Frolicking in Florence

Our second stop was Florence (allow me to just start off with a little bit of a rant here: NO ONE IN ITALY CALLS IT FLORENCE. IT'S FIRENZE. FIRENZE!), Italy. 

This, I will admit, seems a bit random. Why Florence? I found myself asking the same question during most of our stay there. But I will say this--if you want to see what Italy is REALLY like, go to Florence, not to Rome. Florence has more Italian people, and it's less crazy. Not such a huge tourist destination--so most people speak little to no English (which is scary and stressful). The town is sleepier, more subdued, for the most part. In Rome, people assume you're not Italian. In Florence, people assume you are. It makes for a very different experience.

It was in Florence that we discovered that American customs are not the norm. Our first night in Florence, we checked into our hostel and then went to find REAL Italian food. We found a little place and sat down. Alan and I both had delightful pizza and we very much enjoyed the atmosphere (Oh, to hear Iggy Azealia in a teeny Italian restaurant was a treat). The two men next to us got their first course as we sat down (a little bit of bread and butter), then their pizza as we puzzled through the menu. As we ate our pizza, they received their dessert (which was a delicious looking vanilla and chocolate pudding cake or something--I didn't recognize many things that Italians eat). As we finished our pizza, they both ordered a small 'cafe' to finish their dinner off. Then they paid and left, merely five minutes before we did. Alan and I had pizza and water (which weirded the waitress out a lot, but not as much as the next part did), and then we went up to pay. The lady told us our price and we paid. She turned away, but Alan stopped her and asked how we could leave a tip. 

Then ensued the funniest and most embarrassing ten minutes of my life, as every Italian in the restaurant walked around asking "Tip? Tip? What's 'tip?' I don't understand." We tried to gesture to the waitress, saying it was 'for her!' But then they just thought we were somehow displeased with her service, and I think we hurt her feelings. We tried synonyms then, but the only word Alan or I could think of was 'gratuity,' which definitely did not help at all. Finally, our waitress pulled out her phone and googled 'tip significado' and as she read through the definition, realization dawned. She got a huge smile on her face and said 'Ohhhhhh! It's for me!' To which we replied that, yes, it was for her. Everyone laughed and looked puzzled still, and then Alan and I realized. Apparently Italian waitresses don't get their pay from tips, meaning that while our gesture was flattering and kind to the waitress, she was utterly confused and amused. Everyone laughed at us as we walked out of the restaurant. 

Florence was definitely an entirely different world than Rome. Much like Rome, the streets are narrow and the buildings tall, the cars and pedestrians like to play tug-of-war for the street area (sometimes even more than in Rome). However, Florence has a much smaller town feel. Everything is more relaxed. The people walk slower, the air is cooler, and the tourists actually observe the rules inside the churches! (On a side note: one thing I thought was interesting is that the Catholic Church does not allow anyone to enter their churches in shorts above the knee or shirts that don't cover the shoulders--they make you put on this modesty sheet and then you walk around shamed because you weren't modest enough to get into the church without a poncho)

The Duomo is really Florence's crowning glory. It's this massive, old medieval church that stands in the middle of a big piazza and is still in use today! They wouldn't let us go into the front part of it, but we got to walk around the huge main area, and even venture downstairs into the excavations they are doing into the catacombs under the church. I've never seen a building bigger than the Duomo; it's the kind of building that demands respect and awe from all those who stand before it, but facilitates the kind of friendly atmosphere that fosters a little street band playing "The Girl From Ipanema," while a few little girls dance together (it was so adorable). In fact, that almost describes the entire atmosphere of Florence. 

We walked down the via Margherita to singing, loud Italian arguing and laughing, and stepped into 'Dante's Church' where we were immediately enveloped in the kind of reverence that I've only found in few other places besides the temple. A little tour guide whispered to her group in Italian and the soft music played in the background. That, for me, was probably the most reverent experience I had gotten a chance to partake in thus far. But Florence is the kind of place filled with contradictions such as this, so that wasn't the end of it.

One thing we really wanted to see was the Piazzale Michelangelo, this big square with a big statue made by Michelangelo that overlooks the entire city of Florence. It's a hefty walk, so we took the bus, and when we got there, it was CLOSED. Our bus had already left, so we decided to just walk back to our hostel, when a few meters down the road we came upon the Santa Maria Church. It was on top of a big hill, so we climbed it and the few steps at the top, took some pictures, and, because it's Florence, decided to venture inside to see what was going on. It blew our minds. This church was huge, and big, and it had murals on the stone walls that dated back to the medieval times, many of which were faded and peeling (A mural of Christ's Crucifixion had all the paint peeled off on His face, which was a little bit unsettling). Down the little hall and a set of stairs, we found a little chapel, separate from the big, main chapel. We sat down to enjoy the cool and quiet, when all of a sudden, everyone stood, and two priests walked in. Then some sort of ceremony started (Mass, I assume, but I'm not Catholic, or Italian, and I don't speak Latin, so I really don't know), and this little old man in the corner started singing. He had such a beautiful voice, and the reverence in the room was incredible and moving. Standing there, listening to him sing, I felt that same reverence I had felt earlier, in Dante's Church. Even though I'm not a Catholic, and I don't speak Latin, I could feel the dedication of the small group of people in that church. I'm almost glad the Piazzale was closed! There's no way that experience could have compared to the one we had in that church together. Also, there was a huge, actual pipe organ that made my bones and heart melt into my socks.

I couldn't bring myself to take very many pictures inside the church. It felt like too beautiful a moment to waste any of it behind the camera lens.

We walked everywhere (as it was a considerably smaller city than Rome), but my favorite walks were 1) across the Piazza de Vechio (a fantastic bridge with shops and cafes and street vendors and a water fountain! Also, we tried some sort of calzone with a weird cheese and weirder meat in it that tasted delightful, but only if I didn't think too hard about it) and 2) to the train station at 7 am the morning we left. On that walk, the streets were cool and quiet, and the people who were awake weren't in much of a hurry, simply walking their dogs or heading down to get a newspaper or cafe to have with breakfast. Every person we met greeted us with a smile and a 'bongiorno' as they passed us. It was lovely.

Florence is definitely a place I'd love to come back to (whereas Rome....I'd hesitate), but it might be because we were a little more travel-savvy here. We understood how to get around, who to ask for help, and how to manage our time better. Also, we weren't so jet-lagged, so that helped. 

 

Roaming in Rome

When Alan and I realized we would be going to Cambridge, we were ecstatic (as could be expected). We understood that this was the opportunity of a lifetime; we would never ever get to be able to do anything like this ever again. We decided that to take full advantage of this, we were going to try and travel other places, too (our minds full of dreams about Rome and Paris and Munich and Ireland, you know, the places that everyone talks about). 

Time constraints, however, have limited our travel options, and we haven't been able to go to as many places as we'd like, so we chose three cities that we most wanted to visit before settling in Cambridge finally.

This is how we found ourselves first, in Rome, Italy. 

Alan and I have different ways of thinking about things. Alan comes into every situation with a clear expectation of the proceedings therein. I kinda just go and see how things pan out (after The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nicholas Cage, I've been careful not to have expectations about anything, lest they be disappointed severely). So if you were one of the people who asked us if we were excited for our trip, most likely, Alan's enthusiasm was due to the grand picture in his head that he had formed of what it would be like, and mine was completely fake, because I had no idea if it was going to be good or bad, and no expectations either way. So just imagine our surprise when both of us turned out to be entirely incorrect. Even me, having no expectations whatsoever!

We landed in the Rome airport, and were astounded to find that we didn't understand anything anyone was saying or anything written on any of the signs. We had not anticipated this. We quickly learned to stumble our way through security (which pretty much consisted of a guy looking at my passport picture, looking at my face, and then just stamping) and customs (where no one was even present to watch us walk through, I mean seriously--we could have brought freaking anything into their country, and they didn't care!) and we got ourselves bus tickets and made friends with other Americans who also had no idea what was going on. 

Once we got off the bus, we acquired a map (through great trial and stumbling, as goes much of our story) and were off to see the sights. We had decided long before coming that we would walk everywhere, and take buses as infrequently as possible (after all, it's by walking the streets of a city that you come to truly understand its heart). There are many things I would like to be able to describe about Rome, but I don't think that any description I ever give will come even a little close to being anything like the actual city. So here are a few things that I loved as well as found exceedingly strange about Rome:

First, nothing is built on any sort of grid. Like, what happened to the Romans who demanded order and organization?! Nope. The streets go every which way and they often meet up in little circle/squares called 'piazza's. This makes it difficult to find anything, even with a map. The street names are engraved on the buildings, which are all at least 5 stories high, sometimes more, so you have to look very carefully and sometimes move out into an intersection before you know which road you're looking at. Thank heavens for the little signs they have pointing to different tourist attractions (also, McDonald's).

Second, Romans don't give a crap about their monuments being set apart from the city. Like, the Trevi Fountain (from the scene in The Lizzie McGuire Movie where we meet Paolo for the first time, yeah, don't lie, that's a big part of the way you imagine Rome, at least, it was for me) is in a teeny, cramped little piazza and the movie doesn't really capture that. The ratio of people to space in the place is ridiculous. If this was America, we'd clear everything out within a mile radius and build parks and drinking fountains and information booths and free bathrooms. None of that in Rome. In Rome, they show respect for their monuments by living around them, making them a part of their every day lives (also if they cleared everything out within a mile they'd clear out four or five other historical monuments as well). It's really cool, actually (except for the part where you have to pay for water and bathrooms--thank goodness for McDonald's, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life). The Colosseum is really the only monument in Rome that's any sort of set apart, and that's just because the thing is so immense (also because it's falling apart and surrounded by a bunch of old structures that are also falling apart and there's excavations going on still). 

Third, because the streets are so narrow and the buildings are so tall, cars and pedestrians often occupy the same space. At first, it freaked me out that people were walking in the middle of these busy piazzas and intersections, or that cars were shoving their way through such little streets, but it's hard to stay freaked out when it happens literally always. Some areas are roped off for pedestrians (and apparently motorcycles count as pedestrians), but most stuff is just free game. Sidewalks are usually single-file only, which is fantastic when you meet someone going the opposite way and there's a car parked next to the sidewalk. 

Fourth, Romans and Italians in general are so nice. No one ever gave us crap about not speaking Italian, and the one time I almost stepped out in front of a motorcycle, he didn't yell--he just pointed to his eyes as if to say 'make sure you watch,' but in a polite way. People in restaurants always were patient with us, especially when we didn't understand the money or the menu choices or the manners we were supposed to be using. We've had people offer to give us directions, offer us English menus when we couldn't read the Italian, and even help us understand what to do at the train station (they are VERY different from any train station I've ever been in). 

Fifth, everything smells like cigarettes and perfume, and the mixture sometimes smells a little like chocolate. The first night, I laid in bed after showering and I still could just smell the overpowering mixture of smells. On the streets--cigarettes and perfume. Everywhere you go--every restaurant, every store, every church. All of it. It was quite a change from Provo, Utah. Also coffee. Everywhere. Coffee is the cheapest thing in Rome, and the smell is ALL OVER.

Sixth, the color palette is extremely bizarre. It's all green (but bottle or olive green, not forest or kelly green) and golds and reds and oranges. So many trees, but not like pine trees or maple trees (though we did see one maple as well as a type of magnolia tree). Every single house/building has shutters. Every single one. And they work. And no one has screens. And everyone hangs their laundry out their windows. And everyone has plants on their balconies and windowsills. It's very fairy-tale-ish. One street we passed had trees all along either side and they grew together, making a green, leafy canopy over the entire street. It was so beautiful.

All of the things we saw were incredible (except the freaking Trevi Fountain, which was dried up and covered in scaffolding for renovation). The Colosseum was enormous and remarkably well-kept for a building that old. The Roman forum was pretty awesome (it satisfied my need for a grid in Rome's set-up) and the Spanish steps were exactly like they look in The Lizzie McGuire movie. Our favorite parts were the churches. The first place we stopped was a church called Santa Maggiore. Because our arrival happened to be on a Sunday, we walked in on an actual Catholic mass, which was pretty cool. The architecture is so different than anything I've ever seen in America, and the paintings are literal masterpieces, just sitting on the walls of a church that's in use every single day, and not just as a tourist attraction. The Pantheon was the same way. It's pretty awe-inspiring actually. I watched "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" on the plane ride over, and something from the movie just plowed me in the face. When Walter is sitting next to the photographer on the mountain, waiting to take a picture of this elusive snow leopard, the photographer says "beautiful things don't ask for attention." I think this is why people still find places like Rome incredible--because neither the structures themselves or the people around them ask for any sort of special attention. They are quiet and reverent and beautiful. And graffitied all over. I mean, seriously. Roman teens are just the worst.

When we arrived, we had no idea where anything was, and when we left, we could have gotten anywhere we wanted without a map. When we arrived, we smelled like soap and excitement, and when we left, we smelled like sweat and exhaustion. Our bodies were sore and tired (because we didn't just walk everywhere, we walked everywhere with backpacks containing our belongings for the next ten weeks in them, and the first day, neither of us thought of putting the straps around our hips as well as our shoulders (though that makes me quite proud of everything we accomplished that day, really). My feet are blistered pretty much everywhere (not because my shoes suck, but because my feet soft and unused to walking three or four miles a day), and Alan and I pretty much limped to our hostels at the end of the day, exhausted and jet-lagged. But you know what? I think it's been more than worth it. If nothing else, seeing a different world than my own has been an immensely enriching experience, worth more than I could ever explain. I've realized a lot of things about my life and myself that I could never have realized if I hadn't found myself in Rome, Italy. Alan's expressed similar thoughts to me, as well. 

If you do find yourself in Rome, ever, here's my advice to you:

FIND AN ITALIAN TRANSLATOR for your phone that doesn't need wifi, because trust me, you are never going to have any wifi, and you are ALWAYS going to need that translator. 

BOOK YOUR HOSTELS IN ADVANCE. Alan and I couldn't do it any other way because we flew standby, but it really really sucked. I think we found the last bed available in the whole city (also because there was a Rolling Stones concert that night, too). 

BRING A MAP. They will do their very best to rip you off at every tourist information booth in the city. If you already have one, either printed out or bought for cheap elsewhere, you won't have to worry about it.

DON'T FORGET WATER. Our first day, we had to buy several bottles because we had forgotten to fill our own up at the airport. That was awful. 

Amen. 

Our Southern Summer Sojourn

Tennessee is a great place. It's nothing like the place I grew up in. I grew up in Idaho, among other places, and the default color is brown. Like...really brown. 

Tennessee is green. Like.....so green that I (I'm appropriately ashamed to admit this, let me assure you) I understood exactly what Bella meant when she said that all of the green made her feel weird. The first thing I really noticed about Tennessee is that they have grass growing on the medians on the highway. AND NO ONE PLANTS IT. It's freaky, and it really doesn't happen in Idaho.

Tennessee is also the second stop in our summer trip this summer. Here's how it's been going: 

(the first was Idaho for a few days to visit my family--we had fun playing basketball and sitting in the kitchen dyeing my hair and watching silly movies and I saw my best friend for the last time before her mission. It was really sad to think we won't see them for the whole summer! I'll miss their silly smiles and jokes and hugs) 

We've spent a lot of time in Tennessee enjoying the sun...through the windows...on the couch (seriously, I have seen way too many episodes of "Charmed" and we've watched ALL of the Harry Potter movies, plus we started "New Girl" and watched a fair amount of "Sherlock"). 

Also, in an effort to pack light for Cambridge, I've done a fair amount of experimenting with "rag curls" and they never ever turned out right....as you can see. This is....well, this is the best go of it I had.

We went and saw The Fault in Our Stars and I CRIED SO HARD. This is us post-TFiOS, below. Anyway. That's a whole other post.  

Seriously, though. This is Granny's yard. LOOK AT ALL THE GREEN. Alan chopped up a tree, felt manly, etc. 

And Coley, Sean, Alan and I sang in Stake Conference together...we practiced quite a few times together...but we didn't always practice. And unfortunately, Shadow was the victim. 

This is Mema's house/yard. She lives further out of the city, in the sort of, countryside, in an idyllic southern home with a covered front porch and lots of rocking chairs. 

We're excited to leave for Europe on Friday, but we'll definitely miss this wonderful place and all the lovely people there. 

This morning we started our journey to Europe! We've been sitting in airports all day trying to get out on a flight to Italy! So far....it's looking like we have a better chance of getting to Venice than Rome. 

(Look at all those people trying to steal our spots on the flight!) Because most of Alan's cousins work for Delta airlines, most of Alan's family can get away with flying standby for cheaper than the usual rate, so....I've never flown any other way--it adds a lot of adventure to our trip (like on our way to Tennessee on our honeymoon, we spent the night in the airport because we couldn't get on a flight that night, but we could in the morning)!