Venice quenches my thirst. I sweat out its rainy thunderstorms in words I can't yet post here, but now I'm in Paris which is perfect and simple and so I shall share. Pictures available here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=178407&id=736578917&ref=mf. But here is one: or maybe it is up top? I don't understand html and I am going home now.
I requested a triple freshman year. I wanted two best friends, two new sisters, I wanted a challenge and honestly I didn’t have much of a choice anyway so I might as well want what I will get. Now any bed I ever stay in while traveling seems luxurious. If there is more than two feet between the top bunk and the ceiling, you’re living big man. Sink in the room? Oooh la la. Sharing a toilet with less than sixty girls? That’s the life. My hostel room in Paris is the penthouse suite of college dorms. There’s a shower in the room!
I’m often surprised by how cities meet my stereotypes. On my first trip to Paris, I was shocked that everyone said “bonjour” with a bounce just like Madeline. My second stay here has confirmed even more clichés. There is a girl with dreadlocks in my hostel. I heard someone say “Foux da fa fa”. Baguettes are everywhere: in the Metro (beautifully efficient oh it is amazing), on the street corner, and wrapped around my hot dog. I haven’t found le piscine, but did find two bibliotheques. People picnic beneath the Eiffel Tower eating baguettes and drinking bottles of wine, or toasting champagne in tiny plastic flutes.
Some things though, have surprised me. I didn’t actually expect to hear “Oh la la,” but I did. Everyone speaks to me in French, I’ve been asked for directions at least four times, people rambling quite a bit before I say “de solieli, tourist”. The Sacre Cour has an unfathomable mosaic and the worst British boy band messing up the words to “You’re the One that I want” from Grease.
I write postcards at famous places and I’ll post them later but here’s what I wrote yesterday:
“You are gold and shiny of tiny pieces like the mosaics in the Sacred Heart of Paris perched high on a hill stained glass is beautiful but you can’t see through it, do we build questions like windows to look in or look out? ‘De donde vienen ustedes?’ Do they cut mosaics before or after they paint them. If you were a church who would you be? Notre Dame, St.Peter’s Basillica, St.Mark’s, or the façade in Orvieto? Inside le Sacre Cour it feels like I am nothing, if I were to lay down on the floor in the center like I want to I would be swallowed into the hillside beneath the stories beneath my feet. Do the people who design airport benches, and lecture seats and church pews work together? These pews are bearable, but not fall-asleep comfy, I nod anyway. ‘Better take a sweater honey, you might duomo later.’”
I know writing a blog is very self-absorbed. However, if you're reading this, I can say without a doubt that if you were to write a blog, I'd read it. PLEASE DO!!
And to reiterate: Each and every hour I realize how lucky I am to be in Italy AGAIN! woot. Thanks Dad and Mom! I miss you!!!
Also,you may notice I haven't written about the Osbornes, but that is because I don't write about the things I love most. I'm too scared of getting it wrong. Plus, that'd be rather creepy and annoying, imo.
Fourth day in Rome. I have to pee. I know to stride confidently into Pepy’s bar, the tourist trap proclaiming Pizza-Pasta-Food on the corner of Via Del Tritone e Via sistina, across the street from the 2000 year old fountain (see photo).“Ciao” I say as I walk out without buying anything, and a woman bumps into me on the street, “dai” she says pushing me on the back. Rome is a stuffed canoli of Ducatis, tour busses and business men, but she is the first person to actually touch me on the street. I brush it off like bird poop – perhaps annoying, but in Rome, good luck, a sign from the gods- and give directions to the Spanish steps, “gerade aus, gerade aus.” I love these little interactions on street corners, like the man who shared a laugh with me at the traffic before we stepped into the crosswalk, him saying, “what a fuck” and me responding “ma, che cazzo.”
Orvieto
At a small shop Rick Steves recommends called "The Mago di Oz." Betty boop abounds. (see photo).
The Mago di Oz wears blue courderoy pants, and suspenders over a yellow plaid shirt with more wrinkles than my crumbled map after four days in Rome. I can tell he is an Italian not so concerned with fashion.
He has given me a postcard and as I finish writing it a bunch of tourists wander into his Emerald City. I consider leaving without saying goodbye, but instead I wander inside and when I say arrivederle signore and he comes to shake my hand and kiss me his big stubbly soft cheeks press against mine like the old flannel sheets on my pillow at home. I earned this “ciao bella” with a “ciao, come sta?”, but even more valuable to me was the smile on the man’s face when he said he’d show me something special and opens a miniature doll house. The tiny windows have lace curtains and I can see the staples, so it dawns on me that almost everything here is “fatto a mano”.
Sunday, June 27th at the Villa
On my third summer abroad, I don't buy souvenirs. Do you need something from Italy or Paris? I would love to buy it for you. Otherwise, I'll mail you a postcard. I'm told you'll thank me for this when you move one day and have to fit your life into a U-haul truck.
Italy has been two scoops of a gelato in a one euro cone, wining and dining in my new Tuscan home, savoring bites of soft marscapone, to think that four days ago I felt at home as I wrote you roaming the streets of Rome, yes give me your address, I’ll send you a poem.
*I’m pretty sure marscapone does not rhyme with Rome when said with a proper Italian accent, but obviously I’m writing shitty rhyming poems and don’t give a damn about appearances
Monday, June 28th, 2010 en route to Pisa
On first glance, the tower looks photoshopped. It is a pirouette cookie poking out of a glass of milk. It’s unbelievable. It’s so crooked! It is one of those things I could see everyday for about fourteen years without growing jaded, like the Space Needle or Mountain Rainer or the Eiffel tower at night. It sticks out of the ground like a meat thermometer on Thanksgiving, a symbol of national identity. Green grass lures tourists who mill about like a screen saver, pockets stuffed with green 100 Euros, they are green to bartering, and attract African immigrants who hawk D&G sunglasses. “Hello lady.”
I relax in the shade and contemplate the tower (it’s so crooked!!!) straining to hear German (War das toll?!) over the drone of the lawn mower and the at least nine people I count holding up the tower – “move your right hand up. No other right. A little higher. No not so high. Okay now make your palm flatter.” In the heat tempers flare “I’m sorry, I apologize,” says one. “Okay, good.” Is the response.
Tuesday, June 29th en route to Florence
11:00 am
My nose is a Roman fountain ever-flowing, is the city of Venice always flooding. My head is a wild boar in a roundabout just off the autostrada. I was almost home sick today, but decided to suck it up. You’re only in Italy once, (well okay twice now,) and plus, Rick says Florence has the best gelato. Maybe I'll nap in the cool calm of Santa Croce, where all of the dead are sleeping.
2:00 pm
Today I have wandered in a four block area of Florence for over an hour, bumping into people and looking at food. Now, for the first time in a week, I am alone, or as alone as you can be in Italy where there is always someone. Even if you've driven for three hours on roads that are curlier than Jack in the Box fries, you will still be following blue signs to tiny cities where the streets are so small they string volleyball nets between the buildings (see photo up top, sorry I'm too busy to edit) and have tournaments when everything closes on Sunday. If there is one thing I have learned in Italy, it is that although civilizations will rise and fall, civilization itself will never die. I love people, I love cities, I love watching busses and crossing cross walks and squeezing onto subways, but if there is one thing I've learned this year it's that moderation is necessary in absolutely everything. So now I find myself in the back room of a tiny bar that is famous for selling bagels (how exotic!), enjoying 'una poca de gracia' and thinking that 'sweet dreams are made of these, travel the world and the seven seas' as I savor one last salty bite of prosciutto. I picked the place because of the four Italians (identifiable by their brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin and sweet tongues) standing near the tiny door sipping coffee, and the proclamation "free seating inside". Someone just came to use the bathroom, and asked me in international sign language if there was anyone inside. I said "non c'e' niente". "There is nothing." My Italian's not so bad, but there are highs and lows. Anyhow, I'd better get on to writing my blog because we're meeting up at 4:00 to head home for left over wild boar.
If I am going to wake up at 6:30 because of the light, it better fucking be sunshine instead of the cancerous reflection of gray . Gray clouds, gray water, gray ground, gray weather. But this is still pre-summer. Summer is my favorite season so I define the seasons like this: pre-summer, summer, indian summer and holidays. For me, pre-summer starts after Cinco de Mayo, when they start selling s'more stuff in Safeway. It really kicks into high gear when I get my grades back in June. [This quarter was my worst grades, but I got an A for effort from my physical therapist, and that is all I really cared about anyway.] Summer starts tomorrow, my birthday, June 21st. The solstice. The longest day of the year. It better fucking be sunny.
The forecast predicts sun on Tuesday. Which is nice because I'd love to see the mountains as I fly out of Seattle that morning. That's right, I'm going to Europe again. (!!!!!!) I have been incredibly lucky to be invited along with the Osborne family on their two week tour of Italy. I will then spend some time in Paris and Parma, then come back to Seattle for five days, and then fly to LA. I'm heading to LA with the Youth Speaks Seattle Poetry Slam Team for Brave New Voices. (!!!!!!) BNV is a week long poetry festival culminating in a grand slam on the Disney stage hosted by Common. More information here: http://www.bravenewvoices.org/.
So I'm happy to say that after Rome-Tuscany-Venice-Paris-Milan-Parma I'll be back in Seattle for good. On July 25th I expect summer to be in high gear, and then I'll be gracious for the gray that grows our city green. And I'll be looking forward to seeing you, if you are in Seattle, and if you care enough about me to read my blog. Until then, I'll bless you with basic banal babbling, letters linked in a line like [insert food-imagery based simile], and, when I'm really hyper, extended metaphor. What I'm trying to say is my writing don't always come out smoothly, like perfect pancakes. No, I forget to use baking soda and it all falls flat. But, I'm not going to follow a recipe for this blog. I think that's how they invented crepes.
