Finally Home

I should have arrived home on Saturday the 19th, but on Friday night it decided to snow in Florence for the first time in about 10 years or so...

The Ponte Vecchio is somewhere in the background

On our way to Friends Pub for one last time.

A snow covered Duomo

The view from the terrace.

The view on the train to Rome.

It was definitely gorgeous and the experience of a lifetime to see snow in Florence, as well as have the opportunity to have a snowball fight and annoy all the Italians, but it ended up being hell the next day when it was time to leave. There wasn't actually a lot of snow, but the next morning when I went to catch my 7am train to Rome, there were already delays of up to an hour and eventually my train was even canceled. Unfortunately for me, it hadn't snowed in Rome and there were no delays flying out of there, so when I finally did catch a train from Florence it was about 9:30pm and I didn't make it to the airport until about 12:30...my flight was at 12:15.

And here's where the bitterness really kicked in.
I had no cell phone, barely any cash (because I expected the most money I would need was when I arrived home), and had to buy an entire new flight more or less. Since I hadn't missed my connecting flight in Dublin, technically, I could call the airline pay a penalty fee and buy another ticket for the difference, which is what I did, however I couldn't get a flight until Monday and the price was still astronomical. It was almost what I had paid for my round trip flight.

Luckily, I didn't get stuck at the airport for 2 days... I actually ended up in Gaeta, which is a whole other story within itself.

The Season is Ending

Real World Firenze is slowly coming to a close. Not that I really watch the show, but I feel that it's almost impossible to not at least have the gist of what it's about. Regardless I think I have been educated enough about it after reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, who says:

"I tend to consider myself an amateur Real World scholar. I say "amateur because I've done no actual university study on this subject, but I still say "scholar" because I've stopped watching the show as entertainment."

And with that said, although my housemates and I are eight people and not seven (arguably seven at some points), we were certainly strangers thrown into a house of the proper Real World age and social demographic, except in a foreign country where none of us can speak the language and to study. All that's missing is a confessional booth, but we've certainly had the drama, conflicts, interactions, and absolutely random experiences to probably be just as interesting to watch as a season of the actual show.

We had always joked about this in the house and we still do from time to time, but as the days wind down, I find myself in more of a contemplative mood and trying to summarize everything that has happened in the past 4 months, or give my last "confessional." I came to a pretty big realization about my time here last night and as I was talking to Julia today about it, one of her only responses was that my experience really was like the Real World and that was my last time in the confessional booth and more so that is what this entire week will be (with a few finals and last minute sight seeing in between).

It really isn't going to hit me until I am stepping off the plane in JFK on Saturday. So much has happened, yet nothing has really happened at all.


I will leave it at this.

The one creative thing I have done here other than write and take photographs:

(I'm surprised I still know how to even draw at this point.)

I've been Thinking

And so I've realized exactly why I want and need to go home.

It's 5:17am, I'm a bit drunk, but I am finally catching friends I haven't talked to in a while. And yet tonight has been a roller coaster of emotions. My roommates and I went to dinner and theater with our Cinema teacher and it was absolutely amazing. I didn't quite understand the theater part, which was about wine because 1) it was in old Italian and 2) my mind was wandering half the time.

My emotions have been more than a hot mess in the past few 2 weeks and I am ready for something new, although I have quite a bit of sorting out to do when I get home.

I am ready for a semi-image change, a return to my regiment, a reintroduction to climbing, and working at the Trattoria. I will certainly miss Italy, but there are so many people I have left behind, that I absolutely miss from my life and in my semi-drunken state I am realizing that to its full extent.

10 days. Wow.

Also, I am well overdue for an escape from the absolute confusion of my house that is more or less the epitome of the Real World. But what else would you expect from 8 different people living in close quarters for over 3 months, who coincidentally go to the same school, but have never met and would probably never meet in their lives. (And of course, the famous just friends situation + you have a boyfriend, but who's judging).

And like I've said the whole time. We shall see what happens when I get home. haha.

I found this picture while rummaging through my computer bored out of my mind during class the other day and I love it. It's from a used furniture store in Chicago.

Like a Child in a Candy Store

So I broke down and bought a tripod--more or less something I should have done all along.


My room--a complete mess of course.


The kitchen--surprisingly clean.


The terrace at night.
Halloween night.More fooling around with long exposures.

I haven't felt up to it lately, but eventually I want to make my way out in Florence at night to take some night shots. I took a lot of nice pictures on Sunday in Fiesole, but I haven't had a chance to sort through them yet. Basically, this is my new toy.

Last Weekend in Firenze

The city really isn't that big, but I haven't really spent much time wandering around it. Last weekend I decided I would try to see what I could find away from the center of the city and parts of it almost reminded me of being home.

Home in Firenze

Since I finally spent a weekend home I was able to catch up on taking some photos I had been meaning to shoot. These are the hallways of my apartment. They are gorgeously lit during the day.

Futurism in Photography

After a semester of Futurist manifestos and writings, I am finding that it is coming back to haunt me, but surprisingly not in a bad way. Just when I thought I had retained just about nothing from my studies, I find that the Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia, is located around the block from my apartment, just reopened after being closed all summer, and is featuring an exhibit on Futurism in Photography.

And suddenly it all came back.

It's funny to think of futurism in a photograph. After all Futurists wanted to capture movement, so isn't it ironic to use a medium that "freezes time" to express the philosophy of an entire artistic movement? Futurism was an escape from social and artistic conventions that held society down--an escape from the mentality before and during the war. The Futurists wanted no part of the past and it was evident in their work.
The exhibit is on display from September 17 to November 15th. The museum is small, intimate, and probably one of my favorite museums to date. It is serving as a reminder for everything I still need to do and more importantly a reminder of photography being what I love to do.

And So it Begins

Arriving in Italy was an adventure in itself. I decided to fly into Rome and then take the train to Florence. I had not slept at all on my connecting flight from Dublin--I was tired, hungry, thirsty, and did not know even one word in Italian. First, I had to take a train from the airport to the main station Roma Termini, then I had to figure out where to buy a ticket and the difference between track numbers and train numbers in Italian, which wasn't really that obvious. At many points I wanted to give up because it was even more difficult to find people who spoke English.

The train took about 2 and a half hours. Luckily I was able to sleep and thankfully these Italians sitting across from me helped me out even though we had no idea what we were actually saying to each other. My next battle would be to find the hotel we were staying at for the first two nights--Hotel Villani. Basically, I traveled ill prepared and ill equipped. The only thing I did manage to do properly, was pack extremely light, but I had a crappy walking directions from Google maps and an address to get me to where I needed to go.

After walking around for 10 minutes or so getting frustrated and overheated trying to find street names, or at least something from my map to get my bearings, I came upon the Duomo. I looked up, stopped dragging my suitcase and forgot about how miserable my journey had been up to this point.Eventually I gave up. I stopped for help, but none of the directions seemed to make sense. So, I found a taxi stand, gave him the address, and relaxed. The hotel ended up being on an extremely small street that runs parallel to the Duomo. I more or less felt like an idiot, but honestly, I never would have found it, so it was better that way.

These pictures are from the hotel roof a little after I arrived. The lighting was gorgeous and these were the first pictures I took in Florence--the pictures that have reinspired me to be productive again.

Ciao from Firenze

So my Italian adventure has begun and I have been here for 3 weeks now. It is more beautiful than words can describe and I have been completely re-inspired after a summer of creating absolutely nothing. One of the things I love the most about Italy are the windows. There are so many windows on every house and they project so much light into all of the high ceiling rooms making the most picturesque scenes. I could sit at my desk all day and just stare out at Terracotta rooftops listening to the sounds of the city and trying to understand conversations with the little Italian I know and am slowly learning.

The Duomo is down the street from my apartment. It is gorgeous. I pass the Ponte Vecchio on the way to class and I go running past the Uffizi along the river. Sometimes I forget I am here to study. It feels more like a dream vacation than anything, especially when the past 2 weekends here I have travelled to Cinque Terre and Elba, sun bathed and swam in the ocean, just to come back to the cobblestone streets of Firenze.

The city makes more and more sense everyday and I am learning more and more Italian everyday, which is a great help. You'd be surprised at the amount of people who don't speak English, but it's getting easier. One of the most difficult things about the language barrier was going to the grocery store on the first day--it's hard to cook for yourself every day when you can barely read the packages. I will update again soon, now that I am beginning to organize my photos.