Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Where do I begin? This week has been so long and crazy and amazing that I really don't know how I can do it justice in one blog entry. So it will probably be long. Tune out now if you aren't interested. First on Wednesday evening (of last week) two of our Italian friends, Claudio and Ricardo came over to cook for us. And let me tell you, all that you've heard about Italians being great cooks is true. They were pretty adamant about teaching our American friend Tyler how to cook so he can attract the American girls. They said that all Italian men are excellent cooks, but they stop as soon as they got married, and the only good women cooks they knew were their mothers and grandmothers. Disheartening, yes. But, I have a feeling that if I hooked a good lookin' cookin' Italian man, I could convince him to cook for me. Between that and Vivian, I'd be set for LIFE. And also 803203948 pounds, but that's okay. I talked about health care and journalism and censorship with one of them and we ate pasta and cheese (with honey and jam which is both traditional and surprising, but also SUPER DELICIOUS) and drank wine and drank wine and limoncello, and played some guitar. It was really nice. Thursday night the whole program went out to a nice Maceratese restaurant down the street from the school, where we had all eaten our first few days in Macerata. We celebrated Ginnie's birthday with Tiramisu and singing in Italian and English. She cried. On Friday we did more touring of Macerata, only this tour was more in depth. We climbed up the clock tower and from every angle you could see forever. The clock tower is the highest point in Macerata. You could see courtyards and cars and buildings and acres and acres of countryside and rolling hills. It was completely breathtaking. We also got to see the Teatro Lauro Rossi which was palatial but simplistic and felt immediately like home. It felt good to stand on a stage again, even if it was without a purpose. I miss performing like mad. I have some presentations this week in my theatre classes which is exciting, so that should fill that void...mostly... Anyway, the theatre was built during the renaisscance, maybe a little earlier, so there are boxes in the balconies for the richies, a duke's seat, and where the chairs are on the floor, was once only standing-room-only for peasants. One thing I'm totally devouring here is all the history. It's so wildly different than anything that exists in the states, even on the east coast. Old there is what the tour guides here call "relatively new." We also toured what used to be an old mansion belonging to one family until as late as the 1960's. It was gargantuan, frescoes EVERYWHERE! The ceiling in one huge room was painted with so many different Greek myths and characters it was hard for your eyes to focus. The entire building was a myriad of art. The bedrooms are aphrodisiacs, covered in paintings designed to incite lust. The next day we went to Cingoli, which is supposed to be the "Balcony of the Marche region" which is high up on a plateau and over looks the whole region. We saw some gorgeous churches and old art...but the best part for all of us was that, unlike Macerata, Cingoli is rich in TREES! We had a midday picnic in the park, sitting on carved stone steps, surrounded by big beautiful trees enjoying cheese, wine, bread, olives and all of those delcious Italian snacks. Sunday was a day of rest. Yesterday we toured a winery. I officially have a new goal. Marry a man who owns millions of acres of Italian vineyards, and happily make wine for the rest of my life. I'm not kidding, this place was wonderful. The grapes they use are just like candy and the wine is the tastiest I have ever had. This winery's wine is considered the best in Italy, and Italy has the best wines in the world. That means that I tasted and purchased two bottles of, the best wine in the world. Epic. We also saw some AMAZING ruins from the Roman era. There were frescos on the walls of this collapsed temple that date back to 1ad. Jesus couldn't even talk when these buildings were made. And the crazy thing is, that some of the structures are a hodge-podge of materials...used from other older structures! We also saw the remains of an ancient Roman Theatre. It was like a Theatre History 1 lesson came alive. Many of the seats are still there, and the altar. I could feel this ancient communion with all the thespian that came before (as nerdy as that sounds) and it was so powerful and all-encompassing and magical. I can't tell you how much I love it here. Every day is like reading a novel. Only it's my life.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Where do I begin? Since Thursday, so many wonderful things have happened! (By the way, we only get internet access Monday through Thursday at the university from 11am here to 7 pm, so if you’re wondering why communication has been scant this weekend that is why.) Thursday night we went over to Deb’s for a lovely meal. It ended up being Deb, the four of us roommates, the two boys from the program: Tyler and Kevin, and one other girl, Carly, which, yes, is quite confusing, and my guitar. We had pasta, of course, and many many bottles of wine. We also had lots of tasty antipasti (which, for those of you who don’t know, is like small snack-y appetizers) of olives, tapenade, crackers, cheese, tomatoes and bread. It was delicious. (What a generic thing to say about food.) It’s just that all the food is unbearably and indescribably fantastic here and though it’s tedious and redundant for me to say it about every meal I have, it happens to be the truth. Tyler, who plays guitar, and I replaced my high “e” string in a muddled lack of skill and then he, me, Jenny, and Deb played a little “private concert” for the others. It was one of those moments where everything except the music is still and quiet and poignant and the world sort of slows down on its axis for a minute, so you can just take in everything better. We played songs everyone could know and sing, and some that we had written ourselves. When it got too late, we left and went back to our apartment to keep the “party” going. It was mellow and friendly and felt entirely, completely and rarely real.
On Friday we took a trip to the local mall without much of interest happening. A mall is a mall in any culture, except that this one pops up unexpectedly in a big flat nothing-area. I’m not really a mall-person anyway, and we all spent most of the trip hungry and tired and wanting to go home. Which we did, on the first bus. Vanessa made eggplant parmiegana (YAY!) and the girls and I had a laid-back evening with pajamas and an early bedtime.
In the morning we took a train to the local town of Civitanova. Civitanova is a lovely sea-side city with a huge street market and we all immediately fell in love with it. Right in the heart of the city there is a fountain carved with the images of many angels, and it took us by surprise as we caught glimpses of the water cascading down through shoes, billowing vender’s tents, and large leafy banana trees. Breath-taking. After a quick tour of the general town’s layout from our program director we grabbed pizza and headed straight for the beach. There are two beaches in Civitanova, one with rocks and one with sand. We ended up at the rocky beach, which I expected to be able to liken to Oregon and Washington’s beaches and taste a little of home. This was not that type of beach. The rocks higher up on the shore were smooth, perfectly flat and round all in varying shades of pastel colours. As you get down to where the waves have landed, the rocks pop out of the ground in the ground in surprising pinks, peaches, blues and greens. And you look out at the water and it’s not like the Puget Sound at all. It’s this tumultuous torrent of foam and pale teal water continually folding into itself in an simultaneously rhythmic and spontaneous song. And the warm waves are teasing the rocks, kissing them and running away. I threw myself into its throws first letting it lap my legs, then, as I knew would happen from the second I smelled salt in the air, I give myself to it. I was lifted and tossed around like a small child in drunken arms; sometimes safe and coddled and sometimes losing balance, going under. Though it was scary, it was beautiful and I felt so alive and present. When I was scraped and soaked, and my sinuses and been thoroughly and roughly cleansed I retreated to the beach chairs to bask in the Italian sun. Later we were told that the sea was far too dangerous for swimming, but I’m glad I did. Sometimes in life, you just have to swim. We went back to Macerata, completely wiped out. We had to go grocery shopping because we were having dinner guests that night. In the meantime, I dyed my hair. It is now a sassy burgundy-brown, which Brooke says would be me if I were a colour. Brooke made her special pasta, and Vanessa made the eggplant again. Our guests, Ginnie, Cassi and Carly brought wine and it was lovely. After a late dinner (well, pretty typically timed for Italians, around 9 pm) we were settling down for a relaxing night when we got a call from the boys. They had found new Italian friends during the week and wanted us to come and meet them at an art festival in Piazza Mencinni, which is pretty centrally located. Jenny, Brooke and I (and for a little while Ginnie too) had a remarkable, scary time trying to talk with all these kids our age, with a huge language barrier. A few of them spoke English, and Tyler speaks pretty decent Italian, so we were able to eke out conversations. I spent half an hour discussing music with one guy (he has a girlfriend, don’t get too excited readers) in the simplest form. One of us would name a band and the other would say “Si!” if we liked them or “no…” if we didn’t. Eventually we all went to the park and sat playing guitar and singing songs we all knew until almost three in the morning. In one shining triumphant moment, Brooke and I proudly sang ALL THE WORDS to the verses of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which was immediately followed by increasingly raucous rounds of “Hello, hello, hello, how low?” and culminating in accented, joyous cries of “Here we are now, entertain us!” They seem to find us as funny and entertaining as we find them, which is really refreshing.
On Sunday, though Vanessa and I had planned to go to mass, we slept instead. It rained in the morning. Rain here is funny. It comes in little angry, loud, bursts of huge drops, then the sky breaks and it’s sunny and warm again. Only on this day, the grey sky hovered around, ominous and unwanted, and its mood was contagious. Avoiding the flea market, Vanessa and I elect cappuccino and caffeine over second-hand stuff and sip it, talking gloomily in the style set for us by the day. After two cappuccinos we figured we better head out, so I grudgingly walked over to the Bancomat to get money out of the ATM, which is a depressing thing to do at any rate, after entering my “secret code” (the mention of which always makes me feel like a spy,) with my hand outstretched looking for the word for “enter” in Italian, my card still sticking out of the slot, I felt something hard land on my shoulder. It was like someone through something from a great height or socked me hard. Only it splattered. Vanessa, in her infinite wisdom and poetic genius said of this incident plainly, approximately a foot from me, “Damn girl, you just got shat upon.” In all seriousness. A bird pooped on me. As Vanessa tried to scrape the remnants off me using her café receipt to little avail, I almost threw up or cried. It was horrible. I got washed up at Deb’s, who lives just around the corner, which was good, but really? Brooke and Jenny said that supposedly this little gift is good luck. It had better be.
Since it was Sunday, literally nothing here was open and we went off in search of a restaurant for eating at, as we didn’t have enough supplies for dinner. We ran into the boys from our group and 4 or 5 of our Italian friends sitting outside a pizzeria. Apparently the owner was a friend of theirs. I bought zucchini pizza and red wine and we sat hanging out with them for a while. The owner, an eccentric, flamboyant, crazy, older Italian man, who spent a very long time learning our names because each new person was met with a loud exclamation of “WHO IS THIS????” after which he would try very hard to pronounce our names, then tell us the Italian version. After a huge struggle with my name (which has been difficult for ever Italian I have met, probably because they have neither the letter K, nor the letter Y in their alfabeto) he dubbed me Carlotta, which I have been called by the Italians ever since. It makes me feel special, like a prima donna (see Phantom of the Opera.) Eventually they closed up shop and invited us in for glass of wine after glass of wine, free pizza from the day topped with tapenade and an hours-long dance party in this tiny little Pizzaria. It was spontaneous, glorious, and so much fun! When it got to be late (for a school night, 930 ish) they told us this did not happen every day, but was special for us and that we should stay, “Fuck Classe!” sleep in tomorrow (when told we had 830 Italian class,) and they would be our teachers from now on. We politely declined and told them “Ciao, Ciao!” We exchanged numbers with some of them, one of whom had written funny little sayings on our arms. Like “Go Vanessa!” with music notes or “Carlotta si!” and “W Hip-Hop Music!” Tonight, two of the boys, Ricardo who works at the pizzeria and has nine dreadlocks (he had me count them) and Claudio are coming over to make us dinner which should be utterly delightful. As a side note, Italian men cooking seems like it will be very sexy.
Ciao, Ciao!
Carlotta e Kaylie
On Friday we took a trip to the local mall without much of interest happening. A mall is a mall in any culture, except that this one pops up unexpectedly in a big flat nothing-area. I’m not really a mall-person anyway, and we all spent most of the trip hungry and tired and wanting to go home. Which we did, on the first bus. Vanessa made eggplant parmiegana (YAY!) and the girls and I had a laid-back evening with pajamas and an early bedtime.
In the morning we took a train to the local town of Civitanova. Civitanova is a lovely sea-side city with a huge street market and we all immediately fell in love with it. Right in the heart of the city there is a fountain carved with the images of many angels, and it took us by surprise as we caught glimpses of the water cascading down through shoes, billowing vender’s tents, and large leafy banana trees. Breath-taking. After a quick tour of the general town’s layout from our program director we grabbed pizza and headed straight for the beach. There are two beaches in Civitanova, one with rocks and one with sand. We ended up at the rocky beach, which I expected to be able to liken to Oregon and Washington’s beaches and taste a little of home. This was not that type of beach. The rocks higher up on the shore were smooth, perfectly flat and round all in varying shades of pastel colours. As you get down to where the waves have landed, the rocks pop out of the ground in the ground in surprising pinks, peaches, blues and greens. And you look out at the water and it’s not like the Puget Sound at all. It’s this tumultuous torrent of foam and pale teal water continually folding into itself in an simultaneously rhythmic and spontaneous song. And the warm waves are teasing the rocks, kissing them and running away. I threw myself into its throws first letting it lap my legs, then, as I knew would happen from the second I smelled salt in the air, I give myself to it. I was lifted and tossed around like a small child in drunken arms; sometimes safe and coddled and sometimes losing balance, going under. Though it was scary, it was beautiful and I felt so alive and present. When I was scraped and soaked, and my sinuses and been thoroughly and roughly cleansed I retreated to the beach chairs to bask in the Italian sun. Later we were told that the sea was far too dangerous for swimming, but I’m glad I did. Sometimes in life, you just have to swim. We went back to Macerata, completely wiped out. We had to go grocery shopping because we were having dinner guests that night. In the meantime, I dyed my hair. It is now a sassy burgundy-brown, which Brooke says would be me if I were a colour. Brooke made her special pasta, and Vanessa made the eggplant again. Our guests, Ginnie, Cassi and Carly brought wine and it was lovely. After a late dinner (well, pretty typically timed for Italians, around 9 pm) we were settling down for a relaxing night when we got a call from the boys. They had found new Italian friends during the week and wanted us to come and meet them at an art festival in Piazza Mencinni, which is pretty centrally located. Jenny, Brooke and I (and for a little while Ginnie too) had a remarkable, scary time trying to talk with all these kids our age, with a huge language barrier. A few of them spoke English, and Tyler speaks pretty decent Italian, so we were able to eke out conversations. I spent half an hour discussing music with one guy (he has a girlfriend, don’t get too excited readers) in the simplest form. One of us would name a band and the other would say “Si!” if we liked them or “no…” if we didn’t. Eventually we all went to the park and sat playing guitar and singing songs we all knew until almost three in the morning. In one shining triumphant moment, Brooke and I proudly sang ALL THE WORDS to the verses of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which was immediately followed by increasingly raucous rounds of “Hello, hello, hello, how low?” and culminating in accented, joyous cries of “Here we are now, entertain us!” They seem to find us as funny and entertaining as we find them, which is really refreshing.
On Sunday, though Vanessa and I had planned to go to mass, we slept instead. It rained in the morning. Rain here is funny. It comes in little angry, loud, bursts of huge drops, then the sky breaks and it’s sunny and warm again. Only on this day, the grey sky hovered around, ominous and unwanted, and its mood was contagious. Avoiding the flea market, Vanessa and I elect cappuccino and caffeine over second-hand stuff and sip it, talking gloomily in the style set for us by the day. After two cappuccinos we figured we better head out, so I grudgingly walked over to the Bancomat to get money out of the ATM, which is a depressing thing to do at any rate, after entering my “secret code” (the mention of which always makes me feel like a spy,) with my hand outstretched looking for the word for “enter” in Italian, my card still sticking out of the slot, I felt something hard land on my shoulder. It was like someone through something from a great height or socked me hard. Only it splattered. Vanessa, in her infinite wisdom and poetic genius said of this incident plainly, approximately a foot from me, “Damn girl, you just got shat upon.” In all seriousness. A bird pooped on me. As Vanessa tried to scrape the remnants off me using her café receipt to little avail, I almost threw up or cried. It was horrible. I got washed up at Deb’s, who lives just around the corner, which was good, but really? Brooke and Jenny said that supposedly this little gift is good luck. It had better be.
Since it was Sunday, literally nothing here was open and we went off in search of a restaurant for eating at, as we didn’t have enough supplies for dinner. We ran into the boys from our group and 4 or 5 of our Italian friends sitting outside a pizzeria. Apparently the owner was a friend of theirs. I bought zucchini pizza and red wine and we sat hanging out with them for a while. The owner, an eccentric, flamboyant, crazy, older Italian man, who spent a very long time learning our names because each new person was met with a loud exclamation of “WHO IS THIS????” after which he would try very hard to pronounce our names, then tell us the Italian version. After a huge struggle with my name (which has been difficult for ever Italian I have met, probably because they have neither the letter K, nor the letter Y in their alfabeto) he dubbed me Carlotta, which I have been called by the Italians ever since. It makes me feel special, like a prima donna (see Phantom of the Opera.) Eventually they closed up shop and invited us in for glass of wine after glass of wine, free pizza from the day topped with tapenade and an hours-long dance party in this tiny little Pizzaria. It was spontaneous, glorious, and so much fun! When it got to be late (for a school night, 930 ish) they told us this did not happen every day, but was special for us and that we should stay, “Fuck Classe!” sleep in tomorrow (when told we had 830 Italian class,) and they would be our teachers from now on. We politely declined and told them “Ciao, Ciao!” We exchanged numbers with some of them, one of whom had written funny little sayings on our arms. Like “Go Vanessa!” with music notes or “Carlotta si!” and “W Hip-Hop Music!” Tonight, two of the boys, Ricardo who works at the pizzeria and has nine dreadlocks (he had me count them) and Claudio are coming over to make us dinner which should be utterly delightful. As a side note, Italian men cooking seems like it will be very sexy.
Ciao, Ciao!
Carlotta e Kaylie
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Yesterday me and my three roommates were given the keys to our completely dazzling apartment. We have a view of the Italian countryside; rolling panoramas of hill after hill sprikled with tiny houses and trees. There are two bedrooms with huge windows, one with a balcony, ours without. Each have cute little shutters and overlook more of our little town as well as a small tennis/volleyball/soccer/basketball court. AKA: Attractive Italian Men. We have a lovely, huge tub with a polka-dotted shower curtain, small, cozy kitchen, and even a living room with a TV and lots of cushy couches (Like a mini Gryffindor common room.) Our beds are single with cute patterned comforters that look like something a grandmother would buy for the spare room. I'm not talking the crazy kind of Grandma that collects teddy bears in human clothes and loves lace and frills, just the kind that bakes you cookies and makes you feel at home. The four of us girls are going to get along great, I can already tell. Last night, after unpacking, to christen our apartment we set out through a shortcut between the park (YES, we do live across from a park) and the tennis court to the Supermercado where we bought supplies for a lovely dinner as well as for cheap meal options other times. Brooke, Vanessa's roommate made us a delicious spicy pasta dishe with basil, pepper flakes, olive oil, and about a million fresh tomatoes. We shared a bottle of sparkling white wine to toast and red, made directly in our region of Italy. Both bottles together only cost about 3 Euro! The wine with meals tradition is lovely, because it's such a social thing. After we cleaned up, we sat in our living room and talked about our lives while I played the guitar softly in the background. It was magical. Today was our first official day of classes. I started learning Italian basics but it's really frusturating. I want to be at my level of Spanish RIGHT NOW with it, especially because I find myself thinking and speaking in it so much here. Italian is just so close to Spanish that when I run out of words in Italian (which is basically as soon as I've said Hello. or if i'm ordering food 'vegetariano') I speak in Spanish either by accident or because it actually helps me talk to people here. You would not believe the bug bites I have EVERYWHERE on my body. Italian mosquitos are like WIZARD mosquitos. they have avada kedavraed my whole body. Luckily I am a giant to them, like Hagrid so they just bounce off with little repercussions (which just happen to be super ridiculously itchy.) I start my radical theatre and art history (which I am auditing) classes today which is very very exciting. Tonight I am having dinner at Deb's which should be incredibly lovely. Ciao Ciao!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Macerata!
This is day three in MACERATA!!!! So much has happened since I left NYC, it's almost unbelievable. I took my first ever flight by myself, sipped wine and ate bread and cheese and coffee. It was delightful! Even Italian Airline food is molto bene! Excuse my exclamation points but, it is, after all, really exciting. When I landed in Rome I had a layover for 5 hours until my flight to Ancona, which is much closer to Macerata. This does not get an exclamation point. Because the Roman airport looks like...an airport. With probably more stores. It was boring and I was super duper tired from five days of travel. But luckily, while exchanging American money for Euros I was behind a girl who spoke English, and had an Ancona ticket. I got up the nerve to talk to her and she said, "But I'm not staying in Ancona, I'm going to Macerata for the AHA program there." No joke. Out of fifteen students total, the rest of whom had gotten to orientation on time, I just happened to run into her. Which was lucky because our trip to Macerata was quite an adventure. We arrived in Ancona at 6:45pm, spent a fortune (40euro split) to get to the Ancona train station because all the busses were gone for the evening. I was able to talk to the taxi driver in Spanish, which was very funny. What we could gather from each other his travel tips for me were, "Macerata es muy pequeno...Roma es muy antiqua." This means, Macerata is very small, Rome is very old. Thanks, dude. From there we got the 2nd to last train to Cittanova where we would connect to Macerata, which left five minutes after we purchased our tickets. But we had to run through an underpass to get to the other side of the tracks. It was a lot easier for me than Ashley, the girl I traveled with, because she had brought two huge suitcases. I, on the other hand, packed army style. I didn't even pack socks. We caught the train just in time . When we got to the Cittanova station everything was dark and we had no idea where we were supposed to go. I left Ashley with our luggage and scampered across the tracks to see if I could find someone to help me. A nice woman and a weird-toothed old man were able to help me. Apparently our next connection was not a train, but a bus. The weird-toothed man tried to give me directions but ended up offering to escort me. (This was all in Italian by the way. So it took a lot of pointing at my ticket and saying "Macerata?!") I ran back, and through epic stealth and skill we dangerously crossed the track with our luggage. We followed the old man, stopped and asked policemen to make sure this old man wasn't leading us to our deaths and finally arrived at the bus station. HOORAY! We barely caught the last bus to Macerata until 5 am the next day. The bus took over an hour and by the time we got to the Macerata station, (with the help of an English speaking man on our bus, telling us when to get off) all the taxis and busses had left for the night. After a while of trying to figure out how we were going to find the Hostel we were supposed to be staying in, in the dark without a map or the ability to read and understand the street signs, we noticed a man in a car marked something I can only assume said, "Security Escort," sitting and watching us. I asked for walking directions. He didn't understand. He offered me a ride with my luggage, but he only had one seat. Eventually he said he could take one of us and come back for the other. At 10pm in a strange city without a lick of Italian between the two of us, this really seemed like our only option, though it went against all my kindergarten teachings. Needless to say, we arrived safe and sound (I waited outside for her after he dropped me off...) Instead of going straight to bed, we dropped off our things and ran into some other people from the program heading out to a festival! Macerata is celebrating an anniversary and something about the Virgin Mary, so the main streets were lit up and a band was playing to a dancing/singing audience. Vendors were open and people were bustling. I was starving because we had missed dinner, so I bought a piece of foccacia (my first in Italy!) and a glass of red wine, and four of us danced, and listened to music. On the way into the festival I saw Vanessa and there was a reunion with much squealing on my part, and hugging and excited hand gestures. She was on her way to bed, but told me to explore a little bit. After that we went back in to bed at around 1. The past two days have been huge walking tours all around the city, smal intros to our excursion dates, class schedules, etc, and of course, delicious cousine. Last night was my first big Italian meal out with the rest of the group. They serve huge portions (and have so far been really accomodating to my small queries for 'vegetariano.') The first course was soup, which I ravaged, then realized there was plenty more to come. Eggplant, (YES!) lots of vegetables, huge things of Mozerella e Parmeggione, bread, fruit, dessert, and, of course, plenty of Italian wine as well as the traditional "toasting" glass of liqeour. And let me tell you, if you do not eat all your food, the old men either get offended or tease you mercilessly in their silly, grandpa, Italian way. It was truly wonderful, and all covered by AHA. Unfortunately, money is really tight right now. I'm going to the supermarket later because I have to buy small, raw ingredients to prepare at home, and after my apartment deposit, until my financial aid comes through I am living on very very very very very very very limited means. The added stress of that is pretty overwhelming on top of being in a new country and not speaking a word of the language. Although, I have not, actually, been too homesick. I am loving the group of people I am with, and am going to have a grand time with the three other girls I share an apartment with (including Vanessa, who I am SOOOOOO happy is here, quadruple YAY!) I wish I had the money for an international phone call right now, because I would love to hear my mom's voice, but I just don't, and they blocked Collect calls. Other than that is GORGEOUS here, the city is surrounded by walls that have been there since about the 7th century. It is beautiful, warm, and tiring here. I'll describe more later. Love and kisses. Ciao, ciao!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Delaware: Part Two
The optimism of yesteday's entry is almost sickening to me now. That 1940 flight to Germany was pushed to a 0025 flight...which became, by the time we left the ground a 0500 flight. For those Non-Military Americans this means that what was supposed to be a flight at about 8 o clock at night ended up leaving at 5am. 9 hours later. Needless to say I was exhausted, especially after I had spent the previous night in the same hotel bed as my dad (weird) and I fell asleep as soon as we left the ground. I awoke to us landing. HOORAY! I looked at my dad's cell phone. 8:15am? How could that be? This was supposed to be an 8 hour flight...and then the announcement came. We had returned to Dover. Let me tell you something about the Dover Air Force Base. It was hot, bland, all-white, and takes up about 12 square city blocks. This was no adventurous detour on the East Coast. This was just more time to spend in a kind of hellish limbo knowing that now, I would never be on-time for my first day of orientation. I cried. Don't worry, there's sort of a happy ending. Sort of. My dad and I rented a car. First order of business: car rental place does not take cash (although we owed them a mere $27.00) and puts a $400 hold on your checking account. Well, I am now scheduled for a commercial flight, purchased at the last minute to Europe. Needless to say, these two factors drained my parents bank account and mine as well. So I am headed to Europe for the first time, running late, with literally nothing but the almost $400 dollars in my wallet. This is very unnerving. But I am at the airport. I paid $5 for an hour of wi-fi (WAY EXPLOITATION) and I am going to be in Italy tomorrow. WHEW.
Some interesting things about being crammed in a building with the same people for long hours. The Turkish woman, after learning that I did not have a baby, warned me of Italian "very good-looking boys" who "like to pinch...and take advantage. Especially American girls." This was funny but also unsettling. Remembering my promise to Melanie about Guidos. I was also told by a forty-some black woman from Brooklyn to "Stay focused. There's gonna be distractions, but you gotta stay focused." I heard old stories from a man my grandmother's age, an American, incidentally married to the Turkish woman, about his time in the military. He even cried a little about losing both his Grandmother and Mother and being deployed during both their deaths. There was a 91-year-old man in a leather jacket who woke up at the crack of dawn to go own a 2-mile power walk and talked a mile-a-minute, never stopping to take a breath, about things like pink0 commies while his shoes were off. For a while I played guitar outside (which I guess some people walking by enjoyed because a few people told me later how much they liked it. Huh.) where it was quiet and I could pretend I was alone. After a while a man who may have been Spanish, but I'm not sure, sat and listened and then taught me the basics for Spanish and Flamenco songs as well as Celtic Irish diddies. He taught me some new chords and told me to "just keep practicing." It was amazing. Like this beautiful gift of music in the middle of all this chaos. And, in spite of the whole experience being incredibly frustrating, I have advice from people I barely knew. Most of it I had heard before, but for some reason it meant something coming from these people who didn't know me, who didn't have to care, but they still wanted the best for me. Wanted to share their wisdom. And I will take all of THAT I can get.
Some interesting things about being crammed in a building with the same people for long hours. The Turkish woman, after learning that I did not have a baby, warned me of Italian "very good-looking boys" who "like to pinch...and take advantage. Especially American girls." This was funny but also unsettling. Remembering my promise to Melanie about Guidos. I was also told by a forty-some black woman from Brooklyn to "Stay focused. There's gonna be distractions, but you gotta stay focused." I heard old stories from a man my grandmother's age, an American, incidentally married to the Turkish woman, about his time in the military. He even cried a little about losing both his Grandmother and Mother and being deployed during both their deaths. There was a 91-year-old man in a leather jacket who woke up at the crack of dawn to go own a 2-mile power walk and talked a mile-a-minute, never stopping to take a breath, about things like pink0 commies while his shoes were off. For a while I played guitar outside (which I guess some people walking by enjoyed because a few people told me later how much they liked it. Huh.) where it was quiet and I could pretend I was alone. After a while a man who may have been Spanish, but I'm not sure, sat and listened and then taught me the basics for Spanish and Flamenco songs as well as Celtic Irish diddies. He taught me some new chords and told me to "just keep practicing." It was amazing. Like this beautiful gift of music in the middle of all this chaos. And, in spite of the whole experience being incredibly frustrating, I have advice from people I barely knew. Most of it I had heard before, but for some reason it meant something coming from these people who didn't know me, who didn't have to care, but they still wanted the best for me. Wanted to share their wisdom. And I will take all of THAT I can get.
Delaware: Part One
This was written sometime yesterday, I'm not really sure when. My days, nights, hours, and life in general have all blurred together at this point:
Well, it is official. No matter how long and arduous parts of this journey have been and are going to be, one thing is certain: I am on an adventure. When I asked my dad yesterday while waiting for the plane whether this flying experience was particularly different from commercial flying (i.e. were there stewardesses, bathrooms etc.) he was pretty vague and non-conclusive (surprise, surprise) so I assumed the differences could not be very great. I was mistaken. At one point I jokingly asked him if our experience would be something akin to the final scene of “Hair” when they send George Berger (Treat Williams) off to Vietnam. I giggled at the thought of the 27 ordinary people sitting in the terminal with us wearing helmets, sitting on their haunches in a bare-bones plane anxiously sneaking glances out the windows for bits of jungle or tanks. It was nearer to the truth that I ever imagined.
You’re not allowed to take pictures of the outside of the plane, so that the airline number doesn’t get out for security reasons, but on the outside they’re pretty ordinary. C-17s, the type of plane we rode to Dover, look like commercial airplanes from the outside, except a little greyer, a little dingier, and with none of those “namby-pamby” drawings or company names painted on the side. No friendly looking Eskimos (which, incidentally, I actually thought were Abraham Lincolns for a disturbing amount of my life) or happy California-Bound Disney characters here. But you get inside the plane and it looks like they forgot to finish it. I wanted to go to one of the men in tan zippy-flying-suits and say, “excuse me sir, but it seems that someone failed to give this plane walls or a floor…” That’s not to say that the plane didn’t have walls or a floor, as it certainly would not be a plane but rather a flat plank of metal if that were the case, but there was no covering over any of the essential thing that make a plane run so the passenger can see everything. There are no rows or aisles of seats. The seats run on either wall of the plane, connected to the side and the closest thing I can think to liken them to, are not the plush airline seats I have experience before but rather, the jump seat in the back of a pick-up, but with less padding. This gave the plane a rickety feel…this was no frills and somehow it made me more afraid than I have ever been on a plane.
The lack of seats leaves a great amount of room in the center of the plane; you can see your baggage strapped down on near the front and back of the plane, which was nice. I could clearly see that my acoustic guitar was secured and not crashing to its death, untied and willy-nilly. In case anyone cared, so far Elsie, my guitar, has been unhurt and actually enjoying the experience (only two strings out of tune this morning!) It also gave us room to walk around, or even lie down on the strange, hard, cold, metal floor.
There was, however, one large obstruction to the pathways, which I actually lay against to read for a while. It was a Hum-v. Yes, a real life, monstrous Hum-V, whose tire hub I used as a headboard, was chained to the floor of our plane. When we hit what I can only assume is what standard turbulence feels like when there is no real shock absorber I was certain that this part-pseudo-bed, part killing-machine was going to crush me and the people around me against the wall and, subsequently, kill us. I was so afraid of this happening that I developed a plan for getting the two little girls next to me (of whom I had become fond due to their stuffed unicorn, Disney paraphernalia, Harry Potter books and the fact that I just like kids in general) onto the ground and out of harm’s way. Tough luck for everyone else I guess. Luckily, (and logically)that never happened and my heroics were never necessary.
The plane, unlike a commercial flight, was SUPER loud. Military-issue ear plugs and noise-blocking heavy duty headphones were still not enough to block out the sound of the propellers and rudders and whatever else makes a plane go. They did however reduce it to a lower humming and buzzing, which was definitely an improvement.
At one point in our flight, a man shouted at us, asking if there was a medic. We shouted back that neither of us were one. This was not, as you might think, a man urgently crying out as we responded with hysteria. That’s just how you have to talk when you’re on a C-17. I looked around to find the person in need, and saw a man cradling what looked from behind like a frail, sick child in his arms. I know what you’re thinking, and no, it was not Lord Voldemort being nursed to health on our plane, which was lucky because we had to check our wands with our baggage. It turned out to be to be a little old woman suffering from a Diabetic attack. Her family didn’t speak much English, and adding a language barrier to an already “shouty” atmosphere made it difficult to communicate with them as they gave her water, blankets, and food. The family told me there was nothing I could do to help. All I could do was feeling helpless and horrified. She sat down at the appropriate time and was escorted off the plane by the base medics before the rest of us, but she was walking on her own, which I took to be a good sign. It was truly a shaking experience for me and dredged up again from my consciousness my need to be able to help people. I hated doing nothing. I don’t think I could be a medic (and I definitely have not been taking the right educational route at all if I could) but I can’t ever forget that I need to be helping people.
Anyway, the plane landed at about 1am (EST) in Dover, Delaware. (HI! I’m in Delaware…[Wayne’s World anyone?]) but it took us an hour to get off because they couldn’t get the ramp down. From there we realized there wouldn’t be any flights until that afternoon and we hopped on a bus headed for the Air Force Inn. I sat there until 3 am, watching what I guess ended up being the end of “The Green Mile.” I’m going to have to trust the rest of the world when they say this movie is good. The only parts I saw (skip ahead if this will ruin something for you, although I think most everyone but me has seen this film) were an old man and old woman talking to a mouse, a brief shot of Tom Hanks, references to a “Green Mile” which must have been a metaphor I didn’t understand, and some death talks. This is probably a film, which, like most things, you should start from the beginning. It didn’t help that I had gone through two time zones, been on a plane for 6 hours and waited in the terminal for 5 hours before that. But, after a lot of tribulation the hotel finally found us a room. Hopefully this isn’t all boring you…sorry if it is. You can always skim ‘til you find something that seems interesting. I give you permission.
Today, we woke up after what was far too short of a night, got our stuff together and checked out of the hotel. My dad and I have never been to this base before and have no idea where anything is, so we decided to take a cab back to the terminal. But, apparently, cabs do not go on base. So as my dad frantically called every cab number the hotel could give him, I sat outside and played my guitar: little Bright Eyes, little R.E.M., little Rocky Votolato, always makes everyone feel a little better.
Pretty soon a nice old gentleman, a retired air force pilot we found out later, offered me and my ‘husband’ a ride to the terminal. This is the third time that this mistake has been made. I just want to wear a shirt that says “I’m not a trophy wife. I am 2 score and 2 years younger than this man because he is my father.” But that would probably be too wordy and take up too much room and give people even more of an excuse to look at my chest. But, a girl can dream. So I laughed politely, said I would fetch my father and ran into the hotel to get him. The ride was wonderful, not having to carry our luggage the few miles was really nice. Mundane details: I hadn’t eaten in forever, so I ventured out onto the Dover Air Force Base with a map by myself and located the Burger King and the BX. The BX, for those that don’t know, or PX if you’re Army, is like the military store for everything except groceries, including everything from Coach Purses to i-pods to diapers to alcohol. This one was very small, and I mostly used it for its cool air as it’s over 80 degrees here and I wore sweat pants for travelling.
On my way back, feeling very proud of myself for navigating through a strange place, using a map successfully, and entertaining myself for one of the five hours we had before the flight, I ran into a man while reaffirming my position on the map, who spoke with a thick, difficult-to-place accent, asking if I was traveling “Space-A.”
“Yes,” I replied confidently, “I’m heading back to the terminal!”
“Where are you going?” He probed.
“Rammstein- I mean- Rota, Spain.” I said, slipping up for a minute about which flight we were taking. It didn’t much matter to me as long as we ended up on the right continent.
He started laugh loudly in my face saying “1940!”
I corrected him, “No, sir, my flight leaves at 1440.”
“Pushed it back!” He laughed, “1940!”
I hurried away from this laughing menace cursing myself for not taking more time at the BX. Now I had another 5 hours to kill. Delightful. So here I am now. Waiting. Ah well. I’m coming Europe! Eventually.
Well, it is official. No matter how long and arduous parts of this journey have been and are going to be, one thing is certain: I am on an adventure. When I asked my dad yesterday while waiting for the plane whether this flying experience was particularly different from commercial flying (i.e. were there stewardesses, bathrooms etc.) he was pretty vague and non-conclusive (surprise, surprise) so I assumed the differences could not be very great. I was mistaken. At one point I jokingly asked him if our experience would be something akin to the final scene of “Hair” when they send George Berger (Treat Williams) off to Vietnam. I giggled at the thought of the 27 ordinary people sitting in the terminal with us wearing helmets, sitting on their haunches in a bare-bones plane anxiously sneaking glances out the windows for bits of jungle or tanks. It was nearer to the truth that I ever imagined.
You’re not allowed to take pictures of the outside of the plane, so that the airline number doesn’t get out for security reasons, but on the outside they’re pretty ordinary. C-17s, the type of plane we rode to Dover, look like commercial airplanes from the outside, except a little greyer, a little dingier, and with none of those “namby-pamby” drawings or company names painted on the side. No friendly looking Eskimos (which, incidentally, I actually thought were Abraham Lincolns for a disturbing amount of my life) or happy California-Bound Disney characters here. But you get inside the plane and it looks like they forgot to finish it. I wanted to go to one of the men in tan zippy-flying-suits and say, “excuse me sir, but it seems that someone failed to give this plane walls or a floor…” That’s not to say that the plane didn’t have walls or a floor, as it certainly would not be a plane but rather a flat plank of metal if that were the case, but there was no covering over any of the essential thing that make a plane run so the passenger can see everything. There are no rows or aisles of seats. The seats run on either wall of the plane, connected to the side and the closest thing I can think to liken them to, are not the plush airline seats I have experience before but rather, the jump seat in the back of a pick-up, but with less padding. This gave the plane a rickety feel…this was no frills and somehow it made me more afraid than I have ever been on a plane.
The lack of seats leaves a great amount of room in the center of the plane; you can see your baggage strapped down on near the front and back of the plane, which was nice. I could clearly see that my acoustic guitar was secured and not crashing to its death, untied and willy-nilly. In case anyone cared, so far Elsie, my guitar, has been unhurt and actually enjoying the experience (only two strings out of tune this morning!) It also gave us room to walk around, or even lie down on the strange, hard, cold, metal floor.
There was, however, one large obstruction to the pathways, which I actually lay against to read for a while. It was a Hum-v. Yes, a real life, monstrous Hum-V, whose tire hub I used as a headboard, was chained to the floor of our plane. When we hit what I can only assume is what standard turbulence feels like when there is no real shock absorber I was certain that this part-pseudo-bed, part killing-machine was going to crush me and the people around me against the wall and, subsequently, kill us. I was so afraid of this happening that I developed a plan for getting the two little girls next to me (of whom I had become fond due to their stuffed unicorn, Disney paraphernalia, Harry Potter books and the fact that I just like kids in general) onto the ground and out of harm’s way. Tough luck for everyone else I guess. Luckily, (and logically)that never happened and my heroics were never necessary.
The plane, unlike a commercial flight, was SUPER loud. Military-issue ear plugs and noise-blocking heavy duty headphones were still not enough to block out the sound of the propellers and rudders and whatever else makes a plane go. They did however reduce it to a lower humming and buzzing, which was definitely an improvement.
At one point in our flight, a man shouted at us, asking if there was a medic. We shouted back that neither of us were one. This was not, as you might think, a man urgently crying out as we responded with hysteria. That’s just how you have to talk when you’re on a C-17. I looked around to find the person in need, and saw a man cradling what looked from behind like a frail, sick child in his arms. I know what you’re thinking, and no, it was not Lord Voldemort being nursed to health on our plane, which was lucky because we had to check our wands with our baggage. It turned out to be to be a little old woman suffering from a Diabetic attack. Her family didn’t speak much English, and adding a language barrier to an already “shouty” atmosphere made it difficult to communicate with them as they gave her water, blankets, and food. The family told me there was nothing I could do to help. All I could do was feeling helpless and horrified. She sat down at the appropriate time and was escorted off the plane by the base medics before the rest of us, but she was walking on her own, which I took to be a good sign. It was truly a shaking experience for me and dredged up again from my consciousness my need to be able to help people. I hated doing nothing. I don’t think I could be a medic (and I definitely have not been taking the right educational route at all if I could) but I can’t ever forget that I need to be helping people.
Anyway, the plane landed at about 1am (EST) in Dover, Delaware. (HI! I’m in Delaware…[Wayne’s World anyone?]) but it took us an hour to get off because they couldn’t get the ramp down. From there we realized there wouldn’t be any flights until that afternoon and we hopped on a bus headed for the Air Force Inn. I sat there until 3 am, watching what I guess ended up being the end of “The Green Mile.” I’m going to have to trust the rest of the world when they say this movie is good. The only parts I saw (skip ahead if this will ruin something for you, although I think most everyone but me has seen this film) were an old man and old woman talking to a mouse, a brief shot of Tom Hanks, references to a “Green Mile” which must have been a metaphor I didn’t understand, and some death talks. This is probably a film, which, like most things, you should start from the beginning. It didn’t help that I had gone through two time zones, been on a plane for 6 hours and waited in the terminal for 5 hours before that. But, after a lot of tribulation the hotel finally found us a room. Hopefully this isn’t all boring you…sorry if it is. You can always skim ‘til you find something that seems interesting. I give you permission.
Today, we woke up after what was far too short of a night, got our stuff together and checked out of the hotel. My dad and I have never been to this base before and have no idea where anything is, so we decided to take a cab back to the terminal. But, apparently, cabs do not go on base. So as my dad frantically called every cab number the hotel could give him, I sat outside and played my guitar: little Bright Eyes, little R.E.M., little Rocky Votolato, always makes everyone feel a little better.
Pretty soon a nice old gentleman, a retired air force pilot we found out later, offered me and my ‘husband’ a ride to the terminal. This is the third time that this mistake has been made. I just want to wear a shirt that says “I’m not a trophy wife. I am 2 score and 2 years younger than this man because he is my father.” But that would probably be too wordy and take up too much room and give people even more of an excuse to look at my chest. But, a girl can dream. So I laughed politely, said I would fetch my father and ran into the hotel to get him. The ride was wonderful, not having to carry our luggage the few miles was really nice. Mundane details: I hadn’t eaten in forever, so I ventured out onto the Dover Air Force Base with a map by myself and located the Burger King and the BX. The BX, for those that don’t know, or PX if you’re Army, is like the military store for everything except groceries, including everything from Coach Purses to i-pods to diapers to alcohol. This one was very small, and I mostly used it for its cool air as it’s over 80 degrees here and I wore sweat pants for travelling.
On my way back, feeling very proud of myself for navigating through a strange place, using a map successfully, and entertaining myself for one of the five hours we had before the flight, I ran into a man while reaffirming my position on the map, who spoke with a thick, difficult-to-place accent, asking if I was traveling “Space-A.”
“Yes,” I replied confidently, “I’m heading back to the terminal!”
“Where are you going?” He probed.
“Rammstein- I mean- Rota, Spain.” I said, slipping up for a minute about which flight we were taking. It didn’t much matter to me as long as we ended up on the right continent.
He started laugh loudly in my face saying “1940!”
I corrected him, “No, sir, my flight leaves at 1440.”
“Pushed it back!” He laughed, “1940!”
I hurried away from this laughing menace cursing myself for not taking more time at the BX. Now I had another 5 hours to kill. Delightful. So here I am now. Waiting. Ah well. I’m coming Europe! Eventually.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Mcchord AFB: The First Leg
Well, avid readers, the journey has officially begun! Actually I'm sitting on the public computer in the flight terminal at McChord Air Force Base, approximately 10 miles away from my house. However, it's exciting BECAUSE I'm waiting for a flight that, all fingers crossed, looks like is going to actually take me somewhere! Late last night they told us the Dover flight we were intending to take had been moved to about 11:30 am. We called this morning to make sure that was still true. We arrived an hour early, where we were promptly told that the flight was now cancelled, but the other flight we had initially planned on taking at 14:40 (2:40pm for normal people) was now back on. So I'm waiting here until that time. But there are 50 available seats and plenty of people here waiting, so it seems as though this will actually work out. The flight is supposed to take 5+ hours, plus the 3 hour time difference so it should be after 10pm when we get there. Hopefully we can squeeze onto a latenight/early early morning flight to Rammstein, Germany, to which there seem to be flights fairly frequently. It's just me, my little leather samsonite carry-on, a small suitcase and a guitar setting out for three and a half months abroad. Oh. And my dad. I'm glad he's here...but it sure makes this setting out on my own thing a lot more...sissy. Although the lack of information as to where we may end up and how we are getting to Macerata is adventure enough I suppose. Hopefully next time you hear from me I will be a world-traveler in Europe! If not...I will be a bored traveler in Delaware.
Cheers and Ciao,
Kaylie
Cheers and Ciao,
Kaylie
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Well, this is the first entry of my blog (obviously.) For those of you who don't know, I am about to embark on the ultimate in adventuring. I'm heading to Macerata, Italy for a semester abroad. I'm a junior at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA but I'm originally from Tacoma, WA. Tacoma is located along the Puget Sound in the Northwest United States. It's nestled between the state capital (Olympia) and the cultural hub of the Northwest (Seattle) and is the third most populated/largest city in Washington. Contrary to common belief it is not smelly (except for on really hot days near the pulp mill) so the "Aroma of Tacoma" is not nearly the "note-worthy" thing that people seem to think it is. The popular film "10 Things I Hate About You" was filmed here. Tacoma is also the home to the high school, Tacoma School of the Arts, of which I am a proud graduate. Unfortunately, this little tangent about my hometown has little to no relevance to most anybody who will be reading this, because a great percentage will be from there.
Anyway, I am due in Macerata (a city in central Italy in the Marche region) on Monday for orientation. It is currently Wednesday. My dad, who is in the military, and I are attempting to fly over using the Space-A (Space Available) method, where we hop-on flights with extra seats in an attempt to reach our destination. Last night we were supposed to depart for Oceana, Virginia on a midnight flight. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and the flight had no seats at all, being some sort of Army-Secret-Mission-Thingy. This has put a damper on the whole "try-to-get-to-Europe-quickly-and-maybe-explore-a-little-pre-orientation" plan. There is a flight to Norfolk, VA tomorrow morning, but I think we are waiting for an early flight to Dover, DE on Friday, since Dover is apparently a central hub for military flights to Europe. This is probably the one and only interesting thing about Delaware. Hopefully the five people there greet us with their charming Delawarian accents and homemade pie. Perhaps that is too optimistic. From Delaware, we're trying to fly over to Rammstein, Germany (or directly to Italy, but that seems less likely,) and take a train to Macerata, while doing some sight-seeing along the way. I'll let you know more about this plan as time elapses, since the Army seems to have little-to-no-inclination to even inform us before the last possible second.
Cheers and Ciao,
Kaylie
Anyway, I am due in Macerata (a city in central Italy in the Marche region) on Monday for orientation. It is currently Wednesday. My dad, who is in the military, and I are attempting to fly over using the Space-A (Space Available) method, where we hop-on flights with extra seats in an attempt to reach our destination. Last night we were supposed to depart for Oceana, Virginia on a midnight flight. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and the flight had no seats at all, being some sort of Army-Secret-Mission-Thingy. This has put a damper on the whole "try-to-get-to-Europe-quickly-and-maybe-explore-a-little-pre-orientation" plan. There is a flight to Norfolk, VA tomorrow morning, but I think we are waiting for an early flight to Dover, DE on Friday, since Dover is apparently a central hub for military flights to Europe. This is probably the one and only interesting thing about Delaware. Hopefully the five people there greet us with their charming Delawarian accents and homemade pie. Perhaps that is too optimistic. From Delaware, we're trying to fly over to Rammstein, Germany (or directly to Italy, but that seems less likely,) and take a train to Macerata, while doing some sight-seeing along the way. I'll let you know more about this plan as time elapses, since the Army seems to have little-to-no-inclination to even inform us before the last possible second.
Cheers and Ciao,
Kaylie
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