melissa grace kreider

I have now survived eleven internet-free days. Not completely internet-free, but I do not have constant access to my Twitter feed, Facebook newsfeed, Tumblr dashboard, Foursquare and Dailybooth LiveFeed. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I was clambering home from a long day of walking through the frigid cold, getting lost, and feeling tired.  All I had eaten was a croissant with an espresso four hours prior but I was hung up on the inability of these ‘cursed’ Italians to provide us with the warm, familiar, awe-inducing glow of Wi-Fi in our apartment. My Docs were pounding the cobblestone. I was staring at the ground in annoyance against the wind (Europe is experiencing a cold snap!) when I hit a patch of light. I kid you not, it was like the light of the heavens. I cast my eyes upward to the sky as all day it had been clouds on top of clouds with a side of cloudiness and I was met with yet another beautiful view. The stretched buildings complete with shutters and wrought iron and their terraces set against the bluer than blue Tuscan sky. Clothes hanging on clotheslines to dry with window boxes full of flowers. For a moment, through my fatigue and stupid first-world problems, I had forgotten where I was.

                Internet is not a priority to the Italians. If it was, my roommates and I would be able to call the internet company and complain about this utter violation of our online lives, snap our fingers, and make the “internet guy” appear at our doorstep, buzzing the doorbell [which only works sometimes]. What I have learned quickly is that Italians do not have the fast-paced, extremely plugged-in lives that we do. They slow down, take a second, speak face-to-face and don’t depend on electricity or internet as heavily as I do. A couple of days ago I was sitting in a café where the circuit blew, followed by darkness. To the Italians, business as usual. To us, completely unheard of! There is not Wi-Fi on every corner, in fact, it’s a mission to find it. This culture is so in-the-moment and out-of-the-web that it made me lose my footing while trying to adapt to Italy.

                Yes, I miss my friends at home and I want very badly to Skype with my family before I go to bed. I crave Twitter and browsing through my Tumblr tags, but being away from Wi-Fi and in Florence, really IN it, forces me to look around and explore. I want to take a leaf out of the Italian’s book and I want to experience life in front of me instead of on a screen. I hope that in the following six months I’ll get a hang of it and bring it back to Akron. Long live the Italian way of life, even after I get Wi-Fi (hopefully)!