31 January 2008

So.......sleepy.......

It's minutes til 22h00. That means almost 9pm. And I know it's ridiculous, but I've been wanting to go to sleep for about two hours. I can't even begin to define how fatigued I am. I'm falling asleep.

I'm kinda deciding to skip talking specifically about the rest of my first weekend here. Saturday I spent with the group wandering around the city. I was with the same people pretty much the entire time. Donovan and Mark a lot, too. We had sandwiches. I don't know why that's important, but apparently it is, because I really wanted to mention the sandwiches. Sunday I slept in (11h00 woot!) and we went for a walk by the river that flows through St. Gregoire.

What's really sad is I've been here a week and I still haven't had crepes. I know, I know. I'm lame-o. There just hasn't been time. I've had white wine, red wine, sandwiches, hot chocolate, cidre, champagne....pretty much everything there is to drink. Camembert cheese, too. Just not the one (second, next to cidre) thing that Bretagne is so famous for. I'm a failure at French culture.

I mean, as I write my parents are having a champagne soiree to thank the maitres and colleagues of their son Pierre, for helping him get his metier started. Oh wow. I just re-read that sentence. Sorry. Maitre would be boss, metier would be job/profession. I can't think wholly in French, nor in English right now. I promised myself last night that I would go the entire day speaking entirely in French. I did it... from 8h30 til 17h30, until just after our three-hour conference on wine. It was fascinating and interesting and I'm pretty sure I learned a lot. But three hours is a super long time to be concentrating. I crashed into English when I was waiting at the bus stop with some peeps. Did find out that I love white wine, though. And California saved France during a really bad help-our-vines-are-dying! thing. Well, actually, I already knew that. My pere told me two days ago.

I really do love it here. We've spent the week taking classes at the Institut Franco-Americain. They have us split into levels. Well, technically we're not divided yet, but we know that really we are. I'm pretty sure that my being in Groupe B means that I'm Seuil (intermediateish). We'll be getting our real levels tomorrow in the late afternoon. Then on Monday we'll be doing class planning. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not. Almost every other person is. For example, Mark was uber worried, because if he isn't in the Avance level, his school (Purdue) isn't going to give him any credit. Jess was worried about not being Avance because she just knows that Seuil will be almost too easy for her. Both Jess and Mark talked to Andrew, though, and I know that at least Mark's mind has been put at ease.

The funny thing is that even though I have nothing to worry about, since I don't HAVE to be in a certain level in order to gain credit, hearing my friends worry about it makes me want to worry about it. And I'm not going to lie, when I'm put in a group where I'm one of three people who responds to, much less comprehends the questions the condescending teacher puts forth, I get kinda mad. I don't like being pulled down a level, much less ten. There are great people in the groupe, yes, but when the teacher asks what they liked about the song and they just give her a blank stare, I want to whack them with something. Maybe the teacher.......

On the other hand, I'm also growing more aware of my imperfections. Right now I feel like I'm the worst French speaker in the world. I'm not exaggerating. I make so many mistakes, and you know, I knew about them from the beginning, but with all the practice I'm getting, I'm recognizing more of them more quickly, and it hurts. I hate the mistakes part. That's why I tried to speak completely in French today. I knew that unless I made a promise to myself, I was going to fall back into the English whenever it was easier. I just hate being in the box of French simplicity, where I can hardly describe, for instance, that I liked a song more for its poetic, lyrical appeal than for the reggae-esque musique that accompanied it. "I liked the words and wished the music was more good" was what came out first. "MORE GOOD?" wow. wowowowow.

I even said that, out loud, after the prof (who is maybe a year older than me) corrected me. Of course, I followed it with a sort of "mon dieu" expression. Argot. Sorry. Slang, I mean. Ok. I think I've proved well enough how tired I am. I still have some homework to do, too. So bon soir a tout le monde. Even if it is only 9.....

29 January 2008

Le almost - weekend

My first weekend in Rennes was cool. On Friday I had to go to the university to meet the rest of the group. Since I live in St. Gregoire, this means taking the bus and the metro, which takes about half an hour or so, depending on if I hit them at the right times. The problem with doing all this in France is that I'm a very timid person when it comes to public transport, so I was terrified until the moment after dinner on Thursday night when my mere told me that my pere was going to go with me as far as the metro the next morning, to make sure that I didn't get lost. I was so happy about that, you have no idea. It was good that he came, otherwise it would have taken me a while to figure out how to validate my dumb little ticket. ("Oh, that slot") I also happened to meet Sophia and Jessica on the bus, so my pere left us at the metro station and we went the three of us to the university. Another reason I'm glad I met them: no one had really said which stop of the metro I was supposed to take. I mean, I could read and tell that there were two stops I could take, but as for finding the building.....oh man. Thank you God for friends.

So we met up with everyone else in one of the little rooms and we were all talking in French. Kinda. You know. We were trying. We were there at 9h30 and did some "And how are things" sort of talking, and then at 11 we had our written French test, to put us in our levels. That was scary. There was a picture to describe, then we had to write a dialogue to go along with the pic, and lastly there was an essay and a huge monster section of fill-in-the-blanks. It was terrible. The last part, I mean. Oh.my.gosh. Do you know how hard it is to fill in little holes in sentences when A. you have no idea what the thing's actually about and B. there is no word bank? Ridiculous. Utterly preposterous. But you know, great for figuring out which ones actually have a vocabulary. Apparently I don't. Whoops.

But then it was over and Hugo took us over to the RU (resto universitaire) (cafeteria) and that was an experience. Everyone wants to eat at the same time and there are a hundred people in line but will they put in more tables? No. Of course not. You must wait. Patiently. I guess it didn't help that once again we were moving in packs. Ten people are kinda hard to fit around one table.

After that we had something else, I think it was with Andrew? Haha....hope it wasn't important. Maybe that was when we did paperwork....hm...ok. Whatevs. We did whatever that thing was and then a group of us left and wandered Rennes for a while. Mark and Sarah and I went to a cafe which I don't remember. I mean, I remember. I had hot chocolate. It was cute. Just don't remember the name of the place, oops. And then we went home.

And that's when my life pretty much ceased to be even remotely interesting. Some would argue that it never was (shut up) but hey. It's still kinda weird to eat with my French parents, and to feel like I need to be here all the time. But I love them. A lot.

27 January 2008

Jeudi le 24: I love Brits

I was about to type something interesting when I noticed that I have dog hair all over me. Funny how that gets in the way of your thought process. Kaylan, I have a dog named Baloo who reminds me of Porscha. Not even joking. Ok, anyway. Thursday. Thursday actually wasn't that long ago, I'm pretty proud of myself, I feel like I'm finally catching up! Yay!

Breakfast on Thursday was super early. Early meaning that we had to be sitting on the bus at 8h47, which for me felt pretty early. I don't know about everyone else. So once again I packed up everything in my suitcases, made sure I had all of my shampoo and underwear, and hauled my two suitcases down the stairs. That was fun. I felt so incredibly buff after that experience, I almost did it again. Haha... just kidding. It was pulling them up the stairs on Monday that had been oh-so-incredibly fun. Oi. What I did love was that the nice bus driver man took my bags and put them in the belly of the bus for me while I went up and found a seat. I was one of the last ones on (comes from being the last one to take a shower). I sat next to Mark and we bantered in French for the two hour drive to Chartres.

Can I just say how glad I am that I can still be sarcastic in French? Ok, so you may not believe me, but I was seriously concerned about not being able to be sarcastic or to be able to communicate a dry sense of humor while I was here. But then I met Sophia and Mark and Sarah and Jess and I hate them and they hate me and we love it all. Of course all we can really say is Tu m'enerve (you annoy me) and Je vais te tuer quand tu dors (I'm going to kill you in your sleep). But it's still sarcasm, and therefore a shining star in my midnight sky.

After driving two hours, we stopped at the Chartres Cathedrale. Beautiful. The only awkward part was that when we got there a funeral was taking place. There were beggars outside, and when one found out we were American, he started singing "American" songs to us. I don't even remember which ones they were, Mark and Prateik and I fled pretty quickly to walk around the building. The view was phenomenal. Chartres is cool, I'd say.

Our guide was a famous English dude who, for my UNC peeps, was pretty much John Bromley with a Brit manner of speaking. No joke. I fell in love with him and would have married him on the spot had he not been A. Sixty years older than me B. Kinda short and C. In the middle of a really interesting tour.

"You see that ghastly statue over there? Yes, yes, the ghastly one. I hate it. Detestable, really. Why they have it there I have no idea. Doesn't go at all with the rest of the decor. No, it doesn't." How can you not love parole like that? He was brilliant. Kept on telling us big things, then moving to smaller things, and stopping himself because he didn't have time to talk about it all. The stained glass windows are breathtaking, especially once you hear that they're all four feet square, whereas they only look to be maybe one foot. Amazing. This guy has given lectures all over the world; he has degrees from who knows where, and has been guiding at the cathedrale for fifty years. Even then, he told us that he still knows only a tiny fraction of what there is to know about the building.

We had lunch, ratatouille (yum :D), at a restaurant. I hit my leg on the table sliding in to the bench. Something funny about France is how vegetarianism is totally bizarre to them. There are about four veggies in our entire group, and Staci would tell the restos beforehand that there were people who didn't eat meat in the group ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding," anybody?) but they still wouldn't get it. One of the waiters actually walked away from our table mumbling to one of his fellow waiters "There are no more normal ones at that table." We got a kick out of that. Vegetarians are gaining numbers in France, but it's still pretty slow. Apparently if you cook beef all the way through it's not considered to be a red meat. Hm.... ok. Whatevs. I mean, I just eat the stuff. And then when people ask why I say, "Well, once you've eaten dog you can eat anything." And then I walk away. It's fun.

After the resto we got back on the bus and Staci started walking down the aisle, giving people slips of paper with their Rennes addresses on them. It took her a while to actually get down to me and Mark. It was like watching someone walk up to you with a monster bowl of chocolate pudding. You have no idea if what's going to happen next is going to be one of the best moments of your life, or something to bemoan to your therapist in the following years. Staci got to our seats and handed me my 7x3 card. It was fancy paper, kinda stiffish, with the logo of CIEE (my program) in the corner. My host family's address was in the middle. M. et Mme. MASSON, it said. I held in my fingertips and I think it was one of the weirdest feelings. Staci told me just the tiniest bit of who they were. They lived in an apartment just outside of Rennes, in Saint Gregoire. She hadn't been there but she had been to the house they had owned just before and it had been beautiful. They didn't have any kids in the house.

I waited quietly while Staci told Mark about his family, and then the two of us just sat there, staring at our lives in our hands. One and a half hours before we met these people and started to live with them. The only way I can communicate how weird and creepy it was to know this is to keep repeating it. So weird. I hadn't been nervous before, but with the card in my hands, I started to ask myself what in the world I was doing. Don't worry, I remembered again. But there's always that moment where you go "Holy crapoli what am I doing?" At least, I do. I think I might actually be the only person in the world who says "holy crapoli" though. I dunno. :D

The last half hour of the ride was wonderful. We had no idea how close we were to the commence of our lives. It was when I saw a sign for RENNES 2 that I nudged Mark's arm and we kinda started freaking out. The bus somehow managed to pull into the parking lot without crushing any of the mini cars there, and we piled out, pulling together our bags. Actually, I can remember as I got out of the bus and clipped my suitcases together: "Halelujah I finally get to unpack." Then I did the "holy crapoli" thing again. We all followed Andrew and Staci inside.

Then we ALL went to the restroom. Mackenzie, thank you for telling me to bring toilet paper. Enough said there, I think. I just think it's hilarious that we were all so nervous that suddenly all we wanted to do was hide in the bathroom stalls. One of the girls standing next to me down on the floor laughed and whispered that it was like a middle school dance. All the parents were on one side, and all the kids were on the other side, looking at the floor, the French students we already knew, eachother, anyone but our future parents. Then Staci introduced another CIEE important person, Madeleine, and started reading off the list of names, matching people up. When I realized that she was reading in order of the French family's last names, I kinda freaked. When she said "Monsieur et Madame Loubard? Oui, vous avez Anna..." I grabbed Mark's elbow and he glared at me. Then she called my name and I bised my mere and met my pere (French mum and dad, from here on out) and it was so weird.

I think one of the first things I said was "Je suis desolee mais je suis un peu fatiguee et tout ca est tres bizarre." (I'm sorry but I'm a little tired and all this is really bizarre) And that's how I met Elisabeth and Michel Masson. They are fantastic. They have three grown up sons, Philippe, Francois, and Pierre. Philippe and Francois live in the Alps and San Fransisco (respectively) with their wives, and Pierre lives more near-by. They used to have a house, but they're building a house near Lorient, on the coast of Bretagne, so they bought an appartement in the meantime. They have a yellow lab named Baloo who doesn't steal food from the table, which is amazing because the table we eat on is right on his nose level.

All of the things in my room are a la Ikea. This makes me uber happy. The one problem I've had, and the same with everyone else, is that there's this mandate that the houses here can't be warmer than 19*C. That's pretty cold. It's to save energy or something like that, and if you fail, you get fined. Woot. So I sleep with a lot of pajamaness on.

That first night we ate very French food. Spaghetti and bread and wine. Hm... no, but it was really good. I met my Mamie, Michel's mom who lives in Lorient. She's adorable and really cute and invited me to stay at her house one weekend. I really want to. Mes parents also keep telling me to tell them about places I want to go over the vacation, because if the group isn't going and if I'm not going with my friends, they want to take me. Cool, oui?

And that was Thursday. What a Thursday. Weird.

Mercredi: La fin de Paris

The 23rd janvier 2008. The last full day that we were in Paris. It was, I must say, super chouette. More people had their interviews that morning, and I was just happy that I was able to leave and go do things with people instead of being completely lost. Sophia was supposed to have her thing at 11, but she wanted to do something beforehand, so she asked me if I wanted to go somewhere. I said sure and grabbed my stuff, and on the way out we invited Mark and Prateik to come along.

We walked to the Place des Vosges, a mansion/castle type place that's completely symmetrical and beautiful and has a square park in the center. It had wifi ([weefee] for the French :D). We didn't use it, but it was cool to find out that Sarcozy decreed that there should be free wifi in super public places. Of course, some of those places are cafes, but that's fine, cause it brings them business. But it's all over France. I think it's a fantastic idea. After the Place we went to the Bastille. It's kinda boring. Big obelisk thing with a statue on top. Woot.

Then the four of us went back to the auberge, and Sophia had her interview, and the boys and I waited for her before deciding what to do after. We then headed via le metro to Montemartre and Sacre Coeur. If you've seen Amelie you know what I'm talking about.

So I have a really great Sacre Coeur story. I won something. Rather, I finagled it. We saw the church and the view and everything (omg wow) and were walking away from it all, focusing on going home and/or getting food, when we were approached by men.

Uh, oh, men.... Ok. Clarification, they were vendors. The African dudes who stand in the really tourist-y places and sell bracelets for really outrageous prices. So this one calls to me... I'll do a dialogue for this one (ps it was all in French, if it wasn't it's in italics here):

him: Mademoiselle!
me: Oui?
him: Please, let me speak to you.
me: I'm sorry, I have to leave. My friends are waiting for me.
him: Oh, you speak French!
me: Ye-es.....
him: Then you are a student? Please, just give me your hand...yes, you are a student?
me: Yes, I study in Rennes.
him: It's alright. I no bite you.
me (really really really hesitantly holding out my hand now): What is this going to cost me? Ten euros?
him: Oh, no, Mlle, you speak French, you are not a tourist...
{here he gave me his Africa/Senegal speel which I wish I could remember. I do remember him talking about Hakuna Matata etc) and so you will not pay the tourist price. Tourists are stupid, they pay 5, 7 euros. For you, I will create a special price.
{at this point, he had finished wrapping the threads using the tension he had gained when he placed the loop of them around my finger. he was about to tie it around my wrist}
me: I'm not buying it from you.
him: But I will make a special price. Look! It's a good bracelet!
me: It's a beautiful bracelet, yes, but I need to leave. I have to go.
him: It's alright, it's alright. Just the payment.
me: I told you, I don't have money. I'm a student, I'm poor. Maybe for 10 centimes...
him: 10 centimes? No! Impossible!
me: Take it then. I'm leaving. I have to go.
{Mark came up then and told me that they were leaving. He was, of course, laughing at me}
him: ok, ok, 1 euro. I will take one euro.
me: But I think that free would be a fantastic price.
him: Free? {he laughed at that one, and finished the knot on the bracelet}
me: Free!
him: I can't. Just give me what you have.
me: I don't have anything. I told you. I'm a student. Please?
{I clasped my hands in front of me}
him: I can't...
me: Ok, you'll have to take it, because i'm leaving
{i held out my arm again}
him: oh....ok, ok...you go. it's alright. you go.
me: really?
him: It's alright.
me: thank you!

So now I've got this pretty sweet bracelet that Mark makes fun of me for having. He says that because of me, that guy didn't eat his dinner and now he's dead. I like it. The one funny thing is that it's Italy (and probably Senegal) colors, not French. Red, White, and Green. But it's cool. Yup. Uh... ok...

Then we went back to the auberge again and Sophia went with her group to the Musee Carnavalet, which we had seen the day before, and Prateik and Mark and I went to the free lunch at the auberge. After was the Hotel de Ville (heart of the city, a building where a lot of political city stuff happens, apparently it's super hard to get an appointment, much less for a group of 15 Americans). That was difficult. It was like, French history 101 on steroids. Super fast. The lady was sweet and sophisticated, but I think I was just too tired to appreciate everything she was talking about. I kept leaning against the wall and then kinda falling asleep. I did love the statues inside. The interior decorations were a crazy combination of the classique, uber fancy, let's-put-gold-everywhere styles, and the more modern, hm-i-wonder-what-in-the-world-that-is-or-could-be paintings. Laughing statues and all that.

When the tour was finished a group of us (Andrew, Connor, Mark, Christie, Kate, Jess, me, and two other girls who I can't remember because they were sitting on the far end of the table and I can't see them in my mind's eye) walked down to a cafe. I had hot chocolate. I love hot chocolate. We talked a little and hung out, and then when it was about 17h00 we headed out. Andrew had other stuff to do, so he went off on his own, and I stayed with the rest and we got half lost again. Seemed to be the thing to do. But we were with Morgane so it was all cool.

That night we went to "La Cantatrice Chauve" a hilarious play about....about....something. I actually don't really know. It was just a bunch of people talking about other people. I could follow the majority of it, and the stuff I did understand was funny. It was like Amelie, in the way that the personnages talked about others. Like an indie film on stage. Cooky.

Upon leaving, yet again, the mass of us just stood in front of the theater until some of us decided to walk. The group split again, and again after that, and then Mark and I were standing in the street in front of a gyro place, watching about ten people in our group line up inside.

"Think we should go somewhere else?" I asked. Mark nodded, and we grabbed Prateik and Donovan and the four of us went around the block. We still got gyros, but at least we weren't horribly in everyone's way, as we would have been at the other place. Man, that was a great gyro. I'm hungry right now, and thinking about it is not helping...

So we were sitting there and talking about the things that we still wanted to do, and the Eiffel Tower came up as one of the things none of us had seen. It kinda got bypassed by the conversation, cause then we mentioned the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay. And, I mean, we kinda had seen it, from the boat ride. We were ready to be satisfied with that. Then all of a sudden I got this great idea.

"Guys...guys. I have a great idea." They all looked at me. "How do you feel about looking like tourists?" They gave me "uh" responses. "Let's go drink wine underneath the Eiffel Tower."
So we did. It was pretty sweet. I love lights. Of course, I also couldn't get over the idea that when you sit under the tower, it looks and feels like it's getting ready to either sit on you or moon you. Either one, I couldn't really make up my mind. Funness.

Mardi: Musee Carnavalet

Mardi le 22nd.
I had my entretien, my interview with Staci and Andrew, at 10h00. This meant that I had to be eating breakfast around 9h00, and also listening to everyone talking about what they were going to do. Of course my group of favorite people all decided to go to the Musee d'Orsay, a museum of more modern art (as in last hundred years or so). I had to stay at the auberge and pretty much just wait. By the time I had finished eating food and all, it was 9h30, and believe me, there's not much you can do with half an hour besides brush your teeth a couple of times and organize stuff on your bed.

The interview was pretty easy. I had thought that it was going to be new questions, but it was pretty much a housing questionnaire vocalized. Do you like kids? Can you be with a family who smokes? Do you have any questions? It was over in 15 minutes and I was left pretty much completely alone in the auberge. Everyone except the person being interviewed after me was gone. So I decided that I was going to go get lost in Paris. I was foiled at the last moment when I was walking down the stairs and Julie met me as she was coming back from her 10h45 interview. "Hey. Where are you going?" "I dunno." "Wanna go walk around together?" "Ok."

So Julie and I got kinda lost in Paris. 'Kinda' because Julie has a beautiful sense of direction. I do too, sometimes, but I usually need to have been looking at the map from moment number one to be totally confident in where I am. We walked past a bunch of things with a lot of history behind them, and since we had both had our interviews, were also speaking in French the entire time. Why? Because at the very end of the interview we all signed a paper saying that we would speak in French pretty much every single moment of every single day unless our legs were cut off and blood was spilling out of our throats (aka utter emergency). So the two of us tried the French thing and discovered that it wasn't that bad. Really we weren't speaking pure French, we were using our own fantastic franglais (french+english).

We went back to the auberge and Julie went out to lunch with some people, while I decided to stick around for an hour or so and then go eat the free lunch that was being offered to us at the auberge's other building. I went and sat on a bench by the Seine. Now seriously. How many people can actually say that? Not very many. Like, a couple thousand. Or so. Something like that. It was beautiful. I wore my sunglasses like a total tourist, too, which made it even better. Apparently people here don't really wear sunglasses, because it's never really bright enough? Psh. I wore them, anyhow, and felt pretty dang cool doing it.

After lunch was the Musee Carnavalet. The museum used to be a mansion. Well, it still is a mansion, just now no one lives in it. It's a monster and the courtyard inside houses one of the only statues of Louis XIV that escaped demolition during the French Revolution. How's that for cocktail party talk? The inside was super chouette; every room or section of the house is decorated according to a French siecle (century). So the guide would take us into a room and say, "And now we are in the 18th century, notice the blah blah blah...." Now that I think of it again it reminds me of the tour Belle gets in Beauty and the Beast, with Cogsworth going on and on about all the different types of art. One thing I will say in addition, is that she was going way too fast. I was the last person in a room almost every single time. Sometimes Connor would beat me in that respect, but otherwise, I would just stand there and try to take everything in, and then I would realize that I was alone and I'd have to rush through the next couple of rooms in order to find everyone. Andrew actually came back for me one time, haha. We wandered before heading back to the auberge and meeting people for the last planned excursion of the day, a boat ride on the Seine.

The entire big group (which was, I think, 30 exactly including all the French student moniteurs and Staci and Andrew) met by Pont Neuf and we all took a pretty sweet boat ride in the freezing air. It was given by a tourism student who was doing super well with the whole say-it-in-French/say-it-in-English thing, but he kept making silly mistakes, like pronouncing "guillotine" (French word, mind you) not as [gee-o-teen] but as [gui-lo-tine-ay]. We liked that part a lot. Oh, and "coat of arms" became "arms coat" which wasn't too bad of a translation, I guess.

Dinner was on our own that night. This was both a good thing and a bad thing. Well, not exactly bad...I actually thought it was really funny. Anyway. We leave the boat and our monster group stands up on the bridge for a while, trying to decide on what to do for dinner. There are four French students who are working with us, only three of them were in Paris. They were Nicolas, Morgane, and Lucie. I like them all. Lucie is really sweet; she studied in America for a while and speaks English super duper well. Morgane reminds me of some of my friends. She has a really quiet way of speaking, but she's super chouette and chic with a twist of hippie. So the group stood there for probably about ten minutes before splitting about in half. Staci and Andrew were in one half, Lucie and Nicolas and Morgane in the other.

I went with the Lucie and Nicolas half with Jessica and Sarah and Sophia. We walked to the other side of the bridge and stopped. And waited. Then we decided to walk to the Latin Quarter for dinner. We walked back across the bridge. And waited. Nicolas pulled out his map, declared he knew where we were, and we set out. After twenty minutes, the group decided that Nicolas maybe perhaps didn't quite know where he was going. The problem was that none of us did, either. So we walked. And walked. I'm pretty sure we went in at least one circle, if not more. Things were even more difficult because it was almost 8pm. Darkness is not so easy to navigate.
Somewhere the group split in half, and for some reason I stayed with Nicolas' and Morgane's groupe. Oh, I know, because they're fun. Oh yeah. So we walked some more. What's interesting about this is that on the boat and just after, most everyone was speaking French. The longer the walked and the hungrier we got, the more English I kept hearing out of people. Our brains were becoming fried. And not good fried, like potatoes. Bad fried like computers. It was in the middle of a walk up yet another hill that I made another friend. The girls I had been with had gone with Lucie in the other groupe, so I was walking with whoever happened to match my pace at the time. So I'm walking and thinking: "Rawr rawr rawr hungry tummy rawr." It's true. I was thinking that to myself, in my head.

And like any person feeling like that, I needed to vent the complaint. I turned to the guy next to me and said, "You know, right now we're working off the dinner we haven't eaten yet." He grinned and agreed and we talked in franglais the rest of the way to a fondue place. None of us, of course, had fondue. I had tomatoes and mozarella and steak au poivre (with pepper). Dinner was fun. Yummy. There were 7 of us, and the boys talked about music, and the girls were mostly quiet. Yes, I was quiet. They were talking French music, which I don't listen to (yet?). After a while we left and headed home.

I walked with Mark and when we all got back to the auberge he and I decided that we weren't tired and wanted to do something else. The rest of the peeps had scattered, so the two of us pulled out a map. After fifteen minutes of saying, "Non. Ce que je veux, c'est que tu pris une decision." ("No. What I want is for you to make a decision.") we got up, grabbed our metro tickets, and went to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees. It was pretty cool. We spoke French on the way there so as not to be suspected as tourists, haha (I hope you all realize that we all have very obvious American accents. The "r" is very difficult for anglophones to make, and the "i" in French is more "[ee]" than we're used to). The arc was pretty sweet.

I mean, it's covered with the names of dead warriors Napoleon wanted to give honorable mentions to for fighting. It's pretty impressive, especially when you're surrounded with cars driving in a circle at about 60mph. So cool. And we walked down the Champs-Elysees, and sat on a bench there and talked about demon birds in Rome and how I used to think sharks came out of swimming pool lights and how his ultimate fear seems to be getting mugged. As this was getting more likely as it got darker, and it was almost metro closing time (1230am), we went back to the hostel, half fearing that we would get stuck or lost and not make it back before 1am, when the doors were locked and you were only supposed to be asked to be let in in the more dire emergency. We made it. Lucky us. I don't know if I could have handled sleeping outside Notre Dame for a night. Would have been a super story, actually...

26 January 2008

Lundi a la Paris

Lundi. That's Monday in French. I'm pretty good at remembering lundi and mardi and mercredi just because it's fun to say and know that you're saying a day of the week. It's the days afterward that my brain decides to forget. And of course, I hope you realize, when I say "decides" I mean it's a complete and utter accident.

Anyway. Lundi the 21st was the day that I got in to the airport so early. I slept on the chairs in front of the very doors I had just walked through. It wasn't that bad, once i figured out that it's a lot more comfortable to use the suitcases as an ottoman, rather than a pillow support. Oh, man, I am so glad I took my little travel pillow with me. It has been one of my best friends this entire time. I think I might see if I can marry it...

Around 630 (yes, AM) Christie's plane got in, and the two of us walked to Terminal C, where the rest of the group was supposed to be waiting. We were a few hours early. So we sat. And kinda talked. Mostly sat and were quiet. I read a little, and wrote. Then a few minutes after 930 we went to the middle of the terminal and met the group of really obvious American students trying to not fall asleep on their feet. They were also all struggling (ok, no, not all were struggling) to understand everything Staci and Andrew, the two leader peeps, were saying. That's because, quelle surprise, it was all in French. The group stood there for little over an hour, tentatively introducing themselves around the mob, and then we piled into a bus and drove from Charles de Gaulle into the heart of Paris.

I still laugh now when I think about the ride. No one knew one another, except for a couple kids (adults?) who are from the same school. At least, no one was already best friends with anyone else in the group. Plus, I was completely conscious. Sure, I was tired, but I was just travel and thinking tired, not jetlagged tired. PS THANK YOU GOD FOR THAT. That ride was so quiet, oh man oh man. It was like we were all gagged and in straight jackets. I sat more in the front, just behind Staci and Andrew, and near three girls who are all pretty much amazing, Sophia, Jessica, and Anna. We had the normal first-year-college-student-help-i-need-to-be-funny conversations; and of course I tried to be cooler than I actually am, because that's what everyone does the first day.

When we got to the auberge de jeuness (youth hostel) they did all the saying hi stuff (minus ice breakers, grace a Dieu) and gave us pocket money and metro tickets and mini maps. Then they said, "Ok, you're free, we'll be eating lunch at 12h30. Bye." I don't really remember who I walked around with then...I think it was Sarah and Amanda....whatevs. We walked around and discovered that hey, that's the Seine! And there's...wait, is that Notre Dame? That's Notre Dame! It was literally just across the river and over like a block.

After lunch we got our rooms. I was almost excited. Part of me was just so tired of hostels at that point, as it was my fourth hostel of the month, and I was just really really really looking forward to not having to lock up my things all the time. But then again, the shower was super big. And the water was hot. And Jess and Julie were tres cool. More walking happened that night, and then dinner at a pretty nice restaurant that made us beef bourguignon and creme brulee and wine. Well, they didn't make us the wine. But they served it to us. Yum. I was so tired after dinner that when we got home around 21h30, I went to sleep. Very few others actually did, since for everyone else it was daytime and not sleepy time.

A bed was a fantastic change from the airport chairs......

24 January 2008

QUESTION

Not that it really matters a lot, but should i be making these shorter? Or cutting them into more pieces? I just realized how much info there is here. lemme know...

love.
chel.

The end of Italy ... sad...

On Thursday we woke up early (that means we were eating breakfast in the other building by 805) and set out for the Vatican. I don’t know if you want to bother mapquesting this or not, it could be interesting. But our hostel is on via Volturno, by Termini Station. It’s almost on the uttermost east side of the city. Vatican City is almost straight west of us, across the center of Rome. Oh, and did we take the short way, trying to keep to a straight line between points? Mais, non. Of course not. We walked down, and around, and got a little lost, and found some monuments and ruins, and ended up on Ponte Palatino, which is, I think, about a mile down the river from our destination.

It took us an hour to walk there, and we weren’t walking slowly, either. We were walking normally. Well, Maggie and I were walking at ¾ speed, and Ariel was keeping up. The entire way there the rain was off and on, and by the time we walked into Piazza S. Pietro, it was seriously pouring. This was fun because my umbrella looks like a bat with a broken wing. Somehow, in the course of traversing the globe, one of the arms snapped and now when I open it one side of the umbrella just kinda hangs there, like it’s too tired to really be part of the party. So sad. Plus I keep getting the ends of it caught in my hair, which is painful sometimes.

Oh, and you know in the movies how, whenever there’s a pause and the director doesn’t want the audience to lose interest, so he sticks some nuns in the frame? That came from here. Nuns really truly everywhere. And I know that some of you are rolling your eyes at me right now, but we think it’s pretty funny. It’s just weird thinking of them as doing normal things, like buying boots. As Maggie said, “I just want to keep asking one of them, ‘Why aren’t you in a church helping poor children?’ And that from the Catholic of us, hehe.

The Vatican was amazing. We saw the Pope. He was boring. Just walked down the aisle and started talking in Italian. Oh, and he was old. But there was a nativity inside the Basilica that had a sheep in it which looked like it was about to pee itself in fear of the very shiny baby Jesus making the “Yeah I’m hot” face. I have a picture.

After the Basilica we went to some of the museums, the Museo Pio Cristiano (ancient Christian art in big rocks [they were coffins, creepy] and statues) the Museo Missionario Etnologico (art brought back to Italy by Christian missionaries, super cool) and the Pinacoteca (paintings and stuff à la Catholicism). We were in them a good three hours, and then we decided that since the place was supposed to close around two, and it was one, we should make our way to the chapel.

This was not an easy task. You figure, hey, it’s a chapel, there’s the sign for it, how far away could it be? Far. Very far. So far. So much … walking…The problem was that we appreciate art, and the way to the Sistine Amazingness is marked by all of these magnificent rooms with gorgeous art. All kinds of art, everywhere. Frescoes, statues, plaster flower molds, lint balls in the corners…so you’re trying to get to this one place, and you keep seeing signs for it, but it doesn’t occur to you that it’s the last thing on the list for a reason. The reason being: IT IS LAST. Quite last.

It took a long time, I don’t even know how long really, to get through all the rooms leading to the chapel. Finally we reached it, and I can’t even begin to describe it to you. Everyone’s seen pictures of the Sistine Chapel, but seeing it in person, oh man. All it needs is a little breath and things will start talking. Don’t tell anyone but I slipped some pictures with my camera phone. Photos were VIETATO. Very much completely absolutely forbidden. But you can’t help it. It was phenomenal. If you haven’t seen the Sistine Chapel you should go to Rome just to do that. My neck might still be sore from trying to see everything at once. Just the idea that this one ceiling, this one masterpiece, brings so many people to a single place in the world, is breathtaking.

From the Vatican we walked to the Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti, the Spanish steps. This time we took my way, the direct way, and it was still far, but it was faster. Let me tell you something about the steps. Guess what. They are stairs. In the winter, they are boring. In the summer, I believe they are decorated with flowers. But otherwise, there are Asian tourists everywhere and Italian kids trying to be cool and a bunch of tourists wandering around. But still pretty cool. Maybe I was tired. That morning, Ariel’s dad had told us to check out the McDonald’s in the Piazza, because it’s the most unique in the world.

So we look for the Golden Arches. We found a sign and headed for it. That was our first mistake. It led us up into the Metro. The arrow was a weird little thing that turned back on itself, making it look like you had to go in the Metro, turn left, then left again, and you’d be there. So we tried that. We went straight, then left. And then we were at a moving walkway. What else was there to do but to go up the walkway? So we stepped on and stood there, letting it carry us up who knows how far. It was far. At the top, about ten minutes of riding up the hill, we decided that there was actually no McD’s in the Metro, haha. We turned around and stood on the other side of the walkways. There wasn’t very much moving coming out of us. A group of American students passed us and I heard one girl say, “Why aren’t they moving?” “I dunno,” her friend said. I had to laugh because I was thinking very nearly the same thing at that moment. “Why aren’t we moving? Why aren’t we going anywhere?”


We turned back and left the metro, going back into the plaza. The three of us stood there for a little while, looking back and forth and trying to figure out exactly what was happening. Nothing was happening. There were just tourists everywhere, and no signs for Macdo at all. It was hilarious. At least, I though it was hilarious. Maybe it was just me. Well, we finally found the restaurant, but it looked like a café, so we didn’t go in right away. We thought that after the McD’s café there would be another extension of the place, but it wasn’t. We went in and stood in the middle of the café area for a few seconds before we noticed that you could go in the back, down into the dungeons of the place. We did finally go down, and had the food, and later Maggie and Ariel had the gelato. The gelato (which I did actually taste) was pretty good, and really cheap for gelato, anyway. Only 2euros for two flavors.

After the Macdo we found some boots for Maggie on the way home, and once there we rested for a few minutes before going back out again and then went to dinner. We were so tired from walking to the Vatican that we were nearly hysterical at dinner. I wish you could have seen us, we were laughing so hard, and the girls we were eating with could only look at us funny and smile to themselves. My favorite laughing matter was when we were telling them about the mummies that we had seen in the Egyptian museum part of the rooms leading to the Sistine Chapel. Ariel said, “Yeah, we say mummies when we were in Egypt. But they actually weren’t as cool as the ones we saw here.” Maggie said, “I don’t have any mummies near my house.” So of course I had to say, “I have a mummy. She’s in Colorado.” At that point we completely lost it. I’m not even sure why, it was just so funny at the time. After dinner, thanks be to God, we finally made it home and went to sleep.

On Friday morning we headed to the Coliseum, where we joined a tour group for 20euros. The tour included the tour of the Coliseum, the Roman forum, and the Palatine hill, which is supposedly the birthplace of Rome. It was cool, not much to report. The guides were pretty good, and the monuments were amazing. There ended up being only two tours, the first was forty minutes, and then a two hour break for a wonderful lunch of salami and break and crackers and nutella. And it was beautiful. That’s also when we saw Maggie’s mutant pigeons, which scared the poo out of her. Poor girl was talking about how cute some of them were, and then all of a sudden we all realized that almost all of the birds were mutants with missing legs and whatnot. Poor Maggie was hiding her face from them.

On Saturday Maggie left us to go home so that she would have a couple days to get used to Colorado time before going back to classes. After a hilarious goodbye at the train station (Ariel and I were making faces and miming things to Maggie while we were waiting for the train to actually leave), Ariel and I went and had breakfast, then we watched a movie and went back to bed. It was lovely, the whole sleeping again thing. Pretty much the best thing ever. Later in the day we went shopping a little and bought Italy souvenirs, which for me were masks. I love them. There are four of them, and they’re small and made in Italy and hand painted and I really like them a ton. We went back home and spent the rest of the day pretty much doing nothing but hanging out and … doing nothing.


Sunday morning was spent getting ready to leave and eating breakfast. We went straight to the airport after checking out at 1030, and spent the entire day at the airport. While there a big group of French peeps sat down next to us. Guess what the first thing Ariel said to them was? "I don't speak French." And the second? "She speaks French." Oh la la. "You are Ahmereeken? So tell us, what do you think of Bush?" Haha....

After about seven hours at the airport without food, we were able to check in my luggage, take Ariel's luggage upstairs, and eat at the restaurant. Well, self service place. We saw a guy wearing Gucci shoes and something else brandname all over his body. We spent a good amount of time laughing at him and his friend. I waited with Arie for a while in her check-in line, but then i had to go to my gate, where I just had a blast, let me tell you. It was almost 10pm, and we got in to Charles de Gaulle about midnight.

I slept in the airport. Now, before you freak out, realize that ... um... something. It was totally fine. It was too late to check in to a hotel or the hostel we were staying in, and i was meeting another girl at 6am, so it wasn't too bad. Except for the creepy homeless man who sat next to me for a while when i was awake. I simply put my locks on my bags, sat on the chair, and used mes valises (haha...sorry... "suitcases") for a footrest. It wasn't too bad, considering where I was. Plus, i was just happy to finally be able to understand the other language. People asked me if I needed a taxi, I could say no and explain that I had a ride. I could make excuses and tell them to degage (kinda like saying "beat it" but with a touch of mean sincerity).


Culture SHOCK

Wednesday the 16th was the morning we left Firenze for Rome, and we were at the train station by about 930. The tickets, get this, were either 16 for a four hour trip, or 38 for a two hour trip. We almost took the four hour. I was really leaning on trying to convince them to do it. But then we found out that the train wasn’t going to leave for another two hours, putting us into Rome at 1600h, which was pushing it, lateness-wise. So we shoveled out the moolah. I figure if nothing else, it was all the money we’ve saved by not using any metro or taxi or bus rides. We have literally walked everywhere except for between the cities, which we managed to do on our butts.

Rome is a monster. At least, when we first got in, that’s what we were thinking. From the train we walked to our hostel, which told us that we could store our bags and stuff, but that our room wouldn’t be ready for another two hours. That sounded familiar. Apparently Rome takes breaks to clean everything every day. At least, the hostels do.

So we grabbed a map and Ariel and Maggie found out where the shopping was and I led them to it. I almost wish that there had been someone following us while we were walking around Rome for the first time. Our brains were so used to Pisa and Florence, the slow, small, short-buildinged cities of happiness, and getting dumped back into a real city with cars and roundabouts and buildings higher than three stories tall was horrible. We got cranky and short with eachother. There was so much tension, oh man. I kept on looking at Maggie and saying, “We need to get out of here. We need to go rest and let our brains recuperate.” She would nod with wide eyes, but then we just kept going. Our first days in Pisa and Florence we had spent getting a little lost, and I think we kinda felt like we should do the same thing.

Our room was going to be ready at 1400, about two hours from the moment we walked off the train, but instead of heading back to the hostel after two hours of walking, no, we kept going for another hour and a half. The hostel dudes didn’t see us again until almost four hours after we had left the front desk. We didn’t even buy anything, we just got pseudo-lost and kept on running into monuments and ruins. Finally we went and checked in and paid. Paying was fun, rather, the process leading up to it was hilarious. Hilarious as in, I really wanted to shoot myself. It was my turn to fork out money, which was fine; it meant that we all were finally going to be even and everything. So I walk up to the ATM and slip in my card and push all the lovely little buttons that so many Romans have touched and the monster says, “We have been instructed to return your card. Please contact your own bank.”

Of course I had to try another ATM before I let myself truly believe that I had been an idiot. I had gotten euros in the states, and hadn’t spent a lot, so I had not yet had to withdraw any money. That morning I had used my credit card to pay for my third of the hostel in Florence, though. When we were walking back up the hill, I suddenly remembered that I had never told WellsFargo that I was leaving the country. Genius. They thought that my card was stolen and was making its way across Europe. On one hand, it was nice to know that they had such a fast response time in making my card unusable. On the other hand, the dumb card was unusable.

Maggie and Ariel were able to put forward the cash to take care of the bill (we had to pay in cash because their credit card machine was broken, and had to pay up front for some unknown reason) but I was still frustrated with myself for forgetting something so important. The next morning I sent my parents an email and told them what was going on. I had to do this because I have no phone here, and the hostel didn’t wanna give up their line because it’s super duper uber expensive, so the only people who could call up the bank and tell them what was up were my parents. Thank God before I left I added them to my bank account and gave them power of attorney while I’m gone. My mommy who loves me took care of it for me and I can now use my money!

Dinner was at the hostel, because breakfast and dinner are included in our price. It’s pasta and really cheap wine. Really cheap. Like, I like wine, but I almost can’t drink it. Or maybe I’m just picky. Yeah, that’s probably it. Maggie laughed at me when I drank it and then said that it wasn’t that great. “Well, no, but I’ve had worse,” she replied. :P Of course you have. Oh Maggieness. But the pesto pasta was yummy. After dinner, which we ate with friends of Ariel’s from the Hebrew University (the second group from Israel which we met, the first had been in Florence, also staying at the same hostel), the three of us headed to a mini market to get our allowance of crackers, bread, salami, oranges, and nutella. Ariel drank half a bottle of tea in front of a sign declaring eating and drinking in the store to be absolutely forbidden, and Maggie and I bought juice cartons. I thought I loved the oranges….now I also love Italian orange juice in a box. It’s in the fridge right now, and the box is more than half gone. You have no idea how much I want to get up and go get it right now. So much. Yum.

On the walk down to the store, it was just spitting rain, which wasn’t too bad. We hadn’t actually planned on doing that right after dinner, though, so we hadn’t brought our umbrellas. Bad life decision. When we got out of the little automatic doors onto the street, it was raining. When we got to the top of the hill a few minutes later, it was pouring. Four minutes from our room it was dumping, and we had to towel off in our room before touching anything, for fear of making everything completely soaked. I didn’t dry my hair, and it wasn’t even dry right before we went to sleep an hour later.

Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and aliens

Mass was said in Italian, of course. There was this one father who we absolutely adored, he was so cute. He made us think of that old man in the Pixar short who plays chess against himself. He was really small but spry and when he spoke in English to the group of students sitting in front of us and to the right it was the most beautiful thing ever.

“I’ma go-ing tooo neeed seex (holds up fingers) ung prsuns for theee co-lection. Yoo cana dooo eet?”

He also kinda looked like the guy who played Bilbo in LOTR, but with less hair. That made it even more amazing. It was fun during mass to half listen to what was being said, and invest the rest of my mind in looking around. Brunelleschi’s dome is pretty sweet when viewed from directly beneath, lemme tell you. Wow. Also, all the bishops and fathers and whoever (sorry Mackenzie, apparently I still don’t know much Catholic stuff) were sitting off to the side were uber fascinating. One guy was sitting with his head so far forward, it looked like his neck operated horizontally. Another who was sitting more in the back spent the entire mass just looking at his hand and picking at it. I guess God was really intriguing that guy.

After mass we walked around the church a little and then went home, changed, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the market, getting yelled at to buy purses. Guys kept on coming up to Ariel and saying, “Hola,” we thought that was pretty funny. The next day, Monday, when we ended up at the market again trying to find the things that Maggie and Ariel had decided over night that actually they really did want, there were almost no people there, and we got called to a lot.

“Ladies! Ladies! You drop something! Drop your style and pick up this new jacket!”

“Hey, there are three of you, two of us; but tha’s ok, we make it work….i like long legs!”

And the most adorable: “I’m single!” Yes. You are. What a wonder… :D

And that’s why, if you’re not good at the whole “just keep walking” thing, you should not go to the market when there aren’t any other tourists there. It’s amazing how many tourists there are otherwise. Really, it’s a given, there are going to be cheesy Americans and classy Brits (and vice versa, yes) everywhere you go. But after struggling at a café to order something with the Italian server and hearing only Italian on your way out of your hostel neighborhood, it’s strange to hear English around the corner next to the Gucci purses.

I can’t remember which night exactly this next story happened, but I’m pretty sure it was Tuesday or Wednesday, because I was exhausted. That is my only excuse. I’m going to tell the following story from Ariel’s perspective.

“We had gone to bed about half an hour before, which wasn’t that late. It was only like, 11:30. Michelle’s phone went off and since it was up by me I was looking at it, checking it, when I start hearing something funny. It sounded like someone was talking, and it was coming from Michelle’s bunk, right below me. So I lean over a little, with my head over the side of the bed, right? And I hear her say ‘No….mmmph…..the aliens.’ I was trying so hard not to laugh, but I asked, ‘Michelle, what are you doing? Are you…talking in your sleep?’ There was a pause and I heard Michelle say, ‘No!... Maybe…Shut up.’ She then proceeded to roll over and not talk to me at all. I was laughing so hard the bed was shaking and my only thought was, ‘I can’t wait to tell her about this in the morning.’”

So apparently, if you get me tired enough by walking me to death and then keeping me up as long as possible, I will talk about aliens in my sleep. I actually remember the last part, when I answered Ariel. I remember hearing her question, and immediately saying no because I don’t talk in my sleep. I don’t move or talk and fall out of bed or anything. But then I thought, if she had to ask…. Haha. I’m laughing at myself just writing about it.

On Monday in Firenze we went on a historic walking tour of the city. It was free, and led by Lucia, a woman working at the hostel. I think I would like her job. She does something else which I can’t remember, but on the side she gives tours to mostly student-age audiences. Or maybe it just sounds cool to me to be able to pick my favorite city and live there for the sole purpose of introducing other people to it. The tour lasted from 10 until a little before 1 and we went back to the hostel like old women and hung out.

Tuesday we walked to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see the David. David is…big. The rest of the Academy museum was moderately interesting; the paintings were of a rather intense Renaissance style. They were so uber Catholic. I know that might sound funny to some of you, but they were. Maggie and I were actually pretty interested in them; I spent a lot of my time in front of the paintings looking for idiosyncrasies. Some of the Resurrection shots were funny to me, with Jesus up in the sky with the filmy veil across his legs, and his hand up in the air doing some sort of salute. One painting seriously made it look like Jesus was thinking, “Booyah. I did it. Look at me. I’m hot.”

There was a separate room in the museum that was entirely plaster statues and busts and I really liked that. First, it made me feel like Elizabeth walking around Darcy’s house looking at his art collection. Second, I love statues, I’ve discovered. They’re just so cool. I mean, it’s a statue. It could almost be a real person, except it’s…not.

After the museum we walked in the rain to Santa Maria del Fiore again to climb Brunelleshci’s dome. It was 643 steps up to the top, took us about half an hour, and cost 6euros, but was completely worth it, no question about it. Going up, we kept on running into other climbers. Normally this would be ok, but the passages were so narrow, every time you met up with other people, you had to move either backward or forward a couple of feet so that their group or yours could go past. A couple of the sections going up are stone spiral staircases which go up for about three stories before stopping. That was fun.

The top of the dome is wonderful. You have a complete and unhindered view of the entire city, and though almost every building looks exactly the same, you can also see all of the cathedrals and piazzas and markets, and all the little people walking around with their umbrellas. From there you can also see the mountains. Those were easy to forget about since we were always surrounded by buildings and people. They were even more beautiful because of the rain. The water in the air made it look like someone had just laid out a clean sheet of haze over the thick greenness of the mountains, making them almost visible, more like they were there because you remembered them being there, not because they were.

After the Dome we staggered home. I say staggered because we were so exhausted from walking almost four hours every day and then climbing all those stairs that it was really difficult to make our way on the cobblestones. I mean, the streets aren’t all that bad. There are really only a few places where you really truly need to watch where you’re going. But for some reason, when you’re tired it’s that much harder to lift up your feet. Who knows what we did when we got back. Probably passed out or something. Or ate crackers.

Forgot to say that during almost this entire trip, our lunches have consisted of saltine-sque crackers, pinotti or nutella spread, wheat bread, and blood oranges. Oh, the oranges. I think I love them, and I’m going to marry them. It’s like eating sparkling orange juice. I’m really glad that Maggie and Ariel have been here with me because apparently I’m hopeless when it comes to peeling oranges without dropping them, which is sad. They’re good lunches, and for the lot it only cost about 11euros, and lasted us more than three days’ worth of lunches, since we also snacked on the crackers nonstop. They’re like the saltines we’re used to, but with a bakery sort of taste to them. Like the bastard children of saltines and fancy tea crackers. Lovely.

Ostello Archi Rossi (and other things)

When we got to Florence we were greeted with cobblestone streets and had tons of fun dragging the suitcases over that to our hostel, the Ostello Archi Rossi. Happily, it was daytime this time and it was only a four minute walk from the train station. The hostel, though, told us that our room wasn’t going to be ready until 1400h, which meant we had a little over two hours to just hang around Florence. The man behind the desk was very nice and let us stow all of our stuff in their baggage room and we walked back outside. Where to go when you need a table to sit at so that you can do some money calculating and figure out other planning sort of things? Hmmm….a place with big tables….but all the cafés were pretty stable with their mini tables fit for cappuccinos and croissants….so we headed to McDonald’s, feeling like idiots. Maggie and I walked in and looked at one another. It was a “I can’t believe we are letting ourselves even walk in these doors we don’t even eat here in America” sort of look. We dumped our purses and sat down and did some money figuring, and set down what we wanted to do during our stay.


I think after that we must have gone wandering for a little bit, it couldn’t have possibly taken us two hours to write down how much hostels were costing us…maybe we even got back to Archi Rossi closer to 1500h. Either way, we finally got to our room and met our roomie Rebecca. The three of us have decided that Rebecca was a very special person. She was maybe 27 and an Aussie with boyfriends in pretty much every country. Every single day we were there she was supposed to be checking out, and every single day we were out of our room by 9, and when we came back around 3, she was almost always in bed. She was a sweet girl, I guess. Just didn’t seem to be doing anything at all with her life. She studied art history in school and was hoping for a job restoring art somewhere so that she could hang out in the city for even longer. The thing that got us the most was how much she talked. Oh. My. Gosh.


She talked so much. One day we came back from walking who knows where and were all laying on our beds trying to sleep or at least be quiet, and she just kept talking to us about her dates and boys and how our other roommates were such good guys.

[Oh, forgot to mention that in order to save moolah in Florence, we stayed in a six bed mixed dorm room. It was…interesting. Actually, the one other girl was more awkward than all of the boys who went through.] Ariel and Maggie were on their beds by 1500h and sleeping, I was talking to Rebecca until 1605h, when she had to leave to meet one of her boys for a cappuccino by the market. She said goodbye and then came back in, right when I was falling asleep for my nap. At 1630h, I finally was able to be in a silent room and I slept until 1700h, the time I had set my alarm for. Ugh. That was fun.


So our first full day in Firenze was a Sunday. The night before we sat around trying to decide if we should try to go to a mass or not until about 2200h. I really wanted to go to one, two of my closest friends had told me that it was a must, so of course I was running on that information. Maggie, being Catholic, was for the idea, but when she looked at y map and saw how many gazillions of churches there were in the area, she kinda went caput. Ariel seemed to just not care. I wanted them to join in the decision, so when we decided that maybe it was best to go ask at the desk for a good place to go, I wanted them to come along to hear what the guy had to say. Nope. I ended up going alone, walking through the drizzle to the other building and asking the guy, who told me either to go to his church (“Nombr twenty foourr. Thasa may church”) or to the Cattedrale del Santa Maria di Fiore.


The Cathedral, where we ended up going, is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. I can’t for the life of me remember any of the back story to the building itself, except for it kept on being built, and construction was restarted…and then something about the church being without a façade for a super long time, but it finally got one in like the 17 or 1800s, so really the church as we know it is incredibly modern. But it is still breathtaking. I think we walked past it at least once a day and every single time we did all three of us had to stop and just stare at it for at least five or six minutes.

The rest of Pisa (aren't you proud of me?)

Ok. So I haven’t even had time to get the rest of Pisa up. We (meaning me) were under the impression that our last hostel, the one we’re staying in right now, would have wireless internet. That would be a negative. They do have the internet, it’s just not wireless. And the monitors are so old school, it’s like being shot back to sixth grade typing class with Mr. DeGrote. Yet again, I have no idea where any of the keys are.


The rest of Pisa was pretty cool. We spent the morning laughing at ourselves for waking up so early, and then were walking around looking for a garden that our hostel desk people had told us was really beautiful. Of course the first entrance we found was not the main entrance, nor even an entrance that we could actually go through, but the entrance telling us to go somewhere else. We looked from side to side along the wall around the garden and decided that left was a good direction to walk. Then we walked almost in a complete circle around the entire garden. It seems we had some problems with figuring out where we were and when we were that day.

The Orto Botanico: Museo Botanico really was beautiful. It was pretty small, and is used by university botanic studies students. It was like, the Botanical Gardens meets my mom’s dream herb garden all enclosed in the Secret Garden. Between the three of us some really cool pictures were taken. Hopefully I’ll have wireless internet sometime soon and will be able to post them. It was in the garden that Maggie decided to become a lemon. We were just leaving the complex when we saw these giant yellow…things. They really truly honestly no joke looked like lemons on steroids. Each of them were about the size of a nerf football and were all bumpy. We had some fun then pretending to be lemons on steroids. One of those “you had to be there” things, I think.


After the garden we were all so exhausted that we decided to go back to the hostel and sleep for a little while before going out to dinner a little bit later that day. We headed back and I think were back in the building around 2. By the time we got in the room, we didn’t feel very tired, so we turned on Italian MTV and sat in our beds with the lights off. Four hours later, Ariel and I woke up and Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. Maggie had been able to sleep for about an hour before she was completely awake, while Ariel and I were completely unconscious for four solid hours. We woke up and apologized to Maggie for having to sit alone and watch MTV, which actually isn’t that bad of a fate.


The Italian cafés, called bars, are always playing Italian MTV, which is pretty much ¼ Italian songs and ¾ American songs. But it’s always kind of a weird mix of American songs, like, a good handful of them will be newer, released in the past year or so. The rest of them will be from the 80s. Honestly, I like this better than being stuck with mounds of Justin Timberlake bringing sexy back from who knows where. Seriously. Where did sexy go? I don’t know, you don’t know. … Nevermind.


After waking up we headed out into the cold to find a place to eat. This proved to be a little harder than you might think. First, we were walking everywhere. We only knew about the places that we had passed while we were walking around that morning, and even then we had been a tad lost when all that had happened. Well…let me rephrase that. We had been half lost. I knew exactly where we were on the map. But when it came to seeing store fronts and remembering them, we were lost. And then there was also the factor of not wanting to spend 10 euros on dinner. In the end, haha, we had Chinese food. Yes. Chinese. We went to Italy and had white rice and beef and broccoli (at least, that’s what I had). But it was good Chinese, and cheap, and it made us happy. We were so hungry that we power ate the entire meal and didn’t even talk until our plates were completely clear. After talking for a long time afterwards, we went back to the hostel room and had massage time and watched a movie. Then we went to sleep. Again.


The next morning we checked out and had breakfast at the hostel (I love chocolate spread). Walking back to the airport was a lot easier that second time along the route, probably because that time it was daytime and we knew how far we had to go. Still, it’s hard lugging these suitcases around. There’s so much to carry. We bought train tickets from Pisa to Firenze (Florence) for 16,50 for all three of us and traversed the airport to wait for our train.


Maggie taught us how to play Gin. I like Gin. I win rather a lot. I have two main nicknames this trip, one of them is Gin Master (the other is Mapquest, because I am apparently the only one who can read maps…or likes reading them, either way). We didn’t have to wait very long for our train to show up, and after some hesitation stemming from our lovely language barrier, we loaded our things into the car and sat down. That’s when we discovered that the headcushions were made out of rubber that was about as stiff as a piece of wood. Maggie and I both had fun finding room for our legs; there was a lot of sprawling involved in our seating arrangements. Lucky there were very few people on the train and we pretty much did what we wanted.


When the train man came through to check our tickets we were the only ones in the car who had actually validated them in the little box on the platform. Yes, I just called him the train man. No, I don’t know what his real title is. I just know that we didn’t get charged 5euros because we were nice and prepared.

The ride wasn’t too eventful; the only thing worth talking about besides it’s top time of 42 minutes, was the scenery. The problem with touring places is that you only ever see the areas that profit from tourists. When we were leaving Pisa, I kept noticing that everything looked incredibly run down. I mean, the part of the city we were in wasn’t necessarily the best, but it was still pretty nice compared to the shoddy houses and dead cars and trash I saw all along the train tracks. It made me feel like we were being pulled through the beginnings of a shanty town. Again, there are a few pictures. There aren’t as many as I would have liked (it’s hard taking pictures through a panel of glass from a moving vehicle), but there are some.

13 January 2008

Pisa Day One, Part 1

I’m a lemon!

Ok, so maybe being a lemon doesn’t sound like the most Italian thing to do, but it happened to Maggie, I promise.

On Thursday I spent almost the entire day at the Aeroporto Galilei in Pisa, wandering around (but not too far because of all of my bags) and people watching and seeing how far away I could walk from my bright blue suitcases before I started freaking out that maybe someone was going to take something out of them. I figured out that it was about 3 meters. So I got as close as I could to one of the computer screens that showed arrivals and just sat there and wrote and read and watched people walk in front of me.

Around 1645h I decided that Ariel and Maggie were going to be in soon. They had told me “around 1700” so I thought that my timing was good for having to gather all my dumb bags (minus my tying clip-y thingie, which, of course, I found once we were in the hostel later that night) and walk across the entire airport. No, it wasn’t that far. I just like making it seem far. The entire place, from end to end, was maybe the length of a soccer field, give or take a few pillars and TV screens.

I got over to where I had come in at 1030h that morning, which was seeming sooooo far away. I can’t believe I was in the airport that long. I think about it now and it didn’t seem so bad. I’m not sure how sad it is that I can entertain myself without being bored for over five hours. Probably pretty sad. At the Arrivals gate, I waited.

Waited. And waited. I waited for about an hour and a half. Apparently I should have paid more attention to which city they were coming from, because there was a huge monster time difference between the Frankfurt flight and the Amsterdam flight.

And then I made the mistake of looking around me at the other people waiting near me and accidentally caught the eye of a man standing next to me. Shortish, late 40s…bald. He had on a nice coat, though. I, of course, forgetting I was not in America, gave him the classic sympathy smile. No teeth, almost no smile, just a little stretching of the lips. The minute I did that, oh man. I was hitting myself in my mind. Just guess what happened. I’m standing there, in front of the gate, and I’m waiting for my friends, and staring at the doors, and he moves to stand next to me. Like, two feet away next to me. The Arrivals gate actually is a gate (almost), too. It’s a tinted glass automatic one-way door. You can kinda see through to the other side, but not really. The glass was tinted just enough that when you stood in front of it you could see yourself. As well as the people standing next to you. I must have stood there for about twenty minutes, watching him watching me. I actually thought it was hilarious, I don’t know what you think. Just the fact that this old guy was being sooo overtly creepy, and just staring right at me, and how uncomfortable I was, but I was so afraid to move somewhere else, because I didn’t want to miss Maggie and Ariel! Haha…

Luckily, the man’s son finally came. He had had a great trip, and had brought his dad a painting from London and the only problem he had run into was not having enough tape to wrap around it before sending it on the plane. How do I know this? They were French. Bien sûr.
The plane from Amsterdam came a little after 1800h. I was so hungry. The three of us gathered our bags and got a map from a woman at the hotel reservation desk (no, we didn’t use her, we had made reservations online already). It was dark outside, and our bags were pretty heavy. And by “pretty,” I mean “very” and “extremely.” It was only about a ten minute walk from the airport to the Hotel Moderno, a straight shot, really. But I was carrying my purse on one shoulder, my carry-on bag, which was easily ten pounds, across my shoulders, and rolling my 49.8 pound suitcase behind me. Ariel had her rolling suitcase, her backpack, and my laptop. Maggie had my other, 34 pound rolling bag, and her 40 pound monster backpack. That’s a lot of weight to be lugging around. Of course the first three things we ran into were sharp turns, a hill, and steps. Oh, the steps. We crossed the bridge, turned the corner, and stopped. Stairs. Lots of stairs, all going down.

The hostel was really nice. We tossed our bags down and sat on the beds. I loved the beds. I was so ready to just lie down and go to sleep…but instead we put our shoes back on and headed out into the fresh air. The, uh, very fresh air. For some inexplicable reason, the air in Pisa often smelled like the air in Greeley. Not for a really long time, but for long enough for me to sniff it and say to myself, “Oh, Pisa.” Maggie and Ariel weren’t hungry, but we stopped at a little café and I got a sandwich and we talked for a long time. Dur. We hadn’t seen each other for so long, what else could we do?

One thing you don’t really realize when you think of all these cities is how close everything actually is. I mean, all we have to base our ideas on are American cities, really, unless you’ve traveled around the world a lot, which we haven’t. But everything is just so close! It took maybe half an hour to walk to the leaning tower, whereas on the map it looked like it would take at least an entire hour, if not more. I love the cars here. I already knew that they were going to be small, dur, it’s Europe, that’s how it goes here. But it’s actually seeing mini coopers and VW golfs everywhere that makes me grin. We freak out now when we see anything larger than the size of a Jeep. And the mini delivery trucks, seriously. How could those not make you happy for at least a few seconds?

The next day (Friday, also yesterday for me) was our day to wander around Pisa, see the sights. Yes, the leaning tower is just as mini as the cars. I think most people picture it as a skyscraper. It’s not. It’s tiny. Oh, I almost forgot the best part.

So there’s this thing in the world called a time change. Most people get the hang of it pretty easily. Most people. Not us, apparently. The three of us have been having so many problems with time, it’s pretty much ridiculous. Thursday night we were laying in bed, trying to figure out how much time we wanted to give ourselves to sleep. My phone had died while I was in the airport, so I had turned it off. When my phone is off, I tend to forget that I actually still own it. So Ariel had her phone out and plugged in and we were going to use it to set our alarm. But because her cell is only set up to have service in Israel, it doesn’t automatically update the time like it normally would (my phone had done the same thing to me, I had to change the time manually once I knew what time it really was. So we decided to turn on the TV and find a channel that said the time. We did. It said 2111h. That was two hours ahead of Ariel’s phone, and we wanted to wake up 8 so we could be ready and eating by 9 and down to the tower by 10. So we were two hours ahead and we wanted 8 then it would’ve been six on her phone…well….in the end we got up and ready and ate and everything and got to the Leaning Tower of Pisa a little after 8. Eight o’clock in the morning. Eight. In the. Morning. The problem with figuring out what time it is in Pisa is that there aren’t any clocks anywhere. And when you can actually find clocks they will all have different times on them. At the tower we were really happy that there was practically no one there. We took a lot of pictures and there was no one in the way. And then we started getting tired.

“What is wrong with us? Why are we so tired?” And then we stopped and thought about it. No one by the tower. No one else at breakfast. Tired. … oh. Oh, that is why.

And now I need to take a break....the rest of Pisa is coming soon!!!!

PISA!!!!!!

After a long long long time traveling, I am finally in Italy. It felt really strange once we were finally landing in Pisa. I looked out at the landscape and thought, “Hey, I’ve never been here before.” The voyage here actually was very smooth and nearly perfect.

It started out horribly. My flight was supposed to leave at 745am Denver time, which is all fine and good, until you remember how early you’re supposed to get to the airport before you can actually get on the plane. We planned on leaving my house in Arvada by 5am in order to get to the airport on time. I knew that I probably wasn’t going to be able to leave on time unless I stayed up the night packing. Luckily my two AMAZING friends Kaylan and Mackenzie were staying with me that day/night. Otherwise, I never would have been ready by five.

Apparently I really shouldn’t take meds on an empty stomach, is the moral of the following story. I slept for an hourish on Tuesday, between 1am and 2am, all the rest of my time I spent pulling together all my last minute stuff. Lemme tell you….that last minute stuff is a bugger. Oh man. Ask Kaylan and Mackenzie. I piled everything that I had to pack on my bed and my couch, and then I just kinda wandered around my room, muttering, “Ok, ok…” to myself, over and over. It was kinda hard to think. At 1 Mackenzie really insisted that I try to sleep at least for a little while, so I did. It was sooooo nice. Oh man. That sleep made me feel so much better. By the time I took a shower after that and got ready and was packing again, it was almost three, and I had a tiny headache. At four, it was a full-out, kick-me-in-the-kidneys migraine. I collapsed on the floor of my room, which is normally really relaxing (I love that carpet….so squishy), but at four in the morning, with my head pounding and the clock ticking in my mind, it was terrible.

I forgot that I hadn’t eaten since about 9pm, and when Mackenzie offered to go find me some Tylenol or something, my response was along the lines of: “May God bless you with many sons yes please it’s in the kitchen with the mugs.” I wasn’t moving very much, and in the end, I was curled up on my comforter (also amazing) on the floor at the foot of my bed, and Kaylan and Mackenzie were finishing my packing for me. You see why I love them? By five, thank God, everything was mostly ready and upstairs. That is, everything except me, who was down on my knees in front of my toilet.

Like I said….don’t take meds without food in your stomach. I had my fun with the toilet and then staggered upstairs, shaking and shivering, into the 520am air, which, of course, was freezing. Briele grabbed me a bagel so that I could at least try to get something in my stomach, and I filled a nalgene with water. My dad, lucky guy, only had to pull over once on the highway on the way there for me to toss more of my guts into the public roadway. I’m sure that was a lovely, sophisticated picture for all the people who were driving around at that time of the morning (crazies). I don’t know that I’ll be able to eat bagels for a while.

But we finally got to DIA and managed to check in, me holding my stomach because I felt like someone had thrown a bowling ball into it, and everyone else holding my bags. I won’t say a lot about DIA, I’m sure you can imagine goodbyes. I was on time to my flight to Atlanta, sat in the aisle next to some silent woman, and made it, alive, to Georgia. Did you know that the Atlanta airport has plastic playground equipment in its terminals? Adorable. While I was waiting the hour for my plane to board, I talked to people in Colorado and watched a little boy chuck paper airplanes at his sister.

My Atlanta-JFK flight was much more interesting. I sat next to Rob, a Rolex and jewelry dealer who was going to meet his fiancée, who lives in the Ukraine. He liked to mutter about people under his breath, and then apologize about it to me. There was a little girl sitting with her family in front of us; she had a window seat and kept on asking her mom, “Hey, mom, are we flying? Are we flying? Are we in the air? Are those the wings?” Cute.

The final adventure to Pisa from New York wasn’t extremely adventurous. I had about a three hour layover, which wasn’t enough time to leave the airport, nor really time to do anything but call my friend Stephanie and Mackenzie and text some other people while the waiting area in front of the gate filled up. It was there where I really decided that I like Italians. I think there were maybe five other Americans on the flight, that I saw. Everyone else was speaking Italian, both while waiting for and on the plane. I sat next to an Italian girl who technically had my seat, but we had a hard enough time saying hello and sharing the pre-packaged blankets, pillows and baggies of toothbrushes that I decided that I liked the aisle seat just fine, and she was welcome to stretch out on the two remaining seats (we were sitting in the center row, where there are three seats across).

I tried sleeping. It kinda worked. I mean, it’s about 5am Colorado time as I’m writing this, which means, I’m pretty sure, that it’s 1pm here (or 12am…maybe I should double-check that). So I, technically, should be sleeping right now, but I guess I feel relatively awake. I was reading earlier and almost falling asleep, but I feel a little more coherent now. I’ve already answered people in French, telling them the seat next to me was open. Of course, my “Hm? Oh, oui, c’est libre” (ok, so it was really cheesy French) still had to be quickly translated by the Italian couple sitting across from me for the confused man who had been motioning to the seat next to me. I figured the French for “open/free” couldn’t be too far from the Italian, and I didn’t speak too wrongly. It was the part afterwards when the couple was laughing at me a little that I really loved. Hehe…I’m a laughingstock in Italy. At least it sounded like, “Oh, poor adorable American” laughter.

And now I just wait for Maggie and Ariel’s plane to get in. I’m SO INCREDIBLY EXCITED for this, you have no idea. I haven’t seen Ariel in six months, or Maggie in at least a single month. The only problem I have is figuring out what to do with my luggage when I finally cave and walk down to the toilettes. I can see the sign, and I’ve been looking at it for a while now, but I just don’t want to get up. There used to be these clip strap things on my suitcases to strap them together, but half of them is gone, and, go figure, it’s the same half on each piece, so I had to take the shoulder strap off my carry-on bag and tie the handles together that way. But still. Maneuvering two monster suitcases, plus bag and purse, into a bathroom stall doesn’t sound very fun to me right now.

I just realized that I actually am extremely tired. I was staring at my screen, trying to decide if I should say anything else or not, and almost started to nod off! I hope the rest of the time passes quickly; I can’t wait to sleep in a real bed tonight!