Thursday, Sept. 27th

Today it's Thursday, Sept. 27.

Took a mid-day shower and put on a velvet shirt.
I was given the day off today, much appreciated.

Tomorrow it will be Friday & I'll head to Venice.

It was my favorite city when I visited Italy 4 years ago.
I'm hoping it will serve me well yet again.

I sent a message to my old college professor today.
It's been over a year since we spoke.
Feels nice to re-connect.

...

I'm naturally a trusting person.
I see the good in people and have hope.
I believe in the code of honor and respect.
Today I realize its more important that I understand all of that for myself. 
Never thought about it like that before.

Am making a conscious effort to trust, have hope, believe in, honor and respect myself.
And to love. To love myself.
Do that and everything else will fall into place.

I chose to leave home for 3.5 months, and now I'm finding out how difficult it is.
Not good. Not bad. Just a choice that I've made and am living with.

 (photos by Lucilla Bellini & my photo booth.) 

"To have a solid character is to have a long and tried experience of life's disillusions and misfortunes. Then it is a question of desiring constantly or not at all" - Stendhal

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Scenes from Firenze

Woke up 5:30AM and left my couch-surfing host's house in Bologna at 6AM to walk to the train station - headed to Firenze. A little freaked out because it was dark, very cold, and and all I had was a dinky little map to figure out how to get where I was going. Traveling alone is definitely scary, but exhilarating. I spend a lot of time with my own thoughts and my journal. Despite being in a packed train or surrounded by tourists, it can get pretty quiet, but comfortable. It's been a feast for the senses, that's for sure.

Some Favorite Moments:

Walking around in the city center, freezing, by myself, with hardly anyone awake... Climbing the steps of the Duomo & the view from the top... Sitting on the steps of the square with the "giant horse" reading/writing/watching... Sitting Indian style in the square with the sleeping backpackers... Secretly spying on the sweetest looking old couple: He/She wearing matching powder blue shirts and khakis. She had a red Gucci belt and a striped umbrella. He had a fancy cane. They held hands and seemed truly in love... Tiny cars and dogs everywhere... Locks of love chained around the city... Squatting toilets... Hoarder's style vintage shops... The ultimate 1% designer shops: Chanel, Ferragamo, Valentino, etc... Seeing 2 weddings... Having 2 photo shoots... Finding loved one's names scribbled on walls and on restaurant entrances... The best gelato on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio... One new couch surfing friend... Walking into a bar alone, coming out together... Reading side-by-side with an old, wrinkly, super tan, short shorts wearing Italian man... Dinner dining solo... Dreams of teeth falling out... Actually having my fake tooth fall out... Unsuccessfully trying to find wifi, and being completely alright with it... Military boys with fancy hats and swords... The smell of leather... Chianti... Staring at the moon, videotaping the moon, falling in love with the moon. 

A Few Photos: 

Side note: I just finished a small-ish (maybe medium) sized jar of Nutella I bought maybe a week ago. Delicious stuff. Good thing I walked absolutely everywhere in Florence, despite my right ankle still being swollen from a bike ride fall last week. 

A Few Things Before Firenze.

This week I've been prepping for my weekend trip to Firenze (Florence!)

My main priorities were making sure I acquire a local Italian phone #, purchase the correct train/bus tickets, find a place to stay (for free, preferably) while out of town, and make sure I get back to Spilamberto in time for work on Monday!

The kids grandma came to visit on Wednesday, she only speaks Italian and is so so sweet. Despite our language barrier, she took a keen interested in me and for a while we were at home alone, just the two of us! We really made an effort to communicate, and alas, it worked! After many hand gestures, dictionary look-ups, and repeated phrases, I know know the following:

1. According to her I'm very tall for a Chinese person and am very pale.
2. She wanted to know if I had any brothers or sisters, but more importantly, a boyfriend. She wanted to know when I was planning on getting married and what my husband will do for a living.
3. I un-intentionally shocked/startled her when I told her I had no religion. She asked me first if I was Catholic, then if I was Christian, when I said neither she yelped a bit and seemed to want to save my soul. To sweet. As a grandmother of 5 and a mother of 3, religion is a very important part of her life. 
4. She said that she has visited the Grand Canyon and thinks that Las Vegas is amazing, in general she thinks America is really beautiful. Funny thing, isn't it? I've never really stopped to wonder in how beautiful America is, but I come here and stare in awe at everything. Beauty really is all around us, we just need to open our eyes and want to see it.

(** Correction: I was baptized in a Methodist church, and failed to mention that. Does that make me a Christian? Yes, in some ways. It's up for debate. I have my own ideas about this, but it is something that is a part of my history and a part of the story that grounds who I am today.  **) 

Success in getting a local phone number! It's just a super plain and ordinary pay-as-you-go phone, but it gets the job done. Pretty strange going from using an iPhone to one of these though... :/ Texting is so hard. I was able to purchase tickets & am heading to Bologna Friday night and meeting with some fellow "couch surfers" and staying with my 1st "Host!"After that I have a 6:00AM train ride to Florence where I hope to attend some "Wine Town" events; I am staying with a sommelier there so some good wine shall definitely be had. 

Little Carlo, who may be the most spoiled child I have ever known, was actually pretty good the other day! His older brother Matteo had his 1st day of football practice, so I had to stay home with Carlo alone. Usually he cries like CRAZY whenever his mother leaves, but instead we played with puzzles and board games! Success! Crying children really are stressful, it's so annoying to hear and makes me NOT want to have kids for a long long long time. 

I was able to check out the Wednesday Market again, this time I came home with some goodies! Although vintage is pretty hard to find here, I have hope - I'm thinking Florence will prove to be a treasure trove. 

1. An Ombre Tee.

2. A Purple L/S Velvet crop top. 

3. Riding Pants. 

4. Knit Tank.

Going to try and be up and active before my usual 7:30am "call time" tomorrow. Have lots of errands to run and things to plan for my 1st out-of-town weekend trip! I really wish I could have wifi all the time, it makes life and planning so much easier. It's amazing how much I rely on my iphone, but I am happy to be filling up so many journal pages & glad I stocked up on good pens before I left ;) 

Modeling in Modena.

It was an early morning rise this past Saturday. I took my 2nd Italian bus ride, this time to Modena (the hometown of Luciano Pavarotti!) for photo shoot. I thought it would be super casual, but to my surprise  we had hair/makeup/wardrobe all supplied. 

I meet up with my new friends Luca (photographer), Germana (designer), and Elenora (make-up artist) and we went to this beautiful villa in Modena, the family living there rents out the home to have Wedding ceremonies - they were so kind to let us use it for a few hours free of charge! The villa is actually just down the street from where Luciano Pavarotti lived. Too cool.

Elenora's designs were so beautiful & handmade by vintage fabrics. There was this one dress that was a cashmere silk blend, so soft. The peter pan collar in the dress (in the picture above) was was made with part of her Grandmothers doilies. Vintage isn't very popular in Italy, yet. It's been hard for me to find second hand places to buy things, Italians in general really love their new designer stuff. Granted though, if you do find a good vintage shop they'll probably have amazing high fashion vintage that I could only ever dream of owning...

My favorite part of the shoot was in the kitchen. The whole house was really beautiful, but the kitchen felt the most lived in. There were bowls of freshly picked red grapes from the garden, pots, plates, bowls of sugar, etc. The fridge and freezer were fully stocked and I found lots of garlic. mmm...

Friday in Bologna.

What a great weekend! On Friday night I ventured out to the big city of Bologna... my first night "out" without the family. 

(La Strada Del Jazz, Bologna)

Since living here I have heard from many Italians that "Italy is a strange place... you'll soon understand"... Now I get what they mean ...

There is public transportation here, but you can't exactly rely on it. They have "trip planners" to figure out which bus or train to take, but who knows if it will actually come? There is no station in my town to buy bus tickets, you get them from tobacco and candy shops, and often they don't know the bus schedule! Shops close for 3 or 4 hours in the middle of the day so everyone can go home for lunch, they don't post hours on the doors and who knows when places will open back up?? Despite all of that disorganization, the food and wine more than makes up for it, so they just deal with it. 

The food is seriously AMAZING. All of the the food I've had while here is out of this world. Lots of cheese, bread, prosciutto, pasta, coffee, wine, fresh fruit, etc. They way the cafe's are set up is really nice too: small shops who put out tables on the street so you are literally sitting in the street and can watch folks walk by. 

(Statue of Neptune, my 1st Pizza of the trip & scenes from the Jazz festival)

This Friday I went to 2 different tobacco/candy shops to try and buy a bus ticket to Bologna, they didn't have any, so I had to go to the neighbouring town, Vignola, to purchase one. Luckily my bus arrived right on time! The bus driver was really nice, I asked him how to get to a specific intersection (where I planned on meeting a fellow couch-surfer) and he dropped me right off at the intersection! 

Bologna is amazing, a HUGE student/university town, a lot like Austin actually, but more metropolitan. I saw tons of shops, will definitely have to plan an entire day just to window shop there, lots to explore. I met up with my new Greek friend from couchsurfing.org, Dimos. We walked around, grabbed a pizza (HUGE & Scrumptious!), and met up with his flat-mate. I had intended on going to see a show for the Fringe Festival that was in town, but instead we happened upon the Bologna Jazz in the Streets Festival, it was fantastic!

(Video from the festival!)

After the festival my new friends walked with me to the train station where I had planned to buy a ticket to go to Castelfranco (the town with the closest train station to Spilamberto, where I live) so the father of the family could pick me up. I succeeded in buying my ticket, but then when looking for which train platform I needed to get to, we found that the trains got cancelled!!! Luckily we were provided a replacement bus, but it was all very unorganized, no one knew what was going on, not even the bus drivers. Luckily I found a group of young Italians, one guy was half British and helped me out (he went to Uni. in the same town  my dad is from, Portsmouth, how crazy is that?!) After a lot of confusion and waiting around, I did get home. A great end to a fantastic evening. 

Wednesday Market.

Today after I took little Carlo to school, Emilio (the father) and I walked into town so that I could set up a local Italian cell phone number. To my surprise, this little town as busy & bustling with a street market! Apparently every town has a market in the morning once per week, we have it on Wednesday. 

I didn't get anything this time around, but it was lovely to look at all the goodies! They also have clothes/shoes/accessories. I wasn't very impressed by a lot of it, looked like a lot of "Made in China" stuff and the shoes were sort of cheap. I was a bit surprised with how many Italians don't wear good Italian shoes. The still-small-but-bigger neighbouring town, Vignola, has a market on Thursday and Bologna has a big one on Monday. I'm hoping I'll find some better shoes there!

As it turned out, I was able to get an Italian SIM card, but the old Nokia the family provided is dead! They're going to check out and see if they can find another old phone lying around, or will get me a new one. It doesn't really matter that much right now though... I don't have many to people to call on it other than the family. I am meeting my friend Luca (photographer from Model Mayhem) again on Sunday, we're having a photo shoot at an old villa with the fashion designer whose show we saw! Then at night we're going to this artists exhibition, they've asked me to model some art-printed shirts! Should be nice to hang out with people my own age again, I'm going a little crazy with children. 

I'm not sure if I was just in a weird girl-time mood today, but ahh little Carlo was really trying today. He is 3, almost 4 in October and he is SUPER attached to his mom. He cries when she leaves the house and so we have to distract him with a movie whenever she leaves, but once he realizes she is gone, the crying starts up. It's pretty hard because he only speaks Italian, so I want to help him, but I can't understand what he says! I always have my phone near me with the translate app so I can try and calm him down. Once he does calm down he's pretty sweet. He seems to really like hands. Holding hands, finding your hand, etc. We watched "Cars" in Italian today and he'll lay on me, always with his hand out/looking for my hand.

(Watching Cars at home :: Villa ERCA)

Oh: is it weird that he's almost 4 still drinking out of a pacifier bottle? I thought it was a bit strange, but I really don't know whats normal. My parents threw all my pacifiers away on my 2nd birthday though, so... ? After getting to be here a bit more I also find that their diet seems a bit strange to me, more on that later. 

Militari.

The other day we went to go to a "Military Festival". More of a military artifact sale/exhibition really. There were loads of old vehicles, uniforms, memorabilia, etc. Pretty amazing stuff! 

Just a small sampling of what we got to see! I'm not exactly sure why they were having it, seemed like a sort of traveling show, I was happy to be there nonetheless. 

This was all outside, and was actually pretty hot! Weather is great right now, you just have to know whats coming and be dressed for it. Mornings and evenings are cool, even a little chilly; in the afternoon it's perfect shorts weather. I did go check out the local gym today and was surprised (but it makes sense) to find that there is no AC in the gym! Since it gets so cool in the Autumn & Winter you don't really need it, but it's hard to imagine working out at 2PM with no AC... we'll see how it goes. I plan to get a membership this week!

Homemade Dinner.

Tonight we drove to Sassuolo, a neighouring town to visit some of the families friends and have a homemade dinner. MMMmmmm, 'twas too good! 

We started off with a chicken pasta soup, topped with cheese. Soup was completely made from scratch. The pasta was homemade and the chicken broth came from the chickens they have in their back yard. 

Then we had these little round breads, served hot, filled with pate and cheese, proscuitto, and even Nutella! Afterwards we had sheep's milk cheese and puff pastry with a German apple filling.  Delightful!

Modena.

Last night my new photographer friend, Luca, took me to Modena for a "fashion party". There was a fashion show and several different vendors selling vintage clothes, books, music, hair accessories & jewelry! I met a couple of artists who are having an art show next weekend - they have invited me to model at the gallery, they work in prints and I guess I'll be wearing some screen printed items? We'll see! 

(fashion show in Modena) 

After the show we walked around the downtown area and saw these lovely buildings. On the way we ran into Luca's brother & his friends who were celebrating a birthday! Very sweet & happy people. 

Elderberries & Rose Hips.

Took an early evening walk and found these guys on my way!

I thought these were grapes and tomatoes at first, but my dad has just informed me that these are in fact elderberries and rose hips! I was wrong! Thanks dad, for letting me know what's up ;) xo 

As my dad says, "At home we would make wine with Elder berries and Rose hips are used to flavor Turkish Delight although as kids we would split them open and stuff then down other kids backs, it makes a terriable itching paste." - Robert Myhill 

Despite forgetting to bring my tripod with me on the trip, I managed to make self-timer work!

Street Views.

Today I ventured into the Downtown of this little village. I was surprised to find that the streets were mostly empty and shops closed, on a Saturday afternoon! I tried to stop by the post office, but think they closed at 12:30 and I got there at 1:00.

I asked a guy nearby at the ATM if he know if the post was closed, I saw people inside but couldn't open the doors... he tried to help, but alas, spoke no English. Finding an English speaker here is a rarity, I need to brush up on my Italian.

Later I stopped by "Riky's Bar" for a coffee. A cute place with nice ambiance, minus the music. They play an Italian radio station that streams American pop songs, I heard the infamous "call me maybe" song for the first time. 

(Espresso & Croissant in DT Spilamberto for 2 Euro. Wine, chips, olives & nuts in Bologna for 6 Euro). 

Last night the parents took me into the closest big city, Bologna. While they went to go see a movie for their 10 year wedding anniversary I wandered along the streets and found this little sidewalk cafe and enjoyed some red wine & a people watching. I was walking back to meet the parents after the movie and saw an old lady vomiting on the street! (Didn't take a photo of that... ://) I felt so bad for her, no one was stopping to help her, I really wanted to but had to meet the parents. I feel that people in Northern Italy (where I am) aren't as friendly as those in the South. 

Apparently Northern Italians & Southern Italians have a bit of a prejudice against each other. The family I am living with is from North-Central Italy, they say it is a lot safer than the South, there is no mafia, etc. They don't seem to be as trusting of strangers and really stress that I keep aware of who I smile at and talk to in the streets. They are weary of "irregulars" aka, non Italians. The mom told me that she thinks all Asian's look alike and that Africans and Muslims have a different mentality, that they can be "dangerous". I don't think they are coming from a place of hatred when they say stuff like that, they've just lived in Northern Italy all their life and haven't really met many people from different cultures. Hopefully we can teach each other some things. 

The father says that he thinks "I am the most special AuPair yet". He is an academic and works with stock trading, his English is pretty good, best of all the people I have met so far. He asks me how to say a lot of things and says that I have very specific words for things and speak distinctive English. I was the first person to name what an "archway" was. ha! 

(Street view of some shops in downtown Spilamberto, Saturday afternoon. Park bench right outside my street). 

Tonight a photographer friend I met online via Model Mayhem is coming to pick me up to take me to a "fashion party" in Modena. The other large city we are near. Should be interesting! 

Benvenuti in Italia!

Arrived in Italia!

After a 18+ hour journey I have finally arrived with my host family in Spilamberto, Modena. I didn't really know what to expect from this town before coming, now that I am here I know that it's full of old Italians, some children, and very few people my age. I took a walk to the "down town" of this little village and a few short & sweet run in's with old Italian men & women. The most I could say was ciao and that I was an American... hopefully that will change. My friend Channon gave me an Italian language CD so I'll need to get started on that. Today is my day of exploration, I don't quite know what to do with myself, we'll see what happens ;) 

A photo of my room at the families Villa.