Looking up at the tower from the ground floor, you can’t help but think “It’s not that high. I think I can do it.” And then you start your way up the tower, the Torri di Bologna. Your first feeling is of exhilaration. You finally made it into the tower after the hassle of running around the town trying to the find the site where they sell the tickets. Your feet touch the first step leading upward to what is considered the best view in the city, and you can’t wait for all the talk to be right. Around and around you go up the wooden staircase until your legs start to get a little wobbly. It isn’t too bad. You see a ceiling just above you. It has to be the top. That wasn’t so bad. But then you reach that top. You come up the steps into a room with nothing noticeably except the window that shows a small portion of the city. And against the wall, another set of steps leading upward. So you go up this second set of steps thinking, hoping, that the next one will be the last. It isn’t. This happens a few more times until finally, when you’re hot and sweaty, praying for the end to come, you reach the top. The breeze greets your your steaming skin with a sweet kiss as you soak in the sights, which feel all the sweeter when you put the work in for it.

… As you look upward at the crude drawing, you will find that it depicts the Castello Di Poppi, just one of the two castles (real live and preserved castles) that the Italy group visited while in Poppi. It was truly tragic to depart from the Bro Pad, which we had come to call our home for nearly a week, but there was something refreshing about journeying over into the country side of Italy. Also, for a fan of medieval fantasy, getting walk through a real castle was somewhat surreal. One thing that was different from what I had expected, and hoped for, was that the rooms and entrances could be very small. Human beings were much shorter in times long past, and it was fascinating to see the evidence of this for myself. As for the town of Poppi itself, it was dramatically different from anything I had experienced in Florence, Rome, or Venice. It was a much more quiet place. All of the major attractions were much more spread out. But what it lacked in “hustle and bustle” attractions, it made up more than enough in natural beauty. Every time I got the chance to stop and soak in the sites of the country side, I took it. Anyone there will tell you that it was like something out of story book. Looking out over everything from the entrance of the Poppi Castle, there was a massive stretch of land that run all the way up to the tops of the mountains in the distance. Looking at it, you can’t help but wonder what else is out there.

There is a pickle in the street of Florence (if you couldn’t tell by my crude drawing). My group and I discovered it on our way back home from class a few days ago, and it really makes you wonder, what was the story of the pickle. Maybe it was once apart of a sandwich and fell out as someone reached to answer that important phone call. Or perhaps it was it was the midday snack of worker in one of the convenient stores down the street until they dropped it while stepping out of their car. Either way, once it hit the ground, it was left there, and remains nearly one of a kind. For the entirety of our stay in Florence, rarely have I seen any forms of litter or garbage. Perhaps a few pieces of paper here and there, and trash bags surrounding each other on a street curb, but nothing quite like this. The streets are clean. When I finally stopped to soak this in, I realized why they are so clean. It isn’t just because of the trucks that run at night, and even during the day, that the streets are clean. It is because people use them. More so than I have even seen in the states. At about all hours of the day you can walk onto a street and find a couple or a small family taking a leisurely stroll across the bricked streets. During the day, all walking paths are flooded with pedestrians, whether they be natives or guests like us. Walking the streets is a part of life here in a way that it isn’t back home, and once we live the city that sense of community, the cluttered sidewalks that blend so seamlessly with the roads, like the people in traffic, is what I will miss the most.

It has been a characteristic I have become known for, getting lost, and being found. But there is one more trait that I have discovered while roaming the streets of Venice, and that trait its luck. For this, our day off, we were tasked by our instructors to “get lost” in the cities of our choosing. To see and experience everything they had to offer. For Venice, the city of water, there is no shortage of things we could do, only the limited time in which we could do them, and be truly lost. Along with three other classmates, I set out into the unfamiliar city with the hope of seeing all it had to offer, or at least everything I wanted to see. To do that, we had to get lost. Yet the tables turned here. Normally, one might assume (reasonably so) that getting lost would hamper your experience, and yet for us, it saved it. As we stumbled blindly into the city, hoping to find its wonders, we came across the Vaporetto, the Venice water bus. It took us on a round trip surrounding the city and we got to see the beautiful oceans and structures just near the city’s coast. The next thing on our agenda was to find a gondola. Once again, we tried the method of getting lost, only to see it succeed for the second time in a row. Naturally, by this point in the day, we were getting hot and tired and wanted to slow down. What better way to spend a cool off session than with a nice, all natural Gelato. We waded through the backs of city streets passing up all the fake Gelato spots (I counted at least four) until we finally found the real deal. Gelato never tasted so good.

It’s no secret now that I’ve been the one among the group to get lost the most. But from personal experience, getting lost isn’t always a bad thing. Getting lost can lead you down the path uncharted and force you to learn and adapt in ways you might not have had to otherwise. The first time I got lost was just outside Giolitti’s, and it was just after my first wonderful experience with gelato (which lives up to the hype). I can out of the restaurant and found that my team had abandoned me. But letting fear get the better of you is never the smart thing to do. You’re lost in a new city where people might not speak the same language as you, but you do have a map, and a particular set of skills that turn you into an adaptable beast. With some luck and confidence, and by using some of the Italian phrases we learned, I found my way back. But I was eager to do it again. And the next day, I got my chance. A few classmates and I found ourselves wandering through Rome when we decided to get food. But where to go? There are tons of places to eat, but we also wanted to sit down and enjoy our company. So, we did the only logical thing. We shot arrows into the dark. Together, the four of us marched randomly into the night until we came upon this neat little restaurant that didn’t have any doors. You could just walk in and order. The food was great, and it was nice to sit among friends in a restaurant whose name I can’t remember.