Home Sweet Home

I'd like to take a moment to apologize for the expletives, virtual and otherwise, uttered a few days ago. In the span of time between my last post and this very moment, I have added yet another city to my list of travels, but most importantly have been duly humbled. "Humbled" might be too passive a term - try "getting put very much in my place". Whether it's tripping me on my way up the stairs in the London Underground, to bring me off my high, I-am-way-too-cool-for-you horse and the strut that accompanies it, or sending me on a wild goose chase across the Atlantic (and beyond) in order to just beat another ash cloud, the Universe has a way of showing me who's boss.

After receiving the email below, I quickly hopped onto the phone to American and was not-so-quickly assisted (four minute estimated wait time, yeah right). I was literally one click away from a ticket for an 8:30 flight for the next day (that is, 16 May the first day of another set of UK airport closures due to volcanic ash) before an impulse decision led to me furious last-minute packing in order to catch a 1pm flight to O'Hare. Yes, it was Chicago, but it was not England; we were on the right track and details could come later. I bolted downstairs like a hot mess, expressed enough frantic psychosis that they waived my lost key fee and even called me a cab to Heathrow - who I am pretty sure charged me significantly less than what that fare should be - and made it through security with time to spare. Long story short, I found myself landed in New York City by 9:30pm EST on May 15th. At LaGuardia (I don't think American realizes that just because they are in the same city, JFK and LGA are actually not identical, interchangeable destinations - see my January 12th fiasco to LHR), but this was the first time I've feasted my eyes upon the skyline view that comes from a LaGuardia landing. It was so much more beautiful than I could ever have imagined it could be, so SO much more beautiful than I remembered. I am home.

Not Funny

Pardon my French, but ABSO-F@#$ING-LUTELY NOT.

An Open Letter to LDN, and Two

12 May 2010, behind St. Paul's Cathedral, London, England

London, I am sorry for doubting you. I am sorry for not giving you the chance you deserved. It's been a great four months, and I should have treated you better during that time. You didn't have to introduce me to delicious things like Innocent smoothies, flapjacks, and Ploughman's sandwiches (especially Pret's take on the delicious lunchable). You didn't have to put a pretty park right next to the buildings I studied in. You didn't have to make it so easy for me to reach European countries to and fro, but that one especially, you delivered well on. I'm sorry for thinking that one of the best parts of London is how easy it is to leave London. I'm not saying I don't still believe that, but it's kind of a jerk thing to say so I guess I'm mostly just sorry for being a jerk. In my defense though, you've not been totally accomodating. I won't dwell, since that would be counterproductive, but you could have done a little better on the weather front. I mean, coldest winter in 20 years, that was a bit much. And the fact that it is still winter today, May 13; also a problem. I've become entirely too close of friends with my umbrella, but in your defense my umbrellas have somehow managed to last much longer than they do in New York. So, great work on that, I guess.

Long story short, though you don't hold a candle to the city I'm about to return home to in two short days, you don't suck. I'm sorry for saying you did. Thanks again for having me, it's been great fun and hopefully I'll see you around again soon. I'm so glad I met you this semester; it's been so fun getting to know you. Let's hang out this summer; HAGS, KIT and LYLAS! (Not really, on any part of that last bit. Maybe HAGS.)

Rome, Day 2

SPRING BREAK 2010: Grand Tour

Day 6 (31 March): Rome, Day 2

Ancient Rome: Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum; Pantheon; Column of Marcus Aurelius

The second day in Rome, I stepped back in time and visited the ancient city. I got the party started at the Colosseum; you know, start out small with the minor sites so that it’s not all downhill from the start. Call me an expert tourist; I’ll be modest and deny such a compliment but secretly, I’m well aware that I am a step ahead of the game. (In the left of this picture, photobombin’ the big guy’s shot, is the Arch of Constantine).

(emphasis my own)

I read lots about all the cool stuff I saw in the outer part of the Colosseum, and oh haiii we are back to the classical orders we were first introduced to at Greenwich. Except, not the Inigo-Jones-I’m-English-and-obsessed-with-Andrea-Palladio versions; no, these are the originals. Because this is Rome and things are very old here and the Roman Empire was a big deal and so people wanted to copy it left and right so they would be big deals also. It’s a big deal.

Walking around, I didn’t just read but I also looked. But I didn’t look a lot because, well, there wasn’t a lot to look at. I am disappointed in the Romans’ ability to hold themselves together (literally), but I guess thousands and thousands of years is a long time to keep track of your head or your whole body from the ankles up. Heck, I’ve only had to worry about my bod for 19 years, and I can’t honestly tell you I’ve been aware of my head’s whereabouts for all of that time.

Heads! Found ‘em. Now if we could only get a hold of some of those pesky torsos…

Eyeballs, too, are often very helpful. But we are getting there. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I left the old guys to get themselves sorted out while I explored one of the Big Seven.

If I’m going to be real with y’all (which I strive always to be), I will tell you that I think “getting” this one will require another viewing of Gladiator. (Believe it or not, I am not being facetious here; but if you have other Colosseum movies to suggest, hit me up). I mean, I understand that this is old, and it’s cool, and some really incredible things happened here (filling it with water to stage naval battles? Ridiculous), but to this day I’m still coming to terms with the millions and millions of people who watched epic performances from the same steps I sat on, or patronized the market that it once held or, when things got real bad, called the Colosseum home. That’s big. Too big for my tiny self.

I hopped across the street and flashed my super-deluxe ticket that also got me into Palatine Hill, legendary home of Rome’s founders, Remus and Romulus. Remember how in Iceland, Geysir = “geyser”? Weeeeeeell, Palatine = “palace”. So basically, toss out that Rosetta Stone: English DVD you just bought off the TV at 4am, and just retrace my steps across the world; you will learn at least two words and I don’t know about you but these are two I use on a very regular basis.

The Stadium – it was either a racetrack or maybe just a biiiig garden, but “they” know for sure that it was part of Domitian’s home in the first century.

Traipsin’ around

Don’t quote me on it but I do believe Romulus’ hut is somewhere in that mess of flora and scaffolding. Nawbig.

Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum, which began as a cemetery then took it up a notch and became a marketplace before later becoming a Roman shanty town in the 8^th century BC. I feel like if this was not a tourist attraction and you did not have to pay €9 to get to it, hipsters would take this over as their own, exploiting its illustrious history as further ammo in their arsenal of trendy irony.

Temple of Antonius and Faustina. Not tiny.

Temple of Castor and Pollux

Daily dose of modern art analysis: the one left standing rises victorious, above the somewhat-discombobulated ruins. The height differential enables this sucka (technical term) to align himself with the powerful, resilient Antonius/Faustina.

Temple of Saturn

Trajan’s Markets and the Imperial Fora, which I think was a little bit under construction/a little bit on the pricey side; and to be honest, I was quickly approaching my old-stuff quota so maybe it was better that way.

I did manage to pass Trajan’s Column, which is this tall glass of water. (Except that it is actually made of stone, not water or glass). They were filming what I gathered to be Italian CSI right under it, so let’s make sweeping assumptions and venture to guess that I sighted a celeb. Does it still count if you don’t know who the heck they are?

Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, in honor of the first king of unified Italy. For some reason, I was out-of-control excited to finally come upon this - I had seen it during my numerous aerial views the day before and it felt a little like reaching Mecca once I made it up the steps... Why? Have I seen this in some movie or something and been like "Awesome... Italy."? Anyone? Can anyone figure me out, since I clearly cannot?

Even Italian litter is cooler.

Next stop: Pantheon! (But not before two rapid-fire gelato sessions; I got one because why wouldn’t I - it had to have been at least 45 minutes since I had eaten last, God forbid – and then while poppin’ a squat to get my bearings before entering the Pantheon (and to finish my gelato, because that’s trashy to eat gelato in the Pantheon), I discovered a tidbit in my guidebook that one of the best gelaterias in Rome was right around the corner. Hey, you only live once, so I ate gelato twice.)

Props Marcus Agrippa for the cool dome (Michelangelo even copied you, how’s that for celebrity endorsement) but you sort of forgot something…

Or maybe you knew all along that leaving the big gaping hole up top would actually be really awesome. Well, you were right.

Sunrays, we are still BFF 24 hours later. Keep up the good work.

And on to the next one: Santa Maria sopra Minerva

Here is the point in the trip where Michelangelos just become the norm. Like, “toss one here, there, wherever they fit really; we just have so many of them in this country it’s honestly just a chore”. Risen Christ, but Mike was my kind of guy and the gold panties weren’t his idea (not that I am not into gold panties but sometimes nude is just better, ya know what I mean?)

Column of Marcus Aurelius, where I sat for a while and took it all in and watched adorable Italian children chase birds and watched gorgeous Italian men and women meet up to share their wonderful lives with one another. I love the way Italians congregate: it begins with the iconic double-kiss, and then they sit casually and exchange what I can only presume are profound, enchanting thoughts – the language just seems too beautiful for idle chit-chat to be the same idle chit-chat that we have in English.

On my way back to my hostel, I passed by Termini, Rome’s slightly-sketchier version of Grand Central; a guy was carving beautiful flowers and birds out of carrots, beets, and potatoes! So cool.

Italy, in a nutshell: Tuscan buildings, Christianity, and motorbikes. Day 2 recap – miles walked: >6; gelato eaten: 2; unknown celebrity sightings: 1; tavola calda pizza stops: 2*; appreciation: priceless

*I swear, I could give Elizabeth Gilbert a run for her money; 1 year, in Eat Pray Love, and you left with only an additional 20 pounds? Girlfriend, I can do that in a weekend.

Related Links

Rome, Day 1

Rome, Day 3

Facebook Photo Album: Roma

Rome, Day 1

SPRING BREAK 2010: Grand Tour

Day 5 (30 March): Rome, Day 1

St. Peter’s Basilica, Castel Sant’Angelo, Villa Borghese

After a long day of travel from Iceland back to London for a 5-hour layover before an evening flight to Italy, Monday was pretty much shot. Tuesday, I woke up super-crazy early to beat the crowds and found my way to the Vatican City, with only minimal delays – there were lots of VIP entrances for all the Easter festivities and I was shocked to learn I wasn’t on the guest list. Ouch. By this point, I had set off what would be a daily tradition for the Italy leg: breakfast of brioche and cappuccino, and a little internal love affair with the Italian language. Icelandic had been awesome, and is great in theory (and in Sigur Rós songs), but decidedly hopeless beyond that.

Pietá

Entering St. Peter’s would be a big enough deal on its own if you didn’t also have this whole thing goin’ on. Wikipedia says SPB is the largest church in Christianity, and since we know Wikipedia never lies, let’s talk about how big of a deal that is. Or we could talk about how big of a deal it is that Michelangelo made this. It’s not, really, a big deal. It’s only Michelangelo, after all.

Baldacchino

And this is only Bernini. Ain’t no thang. A bit much for my taste, but it’s real nice. Although, the window in the apse was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. I came across quite a bit of this sun-rays thing over the course of the week, and I lurrved it – and I didn’t notice until I took a (poor quality) zoomed in shot, but there are little angels/cherubs/I will never understand the difference gathered around the window! Beautiful.

Michelangelo’s Dome

I finally made it back far enough to get a glimpse of this! It was quite a hike – I’m going to go on a ledge and say Wikipedia was right. Not to mention the hike I was about to take to get a closer look at this baby. Who needs Gold’s Gym when you have St. Pete’s!

Getting so close to the top! I saved myself a few euro (and earned an extra scoop of gelato) by taking the stairs the whole way – all 551 of them. And they trick you because they use wide steps that require more than one step to conquer, sneaky sneaky! This is looking out over the front of St. Peter’s and Piazza di San Pietro, and down Via di Conciliazione.

Same view, different thigh circumference. Worth every second of the workout, though. I had a lot of trouble taking it all in - was this really me, standing high above the ancient city of Rome? Really?

After a good long sit up top, I made my way back down to the real world and wandered for a bit longer, sneaking out of the Vatican City in search of food not aimed at unsuspecting tourists with bottomless wallets, because unsuspecting tourist I am not and bottomless wallet I have not. I happened upon Mercato Trionfale, a vast market full of stalls offering meats, cheeses, pastas, fruits/veg, candies, and so much more. It was a little overwhelming, given my severe lack of fluency in Italian, but I managed to make it away with a basket of strawberries, that I took to a small local park nearby. I savored each strawberry and watched the children play and again, forced myself to understand that this was real life.

The next stop was Castel Sant’Angelo, built by the Roman emperor Hadrian between AD135-139, so basically like modern art. He designed it to be his tomb, and it’s since also seen use as a fortress, prison, and palace. I plugged this placard into Google Translate and got “outer wall of the spiral ramp of the second breather Roman”; I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the “second breather” part is a little off, but we’ll go with the rest of it and agree that this is the outer wall of the circular tomb that used to house Hadrian’s ashes. Naaaaaawbig. (It’s been sacked, as things tend to be in Rome, so I don’t want to tell you the ashes are still here and turn up a liar, because then what is this blog but a waste of both your time and mine.)

Wasn’t supposed to, but you know I did – some old crunchy wooden biddy in the Sala de Apollo, within the Castel walls

More climbing to the top of old buildings got me more wonderful vistas of a beautiful city brimming over with the energy of history like you wouldn’t believe.

From here, I strolled along the Tiber praying for the clouds to suck it up and not rain on my parade. Unintentionally or not (I never know, with the way I tourist), I ended up in Piazza del Popolo, one of my favorite places in Rome. I would come back here a few times during my three day stay, but it wasn’t enough.

No matter how many times I returned, this little bit in the middle never got younger. I guess when you are THREE THOUSAND AND TWO HUNDRED YEARS OLD and from Egypt you have no choice but to just chill, really, hard.

I sat for a little, consulted my guidebooks to figure out where I was, and had my first encounter with the Italian rose men, who shove roses into your hands and then expect you to pay them for the fleurs you didn’t even ask for. Nope. Like I said, unsuspecting tourist I am not. This one wasn’t havin’ it though, and took his rose back, broke it off the stem, and threw it back into my lap. It was a dramatic act, but I left the scene with a rose bud so I’m down. I took myself, my guidebooks, and my rose up the hill and into Villa Borghese.

I said Piazza del Popolo was one of my favorite places, but this was THE favorite. Not that Iceland wasn’t like a four-day lovefest with Nature, but my time spent in Villa Borghese was the link from full-on nature tourism to manmade-things tourism with-heavy-emphasis-on-stopping-at-any-and-every-park, which is what the rest of this Grand Tour would become. So yeah, everyone, secret's out: I really love Nature.

After watching some Italians make out real hard, and after being sad that the Galleria Borghese’s entry is by reservation only (well aren’t you fancy Galleria B), I found myself spit out on the other side of Villa Borghese. Walking back along the park’s edge, I somehow ended up at the Spanish Steps and the Trinitá dei Monti, part of a convent founded by Louis XII in 1503.

Finally, I looped back around to Piazza del Popolo because a morning spent in the Vatican was not enough God time.

First stop was Santa Maria del Popolo, on the north side of Piazza del Popolo. It’s full of Baroque and Renaissance wonderfulness, as well as two Caravaggios! Verrnice.

A traipse through PdP: obelisk, check; incredible symmetry, check. Get it, Roma.

The church on the right, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, was under construction, so I settled for an exploration of Santa Maria in Montesanto, on the left. My guidebooks told me there was a Gregorian chant to be enjoyed, but I sat and no one chanted at me, so that was a bust. But clearly, it was still beautiful! In fact, there was a smattering of modern (no, really, this is not me being a jerk about Rome’s old stuff) art throughout the chapel which flowed surprisingly peacefully and seamlessly with the old, “typical” church décor.

Day 1 Recap - miles walked: >8; churches: 4; delicious (legit!) Italian food (pizza, and spaghetti alla carbonara): 3; new favorites: 2; awesome meditations: >3. Let’s keep the fun times a-rollin’! See y’all soon for Day 2.

Related Links

Facebook album: Roma

Rome, Day 2

Rome, Day 3 (coming soon!)

Four, Let the games begin!

Well, it's summer now... that's weird.

How perfect, right? The SUMMER (because it is) suite from Vivaldi's FOUR (because there are that many days left) Seasons for a little relaxation station to calm my tired brain

Between celebrating the completion of two finals yesterday (a celebration which included sandwiches and napping, which, if you know me at all, really is my idea of a good party) and cramming for my last one (which was duly kicked in the arse this morning), I missed yesterday's update in the countdown. Which I hope didn't upset too many of you or get you all confused and thinking I decided not to come home after all (good joke) or had you missing out on the opportunity to be incredibly profound - seriously, Grancy, I'm still floored by the Facebook comment you left and the metaphor you found in Day Six's song.

I miss you too, Plato, I miss you too.

A Special Shoutout!! (and Six)

First things first, I'd like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing moms in my life. My own, obviously (and I hate to break it to y'all but she might be the best one ever, I'm not even going to hide how obsessed I am with her) but also her mom (who had a lot to do with mine being the best ever, and who comes in a close second in the Best Moms race). And I'm even lucky enough that I have an amazing group of friends who have shared their moms with me, so let me also thank those moms for being such amazing, positive lights in my life too!

I'ma be straight with y'all, I'm iffy on the whole motherhood thing for my own future - and I think part of my reluctance is that I have A LOT to live up to and I'm worried I won't be half as awesome as all the incredible women I know!

And just so we keep it up --