Eat, Pray, Love Italy Day 5: The Departure

Back to Valencia

I woke up at about 5:00 on Sunday morning to catch the bus to the airport in Rome. The trip to the airport was less than 30 minutes. When I got there I checked in, went through security and I had time to get a coffee and donut from one of the shops. The plane departed on time, the flight was very quick and I was back in Valencia in no time. I was hoping to get to the bus station in Valencia on time to catch the bus at noon but, due to Valencia’s slow metro system, I arrived late and had to take the bus leaving hours later. I arrived back home in the early evening, unpacked and prepared for the week ahead. Thank you God for allowing me to have such a beautiful and safe trip to Italy!

In Conclusion

I couldn’t have asked for a better solo trip. The days that I spent exploring Italy were absolutely fantastic.  I learned so much about the people, the culture and the history. In addition, I’ m proud of myself for taking this trip alone. I’ve recently realized that so many people are afraid to travel by themselves, so the fact that I took a 5-day trip to a foreign country and actually enjoyed myself shows me how independent and adventurous I am becoming.

There were a lot of things about my trip that I enjoyed. I am really happy that I got a chance to visit Florence; it was by far my favorite city. Words can’t express how beautiful and peaceful it was, despite the tourists. My favorite things to do in Italy were people watch and eat gelato. Because there were so many tourists everywhere it was so fun to observe people and try to figure out where everyone was from based on the languages they spoke, their accents and how they were dressed. Also, I really liked the Italian language. Italians are so forceful and passionate when they speak and they rely heavily on hand gestures to make their point. It was so funny to listen to Italian dialogue. Half of the time I didn’t know whether people were arguing or just having a stimulating conversation. As far as my comprehension goes, I was amazed by the amount of Italian I could understand. To me, Italian is very similar to Spanish. I understood a lot of the writing and some of the speaking. I would never try to speak any of it though! Lastly, the food was wonderful. I tried to have as much pizza and pasta as I could while I was there, and both were fantastic. I was surprised, however, about the bread. It wasn’t very good. I had better bread in Spain and certainly in France.

There aren’t that many things that I didn’t enjoy about my trip. I tried to remain as optimistic as possible while I was there. I would say that the tourists were the most annoying part of the trip. They became more of a problem when I was in Rome, which was definitely expected.

Italians are a group of people that I am still trying to figure out. Although I have met many nice Italians while in Spain, the people in Italy weren’t as pleasant as I thought they would be. They were nice and helpful, but I didn’t feel like they were being very sincere about it. They didn’t really go out of their way to be helpful; not as Spaniards or Americans would anyway. Whenever I asked an Italian a question, they answered it very quickly and oftentimes without even knowing if they were giving me the correct answer. These were people that actually worked inside the train stations and airports; they get paid to help people. Even though Parisians have a bad rep, I actually thought that they were a lot nicer and more helpful than the Italians. But I still believe that Italians are cool.

Besides, this could definitely be due to the fact that I was a tourist there, in the land of tourists. A person’s experience in another country can be different if he or she actually speaks the language and is familiar with the culture. When I came to Spain I fit right in because I could speak the language and knew about the Spanish culture; perhaps that’s why I was treated so kindly. I also think that Spanish people are just naturally warm and friendly.

The more I travel the more I learn about the world and after each trip I’m so eager to learn more. It’s so amazing to have the opportunity to visit so many beautiful places in the world. At this point I have visited 5 countries outside of the U.S. but that’s nothing compared to the number of countries I plan to visit in the future.

My next international destination: Morocco!