It is my fifth week in Florence and I have been experiencing the time of my life exploring this beautiful city, but now I’m facing a new challenge– a cold in a foreign country.
Before I developed a pounding head and stuffy nose, I experienced the ancient beauty that is Vatican City. The whole city is just one big windy museum surrounded by old brick walls slanted inward, begging to be scaled by school children on a field trip.
Living with a history major has gotten me to appreciate the works of art in every place we visit. She is my own personal tour guide, pointing out which Roman god the stone statue represents and stressing the importance of influential paintings.
We spent hours strolling down the halls of the Musei Vaticani, craning our necks to gaze at the beautifully designed ceilings and marveling at the distant gardens we could glimpse through the open windows of the galleries.
To end our enlightening cultural experience that was the Vatican, it felt right to juxtapose it with a meal from the Rome train station McDonald’s. We feel right at home under those golden arches, and our homesickness melts away for a few moments. I only get to go out and explore like this on the weekends. My weekdays have gotten more school-focused, as well as making sure there are dinner plans for every night.
Homework, grocery shopping and budgeting occupy much more of my mind than the excursions– big and small– I hope to take. So many exciting adventures are just a short train ride away, there’s only so much time to experience them all.
A weekly school assignment pushes me to have more little outings within the city on my own. My travel writing professor requires me to write about an intentional solo travel date once a week in my travel journal.
My first one was walking to the Ponte Vecchio to take pictures. Ponte Vecchio directly translates to “old bridge” in Italian. It is a covered arch bridge over the Arno River dating back to the Middle Ages. It is the only bridge on the Arno out of seven to survive the destruction caused in Florence by the retreating German army during WWII.
It is now inhabited by dozens of shops, mostly expensive jewelry and numerous Instagram-able photo spots. It was fascinating to walk up and down this bridge and just observe without anywhere to get to, unlike the bustling crowd around me on that Monday afternoon.
As I recount the past week’s happenings, I am ready to recover from this illness and get back out in the world to make more memories.
Lillian Hendel can be contacted at
lhendel@kscequinox.com
