One of the many themes I’ve finally accepted this semester is that choice isn’t always the best thing. An great instance on my flight to Chicago is the choice of TV shows. On my flight over, each seat had its own TV set. I was able to choose any of the 12 channels that I wanted. It was great, but I ended up not watching many of the shows; I had my laptop and it was easier to choose a DVD than to surf the channels.

The plane for this flight isn’t nearly as fancy as the one I came over on. There are four TVs in the center of the cabin – and they only show one channel. When I first realized this I was a little disappointed. Then they started the TV and it was showing CBS. Great – CBS – a network that I’m OK with, but don’t love. Oh well. Then came the shows: they only showed clips from certain shows. The 60 Minutes was stale; like normal. The Early Show was on rubber stamps; not my thing. The CBS Sports was on Vinny Testaverde; I’ve missed a whole NFL season and it was boring. The rest were phenomenal. They showed the pilot episode of “How I Met Your Mother.” I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I was watching it in the States, but on the plane (without commercial interruptions) it was HILARIOUS! After that: “The Late Show with David Letterman” where Dave did a cooking segment with Rachel Ray! Both of them are funny anyway, but putting them together was too much.

Two weeks ago iTunes started selling TV shows from USA and NBC, including segments from Jay Leno. I’m just waiting for them to get an agreement with CBS (in particular for this issue of the cooking segment), Food Network and Comedy Central. Imagine: a 30 minute cooking show costing $2 to download and watch on your computer or iPod when you’re in the kitchen making it. BRING IT ON!!! I’m not sure when/if they will, but I can still hope. 😉

I LOVE airport people who have good personalities. When I got to the airport this morning and checked in for my flight to Chicago, the American Airlines flights require passengers to go through a question-answer screening process before even being allowed to get the boarding pass. The lady asking me questions was hilarious. Here’s my attempt to remember all that we said:

Her: Hello Mr. Frieberg, are you in a good mood today?
Me: Yes, definitely.
Her: Wrong answer. I’m getting sick and I’m in a terrible mood.
Me: [GULP with a smirk]
Her: It’s not good to make me jealous. OK, first, you checked luggage already?
Me: Yes, I checked two bags back in Florence.
Her: Don’t run away, I need to go get your ticket and other information — and I’m NOT in a chasing mood.
Me: OK.
Her: Well, we have a problem. You were originally on yesterday’s flight. Do you have a reasonable excuse for missing that one?
Me: My flight here got cancelled from Rome, so I had to catch a later one.
Her: I thought I told you not to make me jealous; WHAT were you doing in Rome?
Me: I was flying through there because I was studying in Italy for the past 3 and a half months.
Her: OK, you might as well not talk anymore.
Her: Now, who owns all of the bags your carrying and all of the contents?
Me: I do.
Her: Good answer. Now, do any of the bags have electronic devices in them that are powered by a battery?
Me: Yep: a laptop, cell phone, digital camera, iPod … and there’s probably more I’m not remembering.
Her: Typical.

Let me just say: I’m going to really miss Europe. So many people are hilarious and have incredible personalities. Also, everyone flirts to a small degree — even the men — it’s just a happy world-view.

Allora, my flight to Frankfurt was relaxing, but the airport was definitely not. After getting off the plane I made my way to the American Airlines ticket counter two concourses from my gate and talked to the wonderful clerk. Transatlantic flights are dependent upon three key components: 1) a plane, 2) passengers arriving on time, and 3) time zone differences (it doesn’t make sense to arrive at an airport at 3am). My flight into Frankfurt arrived almost an hour after my flight to Chicago left. I guess I didn’t follow the second one.

American Airlines only has two flights going across each day: one to Dallas and the other to Chicago. The lady could see the spark in my eye when she mentioned that and quickly extinguished it with reality by saying that the Dallas flight was completely full. She was incredibly helpful and booked me on the flight for tomorrow at the same time. When I asked her what I should do for the night (I’m pretty flexible and could even have just stayed in the airport all night), she said that Alitalia, since they were the ones who cancelled the flight, were the ones liable. She kindly pointed me to their desk on the other side of the hall.

I showed up to the Alitalia desk and was standing in line and hearing the lady at the counter utterly berating a lady who’d missed a flight from Milan to Toronto (the lady was saying she shouldn’t have even been in Frankfurt). Already fearing the worst, I stood in line and surprisingly had a smile on my face. It wasn’t one of those fake smiles that I sometimes do; I was authentically content.

A man then walked up behind the counter and asked how he could help. When I explained the situation, he immediately got angry and said “was your Lufthansa flight late?” (Lufthansa was the airline I took from Rome to Frankfurt). I looked at him, thought a minute, and said, “well, actually, yeah it was 10 minutes late — but I would have missed my connection in any case since the Alitalia flight was cancelled.” His attitude immediately changed and he asked to see all of my forms. I pulled them all out of my folder (when I normally travel I’m NEVER this organized — coming over to Europe I didn’t even have an e-ticket receipt or anything with me!) and gave them to him.

He went into a back office and came out five minutes later and started typing and telling me that he was going to transfer my American ticket to tomorrow. I think I made his day when I said I’d already had it done. He looked at me, smiled, and said that he was going to find me a hotel for the night. My smile had to have been so big! He booked the room, filled out the voucher and gave me all of the instructions with the final one: even though your bags were checked to Chicago, they’ll be waiting for you downstairs since you missed your flight.

I made my way into the baggage claim and I knew they wouldn’t be there on the carousel. The Lufthansa people were incredible in handling it: when I asked them to trace them they first asked why I was over an hour late (a short: “I missed my flight and the next one’s not until tomorrow” solved that one) and then searched on the computer and said that they were already in the queue for my flight tomorrow. PERFECT!!! After I assured them that I didn’t need them for tonight (who wants to haul around 40kg of luggage around just for a night in a hotel?), I made my way to the shuttle and took it to the hotel.

I’ve stayed in some nice hotels, and this is definitely one of the better ones. Since I have a single room, there’s a leather recliner that I can use to start on my newest book: Graham Greene’s novel The Man Within. Also, the bathroom came with amenities that I just laughed at: an individually wrapped comb and a bottle of shampoo. I’ll probably use the shampoo (even though I’m used to body wash now) — but the comb is definitely going to stay there.

I’m now going to read a little before grabbing dinner (which the airlines also paid for, along with the breakfast). Going with the flow and having a smile really does pay off sometimes.

Yesterday I wrote that change is bittersweet; it’s so true. Today I had four different flights to catch. Knowing today’s transportation systems, I should have known better than to think it would happen problem-free. I made my Florence flight to Rome without a problem. The sleep I got on it was great; I’d only slept 5 hours last night. I arrived at Rome ten minutes early and made my way to my gate. Then the chaos started. First the flight was only delayed 15 minutes; then an hour and 15 minutes; then it was cancelled altogether.

Normally this would have driven me crazy. I remember a flight two summers ago being cancelled and causing me to get to a conference late. I stressed all day about all of the details and in the end it worked out OK. Because of experiences like that, however, I despise airports.

Italy taught me to “go with the flow” this semester. Using the walking power I built up over the semester in Florence, I calmly beat almost everyone on my flight to the ticket counter at the other end of the terminal. There’s a Lufthansa flight that leaves at 12:55pm (almost four hours after mine was supposed to leave). Alitalia wrote out the transfer slip and I, along with two new traveling companions for this leg of the trip (one from Germany and one from India) got our new boarding passes and made our way to our new gate.

I don’t know what awaits me in Frankfurt. My bags will have been on three different airline carriers when I get home, so I’m not betting on them making it with me. If they do: great; if not: that’s OK as well. When I get there I’ll arrive 40 minutes after my flight to Chicago is scheduled to leave. American may still put me on a flight to Chicago – or they may do one to DFW – or they may do something completely different: who knows! In any case, I’m anxious to get home, but I’m also remarkably stress-free at the moment. It may just be the lack of sleep, or it may be that I changed this semester.

One of the many themes that rules my life is the anticipation I suffer when approaching a transition. For every summer activity I start focusing on the next thing approaching when I’m only 90% (and sometimes 70%) of the way through the summer. My energy always starts to fizzle out right before the end so that, when it comes time to finish, I’m “running on fumes.” This was a big part of why I’m graduating early: why languish in my final semester when I can finish strong a semester early?

As much as I like to pretend I can always finish strong, this semester the gauntlet was thrown. With so many distractions from living in a foreign country, my greatest struggle to was concentrate and finish well. My new method of procrastination: countdowns. In under 43 hours I’ll be on a plane on my way home. In five days I’ll have my degree. In 12 days I’ll start three full days of Christmas celebrations with my families.

Between now and then I have three finals to take. My Italian grammar final is this afternoon and hopefully won’t be bad. I’m not guaranteeing that since my professor was gone all of last week and we took a test on the last day and get those back today. Then again, for the entire semester we’ve only had a few minutes to review our tests after we get them back, so today won’t be any different. I’ll go to class, stay after and take that final, and then get ready for tomorrow. What happens tomorrow? The last two: International Topics in Political Science (should be a fun final to take — I’ve done all of the readings and was engaged in the class discussions) and my Italian Conversation. The conversation final is the one which I’m not confident in. The Italian finals count for 40% of my semester grade, so it all comes down to the next 28 hours. Once those are finished, my undergraduate time is finished.

There aren’t many things that can bring on so much anticipation for me that I get homesick. I listen to Christmas music and enjoy it, but it doesn’t make me homesick (unlike some others in the TCU group). Modern technology lets me communicate with my family and others from around the world. Even though I don’t get homesick easily, something happened in mass yesterday that made me chuckle.

In his homily, Roger was talking about the prophecy of Isaiah. He was giving it context and describing how it was supposed to move people. “Isaiah wrote to an exiled people; he wrote to the cast out in the world with the simple message ‘Come Home!'” Kristina was sitting beside me and was confused at first on why I started laughing. Roger’s message struck me where I least thought it could; advent isn’t a time of comfort or a time of nostalgia – it’s a time of uncertainty and a time where we’re expected to move and change. Hmmm … 42 hours or so!

Day trips are now too easy for me. Why pay for a night in a hotel when you can do all of the sightseeing in a day? Today’s trip was to Assisi.

I began the morning with a brutal start. Brett and Erin went with me, so we decided to meet at the train station at 8am. That meant that Brett and I both had to be ready and out the door at 7:45. I woke up at 7:37 and was dressed and outside on time! Then came the train ride: a 2.5 hour InterCity train; it obviously wasn’t the high-speed nice Eurostar type. The long train rides did let me catch up on sleep, though!

When we finally got to Assisi, we weren’t even close to the town. Assisi is built on a tall hill and the train station is almost 4km away in the valley below. Conveniently, the city is always well-prepared for tourists and pilgrims, so the bus taking us to the city pulled out five minutes after we arrived.

Our first stop was the Cathedral of San Francesco. Gorgeous doesn’t begin to describe it. At the top of the hill in the city, this cathedral is actually two different churches in one. It’s built onto the edge of the hill, so the view going up to it is breathtaking. At the top of these incredibly long columns (I’m guessing at least 100 meters in some parts) are arches that give uniformity to every side of the building. If you’ve seen “The Return of the King” (another must), this cathedral has a similar look to the hilltop castle with the great coronation scene at the end. Walking up to the cathedral the wind caused the running joke of the day: Brett’s and Erin’s umbrellas immediately turned inside-out. Erin’s was a nicer quality, so it was at least reparable. Brett’s, however, snapped in several of the linking metal bands. He made a valiant effort the entire day of trying to salvage it, but it never truly worked.

We started with the upper cathedral. The frescos were pretty (like normal), but the environment definitely wasn’t one of devotion. Most churches in Italy will charge admission for tourists while leaving it free for any locals or anyone wanting to pray in a specific chapel. The Cathedral of San Francesco kept it free for everyone, but paradoxically lost most of the atmosphere. There were two uniformed officers (not Italian police or military) who were walking around and using the loud speaker system to ask everyone to be quiet. Brett pointed out that hilarity of the situation.

The lower cathedral was different; the mood and ambiance of the place was great. My favorite part was the Cappeli Immaculata which had modern relief carvings of the Annunciation, Crucifixion and other scenes. These reliefs were obviously modern (one of the characters is wearing glasses while looking into the light), but they recreated SO MUCH of the intensity I can see in paintings of the same scenes by Fra Angelico in the Monastery of San Marco. These reliefs were both still incredibly relevant and reverent.

In the lower cathedral was the entrance to the crypt underneath the structure that holds the tomb of St. Francis and those of many of his followers. When we first walked down into the crypt Erin and I could tell there was a low buzz. We’re not sure if it was the acoustics, the breathing of the people in it, the ventilation system or simply that it was a holy place; it may have been a combination of the four). In any case, this buzz filled the void since absolutely no one was talking. There was a long line of people always passing the grave and after I’d gone around and looked, I sat in the back row and enjoyed the moment.

Finishing in the cathedral, we’d only been in Assisi for 1.5 hours, so we grabbed lunch. Then we went for our next target: a hill fort that was supposed to have some of the best views in town. With all of the views we’d seen we knew that they’d have to be incredible in the fort. After at least five wrong turns and detours, we gave up on the hill fort (yes, we had a full map and everything — it’s a medieval town!) and went to the next church: Sant Rufino. Erin and I are still arguing about whether it had a renaissance or baroque interior. I think it’s baroque; Erin thinks its architecture is renaissance with baroque altarpieces.

The next stop was Santa Chiara. We had a lot of hope for this basilica. It’s outside has a gorgeous front facade. The entire exterior is designed using pink and white marble. Inside was disappointing: most of the frescoes (I’m guessing somewhere around 90%) were painted over and white-washed off of the walls. It’s a tragedy. The interior looks so plain and bare that one looking at it in a book would never say it was in Italy.

After that, we decided to head back to Florence on the 3:23 train. 2.5 hours later and we made it back to our (semi-)warm apartments and the familiarity of Florence.

The ironies of life never stop occurring. That’s probably both a blessing and a curse (hence ironies). My aunt Becky told me mid-semester that a friend of hers had a daughter studying in Spain who I needed to get in touch with. Kelsie and I both e-mailed each other throughout the semester and she decided to come over to Florence before her finals week. Studying in Seville, Spain, she and her friends decided they wanted to see Italy.

This past week was crazy for both of us, so out e-mails were scattered. Luckily, Florence has some great monuments that made it easier for us to coordinate. She sent me an e-mail last night before getting on her flight this morning and we decided to meet at the Duomo steps at 8. I was nervous and not sure what to expect. In her e-mail she said to look for “a confused blonde” — at least I knew she’d have a personality.

We met and she introduced me to herself and her friends and when I asked what they wanted to do they looked at me and said, “what’s there do in Florence at night.” The expression on my face had to have been hilarious; not only am I not the one to ask that question to, but I was stumped. One of them mentioned that they hadn’t had dinner, so I took them for a short walking tour of some of the area south of the Duomo before taking them to one of my favorite restaurants: La Maddia.

Unfortunately the meal didn’t match up to the other times I’ve been there. The waitress forgot the water until the end of the meal and the food was lukewarm at best. It was relatively inexpensive for a Florence dinner, however, and I think the girls still enjoyed it.

After dinner I took them to the see the copy of Michelangelo’s “David” by the Palazzo Vecchio. It’s such a non-event for me since I’ve done it in Art History and walked by it many times. I made sure to walk in front so I couldn’t see their faces. Once we rounded the corner into the Piazza I heard the squeals and moans. I turned around and they were astounded. I then got to imitate Dr. Reynolds and explain some of the history of the statues and the area. I’m such a con, but it worked and they enjoyed it. Every additional step we took, though, put something else into view and they loved it even more. When we finally had the Uffizi fully in view they just stopped walking.

Eventually we made it to the gelateria by the girls’ place and spent some time there before going back to their hostel by Santa Croce. I’m heading to Assisi tomorrow, so they’re on their own for tomorrow (I drafted an itinerary for them with six different things to see) and we’re meeting on Saturday morning for even more sites before they have to leave in the afternoon.

None of this was the irony. The irony came when talking to Kelsie on the way back to the hostel. She had been asking me where I live in Iowa and I described it in relation to my aunt Becky’s house since she knows where it is. After I got done describing it, she said, “I think I’ve been to your grandparents house and swam in their pool; do they live near you?” I started laughing and just shook my head. Incredible. For those who don’t know, my parents bought my grandparent’s house when I was in 5th grade (1995) and my grandparents built a new one next-door. When I told her it was actually our house and our pool everyone in the group started laughing as much as I did. Kelsie then asked, “So you live on the horse farm too?” It was TOO ironic. She lives in Colfax, 35 minutes away from Norwalk, and it turns out she’s been in our pool. You never know who you’ll meet in the middle of Italy!

Tonight the TCU group decided to go to Il Latini, a GREAT restaurant in Florence. Erin got us reservations and had heard of this place on the Food Network. It didn’t disappoint. As you’ve already gathered from other writings, Italy is a country very nonchalantly meticulous with food; they want it to have the best quality and served with the perfect combinations, but they also want the people eating to enjoy it as much as possible. It’s a nice attitude.

The night we arrived in Florence, Jeremy (who’s now no longer with Accent — long story) took us out to dinner at a restaurant without a menu. It was simple: you have a choice of three things for each course and you choose one. Il Latini was the same way! Because we had a reservation they ushered us right in to our table and once our backs touched our chairs they had the antipasti of prosciutto in front of us. We all looked at each other and realized what kind of restaurant we had just walked into; it was a look of terror and admiration combined in one; it was sublime.

Besides the prosciutto for the first course, they brought out several crostini with different oils and spreads. Then came the choice: pasta or soup. We all (with the exception of Brett) chose soup – Pappa al Pomodoro. I’ve had this soup almost half-a-dozen times while in Florence and this version didn’t compare to any of the previous ones. Before we could even get a quarter of the way through, the owner came over and said we weren’t liking it well enough, so he told the waiter something in Italian (too quiet-slurred-fast for us to understand) and said he was taking care of it. ?!? We didn’t even know how to react. Italians are about slow-food movement; without even giving us a chance to see how good it was (even though he was right in the end), he made the decision and got us a better dish. The meal became even more sublime. At this point someone asked how much it cost since we weren’t choosing any of this: he gave us a price and it was more than any of us had paid for a single meal in the semester (although I’ve been close a couple of times — all of them memorable), but we all realized it was going to be worth it.

The pasta dish they brought out was full of ribbon noodles drenched in a red non-tomato-based meat sauce. It was unbelievably better than the soup. Then they brought out three different vegetable plates: spinach, beans in a red sauce, and peas with hap. These peas were some of the sweetest peas I’ve ever had; and I don’t even like peas. Before we realized it, they brought out the meat plate. To say it was a plate doesn’t do it justice. It was a ceramic dish, but the meat amounted to the size of two (maybe three) footballs. There was SO much.

What kinds of meat take up so much? For sure there was roasted beef, lamb, chicken, veal, and rabbit. We each had a full plate and there was still 2/3 of the meat on the tray left. Luckily someone, I think Marisa, asked if we could take it home — which they didn’t mind at all! Brett made an admirable attempt to make up for the rest of us. After his third plate he said enough, and then the waiter came over, put his hands on each of Brett’s and then helped Brett use the fork and knife to cut more off and put it on his plate. Marisa had the comment of the night: “wow Brett, you got served!” (Those under 25 should get the pop-humor of that)

After all of this came the desserts: six different types with spoons for each of us to try. There was a chocolate gelato dish that resembled a mousse. There was a baked cake of three flavors of dough with a creamy filling. There was a carmel sauce on a flaum. There was another cake with a liqueur center. There was a raspberry cake. Then came an experiment for all of us: lemon and almond biscotti. These dippable cookies came out with a brown liquor that we think was a type of dessert brandy. We assumed we were supposed to dip: big mistake! The flavor combination was atrocious. So, after I’d had three cookies and that flavor was out of my mouth, I gave it some time and then decided it was a waste to not drink the brandy. That was my best decision of the night. I’d had three glasses of the table red wine earlier at dinner and I ended up having three of those glasses of the dessert drink (some of the others didn’t believe me that it actually tasted good).

After that, they brought out a bottle of another dessert drink. We’re not sure what it was (Erin made sure to get a picture of the label). It wasn’t bubbly like a champagne, but it was INCREDIBLY sweet. Two glasses of that and I decided to end the night on a good note. We finished the meal and went back to the girls’ apartment and hung out for a while. We all had a little buzz, but none of us were obnoxious. Simply sitting and talking with everyone brought back great memories of the beginning of the semester. We started the semester this way and we finished it too. Semesters are symmetrical: we work hardest at the beginning and the end, we do more things together when we first get to know each other and when the end is in view. Il Latini was a great thing for the last week of the semester and the friendships we created here.