Invest. Discover. Reflect.: 11/26/12

So, in France we get a week long vacation for All Saint's Day. The 27 of October to the 4 of November I planned a trip to Sardinia to visit my friend Valentina. I don't speak Italian and I've never been to Italy, so I got to re-experience the feeling of being a complete foreigner all over again. Since I practically understand/speak French almost fluently now, I rarely feel like an outsider in Marseille. The Italian language is so beautiful, and being in Sardinia and living their culture made such an impact on me, more than I expected it to. I think it was more than just a vacation, it was a really great experience because I made connections with the people I met and was welcomed so warmly by people that didn't even know me. That opened my eyes and made me realize that Italy would come to mean a lot more to me and made me realize that I want Italy to play a role in my life in the future. My summary of my trip doesn't do it justice. It's too hard to transmit how great it was through words, it's just a feeling I had when I was there that I can't reproduce in an explanation that will accurately capture it. It was just so wonderful I am already impatient to go back again.

Day 1: I left on Sat. the 27th. Got up at 8 because I was too nervous to sleep. Travelling alone means you and only you are responsible for yourself- if you know me well you'll know why this is scary hahaha. Moreover, I had to walk to the train station to take the shuttle to the airport, so I had to manage my time wisely. I left on time and caught the right shuttle and got to the airport at 3 o'clock on the dot. My flight left at 5 and I went with RyanAir, so it was the most relaxed thing ever. No assigned seating, the announcer/flight attendant on the plane was some goofy guy announcing everything in a Darth Vader voice, so it was really funny. The whole thing was so laid back and once we landed in Cagliari, an hour later, they sounded a victorious trumpet sound and everyone clapped! Haha. It was a nice way to start my vacation.
Vale picked me up and we drove back to Guspini where her family lives. We stopped by her friends house and I met some of her girl friends, and I didn't understand anything. But I loved listening to the sounds! Then I met her parents, Michele and Lina, who are THE sweetest and warmest people ever. And make really good food. So much pasta- so much yum. Her mom speaks French so it was easy to communicate with her, but her dad speaks only Italian. So it was fun, in a challenging way, to try and have conversations with him. But he was really funny and always trying to teach me new things about Italy. Thanks to him I tried the cachi fruit for the first time which is really interesting... but really good!
The first night we went out to some local bars, and it was fun meeting people and attempting the little Italian I tried to teach myself before going to Sardinia. Like, very little... haha. It's hard to teach yourself! But after awhile we were both exhausted and so we went home to sleep. And we slept a really long time haha.

Day 2: We took our time waking up and relaxing, and we decided that it would be a perfect day to go see a movie because it was like a freaking monsoon outside. We had lunch with her friend Sonia and then went and got coffee. I probably drank coffee about 3 times a day there. They drink coffee even more than the French do haha. Luckily Sonia speaks French so I was able to communicate with her better than everyone else I'd met, and Vale understands French so it was a win win situation haha. We kinda just hung out for awhile and then had dinner and went to a friend's house and then went to the movies. We saw Ted. Which, even in Italian it was funny but I understood maybe like 20 percent of it. All well! It was a fun experience.

Day 3: We took the train to Cagliari because Vale had classes at university. In Italian universities, anyone can go to the classes and learn. But if you want a degree or recognition, you have to sign up and pay obviously (like 200 euro a year...). But that means if I randomly moved to Italy and I wanted to learn like Russian, or Chinese history or something random, anything really! I could do that. For free. It's beautifully unfair isn't it? We rode her motorbike to school and let me just say... I'm obsessed. I. WANT. ONE. Now the thought of me driving a motorbike might scare you but I assure you it's safer than it looks.... Hahaha.
For 2 hours we sat in the Spanish literature class, taught in Italian. All I got out of it was they were talking about Don Juan and it was a complicated love story. Either way, it was so cool to sit in a real Italian university class. Afterwards we went to her English class, and they were translating an excerpt from the American presidential debates, that was really neat to see a foreign English class in action. The professor was really cool too and we chatted for a brief moment.
I met all of Vale's school/Cagliari friends, and we made dinner with a few of them that night in Vale's cute little apartment and stayed up late talking, some in English, and a lot of me just listening to the Italian. It was so fun, and one thing I really noticed is how everyone treated me so normally. I feel like, in the US, if you're foreign, you're viewed differently. But in France and in Sardinia I felt like "one of them" even if I felt disconnected from the language. They were just so welcoming and treated me like a person rather than an American in Italy. It is just a fresh of breath air. Her friend Paolo also showed me some of the prettiest views in Cagliari- by night. It was sooooo pretty seeing the lights and the ocean and the monuments during the night like that. I won't ever forget those sights!

Day 4: We took our time waking up in the morning, had some coffee, and just sat around and talked. Sometime in the afternoon we got ready and headed over to her friend's house for lunch. The four boys, Claudio, Mattia, Nicola, and Alessandro, were so nice and made us pasta and sausage for lunch and it was very yummy :) Three of the boys are studying to become doctors, and the other an information tech (I think..).
We played some guitar hero and hung out for awhile, and then all met with the friends from the night before for coffee at the T Hotel. It's a hotel built by an American architect. It's very modern, and shaped like a cylinder. At the top is a floor of lights, and if you tweet colors to it's specific twitter name, the lights of the hotel will change colors to the color you tweeted. So if you send #yellow or #blue to @THOTEL or something like that, it's supposed to work. It's pretty cool! Paolo, one of Vale's college friends, showed me more sights of Cagliari by night so we all went on a long stroll and it is probably one of my favorite memories from the trip. Eventually we got really hungry so we went back to the boys' house and had dinner- hot dog/onion pizza. It's a thing. It's delicious. And I ate a whole pizza to myself. Well, we all did! That's how they do it! :)
We started talking about Halloween plans because we had about three different options, we could have gone back to Guspini, or gone to another town in the countryside and had a more private party at a house. The boys were planning on going to a night club and invited us along. We decided it'd be best to stay in Cagliari and so we decided to go with the boys to the night club the next day. After dinner we hung out and went for a walk on the town at night and tried to luck with the twitter/T Hotel thingy again. We eventually went back home, Floriana stayed the night and the three of us stayed up late talking :)

Day 5: Halloweeeeeeen! We took our time waking up because we were up so late talking the night before, so by the time the boys came over for coffee, it was already 3 pm and we were still in our pajamas... We hung out for awhile and then everyone left to get ready for our big night out for Halloween. We ate dinner and Flori came over and got ready with us, and then we took the bus back to the boys' house where we began the evening's festivities. Eventually we went to the club, where everyone had skeleton or zombie face paintings. Missed that memo! I would have rather not had a zombie face anyways. It was really fun though! The music was really good and everyone was super friendly and happy. We got some pretty funny pictures, too. At one point we wrote a "contract" on my arm to promise that I would speak Italian fluently by the time I go back to the States. I don't know about fluent, but I will be able to speak better than my first time in Italy! haha. Then one of the boys, Nicola, pretended to propose to me with someone's car keys as the ring... hahaha I have no explanation. It was a really good night, aaaaand we went to bed at 6 am. YOLO. And can I just say that I love being able to go out and I'm still not 21 for six more months :) La vie est belle!

Day 6: Back to Guspini! We were originally going to get up early to take the train back to Guspini but considering we went to bed so late, we decided to take a later train. Thank God because I woke up feeling.... well, I think it's self-explanatory. Needless to say I was very glad coffee exists. And that I still had leftover sandwich from dinner to eat for breakfast. I was kind of pitiful haha. But we got to sleep on the train a little and it felt nice to be back in Guspini. It has that little hometown vibe that reminds me of my own hometown, only Italian and less hick-like haha. We went to a nearby spa with Vale's friend Sonia and got to swim in their really awesome massage pools for an hour and a half. It was sooooooo relaxing and beautiful, and sitting in the water, with the dimmed lighting and calming music, I got so tired. So I literally wrapped myself up in the robes they gave us and laid on one of the poolside chairs and took a nap. It was magic. Afterwards we had dinner and then got cleaned up and went to hang out with Ele and Andrea, we went to a couple bars (but seeing as Halloween was the night before, I refrained from alcoholic beverages) and then went home to go night night.

Day 7: Last full day :( I planned on waking up early to take advantage of the last full day.... but alas, I slept in till noon. No surprises there! We had brunch and then went to meet some of Vale's friends for coffee. Then we came back home and just relaxed for awhile. Vale's friend Andrea took me out to have pizza (soooo goooood) which was so nice of him and I really enjoyed myself- we spoke in Italian the whole time!! With the help of Google Translate, sometimes. But honestly, I am not lying, I picked up on quite a bit during my week there! (If only Arabic was that easy to pick up on....) So we were able to talk about important things and not just small talk. I was pretty proud of myself haha. After dinner we met up with a bunch of people and Vale and Ele rejoined us and we went to some bars again. And then, (one of my other favorite memories), we went to this isolated spot where apparently couples go to get steamy in their cars, haha, but we parked and then turned up the music really loud and got out and just danced, and it was cool cause there was a full moon so it was like a natural discoteca :D hahaha.
Finally we went home and talked until super late again and then went to sleep...

Day 8: Got up, got ready, drove to the airport with Vale and her neighbor, and headed home. I was actually really sad to leave and while most of my classmates were relieved to go back to Marseille after vacation, I was not... I would have been perfectly content staying in Sardinia! Don't get me wrong I love Marseille, but I just wasn't ready for my vacation to be over. In all it was wonderful and I am still so grateful for the warmth and generosity I received from Vale and her family and everyone I met!