(4/23) The last day

I woke up at 10…three hours after going to sleep. I woke up to the noise of the pensione, although exhausted, I just wanted to be up and be with everyone. I got up, ate, and walked around to all the rooms chatting and what not. Keagan, Sean and Justin were all leaving around 2, so there was an unfortunate sadness around the pensione. Chloe came over around 11, everyone was being sad together so we decided to go out in the city. It was raining…of course. It rained our first day here, so it just had to rain our last. We went to the school, did some last minute things, and headed out to lunch. We got lunch and ran into a bunch of other kids there. We talked about our previous nights, reminisced, and then got up to roam the city. Chloe and I were with Garrett, Brooks, Carl, Kuss and Mary, but this shifted and changed throughout the next four hours. We shopped around.. Some went to get last minute souveneirs, presents for friends, parents, family, etc. It was raining so it was somber. We were all bummed but trying to make the most fun and light of our last day. Chloe and I got our last scoops of Grom Gelatto (our favorite place) and headed home. The plan was to pack.
I tried packing, I did. Multiple times. But it was so hard. Id pack for a few minutes, then stop, run down the hall and sit and talk with Jackie, Kussman, Gibbs…whoever was there. I ran back to school to say bye to the Student Life staff and to Alessandro, grabbed my fresco, and returned to the pensione.
I decided the best thing for my fresco was to give it to Giovanni and Marinella. Marinella was gone for a bit, so I went into the office to give it to Giovanni. (note: neither of them speaks a word of English…) I went into the office and set it down. He looked at it with such shear joy, and said “Brava, Brava!” I told him “Io dipinto in clase di arte, e volglio dare e tu”; that I had painted this in my art class, and that I wanted to give it to him. His face completely changed. I think he had originally thought that I was simply showing him what I had done at school, like “look what I did dad!!” when I told him I wanted to give it to him he looked at me and his eyes filled with tears. He hugged me and said thank you, we kissed and embraced for days (shocker). He then sat and talked to me about the painting. My Italian isn’t great when I try to speak, but when I listen I am much better. He told me he used to paint when he was younger, and had even done frescos. He liked the way I used colors, and how I carved the babies heads to make them look 3-dimensional. I understood everything he said, and he was impressed. We hugged some more, I thanked him for everything, and left even more emotional than before…as if that was at all possible. I packed more, or tried. The room was a complete mess, Roomie was trying to pack too. Her parents had come at some point in the day, Marinella brought them back. While they ran into the room to hug Elizabeth, Marinella and I stood in the halway admiring all the hugging and loving. As we watched them, being so happy they were all together, but at the same time realizing it was all coming to an end. There is such a communication gap between us, nonetheless, we ended up turning to each other at the same timeand hugging and kissing in reaction to all the love going on with my roommates family.
For dinner we had a group of about 12 of our friends, not including the ones that had left earlier that day. When we arrived at the restaurant, our friend Michelle was there with her parents, they asked if we minded that they join in on our last dinner. We of course welcomed them with open arms. Her father insisted that we all share a very traditional italian meal for our last one there. He ordered lots of red wine, 6 orders of a bruscetta appetizer for the table, and told us all to order wisely, because everyone would be having a pasta course AND a main course. We were all shocked, couldnt believe that we were so lucky as to have a friend with such generous parents. They were exited to meet us, hear our stories, and share such a great meal together. I had gnocchi as my pasta and then an eggplant dinner. None of us have ever eaten that much at a restaurant, mostly because having two dishes in one meal is past the amount we want to spend. At the end of the meal Mr. McNulty got up and gave us a little speech. He talked about his Study Abroad experience, that he had 36 years earlier. How the friends he made there were ones he still has. He talked about the importance of keeping in touch with each other, because we are a special group of people, ones who have had an experience that not a lot of others get to have. He had us all in tears by the end and he said exactly what all of us wanted and needed to hear. We all thanked her parents over and over for providing us with such a fantastic final meal, and they left.
The rest of us stayed at the restaurant finishing the wine, and talking. 4 hours after the beginning of the meal we got up and left. We went to the Duomo and sat on the steps for a while, took pictures, etc. Eventually we made our way over to the Shot café. A ton of kids in the program were there. All taking shots, reminiscing, crying, saying goodbye, etc. Our friend Ralph bought about 40 for every GIF student who was there and made a speech before we all cheersed and took our group shot. I sat with my friends for hours, talked, loved, lots of goodbyes, etc.
We finally began to make our ways home when the bar closed at 3. We went home at end of night with a big group, tried to find secret bakery with Ralph AGAIN, and still couldn’t find it. Such a Fail. I never once made it to the Secret Bakery, and I am still bummed about it. I will go back to Florence one day and Secret Bakery will be one of my first stops..
I went home, finished packing and said bye to gibbs, Jackie, Lauren and stina. Then I headed to Kikis and Chloes place to wait for our taxi. I laid in bed with the girls until the cab came, got in the cab at 4 am and headed to the airport.