One month left, guys. I have so many mixed emotions about it that I don’t even know how to process them.
Mostly, I’m so sad that this has to end. I’m not ready to be done. I’m not ready to go home, wherever that is. I’m not ready to go back to “real life”. But why isn’t THIS real life? Why does real life have to be routine and stressful and meaningless? Why are the best moments of our lives when we don’t even feel like we are living our real, our own, our true lives? I want this to be my life: living with two pairs of pants, cleaning my underwear in the sink, buying only what I need because that’s all the space I have, carrying my entire life in a 38 liter bag on my back.
I’m a teensy tiny bit happy, but that’s mostly because I’ve been sick for at least three months straight now and should probably see a doctor, and maybe I’m looking a little bit forward to underwire bras and getting my hair cut. And sleeping with my kitty.
Part of me, however, is scared. I was up last night for several hours, unable to sleep, hyperventilating as I thought about how my life will be when I get back home. Which sounds ridiculously backwards: not too long ago, I was back home, hyperventilating in the middle of the night about what I would be doing while backpacking Europe for five months. It’s scary because I don’t know where I’ll be living, or if I’ll have to pay rent, or if I’ll have a job, or if I’ll be miserable, or how I’ll move all my stuff around.
All of this has made me realize that I’ve done a lot of growing, but as un-stressed as I’ve been the last few months, traveling hasn’t automatically “fixed” me. I’m still me. I’m still dealing with anxiety, although I’m learning to manage it way better. I’m still dealing with comparing myself to others, not feeling successful enough, feeling bad about failing myself so far as an actor. I’m still dealing with figuring out myself as an artist, and as a professional, and as someone who literally needs an income eventually or she will be homeless. So that’s a thing that I’m in NO WAY STRESSED ABOUT, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. CAN WE CHANGE THE SUBJECT NOW KTHNXBYE.
So, yeah. Subject officially changed to: last moments in Florence.
Saw the David, it was literally one of the most breathtaking pieces of art I’ve ever seen, stared at it for awhile, yadda yadda yadda. Then a bit of cappuccino sipping, and off to the best intercity bus experiences of my LIFE.
It’s David…as in David and Goliath. Did you ever guess he’d be so fiiiiine?
This trip reminded me why I’m so in love with FlixBus. The bus was there when we arrived twenty minutes early, ready to be boarded. The worker guys were SO lovely, happily helping us with our luggage, scanning our tickets without even checking our passports, and nobody was stressed or pushing. It was a double decker bus and there was so much empty space. We left right on time, got in on time, and it was just GREAT. I swear, I don’t even work for FlixBus.
Three hours later in Rome, we took the metro to reach the apartment we were staying at, which had given us very poor instructions and was on the opposite side of the street than Google said. But we found it eventually, got buzzed up, and took about five minutes to figure out where we were going because I misheard “turn right and go to the fifth floor” for “turn right and go to the fifth DOOR.” But there was only one door. So I was confused. We figured it out eventually though, so no worries guys.
We were already a little miffed when we walked into this place, because we found out after we booked it that they were going to charge us 15 extra euros to check in after 7pm. Like WHAT? Is that even LEGAL? Also, it’s not like 7pm is late or anything. If it was after like, 11pm, MAYBE. But other places that I’ve stayed that don’t have 24 hour reception don’t CHARGE YOU EXTRA if you’re checking in late; they just want to be informed. So yeah, we were pissed off. Especially because the guy was so unhelpful. He just gave us the keys, quickly showed us around, and didn’t do like anything else. Didn’t talk about the area, or sightseeing, or public transit, or even where we could grab a quick dinner; which would have been fine if he had been available to talk to, but he basically grabbed our cash (he said online that he took a credit card; HE DID NOT) and walked out the door. Whatever. Probably just overreacting. WELL. Other highlights included: “fully stocked” kitchen for 3 groups of people had two giant pots with no lids and hardly any utensils: “free breakfast” didn’t get restocked because nobody ever stopped by, so our last morning there was hardly anything left; shared garbage cans never got changed, overflowing with an extra bag next to it; “shower” had no shower head- just a hose with no holder; and my personal favorite- there was only one FILTHY sponge for cleaning dishes- I checked EVERYWHERE. Any of these things would have been whatever if it was only them, but all of it combined led to an unsatisfying and frustrating stay.
We still ended up having a lovely evening. At the only market still open (they all closed at 8pm for some reason) we found ingredients for dinner and wine, and went home to cook some pretty great pasta. The best part was that there was an adorable family staying at the place long term, and I played with a teeny one-year-old for like, two hours. He was adorable and perfect and thought that everything I did was hilarious. I dreamed about smooshing his widdle smooshy face and biting his widdle dimply cheeks (not really, I dreamed that some guy was trying to kill me with a knife and that all my teeth fell out, but whatever).
We spent a lovely day in Vatican City yesterday. It was sunny outside, so we walked there – a nice change from getting pissed on every day in Florence. Vatican City is so beautiful, but also so…weird. St. Peter’s Square was completely crowded with tourists (on a weekday in the off-season) and everyone else is just trying to either sell you selfie sticks or pickpocket you. It made me feel rather claustrophobic.
We started our day in the Vatican Museum which was not easy to find, because the signage in Rome absolutely SUCKS. We wandered around a bit, and eventually had to ask at a help desk, even though we had GPS on our phone. That’s how bad the signs are.
The museum was HUGE; definitely was not expecting it to be so big, and also to have so much non-religious stuff. There were tons of statues of Greek gods and shit, and even an ancient Egypt section. Like the rest of Vatican City, it was super confusing to get around. There was no numerical system like some museums have; you just have to wander around and hope you hit the stuff you want to see. Even worse, a lot of the informational signs had a lot of the English rubbed off, so you couldn’t even tell what you were looking at. So annoying.
It took us hours to go through the museum (and that was with reading hardly anything), and we ended it in the Sistene Chapel, which was nothing like I had imagined it. The famous Hand of God painting or whatever it’s called was on the top of the chapel, along with about a hundred other paintings, some of them larger and more impressive. I mean, they were all incredible and beautiful, but it was also just SO high up that it was hard to truly see and appreciate all the details. It was super crowded in there and people were annoying me and they kept yelling at us not to take photos.
I felt like I was about to die after this, so we stopped for some pizza and regained some strength. And then it was time to wait in line to get into St. Peter’s Basilica! You have to wait a LONG time, and it’s just because of security, which is just because people are dumb assholes and wait until they get up to the thing to start taking their stuff off, and then they are self-involved and don’t think to pass the baskets back to other people who might need them. It would have literally taken half the time if people would use their eyeballs. But once we got inside, I kind of forgot about all that. It’s HUGE. And INCREDIBLE. I don’t really have good words to describe this place, except that if you ever find yourself in Vatican City please, please go inside. It’s free.
But also I felt slightly uncomfortable there. I haven’t fully dealt with my relationship with the Catholic Church yet, and it’s muddled and ugly. I grew up with something I could never understand or believe, and it shaped me by introducing me to lovely Catholic guilt, forcing me into things that I felt wrong doing, and generally making my life more complicated and imprisoned than it needed to be. It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am today, and I haven’t fully recovered from what it did to me. But I also can’t deny that it was an important part of childhood: I was there in church, whether or not I wanted to be, every single week and religious holiday. It was always there, a part of me. So being in Catholic churches tends to bring up weird feelings: familiarity, but not warmth; knowledge of what things are and is happening, but still, STILL not understanding why; and the ever-present question of why people are so hypocritical when it comes to religion, so blind, and so willing to lie to themselves. So yeah. A little uncomfortable.
Also, the most disconcerting part of the whole place was there was definitely a dead pope covered in bronze, just lying on a little altar thing. When a couple girls asked why they just have the one guy sitting out there when there is a whole vault of crypts, I suggested that maybe they switch them out? Like, first Monday of every month stick a different dead guy up there?
After this, it was time to head home. We picked up more groceries, TWO bottles of wine because we are alcoholics, and I took no part in cooking this night because I was so distracted by the perfect baby again. Why do they make babies so CUTE? Kiwi guy and I finished our wine and were therefore pretty drunk, and had a good rest of the night.
HERE IS THE PART WHERE I WAS WAKING UP THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT PANICKING ABOUT MY LIFE.
I woke up this morning exhausted from lack of sleep, but excited because we were checking out of our shit apartment. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it was pissing us off, so we were pretty excited to leave (and more excited about the bad review we have yet to write). We took the metro to our new apartment which is SO MUCH BETTER and super close to the rest of the Rome sights, and eventually got out the door for some sight-seeing.
Hey, remember when I was talking about how bad the signage was in the Vatican? Yeah, it’s worse in the Roman ruins. They have a few signs written in Italian and English, but the English is often so rubbed off you can’t see it at all – and even if you can read it, it probably won’t be very useful information. We got super lost in the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, because there are NO SIGNS and the ones that ARE there to tell you which way to go are wrong half the time. But it was still really cool to see all these thousands-of-years-old ruins.
We also stopped by the Santa Maria Basilica (we did NOT go in- I’m churched out for awhile) and Piazza del Campidoglio, which has a fancy shmancy pattern on the ground and a guy on a horse in the middle. Then food, home, and writing.
We will be leaving for dinner soon, which I’m pretty sure will be pizza again because it’s the cheapest food we can find here. Also it’s delicious, so I’m quite looking forward to it.
That’s all for now, kiddos.