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Palabra del día: Home
The word of the day is in English because I'm in the US now, and did you know that in the US people speak English?  It was a bit of a shock for me.  I've actually been having some trouble understanding people speaking English on the street because I'm expecting them to speak in Spanish or Italian.  And don't even get me started on those strange Boston accents.
Frase: In the words of Dorothy, there's no place like home.

Comida del día: At the end of my trip to Italy I went to two jazz festivals: one was an hour outside of Rome in a little town called Collescipoli, and the other was wayyy up north almost in Switzerland in a town called Ambria.  In Italy, every region and sometimes even every town has its own culinary specialties, which of course always include a signature pasta dish, so I'm going to explain the pasta specialties that I encountered at the two jazz festivals.  And then I'm not going to talk about (or eat) pasta again for a very, very long time because unlike Italian people, I've learned that I have a pasta limit which I definitely surpassed by the end of my trip.

Pasta #1: Gnocchetti from Collescipoli are tiny versions of potato gnocchi served with a sauce of beans, tomatoes and meat (or senza meat for vegetarians).  I'm not going to include a photo because gnocchetti basically looks like little pellets covered in a gray-brown sauce... much better to eat than to look at!

Pasta #2: Combine northern European food with Italian food and you get pizzocheri, which are long, flat buckwheat noodles covered in a butter and cheese sauce, often mixed with potatoes and cabbage.  No olive oil necessary for the hearty diet of northern Italy!  Although, there was still an abundance of olive trees in the area.

Fotos del día: One of the best parts of being home is that after 10 months, I finally got to see Rosie again!

After 20 hours of traveling, Rosie and her wagging tail were the perfect greeting when I finally arrived home.

And there's no better place to recover from jetlag than the hammock in the backyard:

It's nice to be home.  I'm guessing this feeling will last about another week and then I'll be bored out of my mind and wishing I could go back to Europe and tackle my ever-growing list of places I want to go.  You would think that after 10 months in Europe I would have seen everything I wanted to see, but my list is actually longer than before, since the more I traveled the more places I found out about  and the more places I realized I wanted to go back to.  But for now, I'm finally sick of traveling and I'm content to stay at home for a while with the company of my dog and my hammock (and my parents, of course).

Since this is my last post and my year abroad is finally over, I was thinking that I would talk about some of the year's highlights.  Then I tried to think of highlights, and I just couldn't decide.  I've had one amazing adventure after another and to try to pick out the best ones is impossible.  However, I realized that what connects the numerous best parts of the past 10 months has been the people I've met. I've seen so many beautiful views, famous artwork and historical sights, heard some great music, and eaten the best food ever, but when I think back on all of the places I've been, I think not only about the things I've seen but also about the people that I enjoyed these things with.

The Moroccan countryside is definitely one of the most beautiful places I went this year.

And I'll never forget the gorgeous views of the reservoir of Iznájar!

I'm returning home from my year abroad with hundreds of photos, some nice new clothes, and a brand new handmade Italian leather bag, but the best souveniers are my new friends from Spain, Italy, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, France, China, and all over the US.  I've been surprised by how quickly I met people, how friendly and welcoming they were right from the start, and how many invitations I've gotten to go to people's houses (and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that if you get an invitation to go to someone's house, always go!)

It's great to have friends from all over the world, but at the same time there's a downside because I don't know when or if I will ever see these people again, and staying in touch is difficult when you're in different time zones.  I hope that we will see each other again, but whether or not we do, I learned so much and enjoyed the time I spent with each and every person I met, whether we knew each other for a few days, a few weeks, or 10 months.  Something that I will take with me back to WashU is that everyone has something to say, whether they live halfway around the world from you or right next door, and you never know what you will learn if you just take the time to listen.

Speaking of a few days, I was surprised by how quickly I made friends while traveling.  I think that sometimes when people know their time together is limited, they put in extra effort to get to know each other faster.  The Ambria jazz festival was a perfect example.  This was my last stop in Italy before returning home, and I had the opportunity to play three gigs at the festival, watch some great concerts, see some beautiful views, eat some delicious food, and meet some really nice people.  All in all, it was a perfect weekend and a perfect way to end my time in Italy.

I loved having the opportunity to perform with these talented professional musicians.  It was challenging for me but they were very encouraging and I learned a lot from the experience.

I found the perfect place to practice on the balcony of the house where I stayed!

Me with my friend Cabin and my new Italian host mom eating breakfast on our last morning.  Franca really did act like our mother for three days and insists that we come back next year and stay with her again.  Hopefully I will do just that!

The last concert of the weekend was at an ecotourism farm, so we got to play for ostriches as well as people.  I was a bit surprised to see that there was ostrich paté on the brunch menu!

Throughout the three days at the festival, I had the opportunity to get to know all of the people involved.  On both days, the organizer of the festival hosted the musicians, students, and organizers of the festival at his house for a delicious four course lunch that his wife and her friend prepared.  The food was of course amazing, with my personal highlight being the dessert of homemade tiramisu with peaches.  But, although this may be hard to believe coming from someone who loves dessert a little bit too much, the real highlight of the festival was not actually the dessert.  Instead,  it was the chance to talk to musicians from Italy and Germany, and to get to know people who live in these small towns in Northern Italy full of olive trees, apple trees, mountains and not much else.

My new friends from the Ambria Jazz festival

I left the weekend with a feeling that I had become a part of this small but special community, despite the fact that I live thousands of miles away and only visited for three days.  This wasn't the first time this year that I felt welcomed.  In fact, everywhere I went this year I was thrilled to find people who included me in their lives and provided me with a feeling of home, despite the fact that I was thousands of miles away from my real home.  I got this feeling when I played with the band in Granada,

and when I went to Christmas with (very) extended family in France, 

and when I did my internship at the elementary school in Granada,

Hiking with my bosses

and of course with these chicas bonitas,

and when I hung out in the Party Piso.

International dinner

These communities were what really made my year special. I'm thankful to everyone in them for including me, and going forward I'm going to try to always extend the same hospitality that I received to new people that I meet.

And now I have a few final adventures to share with you.  Before the Ambria Festival and after leaving Florence, I went to the JazzIt Festival just south of Rome, which had views like this:

At the festival we played in three concerts, one of them on a stage that looked like this:

Then, we stayed for one night at an ancient monastery, which now functions as a hotel, but based on the UFOs we saw while stargazing there is definitely some sort of spiritual magic left there (and yes, they were definitely UFOs and no, they were not airplanes or space-stations or rocket ships or anything else realistic that you might find in the sky).

The monastery looked like this:

And had views like this:

On the way to the monastery we stopped at this waterfall:

And then we spent two nights relaxing in a small town called San Gemini, and went to see some Roman ruins near there:

Two jazz festivals, a giant waterfall, a magical monastery, Roman ruins, new friends...I can't think of a better way to have spent my last week in Europe.  In fact, I still can't believe that the things I'm describing are actually my real life.

And now here I am, nearing the end of my last blog post.  If anyone wants to see more photos from this year, I am happy to give a private showing the next time we see each other (and I would love to see you - it's been a while!).  I would also like to mention that if you are planning to go to any of the cities I visited this year, I have a detailed list of recommendations for each one and I would be more than happy to share them with you.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog this year and I want to thank everyone who was interested enough in my life to follow it.  I sort of wish I could continue to keep a blog, but I'm guessing that not even my most devoted readers (I think my mom and my aunt Anita win that competition!) would care enough about me to want to read about how many episodes of Orange is the New Black I've watched.  But hopefully this isn't the end of my travel adventures, and hopefully after staying at home for at least a year (first I need to recover from jetlag, then finish college, then we'll see) I'll have the chance to continue to explore the places on my ever growing list of places to see.

A life of luxury

*Note: I wrote this blog post two weeks ago when I left Florence, but due to an epidemic of bad internet connections that’s plaguing small towns across Italy, I haven’t been able to post it until now.  This post is about the end of my time in Florence, and you should expect one more in a few days wrapping up my 10 months in Europe since I am now finally, finally home.

Palabra del día: La campagna

Spanish translation: El campo

English translation: Countryside

Italian sentence: La campagna di Italia e multa bella!

English sentence: The Italian countryside is gorgeous!

Spanish sentence: ¡Con el simpatico que es nuestro prisionero, vamos a tener un buen día en el campo!

Comida del día: One of the most interesting foods I've eaten in Italy were zucchini flowers stuffed with a potato mixture.  Did you know that zucchinis have flowers?  I had the opportunity to help prepare them when we spent a night in the countryside near Florence.  The flowers are orange and green and all you have to do to prepare them is open the flower, put potato inside them, close the flower, and then grill them in the outdoor brick oven.

Foto del día:

Spending a night in the Chianti countryside near Florence gave me the chance to enjoy some quality hammock time!

I ended up traveling this month much more than I thought I would.  The positive reason for this is that the Italian countryside is multa bella and a perfect place to enjoy summer weather.  The negative reason for this is that Florence is noisy and touristy, so I’ve been taking every opportunity to leave!  

Last week I took two trips.  The first was with my jazz program to play a gig at a bed and breakfast in the little town of Montespertoli in Chianti county.  It was a perfect overnight trip, full of cute children, a friendly dog, nice people, delicious fresh food, and the opportunity to play music.  The views from Monstespertoli reminded me a bit of the views around Granada, except that it was greener (with more grass) and in addition to olive trees there were also vineyards.  We got to the bed and breakfast in the afternoon, and I helped to prepare for the big dinner event they were having.  The dinner consisted of all sorts of fresh and local vegetables and salads and pizza and break baked in the outdoor brick oven.

I also had the chance to go for a walk in the countryside with this lovely dog named Ulysses:

Who led me to this view:

Spending a night in the countryside was so relaxing and such a nice change of pace from living in the city that when I got back to Florence I stayed for only three hours before leaving again.  I also left because I was invited to my friend's lake house and I've learned this year that when you are invited to someone's house, you should always go.  The last minute trip was with my jazz professor and my friend to his family friend’s house on Lake Garda, in the town of Saló in Northern Italy.  My friend’s name is Cabin (don’t ask me why…), so when he told me we were going to a house on a lake I just sort of assumed it would be a log “cabin” in the woods near a beach and that we would go swimming and sit in the sun all weekend.  I couldn’t have been more wrong:

I'm pretty sure that this beautiful house that I had the opportunity to stay in is the exact opposite of a cabin.

Cabin’s family friend is a designer and designed this house himself.  The bottom floor has a loft bedroom and big windows that look out on the lake, so when you're up there it feels as if you're on a boat in the lake.  On the second floor, there's another gorgeous lake view and the house is full of beautiful furniture and artwork.  I felt like I was staying in a museum!

I would have been perfectly happy staying at the house all day, but Cabin’s friends (who weren't even at the house while we were there) wanted us to see the area and planned our our trip for us, including a personal driver to bring us from one place to another.

First stop, this mansion-museum-garden called the Vittoriale, which was home to an important Italian figure in World War I named Gabriele d'Annunzio.  The gardens felt like an ancient Roman paradise:

Next stop, lunch at the fanciest and most expensive restaurant I have ever been to.  It was located in a hotel that was previously Mussolini’s house

This is the restaurant:

This is the view:

And here's what I ate:

Caprese salad.  I took one bite of the fresh buffalo mozzarella and thought, "So that's what mozzarella is supposed to taste like!"  It barely resembled the stuff you can buy at grocery stores in the US.

Pasta with seafood and lemon sauce:

A custardy tiramisu flavored dessert:

Everything I ate during this meal tasted like luxury, I didn't have to pay for any of it, and with the help of the gorgeous lake views I had a hard time believing that I wasn't dreaming.

I was expecting to have a full day to spend hanging out at the lake, and although that didn't happen, I still managed to go swimming twice.  The water was a bit cold but clear and perfect for an early morning swim, reminding me of all of the summers I spent in the lake at camp.  Both times that I went swimming, no one else was in the water - it seems like most people with lake houses in the area avoid cold water and the fishies and instead use climate controlled chemical-filled swimming pools. 

Throughout the whole weekend I felt like I was living a life of luxury and the trip was so last minute and so far from what I was expecting that I’m still not convinced that it actually happened.  However, I somehow ended up with a beautiful dress from Cabin’s friend’s designer store that was valued at 700 euros and which I didn’t have to pay for at all, so I have physical proof in my closet that it wasn't all a dream.  

After that weekend, I for some reason started thinking about my trip to Morocco last November, when we visited the family in the rural countryside and got a taste of their lifestyle.  I realized that living this luxurious life in the lake house was the complete opposite of the simple lifestyle I experienced with that family in Morocco, and I've been fortunate enough to have the opportunities to see both ends of the spectrum this year.  Certain parts of the weekend at Lake Garda felt a bit over the top to me, and although it was fun for a short period of time, I remembered that the family that we met in Morocco had everything they needed and seemed happy and content with their lives despite the fact that they would never be able to eat the best caprese salad in the world.

On the way back to Florence, we made two stops.  First we went to Verona, which has some beautiful plazas, a coliseum used for opera performances, and the balcony that Romeo and Juliet was based on.  Next we stopped in Bologna, which felt like a non-touristy version of Florence, and went to a really old monastery.  And then finally back to Florence for my last week in the city.  It’s really not such a bad city, but it just can’t compare to open fields of olive orchards and houses that look like boats. Here I am at the top of the Duomo (cathedral):

It was windy up there!

And now I’m writing this blog on another train after having left Florence for good.  Since leaving Granada, I've realized that it’s not feasible to stay in Europe for the rest of my life.  I've been so many places that sometimes I get this feeling that I don't know where I am or how I got there, which I think means that it's time to go home.  But before that, I have another week and a half of playing music in the Italian countryside - I can't wait!