Italian word of the week: _rilassarsi_ – to relax
“If we stop treating ourselves, we might become normal,” says Alex Fleming, my study abroad friend from Australia. We had just finished eating gelato after a long day of… well, to be honest, it really wasn’t a long day. It was just a treat after dinner on a normal Monday. This straight diva remark seems to be an overarching theme of our study abroad so far.
When many people think of Italy, they think of the catchphrase, “La dolce vita,” meaning the sweet life. This phrase was coined by a famous movie written and directed by the famous Italian director Federico Fellini. Some people also associate this phrase with studying abroad in general.
Basically, it’s just a giant party. You can go out every night and not even have to go to class. You can travel around wherever you are (Milan, for example) meeting models, falling in love with sultry locals, going to cool concerts and shows or, in my case, taking a bazillion jumping pictures all over picturesque European cities. In some ways this is true. You can do all of these things while studying abroad.
Then what separates a study abroad trip from a vacation? Although I’m not sure I fully know quite yet, I seem to be getting a better grasp of it the longer I am here.
For starters, I don’t know many people who go on a vacation completely alone. You usually go with at least one person that you probably know very well. Studying abroad not only forces you to become more independent, it also makes you realize how dependent you actually might be. You might have a romanticized idea of going to a cute little Italian café alone like a really sophisticated person, but if you ask any of the people that studied abroad in the past, I’m sure they are going to say something similar to this quote by Tim Cahill: “A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.”
For some reason, I seem to make friends with huge divas. Carnevale was this past weekend in Milan, and everyone here let their inner divas run rampant. Many of us who are studying abroad also went to Venice the weekend before for the famed Carnevale. Everyone wore huge, elaborate masks to accentuate their inner diva. I can’t tell you how many times random little kids threw confetti on me throughout the week. It seemed the party was endless — these people really were living “la dolce vita.”
Now a diva’s gotta ‘deeve,’ but if you’re living here rather than vacationing here, you sometimes need to remember the other Italian phrase, “la dolce far niente,” meaning the sweetness of doing nothing. If we stop treating ourselves, yes, we run the chance of becoming normal, but sometimes you need to treat yourself to a night in and a good long sleep. So maybe the difference between studying abroad and going on a vacation is that when you study abroad, you don’t have to constantly be worried about getting the most out of your vacation. You also need to get the most from your body. And that might mean skipping a cool party to try 1,002 links that won’t work on a website to watch your favorite show that isn’t available in your country yet.
But for now, it is my birthday. As for rest? Ain’t nobody got time for dat. Ciao for now!