O Dio! What a wonderful friend I have found in Amy J. Dingler. Thank you God for putting this person in my life.
You know how you get a feeling about stuff as soon as it happens? I had a feeling about this girl when I first met her. And by met her I mean when we added each other on Facebook. She was really the only other gap year person I connected with and stayed connected with. I felt like I knew her, like I had known her for a really long time already. She is easy to talk to, and complements my crazy with her own sick twisted crazy as well. Gotta love it when two crazies come together. Let's just say it gets insane!
Anyway, we kept in touch and agreed that if our paths crossed our gap year, we would make the effort to meet up and do some volunteer work together. And sure enough, we did! We met up in Milan, after I came back to Italy from the holidays. And with my poor planning as in tact as ever, we packed our bags and went to Rome.
It was great to have someone to talk to, someone who could relate perfectly to what I was going through. I recognised her instantly at the train station and we non stopped talked practically that entire week we were together. We went to all the great places in Rome sight seeing, and we volunteered at a soup kitchen right down the street from our hostel! (That's why I am a poor planner, because things just happen to work out, thank God.)
To say that I love this girl in an understatement. I value her as a person, as a friend, and as a fellowTarHeel. I had a feeling she would become a good friend to me from the beginning. I had the best time with her. We walked around Rome, talking, eating, complaining, laughing, gossiping, everything. And even despite the weather, and the first blizzard to hit Rome since the 80's, we went Pub Crawling together before our departure from each other, on a well deserved adventure and night of fun.
The snow was beautiful. The silence was impenetrable except from the music blaring from the clubs, and the snow crunching beneath our feet.
We danced like we have been friends forever. It was so much fun! Things work out best when you are with someone with the same interests and expectations as you. We went out to have fun together, and sure enough, Rome delivered. The walk home in the snow, the transportation systems that shut down because Rome has no idea what to do when it snows, the one euro cappuccinos, and the crawling into bed when the sun comes up made my week.
This girl is crazy, she gets me, I get her. We have a lot to learn from each other, and a lot of fun to have together at Carolina. From our appreciation for Drake, and our ambitious outlook on life, and our love of travelling, I can see myself travelling with her one day. Perhaps to Switzerland? Who knows. I'll poorly plan it and we will see what happens.
Amy I miss you! Lots of love to you from Australia!! Counting down the months till we meet up again in Chapel Hill, on Carolina's beautiful campus, reminiscing on our gap year, and catching up! See you soon! Ciao Bella!!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Paris, France.
Paris was four jam-packed days of sight seeing and having fun. I really wish I could have wrote about these things as they happened, but life feels like it is going full speed, and I can't slow it down.
I went to France with my friend Laura, that I met on the farm in Tuscany. It was a spur of the moment, spontaneous, poorly planned adventure. And dare I say, it was amazing.
Travelling in Europe can be very cheap if you are willing to travel very light, fly in and out of remote airports, and spend the night with about fifty other people on the floor, awaiting the earliest flights possible. And yet those, are the things I remember most fondly. I remember how comfortably I arranged myself with my two bags, one under my head and the other under my feet, that way I could feel it if someone tried to take them away, threw my jacket over my face, and fell tenderly to sleep to the lullaby of conversing strangers and snores from my neighbours. Let's just say I've slept better.
Getting to Paris was an adventure in itself, as was getting back to the airport. But what happened in between are memories I will cherish for the rest of my life. What I have been through on this gap year will be stories to tell my grandchildren. I can't wait to over exaggerate and manipulate my recollections of this experience then.
Laura and I were expert tourists that day. We hit all the main sights to see in Paris, and conquered the French metro system like no other. The first day we were there I was in a daze. Sleep deprived and tired, we set out to find the Eiffel Tower. I was cranky, tired of walking, and was starting to think that this whole sight seeing thing was anti-climatic. Until I saw the Eiffel Tower.
It was illuminated as it tends to be at night, and colossal compared to what I imagined. I teared up. I kept saying to myself: I never thought I would come here, I never thought I would get to see this in person. And there I was, freshly turned 19, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. The smile never left my face. The tears made their presence known and I was like a little kid who had just met their favorite movie star. I kept announcing that this was the Eiffel Tower, as if everyone there didn't already know that. Wonderfully happy is how I felt.
And to top it all off, they set off a bigger light show and the Tower glimmered in the night sky so romantically, I cried some more. That was what I needed. I was ready to take on the rest of Paris.
The next three days, I saw everything. I went to the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc of Triumph, the Sacred Heart cathedral, and even stumbled into the red light district and ended up right in front of the Moulin Rouge. It snuck up on us like only a series of not covert sex shops can.
Still, it was awesome. Some of the best pastries I have ever had came from a bakery called Paul. Chocolate Croissant, so delicious, unmatched world wide.
Paris was everything I hoped it would be and more. I made friends, stayed in my first hostel, and made memories of a life time. Definitely don't regret that spur of the moment. And my poor planning, learned a thing or two about booking flights earlier than the metro opens. Lesson learned Paris, lesson learned.
I went to France with my friend Laura, that I met on the farm in Tuscany. It was a spur of the moment, spontaneous, poorly planned adventure. And dare I say, it was amazing.
Travelling in Europe can be very cheap if you are willing to travel very light, fly in and out of remote airports, and spend the night with about fifty other people on the floor, awaiting the earliest flights possible. And yet those, are the things I remember most fondly. I remember how comfortably I arranged myself with my two bags, one under my head and the other under my feet, that way I could feel it if someone tried to take them away, threw my jacket over my face, and fell tenderly to sleep to the lullaby of conversing strangers and snores from my neighbours. Let's just say I've slept better.
Getting to Paris was an adventure in itself, as was getting back to the airport. But what happened in between are memories I will cherish for the rest of my life. What I have been through on this gap year will be stories to tell my grandchildren. I can't wait to over exaggerate and manipulate my recollections of this experience then.
Laura and I were expert tourists that day. We hit all the main sights to see in Paris, and conquered the French metro system like no other. The first day we were there I was in a daze. Sleep deprived and tired, we set out to find the Eiffel Tower. I was cranky, tired of walking, and was starting to think that this whole sight seeing thing was anti-climatic. Until I saw the Eiffel Tower.
It was illuminated as it tends to be at night, and colossal compared to what I imagined. I teared up. I kept saying to myself: I never thought I would come here, I never thought I would get to see this in person. And there I was, freshly turned 19, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. The smile never left my face. The tears made their presence known and I was like a little kid who had just met their favorite movie star. I kept announcing that this was the Eiffel Tower, as if everyone there didn't already know that. Wonderfully happy is how I felt.
And to top it all off, they set off a bigger light show and the Tower glimmered in the night sky so romantically, I cried some more. That was what I needed. I was ready to take on the rest of Paris.
The next three days, I saw everything. I went to the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc of Triumph, the Sacred Heart cathedral, and even stumbled into the red light district and ended up right in front of the Moulin Rouge. It snuck up on us like only a series of not covert sex shops can.
Still, it was awesome. Some of the best pastries I have ever had came from a bakery called Paul. Chocolate Croissant, so delicious, unmatched world wide.
Paris was everything I hoped it would be and more. I made friends, stayed in my first hostel, and made memories of a life time. Definitely don't regret that spur of the moment. And my poor planning, learned a thing or two about booking flights earlier than the metro opens. Lesson learned Paris, lesson learned.
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