La Spezza - Cinque Terre pics:
Also, I got a gym membership today. I am a happy Sean now. I'm pretty sure I have everything I need to survive. Except maybe getting to see Wanted in English.
Don't tell me it sucks if you've seen it and it sucks. I'm going to find a theater in Rome that has it without dubbing.
-Sean
Monday, June 30, 2008
Big Weekend About
To start off, yes, I thought about decomp all weekend, and how much I wished I was there, and how much I was glad I wasn't. Day 10 now and I'm starting to miss everyone terribly. Apparently, according to our really sexy coordinator Sophie who I was chatting with this morning, that fades after the second week. Awesome.
I got back last night from a really amazing scenic trip to La Spezza and le Cinque Terre. La Spezza is the main train hub right before Le Cinque Terre, which are five villages along the North Eastern coast of Italy. Each village is built into the mountains, which literally run straight into the ocean. There's little beaches and cliff diving, surrounded on all sides by these rustic towns rising in a sea of green over your head.
I met up with my friend Erin, and we spent Saturday in Vernazza, my favorite of the villages. It was all of one cobblestone road leading straight into the sea, with a small harbor and lots of giant rocks to dive off of, and lined on either side with little shops that sold jewelry and tourist trinkets. After bumming around and eating a lot of food, we went back to La Spezza on the last train (which we almost missed!), and caught a cab ride to our hotel. The hotel employees were slightly deceptive on the phone, leading us to believe that they were near La Spezza. In truth, the hotel was situated in a village at the very top of the mountain between La Spezza and Vernazza, and the cab ride cost us around 30 euro.
I swear to fuck the driver was methed up, too. He was hauling ass, passing cars at every opportunity around curves, and doing it all headbanging to eurotrance. I was buzzed, and started laughing at the insanity of it all, and he flipped on the dome light, turned around, and dead-eye stared at me, asking, "problem?" I shook my head frantically, hoping that the faster I put him at his ease, the sooner he'd turn his attention back to the road we were still driving down.
Our hotel was actually really neat, though, and was built into an old monastary. The room was in the top of one of the towers, and looked a lot like a treehouse, with big windows built into the roof that opened up to constellations that were all in the wrong places in the sky above. We drank from a bottle of Absolute I bought at the only liquor store that sold vodka in the whole of Cinque Terre and listened to the people in the hotel resturaunt below telling stories to each other in Italian.
The next morning I learned why a hotel built into an old monastary can shed its novelty in so much preservation as they rang the old bells at sunrise, and then again every half hour for the rest of the morning. Shower, breakfast, and three really week espressos later, I was drop-dead tired and passing out sporadically on the train ride back to the last village in le Cinque Terre. We planned on hiking, but with the sun burning down at over 100 degrees, we opted to just use the train and beach hop instead. About halfway through the day we split an Adderral and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a resturaunt balconey talking about out fucked up relationship problems and making plans to hang out again before returning to the land of trucks and heavy drinking.
After a day of sun and swimming, we almost missed our train back to the central station (again) to get back to Rome and Florence, respectively. On the train I watched the countryside evolve from mountains into sloping hills, forests, and plains, writing in my journal and drafting out thought bubbles for story ideas. Later, I walked around the train, and ended up sitting with an Italian woman who tolerated me using my dictionary to have a real conversation with her. She was sitting with some of my classmates, so they had me translate for them so they could ask her questions about Italy. It was pretty fun, because in the midst of our conversation, she was making fun of them and telling me ways to pick up girls with really easy phrases that would get past their anti-tourist guard.
After getting home I discovered all of my food gone and the water heater not working. Had a nice sit down with the two new roomates who arrived right before I got home, who have very quickly become my favorites, Guillmo and Leo. They're both from Honduras, but live in Austin now. We stayed up until two and joked around about traveling abroad, and they quickly endeared themselves to me when they asked me where the good clubs were. Telling them I didn't know, Guillmo said, "I go to raves back home, I just want to find somewhere to dance."
Finally, some fellow conspirators! We agreed to exhaust all of our available resources in an effort to find some kind of fun evening activities. Despite what some commentors on here have complained about (I'm e-looking at you, Shawn), I'm sucking up plenty of history, art, and culture, but fuck me if I can't find a place to have fun that isn't rife with drunkass Americans and shitty music.
My mom is pitching the idea of sending my brother to meet me here when my program ends and taking him around Italy, then using his Spanish to get us through Spain. I'm tempted, and I know the two of us could have an awesome time sneaking off to Amsterdam and Greece for more euro-typico adventures. It would, however, overlap my New York trip, and I'd miss out on getting to see Ed and Diana again, as well as going to the Philly pre-burning man compression party. I told her I'd think about it for a week and see how comfortable I'm feeling in my new digs.
I finally have my pictures on my laptop, so I'm just waiting for them to turn on the wireless at LDM so I can upload them and start filling this blog out a little with more than words. Like I said before, I miss everyone terribly.
-Sean
When we find that a picture of ourself in someone else's place has been moved, does it mean they love us less?
I got back last night from a really amazing scenic trip to La Spezza and le Cinque Terre. La Spezza is the main train hub right before Le Cinque Terre, which are five villages along the North Eastern coast of Italy. Each village is built into the mountains, which literally run straight into the ocean. There's little beaches and cliff diving, surrounded on all sides by these rustic towns rising in a sea of green over your head.
I met up with my friend Erin, and we spent Saturday in Vernazza, my favorite of the villages. It was all of one cobblestone road leading straight into the sea, with a small harbor and lots of giant rocks to dive off of, and lined on either side with little shops that sold jewelry and tourist trinkets. After bumming around and eating a lot of food, we went back to La Spezza on the last train (which we almost missed!), and caught a cab ride to our hotel. The hotel employees were slightly deceptive on the phone, leading us to believe that they were near La Spezza. In truth, the hotel was situated in a village at the very top of the mountain between La Spezza and Vernazza, and the cab ride cost us around 30 euro.
I swear to fuck the driver was methed up, too. He was hauling ass, passing cars at every opportunity around curves, and doing it all headbanging to eurotrance. I was buzzed, and started laughing at the insanity of it all, and he flipped on the dome light, turned around, and dead-eye stared at me, asking, "problem?" I shook my head frantically, hoping that the faster I put him at his ease, the sooner he'd turn his attention back to the road we were still driving down.
Our hotel was actually really neat, though, and was built into an old monastary. The room was in the top of one of the towers, and looked a lot like a treehouse, with big windows built into the roof that opened up to constellations that were all in the wrong places in the sky above. We drank from a bottle of Absolute I bought at the only liquor store that sold vodka in the whole of Cinque Terre and listened to the people in the hotel resturaunt below telling stories to each other in Italian.
The next morning I learned why a hotel built into an old monastary can shed its novelty in so much preservation as they rang the old bells at sunrise, and then again every half hour for the rest of the morning. Shower, breakfast, and three really week espressos later, I was drop-dead tired and passing out sporadically on the train ride back to the last village in le Cinque Terre. We planned on hiking, but with the sun burning down at over 100 degrees, we opted to just use the train and beach hop instead. About halfway through the day we split an Adderral and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a resturaunt balconey talking about out fucked up relationship problems and making plans to hang out again before returning to the land of trucks and heavy drinking.
After a day of sun and swimming, we almost missed our train back to the central station (again) to get back to Rome and Florence, respectively. On the train I watched the countryside evolve from mountains into sloping hills, forests, and plains, writing in my journal and drafting out thought bubbles for story ideas. Later, I walked around the train, and ended up sitting with an Italian woman who tolerated me using my dictionary to have a real conversation with her. She was sitting with some of my classmates, so they had me translate for them so they could ask her questions about Italy. It was pretty fun, because in the midst of our conversation, she was making fun of them and telling me ways to pick up girls with really easy phrases that would get past their anti-tourist guard.
After getting home I discovered all of my food gone and the water heater not working. Had a nice sit down with the two new roomates who arrived right before I got home, who have very quickly become my favorites, Guillmo and Leo. They're both from Honduras, but live in Austin now. We stayed up until two and joked around about traveling abroad, and they quickly endeared themselves to me when they asked me where the good clubs were. Telling them I didn't know, Guillmo said, "I go to raves back home, I just want to find somewhere to dance."
Finally, some fellow conspirators! We agreed to exhaust all of our available resources in an effort to find some kind of fun evening activities. Despite what some commentors on here have complained about (I'm e-looking at you, Shawn), I'm sucking up plenty of history, art, and culture, but fuck me if I can't find a place to have fun that isn't rife with drunkass Americans and shitty music.
My mom is pitching the idea of sending my brother to meet me here when my program ends and taking him around Italy, then using his Spanish to get us through Spain. I'm tempted, and I know the two of us could have an awesome time sneaking off to Amsterdam and Greece for more euro-typico adventures. It would, however, overlap my New York trip, and I'd miss out on getting to see Ed and Diana again, as well as going to the Philly pre-burning man compression party. I told her I'd think about it for a week and see how comfortable I'm feeling in my new digs.
I finally have my pictures on my laptop, so I'm just waiting for them to turn on the wireless at LDM so I can upload them and start filling this blog out a little with more than words. Like I said before, I miss everyone terribly.
-Sean
When we find that a picture of ourself in someone else's place has been moved, does it mean they love us less?
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday
I've been in the computer lab for the last two hours trying to plan out my weekend. It's becoming increasingly frustrating, trying to find a place to stay in la spezia. At this point I'm ready to say fuck it and find a discoteca to go to tonight.
And I need to go out. I haven't been able to stay up past 10 for the last three nights, and the lonely apartment is starting to get to me. My roomates moved in yesterday, a Portland guy named Alec and two guys from Illinois, Eben and Jimmy. Nice enough guys, so far we get along rather well.
I bought a card reader for my camera, and I can now power up my laptop. Things are happening! The mini-ipod boombox I brought has been a lifesaver with the apartment, and I love gellato. Gellato is like the national anti-depressant of Italy.
Just scored a hostel for tomorrow night, staying with my friend Erin in La Spazza tomorrow and Sunday and hiking through Cinque Terre, a seaside/mountainous area with paths connecting five villiages. I'm pretty excited, since this is the first time I'm getting out of Rome. Going to do a discoteca surf tonight and see if I can't get into some trouble before I have to get on the train tomorrow.
I'm missing my boys terribly, I had a dream last night with Beep in it. He was seranading a very small castle with operatic meows on a beach. He was the same size, but the castle was tiny, and the sun was setting in the background. My dreams have been insane here, probably because I haven't managed an entire night of sleep once yet. I have to leave my windows open to deal with the 85 degree evenings (since I have no AC) and at around 5:30 in the morning these birds wake up that make the most horrific sounds I've ever heard. I warned my roomates on their first night here, and the next morning Eben came into the kitchen cursing at the birds and throwing clothespins from our drying rack at them.
Okay, I've been sitting in this computer lab for 3 hours now writing down addresses and scheduling the hostel and train ticket. I'm out.
-Sean
And I need to go out. I haven't been able to stay up past 10 for the last three nights, and the lonely apartment is starting to get to me. My roomates moved in yesterday, a Portland guy named Alec and two guys from Illinois, Eben and Jimmy. Nice enough guys, so far we get along rather well.
I bought a card reader for my camera, and I can now power up my laptop. Things are happening! The mini-ipod boombox I brought has been a lifesaver with the apartment, and I love gellato. Gellato is like the national anti-depressant of Italy.
Homesick?
Have some gellato.
Too hot outside?
Ice cold gellato.
Want some gellato?
If I have to tell you...
Just scored a hostel for tomorrow night, staying with my friend Erin in La Spazza tomorrow and Sunday and hiking through Cinque Terre, a seaside/mountainous area with paths connecting five villiages. I'm pretty excited, since this is the first time I'm getting out of Rome. Going to do a discoteca surf tonight and see if I can't get into some trouble before I have to get on the train tomorrow.
I'm missing my boys terribly, I had a dream last night with Beep in it. He was seranading a very small castle with operatic meows on a beach. He was the same size, but the castle was tiny, and the sun was setting in the background. My dreams have been insane here, probably because I haven't managed an entire night of sleep once yet. I have to leave my windows open to deal with the 85 degree evenings (since I have no AC) and at around 5:30 in the morning these birds wake up that make the most horrific sounds I've ever heard. I warned my roomates on their first night here, and the next morning Eben came into the kitchen cursing at the birds and throwing clothespins from our drying rack at them.
Okay, I've been sitting in this computer lab for 3 hours now writing down addresses and scheduling the hostel and train ticket. I'm out.
-Sean
Call me!!!
It's 2 AM, you're wasted, and all you can think is, "I wonder what Sean's doing RIGHT NOW." Well now you can know with this handy-dandy cell phone number that I have in Italy, as some of you already know, because I've called you.
011 39 355 7879380
That's the complete number, 011 being the international code you punch in to call across the sea, 39 being the prefix. If you actually do get the wild hair to call me (which would be wildly entertaining for me), you should probably get a phone card. There are plenty of companies who you can get them from online really easily, for example, http://www.phonecardsmile.com/
Just remember that I'm 7 hours ahead of central time zone, meaning I'm usually asleep between 6 PM and 2 AM your time, though that varies. I can call you guys, but it's .39 euro a minute for me.
Also, I have more regular internet access now, through my school. Hurray.
-Sean
011 39 355 7879380
That's the complete number, 011 being the international code you punch in to call across the sea, 39 being the prefix. If you actually do get the wild hair to call me (which would be wildly entertaining for me), you should probably get a phone card. There are plenty of companies who you can get them from online really easily, for example, http://www.phonecardsmile.com/
Just remember that I'm 7 hours ahead of central time zone, meaning I'm usually asleep between 6 PM and 2 AM your time, though that varies. I can call you guys, but it's .39 euro a minute for me.
Also, I have more regular internet access now, through my school. Hurray.
-Sean
Ode to the Italian Keyboard
How I loathe thee, let me count the ways...But not in conjunctions, for all they gain me is cobbled-together words, and that only works in german.
Consider this my first inebriated internet session. I finally had wine in Italy, to celebrate actually getting my cell phone and a card reader for my camera. That, and the waitress talked me into it. She obligingly allowed me to speak in my atrocious Italian for ordering and asking questions.
No, I dont have pictures up yet. I would have to have my computer charged to do that, and I spent all day looking for a power converter with no fucking luck. The melted one is still sitting back in my hotel room, smelling like burnt plastic and the shattered engineering prowess of Brookstones employees.Last night I had dinner with Erin (the girl going to Florence) again, and walked around the Spanish steps for a while listening to people talk in a bouquette of languages. We made plans to meet up in Florence, ate gellato, and made out in front of her hotel. Some drunk 20 year told us we should fuck inside, and I told her to "piss off unless she wanted to watch." She flipped me off and I let her know I had no problem backhanding a stupid, drunk, American bitch.I meant it, too.
Nothing has made me hate Americans more than being in a foreign country overpopulated with them in the age range of 19-23. They are loud, obnoxious, and I almost felt compelled to choke out this one kid who was storming around via nazionale with his shirt off, slapping his chest and screaming at his friend in a drunken rage.
Va bene, Im being kicked out of the internet point now, theyre closing down.More tomorrow, if I can find a fucking charger.
-Sean
Consider this my first inebriated internet session. I finally had wine in Italy, to celebrate actually getting my cell phone and a card reader for my camera. That, and the waitress talked me into it. She obligingly allowed me to speak in my atrocious Italian for ordering and asking questions.
No, I dont have pictures up yet. I would have to have my computer charged to do that, and I spent all day looking for a power converter with no fucking luck. The melted one is still sitting back in my hotel room, smelling like burnt plastic and the shattered engineering prowess of Brookstones employees.Last night I had dinner with Erin (the girl going to Florence) again, and walked around the Spanish steps for a while listening to people talk in a bouquette of languages. We made plans to meet up in Florence, ate gellato, and made out in front of her hotel. Some drunk 20 year told us we should fuck inside, and I told her to "piss off unless she wanted to watch." She flipped me off and I let her know I had no problem backhanding a stupid, drunk, American bitch.I meant it, too.
Nothing has made me hate Americans more than being in a foreign country overpopulated with them in the age range of 19-23. They are loud, obnoxious, and I almost felt compelled to choke out this one kid who was storming around via nazionale with his shirt off, slapping his chest and screaming at his friend in a drunken rage.
Va bene, Im being kicked out of the internet point now, theyre closing down.More tomorrow, if I can find a fucking charger.
-Sean
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
FIVE MINUTES!!!
Ive got five minutes left on a computer card in the hotel. The computer, if you cant tell, doesnt have an apostrophe key. Italian.
I cant really get much out in the time I have left to type, so Ill just summarize the main points.
There are a lot of stupid American who fight in the streets in Italy.
Many of them are girls.
Theres more beautiful art and sculptures here than you could ever take pictures of.
I skipped the sponsored trip to the vatican today in favor of sleeping, and allowing myself more than the one hour tour they would have provided me with through API (company I paid to be here).
I want to get my computer charged and my cell phone.
I move into my apartment tomorrow with five other guys.
Yeah.
-sean
I cant really get much out in the time I have left to type, so Ill just summarize the main points.
There are a lot of stupid American who fight in the streets in Italy.
Many of them are girls.
Theres more beautiful art and sculptures here than you could ever take pictures of.
I skipped the sponsored trip to the vatican today in favor of sleeping, and allowing myself more than the one hour tour they would have provided me with through API (company I paid to be here).
I want to get my computer charged and my cell phone.
I move into my apartment tomorrow with five other guys.
Yeah.
-sean
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Holy fucking shit
I just set a wall socket in our hotel room on fire, and completely fucked my new brookstone step-down power converter. One of the hotel roomates had one plugged in to another socket, and apparently two converters on the same resistor can have too much draw, etc, math, physics, and burned sand.
Long story short, I fucked some shit up.
I'm afraid to call the hotel operator and tell them, because I'm worried they're going to charge us for damages or something. This thing was seriously burning, sizzling, popping, nasty fumes coming off of it, the whole recipe for an electrical fire and dead tourists.
Thankfully I didn't just plug my laptop in and let it charge. Upside. Now I can't charge my laptop, though. Downside. I'm using my remaining power to copy down the addresses of all the discotecs in the city, and the number of the cute girl in the Florence LDM program that I met on the bus this morning.
Because it wouldn't really be an international trip worth talking about unless I got kicked out of a hotel,
-Sean
Long story short, I fucked some shit up.
I'm afraid to call the hotel operator and tell them, because I'm worried they're going to charge us for damages or something. This thing was seriously burning, sizzling, popping, nasty fumes coming off of it, the whole recipe for an electrical fire and dead tourists.
Thankfully I didn't just plug my laptop in and let it charge. Upside. Now I can't charge my laptop, though. Downside. I'm using my remaining power to copy down the addresses of all the discotecs in the city, and the number of the cute girl in the Florence LDM program that I met on the bus this morning.
Because it wouldn't really be an international trip worth talking about unless I got kicked out of a hotel,
-Sean
Mi primo giorno a Roma (My first day in Rome)
I haven’t actually slept since Friday morning, when I scraped four hours from 6 AM to 10 AM. Nothing makes sleeping harder than a tiny beam of light seeping through the crack between your curtain and the wall that magically always points at your eyes. For some reason that makes me think of the scene in the Hobbit (animated movie) when they’re all waiting for the moonlight to reveal the hole where the key goes in the dwarf mountain.
Annnnyyywwwaay...
I’m well beyond delirious punchy Sean now, and starting to slip into baffled and cranky Sean. I’m starting to feel really fucking haggard, and look even worse. I called my parents from the piazza, not realizing that it was 5 in the morning there, not even realizing that it was only 11 here. The light hits this place differently from planetary precession, so the shadows don’t look right to me. Longer? Shorter? I have no idea.
I’ve been trying to get by without using English at all, and it’s a slow start. I’m trying to be diligent about remembering words I regularly use and forget easily, and write down phrases that come to mind that I either learned or want to figure out. I’ve also got a file open just for dirty talking.
Italy is beautiful, the people are tolerant and at ease with themselves. They have the dignified air of a culture in recognition of its dependence on the tourist market, but stop themselves short of divesting anything less than Italian stoicism and pride at their work and day-to-day. Also, they're hot. From what I've seen so far, the sexy scales are actually skewed on the male side. Lots of sexy guys with perfectly groomed, toned, tanned, clothed bodies, and a few smatterings of cute girls in the girly stores.
Time really does move slower here, and nobody seems to care about a looming or soon-approaching anything. I asked about a mini-sm cable for my camera at an Italian-equivalent mall music store, and the employee just shrugged and said, “Nothing will be open today because of the festa, but you can get one during the week some time.” When I asked him where I could find it, he told me "across the piazza," which in Italy can mean pretty much any-fucking-where. The whole city is comprised of strada's, via's, and piazza's (a piazza is basically a stone courtyard with sculptures and lined on all sides with shops). Then he tried to sell me another memory card, assuming mine was full. Relaxed opportunism at its finest, like a really fat cat that decides to grace a crippled fly that just happened to fall near its paw with a few playful taps.
I can see how everyone tells stories about a friend they have who never came back. I’ve only been here a few hours and I already wish I was a local, happily shouldering the naiveté and euros of the millions of tourists who flow through Rome every year. The locals are immediately discernable in the fray of multi-cultural fucknuts like myself who walk around taking pictures of buildings, novel storefronts, and statues, with oversized street maps nearly blowing out of their hands and guiding them like a cartographic pied piper blindly into the streets. Amazingly, every incident I've seen like this (four, in the half a day I've been here) has been saved by the supreme skill of Italian drivers, who can somehow make their vehicles phase through solid rock, or shrink inward when squeezing through some tiny via and dodging some retarded aussie in a wifebeater. Maybe they slather their cars in olive oil and suntan lotion.
I bought an audio book of a popular Italian comedian to listen to when I’m walking around, in hopes that it will help me develop my ear more keenly to Italian phonetics, and a copy of the second book in the Hitchiker’s “trilogy” in Italian. I haven’t read the English version in at least four years, so it will be fun rediscovering the ingenious wit of Douglas Adams in a language that probably had to adapt itself to be funny around his unique narrative comedy. I even managed to have an exchange for more than two sentences with the woman working the counter, informing her that I didn’t know where to replace the book I had been eyeing before I’d happened on Adams. Tiny little proud moments like that are what will keep me going when I’m in a loud club and fail miserably and repeatedly to pick up any girls.
Something else I love about Italy: Familial responsibility. Since my arrival I have not been subjected to one screaming baby that wasn’t excused immediately, or any impetuous, fat, screaming children who have a mother casually ignoring them with text messages and television. People are actually present when they are in proximity to one-another here, probably because they don’t see the point of taking up space next to a familiar sentient being when all they’re doing is trying to ignore it while communicating with other sentient beings through an invisible medium.
On the note of proximity, something else culturally distinct from Americans that I’ve already begun to enjoy, Italians don’t mind closeness. Even now I’m sitting in a little café eating a club sandwich (with eggs and some really thick, soft cheese… my intestinal jury is still deliberating the verdict) at the end of three small tables stacked against each other on one wall of the café, and a man and his two sons came and sat down right next to me without any discomfort or readable emotions. He smiled at me at one point and offered “buon giorno,” then returned to his food. His sons both ate quietly and are now playing a card game, both of them probably around 8 and 10 years old.
I’m about to go back out into the heat and walk back to my hotel, where I can now check into my room and probably peruse the net for a bit before losing consciousness into the twitch-ridden hayride of my body and brain reclaiming the nutrients they need to survive. Being a Texan has already played in my favor in acclimatization, I’ve been able to hike around the whole city and not even need to find shade. That, and apparently Italians find Texans fascinating, probably because overseas we’re still residing within the echoes of Dallas (the show), oil rigs, horses, the Alamo, and George Bush. I want to find a screen printer somewhere in town and have a shirt printed that says:
“Mi dispiace, sono un stupido Americano. Prometto non provaró portare democrazia ecco.”
I’m sorry, I am a stupid American. I promise I won’t try to bring democracy here.
Annnnyyywwwaay...
I’m well beyond delirious punchy Sean now, and starting to slip into baffled and cranky Sean. I’m starting to feel really fucking haggard, and look even worse. I called my parents from the piazza, not realizing that it was 5 in the morning there, not even realizing that it was only 11 here. The light hits this place differently from planetary precession, so the shadows don’t look right to me. Longer? Shorter? I have no idea.
I’ve been trying to get by without using English at all, and it’s a slow start. I’m trying to be diligent about remembering words I regularly use and forget easily, and write down phrases that come to mind that I either learned or want to figure out. I’ve also got a file open just for dirty talking.
Italy is beautiful, the people are tolerant and at ease with themselves. They have the dignified air of a culture in recognition of its dependence on the tourist market, but stop themselves short of divesting anything less than Italian stoicism and pride at their work and day-to-day. Also, they're hot. From what I've seen so far, the sexy scales are actually skewed on the male side. Lots of sexy guys with perfectly groomed, toned, tanned, clothed bodies, and a few smatterings of cute girls in the girly stores.
Time really does move slower here, and nobody seems to care about a looming or soon-approaching anything. I asked about a mini-sm cable for my camera at an Italian-equivalent mall music store, and the employee just shrugged and said, “Nothing will be open today because of the festa, but you can get one during the week some time.” When I asked him where I could find it, he told me "across the piazza," which in Italy can mean pretty much any-fucking-where. The whole city is comprised of strada's, via's, and piazza's (a piazza is basically a stone courtyard with sculptures and lined on all sides with shops). Then he tried to sell me another memory card, assuming mine was full. Relaxed opportunism at its finest, like a really fat cat that decides to grace a crippled fly that just happened to fall near its paw with a few playful taps.
I can see how everyone tells stories about a friend they have who never came back. I’ve only been here a few hours and I already wish I was a local, happily shouldering the naiveté and euros of the millions of tourists who flow through Rome every year. The locals are immediately discernable in the fray of multi-cultural fucknuts like myself who walk around taking pictures of buildings, novel storefronts, and statues, with oversized street maps nearly blowing out of their hands and guiding them like a cartographic pied piper blindly into the streets. Amazingly, every incident I've seen like this (four, in the half a day I've been here) has been saved by the supreme skill of Italian drivers, who can somehow make their vehicles phase through solid rock, or shrink inward when squeezing through some tiny via and dodging some retarded aussie in a wifebeater. Maybe they slather their cars in olive oil and suntan lotion.
I bought an audio book of a popular Italian comedian to listen to when I’m walking around, in hopes that it will help me develop my ear more keenly to Italian phonetics, and a copy of the second book in the Hitchiker’s “trilogy” in Italian. I haven’t read the English version in at least four years, so it will be fun rediscovering the ingenious wit of Douglas Adams in a language that probably had to adapt itself to be funny around his unique narrative comedy. I even managed to have an exchange for more than two sentences with the woman working the counter, informing her that I didn’t know where to replace the book I had been eyeing before I’d happened on Adams. Tiny little proud moments like that are what will keep me going when I’m in a loud club and fail miserably and repeatedly to pick up any girls.
Something else I love about Italy: Familial responsibility. Since my arrival I have not been subjected to one screaming baby that wasn’t excused immediately, or any impetuous, fat, screaming children who have a mother casually ignoring them with text messages and television. People are actually present when they are in proximity to one-another here, probably because they don’t see the point of taking up space next to a familiar sentient being when all they’re doing is trying to ignore it while communicating with other sentient beings through an invisible medium.
On the note of proximity, something else culturally distinct from Americans that I’ve already begun to enjoy, Italians don’t mind closeness. Even now I’m sitting in a little café eating a club sandwich (with eggs and some really thick, soft cheese… my intestinal jury is still deliberating the verdict) at the end of three small tables stacked against each other on one wall of the café, and a man and his two sons came and sat down right next to me without any discomfort or readable emotions. He smiled at me at one point and offered “buon giorno,” then returned to his food. His sons both ate quietly and are now playing a card game, both of them probably around 8 and 10 years old.
I’m about to go back out into the heat and walk back to my hotel, where I can now check into my room and probably peruse the net for a bit before losing consciousness into the twitch-ridden hayride of my body and brain reclaiming the nutrients they need to survive. Being a Texan has already played in my favor in acclimatization, I’ve been able to hike around the whole city and not even need to find shade. That, and apparently Italians find Texans fascinating, probably because overseas we’re still residing within the echoes of Dallas (the show), oil rigs, horses, the Alamo, and George Bush. I want to find a screen printer somewhere in town and have a shirt printed that says:
“Mi dispiace, sono un stupido Americano. Prometto non provaró portare democrazia ecco.”
I’m sorry, I am a stupid American. I promise I won’t try to bring democracy here.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Goodbye
Echoing in it somewhere.
I'm at 10,000 feet and climbing, and the plane is languidly banking through the sky, a big metal whale coarsing its body into the ocean, insinuating itself into space and time...
I'm probably just really high. Hour 26 with no sleep and just four hours of sleep before that, Jack Bauer doesn't have shit on me. This is very probably the most beautiful scenic departure from DFW I've ever witnessed. The special cookie I chomped when I was in line at security is settling in nicely with the sleep deprivation, caffeine, and adderall.
A golden lake is unfolding underneath me, welling up from the sprawl of Dallas like blood pooling out o f a stomach wound. Goodbye... echoing in it somewhere is the feelings, the heart ache and terminality I am leaving behind.
Everyone I spent time with in the last few weeks encouraged me with such profound energy and positivity about this, and they're really the only reason I'm here. I've felt nothing but detachment and numbness from the succession of relationships ending, life stopping, and things I've become attached to slipping away.
I'm here now because the only the that makes sense in this chaos is the constancy of a path insisting itself upon me. The universe is talking to me, as it does to all of us, but it's doing it very loudly and dramatically, with lots of exclamation points and powerpoint presentations. In a very short time everything condensed itself into one focus, collapsing the walls around me and forcing me to look to Italy for answers.
A long time ago a very big tree told me I should listen, learn, and grow. Grow like only a tree knows how to grow, through everything. Of course, I was on mushrooms at the time, but it was a huge fucking tree. It's harder to ignore talking things when they're the size of your consciousness. Anyway, I've been having these flashes, like 2 second hallucinations, overlaid on what I'm seeing and experiencing in a moment. It's like putting on 3D glasses when you're just looking at normal things, there's an opaque form laying over the solid one. Sometimes I see places I've been, other times they're unfamiliar.
...I'm fairly certain I'm just rambling now. You can gather what I'm getting at. Stuff is happening. Overarching plans. Cosmic chess. Stellar scrabble.
-Sean
I'm at 10,000 feet and climbing, and the plane is languidly banking through the sky, a big metal whale coarsing its body into the ocean, insinuating itself into space and time...
I'm probably just really high. Hour 26 with no sleep and just four hours of sleep before that, Jack Bauer doesn't have shit on me. This is very probably the most beautiful scenic departure from DFW I've ever witnessed. The special cookie I chomped when I was in line at security is settling in nicely with the sleep deprivation, caffeine, and adderall.
A golden lake is unfolding underneath me, welling up from the sprawl of Dallas like blood pooling out o f a stomach wound. Goodbye... echoing in it somewhere is the feelings, the heart ache and terminality I am leaving behind.
Everyone I spent time with in the last few weeks encouraged me with such profound energy and positivity about this, and they're really the only reason I'm here. I've felt nothing but detachment and numbness from the succession of relationships ending, life stopping, and things I've become attached to slipping away.
I'm here now because the only the that makes sense in this chaos is the constancy of a path insisting itself upon me. The universe is talking to me, as it does to all of us, but it's doing it very loudly and dramatically, with lots of exclamation points and powerpoint presentations. In a very short time everything condensed itself into one focus, collapsing the walls around me and forcing me to look to Italy for answers.
A long time ago a very big tree told me I should listen, learn, and grow. Grow like only a tree knows how to grow, through everything. Of course, I was on mushrooms at the time, but it was a huge fucking tree. It's harder to ignore talking things when they're the size of your consciousness. Anyway, I've been having these flashes, like 2 second hallucinations, overlaid on what I'm seeing and experiencing in a moment. It's like putting on 3D glasses when you're just looking at normal things, there's an opaque form laying over the solid one. Sometimes I see places I've been, other times they're unfamiliar.
...I'm fairly certain I'm just rambling now. You can gather what I'm getting at. Stuff is happening. Overarching plans. Cosmic chess. Stellar scrabble.
THINGS I FORGOT
I've just got to remain conscious for another three hours to board the plane from Newark to Rome, then I'm going to turn my brain off on the plane with a whole bunch of Ambien. I'll be arriving tomorrow morning in Italy, so hopefully this will give me a head start on getting my sleep schedule regulated. Or maybe I'll just be exhausted and cranky.- My memory foam pillow
- A 1/4" to 1/8" jack adapter for my new headphones
- My circadian rhythm
- How to speak Italian
- Dove sono
** Crimping can sometimes refer to a kind of fold used in Origami. **
-Sean
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