*Disclaimer: Dear reader, please keep in mind that the following is just one aspect of my study abroad experience. Before you pin me as a spoiled crybaby, know that I am fully appreciative of my time here in , and I do realize how truly lucky I am.

When you sign up for an abroad program, all you know is that you are about to embark on the best semester of your life. You hear all about the glitz and glamour, the traveling, the beautiful people, the food that could be mistaken for art on a plate. When students return from their time overseas they always gloat: “It was amazing, Europe is incredible, I was living a dream!” And while of course, studying in is amazing, incredible and a dream come true, what you don’t hear before you come is that life is still life.

Believe it or not, I still have bad days, even in Florence . What you don’t read in abroad program brochures is that, studying in a foreign place can be isolating. When you don’t understand the language, every conversation on the street is a muffled jumble of unfamiliar sounds—beautiful sounds—but still unfamiliar. The loneliness can be shocking. How can I feel so separate when I am surrounded by so much?

Then there is the guilt, too. No one ever tells you that you will feel guilty, but you will. I know this first hand, and I know this because I’ve talked to other students who feel the same way; girls who cry uncontrollably because they miss their boyfriends, then sob even harder when they notice they’re sitting on the steps of Santa Croce, in Florence, in Italy, in Europe. But I say, “Cry away, honey!” We are allowed to be sad, and we don’t have to feel guilty just because we happen to be sad in a place that is supposed to make us happy.

Living in a new place is challenging, especially one with a culture so different from the one we’ve come from. It becomes habit to question every event, to turn around something that is simply Italian into something that we must be doing wrong. We watch TV during dinner: does my host mom think I’m boring?

Even the sunniest days can be ruined by stepping in shit. Literally. I stepped in some the other day. A passing couple commented, “Oh! Lei ha pestato della merda!” But despite the occasional dreary day, Italy always has a way of making something out of nothing. My superiors at The Florentine just alerted me to the fact that stepping in poop is considered lucky here. Isn’t that a convenient superstition?

My mom warned me about the hill towns. And as I rode past, gliding by way of train from Rome to Florence in my first 24 hours in Italy, I figured I knew what she meant but not until I actually got there did I know quite the effect that Siena would have on me.

This weekend I took a trip to Rome for the first time with my roommates. We did everything a tourist would do; we had the guided walking tour to all main Piazzas’ in the city and a guided tour of the Coliseum and the Forum. Of course I know that I’m a tourist when I go on these weekend trips, but let’s be honest, no one likes to look like one especially if you are living in Florence and trying very hard not to be one. The walking guided tours wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for those obnoxiously obvious headsets. And I am convinced that we were cursed with these headsets because, while spending the morning at the Vatican we were witness to several tours and all were wearing headsets while each tour guide had a colored loofah designating where they were walking. Now naturally we shouldn’t have found it hysterical while visiting the eternal city so I don’t find it ironic that we had to be cursed with the same tragic features of tourists.  But it was not just the headsets that made this trip memorable but it was the ever popular saying, “When in Rome.”  Oh yes from the moment we arrived till the moment we departed the saying was spoken like it was going out of style.  So I started to think, what makes Rome so appealing?

Is it the many historical attractions roamed by tourists daily, the arrogance of a big city lifestyle, the streets that line themselves with night life attractions,  the metro system, or is it the city within a city aspect?  Whatever it may be that makes this great city of Rome so attractive, one may never know. As for me, well you know what they say, “When in Rome!”

As I walked down San Lorenzo with my Ipod on just loud enough that I can hear the sounds surrounding me in all directions. It feels good like a scene from a movie. I feel a wave of satisfaction wash over me as it hits me I'm actually here. I did so much to get here and haven't spent much time actually enjoying that I am here. Just going from one worry to the next. Got to go to the market. Got to go to class. Why don't we have hot water? Where can I get stamps? How do I send postcards? Well, I think you can get the idea.

I often walk around with my camera looking for stuff to shoot for my photography class. With my camera around my neck I feel like a target for unwanted attention. I sometimes want to scream "I'm not a tourist I'm a student!" I feel as a tourist I am the enemy, but I mean no harm. I just want to enjoy all the things that they live with on a daily basis. That they walk by everyday and don't take a second glace at. I guess I came to Firenze for a new point of view.

To discover who one is, I believe, experience is needed. This experience, as many ascertain, can deliver itself in several ways and will hit us at any time. Family, friends, books, food, art, cities, countries, our own imaginations: these are but a few of the copious accounts, which create the experience of living. Thus providing a genuine education and possibly—for the lucky few—the discovery of who one truly is.

My experiences, thus far, have led me to Florence. While this is not my hometown, country or continent, for the proceeding four months, Florence will be where I lay my hat. My possessions have been left in Houston, Texas, where I spent the first seventeen years of my life.

I am the son of a couple who has been married for 26 years. My mother, a musician, is now a schoolteacher. Her parents’ first date was to a combined rodeo and car auction in Kerrville, Texas. My grandfather was a milkman at the time. My grandmother came from Birmingham, Ala., to visit her brother. The rodeo and car auction ended, and two weeks later they were married.

My father—while having a lovely singing voice is far from being a musician—is the president of our family business. A business established after my father’s parents left Europe during the Holocaust. My grandfather is 89 years old and still goes into work everyday.

I have one sibling, a sister two years older than myself. She is a professional musician, playing viola in a string quartet. She is best violist I know and easily one of the coolest. As with my sister, I respect my family and believe much of who I am today is due to them—for better or worse.

While this is my initial journey to Italy, it is not my first encounter with traveling. As a child, flying wasn’t in my family’s travel agenda. Road trips were at the heart of nearly every vacation. This, however, wasn’t due to a phobia of heights or small compartments or tiny bags of peanuts. No, it was due to my parents desire to provide a window seat to what we couldn’t learn in a textbook. Journeys from Texas to California to Toronto to hiking the Appalachian Trail to bargaining with street vendors form Mexico to New York was my youth. An adolescence I intend to continue and never forget.

After graduating high school—where I attended an arts school, studying music—I left for college in Auburn, Ala. Entering as a psychology major, I promptly acknowledged the world of Skinner, Chomsky and Wundt was not the world for me; as did my professors. After my second semester, any contemplation, deliberation or inspiration I could muster was directed towards writing. Journalism and English would be the focus of my collegiate academe.

I have studied abroad once before, in London. This experience was the first time I felt I could do anything. Not in the sense of Superman or the Pope—tragically—but in the sense of me. In a world of opportunity, rejection and the spacious ability to aspire, I felt scared, brave, lonely, suffocated, hungry and full, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I expect my time in Florence to produce new feelings and memories I can take to the next skip of life. It is an experience I am eagerly waiting to unravel.

I grew up an Italian American, in a predominantly Italian area with others who felt more Italian than American. Every Sunday my family would have a huge feast around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. We’d eat pasta and drink wine, and like here in Italia the salad would come last. Whenever my ego would get out of control I was checked with comments from the kids at school like “loud mouth ghinny” or “wop’, “dego”. I grew up feeling Italian without having ever been to Italy, and not even being able to speak Italian. The best I could manage was Itanglish, which is an immigrant mix of different Italian dialects and English (it’s what they speak on the Sopranos).

When I decided to come to Florence to learn the language and see the old country I was surprised to find out that here I am, in fact American, not Italian. “But my great grandparents were born in Italia.” I protested to a group of Italians that I had met. I was convinced that they where judging me for wearing white socks and having poor fashion sense, and secretly hurt that they didn’t consider me Italian. Perhaps I didn’t explain my self well enough, my Italian is what they would call maccheronico (Italian with a thick English accent), or maybe they just couldn’t see outside of La Toscana. I wanted to tell them about the Brazilian descendants of Italian immigrants who go to the United States and call themselves as Italians, not Brazilians or Americans, and that the same is true in Argentina and Uruguay.

There are little Italys all across the planet, and even though the food isn’t as good as back in the old country or the style of dress may be different the people who live there are still Italians. Our blood is the same and we will always be connected to this country and it’s people.

More often, The Tredici likes to play games. She shows up four or six minutes early, and instead of greeting me at the bus stop, she’ll buzz playfully around the corner just in time to spit exhaust fumes in my face. Sometimes The Tredici arrives late. I’ll stand at my post, like an eager soldier, ready to catch a ride to school. Five minutes in ritardo, va bene. Ten minutes? Eh…But even ten minutes late is better than not coming at all—which also happens quite frequently. The old Italian ladies and I just stand there exchanging glances of disbelief. Although we’re all faking it, because it’s completely believable that The Tredici abandoned us again.

A couple of girls who live in an apartment near me insist on walking. “It’s too much hassle taking the bus,” they say, “it takes about as much time to walk anyway.” But I won’t surrender. I’ve made some great memories with ATAF. There was the time I lost my abbonamento, for example. I got to go to the ATAF office to see where they make the bus card passes. That was cool. Then there was the time the bus was jammed so full of middle schoolers I had to stand on the seat to avoid being boiled alive in the bath of raging hormones below. Oh, and one time a lady started bleeding from the leg…

The #13 isn’t the only bus that stirs up action. One frigid, dark night in December my friends and I were trekking home after a night on the dance floor when out of nowhere appeared the mystical #70. Having no idea where we would end up, we clamored onto the mystery mobile. It was empty, set aside the driver, and set higher-up than most city buses. It’s quite possible the whole ordeal was a figment of my late-night delirium, but no matter: the #70 delivered us almost to our doorstep. Imagine that, our very own chauffer, courtesy of ATAF.

After tackling Florence ’s rich collection of museums, churches, exhibits, and otherwise culturally and intellectually enriching opportunities, I have decided to take on a new beast: the Italian gym. I am actually beginning my second quarter here in Italy—the land of the bella figura—and let me just say, after a fall full of large past dinners and apertivo, I am in need of some serious hours alla palestra.

Of course, the Italians who frequent my gym also have the right “look” going on. No sweat suits here—to fit in at the gym you should be outfitted in tight black pants that make your ass give JLo a run for her money. Your top cannot be short of what any typical US sorority girl would wear to a frat party. Your makeup must be done and every hair must be slicked back perfectly into an aerodynamic up-do.

But okay, maybe I took the “hot” thing a little too far. While there are definitely some babes prowling the premises, there are also some normal people too—stragglers who, like me, are looking for their inner athlete. At my Pilates class last night, we were a class full of beginners. Never mind that all the other participants were at least 30 years my senior…I was keeping up, and hey, as a foreigner in the “Italian Jungle,” that’s all you can hope for.