We left Brussels for Bruges early Monday morning. Our hotel was a lovely little family run affair complete with an alarmingly large but generally friendly dog. I’ll go ahead and admit that the main incentive to visit Bruges was a film set there involving Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson as hapless hit men. The city seems so charmingly Medieval in the film, and maybe it’s just the time of year, but most of the main streets are actually lined with boutiques and pricey home furnishing stores blasting Christmas music in a most un-Medieval fashion. But standing in the main square (with my back to the temporary skating rink with the neon Christmas tree), with its gingerbread-like shop facades and cobblestones certainly had a sense of Medieval fantasy about it. And my favorite thing: down a side street we found a man singing what I assume were classic Belgian tunes while turning the handle of a large antique music-box-cart-type-contraption. Who needs Colin Farrell?

Tuesday morning we moved on to Amsterdam. Perhaps due more to the weather than anything else, this was sort of the beginning of the end for me. The sightseeing began to be outweighed by the inconveniences of constant traveling. Besides, what I really love is to wander without a particular destination and get the feel for a city, but this is supremely difficult to do when it’s below freezing and snowy and your only pair of boots have a hole in them. Still, the canals lined with boats and bridges lined with bikes were certainly lovely, the Anne Frank house was a well-executed, effective exhibit, and the National Museum has the most impressive collection of Dutch art I have ever seen.

Knowing I was unprepared for the cold in Amsterdam, I was dreading our arrival in Copenhagen. It is “Chicago cold” here. I know I’m going to have to deal with it in January at the start of winter term–the wind that whips around the corners of buildings to slap you in the face and instantly induce a massive headache, the difficulty of walking when your feet are so cold (despite three layers of socks) that you can no longer feel your toes individually, the realization that you’re slurring your words because your lips are so cold you can’t move them properly. I suppose I should have known. But again, it’s difficult to wander without a goal in this kind of cold. We have spent much of our time in a cafe across from the main square trying to thaw with the aid of coffee.

The square has an interesting exhibit for the climate conference, and we were expecting to see a little more protest action than we did, but again, it’s so damn cold. (I have to say, it’s sort of ironic to read about global warming while you can’t feel your extremities.) Alessandra’s friend Megan, who has been studying here for a semester, was kind enough to let us stay in her cozy little apartment. Megan leaves tomorrow morning as well, and so we all bundled up to spend a final night out yesterday. I wasn’t entirely in the mood, but the strange Danish re-recordings of American pop songs and excellent company made it a great time, until we got ready to leave and discovered that Megan’s jacket (with her wallet and keys stashed in the pockets) was nowhere to be found. Long story short, due to some text receiving issues with her roommate’s cell phone, we ended up sitting, shivering, half asleep, in the stairway outside the apartment until about 7:30 in the morning. Unpleasant, to say the least. But it’s certain to be a good story when we’re a bit more removed and not quite so tired. 

I feel as though I’ve just given Northern Europe some kind of scathing review. I didn’t really mean to; it’s the cold talking. (In all seriousness though, were this a culinary review, they would completely deserve my scorn. I mean, I suppose we can’t all be Italy, but come on.) It’s a beautiful place, and even more so at Christmas, but all the lights and trees and carols keep me constantly aware that I am missing the holiday season at home. I am ready to get on a plane, ready to cry when I see my mother at the airport, ready to present all my gifts to my friends and relatives. And yet, there is still that feeling that I have so much more to see and do here–how can I leave? Perhaps I’ll be better able to sum up my thoughts in the next couple of days when I recover from my lack of sleep. Or perhaps not. I can say that the past few months have been very good for me in so many ways. I can absolutely say that. See you across the pond.

Paris somehow manages to be stunningly beautiful whilst also being depressingly gray and viciously cold. We took the metro to the Arch de Triumph yesterday morning. We tend to get lost from time to time, but eventually turn a corner and say, “Oh, well, there’s the Eiffel Tower” (or Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur, etc.) and then figure out where to go from there. But the stairs up from the subway let you out directly in front of the arch; no getting lost here. Call me a snob if you like, but I was a little underwhelmed; the triumphal arches in Rome are just more…triumphal. We reveled in the Christmasy glow of the Champs–Elysees for a couple hours before heading to St. Chapelle, which was (thank heavens) open. The light in that place is simply astounding.

Easily the best part of our day (in my opinion) was our pilgrimage to the Shakespeare and Company book store. Besides the fact that the original location was a haven for Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald and the like, and later for the beat poets, it’s simply one of the most perfect bookstores I have ever wandered through. New books mixed with old books mixed with older books, and that book smell, and corners and couches and small books tucked between the shelves and strange notes in all languages left by other pilgrims. Stumbled upon a 1957 edition of Great American Short Stories; I’m trying to spend as little money as possible, but I couldn’t just leave it there. Figured I would go ahead and fulfill the English-major-buying-books-in-lieu-of-food cliche’. Scoff if you like.

We spent a nice evening out with a few of Alessandra’s high school friends who happen to be studying in Paris in a bar that I would imagine is about as quintessentially Parisian as it gets, and then called it a night and got up early to catch a train to Brussels. We have only spent the day here, but I can say with relative confidence that Belgium must be almost the greatest place ever (second only to Italy, of course). It smells like waffles and chocolate. Everywhere. And there are shop windows alternately filled with lace or chocolates, until you get sort of mixed up and feel like eating the lace and covering yourself in chocolate, which might not be so horrible, really. We didn’t really have anything in particular in mind to see, so we just walked. Around 6 PM, a little while after dark, we strolled back to the Grand Place, which we had already seen during the day, but which was now full of people stopped to watch the strangely beautiful and certainly unexpected Christmas light show projected on the cathedral. It was here that we met Zaki–a young Moroccan man who grew up in Holland and is now studying Communications. The three of us got to talking, had a coffee, and wandered through the extensive Christmas markets for a few hours. His English was not great, but it was certainly better than our Dutch, and we had a lovely time. The world is a small, fascinating place–much like Brussels.

Alessandra and I spent our last two days in Italia wandering the streets of Florence with John and Daniel. Having spent most of September there, John knows his way around and took us to some truly beautiful places we wouldn’t have found on our own. I would love to spend more time there in the future–it is so much quieter, less hectic than Rome, and lovely in a completely different way. 

We took a night train to Paris (which sounds so perfect and charming) and spent the following day trying to regain our equilibrium (not quite so charming). We are staying in Montmarte, so we walked up to the Sacre Cour for lunch and then got horribly/wonderfully lost on our way back to the hotel. Headed out for the Eiffel Tower after our afternoon nap. We navigated the metro rather masterfully, I would say, and arrived at the tower just as they turned on the flashy lights–spectacular. Though I saw the tower when I was in Paris several years ago, to see it with a dear friend who has never seen it before was definitely more fun.

It is wonderful to have no constraints on our time. We decided to take the metro over to the Latin Quarter/ Notre Dame area and just spend the day there. So we did. I desperately wanted to see St. Chapelle, having fallen in love with it in Art History, but alas it was closed for some reason. And so we walked, and came upon another lovely and unexpected jewel of a church, St. Gervais. There was a group of French women singing hymns in a side chapel, and the light from the stained glass made the most terrific patterns on the wall frescoes. It was almost more stunning for its unexpectedness. We started following the signs towards the Bastille, and walked down some perfectly Parisian streets only to give up our search. We decided that it doesn’t actually exist (and really it doesn’t),  and headed back across the river towards the Sorbonne and the Pantheon. Let me tell you, the French Pantheon? Not as cool as the real Pantheon. Though the Foucault–designed pendulum clock was undeniably fascinating. We ended the afternoon in Notre Dame. No matter how much my studying in Rome has desensitized me to grandeur, it was still breathtaking. 

That said, my goodness do I miss Italy. The food, the people, the whole feeling of the place. And most of all, I had forgotten how helpless one feels not knowing the language of a place. People here are generally helpful and understanding, but I just hate feeling so clueless. At least in French I can understand a little–I have no idea what I’m going to do in Copenhagen. Although to me, Dutch just sounds like English backwards, so maybe I’ll try that. Also, everything is disturbingly expensive. The fact that a cappuccino here costs 5 euro (roughly $7.50) to Italy’s 1 euro is proof enough of Italian superiority. 

But being at the top of the Eiffel Tower last night felt like winter and Christmas, and we’ve found a fantastic (and cheap) street market where we bought bread and apples for dinner, so generally life is good. I’m sorry this has been a bit disjointed–sitting in an internet cafe trying to catch up on a week’s worth of interneting is not conducive to writing with clarity. Apologies. One more day in Paris and then off to Brussels on the 13th, Bruges on the 14th. I’ll try to write again soon, and maybe even post some photos. Ciao/au revoir!

But yesterday takes the cake. No question. I got up early to help Dad lug my mammoth suitcase out to the taxi stand, sent him off to the airport and decided to go back to the Gesu for the 10 o’clock mass. I had almost entirely given up hope that I might get a second chance to say “Why yes, sir, I can!” to the little man who asked me to do the reading last week. But I did get a second chance. Almost immediately after I sat down he approached and asked again if I would do the second reading. I told him that I was American, so my pronunciation might be a little off. He started to walk away, and I could feel the regret hanging over me, so I followed him and said, “Posso provare?”–”I can try?” He told me to read a few lines. I did, and he pronounced me worthy and took me up to sit to the left of the altar. I only had a minute or two to look over it before the mass began, and I was understandably nervous. Italian is generally pronounced as it is spelled, so even if I didn’t know a word I figured I would at least pronounce it properly. But then again, nervousness doesn’t really bolster one’s language skills. But after the first part of the service flew by and I stepped up to the lectern, I won’t say that the nervousness disappeared, but the awesomeness of standing there in one of the most beautiful churches in Rome, my own voice echoing back to me in Italian, under a stained glass window with the words “Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam”–the pledge I had to write on all my tests in high school–forgive my sentimentality, but it felt like something coming full circle, not sure what. Could the congregation tell I was not Italian? I’m sure. Did I end up pronouncing something wrong? Probably. But when I sat down again, the little man leaned over and whispered, “Brava!” Absolutely one of the coolest things I have ever done.

And then I saw the Pope! On Sundays at noon he steps out onto the little terrace of his apartment to say hello to everyone and pray a little. He’s like a rock star. Here’s this little man, head of the entire Catholic church, voice reverberating throughout the square like the voice of God. He spoke six languages, seven if you include Latin, and everyone in the crowd cheers when he speaks their native tongue. He saves Italian for last. Even if you weren’t religious, the power that this man has just as a political figure is extraordinary. 

Alessandra arrived in the afternoon–thank goodness she’s here. It’s been four months since we’ve seen one another, but it feels like so much longer because we have so many stories to tell from our respective adventures. We went straight from the train station to meet Morello, who was in Rome for the day and had brought with him my mother’s calendar, which she left at their house. (When my mother does not have her calendar the world comes to a halt. Seriously.) After a lovely lunch with Morello, his friend Angelo, and Angelo’s wife and three boys, we returned to the apartment for some much-needed chill time before meeting my friend John and his friend Daniel for dinner. Gelato and Grey’s Anatomy followed–it’s good to have my best friend back.

Today is my last full day in Rome. Time to stop typing and start walking.

So that last bit didn’t actually happen, and I only know his name is Luca because it was embroidered on his chef’s coat, but the ravioli was exquisite. Dad and I had a celebratory end-of-term lunch Thursday afternoon, and then finished most of our Christmas shopping at the market in Piazza Navona. We also made the trek over to San Giovanni in Laterano where there happened to be a fantastically elaborate nativity scene in one of the side aisles. Across the street are the scala sancta–the holy stairs. We ducked into the gift shop to find something for my grandmother just as the little old nun behind the counter was closing up for lunch. The only other patrons were a German couple, who asked nicely if she spoke English, to which she tersely replied, “No! Chiudendo!” She literally shooed them out the door. But as we were leaving, she tapped my shoulder (rather forcefully for a nun of her age) and whispered to me in Italian that they would reopen at three, as though it were privileged information. Or maybe she just didn’t want the Germans to hear.

I have tried to fill the last few days with a little final wandering and taking photos with my good camera. Dad and I went yesterday to the market in Campo de Fiori–it’s basically a display of every wonderful thing about Italy in one place. Carts full of cheese and meat, or candy, or spices, tables covered with espresso makers and vegetables, stalls bursting with flowers. And excellent people watching to boot–young couples eating gelato, old men arguing, women navigating the cobblestones in their heels with either a dog or a toddler in tow. How can I leave this country?

Molly, Gabe, Briana and I finally made it to La Bocca della Verita this afternoon; we’ve been trying to find the time for three months. If you have seen Roman Holiday (and if you haven’t you must, immediately) you know that the legend says that if you put your hand in the mouth and say something true you’re safe, but tell a lie and you lose a hand. I retained my limbs, thank goodness, because then I had to use them to give my friends farewell hugs. I know I’ll see them in Chicago, but Chicago is not Rome. Nothing is quite like Rome.

I’ve lost track of the days a little; I think it’s because I don’t want to think about how few I have left. I spent Thanksgiving day in Siena with my family and Morello and Clara. It wasn’t dinner at my grandmother’s, but it was a day of museums and persimmon trees, ending high atop an unfinished extension of the Siena Cathedral admiring the city at sunset. Everything is a warm, beautiful shade of brown or orange–like a persimmon tree. Clearly the persimmon trees made some sort of impression on me, but don’t ask me why. Probably because they are simultaneously fanciful and edible. Friday and Saturday back in Rome were a blur of gift shopping and gelato. I checked a lot of things off my Christmas list, but there seem to be always more people I think of for whom I still need to buy gifts. It’s a good problem to have, I suppose, but it would be a better problem to have if I had more money. Someday I will come back to Rome (after making my fortune being a high school English teacher) and purchase every beautiful thing I see. It’ll happen, just you wait. 

As we were walking to the Via del Tritone to flag a cab to the airport for my mother and sister early Sunday morning, my mother stopped at Trevi to toss in a coin. There was no one else there, it being 7:45 AM. I loved seeing my mother standing there, suitcase in hand, sense of whimsy intact. I don’t know if she noticed, but the only other thing in the water that morning was a rose floating near the left hand side.  I’ll see them again in three weeks, but it was hard to watch them go. 

Dad and I spent the rest of Sunday walking, walking, walking. We went to mass at the Gesu at 10 and it was beautiful. I took Latin for three years, and Latin masses are lovely and all, but mass in Italian is far superior. There was a little old man chatting with the priests as we sat down and soon after, he came over, tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I spoke Italian. I told him I did, a little, and he asked if I could do the…something. I missed the last word, but it turned out he was asking if I could do the second reading. I so wish I had just said yes and asked questions later. I probably would have sounded like an idiot, but how amazing would that have been? Next time.

In the afternoon, my father patiently held my purse while I shopped for a new winter coat–I found a gorgeous, long, black one that fits like it was made for me and makes me feel alternately like a vampire and a character from some 19th century British novel. Or maybe both at once. We turned around at Piazza del Popolo and along the walk home witnessed three completely different but equally fascinating forms of street performance. All three involved dancing, but the Michael Jackson impersonator in the Piazza was by far the strangest. He drew quite a crowd. The couple tangoing outside a church along Via del Corso were lovely, but the most fun were absolutely the break dancers–I don’t think gravity applies to these people. Incredible.

Okay, that brings me up to today. I feel as though I’m neglecting to write about all the little things that I see every day, but maybe those things are only important to me in the moment they happen. That’s not true. There’s just no way I could write about them all. At any rate, this morning I had to give my final presentation of the term on San Luigi dei Francesi–the national church of France in Rome. I think it went remarkably well. I felt more secure about this than my last presentation, so I spent about 15 minutes talking about the three incredible Caravaggio paintings in the Contarelli Chapel, and then led a decent discussion about whether the clearly Baroque restoration of the central nave in the mid 1700s was an affront to the original Renaissance design of the church, and related it to Caravaggio’s dismissal of classical tradition in favor of a new style. My professor nodded a lot. My Italian final in the afternoon also felt pretty solid–I actually had Morello and Clara go over my review sheets with me, so I wasn’t too worried. Only two oral finals to go.

There is a Christmas market in Piazza Navona. I thought it might just be a weekend thing, but it was still there when we walked through it today. They sell giant donuts there. I mean it. Giant. And they fill them with nutella–I guess we know where I’ll be after dinner. If it ever stops raining.

The three of them went to meet up with Morello and Clara on Monday morning, and I was off to Tivoli for the day. Though the Villa d’Este itself was beautiful, the gardens were undoubtedly the most astonishing things–there is water everywhere, falling from enormous fountains or rushing down a hillside or pouring from the mouth of some strange hybrid horse-serpent-lady-creature. There are caves with secret passageways, hedge mazes, Bernini sculptures–I amend my previous statement: cardinals get some good stuff, too.

In other school news, I am preparing for my final presentation on San Luigi dei Francesi on Monday. Last night I went to visit the church for the first time. After maneuvering through the restoration scaffolding covering the facade I found a little door and as soon as I opened it, organ music came pouring out into the street. The organist was practicing; he played the same song three times. It was unreal and beautiful and otherworldly–streetlights through the windows, the illuminated apse and the dark corner chapels mirroring the striking lights and darks in the chruch’s Caravaggio paintings, and organ music filling all the empty spaces. 

If it wasn’t already clear (in honor of tomorrow’s holiday), I am a very thankful young lady.

We spent all day Tuesday in the Vatican museums; I could have spent another two days in the Sistine Chapel alone. I will never be impressed by a ceiling ever again–when you finally drag yourself out of the room you walk through a plain white hallway into the rest of the museum, and it feels like such a waste of space. Why have white walls, white ceilings, when you could fill that space with cherubs and sibyls and prophets and color and brilliance? It’s astonishing in every way, and there is such a sense of balance and symmetry. There is the same sense of balance in the Stanza della Segnatura. It used to be the Pope’s private rec room, in a way, and each pope used it for his individual interests–Julius II filled it with books, Leo X with music, etc. Not everyone’s rec room is decorated by Raphael. It’s good to be the pope. 

We are a third of the way through the last section of the course, and I have to say I’m a little disappointed. I suppose I had high expectations because this section is art history based, and certainly the site visits and readings are interesting, but our professor doesn’t entirely understand how to lead discussion. And particularly in discussions of art, there is a very fine line between legitimate commentary and ridiculous over-analyzed nonsense, and the professor ought to know the difference. It’s fine for one person to comment that the foliage covering the ruins in this particular painting is a representation of life after death, but when three people make basically the same comment consecutively, someone needs to redirect the conversation. It’s a bit frustrating, but I can usually tune out my classmates and enjoy my own little art history bubble. 

I’m off to meet my parents and sister at Trevi fountain. I absolutely cannot wait to see them and obnoxiously show off all my new know-how. Most of the places I want to take them involve food. Go figure.

The Italian half of my ancestry has been present in my life since I was young, but the Slovenian half always seemed very distant. And technically they are distant–Cvetka is the daughter of my grandfather’s cousin. But when I arrived at the airport in Ljubljana I recognized Cvetka immediately–her face is just like my grandfather’s. After a lot of hugging and laughing, Cvetka, Anna (one of Cvetka’s four children) and I drove home through the city. We stopped at Cvetka’s favorite bakery and I held the warm bread on my lap while they pointed out restaurants, and the hospital where Cvetka works, and the castle on the hill, and asked me about Rome and my studies and how my family is. After settling in at home Cvetka asked if I was hungry, and I told her I had just eaten two hours ago, to which she replied that two hours is a very long time and proceeded to cover the dining room table with food. This was a common exchange–”Are you hungry?” “No, thank you.” “Of course you are, you should eat something.”

Around 9 PM Anna and I drove to meet Anna’s boyfriend and her brother Ales at a bar nearby. Ales is 26 and studying to be a safety engineer, and he is not only unassailably cool but also quite the gentleman, and has the most fantastic, dry sense of humor. Apparently Friday night is the most popular night for going out in Ljubljana, and he invited me to come along with him and “a few friends.” As it turned out, “a few friends” meant nine. So picture, if you will, me amongst nine Slovenian boys in a bar at 2 AM. Ridiculous, no? But it was so much fun–the quality of their English varied (the funniest language mistake of the evening: Ales’s friend Martin was trying to ask about swine flu but referred to it as “pork grippe”), but most of them spoke very well, which made me feel guilty for knowing approximately five words in Slovene. We talked about American music, and films, about what we do for fun, about college in the states versus college in Slovenia, about health care and sports and Obama and food and books. (Health care is free in Slovenia, as is college (except for specialized fields, such as med school), but apparently the cost of living is very high.) They had so many questions for me and I had so many for them, and they were so sweet to me. And watching them all sing along with “Walk This Way” when it came on the radio was highly amusing.

We drove into the city on Saturday so I could see it in the light, and so we could visit the incredible market in the center of town. Everywhere you turn are beautiful things–flowers, baked goods, vegetables, hand made wood carvings and woven baskets, on and on and on. The market is a place where one can see the incredible mix of ethnic identities in Slovenia, as Cvetka and Ales explained to me. Much of the population is from ex-Yugoslavia, and the Bosnians and Serbs have different crafts and foods and stereotypes with which they are associated, as in any city with a diverse population. This meant, consequently, that I had to try a number of different foods: a kind of cake with layers of cheese and figs, a piece of fresh bread with honey, and of course, kielbasa–my grandfather would never speak to me again if I had neglected to eat kielbasa. Our walk through the market was followed by a large lunch at a Serbian restaurant nearby, where we were joined by Cvetka’s other children: Marco and his wife Polonna, and Andrei with his 3-year-old son Staj. I asked that they order for me–I suspected this might be dangerous, and my suspicions were confirmed when the waiter brought out (in addition to bread and a tasty vegetable salad with a salty Serbian cheese) a huge platter laden with about six various forms of meat. I think I ate more protein in one day than I have in a month. Every time I stopped to breathe Cvetka asked why I was eating so little. And then she ordered me a piece of baklava. 

They gave me a little time to recuperate in the early evening, and little Staj finally warmed up to me when he recognized that the language I was speaking was the same as the one in “Finding Nemo.” And though it took a while, he finally worked up the courage to ask me to sing “Jingle Bells.” This child is literally like an angel–like if you plucked a little blonde angel from a Raphael painting and gave him a toy bus and a Slovenian accent. In the late evening Anna and I went to meet Ales and his friends to watch the end of the big soccer match between Slovenia and Russia. We lost, and it was decided that the solution for this was to go play pool. I was paired with a friend whose name I know but have no idea how to spell, and as we won two out of three games, he decided we were meant to be together. And so, on the way home, he asked me to marry him. At first he suggested that he could move to the U.S., but then decided it would be better for us to move to Bosnia and open a travel agency. He couldn’t understand why I said no. Ales and I couldn’t stop laughing. 

After a lovely breakfast on Sunday morning in Ljubljana’s most popular cafe (Le Petite), and one last stroll through the center of town and the market, it was suddenly time to say goodbye. It was unexpectedly difficult to leave. This is an entire branch of my family that I have only just now discovered, and they are all so kind and generous and funny, and they live in such a beautiful and fascinating place–I only wish I had more time with them. They insist that I come back to visit soon and bring the whole family with me. I can’t wait. They may be distant geographically, but having known them for only three days, I adore them as though I had known them forever. I guess that’s what family is.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=4&aid=120068&id=582262502