Please excuse the length of this post. I was going to excuse it and say that it makes up for this whole week of crappy blogging. But in reality, it is probably the longest thing I’ve ever written. It is a disjointed documentation of my entire trip to Italy last year. I never really posted about it and figured I should go ahead and get my thoughts and pictures out there for all to see. Should you ever travel to Italy, you now have a step-by-step guide. If you don’t ever do that, you suck. The End.

We decided to meet at a Cosi on the Upper West Side. Close to work for her, soy milk for me, free Wi-Fi for both of us. We tucked ourselves into a booth, opened up my laptop and slowly, piece by piece, constructed our master plan. The hours ticked by and as only two methodical Type A’s can, we sat, researched, double-checked, mapped out, clicked back, clicked forward, finalized.

Hostels, train tickets, museum passes, click, click, click.

When it came time to whip out our credit cards and seal the deal, we stopped and looked at each other.

“We are really doing this,” she said.

“Uh. YES. I GUESS WE ARE.”

And so we did.

…

Our flight was a red-eye, departing JFK late at night and arriving in Heathrow for a layover early in the morning. Bleary-eyed and hungry, we passed the time at a restaurant within the airport, ordering salads and tea.

“This will probably be the most expensive meal on our trip,” I marveled as I signed my credit card receipt with a flourish. I turned out to be completely correct. Two teas and two salads came to just over twenty pounds with tip. The US dollar amount that showed up on my credit card statement a few weeks later? $53.00.

I love you, America.

…

I stepped out the door of the train station and onto the bustling brightly lit streets of Rome, eyes squinting in the sun. As Alayna pulled out her trusty map to figure out which direction we needed to walk, a young man tapped me on the shoulder. He had been eyeing us on the train the whole way from the airport.

“Excuse me,” he said. “You very beautiful.”

“Thank you!” we said in unison.

His name was Marco. I dutifully scribbled down his Italian cell phone number in my notebook. We promised we’d call him if we had time.

“Are we…calling him?” asked Alayna after he wandered away.

“No! No no no. But let’s see how many numbers we can wrack up.”

So we did. I believe there are at least six numbers in my notebook to this day. Possibly a few business cards. Unlimited mental notes of catcalls, winks and ‘What are you ladies doing tonight?’ remarks.

As we walked to the hostel in the fading afternoon sunlight, I felt hungry and in desperate need of a shower, overwhelmed, tired, achy and yet…every time we turned a corner, I gasped at the beauty of it all.

We had arrived.

…

Once we checked into the hostel, I took the longest, hottest, most glorious shower of my entire life. Refreshed and revived, Alayna and I hung around for awhile, chatting with our fellow travelers…Axel, the French boy wandering through Europe alone, Mike the guy who took a plane to Amsterdam from the States years ago and never made it back home. Eventually, we said our bueno sera’s and wandered back out on the streets in search of true Italian fare.

The bread, the wine, the tomato salads, the pasta…

I never wanted it to end.

We would spend every night like this, chattering excitedly over our meals, relishing in being delightedly unAmerican, lingering over our dinners with nowhere to be, lazily leaning back in our chairs at sidewalk cafés well into the evening. Back home in our hostel room, I would scribble down what we ate because for some reason I wanted to remember. Because I am sort of retarded.

I flip through my notebook now, with a bemused smile on my face.

My Italy Journal is a lesson in how to write a Really Boring Diary.

Alayna had a salami and prosciutto pizza. I had the spinach ravioli.

Did you, Laura? YOU DON’T SAY.

But as ridiculous and banal as it is, it says something to me now, a year later. It reinstates how magical I found everything to be, how savory and perfect and relaxing and wonderful, the exquisite magnificence of cathedrals and paintings, yes but also the excitement of the vegan pizza we stumbled upon. Of the fresh mozzarella. Of the gnocchi and bruschetta and linguini and crisp white wine. I scribbled it all down because I never wanted to forget anything from the biggest sculpture to the smallest olive. I needed to record it so that later, after time had passed, I could go back and re-read and re-live and re-taste. It was simply too good to let go of.

…

We decided to discount everyone’s advice re: the Vatican which was GET UP AS EARLY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE BECAUSE THE LINES ARE RIDICULOUS.

We were tired. And needed sleep. And if I’ve learned one thing from my mother, it’s that you definitely don’t get up early to be first in line. OH NO YOU DO NOT. The Rita Dlug Theory ™ is that you always get there at the last possible second after everyone has gone home. We did this routinely throughout my childhood, usually to save money and avoid crowds. During the summer, we went to the water park at 4 PM because it was 1/2 off admission or we showed up to the ocean at 5 PM because there was free parking.

So, Alayna and I decided to sleep in and then wait 10,000 years for this French family to get out of the bathroom at the hostel. After we both sufficiently aged about two years waiting for them, we packed our maps, bought some fruit and nuts at a grocer and headed towards Catholic Town. Right before we crossed the bridge into Vatican City, at the late morning hour of 10:30 AM we decided we couldn’t go a single step farther without some gelato.

I feel compelled to revert back to my Journal right now copy and paste the following re: The Gelato,

I had the coconut, Alayna chose mango.

Ooooooooooooooo boy! Now we can definitely get on with our story thanks to Laura setting us straight with the snack details! THANKS DORK!

So, The Vatican.

I didn’t have many expectations of Vatican City. I was most excited to see the artwork and the museums. I thought maybe I’d give a shout out to the pope and slap him high five. I wasn’t particularly looking for any validation or affirmation in terms of my faith. I think I took for granted my Catholic upbringing and how much I knew, how much I related to, how many things I had studied and how I felt when those things came to life before my eyes.

But I wasn’t aware of this at first. I was simply aware of the fact that we arrived in time to get in and HEY LOOK! NO LINES.

I pulled a sweater over my shoulders so that I was dressed appropriately and followed Alayna into St. Peter’s Basilica. Once inside, I turned to the right and inexplicably my eyes filled up with tears. I still don’t know what it was about the Pieta that struck me so deeply. I suppose that is the enigma of art sometimes…we aren’t entirely sure why we are moved by it, we just know that we are. It could’ve been a culmination of my Catholic wandering or reality’s sudden slap in the face. I was really looking at this, the original Michelangelo work, in freaking Italy, how did I get here!?

Perhaps it was neither. All that I know is that I stood forever in front of the Pieta as tears tumbled down my cheeks.

…

The Vatican took up almost an entire day, as I strained my neck marveling at the Sistine Chapel, the dome of the Basilica, the artwork high on museum walls.  I grimaced at the various entombed popes, laying dead and preserved for people to see. We occasionally tagged onto group guided tours so we could overhear snippets of trivia, history and artifact. I was humbled and awed, overwhelmed and enchanted. Also, I saw a lot of paintings of Jesus.

To round out the rest of the day, we stopped at other well-known Roman tourist sites on our way back to the hostel. The Spanish Steps were oddly disappointing and I’m not sure why. Possibly because I wandered around the Vatican all day and I had no desire to climb tons of steps. The view was grand, I’ll give you that. But really? We have lots of steps in New York City. It’s called the subway.

The Trevi Fountain, however…something else entirely. I don’t know what it was about it. Alayna and I both tossed in pennies and made a wish. It was teeming with tourists, all taking pictures of the same damn thing. (Isn’t everything like that? Of course it is.) But I didn’t even mind. And you would never know it from the pictures that I snapped.

I could’ve stayed there all day just watching the water splash and fall over and over again. I was transfixed and that night, when I fell asleep in the narrow bunk of my hostel bed, I dreamed of marble and horses and kings of the ocean.

…

Our time in Rome flew by as we saw many ruins of things that were really old. It reminded me of my time spent in Athens and Olympia in Greece. Like, HOLY SHIT, this stuff is ANCIENT, y’all. And it’s astounding because America is so YOUNG and I’m staring at freaking CAESER’S HOUSE and isn’t that AMAZING and did I mention shit is OLD? Like BC old? Like THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD?

This is the Temple of Romulus. Hell if I know what that means but the doors have a working lock from 4AD. WHAT.

Dunno what this is! Who cares? IT’S OLD.

This is the Colosseum. Crazy shit went down here. See also: that Russell Crowe movie which is kinda like Braveheart.

So, right. Everything’s old and awe-inspiring and it’s completely life-changing. But then after awhile, you get kind of used to the idea and you get a little bored and hungry and you go off in search of pizza. Or gladiators you can take pictures with. Or people with mullets. Am I right!?

We paid 10 euros each for this tourist shit. WORTH IT THOUGH. WORTH IT.

This picture was completely free. And is ten times more awesome than the gladiator picture.

And so, after viewing many things old and many things mullet, we departed the great city of Rome with a little touch of sadness but more excitement. We knew we were eventually traveling back through and we had our hearts set on viewing some more Italian goodness. And by goodness, I mean about 10,000 more churches and approximately 1.4 million pieces of artwork. Bring it.

…

I can sum up our late night train to Florence in one sentence:

It was scary. The End.

No, but really. Late night trains in Europe are kinda freaky. We were sitting among a French family that eyed us suspiciously. Strange men walked past our car several times, scanning us slowly with hungry eyes. When we stepped off the train, we realized that the connecting train into the city of Florence stopped running hours ago. We were directed to a bus, we didn’t know where we were, we jumped off when we sensed we were close to the hostel, we had no idea what was going on.

It was a typical THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRAVELED ALONE IN EUROPE story. Everyone has one. Or twenty. That one time when everything goes wrong and you’re lost and you just want to cry because I’M AN AMERICAN AND I’M STUUUUUUUUUUPID.

But they always end up amusing.

Uh, in retrospect.

Like, this one time? Tom and I went to Greece and right before our plane took off, the entire Eastern Seaboard lost power and our flight was delayed and they lost our luggage and Air France refused to reimburse us and that’s how I spent six of my ten days in GREECE in fucking AUGUST in 110 degree heat with ONE OUTFIT that I kept washing in the sink at night OH MY GOD ISN’T THIS STORY HILARIOUS IN RETROSPECT?

Uh. Wait. Um. Nevermind.

SO! Alayna and I were on a scary train and then a scary bus in a dark town with no clue at all as to what was going to happen next HOWEVER! I had Alayna and Alayna had me and together we made it safe and sound and secure.

We awoke and nibbled walnuts and strawberries on our way to see the David statue.

I was not allowed to take any pictures of it because Italy hates me.

And honestly, do you really need a picture of something that everyone in the world knows?

(MAYBE.)

Suffice it to say, I pulled another Pieta Moment. (Michelangelo! Why do you turn me into a weeping mess of a woman!? WHY!? Let’s make out!) Basically, once I entered the galleria, I turned around, saw the gleaming statue of David in all his naked glory and promptly burst into tears.

Oh, Laura. You are so fun to travel with.

…

After meandering among countless works of art in various galleries, Alayna and I always ended up in the gift shop purchasing at least a few postcards of artwork that we’d seen within the museum. I carefully selected replicas of my very favorite pieces, the David statue, any of Boticelli’s women, Fiorentino’s angel, etc.

At one point, I turned to Alayna and said, “Ugh! This so hard! I want huge replicas of all of this stuff all over my apartment!”

“Mmmhmm,” she murmured absentmindedly, flipping through postcards of the Sistine Chapel. “I’m just trying to take home at least one thing from every Ninja Turtle…”

We really are cultured. In every sense of the word. In case you thought otherwise. Cowabunga, dudes.

…

The key to traveling for extended periods of time without committing suicide is to find an appropriate travel buddy. (i.e./Alayna, Tom, etc.) There are many friends that you might like to hang out with, might like to grab a drink with, might like to see a movie with. However, there are very few friends that you’d like to TRAVEL with. That you would like to share a hostel room with. That you would like to see every hour of every day, that you would like to talk to at breakfast and lunch and dinner. That you would like to share a map with, share a sandwich with, share a museum audio tour earbud with.

It’s sort of like choosing a roommate, I suppose. I have many friends that I love to spend time with. I have every few friends that I love to spend ALL MY TIME with. I kept waiting for Alayna and I to have a fight or get sick of each other or say, “Hey, I’m gonna go off by myself for a few hours, I’ll meet you back here, okay?” THAT NEVER HAPPENED except the one time she went off in search of a bathroom in Venice and left me alone for approximately twenty minutes. THAT IS ALL.

The best thing about Italy, of course, was the company. Well, I’d say the wine and tomatoes. AND THEN, the company. If Alayna and I got lost, we got lost together. If we were accosted by a gypsy, we were accosted together. And this could probably turn into some really lame version of a Celine Dion song. (YOU WERE MY STRENGTH WHEN I WAS WEAK, YOU WERE MY FRIEND WHEN I KEPT CRYING AT MARBLE STATUES! WAIT. WHAT.)

Let’s just say that together, we crossed the ponte vecchio. Together, we climbed the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo. And together, well, of course, we fell in love with Florence.

…

I started to get the feeling on that very first day at the Vatican. A suspicious emotion swirling around my stomach, occasionally rising up and catching in my throat. Eventually, it would subside and then return again, surging up at various moments throughout my trip. It was startling and foreign and I realized that that was because it had been so long since I’d genuinely felt it and named it: I was homesick.

I wasn’t homesick as in: I wanted to go home. I was homesick as in: I missed my mother and I wanted her with me. It wasn’t because I felt alone or scared or uncertain. It was because I knew that she would love everything I was seeing. She would love it so so so very much. She would be able to explain so many things that I didn’t know—paintings of saints, how they died, how they lived. She would know the popes and their stories and the difference between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. She would help me fill in the blanks and we would stand together in awe of everything, united and amazed.

On our last day in Florence, Alayna and I climbed what can only be described as a Huge Ass Mountain (c). It was a cloudy day, the only time it rained during our entire stay. We crept inside the Chiesa di Santa Croce, one of the oldest churches in Italy, built by the Franciscans. The inside of the church was dark and musty and we snuck into a pew to sit down. As the rain drizzled down outside, we sat silently for almost a half hour, listening to the chanting of monks, their strong voices rising together, echoing and bouncing off the marble walls.

I sat. I prayed. I felt an aching in my chest as my heart expanded to hold the bond between mother and daughter, stretching over continents, soaring above the mellifluous chanting of men, existing to remind me that she is always with me, as solid and steady as the Latin ringing in my ears. I bowed my head. I missed my mom.

…

It was in our final city that I decided enough was enough with all the churches. We had seen so many churches in Rome and Florence:  first because they are incredible and second because so much of Italy’s artwork is housed inside them. By the time we reached Venice, it was eighty degrees, bright, beautiful, perfect. We ate lunch outside, we bought alcohol in the middle of the afternoon, we wandered out onto St. Mark’s square.

And it was there, staring up at our final church destination that I turned to Alayna and simply said, “I can’t.”

“Me either,” she replied.

We were too poor for a gondola ride so we sat in the sun on the steps near the canal and watched other people push off.

And we sat.

And we sat.

For almost three hours.

Sunburned Italian perfection.

After we were good and sunkissed, we wandered back to the square in search of a bathroom and instead, we found Sasha, my audition buddy from NYC. Cue: “It’s A Small World” on repeat which would be ridiculously appropriate because HELLO RANDOM ACROSS THE WORLD CONNECTION and also because Venice just feels like one big Disney ride anyway. (Seriously! It is so weird to not see any cars! What the !?)

It’s so hard to pick a favorite Italian city especially since as of now, I have only been to three. I loved Rome for its majesty and its history and its crowded streetes. I loved Florence for its art, its creativity, its ease. Venice? I loved Venice because quite simply, it was enchanting. I loved Venice for the clean air, for the twist and turns of its canals, for the food and the people and oh my, all of it. Really, though, I loved Venice because it made me feel gentle.

Made me feel like I was living in a dream…

Made me feel quaint and quiet…

Uplifted my very soul until I felt very nearly like I was flying.

I peeked out the window of our hotel room later while Alayna was in the shower, before we went out to dinner. I spied a family across the street sitting down for a meal. It was something out of a movie, boisterous Italians, passing dishes, sipping from wine glasses, laughing and eating. A handsome young man caught me staring and smiled. I quickly hid behind the curtain, embarrassed. But my curiosity got the better of me and so slowly, shyly I peeked back through the window. He caught me again. I waved. “Bueno sera!” he shouted across the way.

Oh, my dear sir. Bueno sera to you.

…

It was with a heavy heart that I departed Venice for a five hour train ride back to Rome. My sadness dissipated quickly as I met up with a long lost cousin who now lives in Italy permanently. I could write a whole blog post about seeing her, the first time in over ten years. About the animated conversation spent over dinner in the city, about our family dysfunction, about the tears that were shed, the laughs that made my belly ache. It was the perfect way to end our trip—eyes focused on a friendly, loving, blood-related face.

We drove by the Colosseum at night. One last time to take it all in.

And then it was morning. And there were showers and backpacks and a cab called and an airport looming in the distance, waiting to take us home.

…

My family never really traveled when I was growing up. It was mostly a money issue. Four kids, two parents, one income. We were not the family that took cruises or spent vacations sunbathing on an island. We went to Disney World once, when I was in the 4th grade. Otherwise, we spent summers sometimes taking weekend trips to various New England states within driving distance. But mostly, we’d splash in the ocean or drive out to Montauk or more likely, cross the street and jump into the neighbor’s pool. And even then, growing up on Long Island, I know my childhood was different than most of America. At least I lived on a coast and near a huge city. I was automatically exposed to more than the average kid.

The children that Alayna nannies have already been to ten times more places than I will probably ever go. They spend winters warming themselves in the Carribbean or skiing in Vail. They travel to Paris and London for spring break, leaving the country is commonplace. Traveling like this is relatively new for me. When I went to Greece in college, I was still a child, really. To say that it was eye-opening…well. Yes. It was. Huh.

Italy was my first serious travel experience as an adult. I’m not sure I would have appreciated it had I been exposed to travel as a child. I’m not sure I would’ve gasped in wonder, like a six year old, at so many things. I’m not sure I would’ve felt so humbled by and grateful for the trip, often close to tears just because I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be there, standing on a seven hundred year old bridge under stormy clouds.

I suppose my wonder can be called naivety by those who are well-traveled. Surely, someone, somewhere is laughing at me and my amazement at STATUES! and carafes of WINE! and the tombs of Dante and Galileo and Raphael. If you’ve seen pyramids and the Parthenon and Thailand and Hawaii and South Africa and Germany and Brazil, would you still stand in such awe? Would you still gasp and cry and pray?

Or do you become numb to that feeling? Do you become harder to impress? Do you become worldly and pretentious and above it all?

Or do you, like me, become more amazed? Do you become addicted to the feeling that you never want to stop traveling? That you want to see more and more and more because now that you’ve had a taste, you are hungry for something you never knew existed? The phrase “travel bug” exists with good reason, I think.

Because that’s how I felt, leaving Italy.

And Greece, six years ago.

My eyes were opened and I felt astounded and brilliant and eager. Ready for the next destination. The next Grand Canal, the next Colosseum, the next Duomo.

I have many moments in my life that I am thankful for. Many moments when I stop and close my eyes and breathe deep and I know that I am loved and happy and free. Those moments slip through my fingers and all too soon, I am jolted back into the thrust of every day life, where it is so easy to forget how lucky I am, how thrillingly alive.

I suppose I loved Italy because I felt alive almost every second of every day. I was exhilarated and exhausted, my blood pulsing with life the entire time I was there. I find myself, even one exact year later, still in awe of the fact that I actually went there and experienced it and was changed by it. Permanently.

Alayna and I went out in search of snacks on our one night in Venice. We wanted to find some fruit and nuts for the long train ride back to Rome the next morning. The sun was well on its way to disappearing and the city was lit up in a way that made me want to stop and stare for hours.

I remember stalling on a footbridge, gazing out onto the gondolas and apartment windows, the city finally quiet and still. The bright lights of the restaurants coruscated onto the rippling waters of the canal. I looked up at the sky then, searching for a star and I felt a ringing in my soul, a certainty on a perfect Italian night that there was a God and He was right next to me. He slipped an arm around my shoulder and together we greeted the nightfall.