Traveling to Italy with my grandma was the opportunity of a lifetime, and I knew it.
Italy was amazing, but I was affected more by what I learned than what I saw.
I had just turned 16.
Here you are on the other side of the planet. How can that be? You're so lucky... You've been brave to accept the challenge of going "abroad" with your grandma, but remember that grandmas don't last forever, and you'll be able to look back on two weeks of wonderful grandma time. Even I've never had Grandma all to myself for two weeks. (Dad)
Traveling, when you're afflicted with motion sickness as I am, is torture. When I'm sick like that, I find myself thinking longingly of death. This was a 17 hour flight.
A nearby lady on the plane looked at me for a long time and then quietly handed me a tiny pill. "It'll make you sleepy," she warned, "but it WORKS." Without a moment's hesitation I popped that pill into my mouth and just let it take me. Sweet, nausea-free rest.
We stopped in Switzerland for a brief layover. Grandma suggested to my cousin and me that we might visit a museum to pass the time. I yawned some kind of answer and staggered after her. There was a reconstructed bed-chamber in the museum with a genuine four-poster bed from the 1400s. I remember leaning on the velvet barricade, thinking about sleep, and then being shaken awake by my very shocked grandma who was saying, "What are you doing? Get OUT of that bed!" I smoothed the ancient covers of the museum piece as best I could and stumbled out of the room.
The rest of the journey was a blur. I got a giant chocolate coin on the plane from Zurich, and it was one of those tiny little planes that you enter by way of a fold-down staircase. That's all I remember. I probably would have been conked out by that point anwyway. Traveling is so fatiguing, isn't it?
I don't know what I expected from traveling, what part of it I thought I would take to, but it turns out that what really captured me was the people.
Italians are so warm and alive. I fell in love with their rhythm.
Italy is where I decided that I want to be cremated.
Isn't this nicer than headstones jutting out of the cold ground? I love it. Warm and bright and colorful. This man touched a woman's picture and then kissed his fingertips right after I took his picture.
The architecture in Italy was magnificent. Even a 16 year old nobody can appreciate the splendor of places like Venice and Rome.
I was tickled to death to find that Venetians park their boats on the water just like we park cars on the street. Imagine what your daily commute to work would be like!
Grandma was feeling cheeky and insisted on having her picture taken in front of this David copy (see what I did there??).
She also insisted on taking me and my cousin to swim in the sea, and we girls didn't realize until we got there that it was a nude beach. So the first naked male I ever saw was this short, stout, leathery Italian man, just living the dream in the Mediterranean. Grandma smiled the whole time, totally unruffled. We kept our suits on, by the way. Minor detail.
Italy is a visual feast. I can't believe I didn't have a true appreciation for what I was seeing when I got to visit The Pieta, by Michelangelo. It's my favorite statue now, but that's because I learned to love it when I taught World History years and years after this trip.
I always found it fascinating that this is the only statue Michelangelo ever signed. It's said that he overheard a crowd admiring The Pieta (The Pity) one day, and was shocked to find that they thought it had been carved by some local dude. In a fit of (totally excusable) vanity, Michelango carved his name across Mary's sash. Apparently, he later regretted falling prey to this moment of weakness.
When I look at pictures of The Pieta, I want to lay my head on Mary's chest and see if I can hear her heartbeat, and run my hands over the folds of her robes. That's how it makes me feel.
It's crazy that I had this incredible opportunity to absorb some of the most inspiring art and architecture in the world, and instead I spent most of my time flirting with Italian guys. Typical.
Here's the most beautiful waiter you've ever seen. You know what? About a year after my trip, I was going through my mom's old Italy photos, and I realized that she had ALSO taken a picture of her cute(ish??) waiter. It made me feel close to her for some reason, like maybe we were cut from the same cloth. I love looking at our Colosseum pictures side-by-side, too. I don't know why. It just makes me feel good.
I was happy when I could come home and fall into the arms of my family and friends. Italy, for me, was too beautiful. It was too proud, too strong, too poignant, too everything. I couldn't take it in, not like that. Not as a 16 year old. I want to go back someday with my husband and just wander around, eating gelato and touching everything.
Have you ever been "abroad"? Tell us about it in the comments! WBS- Jess
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