I'm seriously annoyed with the Internet connection in this hotel right now because every time I try to upload photos to this post, it disconnects, and I can't do any justice to the experience I had hiking the Cinque Terre without pictures. I'll definitely upload them to Facebook when I finally get to my homestay in Florence (can you tell I'm counting down the hours?), and I'll try to add them in on here too.
The 12-mile Cinque Terre hike was on Sunday. The Cinque Terre ("5 Lands") is made up of five villlages connected by steep pathways (so you do a long and strenuous stretch of the hike and then you can take a gelato break when you reach each village...not a bad way to hike!) The villages are called Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso, and they're so stinking cute it's ridiculous. And not a contrived cute, either-they're just PERFECT. So quaint and quiet and, quite literally, tucked away. Cafes on every corner, little puppies and kittens sleeping in the streets, elderly Italian couples sipping their Sunday vino under umbrellas, and colorful but antiquated architecture with zero indication that industrialization ever happened. Not to mention a bird's eye view of the Deep Blue Sea (aka the Mediterranean) practically everywhere you turn. Now: For non-Sewanee people reading this, a bucket list of definitive "Sewanee Student" things you must do before you graduate would have to include hiking the 22-mile perimeter trail around campus. One Saturday during the fall last year, some of my favorite people on campus and I decided to conquer the perimeter trail, and it turned out to be surprisingly easy, with the exception of the final uphill mile through Shakerag Hollow-and navigating McClurg afterward without toppling over and breaking a leg (for those of y'all that are reading this, I'm still proud of us!) So after finding the famous P-trail pretty "easy," I was expecting that the Cinque Terre hike, just over half the distance of the Sewanee trail, would be "super easy."
Ha. Haha. Hahahaha.
The hike consisted of loooonnnggg stretches of going uphill, then going downhill, then uphill, downhill, over and over again. This wasn't a typical hiking "trail" either-when I say "uphill," I generally mean up narrow stair after narrow stair. (One uphill stretch in the hike takes you up 382 stairs and has a sign congratulating you when you reach the top...if it had the number written at the bottom of the steps, I'm pretty sure waaaayyy fewer people would climb it). 12 miles uphill, with only the sun to keep me company for most of the way, on an insanely narrow path on the edge of a cliff, was just slightly more difficult than a 22-mile shady trail around the familiar Sewanee campus with plenty of friends to entertain me. At certain points during the hike, especially on the route between the fourth and fifth village, the path was so narrow that I seriously felt like if I breathed too heavily I'd blow myself off a cliff.
But all that made it so, so amazing. And finishing was SO ridiculously gratifying.
The scenery throughout the hike was absolutely BEAUTIFUL, the kind of beautiful that caused me to grin goofily throughout the entire hike, even while gasping for air and practically weezing. The kind of beautiful that makes me feel like I'm literally sinning by not including pictures with this post (stupid hotel wifi!). The views were so insanely gorgeous, it was difficult to even process the fact that they were real. There were times when I would look down to the Mediterranean and could clearly see the dropoffs in the water. There'd be a straight line dividing one shade of blue from another, plain as day from hundreds of feet in the air. I had to just stop from time to time and breathe and take it all in. God is big. For real.
And now I'm back in Lido di Camaiore, which, when compared with the Cinque Terre, is pretty much the armpit of Tuscany. Okay, armpit might be a little harsh. Maybe the Big Toe is better-necessary, but not particularly cute or interesting. Four more nights in the hotel here, then Firenze on Saturday!! I absolutely can't wait.
Good night! It's safe to say I love and miss everyone who might be reading this. (Hey, I rhymed...)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
funny bones, funny poses, and other happenings
So much has happened in the past week. It has honestly been one of the longest weeks I can ever remember. I’ll try to focus mostly on hitting the high notes.
We have one week left in Lido de Camiaore, the town where we’re having orientation, before FINALLY heading to Florence on Saturday the 4th. I am so incredibly ready to get there. Like…SO READY. I don’t think I could be more anxious to get there. You get the point.
Every day we have Italian language class from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I love learning and hearing the language, and I’m really hoping to at least be able to have a semi-coherent conversation in Italian in the next month or so. But let me tell you…four straight hours of a foreign language is absolutely brutal. Especially when you’re a total beginner and your teacher doesn’t speak any English. Our teacher’s name is Giovanna and she’s only 25. She told us she spoke English on the first day, but we quickly found out that her English pretty much consists of “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Why yes, I can speak some English!” If I had not studied Spanish before, I’d literally have no clue what was going on in our class. We jumped right into conjugating verbs the very first hour. There are some people in our class who have never taken a language, period, and they must be completely lost.
I can’t help but wish that the phrases we’re learning could be more pertinent to what we’re doing right now. Lido de Camiaore is a tiny beach town where Italian families come to vacation, so we’re the only Americans around. Pretty much no one speaks English, so it’s the perfect place to practice our Italian before we get to Florence. Florence is obviously really touristy and we won’t be forced to speak Italian, but I really want to. I’ll be living in a homestay anyway, and I found out yesterday that the woman hosting me , Franca, speaks English about like Giovanna does, so I’m excited about speaking Italian with her and improving. But I just wish that our class focused on more practical and polite phrases to use. I want to be able to tell waiters things like “I’m enjoying my food. Thank you for being patient with me,” not things like “No, I am not Irish, but thank you for asking.” We spent an hour in class learning how to say things like “Is Jorge from Spain?” and “We are in Italy, not Germany” and “What is your address?” Not to be snobby, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that I won’t be asking many Italians I meet around town for their home addresses. And yesterday at lunch I accidentally ordered a whole margherita pizza for myself. Point is, I know how to ask for the address and phone number of any Tom, Dick or Giuseppe who’s willing to share theirs, but I can’t make it clear that all I want is two slices of pizza. Oh well…I’ll learn.
Yesterday in class the girls who sit behind me, Kristin and Meghan, were hitting the point of delirium and were just sitting there doing little dances at their desks to keep themselves entertained, trying to avoid Giovanna’s eye. Meghan eventually hit her funnybone (literally, she accidentally whacked her funnybone on her desk…I’m not just using the corny phrase.) So she and Kristin started cracking up and then Giovanna came over to ask what was going on. Kristin tried explaining what had happened and then asking if there was an Italian equivalent for “funnybone.” Giovanna wasn’t picking up on it, so Meghan, Kristin, Lauren and I all started demonstrating what had happened, gesturing toward our funnybones and saying the word, then bumping them against the table to explain why we were laughing. Giovanna nodded along as if she understood, saying, “Si, si,” smiling, and repeating the word “Funnybone.” As we kept pointing to our funnybones, Giovanna stopped, gave a little shrug and a knowing look, then said, “Don’t worry. I am a good girl.”
At first we all sat there with blank looks on our faces, and after about 3 seconds of letting what she’d said register, we just burst out laughing. We were trying to be discreet about it, but my face was red and I think tears were forming in all of our eyes. We felt bad for laughing, especially since all of us have pretty nonexistent Italian skills-it’s not like Giovanna is obligated to be good at English. It was just SO funny because we were wondering what she might have imagined we were talking about. Maybe we were making some awkward or obscene gesture with our arms…maybe that prompted her to say “I am a good girl.” Or maybe she meant that she was understanding what we were saying and that we “didn’t need to worry” because she was able to understand…whatever the misunderstanding was, it was pretty funny. Especially combined with the fact that we were all completely mentally drained and trying to conquer the language barrier, which added up to goofy deliriousness.
I’ve been getting gelato almost every day that I’ve been here. That’s one perk of living in Hotel Colombo: gelato shops are absolutely EVERYWHERE. The downside to living in Hotel Colombo? All 90 of the American students enrolled in the program are staying here. For two weeks. It’s been kind of embarrassing-I’ve been really surprised by the students in this program. What has surprised me so far on this trip is what’s turned out to be most difficult for me. I expected that I’d have to deal with mild culture shock, difficulties with learning the language, missing friends from school/camp/home, pickpockets and other American victimizers, etc. I never expected that the hardest thing about my program would be dealing with the other American students enrolled.
Ok…don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some cool people. But overall, the students in this program have really disappointed me. I thought the majority of people would be cool and inspiring, with lots of interests and stories and goals. But instead, the majority of people are really self-absorbed and reckless and SO many people seem COMPLETELY disinterested in the culture. It just sucks because I know of so many friends of mine (and college students in general) who would kill for an opportunity like this, and I’m having to watch some of these kids just squander it. Two people have already been sent home. I’m trying hard to stay positive about the people around me, but I really am eager to get to Florence next week and have my independence. We all live together and eat all our meals together, so right now it feels like I’m on a field trip with the cast of Girls Gone Wild. And most of the guys on this trip don’t really say anything other than “Bro,” “Siiiick,” “Gnarly” (yes, gnarly) and “Waaaaassstteeedd.” How old are we again? It’s just frustrating. I'm in the lobby of the hotel right now and some of the bro-skis are sitting near me, and I just overheard the sentence "Have you seen that movie The Holiday, or some s%*#? It's with f$@$^ing Cameron Diaz or some s#%&*, and you can do this gnarly MFing switch thing where you switch houses with some siiiiiick MFer. Bro, we should do that S#%*." Seriously. SeRiOuSlY. When I get to Florence I won’t be in such a bubble, and I’ll be able to choose who I see outside of class, so that’ll be nice. And judging by the behavior during orientation, there are a lot of people that I probably won’t ever be seeing in class. I used this analogy with one friend already: you know how on trashy reality shows, the casting people always tend to choose the most EXTREME people to represent a certain ethnic/social/religious group? Well, if this were a globally televised reality show, many of the people on this program would have been deliberately chosen by MTV to represent the stereotypical rude and disinterested Americans.
Okay. Sorry for all the negativity. I just wanted to be honest and put that out there. I’ll be able to grin and bear it for one more week. ANYWAY: I’ve gone on some trips during orientation that have gotten me even more pumped for Florence. A few days ago, some of us went to Pietra Santa, which is apparently one of Tuscany’s “best-kept secrets” and is known as “Little Athens” because of all the artists it attracts. We got to go inside a mosaic studio that was tucked away on this shaded road and it was amazing. There were three men inside hard at work. All of them were very old, very Italian, and very bearded. Watching them pay such careful attention to detail and just pour themselves into their work was so incredible. They were working on mosaics commissioned by people from all corners of the world. Some of the mosaics were completely original creations, while others were recreations of famous paintings like Klimt’s The Kiss and Munch’s The Scream. One of the men showed us pictures of him presenting mosaics to everyone from Giorgio Armani to President Obama. His current project is an icon of Saint Peter that he’s creating for a cemetery in Hollywood.
We also went to Pisa, and people-watching there was fantastic. It was so funny watching everyone struggle to find the perfect place where they should take their pictures posing with the leaning tower. I got a ton of creeper pics of people doing the classic pose. I’m tempted to make a Facebook album of just those pictures, but I guess that might be a little much. I’ll post some of the highlights here, though.
I just tried for about 10 minutes to upload some of my pictures on here, but the Internet connection here is terrible and it's just not working. I'll try to add them in later because the pictures from Pisa are hilarious and the ones from Pietra Santa are really cool. Sorry I have no visuals to go along with this marathon post. Miss all of you...keep in touch!!
We have one week left in Lido de Camiaore, the town where we’re having orientation, before FINALLY heading to Florence on Saturday the 4th. I am so incredibly ready to get there. Like…SO READY. I don’t think I could be more anxious to get there. You get the point.
Every day we have Italian language class from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I love learning and hearing the language, and I’m really hoping to at least be able to have a semi-coherent conversation in Italian in the next month or so. But let me tell you…four straight hours of a foreign language is absolutely brutal. Especially when you’re a total beginner and your teacher doesn’t speak any English. Our teacher’s name is Giovanna and she’s only 25. She told us she spoke English on the first day, but we quickly found out that her English pretty much consists of “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Why yes, I can speak some English!” If I had not studied Spanish before, I’d literally have no clue what was going on in our class. We jumped right into conjugating verbs the very first hour. There are some people in our class who have never taken a language, period, and they must be completely lost.
I can’t help but wish that the phrases we’re learning could be more pertinent to what we’re doing right now. Lido de Camiaore is a tiny beach town where Italian families come to vacation, so we’re the only Americans around. Pretty much no one speaks English, so it’s the perfect place to practice our Italian before we get to Florence. Florence is obviously really touristy and we won’t be forced to speak Italian, but I really want to. I’ll be living in a homestay anyway, and I found out yesterday that the woman hosting me , Franca, speaks English about like Giovanna does, so I’m excited about speaking Italian with her and improving. But I just wish that our class focused on more practical and polite phrases to use. I want to be able to tell waiters things like “I’m enjoying my food. Thank you for being patient with me,” not things like “No, I am not Irish, but thank you for asking.” We spent an hour in class learning how to say things like “Is Jorge from Spain?” and “We are in Italy, not Germany” and “What is your address?” Not to be snobby, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that I won’t be asking many Italians I meet around town for their home addresses. And yesterday at lunch I accidentally ordered a whole margherita pizza for myself. Point is, I know how to ask for the address and phone number of any Tom, Dick or Giuseppe who’s willing to share theirs, but I can’t make it clear that all I want is two slices of pizza. Oh well…I’ll learn.
Yesterday in class the girls who sit behind me, Kristin and Meghan, were hitting the point of delirium and were just sitting there doing little dances at their desks to keep themselves entertained, trying to avoid Giovanna’s eye. Meghan eventually hit her funnybone (literally, she accidentally whacked her funnybone on her desk…I’m not just using the corny phrase.) So she and Kristin started cracking up and then Giovanna came over to ask what was going on. Kristin tried explaining what had happened and then asking if there was an Italian equivalent for “funnybone.” Giovanna wasn’t picking up on it, so Meghan, Kristin, Lauren and I all started demonstrating what had happened, gesturing toward our funnybones and saying the word, then bumping them against the table to explain why we were laughing. Giovanna nodded along as if she understood, saying, “Si, si,” smiling, and repeating the word “Funnybone.” As we kept pointing to our funnybones, Giovanna stopped, gave a little shrug and a knowing look, then said, “Don’t worry. I am a good girl.”
At first we all sat there with blank looks on our faces, and after about 3 seconds of letting what she’d said register, we just burst out laughing. We were trying to be discreet about it, but my face was red and I think tears were forming in all of our eyes. We felt bad for laughing, especially since all of us have pretty nonexistent Italian skills-it’s not like Giovanna is obligated to be good at English. It was just SO funny because we were wondering what she might have imagined we were talking about. Maybe we were making some awkward or obscene gesture with our arms…maybe that prompted her to say “I am a good girl.” Or maybe she meant that she was understanding what we were saying and that we “didn’t need to worry” because she was able to understand…whatever the misunderstanding was, it was pretty funny. Especially combined with the fact that we were all completely mentally drained and trying to conquer the language barrier, which added up to goofy deliriousness.
I’ve been getting gelato almost every day that I’ve been here. That’s one perk of living in Hotel Colombo: gelato shops are absolutely EVERYWHERE. The downside to living in Hotel Colombo? All 90 of the American students enrolled in the program are staying here. For two weeks. It’s been kind of embarrassing-I’ve been really surprised by the students in this program. What has surprised me so far on this trip is what’s turned out to be most difficult for me. I expected that I’d have to deal with mild culture shock, difficulties with learning the language, missing friends from school/camp/home, pickpockets and other American victimizers, etc. I never expected that the hardest thing about my program would be dealing with the other American students enrolled.
Ok…don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some cool people. But overall, the students in this program have really disappointed me. I thought the majority of people would be cool and inspiring, with lots of interests and stories and goals. But instead, the majority of people are really self-absorbed and reckless and SO many people seem COMPLETELY disinterested in the culture. It just sucks because I know of so many friends of mine (and college students in general) who would kill for an opportunity like this, and I’m having to watch some of these kids just squander it. Two people have already been sent home. I’m trying hard to stay positive about the people around me, but I really am eager to get to Florence next week and have my independence. We all live together and eat all our meals together, so right now it feels like I’m on a field trip with the cast of Girls Gone Wild. And most of the guys on this trip don’t really say anything other than “Bro,” “Siiiick,” “Gnarly” (yes, gnarly) and “Waaaaassstteeedd.” How old are we again? It’s just frustrating. I'm in the lobby of the hotel right now and some of the bro-skis are sitting near me, and I just overheard the sentence "Have you seen that movie The Holiday, or some s%*#? It's with f$@$^ing Cameron Diaz or some s#%&*, and you can do this gnarly MFing switch thing where you switch houses with some siiiiiick MFer. Bro, we should do that S#%*." Seriously. SeRiOuSlY. When I get to Florence I won’t be in such a bubble, and I’ll be able to choose who I see outside of class, so that’ll be nice. And judging by the behavior during orientation, there are a lot of people that I probably won’t ever be seeing in class. I used this analogy with one friend already: you know how on trashy reality shows, the casting people always tend to choose the most EXTREME people to represent a certain ethnic/social/religious group? Well, if this were a globally televised reality show, many of the people on this program would have been deliberately chosen by MTV to represent the stereotypical rude and disinterested Americans.
Okay. Sorry for all the negativity. I just wanted to be honest and put that out there. I’ll be able to grin and bear it for one more week. ANYWAY: I’ve gone on some trips during orientation that have gotten me even more pumped for Florence. A few days ago, some of us went to Pietra Santa, which is apparently one of Tuscany’s “best-kept secrets” and is known as “Little Athens” because of all the artists it attracts. We got to go inside a mosaic studio that was tucked away on this shaded road and it was amazing. There were three men inside hard at work. All of them were very old, very Italian, and very bearded. Watching them pay such careful attention to detail and just pour themselves into their work was so incredible. They were working on mosaics commissioned by people from all corners of the world. Some of the mosaics were completely original creations, while others were recreations of famous paintings like Klimt’s The Kiss and Munch’s The Scream. One of the men showed us pictures of him presenting mosaics to everyone from Giorgio Armani to President Obama. His current project is an icon of Saint Peter that he’s creating for a cemetery in Hollywood.
We also went to Pisa, and people-watching there was fantastic. It was so funny watching everyone struggle to find the perfect place where they should take their pictures posing with the leaning tower. I got a ton of creeper pics of people doing the classic pose. I’m tempted to make a Facebook album of just those pictures, but I guess that might be a little much. I’ll post some of the highlights here, though.
I just tried for about 10 minutes to upload some of my pictures on here, but the Internet connection here is terrible and it's just not working. I'll try to add them in later because the pictures from Pisa are hilarious and the ones from Pietra Santa are really cool. Sorry I have no visuals to go along with this marathon post. Miss all of you...keep in touch!!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
first post from abroad...really?
I had no trouble posting on here when I was in the States doing nothing post-camp. Now that I’ve landed in Europe and have been thrown into everything, writing on here hasn’t been super easy (or cheap.) Things I take for granted in America: free Internet (or at least Internet that seems free), spacious elevators, and PUBLIC TRASH CANS. I’ll elaborate on those later.
I’ve packed 2 weeks’ worth of activities in the past 3 (or 4? I really don’t know, I’ve lost any concept of time) days. Wednesday morning (I guess it was the 18th) seems like forever ago. I got to the Tupelo airport at 9:00. My bags were BULGING. I ended up having to take some clothes out of my suitcase because it was 56 pounds, and the fine for exceeding 50 pounds was $90. 90 dollars! Seriously? Anyway, luckily my mom hadn’t left yet, so I handed her some things to take home after frantically rifling through my stuff in the middle of the airport. (Luckily the Tupelo airport is not exactly a frenzied and hectic hub of international coming-and-going…clearly). It was about 98 degrees outside, but I ended up having to wear jeans, a sweater, my fleece, and my huge rain boots because they were so heavy and took up so much space in my suitcase. So I’m walking through the airport in 98-degree weather, dressed for the Arctic, hauling my purse, paperwork, an overstuffed suitcase and a literally EXPLOSIVE carry-on bag (as in any time I even thought about touching the zipper, clothes or something popped out.) To say I looked ridiculous would probably be the understatement of the year.
The flight to Atlanta was probably unnecessary, but I was glad I didn’t have to drive 5 hours there and then fly 8 and a half. Once I was in the Atlanta airport I had a good 8 hours to kill, so I spent most of that time wandering, napping, listening to music and eating. About 3 hours before our British Airways flight to London, a girl named Peyton who is in the same program as me showed up, so we hung out and bonded at McDonald’s. (When we got the list of program participants, we were also given a list of other people on our flight. Peyton and I were the ONLY ones flying out of Atlanta…nearly everyone else flew out from Boston, L.A., New York…there are a grand total of 3 people from the South on this program. Well, there are some Texans, but that’s like a nation in itself. Haha.)
The past few days have felt soooo much like the first few weeks of freshman year, minus all the slideshows/speeches with the deans and “Whatever You Like” being blasted everywhere. (Oh T.I….i’ll never forget.) You don’t know ANYONE, you’re meeting people from all over the country, you’re kind of just hanging out with whoever seems cool and wants to hang out with you or whoever just happens to be going to the same place as you. You have to kind of feel people out and you don’t really know what anyone’s about or their reasoning for studying abroad. And there are definitely those attention-hungry people, but it’s just a little more embarrassing for them now since most people have moved past their freshman stage in life and can actually act like a functional human being. For the most part, I really like everyone I’ve met in the group. I do miss having those people around who you can just be 100% comfortable with, There are still some people that I haven’t really been around much, but I (along with most of the people in the group) am predicting that Europe is going to eat them alive, so…we’ll see how that turns out for them.
I found myself hanging out pretty consistently with this one group of people, and a girl named Lauren and I were really getting along, and it turns out she’s one of the Southerners (like me), was arts & crafts head at a Christian camp for 2 summers (like me), was a counselor for the oldest girls in camp (like me), is an art history minor (like me), etc. So basically, we were getting along because we’re the same person. (Not really, but it was cool to realize we had all that in common. Of course when we got to talking about our camps we talked forever until some poor non-camp soul shut us up).
The flight to London was actually really nice and smooth and comfortable. I had a window seat and a whole row to myself. I also had young Leo DiCaprio to keep me company because I watched Titanic. Siiiiiiiiigggghhhh. Y’all…these movie choices were way better than ANY of the choices I’ve had on any other flight ever. Everyone around me was sleeping, of course, but this 11ish year old girl randomly showed up on my vacant row (how dare she!) toward the end of the movie, during all the most intense scenes, and decided to just creep there and WATCH me get all weepy and ridiculous. I did a pretty good job of keeping it quiet, but come on, there I am, wiping my nose on the British Airways logo napkins and drying my eyes with the airplane blanket, delirious from the lack of sleep and emotionally exhausted from the epic wonderfulness of the movie, (and FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, the “ROSE, YOU’RE SO STUPID!/IF YOU JUMP I JUMP, REMEMBER?” SCENE IS HAPPENING, SHOW SOME RESPECT!!!) but she’s just hanging out on the end of the row, gawking. I mean, geez…it wasn’t like she’d been there the whole time and I was getting on her nerves. She could have gone back to her seat or at least pretended to sleep or look away. I don’t know why watching my breakdown would be entertaining. The nerve…
Landing at Heathrow was exciting but I was already exhausted. We headed to our hotel in London where we’d be staying for 2 days. Peyton and I were able to get our room right away, so we dropped off our luggage and started exploring after quick showers and naps.
The time in London was, I think, a fantastic “transition” period. It was new and different, but everyone around us speaking English made it easy to be comfortable right away. I went to London years ago with my grandparents, but London, Oxford, and the Cotswolds in England are the only places I’ve been in Europe before this semester (except for 2 or so hours in Paris that I don’t really count).
That first afternoon in London, Peyton and I wandered around Hyde Park (right across from our hotel) and checked out the neighborhood, visiting a few coffee shops. A group of us went and ate fish and chips at a pub called The Mitre. (I ate at a place called The Mitre in Oxford on that trip years ago with my grandparents, so I wondered if there was any connection there). The next day was full of exploring. (Now that I’m starting to write about it, I can’t believe it all happened in one day…it definitely didn’t feel like we just “stopped” in London, but like we’d been there for weeks). AIFS scheduled a bus tour for us that morning, which was a good way to get the most out of London that we could in such a short period of time. We went to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower of London, but we didn’t have much time to spend in any of them. I was so grateful that I’d been to London before and had been on thorough tours inside all those places, because I think otherwise I would have been frustrated about missing the opportunity to really check them out. Our tour guide, a Scottish, puppy-obsessed guy named Sean, was hilarious. I was glad I had a seat in front because I was able to hear everything clearly; he pointed out every single puppy on the street and did some ridiculous gushing, and he wasn’t boring at all-at one point on the tour he started to pretend that he was not, in fact, our hired tour guide, but just a random guy who saw a bus full of Americans and thought “Hey, it’d be cool to tell them about the city.” He almost had me convinced.
When the tour ended, we were dropped off in the Covent Gardens area, filled with plenty of shopping and restaurants. After exchanging some currency I went with a group of about 6 girls to buy a London Underground day pass. We ate lunch at an Italian place, which seemed a little dumb since we’re about to head to Florence for 3+ months, but we were all starving and it was right there and smelled so good. After that we crossed the Millennium Bridge (from Harry Potter) to the Tate Modern Art museum. We didn’t get to spend as much time there as I’d have liked to, but I was really satisfied just seeing the whole floor they had dedicated to Surrealism and “dream representations.” Lots of Dali and De Chiricho, so that was cool. And admission to the museum was FREE! We went to Topshop after that, which was fun because I’ve spent hours browsing the website before but have never been inside one. A girl named Kristin and I ended up buying half-priced tickets to Jersey Boys, the show about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. Both of us really wanted to see The Lion King or Les Miserables, but the tickets were twice as expensive and we’d both seen at least one of those shows before. Jersey Boys ended up being really good, though—the music was obviously fun and familiar. The actors’ harmonies were pretty insanely perfect, and I sat by this sweet old British woman who was so funny and really fascinated by my “accent.” It’s always nice when people at least pretend that they’re enamored by your voice and give you a look that says, “Aw, you cute, naïve American student” rather than when they do the whole daggers-in-their-eyes, “You dumb American” thing. Not so fun.
Kristin and I had an hour-long adventure trying to figure out the bus system at night. I’m pretty sure we just went in a circle after getting off at the wrong stop TWICE. We eventually made it back to the hotel, though, and with ALL our stuff, so I felt like keeping up with all the crap I was carrying was a success in itself.
The next morning we had to drive back to Heathrow to board our flight to Pisa. Checking in was pretty seamless. Once again, had to wear my rain boots, fleece, and sweater. Super cool. Going through security was obviously tons of fun…my boots look like prime terrorist apparel. You could easily fit weapons, drugs, or a small child inside them. I’m half serious.
I was dead tired, but even though my body wasn’t really agreeing with me, I was definitely able to enjoy our flight because it was the most scenic one I’ve ever been on, and I had a window seat. We flew over the Swiss Alps and the view was unreal.
When we landed in Pisa we went through the easiest passport control and Customs ever. I literally don’t think the guy even looked at my face. He stamped my passport without a word, as opposed to London, where I felt like I was being interrogated about a murder. We rode the bus to Lido de Camiaore, the village where we’re staying for two weeks of orientation. We’re doing an “intensive” language course-so few of us know Italian. I thought I was going to be in the minority and that most of the students would be really good at it already, but there are only like 10 or so people (out of about 80) that are in any classes above the elementary level. We’re going to be in class for four straight hours. It’s going to be a little intense, but I feel like they’re really going to drill it and we should be able to learn fast, especially since we’re staying in such a non-touristy area of Tuscany right now. We’re the only Americans for miles and everyone knows about us. And that the majority of us are girls….awesome. A gelled-up Rudolfo informed my friend Lauren of this last night. Cooooolll!
Now, back to the three things I mentioned at the very beginning of this post, those things that I take for granted in America. Readily available trashcans were one of them. Today a group of girls and I took a pizza back to our hotel to eat in this really pretty garden, and when we finished there was nowhere in sight to throw the box away. We searched all over the hotel’s garden and courtyard area, then went inside to the lobby and found nothing. We asked the receptionist where we could go to throw the box away and she told us to leave the hotel, take a left out and walk two blocks down to find a trashcan large enough. So we’re crossing these crazy busy streets (there are no signs or lights anywhere in the area that I’ve seen), our lives flashing before our eyes and the top of the pizza box flapping in the wind as we run. At least now we know where the trashcan is!!
The box was pretty cute as far as pizza boxes go:
Another thing that is going to take some adjusting is making the switch to Coca-Cola Light. Anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows I love (slash am addicted to) Diet Coke. Anyone who’s known me for more than 10 minutes knows that I prefer nearly-icy can to fountain DC, fountain to glass bottle, glass bottle to plastic bottle. It’s just a taste hierarchy I’ve gotten used to. I was alerted by Cary Benton, who studied in Siena, of the fact that Coca-Cola Light would be the closest thing. “You might not be able to taste the difference, though,” she said. I laughed. Oh Cary…how I wish that were true. Sewanee kids reading this, Will Stanley was also in the room and laughed because he shares the Diet Coke addiction and knows that anyone who drinks a lot of the delicious poison has their packaging preferences and VERY particular taste buds that can sense the dreaded urine of soft drinks (Diet Pepsi) from miles away.
Point is, I had Coca-Cola Light with my lunch today. Thankfully, it was in a can (a tall, thinnish and very cute can, actually…) but it was noticeably sweeter and a little intense for me. I’m sure I’ll be drinking it and get used to it fine, but I’m also going to use this semester as a chance to tone the addiction down (gasp!) at least a little bit.
Ciao. Wow, I’ve got to start posting more often because there’s no way I’ve covered everything and look how long this is. Ridiculous.
I’ve packed 2 weeks’ worth of activities in the past 3 (or 4? I really don’t know, I’ve lost any concept of time) days. Wednesday morning (I guess it was the 18th) seems like forever ago. I got to the Tupelo airport at 9:00. My bags were BULGING. I ended up having to take some clothes out of my suitcase because it was 56 pounds, and the fine for exceeding 50 pounds was $90. 90 dollars! Seriously? Anyway, luckily my mom hadn’t left yet, so I handed her some things to take home after frantically rifling through my stuff in the middle of the airport. (Luckily the Tupelo airport is not exactly a frenzied and hectic hub of international coming-and-going…clearly). It was about 98 degrees outside, but I ended up having to wear jeans, a sweater, my fleece, and my huge rain boots because they were so heavy and took up so much space in my suitcase. So I’m walking through the airport in 98-degree weather, dressed for the Arctic, hauling my purse, paperwork, an overstuffed suitcase and a literally EXPLOSIVE carry-on bag (as in any time I even thought about touching the zipper, clothes or something popped out.) To say I looked ridiculous would probably be the understatement of the year.
The flight to Atlanta was probably unnecessary, but I was glad I didn’t have to drive 5 hours there and then fly 8 and a half. Once I was in the Atlanta airport I had a good 8 hours to kill, so I spent most of that time wandering, napping, listening to music and eating. About 3 hours before our British Airways flight to London, a girl named Peyton who is in the same program as me showed up, so we hung out and bonded at McDonald’s. (When we got the list of program participants, we were also given a list of other people on our flight. Peyton and I were the ONLY ones flying out of Atlanta…nearly everyone else flew out from Boston, L.A., New York…there are a grand total of 3 people from the South on this program. Well, there are some Texans, but that’s like a nation in itself. Haha.)
The past few days have felt soooo much like the first few weeks of freshman year, minus all the slideshows/speeches with the deans and “Whatever You Like” being blasted everywhere. (Oh T.I….i’ll never forget.) You don’t know ANYONE, you’re meeting people from all over the country, you’re kind of just hanging out with whoever seems cool and wants to hang out with you or whoever just happens to be going to the same place as you. You have to kind of feel people out and you don’t really know what anyone’s about or their reasoning for studying abroad. And there are definitely those attention-hungry people, but it’s just a little more embarrassing for them now since most people have moved past their freshman stage in life and can actually act like a functional human being. For the most part, I really like everyone I’ve met in the group. I do miss having those people around who you can just be 100% comfortable with, There are still some people that I haven’t really been around much, but I (along with most of the people in the group) am predicting that Europe is going to eat them alive, so…we’ll see how that turns out for them.
I found myself hanging out pretty consistently with this one group of people, and a girl named Lauren and I were really getting along, and it turns out she’s one of the Southerners (like me), was arts & crafts head at a Christian camp for 2 summers (like me), was a counselor for the oldest girls in camp (like me), is an art history minor (like me), etc. So basically, we were getting along because we’re the same person. (Not really, but it was cool to realize we had all that in common. Of course when we got to talking about our camps we talked forever until some poor non-camp soul shut us up).
The flight to London was actually really nice and smooth and comfortable. I had a window seat and a whole row to myself. I also had young Leo DiCaprio to keep me company because I watched Titanic. Siiiiiiiiigggghhhh. Y’all…these movie choices were way better than ANY of the choices I’ve had on any other flight ever. Everyone around me was sleeping, of course, but this 11ish year old girl randomly showed up on my vacant row (how dare she!) toward the end of the movie, during all the most intense scenes, and decided to just creep there and WATCH me get all weepy and ridiculous. I did a pretty good job of keeping it quiet, but come on, there I am, wiping my nose on the British Airways logo napkins and drying my eyes with the airplane blanket, delirious from the lack of sleep and emotionally exhausted from the epic wonderfulness of the movie, (and FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, the “ROSE, YOU’RE SO STUPID!/IF YOU JUMP I JUMP, REMEMBER?” SCENE IS HAPPENING, SHOW SOME RESPECT!!!) but she’s just hanging out on the end of the row, gawking. I mean, geez…it wasn’t like she’d been there the whole time and I was getting on her nerves. She could have gone back to her seat or at least pretended to sleep or look away. I don’t know why watching my breakdown would be entertaining. The nerve…
Landing at Heathrow was exciting but I was already exhausted. We headed to our hotel in London where we’d be staying for 2 days. Peyton and I were able to get our room right away, so we dropped off our luggage and started exploring after quick showers and naps.
The time in London was, I think, a fantastic “transition” period. It was new and different, but everyone around us speaking English made it easy to be comfortable right away. I went to London years ago with my grandparents, but London, Oxford, and the Cotswolds in England are the only places I’ve been in Europe before this semester (except for 2 or so hours in Paris that I don’t really count).
That first afternoon in London, Peyton and I wandered around Hyde Park (right across from our hotel) and checked out the neighborhood, visiting a few coffee shops. A group of us went and ate fish and chips at a pub called The Mitre. (I ate at a place called The Mitre in Oxford on that trip years ago with my grandparents, so I wondered if there was any connection there). The next day was full of exploring. (Now that I’m starting to write about it, I can’t believe it all happened in one day…it definitely didn’t feel like we just “stopped” in London, but like we’d been there for weeks). AIFS scheduled a bus tour for us that morning, which was a good way to get the most out of London that we could in such a short period of time. We went to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower of London, but we didn’t have much time to spend in any of them. I was so grateful that I’d been to London before and had been on thorough tours inside all those places, because I think otherwise I would have been frustrated about missing the opportunity to really check them out. Our tour guide, a Scottish, puppy-obsessed guy named Sean, was hilarious. I was glad I had a seat in front because I was able to hear everything clearly; he pointed out every single puppy on the street and did some ridiculous gushing, and he wasn’t boring at all-at one point on the tour he started to pretend that he was not, in fact, our hired tour guide, but just a random guy who saw a bus full of Americans and thought “Hey, it’d be cool to tell them about the city.” He almost had me convinced.
When the tour ended, we were dropped off in the Covent Gardens area, filled with plenty of shopping and restaurants. After exchanging some currency I went with a group of about 6 girls to buy a London Underground day pass. We ate lunch at an Italian place, which seemed a little dumb since we’re about to head to Florence for 3+ months, but we were all starving and it was right there and smelled so good. After that we crossed the Millennium Bridge (from Harry Potter) to the Tate Modern Art museum. We didn’t get to spend as much time there as I’d have liked to, but I was really satisfied just seeing the whole floor they had dedicated to Surrealism and “dream representations.” Lots of Dali and De Chiricho, so that was cool. And admission to the museum was FREE! We went to Topshop after that, which was fun because I’ve spent hours browsing the website before but have never been inside one. A girl named Kristin and I ended up buying half-priced tickets to Jersey Boys, the show about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. Both of us really wanted to see The Lion King or Les Miserables, but the tickets were twice as expensive and we’d both seen at least one of those shows before. Jersey Boys ended up being really good, though—the music was obviously fun and familiar. The actors’ harmonies were pretty insanely perfect, and I sat by this sweet old British woman who was so funny and really fascinated by my “accent.” It’s always nice when people at least pretend that they’re enamored by your voice and give you a look that says, “Aw, you cute, naïve American student” rather than when they do the whole daggers-in-their-eyes, “You dumb American” thing. Not so fun.
Kristin and I had an hour-long adventure trying to figure out the bus system at night. I’m pretty sure we just went in a circle after getting off at the wrong stop TWICE. We eventually made it back to the hotel, though, and with ALL our stuff, so I felt like keeping up with all the crap I was carrying was a success in itself.
The next morning we had to drive back to Heathrow to board our flight to Pisa. Checking in was pretty seamless. Once again, had to wear my rain boots, fleece, and sweater. Super cool. Going through security was obviously tons of fun…my boots look like prime terrorist apparel. You could easily fit weapons, drugs, or a small child inside them. I’m half serious.
I was dead tired, but even though my body wasn’t really agreeing with me, I was definitely able to enjoy our flight because it was the most scenic one I’ve ever been on, and I had a window seat. We flew over the Swiss Alps and the view was unreal.
When we landed in Pisa we went through the easiest passport control and Customs ever. I literally don’t think the guy even looked at my face. He stamped my passport without a word, as opposed to London, where I felt like I was being interrogated about a murder. We rode the bus to Lido de Camiaore, the village where we’re staying for two weeks of orientation. We’re doing an “intensive” language course-so few of us know Italian. I thought I was going to be in the minority and that most of the students would be really good at it already, but there are only like 10 or so people (out of about 80) that are in any classes above the elementary level. We’re going to be in class for four straight hours. It’s going to be a little intense, but I feel like they’re really going to drill it and we should be able to learn fast, especially since we’re staying in such a non-touristy area of Tuscany right now. We’re the only Americans for miles and everyone knows about us. And that the majority of us are girls….awesome. A gelled-up Rudolfo informed my friend Lauren of this last night. Cooooolll!
Now, back to the three things I mentioned at the very beginning of this post, those things that I take for granted in America. Readily available trashcans were one of them. Today a group of girls and I took a pizza back to our hotel to eat in this really pretty garden, and when we finished there was nowhere in sight to throw the box away. We searched all over the hotel’s garden and courtyard area, then went inside to the lobby and found nothing. We asked the receptionist where we could go to throw the box away and she told us to leave the hotel, take a left out and walk two blocks down to find a trashcan large enough. So we’re crossing these crazy busy streets (there are no signs or lights anywhere in the area that I’ve seen), our lives flashing before our eyes and the top of the pizza box flapping in the wind as we run. At least now we know where the trashcan is!!
The box was pretty cute as far as pizza boxes go:
Another thing that is going to take some adjusting is making the switch to Coca-Cola Light. Anyone who’s known me for more than 5 minutes knows I love (slash am addicted to) Diet Coke. Anyone who’s known me for more than 10 minutes knows that I prefer nearly-icy can to fountain DC, fountain to glass bottle, glass bottle to plastic bottle. It’s just a taste hierarchy I’ve gotten used to. I was alerted by Cary Benton, who studied in Siena, of the fact that Coca-Cola Light would be the closest thing. “You might not be able to taste the difference, though,” she said. I laughed. Oh Cary…how I wish that were true. Sewanee kids reading this, Will Stanley was also in the room and laughed because he shares the Diet Coke addiction and knows that anyone who drinks a lot of the delicious poison has their packaging preferences and VERY particular taste buds that can sense the dreaded urine of soft drinks (Diet Pepsi) from miles away.
Point is, I had Coca-Cola Light with my lunch today. Thankfully, it was in a can (a tall, thinnish and very cute can, actually…) but it was noticeably sweeter and a little intense for me. I’m sure I’ll be drinking it and get used to it fine, but I’m also going to use this semester as a chance to tone the addiction down (gasp!) at least a little bit.
Ciao. Wow, I’ve got to start posting more often because there’s no way I’ve covered everything and look how long this is. Ridiculous.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
the final countdown
Well, kiddos, today's the day. It's 2:30 in the morning and my first flight leaves in just 9 hours! Today I've been running around Tupelo like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get last-minute things taken care of. There have been quite a few curveballs thrown at me today. The first came when I was finishing packing this morning and suddenly realized something alarming: I HAVE NO PANTS.
Ok, so that statement might be a slight exaggeration, but seriously-I experienced a major Wardrobe Wakeup Call while trying to get all my clothes together. I could fill an entire suitcase with my pashminas and other scarves. I have enough cardigans to outfit every grandmother and librarian in Mississippi. And I tend to forget because they're always at the dry cleaner's, but I have oodles of dresses. But pants? There's a slight shortage, and that's an understatement.
I headed downtown to Omi Boutique, knowing they were having this big blowout sale because the store is going out of business. And I was right; everything in the store was 75% off. It's really pretty sad; it's been the perfect (read: only) place to go in Tupelo for when you want to splurge (read: not often) on some really cute, really well-made clothes. One of the ladies who worked there was the secretary at my elementary school, and the former owner was super sweet and taught me Sunday School in 8th or 9th grade. The ex-secretary, known by everyone as just "Ms. Daytra," was working when I walked in; it'd been at least 2 years since I last saw her. And I've never been greeted so enthusiastically when entering a store. I was surprised she immediately remembered my name, to be honest, but she was so conversational and fun and asked all about my sister ("How's 'Bel?") and my mom and my plans for the semester. We talked for a while about how fast time flew since I was at Carver (the school where she worked), and she filled me in on all the Last-Days-of-Omi drama-apparently there'd been a few Winona Ryder incidents. Ms. Daytra's descriptions were priceless: "I even recognized the girl who stole, and Lord knows she could have paid FULL price for that Nicole Miller, but instead she jacked it when it was already marked down 75% and just made me feel STUPID," she said.
Just chatting and catching up with Ms. Daytra made that trip downtown worthwhile. Little interactions like that remind me that I'm so glad I grew up in Tupelo, and they usually pop up at opportune times when I need to be reminded of that. Like, how many people even remember who the front-office secretary at their elementary school was, let alone still speak to her? As much as I make fun of it or complain of boredom when I'm here, I'm really lucky to have had (and still have) the supportive network of people that I did growing up. (And I got a pair of Rock & Republic jeans for 30 bucks, so that was cool too). :D
After quality catch-up time at Omi, I headed to Greatest Hits, a pretty cool used-music and book store. The owner pays cash for any unwanted items, and I had a stack of weird and totally unnecessary books for him to check out. (Note: these were rejects from the "We'll Buy it Back" system at the Sewanee bookstore). Let me give you an idea of what kind of gems were in this ridiculous collection. The two highlights were probably "Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons" (I took an American Animation class for art history that was actually pretty legit. Mickey can teach you more than you'd think) and a whopping 460-pager on the practices of polygamous Eskimos (left over from when I dabbled in some anthro classes freshman year). Quality literature, obvi. I mainly just wanted to get the unwanted books out of my room because I was trying to clean as I packed, and yes, I was expecting to get a little ca$h money, maybe $20, or $30 if the owner felt generous. Every little bit helps, and I figured I could add it to my FFF (Florentine Food Fund). But the owner took one look at my stack (there were at least 10 books) and told me he could give me TWO DOLLARS. For a split second I thought he was joking, but I quickly sucked it up, took the 2 bucks and spent $1.85 on a Route 44 Diet Coke at Sonic. I've decided I totally got the better end of the deal. Diet Coke > Inuit Lit.
This play-by-play of my day is probably getting old, so I'll give you the shortened version of the rest of the day. I had to stop at about 630486930 other places: Best Buy (camera, camera case, memory card, laptop case, adapter for European outlets), Wal-Mart (toiletries and whatnot), Old Navy (pajamas. Because I don't discriminate-as I realized today, I apparently don't buy any pants, pajamas included), Beauty Motif (Bare Minerals powder), Regions (bank, duh), BancorpSouth, the Tupelo airport, the post office, etc. etc. etc. It was ridiculous. I hope I have enough money to exist in Italy now...seriously. I cringed every time I saw the total at a checkout counter. (Well, at Wal-Mart I was cringing because the 11-year-old in front of me at the self checkout was paying for her entire purchase in pennies, literally, but that is another story altogether).
As I was zooming all over town in a frenzied state today, I listened to the mix CD my brother and his wife (!!! that still sounds weird-I can't believe he's married-I love it, though!!) gave out at their wedding a few weeks ago. The CD is a compilation of some of their "special songs." No worries-it's not the musical equivalent of PDA (aka not a puke-worthy mix of stuff like "Everything I Do I Do For You...") Instead, the CD is chock full of fun music (Will.i.am, Hall & Oates, and even Gaga all make appearances), gooooood bands (Arcade Fire, Talking Heads) and sweeeettt love songs. For one reason or another, today I got really into the U2 classic "Mysterious Ways." I was blasting it at an embarrassing volume while cruising around in the Mom Volvo, and I'm pretty sure my head was bobbing the kind of conspicuous head-bob that is visible to onlookers in separate lanes. Favorite line: "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel!" Yeah Bono.
The final issue I'm having during this Final Countdown has to do with a GIFT. In my 20 (that number freaks me out) years of life so far, I've given quite a few presents. Birthdays, Christmases, graduations, Mother's and Father's Day, even weddings lately-I'd say I'm pretty experienced in the realm of gift-giving. And, not to brag, but I think my track record with Gift Recipient Satisfaction is pretty solid. But my hard-earned tradition of Recipient Contentment becomes threatened when a mystery Italian(s?) is brought into the picture.
Tomorrow (today?) I'm getting on a plane, and in just a couple of weeks I'll be living with a Florentine host family. And "host FAMILY" is a very unclear term right now-at the moment, I have no idea who that family will be. I've been told that the hosts are generally either single women or elderly couples. I won't find out till days before meeting them. This poses a bit of a problem because my mom is insisting that I buy a gift to present to them (her?) upon arrival. Aaaaannnddd...therein lies my problem. It seems like the classic "I'm the guest, you're the host" gift is wine. But that'd be kind of weird since a.) The guest doesn't actually know the host yet and b.) I'm underage (okay, not underage in Europe, but it'd still be weird). I also quickly nixed the idea when I remembered two minor details: these people live in Italy. I live in Mississippi. In case you need further clarification: I'm willing to bet that my host mom has very elite old Tuscan taste buds and would probably either:
A.) laugh
-or-
B.) die
if I brought her a bottle of cheap chardonnay from "Rebel Liquor & Wine," the store nearest my neighborhood. Notably, this store is conveniently located within walking distance of both "EZ-Ca$h-N-Pawn" and Kentucky Fried Chicken. In addition, the gigantic Confederate flag in the window really adds to its rustic charm. Point being, I don't think a $9 bottle from the dRaNk stop down the street would meet my host mom's standards, considering she could potentially take a wine tour of Tuscany at any given moment.
Once we ruled out that idea, my mom immediately decided that whatever I bring them should be "characteristic of Mississippi. Something to embody where you're from-something they'll identify with you!" Hoooo boy. A magnolia leaf? A John Deere hat? What did she have in mind, exactly? My mom sat and pondered for a minute or so, and then I saw the wheels start to turn in her head as her face lit up. "I know!! Why don't you get them a souvenir from THE BIRTHPLACE?!?!"
"THE BIRTHPLACE," which my mother referred to with such excited reverence, is the birthplace of one Elvis Presley. Memphis likes to take the credit, but Elvis wasn't born at Graceland. Nope, he was definitely born in humble Tupelo.
I looked at my mom for a minute and thought about the words that had just come out of her mouth. "What...kind of souvenir exactly?" I asked.
"Well, I don't know," she said. "Magnets, maybe!! Or a keychain?"
A keychain. When was the last time someone got excited about a keychain? Oh, I remember-it was me, in 1997, when I attached my off-brand Tamagotchi to a key ring and let it dangle from my psychedelic Lisa Frank backpack. Coolness...it's a lifestyle.
Once I informed my mother that a keychain just wasn't going to cut it, we sat around and thought some more, getting nowhere. But after my mom brought up the Elvis option, I couldn't get it out of my head. I have no desire to present my host mom with an Elvis snowglobe, nor an airbrushed "King of Rock & Roll" tee, nor anything like that I could possibly dream up. But I'm fresh out of any other ideas. If any of you readers (do I have any readers, by the way?) have any ideas to share, then I would thank you...thank you very much.
(OK, that was lame).
Good night and love to all!!
Ok, so that statement might be a slight exaggeration, but seriously-I experienced a major Wardrobe Wakeup Call while trying to get all my clothes together. I could fill an entire suitcase with my pashminas and other scarves. I have enough cardigans to outfit every grandmother and librarian in Mississippi. And I tend to forget because they're always at the dry cleaner's, but I have oodles of dresses. But pants? There's a slight shortage, and that's an understatement.
I headed downtown to Omi Boutique, knowing they were having this big blowout sale because the store is going out of business. And I was right; everything in the store was 75% off. It's really pretty sad; it's been the perfect (read: only) place to go in Tupelo for when you want to splurge (read: not often) on some really cute, really well-made clothes. One of the ladies who worked there was the secretary at my elementary school, and the former owner was super sweet and taught me Sunday School in 8th or 9th grade. The ex-secretary, known by everyone as just "Ms. Daytra," was working when I walked in; it'd been at least 2 years since I last saw her. And I've never been greeted so enthusiastically when entering a store. I was surprised she immediately remembered my name, to be honest, but she was so conversational and fun and asked all about my sister ("How's 'Bel?") and my mom and my plans for the semester. We talked for a while about how fast time flew since I was at Carver (the school where she worked), and she filled me in on all the Last-Days-of-Omi drama-apparently there'd been a few Winona Ryder incidents. Ms. Daytra's descriptions were priceless: "I even recognized the girl who stole, and Lord knows she could have paid FULL price for that Nicole Miller, but instead she jacked it when it was already marked down 75% and just made me feel STUPID," she said.
Just chatting and catching up with Ms. Daytra made that trip downtown worthwhile. Little interactions like that remind me that I'm so glad I grew up in Tupelo, and they usually pop up at opportune times when I need to be reminded of that. Like, how many people even remember who the front-office secretary at their elementary school was, let alone still speak to her? As much as I make fun of it or complain of boredom when I'm here, I'm really lucky to have had (and still have) the supportive network of people that I did growing up. (And I got a pair of Rock & Republic jeans for 30 bucks, so that was cool too). :D
After quality catch-up time at Omi, I headed to Greatest Hits, a pretty cool used-music and book store. The owner pays cash for any unwanted items, and I had a stack of weird and totally unnecessary books for him to check out. (Note: these were rejects from the "We'll Buy it Back" system at the Sewanee bookstore). Let me give you an idea of what kind of gems were in this ridiculous collection. The two highlights were probably "Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons" (I took an American Animation class for art history that was actually pretty legit. Mickey can teach you more than you'd think) and a whopping 460-pager on the practices of polygamous Eskimos (left over from when I dabbled in some anthro classes freshman year). Quality literature, obvi. I mainly just wanted to get the unwanted books out of my room because I was trying to clean as I packed, and yes, I was expecting to get a little ca$h money, maybe $20, or $30 if the owner felt generous. Every little bit helps, and I figured I could add it to my FFF (Florentine Food Fund). But the owner took one look at my stack (there were at least 10 books) and told me he could give me TWO DOLLARS. For a split second I thought he was joking, but I quickly sucked it up, took the 2 bucks and spent $1.85 on a Route 44 Diet Coke at Sonic. I've decided I totally got the better end of the deal. Diet Coke > Inuit Lit.
This play-by-play of my day is probably getting old, so I'll give you the shortened version of the rest of the day. I had to stop at about 630486930 other places: Best Buy (camera, camera case, memory card, laptop case, adapter for European outlets), Wal-Mart (toiletries and whatnot), Old Navy (pajamas. Because I don't discriminate-as I realized today, I apparently don't buy any pants, pajamas included), Beauty Motif (Bare Minerals powder), Regions (bank, duh), BancorpSouth, the Tupelo airport, the post office, etc. etc. etc. It was ridiculous. I hope I have enough money to exist in Italy now...seriously. I cringed every time I saw the total at a checkout counter. (Well, at Wal-Mart I was cringing because the 11-year-old in front of me at the self checkout was paying for her entire purchase in pennies, literally, but that is another story altogether).
As I was zooming all over town in a frenzied state today, I listened to the mix CD my brother and his wife (!!! that still sounds weird-I can't believe he's married-I love it, though!!) gave out at their wedding a few weeks ago. The CD is a compilation of some of their "special songs." No worries-it's not the musical equivalent of PDA (aka not a puke-worthy mix of stuff like "Everything I Do I Do For You...") Instead, the CD is chock full of fun music (Will.i.am, Hall & Oates, and even Gaga all make appearances), gooooood bands (Arcade Fire, Talking Heads) and sweeeettt love songs. For one reason or another, today I got really into the U2 classic "Mysterious Ways." I was blasting it at an embarrassing volume while cruising around in the Mom Volvo, and I'm pretty sure my head was bobbing the kind of conspicuous head-bob that is visible to onlookers in separate lanes. Favorite line: "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel!" Yeah Bono.
The final issue I'm having during this Final Countdown has to do with a GIFT. In my 20 (that number freaks me out) years of life so far, I've given quite a few presents. Birthdays, Christmases, graduations, Mother's and Father's Day, even weddings lately-I'd say I'm pretty experienced in the realm of gift-giving. And, not to brag, but I think my track record with Gift Recipient Satisfaction is pretty solid. But my hard-earned tradition of Recipient Contentment becomes threatened when a mystery Italian(s?) is brought into the picture.
Tomorrow (today?) I'm getting on a plane, and in just a couple of weeks I'll be living with a Florentine host family. And "host FAMILY" is a very unclear term right now-at the moment, I have no idea who that family will be. I've been told that the hosts are generally either single women or elderly couples. I won't find out till days before meeting them. This poses a bit of a problem because my mom is insisting that I buy a gift to present to them (her?) upon arrival. Aaaaannnddd...therein lies my problem. It seems like the classic "I'm the guest, you're the host" gift is wine. But that'd be kind of weird since a.) The guest doesn't actually know the host yet and b.) I'm underage (okay, not underage in Europe, but it'd still be weird). I also quickly nixed the idea when I remembered two minor details: these people live in Italy. I live in Mississippi. In case you need further clarification: I'm willing to bet that my host mom has very elite old Tuscan taste buds and would probably either:
A.) laugh
-or-
B.) die
if I brought her a bottle of cheap chardonnay from "Rebel Liquor & Wine," the store nearest my neighborhood. Notably, this store is conveniently located within walking distance of both "EZ-Ca$h-N-Pawn" and Kentucky Fried Chicken. In addition, the gigantic Confederate flag in the window really adds to its rustic charm. Point being, I don't think a $9 bottle from the dRaNk stop down the street would meet my host mom's standards, considering she could potentially take a wine tour of Tuscany at any given moment.
Once we ruled out that idea, my mom immediately decided that whatever I bring them should be "characteristic of Mississippi. Something to embody where you're from-something they'll identify with you!" Hoooo boy. A magnolia leaf? A John Deere hat? What did she have in mind, exactly? My mom sat and pondered for a minute or so, and then I saw the wheels start to turn in her head as her face lit up. "I know!! Why don't you get them a souvenir from THE BIRTHPLACE?!?!"
"THE BIRTHPLACE," which my mother referred to with such excited reverence, is the birthplace of one Elvis Presley. Memphis likes to take the credit, but Elvis wasn't born at Graceland. Nope, he was definitely born in humble Tupelo.
I looked at my mom for a minute and thought about the words that had just come out of her mouth. "What...kind of souvenir exactly?" I asked.
"Well, I don't know," she said. "Magnets, maybe!! Or a keychain?"
A keychain. When was the last time someone got excited about a keychain? Oh, I remember-it was me, in 1997, when I attached my off-brand Tamagotchi to a key ring and let it dangle from my psychedelic Lisa Frank backpack. Coolness...it's a lifestyle.
Once I informed my mother that a keychain just wasn't going to cut it, we sat around and thought some more, getting nowhere. But after my mom brought up the Elvis option, I couldn't get it out of my head. I have no desire to present my host mom with an Elvis snowglobe, nor an airbrushed "King of Rock & Roll" tee, nor anything like that I could possibly dream up. But I'm fresh out of any other ideas. If any of you readers (do I have any readers, by the way?) have any ideas to share, then I would thank you...thank you very much.
(OK, that was lame).
Good night and love to all!!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
serena van der woodsen: nonfiction edition
A new development in the pre-Italy saga: I got a packet in the mail from AIFS (my study abroad program) yesterday. Inside there was a list of every student going to Florence through the program, along with their hometown, home university, and email address. Well, a certain name caught my eye. I noticed there was a "Mortimer" from New York, New York and sat puzzled for a minute as to why the name sounded vaguely familiar. I realized that it was because of my marathon viewings of Gossip Girl over the years. I remembered that Chuck, Blair and company have name-dropped "Tinsley Mortimer" on multiple occasions and that this woman has even made cameo appearances in a couple of the episodes (see: the "White Party" in season two). On the show, her name's been used as an umbrella term for "Rich 'It' Girls Famous for Doing Nothing..." the "Tinsley Mortimers" of the world, aka new-money socialites like Serena on the show. So, naturally, I had to Facebook this young Mortimer (duh); her profile picture looked suspiciously socialite-esque. Upon Google-stalking I discovered she's the cousin of Tinsley herself. One of the first search results I got led me to New York Post's Page Six list of "Twenty It Girls to Watch in 2010." Tinsley's cousin, the girl on my trip, is at the top of the list. These girls are described as "young, beautiful and poised to take the city by storm." Apparently Tinsley's cuz has kept what the article described as a "decidedly low profile" since going off to college. Personally, I think it's admirable that she's in college, unlike Serena and her "types" on the show, and I think it's extra cool that she'll be going on this program with all us "commoners." Who knows, maybe she'll end up rooming with Mississippi Mary. I have a feeling we could teach each other a lot.
I immediately told Anna Margaret about this because I figured if any of my friends knew who Tinsley Mortimer is, it'd be Anna Margaret. And I was right.
I'm a little freaked out by the digital age (I sound like my mother) and the fact that I was able to find all of this out so very easily. I'm also a little embarrassed that I even did a double-take at the name "Mortimer" when I saw it on the list. My radar for anything Gossip Girl-related is a little ridiculous.
I immediately told Anna Margaret about this because I figured if any of my friends knew who Tinsley Mortimer is, it'd be Anna Margaret. And I was right.
I'm a little freaked out by the digital age (I sound like my mother) and the fact that I was able to find all of this out so very easily. I'm also a little embarrassed that I even did a double-take at the name "Mortimer" when I saw it on the list. My radar for anything Gossip Girl-related is a little ridiculous.
Monday, August 9, 2010
more rambling about preparation...
So I'm back from yet another magical summer in Mentone, trying to process the amazing 2 months I had while simultaneously preparing for 4 months away...slightly overwhelming! And those 4 months will begin really, really soon! I only have 9 more days left at home, which is really hard to believe. These days, my house in Tupelo just feels like a rest stop along the way.
I'm definitely dealing with the empty feeling I normally have in the weeks after camp ends, but thankfully, it's less overwhelming than usual because I have Italy to look forward to. And I say "look forward" as if it's months away- I'm leaving on the 18th!
As the date approaches, my excitement is paired with more nervousness than I really expected to feel. I can't wait for the adventure-being in a new place, soaking up another culture, making new connections with people, getting a break from the typical college life, and just wandering around taking it all in. But in coming home from camp and thinking about what's made the past 2 months so incredible, I’ve become a little anxious.
Camp is just such an uplifting environment. Everyone is there to encourage, and every day I can find motivation and satisfaction because my role, purpose, and intentions are so clear to me. It’s a cliche, but only because it’s true: I find joy in the simplest things and meaning in everything. It’s a very intentional community where everyone is committed to Christ and each other and finding Christ in each other. On top of that, putting others’ needs ahead of my own and focusing daily on serving and giving is just so fulfilling, even on the toughest days. And now, after months of living in such a supportive and bonded community, I’m going to be transported halfway across the world to a place where I don’t speak the language, don’t know a soul, and probably won’t be concerned with many needs other than those of me, myself, and I. And there’s a tiny part of me that’s nervous about the isolation that I might feel. Good conversation is one of the main things that keeps me going every day, one of the main things I seek out and look forward to, so being able to communicate on only a very basic level will probably become really frustrating after a while. Oh well, I guess that’s what Skype is for. :)
The tiny bit of nervousness I have about leaving for four months is still no match for the excitement and curiosity I have, though. I love the thought of centuries of rich history and culture being on display everywhere I turn. Living in Florence I’m going to see things I’ve spent hours studying in class practically right outside my door-yet it will all feel new and unfamiliar and inspiring. I love that paradox. I can’t wait to just be absolutely amazed by seemingly simple things like the street I’ll be walking on or the dialects I’ll be hearing. It really can’t get here soon enough!!
While waiting for the day to get here, I’m not doing much other than reading magazines, stalking people on Facebook, staring at the mountain of clothes on my floor, and listening to music (I can’t get enough of this John Prine tribute album that was released in June and has some of my favorite artists covering some of his best songs…too good!! It’s a healthy dose of good ole Americana I won’t be hearing much when I get over to Florence). :D I haven't done anything remotely Italian, except my dad bought these really delicious Keebler Town House crackers and I've developed a bit of an addiction and the flavor happens to be called "Italian Herbs." Also (and this isn't anything Italy-related) I’ve been listening to really odd combinations of music since I got home from camp-like, Jay-Z (“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” specifically) combined with Sugar Ray (????), hymns, Phoenix, and Patty Griffin odd. Like…what?? Also, Bieber fever has followed me home from camp, or at least ‘Baby’ has. LUDA!
I’m not really expecting this tangent to go anywhere so I’ll wrap this up for now. Stay tuned if I haven’t bored you to death already!! ☺
I'm definitely dealing with the empty feeling I normally have in the weeks after camp ends, but thankfully, it's less overwhelming than usual because I have Italy to look forward to. And I say "look forward" as if it's months away- I'm leaving on the 18th!
As the date approaches, my excitement is paired with more nervousness than I really expected to feel. I can't wait for the adventure-being in a new place, soaking up another culture, making new connections with people, getting a break from the typical college life, and just wandering around taking it all in. But in coming home from camp and thinking about what's made the past 2 months so incredible, I’ve become a little anxious.
Camp is just such an uplifting environment. Everyone is there to encourage, and every day I can find motivation and satisfaction because my role, purpose, and intentions are so clear to me. It’s a cliche, but only because it’s true: I find joy in the simplest things and meaning in everything. It’s a very intentional community where everyone is committed to Christ and each other and finding Christ in each other. On top of that, putting others’ needs ahead of my own and focusing daily on serving and giving is just so fulfilling, even on the toughest days. And now, after months of living in such a supportive and bonded community, I’m going to be transported halfway across the world to a place where I don’t speak the language, don’t know a soul, and probably won’t be concerned with many needs other than those of me, myself, and I. And there’s a tiny part of me that’s nervous about the isolation that I might feel. Good conversation is one of the main things that keeps me going every day, one of the main things I seek out and look forward to, so being able to communicate on only a very basic level will probably become really frustrating after a while. Oh well, I guess that’s what Skype is for. :)
The tiny bit of nervousness I have about leaving for four months is still no match for the excitement and curiosity I have, though. I love the thought of centuries of rich history and culture being on display everywhere I turn. Living in Florence I’m going to see things I’ve spent hours studying in class practically right outside my door-yet it will all feel new and unfamiliar and inspiring. I love that paradox. I can’t wait to just be absolutely amazed by seemingly simple things like the street I’ll be walking on or the dialects I’ll be hearing. It really can’t get here soon enough!!
While waiting for the day to get here, I’m not doing much other than reading magazines, stalking people on Facebook, staring at the mountain of clothes on my floor, and listening to music (I can’t get enough of this John Prine tribute album that was released in June and has some of my favorite artists covering some of his best songs…too good!! It’s a healthy dose of good ole Americana I won’t be hearing much when I get over to Florence). :D I haven't done anything remotely Italian, except my dad bought these really delicious Keebler Town House crackers and I've developed a bit of an addiction and the flavor happens to be called "Italian Herbs." Also (and this isn't anything Italy-related) I’ve been listening to really odd combinations of music since I got home from camp-like, Jay-Z (“Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem),” specifically) combined with Sugar Ray (????), hymns, Phoenix, and Patty Griffin odd. Like…what?? Also, Bieber fever has followed me home from camp, or at least ‘Baby’ has. LUDA!
I’m not really expecting this tangent to go anywhere so I’ll wrap this up for now. Stay tuned if I haven’t bored you to death already!! ☺
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