maanantai 9. tammikuuta 2017

24. Firenze


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I decided that week before Christmas I would finally head to Firenze, walk the streets of the beautiful city without direction, just taking pictures of beautiful Christmas lights. You should see the difference between Italian lights and the scrappy lights of my home town in Finland. Every single street is lit up. But one thing Finnish people can do better with their decorations, is their own home lights. Italians hang up such Christmas lights on their balconies that they give you epilepsy. Finnish people prefer beauty in their homes (except my dad, one Christmas I had to hide all the lights form him because they were hideous.)

I have noticed that in the art galleries I seldom take pictures of the art. I like to photograph people looking at the art. I like to photograph people. It’s more rewarding than taking pictures of cold items which have no life shining through their eyes.

The first day I walked for ten hours and enjoyed my time in Uffizi Gallery. But the next morning, I had so high fever that nothing in the world could’ve not taken me to Accademia Gallery. I went home with the strength of all the painkillers I had. But I had nice time, though. 

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23. Christmas & New Year


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Realizing I have only three months left in Italy made me tired for awhile. I ate ice cream straight from the box and spend my evenings in two-hour (boiling) baths. From the sales after Christmas, I bought a whole cake for myself and ate it under ten days (god help me). Now I'm more happier, enjoying every remaining moment. I walk the streets of Lecco, already making lists in my head of the things I will miss the most. The mountains, the countless swans in the lake, the flirtatious men who tell you you’re beautiful even your hair is an absolute mess. The kids.. saying goodbye will tear me in half.

I want to leave but I also want to stay, these two feelings mixing in my head constantly. Many times during the days I realize how much I will miss this, little things causing me to have a warm feeling inside my stomach. Like sitting in the Alpen cottage with all the family, everyone reading their own book, kids sleeping upstairs and someone tapping the table with the end of their pen. It doesn’t even need to be a quiet, relaxing moment. We might be sitting by the dinner table and they are fighting. And I look at those shouting people with a smile on my face and I realize how much I will miss them all.

The Christmas dinner wasn’t actually a dinner. It was a five (or six or seven) course feast which lasted from lunch until the late evening. I have never filled my stomach with such a determination (okay, that’s a lie, but anyways). In Finland we simply have something salty and something sweet, filling our plates with anything we like. In Italy.. There’s the appetizers of appetizers, then the actual appetizers, the first course, then something else, then the second course, then again something and finally, the sweet. You’re already bursting when the dessert comes, but because it’s the sweet, you eat it anyway and then you roll away from the table.

For the New Year’s I went to the Alps with the family. I packed my bags with all the feminist books I finally got from Amazon and spent four days at the mountains without internet. My only New Year’s resolution? Buy and wear more lipstick which screams “YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIKE ME.”

Happy New Year 2017!


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