Project Equator has officially begun! I feel as though the past month has been a comfortable ride in the airplane you take right before skydiving. You’re sitting there, looking out the window, stoked at the thought of what your about to attempt. You did the planning and packed the parachute, all that is left is the jump. Sounds easy when you put it that way: “Just hurl your body off and enjoy that 10,000ft drop to the ground!” Although in my case, it was more a shove than a jump because i’m riding tandem with my kooky parents!
Now, flash forward one month, the free-fall! Everything, all that planning and preparation has led up to this moment, this ineffable high. Florence, Italy! However, there are always those unexpected bumps in the road (or sky if your speaking in the terms of an overly prolonged metaphor), those mishaps nobody could have seen coming: that slaphappy 747 that’s flying a bit too low, that stray pigeon poop, or, don’t mean to be the Morbid Marvin but, the chute just flat out fails. Although, just because there are a few dastardly aerial dilemmas does not mean that you can’t fly, you simply adapt, and I have a feeling this is only the beginning of a long adaptation adventure.
For starters, there’s adapting to living in such close quarters with my crazed, and at times vexatious family. I love them, but it’s like that Modern Family episode where Phil takes the whole Dunphy family out on a road trip (if you don’t get that reference, just forget about it, and move on… to the television because you missed a great episode). Though, the crabby lady, whom you will read about in a second, keeps the chaos to a minimum…ish.
In addition to spending “quality time” with cacophony clan, there is the challenge of adapting to school abroad. There’s nothing that can extinguish ecstatic summer energy quite like the first day of school.Well, so I thought, apparently reacquainting myself with the all-too-familiar tediousness of math, language arts, spanish, history, and science (in that order) proves much more difficult when surrounded by the awe-inspiring beauty of Florence, Italy. Focusing becomes an issue when the aroma of freshly baked baguettes waft in while I drill exponential and logarithmic equations into my head. I am sure that sooner or later the routine work schedule will kick in, but for now I’ll just plug my nose!
Lastly, there is adapting to Italy. Personally, at the core, Italy seems no different from Seattle. I mean of course, Seattle doesn’t have a magnificent cathedral or statue waiting at every corner, but hey, Florence doesn’t have the Space Needle! It’s the little things that require the most attention here. You need to remember that there is no walking on the luscious, green grass at Boboli Gardens, and that you can’t order cokes anywhere near the Duomo, because heads up, they cost twelve euro a pop! You have to quickly reconcile with the fact that you’ll be served your fair share of marble meat because no surprise, the statues hear have no shame! Oh, and I almost forgot! There is an seventy-year-old woman upstairs who despises children and hates noise, so it didn’t take long for us and her to establish ourselves as enemies. She bangs on the floor when we escalate from anything above a murmur, and frequently yells down the stairway in Italian (since we can’t understand her anyways. Problem solved! Just stand, smile, and wave). Be prepared for the inevitable blog post from behind bars because she has a history of calling the cops!
Italy is outstanding and adaptation isn’t only a part of traveling, but life. Without obstacles like our cantankerous neighbor, it wouldn’t be as fun! All this only adds to the experience and makes it more memorable! For what it’s worth, skydiving can use the bird poop, because without it, you may as well blow seventy bucks at iFly, but that’s just not even close to as fun.