When most people hear the word “Italy” they think of stereotypes, gondola rides, the Coliseum and way too much pasta and pizza.well folks, for once, the stereotype is right.
Recently, several others and I traveled to Italy and explored the country by bus, plane and lots of footwork. I think I have done the most walking I’ve ever done in the past eight years and climbed so many steps that if I see another one, I would cry.
The first day we arrived my friend Kelsey and I instantly beelined to a restaurant and, unlike in the states, Italy seems to have a limited choice of what a starving girl can eat. Let me outline the choices we had in the Jesolo Beach area: pizza with ham, pasta with tomato sauce, pizza without ham and pasta with a different sauce.
I’m exaggerating to a point and even with the limited choices we seemed to have, the food choices we did have tantalized my taste buds.
I don’t want to spend this entire column commenting on how amazing the sights were in Italy (which they were, of course) and how great the food was (which it was), but it seems to me whenever I go on vacation, especially to a place like Italy, my former self seems to fall away.
Ok, I know, that sounded super ridiculous, especially in describing a trip that lasted a measly week. But the fact I was around people I did not know, and places I hadn’t seen before, attempting to speak a language that totally sounded like Spanish, brought out someone in me who had more excitement for life than ever before.
Damn, I told myself this column wouldn’t get cheesy, but there it goes. Moving on, probably the best city on the trip would be Assisi. Most people might say the Duomo in Florence or the Trevi Fountain in Rome is the most beautiful place in Italy, but no…Assisi was breathtaking.
When the group arrived in Assisi, the small Italian town met every expectation I had of the countryside. Compared to Florence and Rome, Assisi was a quite, modest town that did not brag and overcrowd itself with millions of tourist junk shops, and the streets weren’t as littered with pigeons, even though they seemed to have a happy home in Italy.
We decided to explore the city a bit instead of staying around the small city center, and we discovered a long path of steps that led to a place unknown to us. So, like good little journalists, we decided to give in to our curiosity and climb up the steps.
What we discovered beat any expectation I ever had because, right in front of us, huge, green mountains rose and surrounded us. A castle that has seen its heyday stood to the side. It was a picture that seemed to come out of Google images. I stood there for a while thinking to myself, this is why I came to Italy. It was something out of a dream, a quiet one layered by the birds and the once-in-a-lifetime view in front of me.
The rest of Italy had its sights too. When the group was in Florence and we walked around the corner and saw the Duomo towering over us, it was a sight I couldn’t believe for a while. People actually managed to build this monstrosity of a building.
While there were some ruffled feathers on the trip, any problem that seemed to arise never brought down the excitement of physically being in Italy.
Overall, I will never regret the weeks before the trip of having $2.32 in my bank account and living off Chef Boyardee for lunch. Italy will always be memories I bring up whenever someone tells me “think of a happy time in your life.”