Reflections on Italy

One of my favourite things to do in Cremona was eat lunch next to Stradivari's tomb.

Is that creepy? It seems a little creepy now that I've actually written it.

It struck me as odd on my first day walking around the city center that so many people walk right by the tombstone without so much as a glance in its direction. This is the grave of one of the most influential people in the history of music, and I have never seen more than ONE other person stop to even look at it...

But then I look around the rest of the park. People walked right by the grave because it was familiar- nothing new to look at or experience. They found joy in the things that weren't there all the time. Some school children's artwork is tied to the gazebo. There are a few high school and college age kids clustered around benches, sometimes with a guitar or two in their company. Sure, there are the people just passing through the park on their way to work or a meeting, but they're looking up. Admiring the trees, or the way the falling leaves are blowing in the wind. Stopping to watch the young children running around, and taking a moment to laugh before continuing on their way. There's always the group of septuagenarian men playing dominoes on a bench next to the gazebo- every day, without fail. When it was raining, they just moved under the shelter of the gazebo. The group size was always different, but it was always there. One day I even saw a single gentleman there, with the dominoes laid out in front of him, reading the newspaper to pass the time until another showed up. I was very tempted to go over and ask him to teach me to play, but at the time I had absolutely no confidence in my spoken Italian, so I chickened out. Sitting next to the grave gave me the perfect vantage point to see all of these things occurring before me, and until the day I left, I could not help but think "this is all so... Italian!"

Plus, there's a gelato place right across the street, so... that's a nice bonus.

What did I learn in Italy? Looking back, it was a lot more than I had originally anticipated, or even understood at the time.

One of my first days, someone told me, "when you leave here, you will take with you the culture of wine." I didn't know what that meant at the time, so I took it at face value- I never liked wine before, so Italy is a good place to start, right?

Now, when I reflect on my months in Cremona, I think I understand what he was saying.

This "culture of wine" isn't about the drink. In fact, I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with the wine itself, though that certainly is a welcome bonus.

The culture of wine is time.

Taking the time during a meal to be with the people around you. No phones, no instagramming your plate (which is why I don't have an Italian food post for you), and all the friends you can find. Meals are meant to be enjoyed- food is delicious!

Taking the time while out of the house to notice the people around you- stopping to say hi to a friend and catch up on each others' lives instead of nodding at them from across the street and continuing on your way. Riding a bike or walking instead of driving, to be able to take in more of your surroundings.

Speed is stressful. Yes, sometimes it is necessary. But what have I missed in my life because I was so focused on efficiency and productivity? Have I missed a beautiful sunset, or the changing of leaves? Could I have seen a wonderful street musician perform when instead I ran by because of my desperation to accomplish an impossible amount in a short time? What time could I have spent among friends when I instead gave myself anxiety attacks by taking on more than I could handle?

I want to live my life in a way that I can appreciate the small happinesses around me. I want to recognize happiness in a strangers' eyes. I want to see people stare in wonder at something they have never seen before. I want to play dominoes in the park in the middle of the town (I should probably learn to play dominoes first, though...) I want to spend a whole day watching ducks swim around a pond, and I want to see children's eyes light up when the ducks eat the bread they are throwing.

I even want to see heartbreak and sadness. Just being able to recognize it on someone's face, even if there is nothing I can do about it. I want to be able to send positive energy their way, even for a moment.

Right before I left Italy, my host family asked why I hadn't taken more time to travel and go to Brescia, or Venice, or Florence, or other places that would have been only a train ride away. What I told them was the truth- I wanted to originally, but when I realized that I wasn't ready to go back to the US yet I started budgeting my money to last a long time, and I hoped that I would be lucky enough for my travels to bring me to these places in the future. That was the truth, but it isn't the whole truth.

The whole truth is that I feel as though I travelled thousands of miles without even leaving Cremona. Every day, I strove to learn something new. Sometimes it was a new Italian word, sometimes it was a new knitting stitch, sometimes it was a new face, sometimes it was a realization about myself and my life experiences. I didn't need to go back to Florence, even though I've been waiting my whole life to spend time in that town. I didn't need the tourist experience. I was able to find everything I needed with my host family, with their - and now my - friends, and within myself.

I am a completely different person coming out of my experience in Italy. And I have already changed from my short time in Turkey. I will continue to change.

And for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid.

First week(ish) in Istanbul!

Here are some thoughts and stories from my first week or so. Warning: I make NO promises on them being in a sensical order, or more than just fragments of thoughts.

The first few days were REALLY rough on my sleep cycle. I only moved over one time zone, but that small change, on top of the fact that I hadn't been sleeping due to nerves and excitement, plus getting sick on my second night, I was completely messed up. One day, I'd wake as late as 10, the next, 5 in the morning. I was taking naps at random points during the day. It was just completely screwed up! Luckily, I managed to get that under control after... maybe about three days.. and now I'm back to a pretty good cycle of being in bed reading by about 10, and generally waking up between 7:30 and 8. Without an alarm, which makes me REALLY happy. Well, that's a lie- the night I stayed up WAY too late finishing a book, I set an alarm so it wouldn't screw up my pattern again. That was a long, tired day on four hours of sleep!

This time has been all about getting used to the family's schedule and lifestyle, and seeing where I will fit into everything.

I spend a lot of time with the 7 year old son, Hakan. We've spent HOURS building lego sets! We have a pretty good system going, where as he's working on putting together one step, I'll be finding the pieces for the next. He really likes Star Wars legos, which I saw as a really good sign, until I realized that he didn't know anything about the movies. He said they were too confusing, and couldn't even tell me which trilogy he watched first! This kid was trying to convince me the Ewoks were the bad guys. I mean really. I suppose for someone who doesn't know the movies, his logic was decent, though- he remembered the clones being with the Jedi in II and III, and therefore thought the stormtroopers were the good guys, at least in that set of Legos.

He and I are also supposed to work together on his English homework, of course. He gets one worksheet every weekend, and is supposed to read every night. He brings a picture book home from school with him. The one he is working on now is really difficult, and we can only read three or four pages at a time. And he HATES doing it. So I am hard at work brainstorming some external motivators and other ideas to not make reading such a chore for him, as well as activities that help with reading comprehension.

Ipek, the daughter who lives at home right now, is 16 and while we get along really well, the difference in our age shows when we talk about high school. My high school experience centered around marching band, decathlon, and not much else. An Island birthday party here and there. But I have heard stories that would rival 110 gossip, and I cannot get over the fact that this is happening while these girls are in high school! When they asked what the drama in my life was right now, they couldn't believe I didn't have any. After a few minutes of "really? NOTHING?" I begrudgingly reached back a few years and covered the VERY basics of drama from freshman, sophomore, and junior year in a total of 5 or 6 sentences.

Another time the age different showed was when we were picking out a movie to watch. Everyone knows I haven't seen many movies, but she and her friend picked up "Project X" as an option and could not BELIEVE I had never seen it- "Have you EVER been a teenager?" First of all, no, not really. Not in the way that movie seems to think teenagers behave. Second of all, I was probably 22 when that movie came out...

On Friday, the kids were off school, so I went with Hakan and 2 people who work for the family to one of the palaces in the city. It was beautiful, of course, though I was outvoted in the language of the (compulsory) tour so I had no idea what anything was. Hakan was supposed to be translating for me, but that didn't last very long.

So now, I'll really be trying to dive in and fit myself into how everything works around here. It's a big adjustment for everyone, since they've never had an au pair before, and it will take some time until everything is running smoothly, but I am very confident that this is a wonderful place and family for me to be with right now!