Arrivederci, Riva!

As I'm packing my things and getting ready to leave tomorrow I can't help but to think of a few little things I'm looking forward to in the states:

1. Free water at restaurants and free refills (don't take it for granted...it's cost me probably 100 euros)
2. Free bathrooms
3. My magazine subscriptions and libraries with books in English
4. My cell phone
5. Being able to drive again
6. The abundance of vegetarian options offered at most restaurants
7. Generally good customer service

And now, more importantly, there are so many things I'm going to miss after the most incredible three and a half months of my life:

1. The ability to hop on a train and go to Rome, Cinque Terre, Nice, etc., for the weekend
2. Having the Swiss Alps as scenery on my runs every morning
3. Meeting people from all around the world with a passion for travel and adventure
4. The laid back European lifestyle 
5. Learning the cultural backgrounds of so many different countries. 

The other day I was watching the movie Eat, Pray, Love and there was a part that really struck me. While in Italy, the main character embraces the Italian way of life, best phrased;

"Dolce far niente", the sweetness of doing nothing.

If I had to choose the most important lesson I've gained from this experience, I believe it can be summed up in that saying. As a society, Americans are prone to rush- in all aspects of life. We race to work in the morning, eat breakfast on the way to work, eat lunch at our desks because we're too busy to leave, and then get take out at night because we're too tired to do anything else. Personally, I know that back in Blacksburg every part of my day in broken down hour by hour in a planner, and I'm almost always multitasking. When I first arrived in Europe, I was so impatient when the waiter would take half an hour after the meal to bring the check. And although the three hour European lunch breaks do still seem a bit excessive to me, I now see the importance in taking the time to relax and spend time with the people who matter in your life. We need to start putting down our blackberries and turning off the TV during meals, and really listening to each other. I'm going to be honest and say that I will still have a planner when I go back to Blacksburg (and for the rest of my life), but I'll try not to plan out every hour, and I'll try to slow the pace down sometimes and take a second to appreciate the simplicity of the little things in life. It's refreshing to just go with the flow sometimes, to not know what you're going to be doing every hour of every day, and  let everything fall into place on it's own.

So, as silly and unproductive as it may sound to you right now (it did to me at first too), you should try to simply...do nothing. It really is sweet.

AC Milan Game

Only the day after returning to the villa from our 10 day trip, we were off to Milan to see some real football at the AC Milan vs. Fiorentina game. Having played soccer for 15 years, I was very excited to see a European football match because I knew the dynamics would be entirely different from American soccer. The match started at 8:45 but we left at 3 so we could find our hostel and the stadium with plenty of time to spare, especially given the fact that Milan is never easy to navigate. We got the train station and then had to figure out how to find the tram to get to the hostel, it ended up taking about an hour and a half of wandering in the rain until we finally found the hostel, hidden in a back alley with no clear signs leading to it. Thank goodness one girl in our group spoke sufficient enough Italian to eventually get us there. While checking in the hotel the manager told us that he had actually moved our reservation to another hotel because he hadn't gotten confirmation in time (since we were in Spain...) and had given our room to someone else. He told us it was a half hour walk from where we were. Frustrated, tired, and now pissed off, we told him we just wanted to cancel the reservation and we'd take the last train back to Riva because we didn't want to go find another hostel in the ghetto of Milan. He said it was impossible because we didn't give him a heads up. We tried to explain to him that it's kind of unconventional for a hotel to book you at another hotel without even asking (at least in America)...but due to the language barrier we got absolutely no where and it was "our fault", of course. We ended up successfully canceling one reservation, and some people just ended up having to pay for the other room. After settling that dilemma, we then had to find the central station, put our bags in the bag deposit since you can't bring backpacks to the stadium, and THEN go to the stadium about a half hour train ride from there. Given the string of events that we'd been through that night, of course it wasn't over yet. They tried to tell us we couldn't get into the game because our tickets didn't have our names on them. At this point I wanted to cry and go home. Luckily we tried another ticket stand and got in...finally 5 hours later we got into the stadium and to our seats. It was a fantastic game, AC Milan won 1-0. The dynamics were much different as I had suspected though, no replays, no announcers, no alcohol, just a bunch of incredibly intense  and devoted fans.

After the game we rushed back to the main train station to collect our bags before they closed. We still had time to kill so we went to a McDonald's across the street. Apparently we were being too loud (I didn't know McDonald's was generally supposed to be a quiet, romantic restaurant) and the manager came over to tell us to quiet down. As we were walking out I accidentally (and I mean COMPLETE and total accident) knocked a few trays over. Well the manager had had just about enough of us and so he came over and kindly escorted me out after chastising me. I wasn't too happy because 1) I wasn't even one of the people being loud and 2) I don't appreciate being chastised in public especially when I didn't do anything!!!! My mom asked me if I got escorted out for handing out PETA fliers and boycotting their chicken, should have done that.
(Sidenote: McDonald's tortures their chickens. Don't eat nuggets, they are gross)