Few places remain truly pure and good in the modern world. Poppi manages to salvage that kindness, making it feel truly like home. My first account with kindness took place in a convent, a place I would call home for two days.  The last place I imagined living in Italy was a convent. When our group walked in, we were greeted by two sisters, only one could speak almost the basics of english. Even though we could not communicate verbally, the warmness of their hearts radiated off their holy bodies, burning each of us directly in the face. These women didn’t know my religious beliefs, but they didn’t care. They opened their arms to all of us, and let us live in their home. They were the only people on the trip who were not judgmental, and truly kind. It was incredibly refreshing to experience their love.  During my stay in the sister’s convent, my tolerance of others (slightly) increased. All of my anxieties that filled my mind immediately disappeared. A giant wave of serenity drowned my body into the depths of peace…until I realized that I didn’t have wifi. The anxiety reclaimed my body, and sent me on an epic journey to find it. I did find wifi, but it wasn’t worth it. My time in the convent, away from technology and people was the most serene and life changing experience of the trip. It allowed me to digest everything I’ve seen in Rome, Florence, and Venice. It was time that I needed to catch up with my work and self. The Sisters of Poppi provided that for us, and allowed us to live in their beautiful city.  The most disheartening moment of this experience was seeing some of my group not recognize the kindness of these sisters and the city. The worst thing a traveller can do is adopt the mentality that everyone is there to serve and cater to you. That is not the case. As a traveller, you are there to learn and experience Poppi’s culture and way of life. It is beyond disrespectful to leave your breakfast mess on the table for the sisters to clean it up. Another instance would be your level of obnoxiousness. Screaming in a covent—a place where people go to meditate and pray—is also unacceptable. It may seem like common courtesy to some, but to others it didn’t seem cross their mind. All of these things occurred during the trip to Poppi, and it was incredibly embarrassing, and annoying. As an adult in college, I was disgusted that who I was was clouded by a few of these students. For future students attending this trip, please read and reread the articles on not being an “Ugly American.” It will help you immensely when you visit Italy. The more respectful and kind you are, the better you will be treated. It will make your experience better and you will learn about Italian culture instead of what we experienced–tourist culture. 

“When you get lost, you find yourself.” One of the most common themes woven through romantic and Renaissance literature. Visiting Venice allowed myself to embrace that theme with my sister. Venice is a city full of canals that break the sinking land, and 483 bridges that the cartographer forgot to label. Which creates a complicated labyrinth on the Mediterranean boot. So when my sister and I asked for directions and the response was “cross the bridge and make a left like this *dramatic hand motion only native Italians would understand*” we took advantage of the the romantic phrase. The first time we were lost, we ended up in San Marco’s Plaza. The massive church resembled the Sultan’s castle from Disney’s Aladdin. The white marble glittered from the Adriatic Sea only a few meters away. The domes shape mimics the point of Hershey kisses, but instead of an assortment of chocolate, sweet mosaics of Christ resurrecting fills the empty shapes. Making our way around the church, a line of striped shirts line the shore full of tourists, over priced restaurants, and selfie sticks. My sister and I avoided all of those things due to our fixation on finding “real” gelato. We never found “real” gelato in Venice. Instead, we found a unique church in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Venice.

One hour of food preparation and another hour dedicated to the art of Italian cooking lead to an epic clean-up production. Dried wine stained the wood floors,and the rosemary risotto caked onto the ceramic countertops required excessive elbow grease that only Mr. Clean could remove. After the final clean-up act, four brave women volunteered to dispose of the scraps. Hoisting the bag over their strong shoulders, the four women, made their way down five narrow flights of stairs into the bustling florentine streets. As the grand doors opened, reality hit the super women when the restaurant patrons divided evenly to each side of the the door, turned their too flexible necks three hundred and sixty degrees to see what they were up to. The women knew they had a treacherous adventure ahead. All four women, refused to acknowledge that warning and made their way to the corner, of the Tuscan street. Each step taken on the rocky road to their final destination, the street corner, civilians would whisper about the women’s adventure. They spread the story to their families in their native tongues, but these stories never made it to the women, just peculiar looks. So they continued until they found the trash bins. No trash bins were found on this corner, but all of a sudden, a creature on four wheels came flying down the street looking for its evening meal. The heroes, dropped off their black bags of four-wheeler creature food. The creature noticed, but was only craving cardboard and recyclables that evening. So the heroic women lifted the dark bags and began to walk in the opposite direction. On the way back to their home base, the women heard rumors of trash bins on the opposite end of the street. All four ran down the street opposing the four wheel creature, and ran into the same issues as before. The same restaurant patrons spun their heads another three hundred and sixty degrees as if trying to say “NO! Don’t go there!” The heroes didn’t understand the patrons, so they proceeded. The same citizens on the street spoke in different tongues of the heroes confusion BUT THE SUPER WOMEN REFUSED TO SURRENDER…until they realized that there were no more opportunities to take out the garbage for the rest of the night. The women–defeated–dragged the worn black bags back to home base, and decided to try again for a new adventure the following night.

One hour outside of Italy’s capital city, sits a modern art museum. The white plaster building hides behind a frame of greenery as if trying to hide the too new building. The architecturally intricate building mimics the modern art inside. Clean and Confusing. The building serpents around the emerald frame too afraid to challenge the boundaries. The gallery swerves through the serpentine structure, with something unique on each floor. The first floor had two galleries. The first gallery we walked in was called “Highlighted Visions.” Here, the calm green life of nature met the colorful cultures of the world through sound and sight. There were plain mahogany boxes that were flush against the pasty wall in the shape of an “L.” Every box clones the prior with the exception of the five by seven sentiment we country cut out of the superior panel. Guessing the country proves hard enough until your ear approaches the cut-out continent, and hears native folk music. This clue makes the guessing clearer, but will not halt the regular glances toward the artist’s statement, as if looking for the cheat sheet. Directly across this exhibit was my favorite part of the museum. “Chronicles of an Assassin Foretold” created by Amos Gitai is a political statement on the Israel and Palestine conflict. Gitai, a native to Israel, comments on the violence he witnesses in his home land through film, photography, and interactive art. The first impression I received was when I was directly outside of the exhibit entrance. I heard men grumbling and gun shots masked by the scream of a young woman. I hesitantly walked through the forbidden portal, only to be confronted with a blood stained floors. The blood stains were created by red plastic gift wrap secured with duct tape, outlining bodies or puddles. I walked through the exhibit making sure to not step on the stains, as if avoiding the stains would protect the shapes from anything else that would happen to them. Tiptoeing around these pieces lead me to the northern wall which was covered by footage of a riot in Jerusalem. The speaker prophesied “restoring peace to Israel.” The message was great until you heard the crowd respond with how they were to accomplish that–with more violence. The east and south wall were covered with similar stories, but what was the most powerful stood in the center of the hyper clean white box. On the southern side of the trifold, a photo of the Israeli rioters were in black and white and still. Their hateful words could not be heard behind the displaying glass that concealed them. On top of this piece, a black and white projector played a video showing what it was like to be driving through a concentration camp. The barbed wire and empty barracks flew by the camera lens. Instead of being empty, the rioters bled through to fill the movie. Rome’s history is associated with classic art. Therefore, it is peculiar to see something so modern...