piu piano

Piu Piano which means slower, can describe my weekend. It describes the perfect weekend. After a week full of rushing to class, rushing to get to stores before they closed, and rushing to just find out where the heck I was going, I needed to go slower. Two of my roommates and a large chunk of my class heading off to Cinque Terre for the weekend which left one of my other roomies and myself to explore and finally see what the city has to offer. Saturday morning I woke up early with hopes of beating the normal hustle and bustle of the city to sneak some pictures. I work up and got out of the house at about 7:30am. The streets were quiet except for the few shop owners outside their stores sweeping and washing their walkways. I wandered and eventually led me to my favorite spot in the city, the river. I crossed over, and walked alongside the river gazing at its beauty and the reflections of the buildings in the water.

I got hungry and really warm so I headed back to my flat, where my roommate was up and ready to start doing touristy things. We set out with a mission, we visited the duomo and climbed teh million stairs to get to the top and have a beautiful view of the city. Then did some shopping and wandering, and ran some errunds. We came back exhausted, took naps then got ready to go out for the night. We had one mission for the night "be available and open" From following this blog you probably realize that I've been frustrated with the amount of Americans around. I told her that we needed to just go someplace, make ourselves look available and friendly and from my experiences something will happen. Well we found out that if that fails then you just casually follow italians until they eventually stop to talk to you. This is also a good way to practice your italian. SInce they didnt speak english very well, i was the translator, I learned that the more I spoke freely- knowing that about every other word i said was pronounced wrong or in the wrong conjugation- they figured it out and we were able to communicate. I also felt more at ease with speaking.

It was interesting to hear them talk about Americans, we would be walking around the city and they would point to a group coming up and were like "look, Americans! i know because they wear short skirts and dress all ridiculous." Then as we approached would hear them speaking loudly and talking about how they wanted to get drunk, Yep hello America!

Sticking with the walking theme, my legs were absolutely DEAD today. I spent most of the doing homework and preparing for the week but I got sick of being inside so I went for a walk. This time, very slowly, looking at every piece of beauty this city has to offer. I took the time to notice each unique doorknocker, each window design, The way the balconies are almost pointless because one person can barely fit on it. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the Duomo poking out behind one of the streets and it really hit me how lucky I am to walk past this piece of beautiful histroy every day, multiple times a day on the way to work. I remember when i was in Rome and walking past the colosseum, and saw all of these businessmen driving past. I thought tomyself, how awesome is that, they drive past the COLOSSEUM EVERY DAY! its like they are living in a history book. I get to do that, and finally realized how priviledged I am to be here and to learn about history on the front line, and to physically see it's beauty.