Benvenuto in Italia

I am a couple days behind on my blog, but so much is happening that it’s hard to find a spare moment to write about it! Due to a 6 hour layover during my traveling, the first city in Italy that I really saw was Torino. And I guess it’s a lesson in that first impressions are not always correct—just like the smell of the metro in Paris was not any indication of what the city was actually like, the bathrooms in Italy are not any indication of what the country is like. So maybe that’s an obvious statement, public bathrooms usually aren’t all that great, but it wasn’t that they were dirty, it was something else… After a long day of travel—all I wanted to do was pee. So, when we saw a sign for a bathroom, that cost 1 Euro to use, I was probably more excited than I should have been. My high expectations crumbled when I went into the bathroom and saw that there was no toilet, just what looked like the bottom of a shower (only smaller) with a drain in the middle. Maybe I had walked into a public restroom where you could shower, but there were no shower heads…so no. Did I walk into the men’s bathroom? Maybe it was some sort of a European urinal.  I checked the sign on the door, “Donne” (aka: female). No. I walked out of the bathroom—obviously let down—and told Hayden that there were no toilets, and explained how the floors had shower bottoms. Turns out (says the world Traveler, Hayden) that those were indeed toilets, a kind called “squatters.” I feel like the name is pretty self explanatory, but in case you are still lost, basically you put one foot on either side of the drain (there is a little place with traction for your feet), squat down, and do your business. Welp, I want to get immersed in the culture, but that was a little too head first for me. Luckily we found a different restroom that had an actual toilet—problem is that it was missing a seat cover, I felt like I was going to fall in! So, Italy definitely has some interesting restrooms, but—to my relief—those types of bathrooms (in my experience thus far) are not the norm. Halleluiah.

Il Squatter

Is it just me, or is this toilet missing something?

First Purchase in Italy: Harry Potter in Italy

2nd Purchase: Gelato

 Some of the Street Performers in Torino:

Torino itself was wonderful! Like any newbie in Italy, I started my trip off with a piece of Italian Pizza (made by a Brazilian woman…) and some gelato—holy heck, I keep reminding myself that I’m going to be in Italy for 3 months, so to “PACE” myself. Pace myself with the delicious food and desserts; with the shopping, with site seeing, with traveling, and with everything else. Obviously easier said than done because I definitely had pizza and gelato the next day (but it was my birthday, which I’ll get to another time, so I don’t think that actually counts). Hayden, Shawn, and I checked our luggage into a hotel for a few hours and just walked around the city. I made some very important purchases while I was there, the first being Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Italiano. Hopefully if I study Italian, ready the Book of Mormon and Harry Potter in Italian and push myself to speak Italian with my host family and friends in Italy, I’ll come back to the States and actually be able to speak pretty well. Walking around Torino, I could pick out a lot of words that people were saying, but I d definitely did not comprehend much.

I wish we could have stayed in Tornio, but alas, we had to spend 8 hours on a night train. I was hoping that I’d be able to sleep, but our compartment was full, so we had to try to sleep sitting up. Epic fail. At least the people in our compartment were interesting. There was a Nigerian woman who had been living in Italy for the past 13 years, and a 75 year old Italian man who I tried to talk to, but when he went off about the Inquisition, I ended up just nodding my head, smiling and saying things like ‘va bene’ (okay) and ‘sí.’ Honestly, I’m not really nervous to start living in Italy, maybe I should be, but more than anything, I’m just excited and ready to experience something new and up my independence!

I am sad to say goodbye to Shawn and Hayden, they really are some of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Shawn is basically the most outgoing person ever—we met a guy from Iran named Shohab. He was really interesting to talk to; he was able to travel because of his job and only had one day in Rome (which he spent with Shawn and Hayden). We were asking him if Iran had certain things, you know, the important things—like peanut butter and Oreos. To which he answered, “Iran has everything. Except freedom for woman.” It definitely caught me off guard; he said that he wishes it did, and that he did not agree with his country’s politics. I feel like traveling and meeting new people is such an eye opener—it’s good to get out of the States and get a new perspective on things.

Shawn, Myself, Hayden, and Shohab

And finally, an ode to Shawn and Hayden—the best traveling buddies a girl could ask for

• Thank you for always carrying my luggage
• Thank you for making me sandwiches
• Thank you for teaching me how to understand the metro
• Thank you for teaching me random phrases in Russian, I hope to use them someday
• Thanks for being such champs while I wanted to shop in France
• Thank you for taking so many pictures
• Thank you for introducing me to falafel
• Thank you for always being happy
• Thank you for taking the extra long route to Italy because my Eurorail pass didn’t work in Switzerland
• Thank you for introducing me to kinder chocolate
• And thank you for inviting me to join you on the trip of a lifetime!