Au revoir, ciao, arrivederci, good-bye, but above all, adios.

I miss taking normal showers. I miss my bed. I miss making phone calls without thinking how much it will cost me. I miss clubs closing at 2 a.m., forcing me to go home before I make bad decisions. I miss driving and my car. I miss manicures and pedicures. I miss peanut butter. I miss elevators. I miss the gym. I miss giant to-go cups of iced coffee with Splenda and skim milk. I miss eating dinner at 7:30 p.m. I miss having WiFi whenever I want it. I miss supermarkets and normal-sized bottles of water. I miss electrical outlets in which I don’t need to use a converter. I miss my straightner, I miss humidity and afternoon rain showers. I miss doing my own laundry. I miss cheap shopping at Forever 21. I miss planning trips months before I take them so I can get really excited about them. I miss writing news articles. I miss the hassle of running my sorority. I miss my friends who have known me for years and years. I miss my doggies. I miss the other half of my wardrobe. I miss normal television. I miss reading a hardcopy of the New York Times. I miss my big-little brother. I miss leaving my bag unzipped as I walk around. I miss spending important holidays with my family. I miss going to the movies. I miss shopping dates with my Grammy. I miss massages, giggle fests, tea dates, dance parties and crazy stories.

I guess that means it’s time to go home.

Hasta luego, Barcelona. Grácias por las memorias. Yo echaré de menos a ti. Tu tienes un parte muy especial en mi corazon para siempre. Yo nunca seré la misma. Grácias por todo.

A eulogy for T-Jov

Today was a very sad day. My T-Joven stopped working. Translation: my oh-so-precious Metro card expired.

While this might sound trivial or insignificant, this T-Joven – a credit-card-sized piece of paper – I have guarded and carried like a child for the past three months. 90 days and nights. Of bliss. Of bad decisions. Of the times of my life.

Though some lost, ripped, frayed, dropped, misplaced or, heaven-forbid, had theirs stolen, mine remained with me during every purse change, coat switch and baggage check. Yes, it’s worn. And yes, its plastic sleeve is scratched and cut. But this paper card was still my faithful ticket onto every Metro, bus and nit bus I took.  

Today, the card-swipey-machine at the Metro station slurped it in and spit it right back out as if it were just one of those T-Mes (month) passes, or worse, one of those single-ride passes, without a history or a story. I wasn’t expecting this and I couldn’t help but get just a tad bit defensive.

My card, in its small entirety, I have come to understand, represents the culmination of my trip. And though a swipe machine wouldn’t know it, the very card it so simply just spewed back out stands for every good, bad and indifferent moment that I encountered while here in Barcelona. It followed me to and from class during my 45-minute journey. It got me home at 4 a.m. after dancing in clubs. It got me lost when I thought I knew where I was going. And it stayed with me while I traveled, improved my Spanish, gained friends, lost friends, tried new things and explored. Now, its days are up.

It’s not even that I care so much that it expired. It’s more that today, for the first time, I finally realize my time here in Barcelona is up. Having my card thrust back into my hand hit me like a bullet: my Metro days are numbered; my late-night bus rides will soon be a whisper in the wind.

I suppose I better soak it all in fast, but the T-10 (10-ride pass) that I had to purchase today to get me through the next two weeks just won’t be the same. I may as well be a tourist in my own city, counting down and perfectly calculating every trip so I don’t waste a ride. Que pena! Though my 3-month pass was just another expired card for the swipe machine at the Universitat Metro stop, it was so much more than that to me. I knew this day would come. I just didn’t expect it to be today.  

So today was a very sad day.

May you rest in peace, T-Jov. Thanks for the rides.

Italy knows good eats

Spring Break. The time in every girl’s life that she must starve herself for a week or two or even three before daring to strip down and frolic in the sun with friends. Though she knows it’s merely impossible to lose the unwanted flab in such a short amount of time, it’s inevitable that she will skip the chocolate croissant, the whole milk in her coffee and the other half of her Manchego-cheese bocadillo. Where the trouble comes, though, is when she knows she is going to Italia, where the word food is synonymous with carbs and chocolate, and the idea of steamed or grilled vegetables is as laughable as genuinely expecting to see the Pope while touring the Vatican.

While a crash diet the week before break seemed promising, in hindsight it seems foolish. The smooth gelato beckons, the steamy, frothy cappuccino calls, the Chianti and Prosecco promise to get you buzzed, and the pasta – oh the pasta, in all shapes and sizes, but always al dente – will get you every time. Period.             

Since I had no idea what to expect from Italy, I dismounted the plane in hopes of finding some spaghetti with meatballs, chicken parm, garlic bread and fettuccini alfredo. Well, I’m “alfred-o” not.

Of course the long, round noodles that I know to be spaghetti exist. And yes, there are meatballs. But together? No way. As hard as I looked, for the life of me, I could not find the staple American-Italian dish. As for garlic bread, turns out Italians have simple breadbaskets with dry, stark-white bread and prepackaged breadsticks. Waiters will look at you strangely if you ask for a plate so you can dip your bread into olive oil with pepper or balsamic vinegar. They do, however, love to put oil and vinegar on their salads…which they eat after dinner. They say it helps with digestion. Why yes, of course this makes sense, I thought to myself. After an entire plate of alfredo (the thick, creamy, heavenly sauce that no one, no matter how skinny, should be allowed to eat), the Italians are going to need something to keep it from sticking to their insides. Oh wait. Italians don’t even know what alfredo is. So much for that idea. But, no worries, Italians get their fat from a whole plethora of other deliciousness that I didn’t even know existed.

Italians would rather sink their teeth into “spaghetti carbonara”, or cream, egg and cheese atop of a hefty plate of pasta. Though I never ordered it, I did snag a bite from one of my travel buddies. Other staples in the Italian diet included spaghetti with cheese and pepper and spaghetti with tomato sauce and bacon. Pesto was impossible to find in Rome, but delicious in Venice. Gnocchi and tortellini in Florence were heavenly. And the pizza, which doesn’t come in round pies, but rather in long, rectangular ones, was pure ooey-gooey sin.

On my day trip to Pisa, the boys who traveled with me and I stopped in a pizza joint, where the waitress chopped the pizza and then weighed it to give it a price. I chose the veggie pizza with fresh zucchini and tomatoes, and my slice (or better yet, my slab) was less than 2 Euros.

As I was walking away, a grungy man appeared from the back with a plate of deep-fried balls the size of baseballs. How could I resist? I ordered one to split with my travel guys (they are always hungry, even right after they eat!) as the man explained to me they are called “arancini,” or little orange, because of their shape like the fruit. It was filled with rice, peas, tomato sauce and meat. I was content with my decision to try one, and I am certain the boys loved me even more for overfilling their tummies.

Every morning (and sometimes in the afternoon) I would sip on cappuccino – another newfound love of mine. I thought I had tried the best coffee in the world in Spain; however, the Italian cappuccino really gave Barcelona a run for its money. When walking by the Pantheon in Rome, I spotted a yellow sign that read “La Casa del Caffee, Tazza d’Oro” (Via Degli Orfani 84). Craving something cold to wake me up, I stopped in and ordered an iced cappuccino, not quite sure if such a drink existed. The man at the register mentioned something even better, called a “granita di caffe,” and rung me up for 2.50 Euros (a pretty steep price for even a coffee addict like myself, but I needed coffee so I paid without contesting). I took my ticket over to the barista (if that’s what you call him) and he dug deep into a slushy cooler to fill my cup with literally iced espresso. He filled the rest of the cup with cream and whipped cream, and then sent me on my way with a straw as if this coffee were a mere espresso shot. It was, however, nothing short of tasty perfection. Sweet cream mixed with bitter coffee – any chocoholic/coffee lovers delight.

As you would expect, God’s gift to the world comes in dessert form and it consists of gelato, tiramisu, cannolis and Italian cookies. While you’d be hard pressed to find bad gelato, my favorite was from a neon-colored store in Florence, where the line went out the door. Every color and every flavor were piled high behind the glass encasing in metal containers, and when mixed together in a cone I thought I had gone straight to heaven.

In Rome, I was determined to find biscotti. Chocolate-chip, melt-in-your-mouth biscotti. I was told Trastevere has the best food in all of Rome, so when wandering with the boys, I found “Biscottificio Artigiano Innocenti,” (Via della Luce, 21, Trastevere, Roma) an Italian hole-in-the-wall, family-run bakery. The cookies galore were filled with jams and jellies and fruit and gummies and nuts, but my favorites were the horse-shoe-shaped, crumbly ones dipped in chocolate. My notion of chocolate-chip biscotti, the owner told me, should be dismissed just like my notion of spaghetti and meatballs.    

The conception about Italy that did hold true was the loud, jovial, big family, wooden table mantra. In Venice, the boys and I ate at a local trattoria and happened to have walked in a man’s 83^rd birthday party. The red wine flowed freely, the speeches kept coming and after singing the Italian version of “Happy Birthday” to present the tiramisu cake, the 30 guests started signing what seemed like every Italian song under the sun. Like a Christmas sing-along. Italians really do know how to throw a party…or the alcohol is just that strong.    

My favorite meal took place at “Il Gatto E La Volpe” (Via Ghibellina, 151) in Florence, where I managed to meet up with a childhood friend and some other friends I made in Barcelona who were also traveling in Italy. It felt like a very merry un-birthday party for me, since I was the only person bringing everyone together. With this motley crew, I learned to always choose wine over water (even if it makes me a tad tipsy) and I tried the sweetest, yet most tangy aged balsamic vinegar I have ever eaten. After salad and pasta and an irresistible bite of chocolate cake that one of the boys ordered, I went home with a food baby forming in my stomach and a smile on my face because Italy knows good food and good company. 

Do you believe in magic?

There’s a secret place in Roma. It’s no bigger than a ping-pong ball, but it’s completely worth the two hours it will take you to find. It is only known only to a select few, but three Italian guards monitor it while clutching their wartime ammunition. Don’t ask to take a picture with them (they will shoot youdown – figuratively). Instead, pretend they aren’t there and go up to take a peek. 

After you’re worn ugly from hiking through the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon and the Caracalla baths, make your way toward the Aventine keyhole.

Every local I asked raised an eyebrow at my mention of the magic hole, as if I, a lowly American, had been told some timeless secret I shouldn’t have known. After overcoming their initial shock, they then proceeded to direct me: passed the rose gardens, passed a park with orange trees abounding and passed charming Roman houses with lavender creeping up the facades. The further I trudged (stupidly in my flip-flops), the more I began to wonder where the hundreds of thousands of tourists that had been cramping my view of the ruins went. I assumed they were safe in the confines of the well-worn path of tourist nirvana - Hop-on, Hop-off busses – while I was walking nowhere fast but soaking in my scenery, nonetheless.

I caught a man exiting his fun-sized Smart car, and though he didn’t speak much English, I was able to cup my hand around my eye to signify that I was looking for the kaleidoscope-wonder through which I could see the dome of St. Peter’s basilica in the Vatican several miles away. It never ceases to amuse me how made-up sign language is the universal language. With a few finger points up and to the left from the local, my Spring break guys and I were on our way. 

Just as the local had indicated, that’s where I found the chipped, wooden, green door framed by cold, white stone that I had read about online.I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head and pressed my eye to the iron keyhole, no bigger than an inch tall, to view a lane of trees framing the dome. The dome, miles and miles away, was in plain view. No tourists taking goofy pictures in front of it. No long lines. It was just me and the dome - the dome that millions visit every year to feel inspired or to reconnect with religion. 

Through my keyhole view, the dome appeared miniscule and unimportant, like yet another cone of gelato. Still, it appeared regal and majestic at the end of its tree corridor. For as massive as Rome is, looking through the tiny, magic keyhole for not even two minutes made me feel bigger than the world itself. No wonder the locals try to keep it a secret.

Four men and a little lady

I have.

I have four amigos. I have a VTech (Erik), a Red (Chris), a Brown (another Chris) and an Ian. Even better, I have traveled to Italy – specifically Venice, Florence, Pisa and Rome - for Spring Break with them for the past 10 days.

I have seen the intricate paintings on St. Mark’s Basilica in St. Mark's Square. I have visited the secret torture chambers and prisons inside the Dutch’s Palace. I have bought the most scrumptious chocolate-chip biscotti from the Rialto market. I have floated on the pitch-black canals of Venice while drinking Prosecco and listening to the gondolier sing “Oh Solo Mio” upon my request. I have experienced public transportation in the form of water-taxi. I have been rocked to sleep on the TrenItalia while the country flies by. I have somehow met up with friends even when none of our cell phones work. I have learned that old friends are gracious hosts and fun to catch up with.

I have taken goofy pictures of myself trying to push over the leaning tower of Pisa. I have savored the ooey-gooey cheese of vegetable pizza by the slice – or rather, by the weight. I have peddled myself uphill during at 15-mile bike through Tuscany even when I thought I had no more to give. I have gazed into the abyss of green endlessness divided by wineries and stone cottages. I have tasted smoky Chianti Classico and extra virgin olive oil at a private wine vineyard where Wolfgang Puck himself buys his ingredients. I have devoured fresh tortellini with tomato sauce and crumbly Parmesan cheese and I have enjoyed chilled, alcohol-soaked tiramisu at a restaurant run by four generations. I have been overwhelmed by the hundreds of stands that make up the Florence leather market. I have watched the sun change from yellow to pink on the Vecchio bridge. I have watched couples kiss under umbrellas in the perfectly kempt Boboli gardens. I have dunk stark-white bread into thick, aged balsamic vinegar. I have shared red wine with 15 friends on the rooftop terrace of my bed and breakfast overlooking the Duomo. I have splurged on Nutella-, Rocher- and Bocio-flavored gelato. I have begged people to do photoshoots of me in the countryside of Florence. I have wasted 8 Euros on an Italian club filled with Americans. I have survived a mini flood in my hotel room. I have taken bites of everyone’s food so that I can have a bitty taste of all the food Italy has to offer. I have played charades to help to overcome language barriers.

I have learned that the world can amaze me in hundreds of ways every single day and I have learned just how beautiful life is. I have learned that whoever said there are only seven wonders in the world is completely mistaken. But above all, I have learned that nothing beats four of the greatest guys and a little lady on Spring Break in Italy.