Dear Oakland,

I love the way you smile. I know that times can be tough for you, and some bad things have happened while I've lived with you, but somehow you still manage to have the most beautiful smile. Maybe you think I'm crazy, how can a city have a smile? But you do.

Oakland, you have changed me. You have made me a better person. You have made me more aware of the people around me, and also of myself. Now that I've lived with you, I am more brave than I was before, and I thank you for that. Thank you for opening my eyes and ears and making me perceive the world in a new light, the light of Oakland.

Still, I cannot believe that I have to leave you, because it is you that has made me feel more alive than I've felt anywhere else. It is you who has shown me my life and my dreams. You have inspired me to create and to destroy and that is a beautiful thing. You are a beautiful thing, Oakland, and I never want to forget that.

Oakland I want to thank you. Thank you for all of the friends you have given me, for all of the food you have given me, for the education you have given me, for the love you have given me, and for the secret places you have given me.

I cannot wait to be within you again.

Love,

Alyssa

Last Day

07/03/2012

This morning we went to the Galleria Borghese which was just as wonderful as I remembered it. I had a great time looking at all of the works in the collection and knowing that I learned something in the last four years of college! It is truly a wonderful feeling, for me, to be able to look at a work of art in a gallery like this one and be able to identify it to a degree, and also to be able to talk about it.

My brother and his girlfriend were 100% disinterested in any knowledge I had to offer, and so they went off on their own and that's fine. My mother, as always, was enraptured with every word I had to say. It's nice to have her so invested in what I've learned, but she is my mom, so in a sense it is kind of her job, right? My dad was halfway interested. There are some pieces that I could say a lot about and he would get bored halfway through things I would be saying, not the most captivated audience member, but at least he tried. My dad and I have very different ways of looking at art, and I feel like I learn a lot when I'm looking at art that he is showing me, but I never feel the same way when I am showing him art.

After visiting the Galleria Borghese we walked through the park and then went to the Galleria Nazionale D'Arte Moderna. We did not actually go inside the museum because we were pretty worn out from the Borghese. Instead we just ate salads at the cafe. Yes. Remember that salad I told you about a year ago. Radicchio, Pear and Pecorino? I had that again and it was delicious.

It wouldn't have been a trip to Rome without doing the tiniest bit of shopping, so we did some shopping  and then regrouped at the hotel.

For dinner we ate at AL34 which is a delicious restaurant run by the cutest family. They have definitely become a tourist stop, as they have been written up in all of the books, but the food is still fantastic. We had a raw zucchini salad which was divine, and I had some meatballs that were fantastic. Oh the food there is so good. GO THERE IF YOU ARE IN ROME!

The last thing I did in Rome was take a short walk with my brother and his girlfriend up the Spanish Steps and a little to the north, and then back to the south to our hotel. We didn't speak much to one another which is fine, but it cemented my decision about our sibling relationship, and I was glad to be sure of that.

The last thing I wrote in my journal was: "I can't wait to be home."

I know I had a great time on this trip. I learned a lot about myself and my family and all of the places I visited, but I'm at a transitioning point in my life and it has been very difficult to feel as though I cannot be in one place, and if I am, I cannot be happy there.

Thanks for traveling with me.
xoxo

Return to Rome

07/02/2012

I think it was nice to be back in Rome. We checked into our beautiful hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps (with a rooftop bar that has an incredible view of the city... the perks of being a travel agent's daughter) and then proceeded to explore the city. We ate lunch at Il Brillo Parlante which is the restaurant where mom and I had our first dinner in Rome last year. We ordered salad, pizza and pasta and shared it three ways. A delicious meal in my opinion, although dad was unimpressed (and I thought I was hard to please).

Our major visit of the day was to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj which was absolutely incredible. I'm not quite sure what to make of it at this point... still... one month later as I'm writing this. The gallery is inside a beautiful 16th Century palazzo which is just smack dab in the center of Rome. It is extremely easy to miss, in fact we did miss the entrance at least once. The walls in each room are filled from floor to ceiling with works of art. Everything from Titian to Memling to Vasari! The collection is stunning and so difficult to take in, especially because there are probably only ten wall labels in the entire collection, and there are well over 100 works on view (maybe closer to 200?). We were mostly excited to learn about some new (old) artists that we had never heard of before. I'll have to go through my list and organize it, but if this blog becomes what it used to be (posting artworks) I will definitely post some works by these artists.

Before dinner we went to the rooftop bar of our hotel to have drinks. I wasn't too pleased with the drink selection (they don't really like gin in Rome, and I cannot have a Spritz (aperol, prosecco, soda water) like every other person in Rome) so I ordered a White Russian because I know what it tastes like and I saw no problem with it. Apparently it's an after dinner drink, and while the waiter and bartender did not seem to care or to judge me for ordering this, my brother gave me loads of shit for ordering it. Although it's nice to try new things, I know that some types of alcohol get me seriously drunk, and that's never what I'm looking for. I'm not a lightweight, but I'm not going to order cocktails with champagne or tequila because they don't do me right, and most of the cocktails had champagne or tequila.

For dinner we went to an Osteria where everyone else ordered things they were unhappy with, and I ordered Tortellini in Brodo which was fucking divine. I'm really sad that my family was unhappy with some of the food choices they made on this trip, especially in Rome, but I saw the kind of place we were eating and I knew that even though it was 1,000,000º outside Tortellini in Brodo would be prepared just right, and it was.