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.