L'ultimo giorno ad Alba..

This is it. Today (well, yesterday now) was our last day in Alba. in Italy. in Europe! It is currently 256 in the am. We leave Alba in approximately 28 minutes.. eep! I've had my last gelato, my last meal, and my last shower in Italia. I tried to get a last siesta in as well, but I was just too antsy, haha. Hopefully I'll be tired enough to get some sleep on the plane. If everything goes smoothly, I should be back in Maryland by 5:52pm EST.

Yay! :D

Lists & Excitement :)

News/Updates..

1. Last week were my FINAL exams. Literally. As of Thursday morning around 10am,  I am done with college!! It's pretty crazy. I don't think that's going to sink in either until I get my degree in the mail, until I walk in May, or until I actually get a full-time job. Regardless, I am done with academics - no more classes, no more homework, no more tests, no more papers.. definitely an awesome feeling. :)
2. If you glance over at my counters on the left side of my blog, you'll see that I have three more days until home sweet home! Technically though, it's two and a wake-up, as my dad would say, since there is only the evening of today left. :)

 Plans for the Remainder of My Time Here..

1. Clean and pack. This process has already begun. (Sort of.) Our room has been swept, random papers and notebooks have been sorted for tossing out, luggages are ready to be filled with stuff to go back home. Aaaand that's as far as I got for today. I was actually really excited about the notion of packing, and then I realized I didn't know where to start. So I'm tackling more of that tomorrow :P
2. Hiking tomorrow! After Saturday's short hike on a trail overlooking Alba, I decided it needed to happen again, in greater length. It'll be like my last excursion to take in Alba in all its glory and give it all the appreciation it deserves :)
3. Eat out at my favorite restaurants - Duchessa tonight (I wanted to see if I could repeat my feat of eating an entire pizza in one sitting, but alas, I did not succeed, haha), then I think Locanda tmrw and Hemingway on Wednesday. I'm also skipping out on cafeteria meals for lunches, b/c I have enough red tickets to tide me over. I had a lunch date with Nikki at VinCafe today and got this steak dish, and it was like, legit steak with herb seasoning.. so good! Basically I'm going to savor every last meal I have here in Italy.
4. Gelato! At Desmosedici, our gelateria of choice, they have those buy 10, get 1 free cards. I only need two more stamps, and then I get a freebie. It's totally happening before we leave. :D
5. Almost forgot about this one: I gotta do the last of the souvenir shopping - chocolates and cookies, mostly. :)

Things I'm Looking Forward to in the US..

1. Seeing family and friends, of course! I'm excited for hangout time with my friends, being able to bug my sister next door with random stuff that pops into my head, playing mahjong with my family, Christmas caroling with my best friends, movie nights, everything :)
2. My bed, my room, my house, all familiar aspects of home.
3. Mom's cooking :)
4. The variety of available food.
5. Decorating for Christmas!
6. Hoodies and sweatpants, oh my goodness. Can't wait to bum it for basically the rest of winter :P
7. Texting, and being able to use my phone in general.
8. Driving.
9. Being able to function in society b/c I'll know the language & customs :P

& Lastly, I don't have a list immediately in mind for this one, but this is what makes leaving Italy feel most bittersweet:

What I'm Going to Miss Most About Italy is..

the fact that it's absolutely, completely, utterly

gorgeous. beautiful. magnificent. stunning. 

AWESOME.

I know that for much of this semester, I've kind of lost sight of how lucky I am to even be here. I'm in another country on another continent an entire ocean away from home. It's at times like this when God will remind me how fortunate I am to be here by opening my eyes to the splendor around me. Italy really is a beautiful country. I've got several pictures where I've tried to capture it, but of course they can't. This is why I'm stoked to go hiking again tomorrow, and take one last look out over the amazing town that has taken me in for the last three months. Being able to see the stunning landscapes and countryside with my own eyes is something that I'm not going to be able to relate to others when I'm back home; They can see the pictures I've taken and try to imagine being here, but soaking everything in with my own eyes and reveling in its magnificence is an experience that'll be all my own, and that's a memory that'll be most cherished when I think about Italy. :)

Pisa & Florence (Take Two)

So this past weekend was the Pisa/Florence trip with the entire SMCM group, & I was really glad that I'd already gone earlier in the semester with Chelsea b/c we really didn't have all that much time there. We left Saturday morning, stopped by Pisa for about an hour and a half (the Tower is still there, still leaning), arrived in Florence by sunset, and then left Florence just one day later. So my time there was pure leisure, no need to hit up the tourist spots or anything. I just wandered around with Sarah and Lilian, did a last bit of souvenir shopping, and then window shopped for the rest of the time.

Saturday night we managed to find a Japanese restaurant, which was definitely a highlight. It was this tiny little nook of a place, with only like six or seven chairs, but it was amazing. Lilian and I were definitely hyping it up because we had been craving sushi for basically the last month or two that we've been here, and this place looked fairly legit, haha. It was called Lucky Sushi, and it was delish.

Sarah's salmon fried rice - yum!

Lilian's california roll & spicy tuna roll - also yum!

My noodles with shrimp and california roll - not exactly what I expected cuz I thought it was gonna be soup, but definitely still delish!

 We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the market stalls and admiring the Christmas lights adorning the city streets. Most everybody else in our program went out drinking that night, but the three of us were pretty content to stay in our room, surprisingly entertained by this one program on Italian TV called Io Canto (I sing) - we think it was some kind of children's singing competition combined with a concert, and a majority of the singers were honestly not that great (there were a few that we loved, tho), but they did sing some American Christmas carols and it was pretty fun to add our own commentary. 

Pretty Christmas lights! They had many different kinds on different streets, along with a bunch of lit Christmas trees, but my camera doesn't do well to capture them, so I kind of just didn't bother with most of them.

Christmas lights above the market stalls

Different lights still lit on Sunday morning

Sunday morning we got up for our free breakfast, and Lilian and I decided to check out Sunday Mass at the Florence Duomo. It was very cold in there and the service was all in Italian, but I was able to follow the general sequence of the readings and whatnot (the bulletin also had the readings in English, which was nice), and we just took in the beauty of the church from the inside. The Masses are held in the part that is not open to tourists in the afternoon, so we were able to see the large altar up close, as well as the huge painting on the inside of the dome, which was quite grand. Travel guide Rick Steves has said that it was Michelangelo's inspiration for the Sistine Chapel, and after seeing the entire thing now, I could definitely see that. I actually kind of liked it more than the Sistine Chapel.. it just seemed more vibrant or something.. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but basically it was neat getting to see that in its full splendor.

The main altar (not where we had Mass, the service we went to was in a smaller side chapel)

The awesome inside of the Dome - click to see in more detail.

The rest of the morning was spent just wandering around Florence; I took Lilian to see the Ponte Vecchio bridge and Piazza Michelangelo, where we got a hazy view overlooking Florence in the fog. Lunchtime we met up with Simona and Dan (so they could cover our lunch expenses, our cash funds were pretty low/nonexistent, haha), and then we had about two more hours of wandering and window shopping until it was time to leave. We meandered down this one road that seemed to consist entirely of shops with random stuff (a telephone in the shape of lips or a high heel, shiny frog figurines with feathered boas and tiaras, a fairly atrocious assortment of possibly designer dresses, lots of fur and shinyness all around..), so we had fun dipping in and out of those and commenting on all of the oddities in what I dubbed "Florence's FunkyTown" :P Basically it was just a chill day of roomie hangout and being silly time, so it was a lot of fun :)

Ponte Vecchio bridge

Me in front of the bridge

Christmas trees on the bridge

  

We tried two shots of us looking nice and smiling. They didn't work out so well. This was take three :P

 

The last time we were here, Chelsea and I saw like three different Asian weddings by Piazza Michelangelo. Apparently the trend continues even in December.

 

The clouds started to clear up some in the afternoon, giving us a rather glorious sunset when it came time to leave :)

 

Picture Post: Overlooking Alba

So in the spirit of taking the time to appreciate Alba in my last days here, I decided to go do some exploring & take advantage of this sunny Saturday. After asking Sarah where they had gone hiking with Professor Don Stabile earlier in the semester, I set out to try to find it, and I think I did. I don't know how far down the trail I got, but it was very serene and peaceful, and I got some spectacular views overlooking Alba. Might try going again & getting an earlier start if we get another sunny day in Alba, possibly after we get back from Pisa & Florence. :)

As usual, none of these pictures do God's creations justice, but if you click on them and look at them in more detail, you might get a better idea of how majestic the views are :]

I found this map after going a ways down the street across from the boys' apt. I took the green trail cuz it was closest :)

There were these signs periodically along the trail, & they were really useful :]

Panoramic overlooking Alba - click to view bigger.

 

Love that you can see the mountains in the distance, and even more mountains further in the back, kind of faint & covered in snow - maybe the Alps?

 

This is as far down the trail as I got, b/c my nose started bleeding from the dry air unfortunately, so I decided to head back before I ran out of tissues :[

 

Bittersweet.

The countdown to home is down to twelve days...

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely way excited to come home in less than two weeks, but now things are starting to settle in that not only am I counting down the days to home, I'm starting a list of lasts for Italy. This is our last weekend in Alba, since next weekend we'll be on our school-sponsored trip to Pisa & Florence. Today was the last time I'd go to Saturday market & get my routine rotisserie chicken and fries. I went out this morning and just took it all in; I breathed in the lovely chocolate Ferrero scent in the air that I already know I'm going to miss; I looked each of the vendors that I went to in the eyes and gave them a sincere smile and thanks, because they're all so nice and friendly; I took a little bit of time to just observe all the people around me, to look at their faces & listen to the friendly Italian banter that is still pretty foreign to my ears.

I know everyone tends to rave about a study abroad semester or year or whatever as a life-changing experience, that you come back a different person, enlightened or something. I would say that I'm definitely still the same person, albeit having delved a little more into the drinking scene than I ever would have at home, haha. I wouldn't say that I've gotten enlightenment, or anything deep like that, haha. I know I keep saying that if there's anything I've learned while being here, it's that I've gained a greater appreciation for home and all that that entails - that even though we've all gotten settled and comfortable here in Alba, it just hasn't really been home. But you know what? No, it may not have the people nearest & dearest to me, but it has provided a place for me to feel secure, a place for me to stay, to get familiar with, a place for me to call "home" without trying to replace my home. Does that make any sense?

Basically, I love this little city. I love the quaint town feel of it, the friendly people, the chocolate in the air, the gorgeous hills and vineyards surrounding it. It really has been the perfect place for me to come for a semester abroad.

Looking back on the last 3 months, (the past year even,) the time really has flown by. I still don't think it's gone by too fast so that I didn't get to enjoy everything, but it has flown by. I remember the most exciting time for me was the first two weeks, when I was reveling in the newness of everything, the exhilarating fact that I had finally made it to Italy. Then, after a while, I think I got a little jaded and used to everything here. I stopped taking pictures of everything I saw, I stayed in a lot because I was lazy to go out, I started thinking more about home than I appreciated being here in Italy. Now that my time here is coming to a close, I'm starting to revert back to my attitude at the beginning of the semester. For the first two weeks, I reveled in the newness of it all; Now, in my last two weeks, I want to take the time to revel in the familiarity of it all, to appreciate everything that I've kind of just looked over in the last couple of months here.

Who knows when, if ever, I'll make it back to Alba? I'm still very much looking forward to home, but I know that this place is always going to have some fondness in my heart, and I'm sure I will miss it once I'm back in the US.

<3

Accomplished!

Musicology Final Paper: Complete and sent in.

Classes for the semester: Complete.
Classes for my entire. college. career: Complete!

I have gone to my last class for my Bachelor's degree EVER. I have one week of final exams between me and my Bachelor's degree; I have exactly two weeks between me and HOME!

:)

Thanksgiving, Snow, & Turin Film Festival

Saturday night's potluck Thanksgiving feast was a great success! Everyone did an awesome job putting together their respective dishes, so we had an overwhelming plethora of food, consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, glazed carrots, corn pudding, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, & garlic knots, + desserts: cookies, apple pie, a pudding-consistency-cake-that-DB-brought-that-I-don't-know-the-name-of, & a cake with awesome turkey decor! Oh, & not to mention plenty of wine.. we are still in Italy, after all ;P

I unfortunately wasn't hungry enough to eat everything (I missed out on a lot of the desserts), but everything I tasted was really good. I was so impressed with everyone's hard work! It really made it feel like Thanksgiving - so many of us crammed into the boys' apartment, tons of food, lots of talking & laughter, singing holiday tunes.. all around good cheer and merriment. :)

So much food!

Chelsea's plate with a sampling of everything!

Desserts!

Cake artfully decorated with fruit turkeys by the San Rocco girls :)

Charlotte, Nick, me, Chelsea, & Andrew S.

All the boys looking dapper in their waiter outfits - I mean concert attire. :)

Lilian, me, & Korinne

Julianna, Elizabeth, Nikki, me, & Cathlin

Sunday morning, guess what I woke up to: SNOW!! And not just a light dusting either; there had to have been like an inch of snow settled on roofs and on top of cars and railings and whatnot. I do have to admit that I was pretty excited when I first realized why it was bright outside the window despite the lack of sunlight, and I immediately bolted out of bed to look outside and take some pictures. It was beautiful to look at, but I definitely am still not fond of how cold it is out there, so I got my pictures and then climbed back into bed with a plan to stay in my pjs and work on my Music paper all day. 

The snow fell pretty steadily until early afternoon. By evening time it had turned to slush on the roads and streets, and my classmates that had been out said it was slippery, but I managed to get out just to get myself some take-out for dinner from Duchessa, and then it was back to paper-writing. I'm basically the world's slowest paper-writer, because I'm still not done. Probably 4/5 of the way through.

Today (Monday) was our last excursion to the Turin Film Festival for our Cinema class, which was pretty awesome. We watched three movies: Soulboy, White Irish Drinkers, and for the third we could pick from three options - I watched one called Ang Ninanais, which was by a Filipino director. The first two were really well done and seemed more like theatrical films rather than independent films, which was impressive. I particularly enjoyed the second one, which is kind of funny because that one was optional for us to watch. The guy who played the military colonel guy in Avatar was in it as the protagonist's dad, which was kind of cool, haha. It was about a guy in Brooklyn who has artistic talent, but has a bunch of family crap going on - alcoholic dad, brother stealing, drama drama. It was just really engaging and dramatic - I even cried at one point, I got so attached to the characters and just got really into the storyline. The only thing I didn't like about this one was that the camera was slightly unsteady, which made me kind of dizzy and even nauseous throughout the film, but apparently I was the only one really affected by it. The first film was about the Northern Soul style of dancing, which was pretty cool too & had kind of a cliche storyline about the guy falling for the wrong girl, getting in trouble, & then figuring out that he should be with the girl who's been crushing on him all along in the end.

The third one was disappointing; I will admit I was biased in my choice since the film was from the Philippines, but the other two options were either a horror film (no thanks) or one about the relationship between Bill Clinton (played by Dennis Quaid, what?! Weird.) and Tony Blair (politics aren't really of interest to me). The synopsis from the TFF website for the Philippine film said something about a mermaid (although overall their summary didn't really make sense), so I was under the impression that it would be kind of a fantasy story or something, which sounded really cool to me. 

What it actually was was very amateur camera work (wayy shakier than the other one, obviously handheld; also, I felt like he was trying too hard to be artistic, b/c there were numerous shots framing nothing in particular, and the focus kept going in and out of blurriness, so that was a headache) with a very vague storyline. I think it was some kind of historic legend, but I (nor any of the others who watched it with me) really understood it. Whatever semblence of a story there was was told primarily through text - literally, black screen with paragraph blocks of white lettering - and then a series of seemingly inconsequential scenes. They reminded me of the Lumiere films we've been discussing in our Cinema class actually; our project is to imitate them because they were kind of the dawn of cinematography: all we have to do is take our cameras, set it somewhere, record real life for 60 seconds, and that's it. No actors, no movement of the camera or change of focus, nothing. So imagine that + shakiness + periodic blocks of text for two hours. Not very engaging, I'm sad to say. It was kind of more what I expected from an independent film in a film festival, but after the first two movies, my standards were kind of raised, I guess.

The only positive thing I have to say about this film is that it was cool to hear bits of it in Tagalog and be able to understand what I was hearing and then compare it to the English subtitles. The only bits in Tagalog were the narration, while the actual dialogue was in a dialect I didn't recognize or understand. I really wanted to like this film, but I just didn't. I actually fell asleep for a bit b/c I just couldn't handle the unsteadiness so I shut my eyes, haha. I did feel bad, though, because about half the audience walked out over the course of the movie, and then most everyone else left, including us (we had to meet up with everyone else & get on the bus back to Alba), right at the end before the director and presenters got up for closing remarks or Q&A, so there were only like 5 people left at that point. But hey, what can ya do, right? Overall, I really enjoyed today though. It was definitely much better than sitting in our classroom in uncomfortable desk chairs watching long Italian movies with subtitles, haha.

Welp, that's all for now. Time to sleep & then be productive tomorrow :P