(Pictures: (1,3,4-Florence; 2-Pisa; 5-9-Rome; 10-14 Venice; 15,16-Amsterdam. Video is footage from my first session in Peru, shot and edited by Alex Gorosh)

As the elevator doors closed, I gave one final goodbye wave to my family. Descending to the ground floor of the Copenhagen Hilton hotel on my way to the airport, I knew I was once again on my own. It was an exciting feeling after my recent group traveling, first with my family on the cruise, and before that in Peru. Traveling alone is a different experience—while on the cruise I was very passive and, quite frankly, lazy, I now realized that from here on out, nothing would happen without me making it. Traveling alone is liberating, infinitely freer, but with the corollary loneliness and other difficulties that goes with it. The feelings of excited anticipation that come whenever I visit a new country grew as I crossed over Germany, then the Alps, and finally descended into Italy.

I spent the next 2 weeks in Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and one of the world centers of Art, where my primary objective was to learn Italian, or at least as much as I could in 2 short weeks. I had spent some time on the cruise researching different language institutes in Florence, and had chosen a school called Il Instituto David, located near the city center. I spent 4 hours each morning in group classes, 1 hour each afternoon in a private lesson, and a couple hours most nights studying. Part of my decision to settle down in Florence for 2 weeks rather than travel the entire time was my desire to have a daily routine, free from the stress and hassles of constantly moving from place to place. In my opinion, this also gives a deeper understanding of the people and culture than is possible when you’re constantly moving.

As I had anticipated, I got a sort of condensed version of the experience of learning a foreign language; the countless daily struggles, frustrations, and rewards of learning and understanding another language, a completely different system of communicating. To me learning a new language is like learning a new way of thinking, in a sense a different way of seeing the world. It brings such pleasure to be able to converse with someone in a foreigh language, to establish a relationship with someone who otherwise would have been completely closed to you. Even speaking Italian with someone who speaks English (as I found many Italians did), it is empowering to be able to communicate on their terms, rather than demanding they conform to your needs, as we Americans tend to do. Of course, along with the satisfaction that success brings comes the painful frustration of the entire process. Feeling like a complete idiot again when you are unable to communicate even basic things, like a child when you don’t understand something and need it to be repeated slowly several times using simple words.

I really shouldn’t complain though. My Spanish gave me an enormous head-start. From the very first day I was speaking in sentences and could understand quite a lot, and I was very motivated to learn as much as I could in the short time I was there.

I had decided to live with a host family, an experience I have wonderful memories from while studying in Mexico and Argentina in college. As was the case in both of my previous home-stay experiences, I was again placed in the house of a single older woman. I’ve realized that many women in this situation choose to have foreign students live with them, both for the extra income it brings in, as well as for the company it provides (my Argentine mother, Muchy, who I still keep in touch with regularly, has perfected this art and now manages a fairly busy house with students from all around the world coming and going)

The decision turned out to be a good one, despite some unexpected bumps early on. While Theresa eventually showed herself to be a kind woman, she was certainly quite rigid and had more than a few prejudices, which she was unafraid to vocalize. I would sit at the table every morning and evening listening to her express her opinions. She had been a child during the Mussolini era, and while she acknowledged him as a dictator, she also spoke very highly of him. “Under Mussolini, everyone had their place in society… There was no argument… Don’t talk to me about ‘liberty’… Everyone knew the rules, and things worked… Look at all the problems we have today…” Of course I wouldn’t understand every word, but the multitude of Spanish cognates, combined with her dramatic hand and facial gestures were always enough to give me an understanding of what she was talking about. Usually I would nod while trying not to laugh, especially during the many times she would speak of the superiority of the Italian language (she didn’t speak any other languages herself, of course). Every so often, however, she’d say something completely offensive even to me, such as when she declared matter-of-factly that all the problems and sicknesses in Africa were the result of their “immorality”, which she then proceeded to attribute to their lack of religion.

While it certainly would have been easy to dismiss her as a crazy old lady, I tried instead to realize that her values and beliefs are the result of her life experiences, just as mine and everyone’s are. While I see many of my peers believe they know everything and dismiss their parents’ and grandparents’ generations as ignorant and old-fashioned, I tried to understand and learn as much as I could from this woman who had lived much longer than I had and experienced things I can only read about in history books. Moreover, I tried to use her beliefs and prejudices as a model by which to identify and analyze my own prejudices (Disclaimer: this is not at all a defense of fascism or any of the other things she said).

Whatever else the experience was, it was certainly an excellent opportunity for me to practice my Italian, and even though Theresa liked to talk more than she liked to listen, I did my best with my basically kindergarten vocabulary to express my opinions, whenever I could get a word in. This created for some rather comical (if frustrating) moments, but definitely pushed me to improve my conversational Italian skills.

I made friends with the other students at the school, and went out a few nights a week. The other students were mostly Europeans, although there were also lots of Japanese people. I also befriended a strong-headed, somewhat aristocratic South African girl, who told me all about her family farm outside of Johannesburg, complete with lions, giraffe, zebra, and even a 12 foot pet python which lived in her room.

The two things I liked least about Florence were the innumerable tourists crammed between the walls of its narrow streets, and the prices, which gave me the constant feeling of hemorrhaging my money—I could never stop thinking about how much I could buy in South America for what I spent on a tiny slice of pizza in Florence. I did discover that one of the few affordable things was cheap wine in supermarkets (as low as 1 Euro a bottle!), so rather than going to ridiculously expensive bars I would always try to convince my friends to enjoy sitting with me on one of Florence’s many bridges over the Arne, or in one of its numerous plazas, enjoying wine and the spectacular views, open air, relative privacy, and perhaps best of all, an affordable evening for a budget traveler like me! Some of my best memories from Florence are the evenings sitting over the Arne with my friends from class, with a million dollar view of the Ponte Vechio and Renaissance marble statues on both sides, opening the bottle with my Swiss army knife and drinking the horrible red wine straight from the bottle.

I also made an effort to appreciate the artistic and cultural heritage of Florence, and visited several art galleries, including the Uffizi gallery, where I thought back to high school while looking at the Botticelli paintings I had learned about almost 10 years earlier in Western Civ class. My favorite was the Galleria dell’Accademia, where I marveled at the intricacy of Michelangelo’s David, and now understand why it is the most famous sculpture in the world. I took a day trip to Pisa and smiled at the thousands of tourists, including myself, who were all trying to take the same picture of themselves holding up the leaning tower (and I thought I was the first one to think of it!) I also spent countless hours wandering around Florence, seeing as much of it as I could.

My real day to day focus, however, was learning Italian. The effort paid off, and by the end of the 2 weeks I could communicate fairly well and have rather involved conversations, provided the person spoke clearly and relatively slowly and stayed within my very limited vocabulary.

After 2 weeks in Florence, I said goodbye to all my new friends and headed south to Rome. On the train I sat next to a nice young Italian woman who I had a very pleasant conversation with, which made me feel good about my Italian. In Rome, I spent 2 days mainly walking around, battling the overbearing heat and humidity. I visited some of the places I’ve always wanted to see—the Coliseum, Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel, and many of the countless ruins which seem to blend right into the city in many places. In this sense Rome reminded me of other cities I’ve visited such as Mexico City, Mexico; Ayuthaya, Thailand; and Cuzco, Peru, all of which are modern cities built literally right over the ruins of ancient civilizations. Nonetheless, Rome was unique, and I’m so glad I got the chance to visit. One of the things I’ll always remember about Rome are the omnipresent public fountains, which I assume are a tradition carried on from ancient times. The beautiful marble fountains are present throughout the city, spurting out a steady stream of cool water to drink and get wet in. Given my perpetual state of perspiration while in Rome, combined with my unwillingness to pay for water, the fountains likely saved my life, as I would have probably died of heat exhaustion without them.

From Rome, I took an overnight train to Venice. Always trying to save money where I can, I bought the cheapest ticket I could find. With no idea where it was, I just got on the train and sat in the first seat I could find, which turned out to be first class, and got kicked out by the angry ticket checker, who seemed annoyed with how long it took me to understand what he was saying (my poor Italian was even worse considering I was half asleep!) In hindsight, I should played a dumb American tourist who didn’t understand anything, that way maybe I could have stayed where I was. When I saw that my actual seat was crammed liked sardines into a tiny compartment with 5 other people and nowhere to put my bag, I opted to sleep out in the hallway and pulled out my sleeping bag, eye mask and ear plugs, which I had stowed for just such an occasion. Given the circumstances I guess I rested ok, but really didn’t sleep too much since I kept on getting stepped on throughout the night and was constantly worried about someone messing with my bag. It ended up being an adventure I won’t soon forget, one which continued when I was awakened from my half sleep state around 5 a.m. when someone shouted “Venezia, Santa Monica” which I thought was my station. I quickly grabbed my bag and hopped off the train only to discover after a few minutes that I had gotten off one station too early and was still on the mainland. I ended up taking a bus across the bay into Venice while it was still dark, not quite the romantic arrival I had imagined. When I arrived, rather than pay 6 Euros for the boat ferry to my hotel, I decided to venture on foot to find it. I had the name and address written down, but even when I carefully asked in my best Italian, none of the local people seemed to have any idea where it was. It ended up being on the complete other end of the island, and took about an hour to walk to. It was still before almost anyone was awake, and turned out to be a nice walk, despite the weight of my heavy backpack, through the narrow deserted streets of Venice as the sky slowly began to light up. When I arrived at my hotel it was still too early to check in, so I left my bag and walked around a bit, sitting for over an hour on the famous Rialto Bridge, one of the few large bridges that crosses the Grand canal, watching as more and more people slowly began to wake up and fill the city.

I spent the next 2 days in Venice much as I had spent the previous 2 days in Rome: walking around. This time, instead of ruins, the main interest were the hundreds of canals connecting the city like a giant web. While Venice was perhaps even more expensive and crowded than Florence was, I used my normal tricks to make the best of things. Perhaps my best memory of Venice was buying a cheap lunch of a baguette, salami, mozzarella, some chips and nectarines, finding a secluded back alley which led to the Grand Canal, and enjoying a peaceful lunch sitting on the water while watching the boats go by. The idea was so successful that I decided to do the same thing the next day, so I bought the exact same ingredients but this time chose a spot next to a bridge on a smaller canal where I could sit with my legs dangling over the water. As I began to cut the bread with my knife and meticulously prepare the sandwich, slicing the mozzarella, piling on salami, I didn’t even notice a man and woman watching me from an outside table of a nearby café. When I finished, the man smiled at me, nodded in approval, gave me a thumbs up and said “buon apetito!” I thanked him and enjoyed a delicious lunch.

Venice really is spectacularly beautiful, and deserves the fame it has throughout the world. It isn’t large, and you can walk around the entire perimeter of the Island in maybe an hour or two. Nonetheless, there are a myriad of narrow passageways and minor canals, and after becoming somewhat familiar with all the major sections of the city I tried to explore and find as many new places as I could. Another experience I had there which I hope not to forget was a particular bridge I came across while walking on my second day there. As I was wandering, I came across a small bridge crossing an absolutely perfect canal. It was maybe 15-20 feet across, with houses ascending straight from the water on both sides. Clothes were left out to dry on several lines, one of which crossed over the canal rather gracefully. What really made the scene perfect for me was the brilliant reflection of the water, which made a mirror image of the entire scene. I took lots of pictures of the scene, and if you turn some of the photos upside down, only a few small ripples let you distinguish which side is real and which is the reflection (hint: look carefully at the pictures I posted above).

Following my second day in Venice, I took an evening flight north to Amsterdam, where to my surprise I found even more canals (which shows how much I know about Amsterdam, Holland, and Europe in general!) I was at one of those points after a month of travel in Europe where I was running low on motivation and energy, and I also discovered that Amsterdam was even more expensive than Italy, so I spent most of my time there just relaxing. I did walk around a fair amount, but not much too much further than the central area. I did go to the Van Gogh museum, which I enjoyed very much. But for the most part, I didn’t do anything overly ambitious and spent a lot of time checking out many of the city’s wonderful coffee shops, sampling their unique varieties of coffee and snacks.

Having spent a little over a month in Europe, I flew home on September 1st, exactly one year from when I started my around the world trip last year! Needless to say, it’s been quite a year. Feeling no reason to stop now, within a few days of being home I bought a plane ticket to the Philippines for this Friday, and will stop over in Taiwan for 5 days on the way. I’m hoping to do a lot of diving while I’m there, and will hopefully become a SCUBA Divemaster in the process. My tentative plan is to come home for Thanksgiving, then spend the winter back in Steamboat, Colorado, where if things go as planned my good friend Lucas from Argentina will also be working for the season. But I’m also keeping in mind the option of staying and working as a divemaster somewhere in Asia, or possibly Australia, for the winter. Either option is good, so I’m not going to worry about it until I see how things go in the Philippines. I’m also very excited to visit my dear friend Emily, a biking buddy from my days cycling across the U.S., who recently moved to the Philippines with her husband Jon as Peace Corps volunteers. I’m sure we’ll have some good times in Manila.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks doing the normal loop of visiting parents (had a nice late-summer tour of Coney Island and New York’s other beaches with my Dad; and I’m very impressed with my mom’s newly acquired cycling skills) and grandmothers (both were hospitalized while I was in Europe, but are now home and doing better). I also added the new variation of visiting my brother Eric up at school in Bennington, Vermont, where he just transferred to. I’ll definitely miss living with him this winter but am so happy that he’s moving forward and enjoying himself along the way.