FOUR DAYS

london, england to rome, italy
when you work two full time jobs, it is difficult to get two days off together, even with schedules posting at two week intervals - but when you get four days off in a row from both gigs, the universe is telling you something! i headed off to the nearest student travel agency to book something last minute. i'd been in london for about ten months and i missed seeing the sun in a blue sky, so that was the goal.

sistine chapel ceiling

i couldn't get a flight in and out of athens, cairo, casablanca, seville, barcalona or nice. when i was nearing the giving up point, the agent suggested rome. i didn't want to go to italy - i'd heard the men could be 'persistent' and there just had never been any pull for me, despite my love of puccini and michelangelo. she looked anyway, and found a flight into rome and out of milan - not ideal, but the closest i could get to sun, so i gave in, and two days later i was landing in rome with pavarotti blaring nessun dorma through my headphones.

my first impression was that the light was different, diffused with red and orange filters. i fell in love almost immediately.
i wandered through the city with a slight sense of urgency - i was heading to sienna that evening. i saw the colosseum, ate pizza at the spanish steps, discovered gelato and hung out at the sistine chapel (so beautiful). at 7pm i caught my northbound train, but missed my stop (being a monoglot has it's drawbacks), and ended up in florence. that night i paid for a moderately fancy hotel room near the train station and fell asleep watching the a-team dubbed in italian. a wonderful first day!

lucca tower

i had intended to backtrack to sienna in the morning, but the first train didn't leave until noon. i headed off to the uffizi to visit david and then wandered around the famous duomo, but i killed too much time and missed my train.
i gave up on sienna and took the first train going anywhere west or north. 10 minutes later i was on a train headed to lucca. there was an italian deli by that name where i grew up, but that was the extent of my knowledge on lucca. what i found was an utterly charming, non-touristy, medieval walled city that turned out to be the home of puccini (i visited his house and touched the piano he composed turandot on). instead of heading on to pisa, i stayed in lucca, just wandering the streets, drinking in the light, basking in the sun, finding hidden art treasures in the little cathedrals that were everywhere, and, of course, eating gelato.
i was enjoying lucca so much that when i finally left for milan, i only had time to go see the last supper before heading to the airport to go home. but it was an overcast day there anyway, so i wasn't sorry to miss the city famous for fashion.

when you get it in your head to do one thing, but road blocks come up everywhere you turn, being stubborn can kill your joy. letting the universe point you in a new direction can be an amazing gift. if not for that travel agent, i probably would have avoided italy my whole life, and what a loss that would have been for me.
to this day it is my favorite country in europe and the only one i continue to return to.