Vernazza, Cinque Terra
Have you ever been to a place so beautiful and enchanting that you truly feel like you are walking in a little piece of heaven? Like the world has stopped turning and you are standing right in the middle of the entire universe, and in that place, you feel at peace with both yourself and everything surrounding you. Whether you believe in a higher being or not, when you travel or stumble upon one of these worldly treasures, it is almost impossible not to think that it must have taken something magnificent to create such a place; that a sanctuary as beautiful and serene as Eden’s Garden itself was only the work of the hand of something much bigger than anything we can fathom. Whether it was while we were on vacation and we saw the sun playing on the ocean waters, if it was traveling through the countryside of a distant land, or if it was simply watching the sun rise and watching the world take in its first breath of air for the day, we have all witnessed and been somewhere where we have witnessed true beauty; beauty not created by man, but by the incredible and commanding force of nature.
This place, this sanctuary, for me, was Cinque Terra, Italy. If you have ever opened up a travel book or magazine, if you love finding and discovering photographs of interesting places in the world as I do, if you have simply typed in “Italy” in a Google search bar, you have more than likely seen a photo of Cinque Terra, otherwise known as “The Five Lands”. It is about an hour and a half west of Pisa, and it is tucked away right on the Italian Riviera. The “Five Lands” that compose Cinque Terra are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and last but certainly not least, Riomaggiore, but of course, these places do not mean anything to you unless you have seen them with your own eyes. Seeing the names of Cinque Terra written down has no lasting effect on us, if any effect at all. It is walking their paths and eating their foods that help us define and bear witness to their insurmountable magic.
Cinque Terra is heaven on earth. It has you thinking and imagining that your own eyes are lying to you, because surely a place like this only exists in fairy tales and “Once upon a time” stories. But it is real. Totally and completely real and authentic. There is a long hiking path named Sentiero Azzuro, or “Light Blue Trail,” that connects all five villages. Because of its unique location, Cinque Terra is near impossible to conquer via car. There are only a minimal amount of trains that even take you into Cinque Terra, all of which come from La Spezia, the closest developed city to Cinque Terra. Otherwise, it is best to discover and explore these cliffside villages by either train or by walking the path.
As you walk up and over the cliffs hugging the Mediterranean, you pass by miles and miles of olive trees and grape vines. Baskets pass over your head that are filled to the brim with fresh grapes that are headed to the closest village to be squeezed into fresh wine, and the olives are so fat and juicy and are just waiting to be devoured by both locals and travelers alike. The culture of these villages is simple; their lives revolve around the growing and harvesting of their sun-kissed fruits. It is almost as if you took a time machine back one hundred years and felt the true joy of the simple pleasures in life, the pleasures that we all too easily forget and put on the back burner. Cinque Terra has no high rise apartments, no piercing buildings, and takes life at its own pace. There is no rushing in Cinque Terra, but rather acknowledging every breath you take and realizing that life is best experienced when experienced slowly and thoughtfully and over a plentiful plate of food.
Walking right next to the Mediterranean Sea, and especially on a sunny day, Cinque Terra, to many people, is paradise. And rather than talking out loud about this utopia, you can see it in everyone else’s eyes that they are thinking the same thought. You pass people while on your hike to the next village, and you feel a shared sense of glimmering wonderment and awe. In such a perfect and untouched place, social norms are broken down, cultural barriers are shattered, all because Cinque Terra has the same effect on everyone, young or old, black or white, broken or strong.
I’m not here to sway you into taking a trip to Cinque Terra. In fact, I’m not even here to advocate and promote Cinque Terra. The only objective I have here is to explain to you what my “heaven on earth” is; the place where I caught my breath a million times, and then 100 times more.
There are hundreds of thousands of utopias on the earth. What defines yours?
Drawing without an Eraser
Discovering the world, one chapter at a time
Let’s start with this.
Take a second and think of your absolute, craziest memory; that one moment that you couldn’t possibly make up even if you tried, and to this day, you think about it and think, “HOW in the world did I pull that off?” To you, how the moment occurred may still feel like a mystery; the seconds leading up to the craziness still unknown. Think of all the people you were with, the time it happened, what the weather outside was like, what lead you to that moment, the feeling you had in your heart, the feeling you felt in your soul, the sensation coursing through your body, and the thoughts running through your head. Your outrageous, once-in-a-lifetime memory is probably laced with an element of danger, a splash of randomness, and a drop of pure coincidence, and once mixed up all together in a big, boiling cauldron, produces a story that is told over and over again, every time with a little more suspense, a little more exaggeration. But the story doesn’t get old, it never gets old, and instead, it takes on a life of its own; the story becomes alive every time it is told.
We are all the keepers of these stories, these memories that will live in us forever. And occasionally we hear of someone else’s story that leaves us speechless and bewildered. Over the weekend, on Easter Sunday while I was at my boyfriend’s family’s house, my boyfriend’s uncle sat around a big, round table and began telling us story after story of his own adventures through Europe. He smuggled Bibles across the Soviet Bloc, he was the voice and representative for all the Romanians that were under communist rule and did not have a voice, and he acquired a painting in Paris that is worthy of being in the Louvre itself, just to name a few of the tales he shared with us (along with showing multiple pictures of himself and his best friend, Bill Clinton). Considering he had a fairly “young audience” (people my age or older who can only claim crazy stories from our not too distant college days), we all hung onto every word, listening like little kids at story time that just want to yell “SO what happens next?!”.
Sitting there, listening to story after story, I realized that THAT is what I want. I want to create stories, I want to tell tales of crazy adventures of backpacking through India, explorations in Africa, and camel rides in Egypt. Through traveling, through meeting new people and learning about their cultures and lifestyles, through taking that leap of faith and doing something way out of my element, and through PUSHING myself to reach that new height, the whole point of it is so I have a story to tell. To create a memory is to create a story, and it’s in the telling of the story that the memory lives on.
Ok, so sure, I have had some pretty wild experiences of my own. I bartended in Germany when I studied abroad (complete with Das Boot and all), I went clubbing in Hamburg until 7 am in the morning, I’ve experienced festivals in college , done a conga line around the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, hiked the hills of Cinque Terra and I’ve posed with the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I’ve drank wine in front of the Eiffel Tower, and I’ve caught trains, missed trains, and slept on trains throughout Europe. I went to London without knowing anyone and without any kind of idea of where I was going to stay, completely by myself. I’ve navigated the alleys of Venice, and seen the red lights of the Red Light District in Amsterdam, and more impressively, swam across the English Channel and outran a pack of wild boar in The Netherlands (haha, April fools).
My story has begun, yes, but I’m still only in the first couple chapters. As Ohio State’s school president Gordon Gee said at the class of 2012’s commencement, “Life is like drawing without an eraser.” But who really needs an eraser anyways? You just need enough sharpened pencils to get you by; enough ink and enough lead so every moment of your story can be told.
*Photo credits: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/adventure
Prosting to the Good Life
“Ein Prosit, ein Prosit. Der Gemütlichkeit. Ein Prosit, ein Prosit Der Gemütlichkeit”
If you just read that phrase, and rather than actually reading it, you were singing along in your head imagining yourself holding up a large beverage in your hand (it better be a large MASS of bier), then you, my friend, are in a good position. If you can sing that song with pride and with affirmation, you have learned the inner-workings of the German culture; the joy, fun, and pure happiness of the culture. You see, when you sing that song, the traditional German drinking song, you instantly become friends with your neighbor. You clink and clank your glasses, you swing and sway your beer, and whether you know the words or not (or if you do, in fact, know the words but have indulged in too much German liquidy goodness that you cannot seem to pronounce the words correctly), you feel like you have instantly become best friends with everyone in the room. And most likely, after a few rounds of singing and cheers-ing, you actually WILL become best friends with everyone in the room.
Ok, ok so I am a little bit biased when it comes to this song. What else do you expect from a girl who is 100% German, after all? Not to mention, my dad is actually in a German Polka band (lederhosen and all), and I was practically forced to learn this song in between learning Christmas carols and church hymns. In fact, my first three words were: Mom, dad, and PROST; this song is just THAT important. Of course, it’s common knowledge that people do have the impression that Germans like to drink, and while I am not here to argue against that (because we all know there is NO arguing that), it’s beyond the beer and the singing. Above all, Germans LOVE spending time with their friends and family, and good drinks are the excuse to always get together. Or wait, maybe it’s the other way around….
In Germany, they have something called “Stammtisch” at local bars and beer halls, where people gather every week on the same day and at the same time, and they are there for no other reason than to spend time with their friends while drinking their favorite beverages. In the Hofbrauhaus, Germany’s most beloved and famous beer hall, there are roughly 15-20 different Stammtisches that meet there every week, and have been doing so for the past three decades. Their pictures hang on the walls, and they even have personal “lockers” where they store their mugs and beer steins for safe keeping. But of course, who DOESN’T have a special locker where they securely lock up their drinking devices in this day and age? In the words of ELF, those folks at the Stammtisch know that “The best way to spread GERMAN cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!”
I absolutely love sharing this tradition with my friends, neighbors, coworkers, and occasionally random people I meet in day-to-day life. But what I love even more than this is learning about other culture’s traditions. We all know that nothing really beats the German drinking song OR German beer (I’m overdosed on Deutsche Pride), but there are so many cultures that have traditions like this one. The Italians need to cheer with their wine, the Hispanics need to sing to their tequila, the Russians their vodka, and the Americans…well, they just cheers to everything. My friend from Israel did teach me that instead of saying “cheers”, they say “La Heim”, which means, “TO LIFE.” In Spanish, they say “SALUD” (which is spelled WAY too closely like “salad”, in my opinion). In Turkish, it’s “Serefe”, and in Japan, they say “Kanpai,” meaning: Dry the glass. 100 dollars go to the first person who can pronounce “Egészségedre” correctly, which means “to your health” in Hungarian.
No matter how you say it, no matter what language you are saying it in, and no matter where you are in the world, the meaning is all the same; to cheers to a LIFE that is worth living.
So raise your glass high, look at the person next to you, and PROST to the road ahead!
Take Off To Anywhere 