13. Epiphanies

My time in Florence never caused me to have a profound epiphany, except for one that I can’t quite remember due to a night of too much wine in Piazza della Signoria (I know it had something to do with the beautiful statues, but that’s about all I can say). All I can say as that I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have gotten to study art history in possibly the best city in the world to study it. And I have the perfect story to back up my claim.

One of my last days in Florence began with a trip to the Bargello Museum with two of my classmates. For our final project for Art collecting and Museology, we were required to curate an exhibition at a museum in Florence, and we chose the Bargello, my personal favorite museum in Florence (it’s got Donatello’s David). Once we were through planning our exhibition, I left my classmates and decided to go grocery shopping. The grocery store I most often frequent is one that is across the Ponte Vecchio, which, at this time of year, is impossible to get across without taking out a few tourists.

Since I got to Florence, I had been hoping to see Pontormo’s Deposition, but for some reason had not taken the time to actually find it. I knew it was in the church of Santa Felicita, close to the Ponte Vecchio, but had always been in too much of a hurry across the Ponte Vecchio to remember to go to this church. Since it was one of my last days, I decided I would take the time to find it, despite looming final papers and projects.

Literally one block past my grocery store was the Piazza Santa Felicita. Everything in Florence has strange hours, so part of me was afraid it wasn’t going to be open. Thankfully, the doors were open, and I entered. This small church took me by surprise. I gaped at its beauty and began to search for the Deposition, a quest that took about 10 seconds, as the legendary painting is located directly to the visitor’s right hand side upon entering.

I stared at it in the dim church lighting and wondered why it wasn’t lit better. This is a Mannerist painting, after all. Let me see the colors! A group of American tourists entered after me, loudly asking one another for a euro. (They obviously knew this system better than me) An old lady in the church quickly shushed them, and I showed them I had a euro, which I then proceeded to stick in a machine that immediately lit up the small chapel.

I stood there with my head pressed against the gate of the chapel, eyes agape at the tangible motion and luminescent colors until the lights went out.
Then I went grocery shopping.


(for reference)

I traveled for two weeks straight before I came back to Paris.  On the morning I was to leave Berlin to go back to Paris, I had nervous flutters in my stomach.  I was excited to come “home.” 

Paris has become a home of sorts for me and I always thought it would but it wasn’t until I felt so safe and comfortable coming back to it from travelling that I found that it was even more of a home than I had realized.  Humming the theme to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (which I later realized was actually the theme to Up), I boarded the plane back to France.  I had never been so happy to hear French spoken in my life.  (I had actually gotten tired of/ annoyed by the sound of it before I left for my Spring break country-hopping excursion).  Although mostly everyone had spoken English in the countries I visited, it was so lovely to be back where I could speak the native language.  (And just in time for the arrival of my Uncle, his girlfriend, my parents and my sister).

I was lucky enough to get to return to Paris to rediscover it through their fresh eyes.  Although my parents have been here before, they are still amazed by the beauty of Paris.  As their tour guide, I realized that I know a lot more about Paris than I had thought (even just things as mundane as I know how to navigate the metro fairly well – I successfully navigated us to the original Shakespeare and Co where I took this picture of my Mom and her newly bought book).  I’m loving getting to show them around this city that I have come to know in a language that I love to speak.

Yesterday, while walking through le Marais, admiring the beautiful sky and basking in the newly lovely weather (it’s been raining a lot here), my Mom said “you are going to miss this, aren’t you?”  And it was the first time that I realized that I am really going to miss Paris.  Yes, I am ready to go home in many ways but I will miss speaking French and being in the most beautiful city in the world.  I must in enjoy my last ten days of Paris and this gorgeous Spring weather.

In thinking about the themes from the entire class, I mostly liked the concepts in which the original aspects of travel turned on themselves. Unlike original understandings of travel, such as place and distance, the main topics that I enjoyed included mindset, interaction, and “nativeness.”
 
When considering texts such as Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris & London, we see that, although with a faked sense of depravity, the author regardlessly lives the life of a traveler in the most unwanted way. Earlier in class today, we talked about the aspect of Hide and Seek in which changing one’s posture alters his or her view of the place. Similarly, if one travels in a different way, not going the same route in terms of hotels, tours, five-star restaurants, then the traveler may experience an unparalleled experience abroad.
 
After reading the texts of Morris and Davidson, I understood that traveling, or being a first-order tourist in Iyer’s perspective, could heavily depend on the people and memories that the place incited. Watching the video today in which tourists drew the picture of the building rather than take a picture of it simply to remember the place and overall memory better brought me to think about the differences in traveling with or without people. Although Mahoney does not seem to want companionship along the trip, she never acts alone. Through her day-to-day interactions, she ultimately makes her own decisions, but relies on the help of others in order to make those goals a reality. Among Morris, Davidson, and Mahoney, the three directly or indirectly use the people surrounding them to paint the picture of the place. The reason why, in my opinion, many students found Kincaid’s piece both annoying and repetitive was because the author failed to use any descriptive narrative to portray the beauties of Antigua and the people of the land. Instead, she chose to focus on the effects of tourism rather than the causes—the interactions.
 
Lastly, in this week’s text by De Botton, I still cannot help but feel excited over the idea of making the old new again. Like any other fashion trend or DIY project, the recycling of the obsolete into the new inspires me to re-question every “taken-for-granted” place by searching the nooks and crannies, establishing rules of travel, and acknowlging the every-confusing concept of time in that we never have time, ever—we simply create levels in which it exists (semester of college, family vacation, etc). However, we need to try to look at every place anew, regardless of the day, time, or overall routine. 

This semester hasn’t been an easy one, but it is a semester that tested limits and preconceptions that I didn’t realize I had.   The Accra site is yes, one of the studio art sites, and the only non-European study abroad site at which I could complete my major, but Ghana is so much more than this.  One reason it is so much more than just a study abroad site is that it is also the place where slavery originated.  This study abroad site, unbeknownst to me is heavily centered around race, slavery, and identity.  Whether I should have been expecting this or not, (none of my guidebooks say anything about it!) I was blindsided within the first few weeks by dialogues about African American identity, issues of race and racism, both abroad and at home.  When the program screened a documentary on race that the program counselor designed, few of us felt obligated to attend.  We all had work to do, and frankly, I needed a break from a topic so many of my classes seemed to revolve around.
Unfortunately, the fact that so many students had chosen not to attend the program was a source of tension for the next few months.  It was fertile territory for assumptions to made, misunderstandings to blossom.  At some points it was unbearable, and at some points it as barely noticed; the tension fluctuated from group to group, individual to individual.  For me, it was the source of many conversations with unexpected people and unexpected conclusions.  It wasn’t the conversion topic I preferred, but they were conversations worth having.  And when the program re-screened the documentary, the turnout more than doubled, and was followed by an interesting and honest discussion.
I’ve never really thought deeply about issues of race before, mostly because I consider race such a non-issue.  People are people, and race is just a concept we came up with out our fever and confusion.  We come from different places and may look different, may even think differently, but in my opinion race is just about as important as hair color.  Ascribed, but cosmetic.  Subject to change based on identity and word choice.  Plenty of people do not think this way; I knew that before I arrived in Accra.  But being here with forty other Americans, in constant dialogue about race, I realized just how much baggage Americans as a culture carry about race, about class and background and ethnicity as heritage.  Whereas most countries claim a native population, their own people, the United States does not have a majority group in this way.  Instead we are a country of entirely immigrants, voluntary or forced, having marginalized the people who were native to our vast country.  We carry the history of our ancestors, or our lack of it, on our backs as a weight on our identity.  We chase our heritage all over the globe and look for the home our families lost as they fled or were taken.    And we carry this weight with us when we leave, and place it on the shores of some new country, hoping they will take that weigh away.

(The image is mine, taken at the Independence Day celebrations.)

An epiphany is something that cannot be forced.  But certainly a realization is something that can be discovered via writing.  Or rather, a further understanding of one’s grand thoughts, one’s moment of recognition defined by the epic and overwhelming word ‘epiphany’.
 
So here I am, in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, in South America, a predominantly Spanish-speaking continent (save Brazil, the Guyanas and Suriname).  And this place I’m in is defined by all of these characteristics.  And the inhabitants of this place are here because they speak Spanish, or this place exists because Spanish is spoken.  A reciprocal relationship reigns; language, place, and people are inextricably connected.
 
I suppose one could label that my ‘epiphany’ of sorts, particularly because it is something that can only be noted once placed outside of one’s home country.  I am from the United States.  I speak English.  I am a student, I learn Spanish; I travel to Argentina, I use that Spanish.  I live in Buenos Aires, I adapt to the porteño, castellano accent.  It’s all very simple, with some parts inherent and others a process (and others still an inherent process).  But what are the further implications of being in a place where they speak Spanish, a language I struggle to perfect?  I’m sure several language and travel theorists have explored this exact issue, but I am far from being well read enough to know just whom they are.  Thus the attempt is my own.
 
Knowing a second language is extremely beneficial, and encouraged in education globally.  Learners are able to construct different realities within these different languages, without even knowing it.  These different realities are primarily based off of culture associated with the language… for example: if I were to say the word lunch one would think of generally a sandwich or a salad or something of that sort, but if I were to say almuerzo, one may think of something more common for lunch in either Spain or Latin America.  Beyond these cognitive, linguistic abilities, however, there’s another branch to linguistics directly related to this: linguistic anthropology, or the “ethnography of speaking.”
 
So I go to a café and have my respective almuerzo and I go to school and I run errands and I take the bus and I am speaking Spanish within all of these daily activities.  And the people I know and see are formed in my mind as being who they are because they speak Spanish, because I speak Spanish with them, whether they are originally from Argentina or not.  I have travelled to Chile and Uruguay now, and the Spanish there is different, and of course differs anywhere you go.  But the Spanish here in Buenos Aires is now my Spanish, and porteños and travelers alike can attain cultural identity via their special way of speaking the language.  And so I have come to realize that all the Spanish I learned has been completely altered, to a new reality, because I finally exist within a Spanish-speaking place and interacting with its inhabitants, and that reality constructed and based on my first second language is now my own, personal reality.  And so this ethnography of speaking I am undergoing reaches beyond cultural and social identity, and touches upon my own identity.

One of the most commonly asked questions I’ve been asked since my study abroad adventure started way back during the application process was, “So why Ghana?” I came up with some pretty good reasons including interests such as art, photography, culture, and the pure excitement of going to Africa in general. It wasn’t until I got here and established a daily routine that I realized how much I’ve learned about myself and my own heritage.

Going back to the Navajo Reservation every summer since I was five years old prepared me for this semester long excursion more than I could ever give it credit. Of course I never appreciated my culture back then.  I’ll admit that even after living there for a summer in 2010 I still wasn’t fully invested in getting to know my Navajo roots. It wasn’t until coming here, to Ghana, that I see the parallels my own culture has with Ghanaian culture. While the images of poverty might be striking and burdensome to my roommates, all I feel are the memories of the reservation come rushing back and the anger boiling up inside of me because similar conditions exist in our own country. I feel lucky that I’m able to teach my friends here a lot about the similarities between Native American and African cultures and tell them about how my mother grew up and the stories of my own experiences on the reservation. I especially enjoy talking to my mom about everything and hearing her personal opinion about it all.

Sadly, my biggest “epiphany” has been how desensitized I’ve become to certain disturbing images. The rural areas we go into and the shanty towns we’ve walked through are all places that I’ve seen and stayed in myself. My mother grew up in conditions very similar. The fact that dogs and cats are not domestic animals and are not treated as such was something I struggled when we would go to the reservation throughout my entire childhood. I see these things here every single day and I no longer fight or give into the sadness they used to bring me. Instead I feel even more energized to go back and spend time with my clan. I want to embrace my culture and learn as much about it as I can. I want to go back and volunteer and show my support, because without any of these things my culture is slowly dwindling away. Ghana has taken me back to my origin and reignited a fire I thought I lost when I moved away.      

Having spent the last seven months in Buenos Aires, I’d like to think I know the city incredibly well. Indeed, I’ve lived within the same two-block radius and I pridefully know the streets of my neighborhood, Recoleta, like I’ve grown up here. Surprisingly, people ask me for directions frequently and, even more surprisingly, I often am able to give them correct directions. I had the very sad realization, however, that as an upper-middle class foreigner, I know very little of the city of Buenos Aires as a whole.

There are many factors that have contributed to my introversion to the safe, upper class, gentrified areas of Buenos Aires. To begin with, Buenos Aires is an enormous city. The urban center has nearly three million residents and greater Buenos Aires has almost twelve million. It is 126 square miles (I’m not including the outside provinces) in size compared to Manhattan, which is only 23 square miles. In other words, it’s huge. It takes considerable amounts of time to move from neighborhood to neighborhood, even by taxi. The city has a very complete bus system but they move very slowly during traffic and the subway is fast, but very dangerous and there is not one convenient to my house.

The neighborhoods that I spend time in are Recoleta, Palermo and sometimes Puerto Madero and San Telmo, which are both really cool neighborhoods, but are further and located in burgeoning areas. The neighborhoods where I spend time have the most to offer in terms of contemporary, interesting restaurants, bars, museums and galleries. The great majority of Argentine restaurants have steak, empanadas and not much else to offer so by this time, I’m very tired of the local fare and am constantly in search of creative, vegetable-filled meals.

The truest reason that I don’t explore other areas of Buenos Aires is that the city has not yet become integrated socioeconomically. This not only means that the less developed neighborhoods have little draw other than run down residences and local, mediocre restaurants, but they are not safe for tourists to wander around. Overall Buenos Aires is a fine place to be, but I stick out as a local for the way I dress and my curly hair.

I would like to be the person who has discovered every inch of the city. This isn’t to say that I don’t explore, I go into other neighborhoods such as La Boca where the soccer stadium is near the docks, but only when I have a specific destination in mind. In my opinion, Buenos Aires still has a long way to go in terms of infrastructure, overall city cleanliness and socioeconomic divide before it can be a truly united city. For now, the rich live their lives separate from the poor and unfortunately, I’ve been placed on one side; keeping me from the other. I hope in the future when I visit Buenos Aires, other neighborhoods will have emerged and the city will be entirely, as lovely and culturally fulfilling as the parts I have come to know and love.

The image is train tracks that run through the city. Oftentimes, you even must cross train tracks to change neighborhoods (cue obvious metaphor).

My “epiphany” isn’t so much an outright “Oh my god, I have never thought of that before!” type of moment, but more of a nagging series of thoughts in the back of my mind that, when finally vocalized by another person whose opinion was credible, had the real weight and force to make me examine my time spent in Buenos Aires and recognize the fact that I am still not free from all of the preconceptions that I brought with me to this city, this country, this continent.
 
Well, I recently had drinks with an older Colombian man, and at one point in our conversation (keep in mind that we are talking in Spanish and I’m only an intermediate speaker, meaning that I am not at all eloquent and have a semi-pathetic vocabulary), I mentioned that I would like to live in South America eventually, possibly even Buenos Aires. And when I said “live,” I meant settle down here, have kids here, grow old here…at least that’s what I think I meant. He asked me why I wanted to live here and my response was… well it wasn’t much of a response. I told him that I felt more connected to the culture here than I did to my own back home and that it was something about the people – they seem friendlier, more open and willing to start a conversation with or help a stranger.
 
His answer to me was an honest one, without pretension or condescension: you don’t know this culture. You’re only here for four months as a student and it takes years to know one city, one country. What could I say to that? Though I love all the experiences I’ve had in Buenos Aires and Argentina – and it’s not like I regret coming here or anything like that – they have ultimately been fleeting and piecemeal. I have had windows into Argentine culture and understand the way some cultural customs work as well as daily life. But my knowledge of this place still has so many holes; for example, one thing that always throws things into perspective is that Buenos Aires has 38 or so barrios and I have set foot in less than 10 of them.
 
My time here has been split between getting to know the city, adapting to daily life as a student, and slowly shedding my North American preconceptions of Argentina and “South America” as I become more informed through my daily interactions with people, the media, and anything else that crosses my path. But that answer, and all these thoughts now, lead me to question what our motives and are goals are when we study abroad for a semester. What do we hope to gain and what remains beyond our understanding by the time we prepare to leave? Do we always retain an outsider’s perspective as foreign travelers, or is there a point when we finally break through to the other side?

I promised myself I would not get into a serious relationship at the beginning of Fall 2012. I obstinately, inordinately, stubbornly made a commitment to myself to not put myself through that much hell and to allow myself some time apart from anyone to enjoy myself in Berlin. Resolute, uncaring, and determined, I went out for a night on the town with my girlfriends…only to have Fate hand me the most perfect candidate for a significant other that I have ever seen in my life and I fall head over heels in love.

Cue exasperated heavy sigh.

Despite my resolution, Fate’s omniscient hand in dealing me adversary every time I make a concrete decision has not been stayed since arrival in Berlin. Every day is a struggle to maintain contact with him while we both lead very, very separate lives, and I feel every mile acutely as I experience and embrace every new thing that Berlin offers me. Even now, with an approximate month left in the program I find myself forgetting what it feels like to be with him.

This struggle has not left me without any sort of realizations that come with the territory, however. In the adjustment of living without my significant other, I find myself realizing that when in the States I would ask such mundane things like “do they have pharmacies there?”, “where am I going to buy feminine products?”, and most stupid of them all, “how am I going to get groceries?” As if Germans did not have all these things: grocery stores, hot sauce, tampons, dogs, Salami. I could even hear the sarcastic abrading voice of my best friend: “Yeah, even the Germans have boyfriends Theresa. They’re not much different than you.”

Yeah, I suppose they aren’t. But silly me, for some reason I thought life would be different here in so many fundamental ways. For some stupid reason I thought that Germans don’t have tampons. But it took me a second look and the loss of something that used to be a daily part of my life for me to realize that running away to a different country does not fundamentally change what is necessary for humans to live. Food, clothing, shelter. All can be found in every society. So what if I don’t know the language perfectly? All the fundamentals for living are present in the fabric of the place I have relocated to.

Just as these things foster living, however, what became a more important realization is the understanding that living is not the same as being happy. This different country, while beautiful and interesting and full of life was not what I need from the world. All my life I have had the tendency to run far away from the things I knew to search for something better. It was the reason I left Minneapolis to go to New York, and left New York to go to Berlin. In being here, though, I understood that I wasn’t in the pursuit of something better. I realized if I kept running that I would be wandering the world my entire life searching for something better when in fact I was looking for something I was missing within: a deep seated confidence and security, a home in myself. What was most important to me in that moment was to not look for anything better but be happy with what I have, what I can grow with the tools I already have. As this term ends, I am happy to have had this realization, for I know for certain that I would not have had this without the unique situation given me.

They say that God will not give us more than we can handle in certain circles. I firmly believe that though Fate seems to be unrelenting, I am blessed to have had this “appearance of God” here.

Because privilege is so visible here it is easy to think it is commonplace- that everyone lives like I do, or better. My surroundings are almost always higher-class: I stay in our nice clean dorms, work in a prestigious building, and go out to the swankier restaurants, clubs, and stores.   Those are my locales- that is my world, my Abu Dhabi.  But there is so much more that I never see. 
 
This ‘other Abu Dhabi’ hits me anytime I have to walk somewhere.  In my perception of Abu Dhabi, it is not a pedestrian city at all.  I take cabs everywhere I go, because they are very cheap, and the city is spread out.  But on the rare occasion that I need to go somewhere that is only a few blocks away, I am consistently SHOCKED about how many people are out on the street, not taking cabs, but getting to where they are getting on foot!  It isn’t that I’m not aware of it of course, but that I don’t think about it until it is right in front of me, showing me the ‘other.’
 
In classes, my research, here on the blog, and with my NGO- Trail of Seeds, I constantly preach against ‘us v. them’ dichotomies, but it is naïve to pretend that we are not living them in so many different ways!  I think that it is important to accept that we must operate in them to some extent- we can’t reject how life is- but we can work so that we do not perpetuate the negative qualities that go against human rights.  How exactly to do this, I still don’t know and I’m still exploring, but I see that even the simplest change in our own perceptions of power dynamics is effective.
 
The moment of realization that involves this point came last night when I was talking with a group of friends about taking taxis.  I was telling different stories about conversations I have had with drivers and explained that I always ask them questions to try and learn their perspective on Abu Dhabi, which I think is good in trying to eliminate some of this system- by understanding it.  I then said something about how I always sit in the back, and everyone got confused.  The majority of my friends thought that it was hypocritical to try and learn about hierarchies while so clearly sustaining one.  I was surprised to find out that most of my friends, especially the guys, always sat in the passenger seat, the littlest attempt at equality.  Of course we cannot immediately change the system that in Abu Dhabi people from certain countries drive people from other certain countries around.  But by showing mutual respect and interest, we CAN make some positive change.

I look out my balcony and watch the cars and the people go by, they never look up, oblivious that they are being watched. When it is evening these same people march on through the darkness, nothing has changed except the larger power above us all, out of our control, which makes the world go dark and lighten up on its organized schedule. Perhaps these people are coming back from a long day at work in the evening, starving, tired. We are human beings all on the same clock. I look out my balcony and I see rooftops and buildings and balconies and windows and laundry lines, and I know that it can be any city.

Everything is a twenty hour bus ride away in Argentina. It surprised us too...The map is so misleading.

On Continental 63 From Los Angeles to Buenos Aires I looked at the little drawing of our airplane on the little map on the the little tv screen and saw that we were almost there, excited that we had entered the continent of South America. The screen changed to blue and then I read Time to destination: 6 hours.
This world is enormous, and look at me, a little tiny human being crossing it. But in this city I see just a city. Cities are projects of human beings, and human beings live in every city. There are buildings and cars and stores and rooftops and buses and TV and Shampoo and Conditioner and hungry people and lonely people and books. There are museums and advertisements and electrical lines and ballet teachers and people studying the meaning of justice.
Is it globalization? Or is it just humanity?

I took a twenty hour bus ride to Northern Argentina this ‘spring’ break and realized how many mountains, how much empty land, how many tiny pueblos there are outside of this city. I realized how much the earth expands and imagined the amount it probably encompasses. I wonder how much of it is actually the same and how much it can actually differ. The problem is that there is too much to actually know, or to even imagine. That’s when I realized that after I graduate I have to come back to travel. From the southern tip of South America to the Northern and then all the way to East Asia. It is too interesting to ignore… 

When I first came to Florence, I spent the first few weeks meeting friends and explored the city with these friends. I thought weekdays in Florence would be enough and I could use the weekends to travel to other cities in Europe with these friends. A group of us organized low cost trips using Ryanair to visit Frankfurt, Palermo, Prague, Barcelona, Oslo, Stockholm and Paris.  I was so impressed and excited for the amount of stuff we could do at such a cheap price, however I didn’t take into consideration the amount of effort and time it takes to travel to these places. 

I couldn’t be happier with all of the places that I choose to visit. Although, after experiencing the low budget trips, I learned that it is not smart to try to see everything all at once. This means I shouldn’t have tried to do Stockholm and Olso within 2 days, and also learned that I shouldn’t have tried to fit more than 7 cities into one semester abroad. 

I had my epiphany when I was reminded recently that I go back to New York in three weeks! That can't be possible, I still have so much to see in Florence, I just got comfortable here, I am not ready to leave! While I spent four months here, I learned that I should have spent less time traveling and more time becoming a Florentine. Once I had this epiphany, I decided that a three day trip to Paris is not worth the 5 hours of travel. I would not be able to “love” Paris in 3 days, it takes a semester or even a year to truly know a city. I have been to Paris and have done all of the “necessary” touristy spots. If I was to go to Paris, I would want to spend a longer amount of time learning French or the culture. Therefore I decided to refund this trip and spend my last three weeks in my enchanting home, Florence. 

This epiphany taught me that I have to value the time I have in current places, and there is no rush to see everything at once. I believe I value the tourist attractions such as il Duomo or Piazza Signoria more than I did when I first got here; now that I have lived here and learned about the city, I have more of a personal connection with the sites around me. 

It took me a while to get used to living in Italy. Everything seemed to oppose the fast-paced, New York lifestyle that I had become used to.  The people are slow, the food is different, and the lifestyle is much more relaxed – literally everything here is different. What shocked me the most was the fact that everything and everyone ran on their own schedules; the bus schedule, (which changed once a week) was never reliable and the coffee shop next to my apartment seemed to open whenever the owner felt like going to work that day. At first, I didn’t understand how people could function this way. Didn’t they get frustrated? I mean it took a solid ten minutes for me to get a bottle of water. Although I often find myself frustrated with this lethargic behavior, I have learned to love this slow-paced lifestyle. Everyone seems to appreciate everything so much more. Drinking a cup of coffee isn’t just a two-minute process to wake us up in the morning. Rather, in Italy and even throughout Europe, it has become a long process, as each sip is savored and the fact that there are no to-go cups definitely does not encourage people to pick up the pace. After three months here, I have attempted to adapt some of the Italian habits.
Now, as I wait for the bus each morning, I know that I need to show up at least fifteen minutes early. The bus, which is usually scheduled to arrive around 8:20 can show up anywhere from 8:08 to 8:35. Frustrating? Absolutely, but no one seems to care. I cannot believe I am actually saying this, but I am definitely going to miss the Italian lifestyle. Hopefully, I’ll be able to combine my fast-paced life in New York with the relaxing lifestyle of Italy to find the perfect balance.