Twisted Tips for Truly Tricky Travelers

Ciao, ragazzi! Mi dispace for not writing recently. I just got back from a much-needed, 4 day, last-Italian-adventure, blow-off-steam-and-not-study-for-finals trip to Sicily. I have a few blog posts, including one of blogging tips and tools of the trade for other bloggers, that I have currently under wraps, but right now, my state-side roommate is currently here, and I think being social with something other than my computer screen is favorable. Despite the fact that I actually did bring it to Sicily, not much writing was done on it. It was only used to alert the world of our continued existence after travelling to and in the birthplace of epic volcanoes and this little organization called...the Mafia?...and to watch Champlain's graduation (tears optional). Mostly, it was a 5 pound weight on my sunburned shoulders in my backpack.

Getting to and from Sicily seemed like it may never happen. I was the one who ended up planning the travel itinerary, which, truthfully, was the first real itinerary I have ever planned in my life. I tend to be a "by-the-seat-of-my-pants" girl, but on a huge island in which you don't speak the language so much and is surrounded by volcanoes and people with an affinity for cement boots (if Hollywood can convince you of this fact), is not someplace you want to be standing around, going "Huh?" I was so preoccupied attending my last Wednesday night class, running to Santa Maria Novella station afterward, and buying my train ticket to get into Rome and meet Alli to spend the night at JD's that I completely overlooked a few facts. Mainly, the fact that validating tickets in Italy is a big deal. And so, "Twisted Tips for Tricky Travelers" was born.

Not validating a train ticket can cost you either up to 50 Euro, or an eviction from said train, hopefully, while it's not still moving. I made the penultimate mistake, short of never even buying a ticket (this, however, is something I "conveniently" forget to do every time I'm in Rome, but there's more on that later), when I was so caught up in enjoying my ultimate travel McNugget Happy Meal that I completely forgot to validate my 44 Euro fast-train ticket. I was halfway through my crunchy, sinfully salty and greasy fries by the time I realized this, and sat there, stunned, completely thrown off my McComfort Food. It's a totally noob mistake, and I am not a noob in Italy anymore. In fact, I moseyed over to Santa Maria Novella Stazione, ordered my McDonalds, got my water, ignored the kissy noises and comments, and got on the train in complete and total Italian ease. Why I missed those little yellow boxes, I'll never know.

So I sat there, repeating "fuck" over and over in my head, which is the one English swear I will not let go of because there is really no equivalent, and mentally calculated the first $75 would be charged to my newly minted, never-been-used, very scary credit card when I came up with my dastardly Plan of Action: to play the Dumb American Traveling in Italy for the First Time.

Thank god I was on my way for a weekend of hiking and beaching, and so, wore my "adventure clothes" of cuffed boyfriend jeans, scuffed-to-shit Vans slip-on sneakers, and was carrying my undeniably ostentatious red and white Burton backpack. Also, thank god I was not only willing to "look cute, be charming, stumble with my Italian, apologize and blink my big blue eyes" as Alli instructed me via text-- I also had chosen a good day to wear a baby blue shirt that brought out said big blue eyes and a strand of classy pearls.

And then I came up with what is possibly one of the most cunning and manipulative plans of my life. Which, of course, I am sharing with you so you can abuse it, too, if you ever find yourself in the same sort of situation:

- I plugged my iPod in,

- Hid my diamond which suggested wealth and the incorrect idea that I may be able to pay a 50 Euro fine, and

- Pretended to be asleep.

Sure enough, when the train steward came by to check tickets as they always do, I appeared to be, and actually kind of was, fast asleep. She gently tapped my shoulder, and I started awake with an "Oh! Oh!" as she apologized and asked for my ticket. Then, in one of the most painful moments of my life, and in one of the most convincing moments of my acting career, pretended to not understand a word she said, not even when she asked "Parli Italiano?" Instead, I made what must have been a very dumb and confused face and answered, "Uhhh, no," in English. She switched languages and asked for my ticket again as I rubbed my eyes. I fished it out of my pocket and presented it to her as if it were Excalibur, watching as he eyes went straight to the empty spot where the validation was supposed to be. She looked quickly at me once more (charming, helpless, blink, blink), and then punched the ticket as checked, while thanking me, still in English, and wishing me a good trip. I then "went back to sleep."

Does this make me a bad person? Yes. A cheap-skate? Probably. But I want to thank Mill River's Stage 40 theater department, Mr. Bruno, and Peter Marsh for 6 years of excellent acting coaching. Thank you, dad, for those big blue eyes. And thank you, very nice train steward lady, for letting this dumb American girl go on to Roma and then Sicilia.

Though Sicilian (that's pronounced "Se-chill-ian") and Italian may be two completely different linguistic creatures, Sicilia is by far the favorite place I have been to in Italy. We got in to Palermo and visited the Botanical Gardens, the Rotunda, and hopped a bus to Mondello beach, where, after some overcast weather and having soccer balls and sand kicked at us by Sicilian middle-schoolers, we decided to call it a visit, and hop on our bus to Catania before I started screaming "Basta, ragazzi! Sei stronzo!"

Catania was a completely different story. Though the city may have felt like it was stuck in a time warp from the early '90s, it had enough sooty Baroque buildings, tourists, and locals to give it a well-lived-in feel. As I told Alli, "You know it's Sicily when at night, you can hear someone's mother chastising them from across the street through their open windows." The pastries were to die for. The market in the mornings, a foodie's madhouse. We bought our food there and took it away to sit in view of historical castellos and piazzas and lunched on fluffy rolls hot from the oven, prosciutto, fresh black pepper and pecorino cheese, olives soaked in olive oil, and some of the best oranges, strawberries, and melon I have ever had for about 5 Euro a person.

Our last day and night, we stayed in Catania City Center B&B in what could quite possibly become my Sicilian flat, newly renovated, painted, and decorated, with full kitchen, bathroom, and queen-size bed, for the dirt-cheap price of 65 Euro, which in no way reflected the ambiance. There was Wi-Fi. A flat-screen, high-def TV. And Satellite cable. And a DVD player, complete with a DVD library. Free breakfast in the morning. Angela, the B&B owner, not only made us some UNBELIEVABLE cappuccino, but also helped us with a thousand and one tiny, annoying questions we had about the internet, Catania, and helped us coordinate how to get to the beach. (Any errors made in course were strictly our mistakes as bumbling American travelers. As you will see.) I have stayed in a lot of hotels, B&Bs, and hostels in my life from places there was no hot running water (AHEM--Agora Hostel--AHEM) to the Waldorf Astoria and a concierge suite in Montreal's Hilton. And I am telling you, straight up, no shit-- Catania City Center B&B was the best place I have ever spent a night. It redefines clean, modern, efficient, and welcoming. So much that instead of eating out at a restaurant that night, we got kebabs and Muscato dessert wine to go, and spent the night in our flat lounging, eating, drinking, and watching the Scooby Doo movie.

Oh, that should also be addressed: Sicilian dessert wines are by far some of the most sweet, succulent, delicious nectar from the gods that you will ever drink. I spent roughly 30 to 35 U.S dollars on a bottle of Muscato to celebrate graduation in absentia since we couldn't be in Burlington to actually party, so happy fucking graduation, I bought myself a very expensive bottle of wine to think about drinking with you guys. Best served either very chilled, or naturally very warmed from the afternoon Sicilian sun.

Friday evening, we took a sunset hike up Mount Etna, also known as, "Oh my god, I'm from the Northeast and have never seen a volcano! THAT IS LAVA! THAT IS REAL, BLACK, HARDENED LAVA!" We went with the Etna Tattoo and Art Cafe Club, and not only did our guide Ernesto get us there, up, down, and back alive, he also provided some cold weather clothing after my speech on the attributes of Gore-Tex (waterproof, windproof, insulating,) got lost in translation, an impromptu karaoke show for us from the jump-seats in the back of his Land Rover, and some bites of a truly excellent prosciutto and cheese sandwich. We even got enough cell reception at the top of the big caldera to call our friend from his motherland as a pre-graduation present. It was, by far, one of the top 3 great experiences of my life. It may have even edged out some of the better sex I've had. That's how unreal it was. The white sand beach and swimming in the Meditteranian was nice. The black lava beach under Aci Castello was stunning (and hot). But Etna, looming over all of Catania at a truly staggering elevation, belching small tufts of smoke, was what really stunned this writer who previously thought she was a real "big mountain girl" from Vermont. HA HA. I lose.

The people of Sicily, however, are really what made it. From hiking Etna with the fun-loving, multi-lingual mountain destroyers Tyrone and Maria, to the old men who serenaded us in the streets, to the 16 year old girl on the city bus who invited us to her birthday party next week (probably to be the entertainment as she thought me struggling through a conversation in Italian was HEE-LAR-I-OUS,) to the Sheraton hotel front desk man who through a conversational mix of Italian, French, and English called us a cab after we hiked a mile from Aci Castello to Aci Trezza after missing our bus and trying to get back to Catania in time to catch our bus to Palermo, they are, without a doubt, the best Italians I have had the pleasure of interacting with. I was afraid at first from all of the guidebook warnings of them being a very closed and guarded culture. Totally unfounded. Our very sweet cabby Giovanni who had our American-Sicilian friend's liquid and unfairly long-lashed eyes and was quite tricky himself when he asked us if we wanted to take the cab from Catania to Palermo (to the tune of around 300 Euro,) actually complimented us with the universal sign for "you're clever" with a twist of his index in the dimple of his cheek after we emphatically responded with a "NO!!!" and then laughed when he asked us if we "like the Catanese boys?" and we gave an equally emphatic "SI!!!"

In another episode of traveler trickery in which never buying bus tickets for city buses in Rome or Sicily was involved, when Alli and I were the last two people on the bus to La Playa beach, and our driver got up to check the ticket validating machines, partly to head him off from asking for our (nonexistent) tickets and partially to actually get an answer, I asked him before he could get to us if the bus was stopping at the beach. (In Italian, of course.) He told us no, and after seeing our crestfallen little faces, asked if that's where we were trying to go. "Si," I answered, and the next thing I knew, he was telling us he would take us there. How many other people can say that they had a city bus drive 20 minutes outside of its route to personally drop them off at the beach like a very, VERY long stretch limo? That's the Sicilian way.

I don't think I have to tell you out-right that I highly suggest taking a trip to Sicily or even possibly living there for a bit. (Maybe a year or so.) But in the case that my arguement for this scrappy and potentially erupting little island has convinced you enough, here are some tips. I'll tell it bluntly: Sicilians are small. Their buildings are large. The men are swarthy and gorgeous. Try to keep your panties on. Palermo is a Napolean-sized Rome. Catania is prettier. Sicily is dirty. Don't expect to find many trashcans or Western toilet seats. Taking an SAIS bus is the easiest, cheapest, and most comfortable way to travel. All SAIS bus drivers are hip 30-something dudes with cool shades. You don't have to get city bus tickets. Just hop on. Hop off if you see a ticket inspector get on. TRY to speak some Italian. Eating is cheap. Sicilians are loud. Fair-skinned people will burn easily. Lava beaches are sharp and hard on the ass. Plus, any city that sells trademarked seeds outside of Amsterdam is down with me.

Right now, I'm brown as a nut, probably going to start peeling, mid-finals, and I return back state-side in 3 days. If you have any questions about Italy or my travels while I'm still here, now would be the time to send me a comment and ask me.

Ciao-ciao!

XOXO

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.

My friend Arielle, who is a very wise woman, said something to me the other day as we were discussing our time living in Italy-- "No one decides to go halfway around the world and study abroad for months for no reason. If your life was perfect, you wouldn't be in Italy, or Ireland, or France. I think everyone who studies abroad, whether they know it or not, is trying to escape from something."

That girl knows how to kick me in the ass like almost no other.

What she said is true. Think about it. If you were perfectly content and happy with your life at home, why would you leave? Why would you uproot, leave all your support systems, and decide that maybe, living somewhere 4,000 miles away sounded like a good idea? Why would you exchange your apartment, job, college, local grocery store, friends, climate, coffee shop, and daily routine for new ones if you were still so enamored with the old ones? It is not because, as some might say, you "wanted the experience." To that, I say bullshit. Yes, it certainly is an experience, but so is going to your closest amusement park and riding a roller coaster. If you wanted to shake your life up a bit, you would find a new job or get a haircut. You would not pack your life into two suitcases, a backpack, and a very large purse and move yourself across the globe for a nice jaunt. That is not an "experience." That is a life change, and you have to have a very good reason for making one of those, believe me.

I know because what Arielle said applies for me, too. One thing that I have learned while over here is what I am, and what I am not. And one thing that I am is a runner. If I have an issue, I tend to run away from it. In fact, Italy was my biggest runner of all. Italy was my answer to running away from my life for over three months, putting everything I could not fix on hold, and distancing myself from reality. In the months before I left, things happened in my life that I didn't have answers for. I lost someone incredibly important to me. I was stagnant in my job. I found myself in a situation that I didn't know how to deal with, because I did not have the guts to actually speak up about what I wanted and what I needed and what I was feeling. I experienced raw, emotional pain for the first time in my life like a tidal wave that sucked me down into the deepest depression of my life. Nothing was working. I got scared. I was flailing, and falling, and striking out at whatever came near me. I remember, hazily, screaming at my mother in the car while sobbing hysterically. I remember my hands shaking from thinly controlled nerves as I tried to paint. I remember turning back to chemical release because I still could not use words to remedy the situation I was in, and so, smoking could do it for me. I remember hours spent lying on my bed, in the dark, not doing anything, because just moving hurt. I remember days where I did not talk. I remember not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, because then I would see hipbones and ribs and sharp angles that I had never had before.

And so I came to Italy because I was letting go of everything that was holding me back, because I was leaving. I was checking out. I was done with living the way I had been. I came thinking that that would be the answer to life. I got shiny and sleek from the hot sun and rich food. My hair got longer in passing with the days. I started to heal. But, like Arielle, I started to realize why I had come to study abroad. I started to separate the experience from the impetus.

It took some massive struggles and some pretty tough self-love. I didn't like myself all of the time. I still don't, some days. I can be obsessive, illogical, irrational, jealous of things I cannot change, and--yes-- neurotic, and a HUUUGE flaming hypocrite. I cannot, in other words, get out of my own way. Like every person, I like to think that I was a great baby. In reality, my mother tells me that until I learned how to "get out of my own way" and crawl, I was miserable. And just like when I was a baby, with the stress of finals looming, eight-and-over page papers due in nearly every class, trying to find a job to now go with my apartment and nearly $700-a-month rent from across the ocean, my body rejecting nearly everything I try to put in it because at this point it is trying to physically reject Italy itself, and a massive question-mark hovering over the status of my life back in Vermont, I am fussy and just want to go home and figure all that out. NOW. I started to panic. I started to obsess and started to expect more than was feasible from other people, and then take it personally when things didn't pan out. I started to shut down. Like, "Get me on a plane tomorrow, ship me home, and the devil take my finals and credits and grades, because I have figured out me, I have figured out my life here, and now it is time to rejoin reality and figure out my life there."

But then I realized that if I went home now, I would have forever run away from something else-- something which I will never get a chance to get back. I also would incur a large amount of debt from switching my ticket that, seeing as I am currently job-less, I would not be able to pay back until the already large lump-sum had accrued even more money not being paid off on my (brand-new, never used, very scary) credit card. Overall, I think staying for the next 16 days is in my best interest. And so, to make it easier on myself, I cut the things out that were making me unnecessarily worry and over-hype and expect and wait and wait and wait for SOMETHING to happen, for some divine clue that everything was alright and that life back home was waiting for me to return, just as it was when I left, just as I hoped it would be. This means, for the next week, no skulking around Facebook. No waiting on Skype. No Twitter (except to Tweet these updates to the blog). This, of course, I cannot cut out, and wouldn't want to. If I couldn't write, I would die. As simple as that. (One of the things I discovered, inequivocably, I am: a writer. In that, I chose rightly.)

It does not mean, however, that it isn't very hard. I now have an apartment in Burlington that all I want is for it to be June 1st so I can move in. I want to have Saph's head on my chest again, impossibly heavy and nearly knocking me over, her nostrils making wet pockets on my shirt, my nostrils filled with the scent of hay and dust and horse. I want to wake up early and go for a walk with the trees overhead like a canopy, so early that no one else is up and I can savor a Vermont morning, all by myself. I want to drive my Civic again and panic about hill-stops on Main Street. I want to be back among my people, my friends, and the plaidness of it all. I want to find out what's going on, and where I stand. I want to have (physically, if not also emotionally if it is not too much to ask for,) safe sex again. I want to not have to smoke as much, though this is a completely open-for-interpretation desire, as my smoking habits vary directly with my stress levels. In any case, I want to not have to buy a new pack every five days.

Right now, I need more than is fair to ask from others. And so, that leads to having to ask myself to be everything I need. And this is why I came abroad, come to find out. I had to leave so that I could find myself. So that I could learn to be nearly everything I need. So that I could learn that I am obsessive, and illogical, and irrational, and jealous, and-- yes-- neurotic, and that I can be a huge hypocrite. The one thing I have to say about this period of time of running away is that though Arielle may have been right in the fact that I had a reason for leaving my life, I found an even better one to return to it: who I am, what I want, and what I need. And so, I close with this thought: though wanderers and runners and study abroad students may leave to go someplace for reasons they don't know, they will find them once they get there. If you leave someplace, you will discover why. And if you go somewhere new, you will discover something new about yourself, not just about your location. Many times, I have foolishly wished I didn't come here, just so that things could "stay normal" at home and so I wouldn't "have to worry." But in the end, what I have found here, and what has happened in Italy will be what sticks with me for the rest of my life, despite whatever I find has or has not changed back home. Not all those who wander are lost.

XOXO

New Faces, Deep Tans, Deep Ties.

I've met a lot of people while in Italy. Australian guys, New York girls, Minnesota couchsurfers, a Singapore traveler, and accidentally Vermonters. Without meaning to, I kind of stumbled right into the world of Couchsurfing.org when I made instant friends with a girl couchsurfing her way back through Italy and Europe. The day she left, I got a phone call from another couchsurfer, asking if I could show her around Florence. I wasn't expecting on doing anything that day other than eating Nerbone's lampredotto sandwich and catching up on all of my past-past-due Portfolio homework, but I broke down and said "sure" after listening to how enthusiastic and eager-to-please my new Florentine acolyte sounded. I grumbled about it all the way to the Marcato, but promptly fell right into friendship, just like always, with this fun, spunky girl from Singapore. I ended up spending the day with her and Arielle, just having Girl Time in our apartments and gelato shops across the city, and the homework remained not done. (Or even started.) This morning, I was reading one of my favorite travel chick-lit books by Jessica Morrison, "The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club", which I brought with me for comfort reading, when I found this passage:

"These things may have happened only months or weeks ago, but it is our only history, so we hold onto every moment with both hands. It's all we have...Zoey and I promise to visit each other back home and to email constantly, but behind these promises we harbor the unspoken truth that the friendship we embraced so voraciously here-- for travelers, I have learned, must be voracious with their friendships-- won't be easily reconstructed. 'This was the best time, you know,' she whispers to me the next morning as we wait for her taxi to the airport to arrive. 'Nothing will ever be the same as Buenos Aires.'" (Morrison, 200-201).

Just like nothing will ever be the same as Italy. The people I've met, the new faces that I hold as dear from three months, or even just three days, as the ones I've known for years; the sights I've seen, the smells, the tastes, the things that whispered against my skin-- hot air, warm sun, soft fabrics, chilly water, ancient dust, cold stone, countless strangers-- the adventures with both old friends and new ones-- none of this will ever be the same. I may be counting down (27 days,) but the shifts that have opened up in me to rearrange to fit new people into my life are forever. Easter and exploding carts with Aussies. Drinking on a pebble beach in Cinque Terre at 3 AM with Alli. Thursday Night Girl's Night (dinner, drinks, dessert, dishing out gossip,) with the Ghibellina Girls, and our mutually-enabling shopping, chocolate, and lazy afternoons with Arielle. Missed trains with Naomi. A group of drunk 30-something Americans and a bartender with bulging biceps in Montorosso. Cannoli-slinging Sicilian twins Massimo and Jean-Luca in Vernazza with the best ricotta cream filling in the world and saucy wit. Equally frustrated Italian classes with Erin, dissolving frustration into laughter with sentences like "Albero e mio ragazzo," "Tu sei caldo come il pane," and "Io lavoro a banca," the last of which does NOT mean, as those of you who may have taken a few years of French like we did and be horrified, "I wash in the bank"-- instead, it means "I WORK in the bank."

Without meaning to, and kind of hesitantly, Arielle and I sort of became Couchsurfing's Florence mascots, but in the end, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Traveler's attract each other. That's the way it is, the way it should be, and the the way it has to be. I've learned more from these people about life, relaxation, indulgence, mellowing, making things happen, taking chances, Aussie slang, how women and men are the same the world over, and just taking life one step at a time than I ever could have by myself. I whole-heartedly encourage you to seek out other wanderers when you wander away from home, because you'll find that where they are, you and a feeling of home is, too.

Now, unlike some of my more genetically-gifted new friends, I am white-white-painfully-white. I'm a Northern European snow princess. But there is nothing I love more than sun and a good, natural tan. I've been spending two hours of every blisteringly sunny day sitting out on the balcony in my bikini, trying desperately to achieve a color other than "fish-belly white", to no avail. Today, finally aggravated beyond everything, I stomped back into the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel and the bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, and slathered myself in the oil like I was basting myself to marinate. And back out and marinate I did. Not only did the oil soak right into my Mediterranean-dried skin like an oasis in the desert, but the smell and the suppleness it gave to my skin felt incredibly sexy, like some sort of Grecian sun goddess. And I was browning nicely within ten minutes. Huh. I suggest this trick to anyone fed up with dry skin and slow tanning, and not a redhead. When in Italy, you have to live like the Italians do.

XOXO