It All Comes Around

It’s been funny, the last few days. I’ve felt at home and settled. I’ve been walking around like I know where I’m going, spending time reading and taking long lazy lunches. But, the odd part is, as content as I felt, it’d all started to get a little bit lonely.

Now I’m only three days in so I can’t expect to make friends straight away, I know that, but when your basking in the sunshine with your Aperol Spritz, surrounded by large groups of chatting students, and you’re just sat there with ol’Hunter S Thompson and a bag of crisps for company, you can’t help feeling a bit blue.

I have spoken to people, and my Air BnB host was really lovely, but to really see a place and experience it like a home, you do need to share it with someone.

Yesterday, I moved in with the family I’m going to be spending the next nine weeks with. It’s a lovely flat and my room is perfect. A girl was living there before me (and will be for the next few days) her name is B* from Brazil. She’s been studying at the school and has decided to stay an extra month.

After my lonely afternoon of sitting in the sun I went back to the flat with some market bought food for that evening, expecting another quiet night in with a glass of wine and YouTube streamed documentaries on Italian life (I know… wild!) but while I was cooking tea, B* and I got chatting and she was SUPER NICE!!

Chatting about the school and how life cannot possibly be this grey dirge of 9-5 (“you have to LIVE”) we shared stories of our previous lives for two hours before she mentioned that her friend had invited her out for drinks and would I like to go?

Needles to say I jumped at the opportunity and we headed out.

The best thing about meeting people who have lived somewhere longer than you is that they know all the quick routes, the back roads and the best places, and that’s what I found out last night.

Turns out, we live opposite a street where my favorite Antipasto place is (that I found last time I was in Bologna) and, even better, my favourite breakfast place is 100m up from that!

It sounds odd to say it, but I’d never connected those places with where I’m staying. I think when you explore a city for a short period of time, like I did last year and then again in March, you create a mental map that is a lot more rigid than reality. You stick to known roads and routes, once you have found them, believing that you know your way around when, in reality, you’re missing out on the wonders you find when you get lost!

Seeing the streets from B*’s internal map gave me a different perspective and suddenly everything seems closer and more like, I don’t know, “local”. In my head all I could here was Adele warbling “Hometown”!

Side note: Read this article about walking a city and trying to find a fresh perspective – it’s fascinating!

We met up with S* (Bianca’s) friend, she is an Anthropology Student from Leeds Uni (by way of the US and Oz) and her two flat mates A*1 and A*2, apparently every boy in Italy seems to have this name and there are actually three of them; small, medium and tall A*. We had small and medium with us.

We went to this little place for aperitivo. For the uninitiated, aperitivo is basically where you buy a drink (at a slightly higher price than usual) and then for the rest of the night you get free food at a buffet style arrangement on the bar. You can just keep going up for more and, at this place, they kept bringing stuff round – honestly I decided then and there that I will never buy dinner again, there is honestly, no point.

Sitting and chatting, it came to light that the band I had seen on my first day (the band in the first post – The Trouble Notes), B* had also seen on her way back from school that day– the photo we had both taken was almost identical. And even weirder, it then turned out that the band had stayed with S* and A* in their flat because their other housemate knew them!

It was one of those moment were you cant help but believe in some higher power, fate or a grand plan – whatever you want to call it. It all comes around.

From there we went to another busy bar down a little street I never would have found on my own and stood outside drinking Moscow Mules (and more wine) until we all parted ways at about half-past midnight, planning to maybe meet on Sunday to go to the park that evening.

Walking home with B* that feeling of (admittedly contented) loneliness I’d been feeling for the last few days dissipated.

It all comes around; the way the streets all link together, coincidences, crossed paths and hoped for eventualities.

Il Senso Della Vita.

x

Should it be this easy?

It’s a funny feeling when you land in a foreign country, especially when you have never lived in one before.

All my trips on a plane have been for ‘pleasure’, according to some kind of tourist board categorisation; for holidays lasting no longer than a few days in the sun. But this time it’s different. This time i’ve landed and I wont be returning home for 10 weeks!

In all honesty it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I landed yesterday and the familiarity was instant. I’ve been to Bologna before; twice in the last 12 months, and I fell head over heels in love with this wonderful city. Its culture, its history and obviously its food (!) it was my moment of realisation that I could feel totally at home somewhere, instantly, despite no family or friends being around and having no real idea how the day-to-day life operates.

Despite being clueless, I felt comfortable immediately. That was October 2016, and I couldn’t stay away!

I came back in March with my mother, in the hope that I could get her to understand this place and see why I was so besotted. She got it, and that’s when we spotted the language school; that’s when life took an unexpected turn.

Over a lunchtime bottle of wine (when the best decisions are made) we looked into the school. I could afford it; I had savings… why the hell not go for it?

For most normal people, that’s where the dream ends, as a dream. Not me! I’d reached a plateau. I felt grey and middle-aged at 24. Waking up in the same town I grew up in, working the 9-5 (a la Dolly Parton) and while I was surrounded by family, a boyfriend that loved me and amazing friends with whom I could spend mind-expanding evenings chatting about everything and nothing, I couldn’t help but feel like I was trapped. I needed to get out.

So here I am, just over 7 months later and with a much larger suitcase.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’ve been spending months trying to perfect this mindfulness lark, appreciating the little things and practicing gratitude, but it wasn’t working. I needed to expand my horizons and change my outlook and the only way to do that is with a complete change of scenery. 

Back to yesterday, as soon as the plane landed it felt like I hadn’t been away. My suitcase was one of the first off the conveyer belt, I was the last one allowed on the first bus to town and I arrived to a lovely Air BnB host who helped me with my bag and made me an espresso (God, that Italian coffee, how I’ve missed it!).

Sitting in Piazza Santo Stefano with a glass of white wine as the heat of the day died down, I was just sat there thinking, “should it be this easy?” shouldn’t I have lost my suitcase, had my passport stolen and been fleeced for €50 by now?

Well, the glass of wine cost my €7 so I won’t be going there again, but even so, stood listening to a (frankly awesome) street band called The Trouble Notes  (<< listen to them, there were playing this song when I found them) I was smiling like a loon while looking up at the medieval church they were playing in the shadow of with that feeling of “i’ve made it”.

Going to a Trattoria I’d been to before for a quick dinner, I sat next to a lovely couple from York. They had driven to Bologna, via France and Switzerland, taking four weeks out to explore, golf and see Europe (before it all potentially gets a little harder). They had the right idea.

Chatting to them, I realised I knew quite a bit about this city that I’ve decided to place my roots in for two and a half months, it calmed me right down and gave me the bit of reassurance I needed. (Gill, Alec; if you’re reading this – thank you!)

But back at the Air BnB, for an early night, I couldn’t sleep and I cried for the first time.

Bit of a side note at this point: I want this blog to be brutally honest, there is no point in putting on a rose-coloured tint. I’m not a good enough writer to lie or fictionalise circumstances. This is more for me to look back on and to let my mum know I’m alive than to entertain. But if you are entertained – WooHoo! 

Anyway, yes, I cried. It all suddenly dawned on me that this was not a 5-day city break; I was here for 67 days! I was going to live here. It wouldn’t be art tours, lazy glasses of wine and shopping trips everyday. I was going to be learning a language (and I am s**t at languages), buying supermarket own brand body wash and, ultimately, I will be doing this on my own.

Tutta sola.

The tears were a mixture of fear, a bit of relief but probably mostly due to the fact that I’d had three hours sleep the night before and I was knackered!

To end on a high note, I did wake up this morning and head to my favouite café. Just sitting with a brioche and espresso; planning the art tour I wanted to do, where to go for that lazy glass of wine today and pondering a new pair of shoes, thinking to myself…

 “Should it be this easy?”

 x