reverse culture shock?

by no means am i claiming that i have been in the third world, however, it's still weird to be back in the states. 

i remember going through the required prep classes before studying abroad my third year of college and two of the things they warned us about were culture shock and reverse culture shock.  i remember being incredibly annoyed that i had to sit and listen to what i thought was nonsense at 10am on a saturday morning.  i also remember not really experiencing it at all during or after my semester in siena.  "well it was only italy," i thought.  and this time, it still was only italy, but this year was so much more.  i've been trying to reflect upon the year little by little as it has gone by so i'm sure you're aware that this past year was so much more than me living in italy.  i made friends that i am sure i will keep for the rest of my life and they helped me to grow into someone with many more goals and interests than she had a year earlier.  i traveled to some incredible places and saw and experienced too many things to even begin to list here.  AND i taught some of the coolest kids i've ever met. 

and now i'm back in america.  why isn't everyone dying to hear stories?  why do i only get the question, "how was italy!?" i don't have any idea how to answer that question.

i'm pretty sure i'm making my way through the stages appropriately and i'm hoping that "readjustment and adaptation" is quickly approaching.

we'll see? 

x!  

america, you are overwhelming.

ah, the good ole usa. i'm back. and i am overwhelmed.  my head hurts from being able to understand everyone's conversations around me and why are they complaining about everything? yes, i know that the heat is sweltering.

but anyway, i have made it back across the pond in one piece.  i'm in richmond right now with nancypants and will be in cville tonight (yay!) before returning to roanoke tomorrow night.  hopefully this week i'll get to see harry potter, eat some mexican food, drink some hoppy beers and not be too distraught about the lack of wonderful coffee.  and then! on to OIB next week. 

i really shouldn't complain, i have quite the cushy few weeks planned.  they will hopefully ease my transition back into the land of the plenty.

stay tuned, as i'll still be updating those backlogged posts from last year's travels (partly for reminiscence).

 x!

my obsession with the sunset

i'm sure it's no secret that my favorite time of day is the evening.  after work and before it gets dark, when the sun is making it's way down to the horizon and the sky takes on a character different from earlier in the day, i always find myself mesmerized.  when the sun sits high above the world and the skies are blue, life is good.  but during the indeterminate time between afternoon and night, the sky turns into an incredible piece of artwork that can never be accurately predicted.  

while the sunset never looks quite the same each day, it always happens.  wherever you are, whatever the weather is like, the sun always makes its way down and past the horizon.  and even though it's not always miraculous or even visible, it always happens - it exists everywhere and no matter how my day has gone, the sky will change in the evening, thus making the sunset somewhat of a comfort for me.

i believe that my obsession stems from just that - the consistency.  when little else is consistent in my life of travel and chaos, there's always the sunset.

cronicles della mia cucina: sunday brunch!

i've only just begun and this post has already made me hungry.  i currently have no groceries and sunday brunch was always one of our most delicious events.  

we started off the year, going to our favorite spot for brunch on sundays but once we got into cooking, we decided to recreate brunch at our apartment.  the meal slowly grew from simple to a smorgasbord of amazing things all made from scratch.  below, enjoy a sampling of photos

wheat bagels in the process, almonds being toasted to be turned into almond butter, and V making smoothies

finished wheat bagels, a variety of spreads, mimosa fixins, the grinding of almonds into almond butter and coffee

another table view: eggs and hash-browned potatoes and friends!

bagel batch #2 and homemade bread becoming french toast! 

after this specific brunch, i remember a group food coma that resulted in movie-watching-turned-napping in the via della guardia movie theatre. 

x!

L.I.Z.s on the road no more.

the L.I.Z. adventure has come to the end.  the fest in spain was the perfect finale; in fact, i'm not sure i could have traveled any more after the week of insanity.  

other liz is (hopefully) over the atlantic ocean right now and i'm back in trieste.  i'm here until friday and have no real plans except to drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of gelato.  i will be catching up on a lot of backlogged blog posts to hopefully have a fresh slate upon my return to the states..  so! get ready for many outdated posts about travel adventures from months ago. it'll be fun. 

x! 

L.I.Z.s on the road: the FEST

oh man.

other liz and i are in benicassim, spain for the festival internacional de benicassim.

it is quite possibly the most intense week of my life and last night was only the first night of the music. we spend our days on the beach and the music begins at 6pm and runs through the night.  no, that doesn´t leave much time for sleeping and it´s so hot that sleep is uncomfortable unless you´re on top of a float in the ocean. my skin is so saturated with sunscreen from constant reapplication that i´m not sure it´ll ever come out of my pores.  i would venture to say that the beach is more crowded than north myrtle during UVA beach week in may and i have seen more hilariously awful tattoos than should exist in this world. 

wish me luck on survival of the weekend.

x!

ps, i´ll be stateside in less than a week!

and then there was one.

welp. 

since my last update, the L.I.Z. adventure has taken a break in trieste.  we're down one L.I.Z. (hopefully she's able to actually leave the country tomorrow and be done with standby hell) and the past few days have been full of nostalgic cooking, the trieste farewell tour, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning the apartment.

it's 4:46 am now and i'm wide awake.  this morning, L and V are flying back to the states.  i woke up to give them goodbye hugs and now the insane seagulls are on an indescribable rampage of extreme noise-making, i'm crying, and my mind is swarming with memories from this year -- so of course i can't go back to sleep. 

even though it most definitely is, i still can't believe that this year is over.  it honestly feels like so recently that we were just moving in and getting to know each other.

i knew that it would be strange once everyone had left and i was the only one here but i honestly didn't think i'd cry this morning.  i haven't cried yet while saying goodbye to anyone, but of course it was the amazing roommates that started the waterworks.  although i shed a tear (or many tears), it's not so bad right now because other liz is here and she and i are (or, will be when the sun comes up) busy preparing to go to spain tomorrow (!), but on the 18th when i return to trieste and am really alone for a few days, i think it's going to hit me even harder that this year has ended. 

it was just such an amazing year that i'm not ready to be done with it! 

x 

L.I.Z.s from the road: episode 3

since the last update, we've spent approximately 19 hours on trains, buses and boats but have made it to hvar island in croatia!  our perch on top of a hill looking out over the adriatic sea is definitely the most beautiful place we've been to on this trip.

to backtrack a little bit... during the first part of our trip, the weather was uncharacteristically COLD.  i say "uncharacteristically" because it was late june, i'm actually not sure what the weather is normally like at this time of year in prague, budapest, or belgrade.  i just know that it was june and i was cold and not happy about it.  not being the only l.i.z. to feel this way, we were all three incredibly anxious to get to the coast.

so, the other day (i'm so lost as to what today's date is, what day of the week it is, or how quickly time is passing) we got on a train in belgrade heading to bar, montenegro.  after something insane like 11 hours, we made it to bar and then took a taxi (with a hilarious woman that kept trying to chat with us despite the fact that we had no common language) to budva, the "montenegrin miami," where we stayed for a couple nights.  even at night, it was much warmer in montenegro and we were excited. that is, until we woke up the following morning to an overcast sky.  luckily, the weather cleared up and we were able to enjoy some blue skies and a good number of beach hours for our two full days there.

on monday, july 4th (the only date i will remember from the whole trip), we took another 10 hour bus ride from budva to split, croatia!  after the bus, we took a ferry across the sea to hvar island and have 3 more nights in this incredibly gorgeous haven.  dubbed "the sunniest place in europe" by wikipedia, we are optimistic for the weather.

today, other liz and i rented mopeds and drove them all over the island -- we passed lavender fields (the smell was amazing!), bopped around the old town, stari grad, and stumbled upon a secluded beach cove for a late-afternoon swim.  it was a pretty excellent first day on the island.

tomorrow, V comes to join us!  we have a long list of things we still want to do on the island including hiking up to the old fortress, going to the beach club in the woods?, finding other secluded beaches, taking a taxi boat across to a smaller island for a sandy beach day, etc. etc. 

x!