It is eight o\u2019clock in the morning on September the twenty fourth.<\/p>\n
Florentine traffic pounds by outside of the open hostel window.<\/p>\n
The room is musty, the smell of mold so faint that I wonder if I\u2019m only imagining it. It is silent in the sixteen-person dorm. The four girls lay face down on their bunks, legs peeking out of white sheets, escaping the heat while maintaining some sort of imagined privacy. The room is illuminated by the dusty sunlight that manages its way inside, tumbling over buildings and twisting around windowsills just to touch the dirty concrete floor. I begin to write: \u201cOof. What a night out in Florence\u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Hoping that the gentle pattering of my fingers on the keyboard wouldn\u2019t lull any of my roommates out of their hungover snoozing.<\/p>\n I\u00a0remember the first time that I went to Dante\u2019s. My friends and I had heard about it from past study abroaders. \u201cStop right there,\u201d We said collectively one Skype session, our friends relaying to us details of a place in Florence that served free wine to students, so long as they ordered an entr\u00e9e. \u201cYou had us at \u2018free wine\u2019.\u201d[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]\u201cStop right there,\u201d We said collectively one Skype session, our friends relaying to us details of a place in Florence that served free wine to students, so long as they ordered an entr\u00e9e. \u201cYou had us at \u2018free wine\u2019.\u201d[\/perfectpullquote]<\/p>\n And so we ventured out onto the darkened cobblestoned streets one night, dressed in what-we-thought-were<\/em> Florentine essentials: black skinny jeans, Italian leather boots, a flouncy sheer tank, a leather jacket. We were a giggly clientele. We flirted with the wait staff, winked at the table of students next to us, stumbled on home, stopping in on a few\u00a0discotecas<\/em>\u00a0and pubs on our way. We woke up the next morning with clear heads and bright eyes. We laced up our sneakers, went to classes and did it all over again. Every day, every week, every month passed like this until it was time to pack up my pink suitcase, board a plane and cross the Atlantic.<\/p>\n Last night was my first visit to Florence since this time, two years, but so long ago. This time, I came a graduate, a wannabe writer, a slightly older young twentysomething.\u00a0I turned to my travel partner, who had only ever been to Florence on a short weekend trip, and asked her an all-important question, \u201cHave you been to Dante\u2019s?\u201d As she shook her head, my heart soared and I knew that our last night in Florence could only be spent in one place.[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]\u201cHave you been to Dante\u2019s?\u201d As she shook her head, my heart soared and I knew that our last night in Florence could only be spent in one place.[\/perfectpullquote]<\/p>\n That night, I led my friend through narrow alleys and over hilly streets, taking brief refuge from the intermittent rain under striped awnings, until, finally, we made it. The restaurant was packed and the two of us were squeezed into a table framed by the kitchen and the toilet.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents?\u201d The cute Italian waiter asked\u00a0knowingly.<\/p>\n We nodded expectantly, grinning and affirming, \u201cSi, si!\u201d<\/p>\n The man clapped\u00a0his hands and smiled back, turning around briefly and returning with a flagon full of sparkling white wine. We ordered the necessary entr\u00e9es, though the wine would likely be enough for us. The loud table next to us caught\u00a0my attention; it was\u00a0the table that I used to sit at as a student. It can seat ten people comfortably \u2013 and fifteen people uncomfortably.<\/p>\n Tonight was\u00a0the uncomfortable fare. There were\u00a0fourteen people stuffed hastily around the table. They were\u00a0loud, unselfconscious, American. They signaled to\u00a0the waiter and waved their student cards under his nose. They stared at us as the night went\u00a0on and our full flagon of wine was\u00a0joined by another \u2013 the waiter winking \u2013 while theirs sat\u00a0empty on their table. The boys wore\u00a0cargo shorts and the girls don that oddly familiar uniform of skinny jeans, flouncy sheer shirts and leather jackets.<\/p>\n Suddenly, I was greeted by something I can only call d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n I am back in Dante\u2019s, it is 2013, I am in a leather jacket and skinny jeans. It is our last night in Florence and my eyes are bleary from the constantly refilled pitcher of wine.\u00a0Wow<\/em>, I think,\u00a0I am twenty and I am traveling, I am cultured, I know so much, I can say<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>thank you\u00a0<\/em>in another language<\/em>!\u00a0I sit contentedly among a bubble of Americans in a foreign city, thinking that I was perhaps at the tippy-top of the cultured ladder.<\/p>\n But now, two years and countless plane rides later, I come to another conclusion.<\/p>\n I am in Dante\u2019s, it is 2015, I am in a short white dress. It is my last night in Florence and my eyes are bleary from the constantly refilled pitcher of wine.\u00a0Wow<\/em>, I think,\u00a0<\/em>I am twenty-three and I am traveling, I am lucky, I know so little, I can\u2019t say so much that I want to<\/em>.\u00a0I sit contentedly across from my friend in a foreign city, thinking that I have a long journey of learning, seeing and doing ahead of me.<\/p>\n The prospect of knowing so little has never delighted me so much.<\/p>\n Inspired to visit the wine-laden streets of Florence for yourself? It’s so beautiful, romantic and wistful, I don’t blame you. But don’t take my word for it, go see this ancient city\u00a0for yourself!<\/em><\/p>\n Don’t Take My Word For It is a bi-monthly column for all you trekking troubadours out there looking for advice, solidarity or just a couple of paragraphs\u00a0with pretty words from someone who’s seen it, done it, lived it, dreamt it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is eight o\u2019clock in the morning on September the twenty fourth. Florentine traffic pounds by outside of the open hostel window. The room is musty, the smell of mold so faint that I wonder if I\u2019m only imagining it. It is silent in the sixteen-person dorm. The four girls lay face down on their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":97179026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2121,1018,1942],"tags":[2118,189,572,512,2120,2119],"class_list":["post-97179019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dont-take-my-word-for-it","category-international-destinations","category-travel-stories","tag-dont-take-my-word-for-it","tag-europe","tag-italy","tag-solo-travel","tag-study-abroad","tag-travel-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97179019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97179019"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97179019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97191049,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97179019\/revisions\/97191049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97179026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97179019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97179019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cheapoair.com\/miles-away\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97179019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}