qui a firenze, senza io

i spent the first semester of my junior year studying abroad [insert joke here] in florence, italy. as an art history major, this was my opportunity to see all the works i had been studying since i was in high school. plus, i could eat great food and drink lots of chianti. that bears repeating. pasta. wine. cheese. bread. wine. coffee. pastry. wine. i. love. food. anyway...

i knew i would meet some fun people. well, i hoped i would meet some fun people. it looked doubtful the first couple days i was there for orientation-- but then i met my roommate. jen and i hit it off from minute one. we spent the entire semester practically inseperable. whether it was the classes we had together or at our favorite bar, the scottish pub (who would have guessed it, a scottish pub in italy). whenever we would be apart for more than a couple hours, one of us would call the other on her telefonino (literally, small telephone) with this question dove sei, bella?. if the answer wasn't a biblioteca or a scuola or even nel bar it was bound to be sono qui a firenze. oh, i'm here in florence.

naturally, when our semester was over, we vowed to keep in touch and visit often and return to italy together soon. i know what you're thinking: that we haven't spoken since. ha! you're wrong! we continue to email and call regularly. i've visited jen in seattle twice, and she's been to the east coast, too. we've talked about our future trip to italy so many times, it's a little sick. we would go find lenny, our favorite bartender! we'd hike along cinque terre! we'd visit our host parents! we'd take a tour of chianti! we'd lie on the white sandy beachs of capri! we were going to do all the things we'd missed.

when jen got the opportunity to go without me this spring, i told her i hated her. i also told her, however, she needed to send me a postcard from every place we'd been together, and bring me back a fabulous leather purse. i got an email from her the other day... i can't believe i'm here without you. the bancomat we used to go to by the duomo is closed! i cried when i got off the train.

qui a firenze, senza io.