly. They’re perhaps a bit too friendly, for those of them of the male persuasion. Yesterday some 15 year-old boy tried to kiss me on the street. It’s fine.

                        The second day, having met up with friends, I braved the crowds at the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican wasn’t that great, all the decoration and renaissance art gets old after about five minutes, but obviously I had to see the Sistine Chapel.  The Chapel is swarming with people who are all talking and taking pictures (both not allowed), which pretty much ruined the atmosphere, but it was still super cool to see the famous “Last Judgment.” Fun fact: After Michelangelo’s death, the church objected to the amount of nudity in the chapel, and planned to paint over it completely. Luckily, one of his students volunteered to paint clothes on top of all the naked people. Today, most of the clothes have been removed once more, but you can still see some strangely placed leaves and garments on a few of the paintings.

            After utter exhaustion from the previous day, on day three, our strength was flagging. But we still had the Pantheon, Coliseum, and the Roman Forum to go, so we sucked it up and started with the Roman Forum (after wandering around trying to find the entrance for two hours.) It cost 12 euros to go in, but with this admission we also got admission to the Coliseum, so it was okay. However, it was not okay when I lost my ticket and couldn’t get into the Coliseum. That was not okay at all. Instead, I wandered around the Palentine Hill, which was actually really, REALLY cool, and probably my favorite part of the trip. My friends had gone into the Coliseum, so I was completely alone, and it was actually nice to wander around the gorgeous gardens placed along the ruins at my own pace, smelling all the nice smells and seeing all the nice ruins. I stumbled upon many alcoves and tunnels, and little caves that had once been rooms. It’s so mind-blowing to think that these rocks have been there for thousands of years. Those Romans knew what they were doing. It definitely takes some imagination, however, to try and think about what you see now as what was once a temple, or a house. This is probably why the Coliseum is so famous. It’s obvious what it was, even though it’s partially destroyed, but I can definitely imagine what went on inside and around the structure. After the Coliseum, we were completely spent, and took a bus back to our hostel. Today, I wandered around some more to the Spanish Stairs and Piazza Espana, and then to this park by the Coliseum. I have an early train tomorrow though, so I think I’m gonna call it a night once I make myself some pasta in our hostel kitchen. 

Mixed Dorm

Ahh, hostels: The true student-traveler experience. I spent two nights in Hostel Allessandro, a very nice hostel nearby the train station. It was clean, the staff was friendly, and there was free wifi in the rooms. There was even a bar downstairs. What more could I need? However, my very first night in the mixed 8-bed dorm turned out to be quite disastrous.

            I was alone when I checked in, but could see that there were people staying in my room with me. When I got back around 11:30 that night, everyone was sleeping and it was pitch-black, so I met none of the people I’d be sharing the room with. I didn’t know if they were girls or boys, though due to the snoring I was hearing around me, I assumed they were all large, middle-aged men with sleep apnea. With the smell coming from the one next to me, I assumed they were all large, middle-aged men with sleep apnea who hadn’t showered in a while. It was all very stressful. That and the noise from a drunk American girl outside (“NO… I BELIEVE IN GOD, OKAY?”) kept me awake for a while. After a while, I finally fell asleep, only to be awoken by someone’s phone at around 4 am. This someone didn’t answer, clearly dead to the world. Praying it was just a call and not an alarm, I went back to sleep.

            The phone went off again a short while later. And again. And AGAIN. I was starting to worry no one else in the room could hear it, as nobody seemed to be awake, including the person who’s phone it was. On the ninth ring (I was counting) what turned out to be a girl on the top bunk across the room jumped down and attempted to rise the sleeping person. “Hey! Your phone is ringing!” The sleeping person turned off the noise and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Several people (all Americans, two girls and one boy) said things like, “That’s gone off a million times.” And “Thank God.” However, we had spoken too soon, when the alarm went off a tenth time several minutes later. I took initiative this time, clapping my hands in front of the sleeping person’s face. (How do you wake up someone you don’t know? You aren’t really allowed to touch them. It’s an awkward situation) The person turned out to be a girl, who woke up, as I informed her, “Your alarm’s going off, by the way.” But all she said was “oh…” and I was worried it had gone to sleep again.  She had. The eleventh time the alarm went off, the boy above her, who had been quiet until now, snapped. “Are you RETARDED?” He yelled. “Your phone is going off and keeping everyone awake! Do you have somewhere you need to be??” We all tried to reason with her, but it was beyond her to form coherent sentences. I asked her if she was drunk, and she said, “No, I’m just….“ and let out a large sigh as she clearly drifted off again. However, the not-so-quiet-guy had taken her phone and turned off the alarm, so we all went to sleep as well, thinking at last the ordeal was over.

            At 5:30 am, someone knocked on our door. Being a super light sleeper, I was the one to answer it, and an American girl and guy were standing outside. Trying to appear casual in my sleep-deprived state, all I could think of to say was, “What’s up?” I’m sure I’d said it in a more aggressive way than I’d meant because they both looked frightened and asked if Allie was in the room. “You must mean the girl whose alarm has gone off eleven times.”  I replied snarkily. “She’s over there, completely unconscious. You can deal with her.” Everyone in the room was awake now, except Allie, and was telling her friends what a pain she’d been all night. “Just get her up and LEAVE,” was the general consensus.  They had some sort of whispered conversation with her, trying to convince her to please get up, they had a flight to catch, etc. I wondered why they didn’t just pick her up and take her out of the room, she was clearly mentally handicapped in some way and reasoning with her wasn’t going to work.  After what seemed like forever, Allie got up and left. She came back about five minutes later to get her shoes, (which she’d walked out of the room without) but finally it was all over. And then we went to sleep FOR REAL.

            The next morning I had a very nice conversation with the two boys who had remained sleeping throughout the entire ordeal, and turned out to be French. I was excited to speak another language that I actually knew (Italian is foreign to me) and was ecstatic when one asked me for “crème solaire” and I knew what it was. So I suppose these random-room arrangements have pros and cons. But in this situation, I’d have to say the cons overruled pros. I wonder if Allie made her flight? 

Pastry Wednesday

My days in Lyon are coming to a close, and it's really freaking me out. I'm realizing I'm in serious denial about goodbyes, after consciously saying, "see you later!" to several people who I am most definitely not going to see later. Unless "later" means "possibly never and definitely not in the near future." I keep thinking everywhere I walk that it could be the last time I see this view or the last time I have to run past that homeless man to avoid his drunken advances. I'm getting quite nostalgic, and as a very non-nostalgic person, it's very unnerving. I'm really grateful for the few days I'll have after my travels for unfinished business/mad picture taking binge session to make up for the lack of photos that have occurred in Lyon.

Today, attempting to be productive and buy some last minute gifts, I wandered around the city for the majority of the day. Despite the fact that I only bought two gifts (and one was for myself, whoops) I felt fairly accomplished. Having also eaten an unnecessary amount of chips, I was going to forego Pastry Wednesday due to looming swimsuit season (ugh). But THEN I realized I only had a 5 euro bill and I needed coins to buy a metro ticket in the morning on my journey to the airport, as I'm heading off to Italy for the next few weeks. So obviously the solution was to purchase a mini gâteau in the Banette near my house. It was so worth the calories.