I’ve said au revoir to France and buon giorno to Italy! Currently celebrating the end of my first week with a cappuccino and some pastries (which honestly signifies no real difference from any other morning here!).

After four days and five nights spent exploring Venice and Verona in the Veneto region, I’ve travelled onwards and arrived in Bologna, the capital of the Emilia-Romagna region! Fascinatingly, Bologna serves as a foil to Venice in so many ways! Delicate, detailed Venice rests precariously perched between a laguna and the Adriatic sea (an ornate city filled with lace, glass, masquerades, and crumbling pastel palaces), while robust Bologna squats and sprawls in the hills of Northern Italy. In Venice the clothes lines draped between balconies, holding socks and undershirts, served as the sole manifestation of authentic Venetian life, but in Bologna everyone you meet is Italian, living in Bologna, and going about their quotidien activities! Furtermore, to arrive in Venice you take a train from the mainland hub- called Venice Maestre- through the lagoon right into the city center, and exiting the train station onto the Grand Canal for the first time sincerely feels like entering into a fairytale. However, every fairytale has an ominous side to it and Venice is no exception. That same ethereal mystique the city retains during the day turns mildly sinister at night, and when the hoards of tourists pile into the restaurants lining the main walkways, the rest of the city becomes deserted and almost desolate. In contrast, when I climbed off the bus in Bologna, strapped Ms. Large-And-In-Charge on my back, and made my way through the industrial neighborhoods surrounding the historic district, I immediately felt, to my great relief, that Bologna was real. As a location it makes sense to me in a way that Venice did not. And while in Venice every restaurant poised itself as a tourist trap (with laminated menus in five different languages on a podium out front) and I familiarized myself with Italian grocery stores, I sought out Bologna with the singular intention of indulging!

Italy is a continuous process of adaptation for me. For the first few days in Venice I experienced a mild case of culture shock as I attempted to take in all the differences between Italian and French societies. I was (and still am!) filled with questions and observations; Italians drink their coffee standing up? They sometimes eat standing at the bar too? What’s the difference between speck and prosciutto? And what’s the difference between prosciutto crudo and prosciutto cotto?? And experienced the frustrating sensation of realizing that you lack the ability to express yourself in the native tongue. Happily, a few days later I transitioned from a state of over-stimulation into a (much more pleasant) state of constant curiosity!

One of the most difficult ways I’ve been forced to adapt has been the process of temporarily setting aside my goal to walk through every city. Alas, right now it is simply too cold. And while I retain the belief that getting lost (and sequentially exploring new areas of both the city and of yourself) is important and eye-opening, being lost when your extremities are numb, the wind is shooting through the streets, and you’ve developed a nasty cold from the poor insulation of the hostels… is less fun. However, such situations build character! For with my truly abominable sense of direction I never have any clue where I am, and usually sometime around 6:45, when the city’s dark and I no longer recognize anything, both my phone and tablet are dead, I can’t feel my feet, and have walked in yet another massive circle (starting lost, ending lost) I usually find myself weeping in frustration on a random corner. And after momentary defeat I literally away my wipe my tears and continue forward- and by the time I return to my hostel the satisfaction of finding my way back has cancelled out any previous stress. So Italy has been challenging in a primarily… physical sense? In the manner that all of my challenges have been external; locate this, get here, stay warm, etc.

And on those occasions I oftentimes ask myself if this (“this” being my state of cold and crying on an Italian corner) is why I came here. And, interestingly enough, I’ve found that it totally is. Yes, I came to eat Italian food, to pick up some Italian phrases, and to see Italian art (though I forgot how expensive museum admissions can be! Alas, no more art for me), but I also came for a challenge and to find out what I’m capable of enduring. And I have never, not for one instant, wanted to be anywhere else.

But enough talk of challenge! There have been absolutely marvelous aspects of Italy as well! Like the plate of fresh speck and radicchio tortellini tossed in a thin, buttery parmesan sauce, finished with yet another generous portion that full-bodied parmesan (and I don’t care that full-bodied’s typically a wine descriptor, this cheese was full-bodied.) that I ate yesterday. Or the rich torte filled with ricotta and chocolate that I just ate earlier this morning. Or the omnipresent religious iconography plastered across every city (how you can leave the grocery store, glance to your right, and ah yes, there’s the Virgin Mary again). Or how you can hear church bells proclaiming in their deep, resonate tones the times of the day from any place in any city, and if you stop after a certain number of steps and look up you can even see them swinging and clanging above all the hustle. Or how you can climb hundreds of steep, rickety, dizzying steps up to the top of a medieval tower and be rewarded with a view that stretches across the plethora of red-tiled roofs out to the hills, the mountains, and whatever lies beyond.

Okay, there is (always) more to say (such as how incredibly dreamy my last few days in Paris were, my exploration of the Loire city Angers and my reunion with two great friends, the general resurgence of my ardent french patriotism, my first show-down with fear as I left France for Italy, and all the ways I’m attempting to stay warm in Italy- hint: looking cute has been abandoned as a goal) but this is already quite long as a post. I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I’ve written! It turns out figuring out when to blog and what should be included is quite difficult! So I’m going to do my best to post regularly, but the lengths and content will very greatly. Please bear with me! Hope everyone’s having a lovely Friday.