day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere

Whenever anyone asks me for one of my favorite memories. I always quote this one.

"In 1999, I traveled to Italy for two months to study Interior Design. It was my first time, officially, completely separated from my family. And it wasn't without its own special brand of difficulty. My ATM card demagnetized itself while traveling and I freaked out. I was certainly quite a bit poorer than my classmates, and was also traveling sans credit card. What I choose to forget about Italy was the heat, the cold and dirty stone floors, and the feeling of being alone among people my own age who I couldn't relate to. And the loss of a friendship. Because the trip taught me that I love to travel alone. That I prefer the peacefulness and grace of studying native people in their native land and not slumming around Europe with rough and rude Americans. (Sorry, y'all, it's true) That amazing food, architecture, art and culture ARE mutually exclusive from your travel companions. That I can be independent and happy.

And that I can be alone. That being alone is preferable to pretending to like to hang out with people you don't like very much. And while I may have lost a friendship that I thought was great; it turned out she wasn't that fantastic of a person - and I gained the friendship of an absolutely fabulous roommate who was smart, funny, lovely and sensible.

But the one night that I remember best. Was being in the darkness in the middle of Piazza San Marco - that historical plaza where ever movie ever made about Venice features prominently. And the small string quartet playing outside of Harry's Bar at midnight. And the stone square and Moorish influenced Ducal Palace to the Campanile (the same one my own college's tower was modeled after) echoing back the traces of this song while the waves of the lagoon slapped against the piers and the gondolas swayed back and forth...