Going to another country for a semester, it's like all of a sudden you have to be smart like an adult. So much to remember for yourself. Keep your passport somewhere safe. Don't take your debit card out with you.. Be a smart drunk. I know this all was supposed to happen 4 years ago, and it did, in a way, but living in a different country is different. You have to be responsible not just for your classes and commitments, but for yourself, for your well-being. My mom wasn't here to drag me to get my ends trimmed or to tell me oh it's nothing, you're probably just dehydrated. And it's not even that I didn't have my mom, I didn't have anybody. It was me, 10,000 unknown street names and that god-forsaken language barrier. What do you mean no capisco??? But in the chaos of it all I had to remember all the important stuff. To shave my legs, keep track of important documents and figure out how to do stuff.
FYI, I am not good at that. My brain prefers long weekends and minimal common sense requirements. So in the wisdom of my roommate I had to learn to say, "if you don't know how to do it, just.. figure it out." 4 months later, I learned a little, fucked up a lot, and found that the roommates in kitchen when I get home is a cure for any bad day.
I'm not saying I know anything, and I surely don't know everything, but it is in these little things I learned while living in Florence that I found life can be really, really, so damn good. Or maybe I'm just a 89 year-old-man at heart. Either way, see if you agree:
1. When trying new food at the foreign grocery store, only buy a little bit in case you don't like it. But I went to Italy and I found that, more often than not, I liked it. The best is when you do actually like it but run out, so you leave class and go straight to the grocery store before you go home to get more. See: salami toscano
2. Ask your professor questions. That's so cliche but so something I needed to learn. You don't even know all the answers they got out there.....
3. Don't leave your keys at home. This crazy thing will happen where you'll be locked out and it will probably be raining.
4. Don't forget to fall in love with yourself, first. Then break all the hearts you want. Karma, bitch.
5. Do laundry before you run out of clean underwear. Or else it will be bikini bottoms in November and people will wonder why you smell like sunscreen. Also because we don't have a dryer and it takes +24 hours for my clothes to dry. Isn't there some kind of Chemistry law against that?
6. Look people in the eye. Especially at first when you don't know anyone. People say this all the time and I was always like ok ok sure, but when you start really doing it, you're like ohh. That's why.
7. When he offers you the world, remember you have your own. But who ever said 2 worlds weren't better than one?
8. End each day with a glass of wine. The 1.99 kind if you're going to be doing this every day. It's up to you/which day of the week it is to decide if by glass I mean 750 mL glass bottle.
9. Don't compare your sketchbook with someone else's gallery piece. You'll just start cursing at everyone and blaming your paintbrushes or attributing all your problems to the fact that you don't have a Mac.
10. Every day (I'm serious. Every day.) take an hour to do nothing but sit, talk, laugh, drink, and do nothing. You'll make the best friends, laugh the hardest you've ever and finally understand the whole happiness thing. Which, if you can believe it, is not standing at the stove eating pasta out of the pot in your underwear.
11. If you don't believe in magic, you won't find it. Oh, but if you do..
12. Learn how to say "go fuck yourself" out loud, with total confidence and no reservation to the filthy strangers on the street who figure out some way to disrespect you with their snakes of hands. Convince yourself that saying those words in public is totally respectable, in the name of your temple of a body. And if you're in Italy.... they are Italians, after all.
13. Grow slow. Make 13-numbered lists of things and swear to yourself to live by each one, but remember there's always something else. Something you didn't know. Something that will tell you you're wrong. About everything. Accept that, and keep growing.
When I get back I have so many people to thank, to hug, to remember again. I have debts upon debts to work back up, pounds my thighs and face could do without, two delicious black bunnies to snuggle. When I get back, I'm going to be happy, but I'm going to be so, so sad. I'm going to be the girl walking around with a bottle of wine in one arm and everyone I love in the other, refusing to believe we're anywhere else in the world besides Florence, Italy.
