Italian Travels

In a matter of moments my time in Italy has found it’s way to the end of the road.  Now as I sit here and write I cannot believe that time and everything that I have experienced here has finally ended.  I literally blinked and 4 months came and went.  The minute I stepped off of that train and found myself at the doorstep of Marianum to this quiet moment inside my room, has all happened in a minute.  I guess my mind seems clearer at the moment because there is literally no noise outside my room.  The trucks, the ambulances, random cat howls, wind, loud Italians or even the laughter of the girls outside in the courtyard is all quiet.  Endings are hard to imagine but they are even harder to do.  You always want more.  More time, more space, more learning and more good Italian food.  But since they haven’t found a way to really transport food for 18 hours ( or at least I haven’t)  I must enjoy it here, in this moment, right now. 

I look around my room and it is incredibly messy and disorganized.  I seem to find a way to create a new mess everyday.  Really though, when you think about it, it kind of reminds me of art.  The shoes that I thought I was going to put on today, but didn’t match my outfit are lying on the floor but with only one sock artistically placed outside of the shoe.  My phone cord is stretched to the edge of my bed because I can’t be bothered with getting up to answer it.  In front of me on my bed are a pair of brown high heels with one sole broken, an oprah magazine, my camera and an open bible.  Yes it is messy but lived in.  My oprah magazine is torn because I have read it so many times.  My shoes are too worn because I have walked many places in them.  My bible open because I find it gives me peace of mind when I have lost mine.  It gives me the sanity that church use to give me or rather spiritual places use to give me.  But I have found them here.  The church with the last supper is a place I sometimes go.  Oddly enough the church inside is not as peaceful to me as the garden the occupies it.  The garden is this wonderful place where you can sit and enjoy the water fountain and also see a disgruntled priest or two.  Italy like my room is complete chaos.  No time schedules, anything can happen, going through 12 people to get one document signed chaos.  Brilliant but messy.  Beautiful but sometimes sad.  Plentiful food but…no just plentiful food. 

 

I look at pictures of myself when I first got here and to me I see the difference.  I look younger, lighter (weight wise), scared and quieter.  I look like a girl with too many thoughts hiding behind one huge smile.  I have left Italy a little lighter mind wise.  I had this dream the other night that this person in my life who has caused me a lot of anguish apologized.  We had a heart to heart in the dream.  When I woke though, I found myself lighter and freer.  Like the next step was mine and not that of a person who I felt had been controlling me.  I guess if I see pictures of me now I look more solid, curvier, lighter, happier and funnier (in the truest sense of the word).  My laughter doesn’t hide behind it’s wall anymore.  I find myself being myself almost instantaneously.  Although, I must admit after a day of hanging out with friends I retreat to a quiet place.  Or if I can’t do that I will zone out and shut down.  Just one of the many things I have found out through Italy.  Maybe if I placed the pictures side by side it would be hard for the average onlooker to tell the difference but I know it and it makes me happy.  I believe everything we need is inside of us.  So maybe Italy gave me a few nudges saying, “come Erin you can do this” but in the end I found it all where I left it however many years ago.  I will mess up and take a wrong turn eventually.  Perfect is a word I would use to describe a work of Art but never myself and that is freeing. 

Only 10 more days left.  I leave for England on Tuesday and I cannot wait.  I will be staying with my friend Caitlin and my flight was 20 euros round trip.  All in all a worthwhile vacation if you ask me. So still more to write before I leave but I couldn’t pass the opportunity that a quiet evening in Milan gave me.  For all of it’s flashy models and insane nightclubs Milan is still real to me.  At least for the moment…

 

I feel as if I haven’t written in forever but tis normal I suppose.  Today the sun is out, my belly is full of italian food and I am just happy at the moment.  I have such a small amount of time here that the more I can soak up anything italian the better.  I have thought about what it will be like to come back to Nebraska.  Sometimes I think I’ll get off the plane and just cry because I will already miss it so much.  Other times I am ready to leave and try living my life again.  Bring back whatever i can from this sweet place.  With all of the drama ( and there has been plenty lately) this has been so amazing.  I know it isn’t over but endings are hard.  If I truely think about it, it makes me really sad.  So I try not to and I try just to love every minute of it.  Somtimes, though a feeling, close to lonliness but more like sadness creeps in.  Like today I got a call from my friend Lindsey.  We talked for an hour about everything and while it seems cliche to say it, it really filled me up.  I know I sound like a girly novel but seriously you miss people.  Then that missing feeling turns into appreciation for everything they do or have done.  Things go unsaid and sometimes said and through a phone line that stretches across the ocean, across the united states and all the way to Hawaii you realize there is someone who completely understands you and you miss that.  Then I am full again when I remember this.  Some days a feeling is something you carry around with you and other days it something you want to share with everyone.  Today I am both. 

Which makes me remember that I do have someone who understands me completely coming to Milan tomorrow.  My stepmom!!!  I am so excited to see her but also nervous for the pickup because she doesnt have a cell phone and doesn’t know Milano.  If anything I have all day to find her in between finishing a final and such.  I am so excited to see her expression of what this place has been to me, through her eyes and not mine.  Now I understand how important it is to not only see things but to feel things. After that we are traveling for a few days and then back to Milano for a few days.  I am heading to England again in June to see my good friend Caitlin.  Italy is a place that I never want to leave but when you can fly to England for 5 euros and take a train in italy for 28, the choice is surprisingly easy. 

I think after this week because finals will be over and the craziness done with, I will have more time to write.  I truely miss it.  Journaling is a great form of relaxing! 

Also, I found someone to sing with.  I have been singing with my friend John and Frederico.  They are so much fun and amazing singers! 

Presto (soon)
erin

So I only have about 35 days left here in Italy.  Here in a place so far away I would have to fly, swim or build a raft and find a volleyball to name Wilson, just to get across an ocean to be in my home country.  I have been absorbed into two cultures here:  the life of the dorm and the Italian lifestyle and both are completely different.  The one thing I have learned besides cultural differences is that we are all basically the same.  I am sorry if I already mentioned this universal fact about the universe but considering the universe is pretty big I think it deserves repeating.  If I look around and I watch the Italian girls there worries are basically the same as mine.  Will I ever find someone to share my life with?  Do I want to be a mom, a boss, both, an artist or a traveling nobody?  What should I wear today?  What kind of person do I want to become?  Culture is the silver lining I think.  I think sometimes when we examine a culture we shine a light on it too brightly and the things that don’t want to be seen scury to the dark corners and what we are left with is too bright to even be seen.  If you really want to get to know anything the truth is it takes time.  If I can safely say that I really don’t even know the extent of who I am yet, how can it ever be safe to say i really know someone else or their culture.  And yet at the very same time understand it perfectly because in the end it is so universal you are staring into a mirror practically.  Oh the endless questions….  What is more important to me than any philosophy is meeting good people and that has definitely happened here in Italy.  I think it is important to remember that nice is different than good though.  Nice is fine but it doesn’t pull you out of anything. It simply exists in passing. Good is someone you can trust. Just take a look at my dorm situation.

 I have found that this dorm culture could make Dan Brown salivate because there is so much material for his next book.  Picture the catholic church gone wrong + a security system that is fit for a prison + people in charge who are on a power trip = fear.  Some of the girls here are very scared of breaking the rules because it is so easy to do, therefore they simply do nothing.  The rules are ridiculous and everyone can agree on that but it is not safe to say that everyone can agree on how to best deal with these rules.  Some run and hide and watch out for themselves.  Others are underground disrupters doing little things here and there but still afraid.  Then there are people who live there lives and say forget the dorms.  Chances are you probably wont find this third type of person here anymore because they probably got fed up and left.  It sounds scary and you would think it would be unbearable.  Lucky for me it is temporary and I can look at it from a snow globe approach.  I can shake things up a little and then watch the snow fall.  The only hard part is sometimes you are the shaker and sometimes you are on the inside of it and all you can literally do is watch the person shake it. One example is a girl in our dorm believes someone came into her room and stole her 500 euro earrings.  First I find this hard to believe because I leave my door unlocked all the time and nothing happens.  So last night the announcement was made at a meeting I was unaware of that all students will be getting 3 euros taken out of there housing deposit to pay her back for her earrings.  Globe being shaken.

Lucky for me, tonight I had a chance escape this crazy world.  I slipped away to my favorite dinner spot known as the home of a wonderful Italian family.  I might have mentioned them before but they wanted me to live with them and help with English.  I decided it would be best if I did not live with them but I still go over there when I can.  They have the best food I have ever tasted.  I am not kidding.  Salami and cheese have never tasted so real and pure.  Olive oil and tomatoes never so fresh and wonderful.  They are an artsy liberal couple that cares about family.  The mom is amazingly organized and the dad is an artist.  Always playing the piano and reading.  In a way they are both artists.  It’s an art to raise a family.  Extremely difficult and time consuming but in the end a work of art that the world gets to look at forever and ever.  Every child a brushstroke and every trial a chip in the almost perfect sculpture. Life, like family, while it is less than perfect is like a famous painting or piece of architecture, always and forever there with you in spirit or in your day to day world.  I say these things because as I was walking to their house and  ragazzi (people)  were everywhere outside in this beautiful park right next to their apartment.  Lots of couples, also solo people observing, a couple teenagers playing soccer one with a cigarette in his mouth thinking he looked very cool.  Then right next to all this a playground with children “bambini”.  Everywhere I looked I saw nannies.  I could tell they were because some of them were American.  If you ever find yourself in a foreign place, you will always notice your own kind.  People say it looks like I have a giant post-it stuck to my forehead saying, “I am American”.  Different reasons for this but I take it as a compliment.  Anyway, I was standing outside of this wooden fence and a little kid walked up to me, about 3 years old.  I could see her mom not really worried looking at her kid and then look at me.  The little girl just came up to me and smiled through the fence.  We played a game of peek a boo.  She was so small that if I moved my head just the slightest she couldn’t see me.  Unlike most children she didn’t run back to her mom.  She just stood there and smiled a little bit and then had a little stroll back to her beautiful world.  I believe the Divine or God lives within each of us and therefore today I felt God was saying through her, “Lighten up. Life is beautiful, Erin ().  Now go on with your day and don’t think another thing about your dorm or your worries.  If you want to worry anymore you are going to have to ignore this cute little child.  Go ahead just try to.”  The mom waived at me with a smile that uttered pure contentment, as if she knew it was exactly what I needed.

  I change my mind about the whole theatre thing… if I can be anything when I grow up I want to one day be as good as that smiling bambina.  Or maybe even as content as the mother sitting in the grass waiting for her child’s next smile and her next fall all at the same time. La dolce vita…the sweet life.

Check it out.  I uploaded a bunch of photos from Sardegna. 

lots of love to everyone:)

I just got back from Rome and now I am off to Sardinia till Sunday.  This is one of the big trips I have been planning on taking since before spring break.  Sardinia is a little Island that is right next to Italy.  Apparently it is warm right now and I will be needing a swimsuit!!!  This will be a nice break from Milan and it’s cloudiness. 

Rome needs some time to explain.  I mean, you can’t rush writing about a city whose history is so deep.  So I will leave that for when I can really write about it.  I haven’t been taking a journal on trips so that is what I am going to do in Sardinia. 

I miss everyone and it is sometimes so weird to think I have been here this long.  I am trying to just enjoy every moment here and truely be in the moment.  I love sharing my experiences and I will do this soon:)  I have started working out again because I have decided to do the summer show. So even though it isn’t pleasurable it is still important:)

lots of love,
erin

Saturday night was probably one of the funnest nights I have spent here in Milan. Not only because I was with my two really good friends, John and Frederico, but because we got to see a Ballet.  The ballet company was from Santa Fe New Mexico.  So they were an american company.  John’s cousin also works for the ballet so our tickets were free! The word free is so rare here I think it is becoming one of my words, by the way.  So our tickets were amazing and the dancing was spectacular.  These people are professional dancers.  I know this makes me sound like a dork but they were so ripped it was ridiculous!!!  I was incredibly awe struck, I might as well of had stars in my eyes, when John’s cousin started to lead us backstage.  Frederico and I looked at each other and we had to remind each other to stay cool and collected.  I thought that she was simply going to give us a tour of the backstage, show us a few simple lights but it just got better.  The main technical director came up to us and said that if we wanted to (kind of a rhetorical question) we could have dinner with the cast.  I looked him straight in the eyes and said in my most calm voice, “yeah that would be great”. 
We ended up in a van driving with the cast to this tiny little restaurant that was close to their hotel.  Getting to know them was the best part.  They were so relaxed and nice.  I have never met nicer dancers.  They were also so nice to each other which is sometimes very rare.  It was like being around fresh air just being in their presence.  They were artists and I had forgotten the feeling of being around people like that.  People who were enjoying their craft but also pursuing their passions.  We ended up after dinner going out with them to a club.  They were so much fun it was hard to say goodbye.  If the universe is kind enough I know some of our paths will cross again.
So needless to say it was an amazing experience that I will forever treasure.  One more life lesson: be nice to everyone you meet because they just might be the person who gets you backstage:)
lots of love,
erin

I have been making a much stronger effort to learn italian.  The effort part is the hardest part of learning a language.  If you make an effort you must also realize that you will make mistakes.  Mistakes are harder funnier than you think they might be.  For instance, in class instead of asking how to find convents online I asked my teacher how can you find nuns online.  If you travel sometimes convents can be cheaper than a hostel which is why I was asking about convents in the first place. That is probably a classic Erin moment that I thought I would fill you in on.  Also, learning another language makes you feel like you are 5 years old again.  Learning how to say, “I like something or I want to go somewhere” when you know how to say it in english but just can’t communicate it because the other person has no idea what you are saying (phew!) is a lot of work:) 

I accept that learning something new and learning a language do not happen over night or even in two months, which is the amount of time I have left.  However, I want to be independent.  I want to be able to go into a store without a friend or have a conversation with someone who is not american.  So…

I have made a contact here in Italy through someone and I am learning Italian with an Italian family.  As much as I want I go over to there apartment and help them learn english.  They have three children and they are learning english in their school.  I asked them at dinner why they wanted to learn english and they said because it is the language you will have to know.  They said they went to Thailand and had a lot of trouble communicating because everything was in english or thai (spelling?).  So they made me dinner the other night.  We had pasta with tomatoes and zuchini, lettuce with olive oil/vinegar, strawberries with sugar and torta (basically a cake).  The best part of the meal was cheese mixed with jam.  I am not even kidding, it was one of the best things I have ever tasted.  She studied biology in university but is now a journalist.  He is a classical piano teacher.  They are a very dynamic family and very nice.  It will be great to get to know them.  They are not very pretentious people so I think it will be easy to get to know them.  They seem incredibly comfortable with the idea.  Which puts me at ease.  My hope is that I can help them with their english and I can really get a lot better at my italian. 

Also, I had lunch and coffee with this italian girl.  She pointed out to me that if you only hang out with english speakers you will only learn english. Which seems like a no brainer but unless you make a concious effort is quite impossible.  You have to put yourself out there.  She also made it clear how important it is to learn another culture.  I really want to learn another culture.  I need to take advantage of this in every way I can.  I will have to just take that first scary step.  Which isn’t as scary as I thought anyway.

This weekend I am going to the Aspen Ballet company’s production here in Milan.  My friend Jon’s cousin works for the ballet and got us tickets.  It is so cool that he has that connection and I am so glad to be included!  I love going to these types of things, it is so much fun:)

I am beginning to miss things and people from home but in a very normal way.  I think it is okay to miss home as long as you still enjoy the place you are.  I am in such a great place right now and I know now that this is where I am suppose to be.  In so many different ways I am suppose to be here right now. 

lots of love,
e

This last week of spring break has completely flown by.  I have found myself in a daze of day to day activities.  Honestly, it has been a little too flustered for my taste.   I am registering for classes back home and obligations keep popping up out of nowhere.  I think it is just registering for classes that has me stressed out.  It scares me how easy I fall into the idea of schedules and tasks and I have to get this done by this time.  I know that I can be a very organized person by nature but there is this other side of me that doesn’t want to be organized at all.  There is this other side of me that reflects my flighty nature.  I have been honing my skills in procrastination because I have a lot of time here.  So stress is like this alien and it is just awkward to have it around.  Of course, you feel stress here.  Italy has it’s own worries that consume me.  I mean as long as there are people and you have relationships with those people things may be complicated.  I just wish I knew how to bottle Italy and take it with me wherever I go.  This is the part in my conversation with myself (which these blogs tend to be) where I take a step back and realize that I am here, in this very moment and I have no choice but to just live it.  Like today for example is Italy to me.  Today I was suppose to be somewhere at 6pm and at 5:30 I went to go get my laundry out of the laundry machine.  Of course it was broken as they so often tend to be.  There is this Italian girl who I have met in the kitchen a couple of times waiting to get her laundry out as well.  Her sense of humor knows no language barrier.  She is extremely nice and off the charts hilarious.  She noticed that it was broken and after doing god knows what to a machine that seems to be too old to still be around, water began spilling out of it everywhere.  I grabbed a mop and began shoving the water into the drain.  As I was sweeping we began to try and communicate beyond our language barrier.  I spoke my very broken and phrase ridden Italian and she spoke to me in her English.  Which is always better than they admit it to be.  They think because their grammar is not perfect they cannot speak English.  They can always speak English they just don’t want to be wrong.  This is also a very human thing.  I think the main reason I haven’t learned better Italian is because I have not been willing to make mistakes.  So I am standing there in a puddle and it is now 5:50.  I should be freaking out or calling this person I am suppose to meet but no I am just having a conversation as I pick my very damp clothes out of the washing machine.  They are so damp and I am not even sure they have been washed properly.  Not even now am I having a panic attack or rushing, no I am simply laughing with this nice Italian girl.  Even stress where I am at is not real stress.   I still find myself running to class if I think I am going to be late.  I still make to do lists but it just isn’t the same.  Maybe I will be the same when I go back to America but most people say you adapt again.  I grabbed my underwear to dry in my room and as I am holding my underwear, with my sleeve soaked in water, running up two flights of stairs we are still talking about life.  That is my day, nothing special but Italy.  Apart of me never wants to leave it. 

            I have been reading this book called, “Peace is the way” by Deepak Chopra.  It has a lot of great messages within it but the one that has me thinking the hardest is the one about what you do to peace out into the world.  Every interaction, I am beginning to realize has a strong hold on the universe.  What energy or whatever you want to call it, you decide to give out creates waves that touch every single person.  If you want peace you must first find it inside yourself and then give it back to others.  So many times we have conflict within our own lives and it never gets resolved.  Or how we handle it is not peaceful and only stimulates anger within ourselves.  Then we turn on the news and watch conflict appear out of nowhere and think it will never get fixed.  When in reality we aren’t even doing our part for peace by being peaceful in our own lives.  Many times peace is also love so we can try and do this also.  Peace is a choice for sure.  It is not a passive choice though.  It is something that I can integrate in my life wherever I go.  Even when I get back to America if Peace is what I bring than maybe peace is what I will receive. 

I had dinner with the nicest Italian family ever.  They were so welcoming and generous.  They are friends of my friend Erin and she gave me their contact information. The woman I met is American and her husband is from Milan.  They met as she was traveling here for business.  They have two daughters who are now going to school in America.  They also have a son who is 17 years old.  There home was so lovely and well decorated.  I was in awe as I stepped into the apartment.  I love to be reminded of how a home reflects a person’s personality.  Each home if it has love in it echoes something wonderful no matter how it is decorated or shaped.  This house reminded me of modern and classic put together in a blender and set on puree.  The mix was so smooth you couldn’t even really tell it was mixed.  It was kind of American and also kind of Italian, basically perfection. They had a grand piano in the middle of the living room with a picture of all three of their children.  Then in the middle of the living room was a glass coffee table with books about all sorts of interesting things.  The meal itself was something to write home about.  I love how simple everything is.  It was pesto and pasta, with two different kinds of cheeses and then strawberries for desert.  They also served me amazing wine and cappuccino at the very end.  Then as we were leaving the table they sat the table for breakfast the next day.  It seemed like such a sweet tradition to me.  Every evening after your meal set the table for breakfast together.  Italian families are so good about eating meals together but also enjoying meals together.  I don’t know how they do it but they are perfect at it. 

It was delicious to say the least and it also came with great conversation.  They are so interesting and lovely that it wasn’t hard to talk to them.  We talked a lot about politics and also the elections coming up in Italy.  They also gave me information for going to La Scala because I am hoping to see Swan Lake if I can get cheap tickets.  Then we moved into the living room for tea and coffee.  The night ended with me finding my way back to the subway station a happy camper.  I really hope to see them again because it was a very joyful night to have a homecooked meal with a family.