Travel

She said to me

“Haven’t you ever loved something you were afraid of?”

You have no idea.

Sweaty palms, racing heart, trouble breathing

Why is it that to the body fear and love feel the same?

Cashmere sweaters folded in a bag weighing under 10 kilograms

Playing solitaire with my thoughts as I yawn to unpop my ears

She said to me

“Sometimes I feel like everything I say is being translated by someone far away in another country who has had to much to drink.”

You have no idea.

Parlez-vous anglais? Non capisco l’italiano. Voe ist the train station?

Relationships aren’t the only time things get lost in translation.

Kind confused eyes search crinkled maps for familiar names I have butchered.

I fold up and tuck sarcastic comments in my pocket for later, for people who will understand them

She said to me

“Did you ever find that you’d outgrown who you were? Cast it off like a snake sheds it’s skin and left a ghost of who it was?”

You have no idea.

A reflection I don’t recognize, words I can no longer define, déjà vu feeling with the scars to prove it’s real.

I squint, peering back into memories to make out the shape of the teenage girl in a uniform plaid skirt.

Words have all the translucence of a reflection. How do you describe something that is in one word everything?

Had to write this for travel writing and thought I'd share for a change of pace.

Thanksgiving/Amsterdam and Paris blogs are coming soon. Things are crazy with lots of wonderful visitors and only 11 days left in Florence.

....

At some point on every weekend trip I find myself watching the Tuscan countryside fly by with my nose squished against the smudged glass window of a Eurostar bus. It’s one of those in between details, the unaccounted for and subsequently forgotten moments of transition that come between airports and train stations, hostels and home. Despite the hassle of the extra 7,50 and added hour of travel I love these bus rides. Caught in the handover between my home in Florence and adventures in a new place I am often inspired, prompted to consider my current life with the clarity of an outside perspective. It is during these jaunts that I make the majority of my notes for later writing, hunched over my journal squinting in the dark as my pen scribbles in even worse handwriting than usual, thrown off course by speed bumps and sudden turns. I’m in awe of everything I am experiencing and newly resolute to harden every detail into a flawless unbreakable memory of the moment. I take in every curve of blue silhouetted mountains in the distance, plowed fields of symmetrical rows of skinny leaved trees, and clotheslines burdened with sheets speckling the hills as they puff up and try to elope with the breeze.

One day I saw an entire patch of dead sunflowers. Hundreds and hundreds of them still standing but withered and brown, their heads all dropped in surrender the same direction as if they had met their end as the result of some mass suicide or a Medusa like sighting that instead of stone transformed them all to decay at the exact same moment. The image of this field has haunted me and even without effort I can still conjure it up as if I were back against that bus window what must have been two months ago now. For a long time I could not figure out what it was that made me so sad about this sight. Sunflowers are not among my preferred flowers and the enjoyment I get from them is mostly in that they remind me of one of my best friends who considers them among her own reasons d’être. No, it was not the sunflowers themselves at all that saddened me but instead the skeleton of a beautiful thing lost.

As the epitome of a hopeless romantic, I love flowers. Neatly pruned blooms along sidewalks, mismatched grocery store bouquets on sale for $9.99, untamed and unnamed wildflowers in a field, a single tiny blossom poking through a crack in a slab of concrete, I’ll take them all. Peonies, orchids and poppies are best but even carnations will do. When I have been lucky enough to receive flowers I have done everything I can to make them last. Sniping stems, adding plant food and goggling the species for tips and optimal lighting suggestions. Of course within a couple weeks they all die and I find myself a bit more upset about this than is probably healthy or normal. I also (in true failure-to-let-go fashion) refuse to throw them away. I leave them there until all of the petals have fallen off, the stems have dried out and hardened and the water in the vase has begun to grow some type of white mold. I refuse to admit that my flowers are gone, still hesitant to admit that I have lost such a beautiful thing.

This peculiarity of mine is also why I find myself sliding into depression whenever I leave San Diego. I am sorry to withdraw from a magnificent life of laughter, sunshine, kindred spirits, and ocean spray, sad to have such a beautiful thing taken back from me much as mother nature takes back her flowers. The first weeks back in Arizona, I find myself in mourning, afraid I have lost something and can’t get it back. This anxiety over having something beautiful and then losing it has nurtured my desperate wish for a better memory. Lamenting my departure from San Diego, I recall sand in the bottom of the shower, watching life unfold in the reflection of the mirrored wall in Emma and Brittany’s kitchen and the exact ratio of powdered sugar to butter in Laguna 201 homemade frosting. A vivid and carefully cultivated memory is something that can never be lost or taken from me and I take comfort in the clarity of these details.

This is why I try to take pictures as often as possible, and more importantly why I write. Because despite my most ardent and unyielding attempts to notice every detail and lock it away for later, so often my memory fails and I can no longer remember if the vase of flowers was blue or green and whether we were in Lauren or Erin’s car when we brought home our Christmas tree. So I write. I write about the way that traveling has, for the first time in my life, given me a kind of solidarity with my own thoughts that makes being alone sometimes not feel lonely anymore. I write about bath room talks with roommates where alcohol loosened our tongues and brought the swelling on our egos down. I write about people I meet on planes and how the clocks on the buses are always inexplicably set to the wrong time. I write and I take pictures in the hopes that when this incredible adventure is over I will not feel that I have lost something that I had and loved but instead gained a collection of glorious experiences, carefully documented to later supplement omissions in rose colored cob-webby memories.

* Image from We heart it tumbler

Roaming Rome

A hand to her forehead as she speaks Maria tousles her hair and returns to kneading the air like dough, speaking with every muscle from the waist up as only Italians can. Her frizzy ash blonde bangs float back to her brow in a rumpled mess, seemingly aware that they will soon be disturbed again and so there is no need to look presentable. The rest of her hair is twisted haphazardly into a tangled knot of scraggly ends and forgotten bobby pins, which could have been secured this morning or the day before it’s impossible to tell. As usual Maria has on an array of neutral colored, loose, draping clothing arbitrarily layered together in a way that makes it difficult to identify on any given day what she is actually wearing. Today however, she is also wearing very baggy blue jeans whose frayed bottoms drag on the ground over clogs with a heel bringing her to around 5” 4’. She rummages through a large olive green canvas bag, clinking a chunky silver ring on her index finger against keys or coins as she forages for a cigarette, her fourth of the morning. Like the excessive fabric used for her clothes everything she does is intemperate. Her movements are leisurely and overindulgent, limbs never choosing the quickest route between two points, cigarettes drawing rings through the air on the way to her lips. All loose strands of hair, no make up, grandiose gestures and loud thickly accented English devoid of prepositions, Maria is equal parts animated and disheveled. The perfect picture of the single bohemian Italian woman, who is a little crazy and maybe a little bit drunk most of the time. She is a fascinating and fantastic mess. She is also, my theology professor.

As part of the Women and Religion class Maria seems to frequently confuse with an art history course, our saucy (and possibly sauced) professor herded us onto a seven am train Friday morning and guided us through a nine-hour tour of Rome. The Coliseum, Pantheon, Forums, Capitol Hill, Castel Sant’Angelo and six or seven churches all of which blur together in a muddle of frescos, filigree and fervently whispered prayers. They were however all very beautiful and afforded me the opportunity to see some relics for the first time1. It rained sporadically throughout the day, which allowed us to see first hand the pitfalls to having a hole in your roof (the Pantheon) and to take cute umbrella pictures during a deluge in front of the Coliseum. I won’t bore you with the history of these places but I will say there is something remarkable about standing on the stones where gladiators fought and individuals built a civilization that would influence the world for thousands of years to come. The Coliseum in particular was a marvelous thing to see. Rome, although very beautiful particularly with all of the fall leaves and history, is incredibly different from Florence. It is really amazing that the two are not only in the same country but a mere hour and a half train ride apart. I was secretly pleased to find that I much prefer the quaint beauty and accessibility of Florence to the dirty busy streets of Rome. After nearly three months, Florence feels like home in a way I believe Rome never could have.

At the end of a long day trekking all around Rome with Maria, my friend Sarah and I wandered off to find our host for the evening. Feeling very much like we weren’t in Kansas anymore and pooling together our limited Italian vocabulary we got tremendously lost and finally made it to Michael’s apartment in great need of a nap. One hour of sleep, two kebabs, and three bottles of wine later Sarah and I found ourselves in a situation that never happens in Florence and rarely at USD: we were outnumbered by American boys 3 to 1. Thus began a typical evening of bathroom talks, overpriced drinks, unoriginal Italian pick up lines and Sarah playing chess with a Columbian in a bar called the Drunken Ship. Huh? When in Rome? The night ended with Sarah and I pathetically huddled atop a make shift bed on the floor in our coats fighting over who would be big spoon and freezing after Sarah lost our blanket to a blacked out boy from Boston. It was too hilarious to even be upset about.

On Saturday we woke up bleary-eyed and grateful that we had opted for the later tour and set off in the pouring rain to grab a cappuccino and a cannoli, make a wish in the Trevi fountain, and complete the full 50-euro tour of the Vatican museums. Even running on five hours of sleep in two days, the three-hour tour flew by. The Vatican is the second largest collection of art in the world (the Louve is the first) and I was perpetually in awe of all the famous and incredible things I was seeing. The Sistine Chapel was absolutely phenomenal. Even with all of the build up and all of the expectation it did not disappoint. Especially when you learn all of the historical meaning and the anecdotes of its creation. Sarah and I also got to see the apartments of the scandalous Pope Alexander the VI, whose wild orgies and concealed murders had been the subject of a presentation assigned to us by Maria the week before. So all in all we were pretty excited.

Lastly, and rather embarrassingly, I had hoped to see the Fountana de Amora from the movie When in Rome. After several fruitless attempts to find it I finally asked our Vatican guide for it’s location and our conversation went like this.
“Excuse me can you tell me where the Fountana de Amora is?”
Blank stare. “Isn’t that in a movie?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed excitedly “When in Rome! Have you seen it?”
“No but I heard about it. They made that up. The Fountana de Amora doesn’t exist.”
I was too disappointed to feel stupid.

One hour and about three false alarm panic attacks later2 we are homeward bound. I stare out the window of the only seating car on an overnight train curiously ending in Germany, and I decide our little Roman Holiday was a success. Much like the intrepid Maria who started us on our adventure, we had navigated Rome with a careless and unmethodical attitude and a sense of humor. Minor set backs only added to the experience and all the must sees of Rome were accounted for. Leaving the city behind for God knows how long I decide that Rome is nothing like the movies and most people have no idea what the expression “When in Rome” really means. Except maybe Professor Maria.






1. I stood next to aged Italian women silently weeping and wondered who on earth decided this, really not very old looking, piece of wood had come from the manger Jesus laid in or why an iron chain was in a glass case with people kneeling in front of it.

2. Since Sarah and I bought a two-person ticket, it did not include the train number or time and it took several inquires to acquire this information. Then when the conductor asked for our ticket it seemed we had lost it and right as he was about to throw us off the train I found it soggy and folded in the forgotten outside pocket of my bag.

After five hours of class I come home and gracelessly throw myself down on one of our comfy green couches, sliding to the middle because as usual the pillows are out of place and it sags. I attempt to summon a last vestige of patience as I wait for the Internet to load. Wednesdays are long and my usual homecoming routine is to pour myself a glass of wine and vege in front of the computer. That is until my roommates return to our apartment with the necessary buoyancy for me to rally for a carb loaded dinner and a late night of Florence shenanigans. As I roll my neck in a fruitless endeavor to alleviate the knots from a day of bending over child sized desks something catches my eye on one of the blogs I frequently stalk. A quote by my favorite author Nicole Krauss that is cited from Great House.
Great House? I wonder. This must be a mistake. She has only written two books both of which are among my favorites and one of which happens to be the only book of mine that I brought to Florence. A Wikipedia search is obviously necessary. I am shocked and in all honestly slightly outraged to find that she has in fact released a new book just 12 days prior. A new book? Why was I not told!?!?! I know I am not in America right now but still someone really should have called me. My outrage turns immediately to panic. How am I supposed to get her book over here? I begin to consider the possibilities and wish this issue had arisen last month when my mother could have brought it to me on her visit. After several Firefox and safari reloads I have the numbers for the only two international bookstores in Florence. I dial hastily. Please have it. Please Please have it. The first number goes to a machine. I dial the second. Please Please Please. I beg in a whisper. A calm Italian woman tells me that the line is busy and if I will please wait an associate will be with me soon. Five minutes later she tells me again. And again. Elevator music is not any better in Italy than it is in America. Finally someone picks up and after much hemming and hawing as to whether he must really get off his butt and look he tells me yes they do have a copy and he will hold it for me at the front desk. I tell him I will be RIGHT there, literally skip out the door squealing and nearly forget the keys to my apartment.

The walk to the Duomo seems to take longer than usual as I am practically shaking with excitement. I cannot remember a time that I was more excited about anything in my life. Thanksgiving mashed potatoes tomorrow? Amsterdam the next day? Paris the following weekend? They don’t compare. I scurry through the streets like an animal. I’m a literary addict thisclose to my next fix. I throw open the bookstore doors with an excessive amount of force and rush up to the desk. A crinkled twenty and some change is exchanged “I don’t need a bag!!” I snap a little too forcefully then smile apologetically as I stretch a hand across the counter just inches from the crisp red and white binding waiting to be broken in. He hands it over with a shrug and I resist the urge to let out another trademark squeal of delight. I clutch it to my chest, arms crossed in protection and walk out of the store and into the cold but thankful rainless night. I try to exercise self-restraint but only make it to the corner before I crack the cover. I vow to read only the first sentence but three blocks later I’m on page four and barely looking up. I try to walk with my feet flexed since I have a history of tripping on independently minded cobblestones but Italian people usually tend to barrel through the streets without regard for people or cars in their way so I have little issue as I make my way home. Every sentence is like a present just for me a beautifully crafted line in language I adore. I feel like I am reading through my list of favorite quotes and find myself folding over the corner of almost every page to copy and paste to this collection later. In my life there have been few surprise gifts which I actually adored but tonight I hold in my hands a present just for me and it’s wonderful and unexpected. I suppose the Italians find me strange peering down at a book as I walk through poorly lit streets and weave through the crowds around Billa (our nearby grocery store). I begin to think of the opening scene in The Beauty and the Beast when Belle is declared “Nothing like the rest of us” for having her nose in a book. If they are thinking this they are right.

There might not be a single person in Florence tonight or any night for that matter who is remotely excited about a new Nicole Krauss novel but that is more than alright with me. I am insanely happy because having a new novel by a favorite author is being reunited with a friend and soul mate. Someone who doesn’t know you but somehow knows the very essence of your being to a minute detail. With this book, I have just been returned a part of my heart and soul that I had left in America. I would not have thought it would travel well but in fact the streets of Florence and a cold November night on my own make it that much more beautiful. I wonder as I write this if Great House will live up to the legacy left by Nicole’s last two books. I wonder if I will forever think of Florence when I look at this book months from now. If all the beautiful joys and sorrows of my life abroad will be pressed in between the pages like dried flowers. One thing however is for certain: either I won’t be in class tomorrow or I won’t make it out tonight. If you’re looking for me I’ll be on the couch healing my heart and crying with Nicole.


I promise my post about Rome is coming soon! Actually that's a lie. It probably won't get done untill after this book! :)
HAPPY THANKSGIING EVERYONE I MISS YOU ALL AND WISH I WAS WITH YOU

Belated Reflections on Venice

The One in Love
On a gondola floating serenely down the waterways of Venice reality loses it’s faculty. Calm stillness replaces the rumbling of engines and the pinging of Blackberry’s. Red and white candy cane poles perform the duties of traffic lights. Concrete is traded for cobblestones. The noise and bustle of our busy city seems far away. A distant memory, a dream. The specific details of what, where, when and why melt away like the sense of time and concern for consequences. All that remains is the sheer beauty of the moment and the who. You and I on an island captained by a charming man with a striped shirt and throaty heart wrenching singing voice in a place designed just for us.

The Cynic
When on the subject of Romance wet, dirty, and smelly are not the first things that come to mind. It is therefore rather curious that a place where these adjectives have pervaded every nook and cranny is a prime destination for self-proclaimed victims of cupid. A city idiotically built on water, Venice has the unique odor of something that is always damp and slightly moldy. Constantly grey skies and morose silence accompany the faint aroma of decay as the buildings begin to deteriorate, growing more and more dirty and sinking further into water that seeps up through the cobblestones. Most days platform sidewalks a foot of the ground are erected but it is still impossible to make it through the day with dry feet as decrepit front entryways flood and the delusional people that populate the city slowly go down with the sinking ship of that supposed phenomenon know as love.

The Hopeful
The timeless stone buildings garnished with shuddered windows and wrought iron balconies housing cheery red geraniums cozy up to each other like old friends whispering secrets. Angles connect to reveal waterways, roads clogged not with pollution and yelled obscenities but gondolas, seemingly all filled with couples kissing. Their drivers silently stroke the water and glide by with barely a ripple in the distorted beauty of Venice’s reflection. There is a kind of stillness, even St. Mark’s Piazza with it’s tours, it’s tea services, pigeons and string quartet seems to be at a lower volume than everywhere in Florence. Venice is peaceful and the seldom interrupted quiet allows thoughts to slide in and out like silk through fingertips. Easy come, easy go. No impression left. What a lonely place to be by oneself I think as a solitaire figure crosses a arced bridge up a ways and fumbles in his pocket for keys. What an odd place to call ones home. Another gondola of the lucky in love floats by What a beautiful place to bring the one you love. Someday. My mind stills like the water below me on the bridge after the gondola is out of sight.



My assignment for Travel Writing this week was to write about a place I had been from three differnt perspectives. Having spent a day and a night in Venice last weekend when my mother visited I decided to play on it's reputation as one of the most romantic cities in the world.
Can you tell which one is me?

Hold your own, know your name and go your own way... and everything will be fine.

Recently I've been letting myself get bogged down by a lot of stuff, to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite authors, My boots have been heavy. My heart has been hurting, my smiles have been less frequent and I occasionally find myself sleepwalking through my life, choosing to be numb to all my feelings rather than wrestle with the ones casting a dark shadow on a beautiful life. My moodiness pulls me down like quicksand, sucking me into a pit of failures, mistakes and people lost that makes it hard to realize how lucky and loved I really am. Being abroad is the greatest experience I've had so far in life but it's also sometimes the loneliest and scariest. I've always fancied myself brave enough to walk the tightrope of independence but I've never actually had to do so without a safety net to fall into.

But... as a good friend of mine remarked recently in a much needed cross continental note of love and encouragement via my e-mail inbox: happiness is a choice. So as I reflect on the tears and insecurities of the past few weeks I'm instead choosing to be happy, grateful for the beautiful moments that transpired even before I reminded myself of a favorite quote of mine "It's not as hard to be happy as you're making it" (especially in Italy).


Fifteen things that made me happy in the past Fifteen Days
1. Curling up on the couch with across the universe, a bottle of red wine, visiting friends and, lots of blankets as the rain came down outside.
2. Taylor Swift's Speak Now CD on repeat
3. A phone call to my eternal roommate and soulmate Erin whose high pitched "LeeN" always makes the world feel right again.
4. Experimenting in the kitchen and then sitting down with a glass of wine and a dinner I made myself that is slightly more refined than PB and J pasta or grilled cheese (although I did make that recently as well).
5. Finding out that garlic isn't green when I cooked with it for the first time.
6. Venice. So beautiful and romantic.
7. Four days of meals at all my favorite restaurants for free while my mother was in town, including a dinner with just the two of us that was full of honesty and (for once) non-combative conversation.
8. Details in the fabric by Jason Mraz (source for this blog title)
9.A care package from my Theta fam complete with Theta tanks, holiday candle, Halloween socks, a fourth of July flag filled with confetti and some fabulously drawn stick figure cartoons of my adventures in Europe furnished with creepy Italian men.
10. Splashing in the twinkling reflections of lights captured in cobblestone puddles with my sky blue rain-boots as I walk home at night without an umbrella.
11. My ugly, old, dirty, embarrassingly pink, gloriously warm, and comfy Ugg boots (yes, that was a sentence with six adjectives and no verb).
12. A lit candle and the serenity prayer in Orasanmichael (my favorite church in the world)
13. A sweet heartfelt compliment from a new acquaintance with no ulterior motives for giving it.
14. Finally knowing my way around Firenze without a map and being able to show my home to visiting friends and my mother.
15. A visit from the only friend I've retained since preschool and the reassuring realization (during a conversation about who would be the bride and who would be the bridesmaid first) that sometimes friendships do last forever and it's possible for people to grow up without growing apart.

:)

The most beautiful place in the world

Resplendent and overbearing the sun begins to set, unfurling its plumage of colors through the sky like a peacock: without hesitation, without inhibition. Clouds blister and squirm mismatched for strength in a game of peek-a boo, a rock paper scissors where sun trumps cloud always and even the grumpiest, grayest cloud has no choice but to dissipate in patches, giving way to orange and pink rays as if someone had pulled them aside like curtains. Sunset brings out the grandeur in everything: bathing the horizon in pink, turning the remaining clouds into no more then silhouettes, causing the water to glitter with it’s reflection, highlighting various white and blue Cliffside buildings in Fira like a realtor showing off the best property. A sunset anywhere is beautiful, but a sunset in Santorini is like a bottle of Cristal when you are used to drinking Andre.

Most people visit the island of Santorini in the summer months and at late October the people that dot the picturesque landscape are like specks in spackle. Traffic is sparse: there are no honking horns, few exhaust pipes spewing clouds of suffocating black soot. Many of the places are boarded up until next season. Forgotten fliers boast parties that happened months ago and blackboards of restaurant specials left unerased offer air conditioning and deals on ice cream. The locals complain about the “bad weather” of occasional cloudy skies and temperatures below 70, weather that feels like paradise compared to my freezing apartment in Florence but does not afford one many opportunities to bring out their bikini. However the end of the season is prime for deals and with only a handful of tourists we have the run of the island and less danger of collisions as we ATV from the jagged cliffs of the lighthouse on one end to the village Oia made famous in movies on the other end. Even without many companions some of the curves and cliffs of the narrow roads are frightening and my friend Jordan gets into a small fender bender with a fourteen year old on a borrowed motorcycle. Still the feeling of the wind in our hair and view of the open road can not be equaled and five days give us just enough time to cartogram the entire island as our own with the amiable assistance of many gas station attendants, our three ATV’s and our tiny rental car whom we name “Shelby”. Getting around is effortless and inexpensive many ways but the best transportation of all on Santorini is the donkeys.

On the only day during our stay that actually constituted bad weather we had resolved to take a boat to the active volcano and hot springs about twenty minutes from the island. Winds churned the waters and cut through my sundress and sweater as the boat is tossed by the waves which spew icy water all over my sandaled feet as I try to ease my qualms about seasickness. After a hike around the volcano’s craters and charred rocks and a motion sick affected boat ride back we stand dismayed at the foot of the wide 588 stone stairs up from the port. Luckily we are soon accosted by a wrinkled old Greek man with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. “You want to take the donkey taxi? Five Euros? Donkey’s yes?” Skills as a salesman are not necessary to convince us and we eagerly pass over crinkled bills. Saddled and ready the donkeys trudge up the steep stairs leaving a trail of their poo and our squeals behind them. This was an experience repeated twice more during our stay, later with whisky to ease the terror of facing straight down the steep side of a cliff on the back of an animal that liked to get as close to the edge as possible, charge directly into a traffic jam of several of it’s immobile friends, and change it’s speed more than Greek people yell Opa!


When we were not trekking around feeling as if we had magically hoped into a postcard a la Mary Poppins, traipsing through turquoise shutters and white domes followed by packs of friendly and adorable stray dogs, and exploring the black, red, and white beaches we were eating. There were twice-daily visits to the 24 hour bakery by our hotel for one euro nutella filled cream pastries and giant fluffy sugar covered doughnuts fresh from the oven. There were Greek salads of fresh vegetables and seasoned feta, flavorful stuffed grape leaves, juicy chicken and formerly undiscovered Greek dishes like Fava and baked Feta which maybe the single greatest thing on the planet and is actually just feta wrapped in pastry dough and baked in honey and sesame seeds. In the tradition of Germany, England, and Italy Greece also had amazing French fries (or “fried potatoes). While many people would probably think of French fries as an American food to be had with a cheeseburger at McDonalds I have eaten more in Europe then I ever do back at home, partially because they always seem to be magically included in whatever I order. On the subject of McDonalds we resigned ourselves to one of the more upscale European ones and had McFlurry’s both jaunts in the Athens airport as we made our way to and from the Acropolis and Athens markets.


After all of the laughter and adventures as well as the burial of my gold gladiator sandals (or “gold sports shoes” as one tittering hiker called them before adding “I kid, I kid, they work.”) it was time to say goodbye. With each step offering a new and more picturesque view, it is not at all an exaggeration to say that Santorini is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Leaving had all the finality of our final sunset from the lighthouse, a beautiful ending but bittersweet in it’s farewell. However just as the sunset brings promise of a sunrise to come I hold onto the belief that I will someday return to collect the pieces of my heart sown about the island and Saturday’s sunset will not be my last in Santorini.

Weeds

Despite the fact that I just returned from an absolutely incredible time in Greece and that tonight is Halloween and I should be out partying, I find myself in bed on the brink of tears. Amidst all the donkey riding, baked feta, sunsets and smiles this past week a garden of unpleasantness had begun to take root. Pushed back into dark neglected places and watered with a few stolen tears and fearful whispers before sleep, ugly twisted things began to grow. Sadness sprouted first as it usually does, followed quickly by pain, loss and homesickness. Guilt lagged behind but as always soon grew to be the largest, spreading it's roots and slowly starting to strangle everything else. Intertwined so closely with the others it cannot be uprooted without taking all grief up with it and so I let it be. I tried to ignore the vines snaking their way up my spine and around my heart and have now found as grief tightens with each beat that it's too late.

A tragedy in the family has caused the flowering of all kinds of emotional seeds many obliviously sown years ago, dormant until now when age and slightly increased maturity has brought about an entire new set of weeds in addition to the loathed familiar ones.

I have never been very good at gardening and the people who are usually so adept at pulling the weeds in my soul (often without an awareness they are doing so) are miles and oceans away, just as I am from my family. So instead of haphazardly and whole-heartedly, if mostly ineffectually, trying to comfort and help my family and watching guilt begin to shrivel and die from the warmth of kinds words from beloved and trusted kindered spirits I am just sitting here in Italy growing weeds and raining on my pillow.


*Photo from Stumble

Zen Revenge & Other Things

I've probably never mentioned that the family that lives above us is extremely loud and annoying. Since we are just worthless American students and the ceiling is 12 feet high, poking at it with a broom like Erin and I used to do in the Vistas last year is not an option. Incased in a thick cloud of midterm studying, over the past couple days I have found myself stewing more and more each second, about to lose my mind over every marble dropped upstaris. So I decided to get revenge the only way I could: by imprisioning the father of said family in a hateful miserable life, literarily speaking. I don't know much about Italian families so I had to use an American family dynamic but I assure you irresponsible parents and demon children upstairs this is about you.

If you need a distraction/laugh enjoy my very shittily written catharsis.


There had been a time when Bill and his wife had been in love. When they were young and new to each other there had been smiles from across the room, and witty debates over paint color and sex on the kitchen floor. Delving into each other’s pasts and wielding hopes with which they begun melding a future, they had shared secrets and dreams. Now it seemed all they shared were children. Three of them. Sticky, screaming little demons who dropped things on the floor and ran around in circles shrieking. Bill resented the fact that since their introduction he was not allowed to talk about himself anymore, only about the children. He was not allowed to eat at a restaurant without a kids menu, or take a little stroll on his way back from work instead of rushing straight home with more diapers. It’s true they were HIS children but still, it certainly had not been his idea to have them. To turn his cozy well furnished little apartment into the monkey exhibit at a zoo and his wife into a dumpy baby factory who talked of little else.
Bill tried to ignore the children as much as possible. He trudged up the stairs to his first floor apartment and dropping the diapers by the door, settled into his chair with the morning’s paper. Only to find that his daughter Jamie had apparently needed to make a ransom note as her preschool homework and the days headlines could only be read after a game of hangman to fill in the blocks left by her safety scissors. Halfway through an article he found an blue eye staring at him and he lifted the paper to find three year old Tommy giggling in front of him with a green mouth most likely from the magic marker in his pudgy left hand. “
“Do you mind sport? Daddy’s trying to read the paper here.” He went back to his article.
“Daaaadddyyyy”
“What Tommy?” asked Bill gruffly
“Will you play with me?”
“Not right now son. Why don’t you go play with the baby. And keep that damn marker away from your mouth. You’d think there’s nothing to eat in this house with you always chewing on makers…..Weeendyyyy….. Tommy’s got a green mouth again. You want to do something about that?”
“I’m a little busy Bill.” Came a terse response from the steaming kitchen. Angela started crying from her bedroom. “Billl….”
“What Wendy?”
“You want to get her so I can take the meatloaf out of the oven?”
“Meatloaf again?” muttered Bill with disdain “You’d think we were some damn poor people. No wonder the kid is eating crayons.”
Somewhere in the apartment Tommy turned his tin of marbles upside down and they spilled out onto the tile like shattering glass. Angela cried louder and started shaking the crib to get out causing it to bump against the wall. Waaaaaaa thunk, waaaaa thunk waaaaa thunk
Bill stared at the front door and listened to the beeping of the timer in the kitchen, the marbles being dropped back into their tin one by one, the pounding of the crib against the wall. He stared long and hard at the front door and then he threw the paper down and went to take care of Angela.


Not my best writing but now when I hear what must be elephant sized people parading around upstairs I just think of poor unhappy Wendy and Bill and I feel better :)

I finally got over the strange and inconvient illness that ruined my weekend. Now I'm spending my time cramming and paper writing over coffee and smoothies in the loft of a nearby bar where in my first weeks in Florence, I took the strangest and most repulisve shots ever. The lady asks sometimes if I want rum in my smoothie and while I think that really alcohol can only help when reviewing ethics, I have so far refrained.

Two midterms down, three to go. and then a wonderful week on the beaches of Santorini. Excited for a break from creepy Italian men, pee smelling streets, exasperating neighbors and (hopefully) the rain!

The aftershock felt across the world

Besides being a life altering and tragic thing, death is very complicated. We expect that when it happens we will know what to feel. We have been told there are stages that we should hop across like stepping-stones on the path to being whole again. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. But the Kübler-Ross model leaves out the emotion that for me has always been the most prevalent when death lays a fingerprint on my life: guilt. Guilt eats away at the denial, the anger, the depression and fills the spaces left by reason and perspective, which always seem to disappear in the face of loss. I feel guilty that the last thing I said wasn’t I love you, that it had been so long since we had spoken, that I’m alive and well while they have breathed their last. Guilt pervades every crevice of my existence. It disagreeably seasons my food, glues my shoes to the floor like bubble gum and turns mirrors into artistic likenesses of Medusa so that the only sanctioned activity seems to be grieving or attending church. It seems somehow disrespectful to laugh, go out with friends, and even take out the garbage as if nothing had happened. How rude to go on as if things were the same. How rude to live when someone has died.

But the way in which guilt gets me the most is when it hisses in a whisper over and over again: this isn’t your tragedy. I’ve been fortunate enough in life to so far not experience the kind of earth shattering loss that makes the planet go black. The kind that snuffs out the sun and feels very much like something out of Revelation, the apocalypse, the termination of all future existence. Both of my parents are alive, my friends scattered and strained but still breathing. I have lost people but never someone whose presence I demanded for my own existence or who had in their possession a piece of my soul. I have never known this tragedy and I am grateful. So in my past, when death stilled the spinning of the world on it’s axis for just a second and left behind the shadow of a loved one he had stolen I found that it was not my world he had stopped.

It’s true that I cried for days this summer lamenting the loss of an uncle I had truly loved, whose removal from my life left a large hole (and not just because he was a large man). I felt grief that has since subsided but is prone to flare-ups especially when I think about returning to Arizona for a Christmas without him. This grief had to fight being suffocated however, by the guilt of feeling that my loss could never compare with my fathers. My Uncle’s death was tragic, but it was not my tragedy. We had all lost someone we loved but the loss belonged to my Father. Four months later it still follows him around like an imaginary friend that only he can see. My grief was not that strong and so it allowed guilt to rope around it, intertwining the two as it had always been in the past. It was not my grandfather who died as much as it was my mother’s father. Not my Aunt as much as my Uncle’s wife. My parent’s neighbor who was like a father to me was in fact someone’s father and it was the loss of this father that brought his son home. These tragedy’s were not my own. I had no right to their sadness.

Today I found out that my favorite teacher has passed away. Passing at only 35 her story is a devastating one of cancer, two-year-old twins and a five-year-old boy left behind. Although it has been years since I have spoken to her I am still affected almost daily by the life lessons she instilled in me. She was my Psych Professor and a school favorite at Xavier; constantly dispensing advice, inspiration, and encouragement to hundreds of plaid skirted teenage girls over the years. It is a tragedy that the scope of lives affected by a single person is never realized until they are gone and now we are banded together in our memories and mourning, lamenting that we were among the last to be addressed as “future mother’s of America.” Although shocking the loss of our teacher, GP as she was affectionately known around Xavier, is almost insignificant when compared to the immeasurable grief that must be felt by her husband, or the devastation to her children, losing a mother at such a young age they might not even remember her. When I think of this, I cannot help but feel guilty for even experiencing a sense of loss. I try to remember however that in death grief is not rationed out. You do not have to be the most devastated to feel remorse that a life has been lost, that a person has been taken from you forever. There is no shortage of sadness in death and we can always make more. Regardless the relationship or history, in some ways the loss to the world of a great person is everyone’s tragedy.
RIP GP.

London Calling

It took less than 48 hours for me to fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with the city of London. All of the years I had wasted ruminating on my hatred of Arizona, my failure to obtain a sense of permanence in San Diego, and my apprehension at carving out a life for myself in Boston had culminated in a single moment with the realization that America isn’t where I belong at all. London is.

Our seemingly endless passage to London somewhat resembled a Kerouac novel, excluding of course all the hitch hiking. Although a flight from Florence to the central London airport is only about a two and a half hour journey the fact that we are unemployed college students on quickly depleting checking accounts and maxed out credit cards makes it necessary to opt for cheaper flights and long bus rides over expensive cab rides. So it is only after two hour long bus rides, a two hour flight delay and one brief international flight that we arrive at our hostel at almost eight pm, nearly ten hours after I left my apartment. Remember what I said about travel being work? The party girl in me is more than a little ashamed to admit it, but worn out and wearied from traveling all I want to do is eat and finally enjoy some sleep with my legs stretched out. So while we walk around the area near our hostel a little bit and I have one of the most delicious and fattening meals of my life in the form of a gigantic bag of fish and chips followed by peanut M&M’s, we save adventures on the underground for the next morning. Despite the fact that my bunk at the hostel has one sheet fitted to the bed on one side and folded over on the other side turning me into a human taco, I drop off to sleep quickly and soundly thanks to the fatigue of traveling and the heaviness of the London Ale I had with dinner.

Saturday we rise early and after a hostel breakfast, which is actually better than any pitiful Italian breakfast, we launch headfirst into a whirlwind of London must-sees. Kierra and Lisa quickly figure out the tube and Platform 9 and ¾, Abbey Road, Big Ben, House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret’s Church, Eye of London, Buckingham Palace, and The Tower Bridge all make appearances on my camera. With the exception of a surprising amount of traffic, both by foot and car, that must be held for photographs at Abbey Road, the absence of guards at Buckingham Palace and the momentary devastation of a blockade in front of Platform and ¾ that took some resourcefulness to get around, all is as expected. Nothing disappoints or shocks except that it takes almost four hours for me to finally stumble upon a Starbucks and get my long awaited Venti Carmel Macchiato. The day is fast paced but not stressful as we easily make it through all the things on our list even after several hours spent drooling over the food courts at Harrods (If there is not a huge room devoted entirely to every kind of dessert in heaven just like the one in Harrods than I’m not going) and shopping in the Camden Markets where despite the vendors inclination to haggle I spent an excessive amount of money.

Although we spent much of the day doing hopelessly touristy things residents here would no doubt roll their eyes at, I often found myself picturing a future in the city. I don’t know how to explain the feeling but it is the same one I had when I toured USD and quite unexpectedly found that I could see myself there. It’s a kind of sense of belonging, like when you return to a familiar place that you suddenly realize feels like home. Something about London feels like home. I don’t know if it’s the city itself, the way the urban sprawl that boasts boutiques and Mom and Pop coffee shops as well as Top Shop and Starbucks all on the street is so large but yet not dirty or suffocating like New York. London boasts the atmosphere that I have always loved so much about Boston but in a somehow less threatening and hostile way. It is a beautiful city of huge trees, exquisite architecture and a kind of wide-open feeling to it that gives one the sense that the city is full of infinite possibilities. These possibilities, like the people of London, seem more friendly and approachable then they often are in prodigious cities. If dreams lay broken on the boulevards in LA, in London they soar through the skies like birds glittering even more brightly from the romantic gray skies.

Just as wonderful as the city itself, are the people of London. Maybe it’s just the way they talk that I love so much; the “God bless” and “dear”, ever so polite in beautiful accents for which I have always had a soft spot with slang that creates a delightful new dialect from the only language that I have ever known. The children are the best. Bundled up in puffy jackets and stained play clothes they look just like Americans until they open their mouths and I have to resist the urge to kidnap them because absolutely nothing is cuter than a three year old with an English accent. In the Underground and on the streets people stride purposefully from place to place but do not snarl and shove at you if you are in the way. I heard “excuse me” more times in one day in London then I have my entire month and a half in Florence. In London I saw stylish, spirited girls with un brushed hair and patterned tight, boots and blazers. Kindred spirits of mine in the fashion department, I immediately want to befriend them even if they do not in fact blog and listen to Vampire Weekend as much as they look like they would. While the tan, aggressive, Italian men illicit more disgust then attraction for me I swoon a little bit at each beautiful blonde haired blue eyed boy and wonder if he has an accent he could pass on to our children.

Each passing minute in London reaffirmed my belief that I had figured out where my life was going. Or at least where I was going, once I graduated. By nightfall we had headed to meet a friend of Lisa’s whom Kierra and I had met at Oktoberfest. She is studying there for the semester from LMU and took us to an adorable pub near her flat and then to a Tai restaurant that was a welcome reprisal from our constant influx of pasta and pizza. A cozy night of bathroom talks, laughter and hard cider is a likewise sweet departure from sweaty Italian boys, cheap boxed wine and Americanized music. I add English Pubs to the list of reasons I’m moving to London.

On our length journey back to Firenze I set my iPod to my Heart Songs playlist and cozy up to the bus window to watch Tuscany fly by as I consider my fast and hard fall for London and the impulsiveness with which I had decided to make it my destiny. Although I am well adept at making my own decisions I often find myself tentatively requesting the perspectives of others to sway me from a prison of indecision. Black or gray boots? Buy that scarf or wait? Respond to his text message or don’t? Someone once told me that my life seems to be a constant struggle between a willful determination to get what I want at all costs and a crippling yearning for approval and therefore solidarity in my choices. The strange deviation in this phenomenon appears when I have to make huge life choices. A last minute switch from Boston University to University of San Diego, the spontaneous selection of a city I knew nothing about in a country with a native language I do not speak, the termination of a friendship I had once considered necessary to my soul’s very existence. These decisions were made with conviction, few tears and little strife or uncertainty. In each case I headed into the next phase of life without hesitation, confident in the fact that rather than made a choice I had instead simply KNOWN what course my life was to take. So it is with London. I left on Sunday with regret but also the self-assurance that my life was to lead me back there someday. Like that person who already KNOWS who they are going to end up with eventually, mine is not a desperate lustful need for immediate gratification. It may be years before I am back again, decades until I have the means to live there but I know that someday when I’m waking up in London again it won’t just be for the weekend.


*Second image found on stumble

Portrait of a Stranger

One of the weirdest things about sitting next to a stranger on an airplane, train or bus is that the entire time that you are squirming around in fevered discomfort trying to get some sleep and counting down the minutes till your arrival what you both really want to do is stare at each other. After several frutive glances over reading material or feigned stretches and back cracks you become aware that while not at all subtle in your attempt to take in your forced travel companion, you are not alone in these attempts. We should really just alocatt a stretch of time at the beginning of the trip to get this out of the way. When the dreaded questions "Is this seat free?" arrives it should be followed by fifteen seconds of socially acceptable staring at each other. Yes, you may have this seat but let me first take a moment to get a good look at you so that I know what I am sitting next to for the next six hours without having to employ whatever creeping abilites I posses. This would certainly aleviate a lot of stress and uncertainty for me personally when I am sitting alone.

Unfortunately, this practice is obviously not condoned and so after I ask the four worded question nobody wants to hear while traveling and steal a quick glance without eye contact, I find myself next to an individual whose physical appearnce I have absolutely no idea of. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that he is wearing faded blue jeans, white sneakers and a black zip up windbreaker over a white t-shirt. Basically the most nondescript single white male you can imagine, the kind where it's almost impossible to tell if they are 22 or 35. Perhaps somewhere inbetween. We are forced to breathe the same air, to exist for 97 minutes in a three by one foot bubble of awkward awareness of each other. I can not help but wonder about him and create my own imagined stories of his life. What's your story? I want to ask him. Why are you coming from the London airport with no bag and nothing in your pockets but an iPod and a phone? Are you listening to your iPod so that we don't have to talk or because it's awkward NOT to talk and NOT listen to it? I think about this person next to me and who he might be. A collection of cells that is loved, hated, desired and worried about by someone in the world. Like me he has lived a life of choices that have brought him to this moment. A moment where as complete strangers we are brought together and in silence share an experience both meaningless and profound. I pause my own ipod and strain to hear what he is listening to. The silence glues us together like static electricity. Suddenly the track changes and I recognize the overplayed vocalization of Rihanna's Rude Boy. Not exactly the soundtrack for an intriguing encounter between two strangers brought together by fate. I return to staring out the window, having lost all interest in the stranger taking up space to the right of me.

Reincarnation

Recently I've been spending some time thinking about my past lives. Being in Europe has not cured me of my sentimental heart or tendency to wander, and often get lost, down memory lane. So earlier today when a stray photo of me in my high school uniform led me into a fit of nostalgia for the days of plaid skirts, ballet flats, and daily QT fixes, I found myself untangling details of my past balled up like yarn in the back of my brain. While I lack a belief in the kind of reincarnation presumed by many religions (coming back as a cow? Not a possibility I'm interested in entertaining) I consider myself a prime example of reincarnation as a basic principle. Mainly because I am not the same person that I once was at all. It's probably safe to say that a majority of people live their lives in stages. Like acts in a play the scenery, costuming and even much of the cast changes as we move through the plot of our lives. It's impossible not to evolve as this happens, to grow out of our surroundings and hopefully grow up a little. Maybe it's common to feel as though along the way you are leaving who you used to be behind, shedding it like a snake sheds it's skin. But I can't help but feel that my scene changes have been more dramatic then some. I often find that I have not only grown out of a life, I barely recognize the skin I left behind as my own.

I remember the sullen, brooding, preteen with a grudge against the world only in flashes of deja vu as if I get the sense that I was her once but I can't find a memory with enough clarity to be sure. I know the facts but can't remember the feelings, the only kind of currency I've ever banked on. I long ago outgrew the Abercrombie and Fitch jeans and braces along with my self appointed occupation of being a miserable pain in my parents ass and sometimes it feels like they never really fit me at all.

In high school I had a rebirth prompted by a new cast of bubbly and outgoing characters with a penchant for having a good time. I abandoned my days of social obscurity and adopted a predisposition to skinny jeans, ballet flats and a left side part, when I wasn't testing the elasticity of Xavier's uniform regulations. My vocation was entertainment: and making up for years wasted living vicariously through TV shows. I found my calling as the innocent one my friends wanted to corrupt, but only to the point where I was still occasionally a reliable DD. By the summer after junior year I was well settled into "the best day of my life" and trying to make the most of what I thought high school was supposed to be about. These years were characterized by practically living out of my car, believing that my first hangover was as bad as it was going to get, and an immeasurable amount of laughs, sunsets, inside jokes, and ridiculous adventures. It was a beautiful well lived life but it was one in which I had no idea who i was except young, crazy and stupid.

Then there came the move to San Diego, my first two years of USD. A time of being just as young and crazy and only slightly less stupid. Come to think of it maybe more stupid, but at least I was finally aware of my own recklessness. This life is one that I can not really reflect on because it is the one to which I will return in four month's time. In San Diego I am a student. Although I am sometimes a poor one, being a student pervades every part of this life. Where I live, who I know, what I do everyday all ties back to the fact that I am supposed to be studying and getting a degree.

In Italy I am still a student but that is not my true line of work. I'm a stranger here, a hopeless foreigner and so in every location and every day I am a traveler. The word "travel" stems from the french word Travailer, to work. This is fitting in many senses because while a grand adventure full of delicious food, scenic views and lots of play, traveling is also work. The dictionary interprets work as an "activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result". The physical effort of packing, planning, booking flights and wandering around a strange city with bags and a phrase book in hand are all facets of gallivanting around a place you do not call home. Travel requires the mental effort of quick thinking, adapting with flexibility to your situation, and navigating places without familiar landmarks and people without familiar language. This is the work that I am doing these days as I find myself reincarnated once again in a setting and as a character I could never have envisioned four years ago.

While I know that this life is only temporary and that I will someday take leave of my job as a traveler and return to the life I knew, I can't help wonder if I will then find that I no longer recognize it. A favorite quote of mine by Peter Hulme says "Travel broadens the mind, the knowledge of distant places and people often confers status, but travelers sometimes return as different people or do not come back at all." After my stint in Italy has come to a close will I return to America and find that my old life has held my shape like memory foam? Will I crawl back into the mold of my former self and return to a life that has been ready and waiting for my reappearance? Or will I find as I do when I return to my parent's house or my past life in Arizona that I am a different person, that I have outgrown my life and San Diego and once again been reincarnated unable to recognize the shell of another person I used to be.

Nothing comes close to the Amalfi Coast

I am not really a big fan of dunking myself in huge bodies of water. Despite my love of the ocean, I usually wade in up to my knees, maybe my waist tops and then I'm out. But Saturday, when I found myself basking on a small speed boat in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, no amount of coaxing or encouragement was needed to get me into that water. A glorious weekend spent on the Amalfi Coast hit it's climax on Saturday during a beach day spent in Positano. Possibly the most picturesque place I have ever been in my entire life, Positano is a small town in an enclave in the hills. As lovely as the pastel watercolors done by artists on the paths, the brightly painted buildings stack up the hill like building blocks holding up the kind of sky that can only be by design, a resplendent blue with just a few wispy clouds.

To get to the beach you have to traipse down about a billion weathered stone stairs. Descending stairs seems an easy feat but at the bottom we are all weak at the knees, nursing blistered toes and muscle spasms in our over worked calves. Thin white hotel thrifted towels ride the wind like sheets on a clothesline and then settle onto the smooth dark pebbles of the beach as clothes come off, sunglasses go on, and we sprawl across the rocks like the sun worshipping California residents we are. The only thought on anyones mind is a day napping in the sun and, for all of the lucky people with some pigment to their skin other than freckles, cultivating a tan After a few rotations someone breaks the sleepy spell "Hey you guys, want to rent a boat?" A boat? "It's 10 euro a person, eight people to a boat." People are picked for teams like elementary school children in PE class. Nobody wants to be picked last for dodgeball. We are handed a set of keys, given a quick lesson in how to work the gas and loaded eight by eight along with our handles of rum onto small speed boats with a push off the dock and a Ciao Bella! There are no life jackets, waivers, insurance forms. No pesky questions like Do you have a boating license? Are any of you sober enough to drive a boat? Can you Swim? In fact there are no restrictions at all as to how fast, where we can go, or how many body parts can be hanging out of the boat at one time. We speed off with the wind in our face, our hands in the air and shrieking like banshees everytime we get air striking a large wave.

Out in the open water we pull all three boats close, cut the engines and pray for no jellyfish as we catapult off the boat and into the sea. Like I said, this is usually the point at which I stay on the boat or at the very least require a little push but something about being in a foreign country has been making me brave. Lately I've been eating octopus, walking barefoot outside and taking unknown shots chased with bananas dipped in coffee. Before I even have time to think about it, I plant one foot on the side of the boat and launch myself as high and far as possible. I go under laughing and swallow an excessive amount of the saltiest water I have ever tasted. Seriously, if you filled a cup halfway with salt and added some water that would be less salty than the Mediterranean. The water is the most energizing cold, it shocks all of my senses into a kind of awareness that makes me feel as if all my life before this instant I was sleep walking. I feel like I'm in a Clariton commercial. Like I hadn't even realized I'd been walking around seeing everything through a blurry film until it was gone and now that I'm "Clariton Clear" the resolution is upped and I can't imagine seeing things any other way. Being out in an ocean isn't like diving into your swimming pool. The water is ALIVE. It tosses me in it's waves and caresses me all over like a blind person trying to make out my shape. The color of the water is unbelievable. No other shade of blue has any right to call itself by the same name as this gorgeous water. The water is so blue it transcends the definition of color. Blue is it's very essence. It doesn't just look blue, it FEELS blue. I'm sure that if I had closed my eyes and never seen it before I would still be able to in some way know the exquisite shade of blue just from jumping in and letting it envelop me. In the water I feel tiny and huge all at the same time. The only thing that matters is this perfect moment and I am huge in my importance as the sole experiencer of it. And yet to this great living thing I am just a temporary insignificant speck. Still, even as a speck I am part of it and I too share it's beauty.



But anyway....
Since I've denied multiple requests for a play by play of the weekend with promises to deliver on my blog, let me rewind and start from the beginning.
Thursday Night: After a six hour bus ride to Sorrento that included three hours of restless, Dramene induced sleep, some altogether unimpressive rest stop pasta, an amazing find of peanut M and M's and such cinematic classics as Pineapple Express and Meet the parents, we arrived at our "hotel". A quick debate over the bunk beds is settled by the ever mature and flexible Cally and after taking a moment to appreciate (but unfortunately not photograph) our ridiculously tacky sky blue and mustard yellow floral tile that someone thought coordinated well with the steel blue damask bedspreads and turquoise wood baseboards, we all throw ourselves into bed and pass out immediately.

About five hours later we fill up on three rolls and the Fanta juice Italian people like to pretend is orange juice, and head out for the day. Someone at Florence for Fun has apparently been reading up on increased obesity in America and has mapped out all of the activities so that we have to trudge twenty minutes to get everywhere, including the bus we are taking to get to the ferry to Capri for the day. Capri is a scenic Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea which houses multiple lavish celebrity mansions and is a ravishing resort town with the price tags to match. During a boat tour around the island we see the lovers arch, Grotta Azzurra (a Grotto in which the water is a surreal colbat blue color because of a trick of light), and lots of other pretty things I don't remember because I was too busy trying not to get seasick. My favorite part of Capri was a tiny iron statue of a waving man set to welcome visitors to the island, so high up on a cliff it was scarcely visible. After some hiking around the island, a few stolen hours laying on the breathtaking beach, some heavenly pizza, and a lemonchillo tasting we were headed back to Sorrento. This brings us up to Saturday aka the highlight of my weekend and maybe one of the best days of my life. I returned from Positano sunburned and smiling. I am stunned in the kind of way someone is when they have experienced something beautiful and it has ended. I wish that I could capture the memories to preview later like a snowglobe you shake up and watch the moments of a day too good to be true fall like glitter.

A superb weekend ended with a day spent at Pompeii and hiking up Mount Vesuvies. As remarkable and astounding it is to actually see Pompeii and learn about the culture of a city that survived being buried under 30 meters of volcanic ash and was resurfaced centuries later along with molds of it's citizens, it is not all that interesting to hear about if you have not actually seen it so I will spare you the details. I am fairly certain this has already been my longest, least interesting and most poorly written blog post to date so I will end it soon. And as far as Mount Vesuvius. Ummmm ya. I climbed that shit. I looked down into the impressive gargantuan volcano and didn't fall in. And sadly, there was no lava. Obviously I'm an idiot for thinking there would be but still. Disappointing.

I wish that I could tell you all of the breathtaking and beautiful sights on the Amalfi Coast. I furthermore wish that I could do so without rambling and putting you to sleep. But I can't so I'll just end with another thousand words guaranteed to be beautiful than anything I could ever write.
Positano


P.S. Promise my next entry will be better. Expect exciting stories from Oktoberfest this weekend!

Ah home. Let me come home. Home is whenever I'm with you.

With the taste of salt in the air and the wind weaving a tangle of knots into my hair, I drop my shoes just out of reach of the tide and cross the line drawn in the sand by the ocean. That line that says do-not-cross-unless-you-want-to-get-your-feet-wet. Crossing that line to me feels like entering another dimension and brings with it the calming feeling of a complete absence of time. Be it June or December the water always feels cold unless I’ve had a lot to drink and then I’m knee deep in seconds. I wade out a bit, throw out my arms to embrace the wide expanse of waves that fade into stars at an unidentifiable horizon. To say that the ocean is my favorite place to be is so cliché it makes me want to throw up. Saying you love the beach to me feels like listing ice cream among your favorite things: terribly unoriginal and obvious. I am aware that there are people who do not like these things, but they are few and far between and honestly kind of baffling to me. Not loving the ocean would make me a completely different person, one I can’t imagine.

Despite the unfortunate circumstance of being born and raised in Arizona, my parents began bringing me to the beach when I was just six months old. My grandmother had a rule that no grandchild of hers would make it to a year without putting their feet in the ocean. It is a rule strictly abided in my family. For as long as I can remember the beach has been my favorite place. When I was young, it was my playground an infinite source of curiosities and adventures and a treasure trove of seashells which I brought home in fistfuls and cupped tightly to my ear believing in their power to not only play me the sounds of the ocean, but transport me back. As I grew up and began fiercely battling for every inch of independence I could get, it became a haven from my family. A place where I could escape them without disapproval and climb on the rocks of the breakers that stretched out into the ocean far enough my younger sister could not follow. Eventually I went away to college, not surprisingly I chose a university within six minutes of the ocean where many of the students live in beachfront property. But San Diego was not what I expected and after finally leaving a state that had never felt like home I found myself in a place I feared never would. Every time I worried I would never find my place, I was drawn to the beach. I loved it during the day but it was at night alone that I couldn’t stay away. I realized in time that the one constant in my life had always been this. At every age and every stage of my life I had always felt most at peace and the truest version of myself with my feet firmly planted in the sea. Being there gives me a kind of perspective that I lack anywhere else. Every time I stare out at the ocean I realize how small and insignificant my problems are and how just as it was there waiting for me 15 years ago it will be there again tomorrow. I think that kind of safety and security and peace within yourself is what you call home.


I wrote this piece for my travel writing class, this week we had to write about our "favorite destination". Through some unprecedented act of God I have yet to get homesick but writing this piece gave me a little twinge of longing. At least once a day I happen upon something that makes me miss something about home, or more often someone. For a moment I am gripped by a paralyzing fear as i wait for the dreadful (home)sickness to overtake me, for tears to come, for the panic of realizing the unfamiliarity of my own life. But then I remember a favorite quote of mine from Eat Pray when someone is afraid of that bittersweet "I miss you." They say "So miss me. Send light and love my way and then drop it and move on." Whenever I think about how far away the people who know my soul the best are, the people who get me better than I get myself I stop waiting for the sickness to hit and I stop it. I take a moment to miss them but then remind myself that I will see them again. I focus all of my happiness, prayers, well wishes and love across the ocean to the people I love and then I remind myself that I am in Italy and I go get some peanut butter gelato.


*All three of these photos are from an East Coast trip, circa Summer 09.

Wanderlust

Just as I find it baffling and a little absurd to have a favorite or lucky number, I am sure that many do not understand having an affinity or deep love and appreciation of a word. But since words are the only means I have of translating the twisted language of my heart and head to the language of the living, I have a bit of a love affair with language. I tend to develop little crushes on certain words. My crushes are very innocent, nothing serious of course and they usually only last a few days, maybe a week tops. But when I crush, I crush hard. I think about them all day long, remembering the first time I realized their existence. I work them into conversations that have don't really have anything to do with them at all. My heart even beats a little faster when I hear someone else use them both with excitement and also jealousy because after all they are MY words and couldn't possibly mean as much to someone else as they do to me. In time these infatuations end and the other day I barely flinched when someone mentioned Effervescent, a word with whom I shared a few special days last November. However, every once in awhile there is a word that never ceases to delight me. Sometimes I get bored with it, put it up on a shelf and forget about it for awhile. But eventually I always happen upon it again, dust it off and pick up where I left off in our affair. One such word is wanderlust.

Wanderlust is a beautiful word that I've always loved but until now I never really knew what it meant. Or rather, I never knew what it felt like. Wanderlust is defined as a burning desire to travel but it's more than that. It's an insatiable appetite, an unavoidable urge, an unquenchable longing to explore the world. Traveling for me is like scratching at my mosquito bites, it only increases the itch to wander. As I booked my December flight to Paris I felt a rush of adrenaline, of excitement at the fact that I'm actually going but also a greed for more. Why just Paris? I've never been to France before. I want to go to Nice, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille! It seems to me that there are not enough years left in my life to see all the things I want to see, to go all the places I NEED to go. (Or more importantly there are not enough zeros at the end of my bank statement) And while each easy jet confirmation email brings with it the dizzying belief that this can not be real, it also feeds the lust for one more day, one more flight, one more trip. After spending the first 19 years and 52 weeks of my life in one country (my family took a very brief trip to Ireland at some point) I stand to see 14 cities in 6 countries over the next two and a half months, including the beautiful city of Firenze that I currently call home. It is enough to make a wanderer out of anyone. So while in the past I appreciated Wanderlust from afar: staring at it from across the room, testing it out in a whisper while others (more worldly then I) kept it's presence, I now bring it proudly with me wherever I go. This is one crush that is meant to last.

Dandelion Wishes

I take my aviators off and stick them on top of my head, combing my fingers through my bangs in an attempt to correct the tangled mess the wind has created. I am sitting on a metal bench in Lucca, a city know mainly for it's fully intact Renaissance-era city walls upon which my bench is posted. After rave reviews and a train ticket priced at only 2,40, we decided to stop in Lucca on our way home from Pisa. My roommates are off exploring but I have a blister, my legs hurt from walking, and my stomach is not happy with the carbonation in the water I didn't realize was frizzante (sparkling water) when I pulled it out of the fridge at the gelato shop. So although I am technically sitting on this bench until the wave of nausea passes, I am also sitting on this bench pouting just a little bit.

Lucca wasn't on my list. Until this morning I had never even heard of Lucca and were I not here right now, I would probably have lived out the rest of my life without ever knowing it existed. City walls. BIG DEAL. From where I'm sitting the only thing remotely exciting about Lucca is the fact that there are dandelions everywhere. Although I am aware that the general population considers the dandelion to be a weed in need of removal, I have a certain soft spot for them. I'd even go so far as to say that I love dandelions. Maybe it's partially because I love making wishes and watching them fly into the wind, believing in their power to come true. Or maybe it's because they belong to a category of things that are by definition ugly (weeds) and yet there is a kind of beauty to them. Maybe it's something else entirely. Whatever the reason I am a devotee of dandelions, and am clutching one in my hand considering what to wish. That the pizza and gelato from earlier remains in my stomach? That I remember how to ask for the bathroom in Italian since as usual I have to pee? That the Italian guy sitting on the wall five feet away creeping me out quits staring soon?

I don't know this then but in about 15 minutes when my stomach settles, I will finally make my way down into the old town and wander around for a bit. I will find the Duomo di San Martino, a kind English speaking kebab place owner with a free bathroom, and my roommates haggling in the open air markets. I will find that while yes, there is no leaning tower in Lucca and really nothing in general that people back home will be particularly interested in hearing about, there is a certain feeling. It's calmer and cleaner then Florence. The city has retained it's history, like it's walls, while still managing to expand and modernize around it.

While I am good about marveling as I take in the sites that I have always dreamed to see, I find I need to remember to appreciate the Lucca's of Europe. Just because the Duomo di San Martino is a church that I have never heard of (and so had no specific desire to see) and is less impressive then the Duomo I see daily in Florence, does not diminish it's beauty. I smile just as much at the site of a dandelion here as I do back at my best friends parents house in Arizona. It does not lose anything because I have seen it before and can see it again every day for the rest of my life.

I consider as I sit on my bench that although the beautiful scene in front of me is not so different from one that I will see again in Italy and is not something to cross off my bucket list, I am no less lucky for having it in front of me. I am lucky to get to experience and appreciate the city of Lucca even if no picture or description afterward will seem that interesting. I hold the dandelion up to my mouth. I wish to be present and enjoy every moment ahead of me in Europe and not to take it for granted again. I close my eyes and blow.


*Image found on stumble

Bucket List (The Abroad Version)

1. Walk the Ponte Vicio at Sunset and photograph from afar at night
2. See the David
3 Museo Di Storia Naturale (Florence Botanical Gardens)
4. Climb the Duomo (Check)
5. Eat Gelato on the Steps of the Duomo (Check)
6. Take pictures holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. (Check)
7. Buy Something Italian Leather. (Check)
8. See the Sistine Chapel
9. See the Vatican City
10. Make a wish in the fontana de amore
11. Drink champagne at the Eiffel Tower
12. Go to Champs-Élysées
13. Go to arc de Triumph
14. Go to Moulin Rouge
15. Go to Notre-Dame
16. See the Mona Lisa at the Louve
17. See Big Ben (Check)
18. Go to Madrid
19. Go to Santarini and stay in an amazing villa
20. Beach it up in Greece
21. Buy Evil Eye Jewelry in Greece
22. Take a Gondola Ride in Venice
23. Go to the Cannibus Cup
24. Take pictures with the Amsterdam Sign
25. Oktoberfest (Check)
26. Buy shot glasses in every country
27. Push the cart through platform 9 and 3/4 (Check)
28. See Buckingham Palace (Check)
29. Walk accross Abbey Road (Check)
30. See Westminister Abbey (Check)
31. Ride on the back of someones Vespa
32. Be asked for directions/mistaken for a local
31. Eat Best Gelato in the world (Check)

Sepia Toned Memories.

Although words have always come easily to me, I've never considered myself a good writer. Every moving experience comes with the desire to express in words what I'm feeling or seeing. And yet, when it's important the words always fall short. Saying I feel safe in someones arms doesn't convey that feeling and "beautiful" doesn't even begin to describe Florence. If I go on too much or lack eloquence in this blog, it's because I'm afraid I will miss something. I don't want to forget the way I trip on an uneven cobblestone at least once a day, or how the vendors sometimes see that you're American and call you the spice girls. Sylvia Plath said it best: “Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.” I'm making an attempt to record my life in Florence for everyone at home, but also for myself. Even still, I know the written account will never compare to the real deal and when I look back in on my mind on the memories, words will fail.