Last night as Bec and I walked home from a late and lovely Indian dinner on Brick Lane - a dinner exploding with spices so tasty that they danced in a million colors of wonder before our eyes (okay, not THAT amazing, but how about that description, eh?) - a besotted man stopped us on the street vacillating like shafts of wheat shaking gently in the wind. He paused, looking confused as if trying to remember what it was he had planned on saying. Then he pointed at me and ventured, "You are the most beautiful girl I've seen in my entire life." That's when I knew he was really plastered. That or maybe its the plastic surgery makeover I had which has turned me into a living likeness of Marlene Deitrich. Hmmm. Either way, I'll take empty, whiskey-tinged comments if they come out as ridiculously good- or maybe just as ridiculous - as that.
So la-de-dah. Today I spent doing event staffing/food services work again - this time around at London's cycling convention. While I rang register and made the occasional frothy-to-perfection cappuccino, bike extremists learned about tires, breaks and aerodynamic seats, or admired the beauty of bike wear-clad dance performances smoother than Michael Jackson in Thriller. Next weekend I will be working at a Hair and Beauty salon convention and on for a different company at some shishi party at Sotheby's.
At the internship, I've been doing photography for the next auction. Just call me Adams, Ansel Adams. In a few weeks time, you'll be able to see my masterpieces on kerrytaylorauctions.com. Give it a few more weeks and you can buy a ticket for my exhibition at the Tate Modern. All attendees of the opening gala will be entitled to a free cake of their choice and to a square foot of sleeping space on my floor. Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and my buddies Michelangelo and Oskar Kokoschka with all be there to celebrate. Among this show-stopping portfolio, the real winners are the photos of the sensuous buttons. In these portraits, I toyed with aperture - we played dominoes if you want the specifics - and came out with the worlds most damn glorious photos of buttons you'll ever see this side of everywhere. One or two shimmering fasteners are caught in zillion-pixel sharpness while the rest of the buttons fade away into morning light dancing on the sharp ripples of a summertime lake.
I've also been spending the past week at the auctioneers calling the fashion house Courreges trying to reach the elusive Madam B..... I've called so much that when I ring I need say no more than "Bonjour" and Christoff the receptionist knows who I was. To say it Clueless-ly, We're like, OH MY GAWD, best friends.
Oh and about things French... in two weeks time I'm going to visit the city where my heart has been paved over the sidewalks: Paris. Mon coup de coeur! I plan on eating my body weight in almond croissants.
Until then, I'm in London. It's 8:35 on a Saturday night. I've got no plans because Bec is at a comedy show, Noellia (flatmate 2) is home in Spain and my one American friend is in Paris. When I first arrived in London and at least two people (though likely more as my jet lag-laden stupor impaired my memory like the Men in Black) told me that they'd been here many months and met few friends. I was unsure of the verity of this statement But hot damn hot potatoes, the concatenation of these past five weeks has lead me to see that it's not exactly an easy task to meet people in this here city. Without the conduit of university and dorm life nor a plethora of co-workers, I feel like a polar north in a field of souths. I'm not used to these big busy New 'Yorkaise' cities. I am happy, yes, my current 'mates' are bunches of fun, but I should try to find those other poor lost souls stuck in a city full of people whose lives have been sucked to the fathoms below by the big vacuum of 'being to busy.' Maybe my expectations are too high. Maybe I'm actually socially inept. Yes that must be it, I am to awkwardness what Elvis to rock and roll. Hahaha noooooo. So, in efforts to shed my cocoon in search of my former butterfly being, I'll be going to a French language meet up on Tuesday and will deliberate joining a book club. Oh look at me, the image of infinite cool, the James Dean of our lives, let me just brush my shoulders off of all those book and language clubs. Or, maybe I'll just continue being happy with my four friends. I'm not as forlorn as this all may sound - I promise.
That's about all to report. It's more so that I just felt like writing than that I had much to say. With the world turned into a carnival ride and the elections exactly one month away, it must be an exciting time over there is America where most of you reside. You know I'd love to hear about it all.
Come Mr. Tally-Mon tally me banana,
Hannah
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
2+2=4. You can do maths too! And other such shenanigans.
2+2= 4. You can do maths too! Yes, it's true. Here is Britain, people don't do math, they do maths. As I was riding the Tube one fair afternoon, I espied a subway sign. "Be a teacher!" It touted. "Imagine all the creative ways you can teach maths." Maths. It's good and all when you can add, but it's also great to learn grammar. Someone is in the wrong here be it the US or the UK. Math or Maths? You take your choice and duel it out.
It has been quite the busy week here in London. I've just spent two days doing catering work at a New Zealand and South African music festival. By catering I mean running a til and giving people beer. Here, a beer, don't fear, come near, drink beer. Catering work, although I imagined I'd be walking around with a tray of pigs in a blanket (and hurriedly sneaking spares into my work pants pockets until they bulged with a wad of grease. mmmmm. Well, maybe I'd only do that with eggplant napoleons.) is a good deal. Get paid decently, choose your hours - just what a person like me needs. Oh flexibility - if I can't have you perfectly in the physical sense, I'll just have to accost you in other ways.
Back at my internship, you, my dearest readers, have missed many an exciting event. We had an auction, tea, little silver gavels, bidding, silver spoons and all. I was the faithful email bid checker and online bid approver. So, keep this in mind: if ever you plan to bid online with Kerry Taylor Auctions, you better send me flower, chocolates, sapphires, plantains, a collection of glass sheep, and a lavender scented rosewater if ever you want to be approved as a bidder. Without such gifts, DECLINE DECLINE DECLINE. No bids for you! Well, it auction was a neat event to see. As it was a smaller auction, it was held at the warehouse/office. I've been picking up the aftermath of the auction for the past week, putting it into gargantuan plastic bags and tagging them for shipping. One to America. One to Spain. One to Timbuktu!
I do enjoy the internship, same as before. I like the material that passes through my hands, literally and figuratively. I like the ladies I work with. What I don't like, and this really has nothing to do with the internship, is the monotony that my life has fallen slave to like Britney Spears for you. (Recall: I'm a slaaavvvve for yoooou). Monday through Friday, I wake up at 7:30, catch the bus at 8:30, arrive at 9:15, work til 5:30. Take the bus home. Make dinner. Go to the gym (a good few days of the week). Shower. Go to bed. Wake up and do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat... repeat... reapeat.... True, the weekends are open to my whims, but I feel like the majority of my life has become cookie cut into the figure-eight of infinity. I guess that's what real life is like. So, some may call it real life, but I call it boring. Guess I'll have to get used to it.
With all, oooooh 4 friends that I have here, I've been doing not so badly. Friday was a smashing night out with my cohabitants Rebecca and Noellia and Rebecca's friends. We ran around town, singing, cavorting and throwing glitter that sparkled into a hazy oblivion of joy. It took us about one hour to finally reach a bar during which Rebecca stopped to talk to a homeless man for 10 minutes and I in my boredom stood on top of an electrical box and held out my hand at people shouting "Halt! Who goes there!?" Everyone passing by found it hysterical (as did I) including the policemen and the driver who rolled down his window to ask my what I was doing. It was the highlight of my evening despite the fact that noone answered with the correct response which would have been: "It is I, King Arthur!" Come on Brits, it your own bloody Monty Python.
Best thing of last weekend was a skate. A huge skate. A 200-some-people big skate through the rocky streets of London. One bright and sunshine-y Sunday in a land not so far away, amid the fresh green lawns of Hyde Park, my American friend Christy and I, along with the enlisted help of some very kind but slightly awkward Brits, found ourselves waiting for Godot. Godot? By that I mean waiting to rollerskate like fiends. We'd rented some skates, ready to join the hundreds that show up weekly for a skate through London. It was glorious. There were speakers blaring music and we set off stopping traffic like Jim Carey in the Mask as we rolled along bumpy streets on a 10 mile roller skate. It's like all my dreams coming true! A similar event happens weekly in Paris and I never got to go during my year abroad despite my aching desire to do so.
In other forms of excercize, I see people running here, often under the burden of a backpack. "Why?" you ask. Well I asked the same thing too, but I think I've got it figured out. There is a huge, say wooly mamoth huge, event that takes place every spring in London. The Quasimoto race. For this race, people have hunchbacks surgically installed and grovel along a 300 mile loop around Britain. Everyone has to quote Victor Hugo novels along the way and they can only eat large drumsticks of fire-roasted turkey a la Renaissance festivals. The first to win gets free chocolate for life. So these people I see running with backpacks are, in earnest, training for this race.
There are so many bars in Britain named the "such and such arms". The Founder's Arms. The Greenwich Arms. The Southwark Arms. The Fire Arms. The I'm up in Arms. The Surrender your Arms. The Hold me in your Arms. I don't get it. Why all the arms? What's the big idea with naming your pub the blah blah blah Arms? Why not legs? Or Pancreases?
I forgot to mention last time that I live in Mawdley House (and yes, I will give you my address if you so desire, but that's besides the point). On my street there is Dauncey House and Overy House (where I hear plenty of fertile women live) and so forth. It's like I never left my summer housing at Harvard. Or like I'm in Harry Potter. I'm still waiting to hear about the inter-house intramural games however.
Well kiddos, I hope you've had your fix of Hannah now. If not, please wait another two weeks or so until the next dosage. There is no need to turn to more drastic meausres. I will be posting some pictures on shutterfly soon if anyone cares to take a gander. Feel free to ask for the site address. Feel free to sing "Did you ever know that your my hero" to me. Feel free to let out a deep sih of relief now - this here update is over.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Hannah
It has been quite the busy week here in London. I've just spent two days doing catering work at a New Zealand and South African music festival. By catering I mean running a til and giving people beer. Here, a beer, don't fear, come near, drink beer. Catering work, although I imagined I'd be walking around with a tray of pigs in a blanket (and hurriedly sneaking spares into my work pants pockets until they bulged with a wad of grease. mmmmm. Well, maybe I'd only do that with eggplant napoleons.) is a good deal. Get paid decently, choose your hours - just what a person like me needs. Oh flexibility - if I can't have you perfectly in the physical sense, I'll just have to accost you in other ways.
Back at my internship, you, my dearest readers, have missed many an exciting event. We had an auction, tea, little silver gavels, bidding, silver spoons and all. I was the faithful email bid checker and online bid approver. So, keep this in mind: if ever you plan to bid online with Kerry Taylor Auctions, you better send me flower, chocolates, sapphires, plantains, a collection of glass sheep, and a lavender scented rosewater if ever you want to be approved as a bidder. Without such gifts, DECLINE DECLINE DECLINE. No bids for you! Well, it auction was a neat event to see. As it was a smaller auction, it was held at the warehouse/office. I've been picking up the aftermath of the auction for the past week, putting it into gargantuan plastic bags and tagging them for shipping. One to America. One to Spain. One to Timbuktu!
I do enjoy the internship, same as before. I like the material that passes through my hands, literally and figuratively. I like the ladies I work with. What I don't like, and this really has nothing to do with the internship, is the monotony that my life has fallen slave to like Britney Spears for you. (Recall: I'm a slaaavvvve for yoooou). Monday through Friday, I wake up at 7:30, catch the bus at 8:30, arrive at 9:15, work til 5:30. Take the bus home. Make dinner. Go to the gym (a good few days of the week). Shower. Go to bed. Wake up and do it again. Lather, rinse, repeat... repeat... reapeat.... True, the weekends are open to my whims, but I feel like the majority of my life has become cookie cut into the figure-eight of infinity. I guess that's what real life is like. So, some may call it real life, but I call it boring. Guess I'll have to get used to it.
With all, oooooh 4 friends that I have here, I've been doing not so badly. Friday was a smashing night out with my cohabitants Rebecca and Noellia and Rebecca's friends. We ran around town, singing, cavorting and throwing glitter that sparkled into a hazy oblivion of joy. It took us about one hour to finally reach a bar during which Rebecca stopped to talk to a homeless man for 10 minutes and I in my boredom stood on top of an electrical box and held out my hand at people shouting "Halt! Who goes there!?" Everyone passing by found it hysterical (as did I) including the policemen and the driver who rolled down his window to ask my what I was doing. It was the highlight of my evening despite the fact that noone answered with the correct response which would have been: "It is I, King Arthur!" Come on Brits, it your own bloody Monty Python.
Best thing of last weekend was a skate. A huge skate. A 200-some-people big skate through the rocky streets of London. One bright and sunshine-y Sunday in a land not so far away, amid the fresh green lawns of Hyde Park, my American friend Christy and I, along with the enlisted help of some very kind but slightly awkward Brits, found ourselves waiting for Godot. Godot? By that I mean waiting to rollerskate like fiends. We'd rented some skates, ready to join the hundreds that show up weekly for a skate through London. It was glorious. There were speakers blaring music and we set off stopping traffic like Jim Carey in the Mask as we rolled along bumpy streets on a 10 mile roller skate. It's like all my dreams coming true! A similar event happens weekly in Paris and I never got to go during my year abroad despite my aching desire to do so.
In other forms of excercize, I see people running here, often under the burden of a backpack. "Why?" you ask. Well I asked the same thing too, but I think I've got it figured out. There is a huge, say wooly mamoth huge, event that takes place every spring in London. The Quasimoto race. For this race, people have hunchbacks surgically installed and grovel along a 300 mile loop around Britain. Everyone has to quote Victor Hugo novels along the way and they can only eat large drumsticks of fire-roasted turkey a la Renaissance festivals. The first to win gets free chocolate for life. So these people I see running with backpacks are, in earnest, training for this race.
There are so many bars in Britain named the "such and such arms". The Founder's Arms. The Greenwich Arms. The Southwark Arms. The Fire Arms. The I'm up in Arms. The Surrender your Arms. The Hold me in your Arms. I don't get it. Why all the arms? What's the big idea with naming your pub the blah blah blah Arms? Why not legs? Or Pancreases?
I forgot to mention last time that I live in Mawdley House (and yes, I will give you my address if you so desire, but that's besides the point). On my street there is Dauncey House and Overy House (where I hear plenty of fertile women live) and so forth. It's like I never left my summer housing at Harvard. Or like I'm in Harry Potter. I'm still waiting to hear about the inter-house intramural games however.
Well kiddos, I hope you've had your fix of Hannah now. If not, please wait another two weeks or so until the next dosage. There is no need to turn to more drastic meausres. I will be posting some pictures on shutterfly soon if anyone cares to take a gander. Feel free to ask for the site address. Feel free to sing "Did you ever know that your my hero" to me. Feel free to let out a deep sih of relief now - this here update is over.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Hannah
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The Land of Invisible drivers
Greetings,
Welcome to planet Earth. It took me a few days to get here after my stumble through Heathrow airport, onto the tube and up into some strange flat in Southwark London. From the head spinning drunkenness of a sleep-deprived trans-Atlantic flight, I've finally landed my feet on the ground and found myself in the land of invisible drivers.
My writing has grown a bit rusty, like a 1972 Schwinn left out in the rain, so forgive if this first update lacks some pizazz.
And so, the carefree high of summer has come and gone and I find myself transported from its sunny, warm days to the gray, rainy streets of London. It seems that since arriving, my life has become a set of those theater (or should I say theatre) masks - an extreme of happy-s and sad-s, one minute a smile, the next a tearful frown, emotions swings around wildly like the swings at your local amusement park. But it's all a part of adjustment and will, at some undefined point, start to tend towards comedy more than tragedy.
Today makes one week.... one week since you looked at me... oh no that's the Barenaked Ladies (remember them?). No, today makes one week since I arrived in ye olde London. I'm feeling more adjusted than day one when I tried to drag my leaden luggage through the tube and down the street to my flat. (I really shouldn't have packed all those anvils - they made pulling my suitcases around quite difficult.)
So one week ago, long ago and far away it was, on a morning gray as a shark, big teeth and all, I made it to my apartment building, weary as an a beat up truck, my tank running on empty. Mawdley House. "Looks more like maudlin house," my exhausted head thought bitterly. Why maudlin? Well I just have to blame it on fatigue. Perhaps at the end of my stay, that will be an appropriate term, but at that point I was looking for a word more like shabby. I gazed up at the concrete and brick mess of building, the paint on its wrought iron railings chipped like broken teeth. Dully lit stairways forbodingly led the way up to an unknown land that was my to be my flat. The building as a whole almost looked like a motel, front doors exposed to long runs of open-air cement walkways stacked up on the side of the building like empty bookshelves. From some drippy corner I could almost hear the refrains of the Darth Vader is approaching song.
Happily, after opening the blue front door of Flat 16, I was please to find a cozy place with light pine wood floors. Besides the plaster peeling off from the kitchen ceiling like a bad case of eczema, and despite the sad unfortunate lack of a living-room area, things seemed pretty nice. Things got even better, just like when you find 10 dollars on the street, when I met my roommate Rebecca who is a doll, and I'm not talking Barbie doll, I'm talking Rainbow Brite. (Whatever that means. She's a lot of fun either way).
That weekend wandering around in a jetlagged oblivion - a state that always makes me as pessimistic as a talking parrot on downers. Alone and drowsy yet in denial of my fatigue. Only very joyous events such as a man zooming down the street on his bicycle with a stuffed-animal bat attached to his helmet seemed to brighten the dour of my London skies-like mood.
------------
And for now...
Yesterday, the morning at my internship was alarming. Quite alarming. By that I mean I set off the alarm at office. EGADS! Apparently, office is alarmed. Despite the fact that I was only entering, the alarm system screetchingly insisted that I was breaking and entering. We'll have to sit down and have a chat over a nice spot of tea, Mr. Alarm and I, so that we can become acquainted. For half in hour, though, I lived in anguish, feeling much like a chicken running a marathon with its head cut off, as I waited for my two bosses to arrive and shut the dastardly screaming thing off. They'd had a miscommunication that morning and neither was at 9 as usual. Finally the siren (and not the seductive type unfortunately) stopped itself, but I still felt shook up as a margarita.
Besides this small fiasco, the internship is going well. The two women who run the auction house are quite lovely. They're nice as the sugar they don't put in their tea every day. The office is in a huge rambling old warehouse, not as glamorous a home as one might imagine for expensive old clothes. The white-washed cinder block and empty-feeling cement building was once a radio factory, but video killed the radio star, so lots of other businesses moved in. So what do I do there all day? mmm? What do you think? I sing, I dance, I twirl my baton, and a rat a tat tat. I also, in spare time, tag vintage garments, take photos, measure waist and busts and hips (no real people involved) and take the occasionally lovely walk to the post office. Maybe I should put that on the next personal ad I write... likes long walks to the post office.
Every day I take the red velvet layer-cake of a bus back and forth from work. Yesterday is the first day I did not fall asleep to the sweet rocking waves of the Londonian transport on my way home. Must mean I'm adjusting. Good thing too, because I was becoming a bit inane: Printed on to the macadam in the work parking lot I read M07S. "What in the bloody hell does that mean?" I wondered in my faux-British accented thoughts. When I turned and looked again, I realized that I was reading the word SLOW upside-down.
Adjusting... funny how that works... not well all the time. Thank GOD they have writing on the streets to inform you about how to properly cross a street. "Look left." "Look right" the edge of the street screams in bold white letters. Despite my obeisance of such indicators, I can't help but feel that every time I cross the street that some lurking danger in approaching from the RIGHT side of the road. Were it not for these words telling me otherwise, I'd probably have been mowed down by many a funny looking black cab by now.
Sometimes I feel like London is the US dressed up in a funny accent and some pretty buildings. Things here don't feel as alien as France. There are no googly-eyed, tentacled, green things walking around the street. Damn I loved those guys. There are also no patisseries on every corner and no HeeHeeHee HAW HAW HAW's bubbling out from the sewer grates. Whereas in France organic food didn't exist because all food already was, here organic in on your neighborhood Tesco shelves. That means there's all the chemical crud in my food that and the insidious devil potentially behind American obesity: high fructose corn syrup (aka Satan incarnate). Yes, it's true - high fructose corn syrup goes dons the disguise of glucose-fructose syrup in the UK and its all over, like a severe case of ADHD. Damn, foiled again. Chemicaphobes beware.
I went to a French meetup group in an attempt to parler francais and to meet people. Near every person I met worked in finance. What do you work in? Finance. You? Finance. You... let me guess... a bus driver? No. A clown? No. A panhandler? No. A banana? NO, finance!
And today I tried to open a bank account today. Let me tell you, doing that is harder than doing 100 sets of 10 push ups with an sumo wrestler on your back. That was my tragedy mask of the day. No success yet. The comedy mask? Stopping to get gelatto and landing myself a job training for Sunday as your faithful gelatto-scooping and coffee making aficiando.
And now, my friends, my family, my wayfaring admirers, my tired, my poor, my huddled masses yearning to breathe free, I give you an assignment. Although my roommate is sunshine-y and lovely as a day on the sands of a Carri bean beach, I still don't know many people here, so my loneliness is killing but I will survive hey hey... especially with a little help from my friends. Look at my lyracizing- hardy har har har. If y'all know any fun people in London, please (with many cherries on top) put me in contact with them. Instead of trying to crash a BBC party solo like I did yesterday night, I need someone else to do it with.
In parting, I transcribe for you the writing on our bathroom wall (Simon and Garfunkel would like that even though its not a tenement.) The following sign informs us to clean our hair from the shower, but its really a beautiful poem incognito, or so I think:
Please after
Shower
Don't Forget to
Rinse
Hair Left on Bath
Away.
Now, if that's not a Robert Frost, I don't know what is.
Signing out,
Hannah
Welcome to planet Earth. It took me a few days to get here after my stumble through Heathrow airport, onto the tube and up into some strange flat in Southwark London. From the head spinning drunkenness of a sleep-deprived trans-Atlantic flight, I've finally landed my feet on the ground and found myself in the land of invisible drivers.
My writing has grown a bit rusty, like a 1972 Schwinn left out in the rain, so forgive if this first update lacks some pizazz.
And so, the carefree high of summer has come and gone and I find myself transported from its sunny, warm days to the gray, rainy streets of London. It seems that since arriving, my life has become a set of those theater (or should I say theatre) masks - an extreme of happy-s and sad-s, one minute a smile, the next a tearful frown, emotions swings around wildly like the swings at your local amusement park. But it's all a part of adjustment and will, at some undefined point, start to tend towards comedy more than tragedy.
Today makes one week.... one week since you looked at me... oh no that's the Barenaked Ladies (remember them?). No, today makes one week since I arrived in ye olde London. I'm feeling more adjusted than day one when I tried to drag my leaden luggage through the tube and down the street to my flat. (I really shouldn't have packed all those anvils - they made pulling my suitcases around quite difficult.)
So one week ago, long ago and far away it was, on a morning gray as a shark, big teeth and all, I made it to my apartment building, weary as an a beat up truck, my tank running on empty. Mawdley House. "Looks more like maudlin house," my exhausted head thought bitterly. Why maudlin? Well I just have to blame it on fatigue. Perhaps at the end of my stay, that will be an appropriate term, but at that point I was looking for a word more like shabby. I gazed up at the concrete and brick mess of building, the paint on its wrought iron railings chipped like broken teeth. Dully lit stairways forbodingly led the way up to an unknown land that was my to be my flat. The building as a whole almost looked like a motel, front doors exposed to long runs of open-air cement walkways stacked up on the side of the building like empty bookshelves. From some drippy corner I could almost hear the refrains of the Darth Vader is approaching song.
Happily, after opening the blue front door of Flat 16, I was please to find a cozy place with light pine wood floors. Besides the plaster peeling off from the kitchen ceiling like a bad case of eczema, and despite the sad unfortunate lack of a living-room area, things seemed pretty nice. Things got even better, just like when you find 10 dollars on the street, when I met my roommate Rebecca who is a doll, and I'm not talking Barbie doll, I'm talking Rainbow Brite. (Whatever that means. She's a lot of fun either way).
That weekend wandering around in a jetlagged oblivion - a state that always makes me as pessimistic as a talking parrot on downers. Alone and drowsy yet in denial of my fatigue. Only very joyous events such as a man zooming down the street on his bicycle with a stuffed-animal bat attached to his helmet seemed to brighten the dour of my London skies-like mood.
------------
And for now...
Yesterday, the morning at my internship was alarming. Quite alarming. By that I mean I set off the alarm at office. EGADS! Apparently, office is alarmed. Despite the fact that I was only entering, the alarm system screetchingly insisted that I was breaking and entering. We'll have to sit down and have a chat over a nice spot of tea, Mr. Alarm and I, so that we can become acquainted. For half in hour, though, I lived in anguish, feeling much like a chicken running a marathon with its head cut off, as I waited for my two bosses to arrive and shut the dastardly screaming thing off. They'd had a miscommunication that morning and neither was at 9 as usual. Finally the siren (and not the seductive type unfortunately) stopped itself, but I still felt shook up as a margarita.
Besides this small fiasco, the internship is going well. The two women who run the auction house are quite lovely. They're nice as the sugar they don't put in their tea every day. The office is in a huge rambling old warehouse, not as glamorous a home as one might imagine for expensive old clothes. The white-washed cinder block and empty-feeling cement building was once a radio factory, but video killed the radio star, so lots of other businesses moved in. So what do I do there all day? mmm? What do you think? I sing, I dance, I twirl my baton, and a rat a tat tat. I also, in spare time, tag vintage garments, take photos, measure waist and busts and hips (no real people involved) and take the occasionally lovely walk to the post office. Maybe I should put that on the next personal ad I write... likes long walks to the post office.
Every day I take the red velvet layer-cake of a bus back and forth from work. Yesterday is the first day I did not fall asleep to the sweet rocking waves of the Londonian transport on my way home. Must mean I'm adjusting. Good thing too, because I was becoming a bit inane: Printed on to the macadam in the work parking lot I read M07S. "What in the bloody hell does that mean?" I wondered in my faux-British accented thoughts. When I turned and looked again, I realized that I was reading the word SLOW upside-down.
Adjusting... funny how that works... not well all the time. Thank GOD they have writing on the streets to inform you about how to properly cross a street. "Look left." "Look right" the edge of the street screams in bold white letters. Despite my obeisance of such indicators, I can't help but feel that every time I cross the street that some lurking danger in approaching from the RIGHT side of the road. Were it not for these words telling me otherwise, I'd probably have been mowed down by many a funny looking black cab by now.
Sometimes I feel like London is the US dressed up in a funny accent and some pretty buildings. Things here don't feel as alien as France. There are no googly-eyed, tentacled, green things walking around the street. Damn I loved those guys. There are also no patisseries on every corner and no HeeHeeHee HAW HAW HAW's bubbling out from the sewer grates. Whereas in France organic food didn't exist because all food already was, here organic in on your neighborhood Tesco shelves. That means there's all the chemical crud in my food that and the insidious devil potentially behind American obesity: high fructose corn syrup (aka Satan incarnate). Yes, it's true - high fructose corn syrup goes dons the disguise of glucose-fructose syrup in the UK and its all over, like a severe case of ADHD. Damn, foiled again. Chemicaphobes beware.
I went to a French meetup group in an attempt to parler francais and to meet people. Near every person I met worked in finance. What do you work in? Finance. You? Finance. You... let me guess... a bus driver? No. A clown? No. A panhandler? No. A banana? NO, finance!
And today I tried to open a bank account today. Let me tell you, doing that is harder than doing 100 sets of 10 push ups with an sumo wrestler on your back. That was my tragedy mask of the day. No success yet. The comedy mask? Stopping to get gelatto and landing myself a job training for Sunday as your faithful gelatto-scooping and coffee making aficiando.
And now, my friends, my family, my wayfaring admirers, my tired, my poor, my huddled masses yearning to breathe free, I give you an assignment. Although my roommate is sunshine-y and lovely as a day on the sands of a Carri bean beach, I still don't know many people here, so my loneliness is killing but I will survive hey hey... especially with a little help from my friends. Look at my lyracizing- hardy har har har. If y'all know any fun people in London, please (with many cherries on top) put me in contact with them. Instead of trying to crash a BBC party solo like I did yesterday night, I need someone else to do it with.
In parting, I transcribe for you the writing on our bathroom wall (Simon and Garfunkel would like that even though its not a tenement.) The following sign informs us to clean our hair from the shower, but its really a beautiful poem incognito, or so I think:
Please after
Shower
Don't Forget to
Rinse
Hair Left on Bath
Away.
Now, if that's not a Robert Frost, I don't know what is.
Signing out,
Hannah
Just how lucky you are back in the U S back in the US back in the US of A
Tuesday, 12 Jun 2007
And you thought I was done with these. Ha. What you didn't know was that I was Arnold Schwatzenagger in my last update I just forgot to warn you: "I'll be back."
The last week in Paris I spent hopping around museums, visiting friends in town, and saying goodbye, or rather see you soon. I took in the wild world of contemporary art at the Georges Pompidou, saw an exposition on Dalida (an apparently well known pop star from years ago), and went to a fantastic exhibit at the Musee de la Mode on Castalbajac. Castalbajac is a fashion designer who creates outfits out of unexpected items like converse sneaker canvases or gloves or berets. I personally found it quite inspiring. So inspiring that I began tap dancing. No, but the exposition did open groovily with a giant light up rubix cube flashing its... no, not breasts... but rather its less risque, light-up sides in time with techno music in a giant mirrored room. As Austin Powers might describe it, "smashing baby smashing!"
There is a fantastic sentence in French: Le ver vert va vers la verre. It sounds like this phonetically, "La vaihr vaihr vah vaihr la vaihr." The green worm goes towards the glass. They just don't make sentences that stellar in English.
Moving on. Saying 'a bientot's was tough, like 10 year old beef jerky tough, but in an emotional and not physical sense. Though, maybe trying to
eat such ancient beef jerky would be so difficult that it too would be emotionally trying. ANYHOW. My boutique-owner friend Myrna gave me an
incredibly nice gift from her store: one of the hats she sells. The hats, if you go way back to 1492 when Colombus set sail, is why her and I met in the first place. The hats started calling out "Hannah Hannah come look at us" and I did and Myrna and I met and Colombus discovered America. I ate dinner one night with Thomas and his roommate, the next with my friend Floriane. I had a lovely last calm drink with Vincent and Quentin, 'mes garcons francais' and Vincent gave me a ride on his Vespa scooter - the quintessential European experience to round off my year. vroom vroom.
At 12:30 Friday, Thomas showed up at my cousins to help me take myself and my belongings somewhere over the rainbow. We've actually been broken up a while now, but have remained close friends. Surprise! haha! I don't share ALL the juicy gossip with you only all the juicy filet minon! Anyhow, he carried both my sumo-wrestler sized bags, bought my RER ticket and off we went. I could not have managed physically or mentally alone. Standing in line at the airport, any little thing put me to tears from the fact that the man next to me tried to semi-cut in line to the fact that I'd missed the line's security check in and had to double back to do that. Somewhere, deep inside me was the Nile river and it just kept letting itself out, water streaming down from my eyes, hippopotamuses falling out from my tear ducts. (That was painful, let me tell you!) Thomas and I sat out in front of security as long as possible before I boarding time started a'hollerin'.
The flight home seemed never to end. I might as well have drunk 29.769 cups of coffee cause sleep was more difficult to come by than sheep in Antarctica.
Once in NY, I cried again. I saw the American flag at customs. I cried. I had to pay an overweight baggage fee on my flight to Boston. I cried. I'm rather uplifting now aren't I? Coming back is hard. I was scheduled to leave NY for Boston with Jetblue at 10 PM. But as luck would have it, there was some huge problem with the FAA and weather and there was a delay. Then another delay. Then a cancellation and a reschedulation. Noooo, I didn't cry, I made balloon animals with Bozo the clown. Then a delay of the new flight. One twice Chicken soup and rice. Then a near success boarding the plane at 2 AM only to taxi for 45 minutes and have the pilot time out. The flight to Boston is 45 minutes. Frustration was more bitter than horseradish mixed with the banana beer I tried in Prague. After a semi-successful, 2-hour long baggage reclamation from 3-5AM, I finally re-checked in (it was like deja vu doing that again) and made it out on the 7:45 flight to Boston. It was like a bad comedy. The last thing I'd wanted to do in the first place was leave. Then, the leaving endured for hours and wouldn't let itself be finished. I was stuck in the limbo of leaving for near 24 hours when all I wanted was not to win the limbo rock, but to finish the leaving process as quickly as possible.
Next? I bet you think I crashed like a log after the possible slap dash, maybe 2 hours of sleep I had. No. No. I auditioned for American Idol and won! I lie. It was more exciting than that, at least in my world. I showered and went immediately to spend some time with my friend Andrew who just graduated from Harvard. We had a lovely extended lunch of Indian buffet and caught up before he headed off to do some continent hopping of
his own to replace that which I am loosing. We so forth have the unfortunate luck of only being in the same location for short periods of time, but at least we have the luck to have such coincidences at all. The evening was spent dinnering with Alex and Andrea and kids, local relatives, and the night was spent crashing like George Bush's popularity rating at cousin Charlie's. I was so exhausted that I could have slept on a bed of nails. Or bail of neds and I said to my dad in my half-delirious, tired state.
Sunday I moved into housing an MIT independent living group near Central Square. My dad left and I wandered the city bemoaning how ugly everything is. I had sore eyes and the surrounding buildings were daggers of unaestheticness. In search of beauty, I wandered towards the Harvard campus where I ran into a guy whom I'd met during the whole plane delay fiasco! Bizarre. An hour later, I ran into a friend from Harvard. Bizarrer!
Last night I met up with my friend Owen and we dined and wined (my first legal wine-ing in a US bar). Also quite an enjoyable get-together as always.
To close out I'll share some of my reverse-integration realizations:
- Dollar bills: Dollar bills are SO LONG. SO LONG. If they were a snake, they'd be the boa. No, two boas, on biting onto the tail of the other. So long that they pour out over the edges of my wallet and down the hall around the corner and across the seas. Euros and short and fat in comparison like jolly old British men.
- Traffic men, better known as pedestrian traffic signals: The go men are WHITE! What is that!? Since when are they albino? It took a year of seeing green go men to come back and realize that go-men here in the US are pasty and have, evidently, been locked in a closet for eternity without sun or chlorophyll. The European go men eat chlorophyll as part of their daily meal, hence their green color.
- Long distance public transportation: WHERE IS IT? Why can't I go to central PA on a train or direct bus. Blasphemy!
- Food ingredients: A box of cereal in France, reads something like: Wheat flour, sugar, water. A box of cereal in the US, reads something like: wheat flour, sugar, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, asorbic acid, thymin nicatrate. dioxicholoridice, xymeiib, wifnoe, old gym shoes, pyothiecl, lunar rock, pulverized floppy disk. WHAT AM I EATING and WHY do I need all these chemicals and artificiliality?
- Grocery stores. Even the small ones are HUGE just like elephants. There is so much choice. I sat in the cookie aisle for 25 years and my hair turned white before I settled on ginger snaps. But the cheese sections... where are all my beautiful CHEESES? Why so many cookies and a dearth of cheese?
- Waiters come up to your table and say "Can I help you" instead of "Vous avez choisi?" And then they bring the check right when your done eating. There is no struggle, no tug-of-war with the waiter, to get the check.
- Tax and tip: Caution: meal prices are no longer what they seem.
And so we're back into the swing of things. Internship started on Monday. Looking for a job after work to pay the 'bills' unlike 90% of the French unemployed. etc.
Life now is so much more... more... normal...
And with this, I'm really done here. So you think. So I think. So is true.
Back to life. Back to reality.
Yours truely,
Hannah
And you thought I was done with these. Ha. What you didn't know was that I was Arnold Schwatzenagger in my last update I just forgot to warn you: "I'll be back."
The last week in Paris I spent hopping around museums, visiting friends in town, and saying goodbye, or rather see you soon. I took in the wild world of contemporary art at the Georges Pompidou, saw an exposition on Dalida (an apparently well known pop star from years ago), and went to a fantastic exhibit at the Musee de la Mode on Castalbajac. Castalbajac is a fashion designer who creates outfits out of unexpected items like converse sneaker canvases or gloves or berets. I personally found it quite inspiring. So inspiring that I began tap dancing. No, but the exposition did open groovily with a giant light up rubix cube flashing its... no, not breasts... but rather its less risque, light-up sides in time with techno music in a giant mirrored room. As Austin Powers might describe it, "smashing baby smashing!"
There is a fantastic sentence in French: Le ver vert va vers la verre. It sounds like this phonetically, "La vaihr vaihr vah vaihr la vaihr." The green worm goes towards the glass. They just don't make sentences that stellar in English.
Moving on. Saying 'a bientot's was tough, like 10 year old beef jerky tough, but in an emotional and not physical sense. Though, maybe trying to
eat such ancient beef jerky would be so difficult that it too would be emotionally trying. ANYHOW. My boutique-owner friend Myrna gave me an
incredibly nice gift from her store: one of the hats she sells. The hats, if you go way back to 1492 when Colombus set sail, is why her and I met in the first place. The hats started calling out "Hannah Hannah come look at us" and I did and Myrna and I met and Colombus discovered America. I ate dinner one night with Thomas and his roommate, the next with my friend Floriane. I had a lovely last calm drink with Vincent and Quentin, 'mes garcons francais' and Vincent gave me a ride on his Vespa scooter - the quintessential European experience to round off my year. vroom vroom.
At 12:30 Friday, Thomas showed up at my cousins to help me take myself and my belongings somewhere over the rainbow. We've actually been broken up a while now, but have remained close friends. Surprise! haha! I don't share ALL the juicy gossip with you only all the juicy filet minon! Anyhow, he carried both my sumo-wrestler sized bags, bought my RER ticket and off we went. I could not have managed physically or mentally alone. Standing in line at the airport, any little thing put me to tears from the fact that the man next to me tried to semi-cut in line to the fact that I'd missed the line's security check in and had to double back to do that. Somewhere, deep inside me was the Nile river and it just kept letting itself out, water streaming down from my eyes, hippopotamuses falling out from my tear ducts. (That was painful, let me tell you!) Thomas and I sat out in front of security as long as possible before I boarding time started a'hollerin'.
The flight home seemed never to end. I might as well have drunk 29.769 cups of coffee cause sleep was more difficult to come by than sheep in Antarctica.
Once in NY, I cried again. I saw the American flag at customs. I cried. I had to pay an overweight baggage fee on my flight to Boston. I cried. I'm rather uplifting now aren't I? Coming back is hard. I was scheduled to leave NY for Boston with Jetblue at 10 PM. But as luck would have it, there was some huge problem with the FAA and weather and there was a delay. Then another delay. Then a cancellation and a reschedulation. Noooo, I didn't cry, I made balloon animals with Bozo the clown. Then a delay of the new flight. One twice Chicken soup and rice. Then a near success boarding the plane at 2 AM only to taxi for 45 minutes and have the pilot time out. The flight to Boston is 45 minutes. Frustration was more bitter than horseradish mixed with the banana beer I tried in Prague. After a semi-successful, 2-hour long baggage reclamation from 3-5AM, I finally re-checked in (it was like deja vu doing that again) and made it out on the 7:45 flight to Boston. It was like a bad comedy. The last thing I'd wanted to do in the first place was leave. Then, the leaving endured for hours and wouldn't let itself be finished. I was stuck in the limbo of leaving for near 24 hours when all I wanted was not to win the limbo rock, but to finish the leaving process as quickly as possible.
Next? I bet you think I crashed like a log after the possible slap dash, maybe 2 hours of sleep I had. No. No. I auditioned for American Idol and won! I lie. It was more exciting than that, at least in my world. I showered and went immediately to spend some time with my friend Andrew who just graduated from Harvard. We had a lovely extended lunch of Indian buffet and caught up before he headed off to do some continent hopping of
his own to replace that which I am loosing. We so forth have the unfortunate luck of only being in the same location for short periods of time, but at least we have the luck to have such coincidences at all. The evening was spent dinnering with Alex and Andrea and kids, local relatives, and the night was spent crashing like George Bush's popularity rating at cousin Charlie's. I was so exhausted that I could have slept on a bed of nails. Or bail of neds and I said to my dad in my half-delirious, tired state.
Sunday I moved into housing an MIT independent living group near Central Square. My dad left and I wandered the city bemoaning how ugly everything is. I had sore eyes and the surrounding buildings were daggers of unaestheticness. In search of beauty, I wandered towards the Harvard campus where I ran into a guy whom I'd met during the whole plane delay fiasco! Bizarre. An hour later, I ran into a friend from Harvard. Bizarrer!
Last night I met up with my friend Owen and we dined and wined (my first legal wine-ing in a US bar). Also quite an enjoyable get-together as always.
To close out I'll share some of my reverse-integration realizations:
- Dollar bills: Dollar bills are SO LONG. SO LONG. If they were a snake, they'd be the boa. No, two boas, on biting onto the tail of the other. So long that they pour out over the edges of my wallet and down the hall around the corner and across the seas. Euros and short and fat in comparison like jolly old British men.
- Traffic men, better known as pedestrian traffic signals: The go men are WHITE! What is that!? Since when are they albino? It took a year of seeing green go men to come back and realize that go-men here in the US are pasty and have, evidently, been locked in a closet for eternity without sun or chlorophyll. The European go men eat chlorophyll as part of their daily meal, hence their green color.
- Long distance public transportation: WHERE IS IT? Why can't I go to central PA on a train or direct bus. Blasphemy!
- Food ingredients: A box of cereal in France, reads something like: Wheat flour, sugar, water. A box of cereal in the US, reads something like: wheat flour, sugar, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oil, asorbic acid, thymin nicatrate. dioxicholoridice, xymeiib, wifnoe, old gym shoes, pyothiecl, lunar rock, pulverized floppy disk. WHAT AM I EATING and WHY do I need all these chemicals and artificiliality?
- Grocery stores. Even the small ones are HUGE just like elephants. There is so much choice. I sat in the cookie aisle for 25 years and my hair turned white before I settled on ginger snaps. But the cheese sections... where are all my beautiful CHEESES? Why so many cookies and a dearth of cheese?
- Waiters come up to your table and say "Can I help you" instead of "Vous avez choisi?" And then they bring the check right when your done eating. There is no struggle, no tug-of-war with the waiter, to get the check.
- Tax and tip: Caution: meal prices are no longer what they seem.
And so we're back into the swing of things. Internship started on Monday. Looking for a job after work to pay the 'bills' unlike 90% of the French unemployed. etc.
Life now is so much more... more... normal...
And with this, I'm really done here. So you think. So I think. So is true.
Back to life. Back to reality.
Yours truely,
Hannah
As the end draws near
Sunday, 3 Jun 2007
Today the sun is shining on the Parisian streets for the second day after a week of rain.
Today I'm going to salsa class and I’m going to wander this lovely city.
Today is June 3.
Today I leave in 5 days.
Friday, I lost my housing. My host mom is taking a student for the summer, and I had to leave. It's the beginning of my leaving for the year. I'm going to have to get used to it. But unlike the sans-abri (without shelters aka homeless) of the streets of this city, I decided not to hole up in a tent along canal St. Martin. I have too much luggage for that, darn it. Rather, I've holed up at my cousin's for the week.
Many, in fact, the majority of les enfants from my program left Friday. I wouldn't have been ready to leave. I'm glad I'm still here trapeze-ing around museums and frolicking through public jardins. If I wouldn't have been ready to leave yesterday, that begs the question: will I... Will I be ready to leave next Friday?
Leaving. Leaving is a thought to get you down. And I don't mean "get down get down get down tonight" dancing kind of down. I don't quite remember what its like to walk along streets that aren't lined with old, beautiful buildings of beige stone wearing hats of fluted metal and belts of elegant, wrought-iron balconies. Streets where every street corner has some little historical anecdote. Streets where you walk ten paces only to run smack dab into a pastry shop and get covered in sugary goodness. I'll adjust to the US of A. One always adjusts, but I still like it here. Will I return to Paris soon? I don't know. I have American friends here saying they’re coming back soon. Me? Me, a year is a long ways away and I'm thinking about today and just a bit of tomorrow.
What's been going on here...
Two Saturdays ago I went with my group to Giverny. You may know that better as Monet's home and gardens - a flower filled mass of land blooming more than a pubescent girl on growth hormones. Fragrant roses hung suspended from gnarled branches, and irises in every color imaginable pushed up gently from the soft dirt. (And yes there were waterlillies too.) Post Giverny, we noshed a rather large three-hour lunch complete with cheese course, wine, dessert and Marceau-Marceau act done by George Bush.
That evening was free museum night. Well I set out to "profite bien", but lines were longer than Rapunzel's hair so I made it to only two destinations. One, the Petit Palais, an interesting art museum in a building created for the World's Fair, and two, les Invalides were you may find the tomb of Napoleon (or Nap, as his is affectionately abbreviated in my art history notes) in a huge domed monument. A small orchestra was set up at les Invalides, spitting out classical tunes blessed by great building acoustics. Different colored lights dimmed and shone in time with the music. Psychadelic. Napoleon was probably conducting along with the orchestra in his comfortable marble lodgings.
Yesterday my pal Selene and I put on our exploring shoes and set out for Vax-le-Vicomte, ancienne chateau of Nicolas Foucquet, ministre de finance of Louis XIV. Story has it that Foucquet threw a glamorous gala at his big and beautiful chateau, which was so impressionant that ole King Louis got jealous. In response Louis built Versailles. “Fouc you Foucquet!”
Selene and I slid off the RER at the end of the line and went to wait for the shuttle bus to the chateau... which never showed up. Distraught and irritated we felt like little kids given apples during trick-or-treating, but we decided not to give up. At this same location, busses left for Fontainbleu, so we hopped on and went. Lovely of France to provide so many chateaux. Thanks to our metro passes which are de-zoned on the weekend, the bus was free, and thanks to our art history student cards, getting into Fontainbleu cost a meager 600 Euro. Juuuust kidding. It cost NOTHING! No rien de rien, as Edith Piaf would say. We even 'accidentally' found our way onto a tour of the Chinese-inspired rooms of the chateau before being noticed as tour-crashers and subsequently, along with Wedding crashers Ben and Owen, evicted from the tour group. Thereafter, we wandered the posh chateau, we admired rooms where generations of kings and queens lodged, and we jumped on Napoleon’s bed with monkeys until there were no more monkeys jumping on the bed. All in all, the day cost a whopping 1.10 Euro for the custardy, chocolate-chip sweet roll I had as afternoon snack.
Lately, I've had even more visitors, the lucky kid I am: Lisa Seltzer of Elmira who's teaching English in Prague and Shulie Eisen from school who just finished a semester in Ghana came to get a gander of Paris.
I miiight write one last email before... before.... that event which must not be named.
Until la prochain time, my dear family and friends take care.
Hannah
Today the sun is shining on the Parisian streets for the second day after a week of rain.
Today I'm going to salsa class and I’m going to wander this lovely city.
Today is June 3.
Today I leave in 5 days.
Friday, I lost my housing. My host mom is taking a student for the summer, and I had to leave. It's the beginning of my leaving for the year. I'm going to have to get used to it. But unlike the sans-abri (without shelters aka homeless) of the streets of this city, I decided not to hole up in a tent along canal St. Martin. I have too much luggage for that, darn it. Rather, I've holed up at my cousin's for the week.
Many, in fact, the majority of les enfants from my program left Friday. I wouldn't have been ready to leave. I'm glad I'm still here trapeze-ing around museums and frolicking through public jardins. If I wouldn't have been ready to leave yesterday, that begs the question: will I... Will I be ready to leave next Friday?
Leaving. Leaving is a thought to get you down. And I don't mean "get down get down get down tonight" dancing kind of down. I don't quite remember what its like to walk along streets that aren't lined with old, beautiful buildings of beige stone wearing hats of fluted metal and belts of elegant, wrought-iron balconies. Streets where every street corner has some little historical anecdote. Streets where you walk ten paces only to run smack dab into a pastry shop and get covered in sugary goodness. I'll adjust to the US of A. One always adjusts, but I still like it here. Will I return to Paris soon? I don't know. I have American friends here saying they’re coming back soon. Me? Me, a year is a long ways away and I'm thinking about today and just a bit of tomorrow.
What's been going on here...
Two Saturdays ago I went with my group to Giverny. You may know that better as Monet's home and gardens - a flower filled mass of land blooming more than a pubescent girl on growth hormones. Fragrant roses hung suspended from gnarled branches, and irises in every color imaginable pushed up gently from the soft dirt. (And yes there were waterlillies too.) Post Giverny, we noshed a rather large three-hour lunch complete with cheese course, wine, dessert and Marceau-Marceau act done by George Bush.
That evening was free museum night. Well I set out to "profite bien", but lines were longer than Rapunzel's hair so I made it to only two destinations. One, the Petit Palais, an interesting art museum in a building created for the World's Fair, and two, les Invalides were you may find the tomb of Napoleon (or Nap, as his is affectionately abbreviated in my art history notes) in a huge domed monument. A small orchestra was set up at les Invalides, spitting out classical tunes blessed by great building acoustics. Different colored lights dimmed and shone in time with the music. Psychadelic. Napoleon was probably conducting along with the orchestra in his comfortable marble lodgings.
Yesterday my pal Selene and I put on our exploring shoes and set out for Vax-le-Vicomte, ancienne chateau of Nicolas Foucquet, ministre de finance of Louis XIV. Story has it that Foucquet threw a glamorous gala at his big and beautiful chateau, which was so impressionant that ole King Louis got jealous. In response Louis built Versailles. “Fouc you Foucquet!”
Selene and I slid off the RER at the end of the line and went to wait for the shuttle bus to the chateau... which never showed up. Distraught and irritated we felt like little kids given apples during trick-or-treating, but we decided not to give up. At this same location, busses left for Fontainbleu, so we hopped on and went. Lovely of France to provide so many chateaux. Thanks to our metro passes which are de-zoned on the weekend, the bus was free, and thanks to our art history student cards, getting into Fontainbleu cost a meager 600 Euro. Juuuust kidding. It cost NOTHING! No rien de rien, as Edith Piaf would say. We even 'accidentally' found our way onto a tour of the Chinese-inspired rooms of the chateau before being noticed as tour-crashers and subsequently, along with Wedding crashers Ben and Owen, evicted from the tour group. Thereafter, we wandered the posh chateau, we admired rooms where generations of kings and queens lodged, and we jumped on Napoleon’s bed with monkeys until there were no more monkeys jumping on the bed. All in all, the day cost a whopping 1.10 Euro for the custardy, chocolate-chip sweet roll I had as afternoon snack.
Lately, I've had even more visitors, the lucky kid I am: Lisa Seltzer of Elmira who's teaching English in Prague and Shulie Eisen from school who just finished a semester in Ghana came to get a gander of Paris.
I miiight write one last email before... before.... that event which must not be named.
Until la prochain time, my dear family and friends take care.
Hannah
Another update - it's almost better than free icecream
Monday, 14 May 2007
You may not have known it, but I was in London two weekends ago. I didn't tell you I was going. It's a cruel world and I'm a cruel girl, but you'll get over it.
Thought I was done escapading after Italy? Well so did I, but you see there was unfinished business in London (though calling it business is not fair, as it was quite fun), and like a ghost, I couldn't leave that business incomplete. You see... you see this year thanks to the information super-highway, it was discovered unto me (trying imaginary french gramatical structures in English) that I have a once long lost 3rd cousin who lives in
London. So, shortly after my Italian romp, I bought a ticket to chunnel on over and meet: Fayette, 27, WF, not single, likes travel and possibly long walks on the beach.
London was a bloody good time. After a lovely walk from Waterloo station including poking around the neighborhoods, I arrived at 5 post meridian at the Tinderbox cafe for my rendez-vous with Fayette. Seeing as we'd never met each other, we had to do something to make ourselves obvious unto the other, so I stood and did the Macarena for 15 minutes while singing "My Heart will go on" in the most off-key voice I could finagle and searched for a girl doing the same. There were 6.75 other girls doing the same thing, but thanks to the previously exchanged over email pictures, we found each other no prob and sat down to some warm drinks (no crumpets involved). After a lovely 'get-to-know-you-a-bit' type chat we walked to her apartment and fought off the blustering chill of the London air with more warm drinks (still no crumpets involved). Having good taste as she does, Fayette chose the well-known Brick Lane for dinner where we dined on Indian food alive as usual with its colourful spices. On the way home we stopped for a drink - this time of the alcoholic. (still no crumpets! Where are the crumpets?!?)
Waking up around 9h30, I discovered, much to my delight, that we'd be making pancakes. Our first batch mysteriously became baked in the oven (that was really just keeping them warm I swear!), but the second batch, smothered in sticky sweet syrup and complimented with a scrumptious fruit salad, hit the spot like Robinhood when it comes to archery. The late morning and afternoon we wandered around the mass that is Portbello market, laughing at bizarre vintage goods and buying comestible products for our dinner-to-be. We stopped by the Tate Modern briefly to philosophize some bizarre art. We took some obligatory tacky tourist photo at St. Paul's Cathedral and returned home late to make Thai curry.
The evening we went to one of London's burlesque parties. They're all the rage now over there - all the rage. These parties have themes - often decades I gather- and for this one, people decked out in full 50's garb. Attendees dance the night away to old musique and sip drinks and at some point in the night, watch the burlesque show. For one reason or another, the burlesque show never happened that night (I heard it was stolen by Carmen Sandiago. Where in the world is she anyhow?). Burlesque show or not, we had a smashing good time and met some interesting people. A barrister named David, who wears wigs to court like all good British barristers, told me I looked like a fairy and THEN proceeded to tell me that he was going to write a story and I'd be the heroine: It would take place during WWII. He's be an English parachutist and I a member of the French resistance. He's parachute over in his SILK (stress the fact its silk) parachute to deliver a message that I'd be waiting to receive. We'd run away into the woods and kiss for two seconds before Nazis surrounded us. They let me go, but he would die a valiant death and eventually I'd gone on to love another. ... Whether he was rocked off his rear on vodka or not, I was quite amused, though not amply enough seduced to act out the run into the woods and kiss scene (the poor fellow). We also met two lovely Brits, Steph and James. Everyone was quite friendly and good natured and twas a pleasure.
Up unfortunately early the next morning, I left after a wonderful trip, up 1 great new cousin, down a few hours of sleep. I find London, though gray as a 65-year-old's head, a wonderfully fun city, bustling with interesting cultural events and nice people. Arriving back in Paris, I went immediately to salsa class at la salle du gym. Since the trip, I've been fighting off a cold. I won the first two rounds, but since then my red boxing gloves are becoming worn and my cold took on the demeanor of Muhammad Ali.
Sunday evening I hit the streets to watch the results of the presidentals. We started in Bastille aka socialist city to watch the results come out. Their candidate lost and there was shouting ("La France est morte!" (France is dead!)) and crying and very distraught looking people all around. From sorrow to happiness, we hopped on le metro across the city to the UMP's (winning party's) set up. After Sarko finished his televised speech, white-clad singers and dancers took the stage to start up the party. Oh to bask in the glory of dancers clad in strange overly-trying-to-be-fashionable outfits dancing really tacky moves. The opening songs were slow paced loved ballads which I found to be unfitting and bizarre. I mean, we all know that politics=love, but really, lets not stress the point here. We left around 10, evidently just missing a Sarkosy appearance. Making up for it though, I did find Waldo. Maybe not as good as Sarko, but not bad. The next morning I woke, surprised to find that only 300-some cars were burned around the whole country in response to the election of this controversial figure.
The week was normal. I handed in a 20 page report on Klimt's 'The Kiss' - yes, in French, because that is language or love so people say.
Being the lucky girl I am, I had a visitor this past weekend. The previous week, Aiobheen (oh Gaelic, how dost one pronounce thee) a delightful girl I'd befriended in a hostel in Barcelona came to visit. This weekend came around the mountain just like Suzanna my best friend from freshman year at Brandeis who'd transferred to Wash St. Louis. It was been 2 years since we'd seen each other, but things picked up right off the bat (a Louiville Slugger) and 2 years melted away like good fondu cheese. It was so great to see her. We ate crepes - the glorious flat pancake of France, spent hours catching up on years, went salsa dancing with Thomas and co, spent an evening sipping Chardonnay at my friend Floriane's, saw the musee d'Orsay, ate falaffel, went skydiving, hiked up a volcano, met Mick Jagger, rode yaks through the Sahara dessert, and discovered a new planet called X76 which is next to Pluto (which is NO longer a planet). PHEW a weekend tiring but well spent.
Today is May 14th. That means in a wee bit over 3 weeks..... Ah. Je ne le dirai pas!
My book on outsourcing and globalization just sprouted legs and ran out of the room. I guess that means I have to go run after it so I can research my next paper.
A la prochain,
Hannah
You may not have known it, but I was in London two weekends ago. I didn't tell you I was going. It's a cruel world and I'm a cruel girl, but you'll get over it.
Thought I was done escapading after Italy? Well so did I, but you see there was unfinished business in London (though calling it business is not fair, as it was quite fun), and like a ghost, I couldn't leave that business incomplete. You see... you see this year thanks to the information super-highway, it was discovered unto me (trying imaginary french gramatical structures in English) that I have a once long lost 3rd cousin who lives in
London. So, shortly after my Italian romp, I bought a ticket to chunnel on over and meet: Fayette, 27, WF, not single, likes travel and possibly long walks on the beach.
London was a bloody good time. After a lovely walk from Waterloo station including poking around the neighborhoods, I arrived at 5 post meridian at the Tinderbox cafe for my rendez-vous with Fayette. Seeing as we'd never met each other, we had to do something to make ourselves obvious unto the other, so I stood and did the Macarena for 15 minutes while singing "My Heart will go on" in the most off-key voice I could finagle and searched for a girl doing the same. There were 6.75 other girls doing the same thing, but thanks to the previously exchanged over email pictures, we found each other no prob and sat down to some warm drinks (no crumpets involved). After a lovely 'get-to-know-you-a-bit' type chat we walked to her apartment and fought off the blustering chill of the London air with more warm drinks (still no crumpets involved). Having good taste as she does, Fayette chose the well-known Brick Lane for dinner where we dined on Indian food alive as usual with its colourful spices. On the way home we stopped for a drink - this time of the alcoholic. (still no crumpets! Where are the crumpets?!?)
Waking up around 9h30, I discovered, much to my delight, that we'd be making pancakes. Our first batch mysteriously became baked in the oven (that was really just keeping them warm I swear!), but the second batch, smothered in sticky sweet syrup and complimented with a scrumptious fruit salad, hit the spot like Robinhood when it comes to archery. The late morning and afternoon we wandered around the mass that is Portbello market, laughing at bizarre vintage goods and buying comestible products for our dinner-to-be. We stopped by the Tate Modern briefly to philosophize some bizarre art. We took some obligatory tacky tourist photo at St. Paul's Cathedral and returned home late to make Thai curry.
The evening we went to one of London's burlesque parties. They're all the rage now over there - all the rage. These parties have themes - often decades I gather- and for this one, people decked out in full 50's garb. Attendees dance the night away to old musique and sip drinks and at some point in the night, watch the burlesque show. For one reason or another, the burlesque show never happened that night (I heard it was stolen by Carmen Sandiago. Where in the world is she anyhow?). Burlesque show or not, we had a smashing good time and met some interesting people. A barrister named David, who wears wigs to court like all good British barristers, told me I looked like a fairy and THEN proceeded to tell me that he was going to write a story and I'd be the heroine: It would take place during WWII. He's be an English parachutist and I a member of the French resistance. He's parachute over in his SILK (stress the fact its silk) parachute to deliver a message that I'd be waiting to receive. We'd run away into the woods and kiss for two seconds before Nazis surrounded us. They let me go, but he would die a valiant death and eventually I'd gone on to love another. ... Whether he was rocked off his rear on vodka or not, I was quite amused, though not amply enough seduced to act out the run into the woods and kiss scene (the poor fellow). We also met two lovely Brits, Steph and James. Everyone was quite friendly and good natured and twas a pleasure.
Up unfortunately early the next morning, I left after a wonderful trip, up 1 great new cousin, down a few hours of sleep. I find London, though gray as a 65-year-old's head, a wonderfully fun city, bustling with interesting cultural events and nice people. Arriving back in Paris, I went immediately to salsa class at la salle du gym. Since the trip, I've been fighting off a cold. I won the first two rounds, but since then my red boxing gloves are becoming worn and my cold took on the demeanor of Muhammad Ali.
Sunday evening I hit the streets to watch the results of the presidentals. We started in Bastille aka socialist city to watch the results come out. Their candidate lost and there was shouting ("La France est morte!" (France is dead!)) and crying and very distraught looking people all around. From sorrow to happiness, we hopped on le metro across the city to the UMP's (winning party's) set up. After Sarko finished his televised speech, white-clad singers and dancers took the stage to start up the party. Oh to bask in the glory of dancers clad in strange overly-trying-to-be-fashionable outfits dancing really tacky moves. The opening songs were slow paced loved ballads which I found to be unfitting and bizarre. I mean, we all know that politics=love, but really, lets not stress the point here. We left around 10, evidently just missing a Sarkosy appearance. Making up for it though, I did find Waldo. Maybe not as good as Sarko, but not bad. The next morning I woke, surprised to find that only 300-some cars were burned around the whole country in response to the election of this controversial figure.
The week was normal. I handed in a 20 page report on Klimt's 'The Kiss' - yes, in French, because that is language or love so people say.
Being the lucky girl I am, I had a visitor this past weekend. The previous week, Aiobheen (oh Gaelic, how dost one pronounce thee) a delightful girl I'd befriended in a hostel in Barcelona came to visit. This weekend came around the mountain just like Suzanna my best friend from freshman year at Brandeis who'd transferred to Wash St. Louis. It was been 2 years since we'd seen each other, but things picked up right off the bat (a Louiville Slugger) and 2 years melted away like good fondu cheese. It was so great to see her. We ate crepes - the glorious flat pancake of France, spent hours catching up on years, went salsa dancing with Thomas and co, spent an evening sipping Chardonnay at my friend Floriane's, saw the musee d'Orsay, ate falaffel, went skydiving, hiked up a volcano, met Mick Jagger, rode yaks through the Sahara dessert, and discovered a new planet called X76 which is next to Pluto (which is NO longer a planet). PHEW a weekend tiring but well spent.
Today is May 14th. That means in a wee bit over 3 weeks..... Ah. Je ne le dirai pas!
My book on outsourcing and globalization just sprouted legs and ran out of the room. I guess that means I have to go run after it so I can research my next paper.
A la prochain,
Hannah
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Inconvenient deaths, Runification, and back to square one
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Warning, this email may not be advisable for those with heart conditions, those who are pregnant, those who have claustrophobia, and those without a decent sense of humor.
You may not ride this email if you do not measure at least 15 cm of height. It is recommended that young children are accompanied by adults.
Please fasten your safety belts, keep all arms inside the car and all eyes on the glowing box in front of you.
Enjoy the ride.
-------------------- zoom ---------
Italy part deux.
We commence, yes commence, with another Tuscan town - Siena.
Siena, Italy. Population: 54,500. Elevation: 1194 feet. Average Annual Rainfall: 29.5 inches. Main attraction: My friend Briana.
So Nick and I arrive early in Siena and find our way onto a bus towards the city center. We did some good gesticulating and charades, even mime acts (white face and all) to succeed in finding the correct bus. It also involved broken English and a bare slather of Italian. In town, we drop our things off at our B&B (the cheapest lodging we could find), a pleasing little joint with painted bedroom ceilings run by Antonella.
Unstrapped of our luggage, we start walking towards the Duomo, Siena's main attraction. On the way, we pass the town baptistery and decide to go in. Inside, as our eyes adjust to the dim light, we see that we are in a small religious building, more cozy than normal, covered head to toe in painting. Rich colors and shiny marble filled the room like balls fill a ball pit, or more simply, all over. The baptismal font glistened with golden bas-reliefs including the noted 'Feast of Herrod' by Donatello.
We had planned to go next to the city's main attraction, not the lion jumping through the hoop of fire act, but the Duomo (a church. a BIG, FANCY domed church). Sadly, we had to annul those plans. You see some guy had to go and die. Some big, somehow-important archbishop had to go and kick the can just in time for me and Nick coming to Siena. The Duomo was closed for his funeral or something of the like (I hear it involves crazy rituals with all the most well-known Italian spices - oregano, basil, pepper – being thrown all over the Duomo). But seriously, Mr. Archbishop, thanks for picking the wrong day to die. Couldn't you have croaked the week before? Seriously not considerate.
We met up with Bri at 11 AM and had some delicious gelatto and hiked up to this old fortess with views over the valleys. We later went into Siena's 'big' museum and then to their old hospital. Bri played tour guide for us at the hospital (she'd had a class there) and showed us around the underground labyrinth explaining that those big empty cylindrical rooms were where they used to store thousands of fluid liters of olive
oil. Contrary to common belief, they did not use the olive oil for its supernatural powers, but instead used it for cooking all the food for the hospital workers patients and ye olde visiting pilgrims.
The biggest event in Siena is Il Palio. It's some crazy horse race they have in July, and it is their life. I mean it. That's the only thing they learn about in school. There is no creation vs. evolution debate but rather it is widely excepted that the world was created after the first Palio in 983 BCE when the first 7 Palio horses suddenly morphed into the 7 continents. AMAZING! Kentucky school boards, there's your answer - it's not creationism NOR is it evolution. It's Paliotionsism! Moving on... we ran across 2 contradas (neighborhoods of Siena each with a mascot - not normal mascots either... snail, giraffe, fish...I don't know where they come up with these) practicing their drumming and flag throwing for the July race. You had every generation there from age 5 to 75 (men only may it be noted) drumming or learning to flag throw. They evidently started practicing in February.
We ate a dinner that deserves note. A deliciously sauced and cheesed and/or vegetabled pasta- the best one we ate in Italy. This place evidently grows their pasta on the highest quality pasta trees in a small, nearby farm where they hand water every leaf.
After running across a high school band show (let's not talk about how the singer sounded, poor fellow) we went to a really great tea room.
The next day was off to Rome after our short 'sejour' in the 'countryside.'
After our early morning departure, we arrived at 4:30 in Rome. If you know anything about Italian geography, that should seem bizarre. Let's not discuss how infrequently Italian trains run on Saturday. Once in Rome, on our post luggage drop-off wanders - in one church out the other, just like ears - we found the Trevi Fountain. The fountain is a billowing, pompous mass of sculpted marble featuring Neptune at the reigns of his horses and it is 'impressionant.' Tradition says that if you throw a coin in the fountain that some day you will return to Rome. I threw in a one cent piece. Do you think tradition is kind to misers?
Later on in our wanders we had one of those moments where you say, "Hey I know that building I've seen that a million times!" The Colosseum. The old arena was lit up against the night sky like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the sky. (Kerouac. What did he do in that book anyhow? With him getting on the road so much and doing nothing, I decided to hit the road in the middle of his "travels" and not come back no more no more no more no more. At least he wrote poetically.)
The next morning we did the obligatory tour of the Colosseum. By tour I mean we listened in on as many French or English tour groups as possible. When looking at the Eros (the Roman's cupid) exhibit on the first floor, I wandered up to a look at a sculpture only to feel the old man next to me fondle my "fez" aka "derriere." aka butt. "Oh wow. I'm being molested," I think. We both turn to look at each other and I'm amused to see him even more shocked than I was when he saw that I wasn't his wife. She'd moved on to another display case, and he had thought, without looking, that I was her. (Or so I hope).
Then we continued our runification and went to the palatial hill where some king took a village and turned it into his palace. I'm an old pro at that, taking villages and turning them into personal housing. I do that allll the time. Afterward, we took a tour of the Roman forum. Impressive: what them Romans used to do. Not so impressive: the guy on the tour who kept asking questions trying to stump the guide. "So people leaves flowers on Constantin's grave? Who leaves them?" Guide: "I dont know, I've never met one." Guy who's been doing this the whole tour, continues asking questions about it and then asks "So do these people have some sort of feeling for him, I mean do they love him even after all this time?" At which point, I tire of his millions of obviously answerless questions and turn to him and say "How is she's supposed to know, she's never seen anyone do it!" Aie aie aie.
Afternoon we met up at the Pantheon with some other friends who were in Rome. Paris's Pantheon is bigger and better, but I suppose Rome has that whole originality claim. It's some feat of architecture I guess, but not too much to see. It, unlike far too much of Italy though, was free! Next finite destination was this castle, where instead of having to pretend I was a French EU member to get a discount, we, in talking with the cashier,
found out art history students get in free. I KNEW there was some reason I chose this major. The castle had some nice overlooks on the city and, surprise, more frescoes. I saw so many frescoes in Italy that they're painted to the ceiling of my brain. The evening we ate at a pizza joint where the pizza ,in their good, Italian way, were falling off the edges of the plates in a Dali-melting-clock sort of way. That night we went to
a jazz club and were cultured like good young'uns. A neat little joint with writing all over the walls from every musician who'd played there.
Next day, up early for the Vatican. We went to the first line we saw and ended up in St. Peter's. Ok, I admit, it was pretty astounding, head to toe, corner to corner, lavished with elaborate decoration. The podium had columns painted in black and gold that, like gnarled old fingers, twisted their carved way up to the golden and frescoed dome above.
Then, after a one hour wait in the sun being chased by men handing out restaurant flyers, who were attracted to the tourists like bees to honey, we made it through the grueling line to the Vatican museums. Room after frescoed room danced through our eyes. Not one inch was left uncovered. We saw old sculptures and Rapheal's famed "school of Athens" fresco. After a few hours, we wound up at the final destination, the Sistine chapel. You walk in and the first thing that strikes the eye is the sea of heads attached, evidently, to bodies squished together in the small chapel. Despite the constant multilingual announcement not to take pictures, flash bulbs went off left and right like paparazzi with Brittnay Spears. Yes, yes, it was impressive. However, after so SO many frescoes in the preceding rooms, I honestly thought to myself, "Self, well this is pretty, don't you agree? ""Yes, self, I agree, but really, it's just another fresco." "Mmmm. Quite right, quite right." What makes it more special than the next, I'm working on figuring out. After the half hour we passed in there that eventually I felt like I'd come to appeciate its beauty... somewhat.
Afterward, Nick and I met back up with Dana and her travel buddy at Piazza Pupolo. We all wandered to the Spanish steps, covered in blankets (or rather pots) of fuchsia and white buds. I bloomed with the flowers and walked with the steps, and we sat out and baked like browning marshmellows in the golden sunshine.
The last day, Dana and her friend had left and it was down to two again, just like monkeys jumping on a bed. Nick and I went to the synagogue in the late morning. The only way to get in was to take a tour, so we did. It too was, like Florence's synagogue, pretty and a nice change of scene. Next, ate our last gelatto, and used a whole box of tissues to mop up my tears resulting from the devestatin event.
We tried to go to the Capotoline museum, only to find it closed for some workers' meeting. Actually, they selectively staffed ONLY the parts that no one would really want to see. We said no Grazie to paying 8 Euro to see an 8th of the museum and wound up in a different, free museum highlighting Italy's independence and unification and famous generals and wars. Inspiring. They kept such lovely souvenirs on display as the bandage that wrapped Garibraldi's wound when he was injured in such and such war. Tasteful. My life is complete now that I've seen that.
Late afternoon and we were off to the airport, where things went a lot smoother than the Paris-Venice leg of the trip.
-----------------------
And so I'm back in P-town (blamsphomous nickname, eh?) which is burning with the inflammation of the impending May 6th elections. Today is the EU equivalent of Labor day and I will be joining some friends for a picnic in the Bois de Boulogne. The Bois de Boulogne is evidently quite pretty, but not to be gone to at night, lest you be accosted by a stark naked prostitute or money-wielding pimp. At our picnic, we will sit in grassy green fields
and eat "fromage" before the fields are copulated upon during the evening hours.
French culture note. Glasses. Some french people seem to be in some unwritten contest to find the ugliest, most bizarre or nerdiest glasses possible. I bet they have clandestine meetings where they take their odd-spectacled faces to secret places and have votes on who has the ugliest glasses of the week.
Also, in the supermarket this week, I discovered that you can buy horse meat. Who wants to eat Black Beauty? Takers? Anyone? Anyone?
That's what its all about, just like Looney Toons.
A bientot,
Hannah
Warning, this email may not be advisable for those with heart conditions, those who are pregnant, those who have claustrophobia, and those without a decent sense of humor.
You may not ride this email if you do not measure at least 15 cm of height. It is recommended that young children are accompanied by adults.
Please fasten your safety belts, keep all arms inside the car and all eyes on the glowing box in front of you.
Enjoy the ride.
-------------------- zoom ---------
Italy part deux.
We commence, yes commence, with another Tuscan town - Siena.
Siena, Italy. Population: 54,500. Elevation: 1194 feet. Average Annual Rainfall: 29.5 inches. Main attraction: My friend Briana.
So Nick and I arrive early in Siena and find our way onto a bus towards the city center. We did some good gesticulating and charades, even mime acts (white face and all) to succeed in finding the correct bus. It also involved broken English and a bare slather of Italian. In town, we drop our things off at our B&B (the cheapest lodging we could find), a pleasing little joint with painted bedroom ceilings run by Antonella.
Unstrapped of our luggage, we start walking towards the Duomo, Siena's main attraction. On the way, we pass the town baptistery and decide to go in. Inside, as our eyes adjust to the dim light, we see that we are in a small religious building, more cozy than normal, covered head to toe in painting. Rich colors and shiny marble filled the room like balls fill a ball pit, or more simply, all over. The baptismal font glistened with golden bas-reliefs including the noted 'Feast of Herrod' by Donatello.
We had planned to go next to the city's main attraction, not the lion jumping through the hoop of fire act, but the Duomo (a church. a BIG, FANCY domed church). Sadly, we had to annul those plans. You see some guy had to go and die. Some big, somehow-important archbishop had to go and kick the can just in time for me and Nick coming to Siena. The Duomo was closed for his funeral or something of the like (I hear it involves crazy rituals with all the most well-known Italian spices - oregano, basil, pepper – being thrown all over the Duomo). But seriously, Mr. Archbishop, thanks for picking the wrong day to die. Couldn't you have croaked the week before? Seriously not considerate.
We met up with Bri at 11 AM and had some delicious gelatto and hiked up to this old fortess with views over the valleys. We later went into Siena's 'big' museum and then to their old hospital. Bri played tour guide for us at the hospital (she'd had a class there) and showed us around the underground labyrinth explaining that those big empty cylindrical rooms were where they used to store thousands of fluid liters of olive
oil. Contrary to common belief, they did not use the olive oil for its supernatural powers, but instead used it for cooking all the food for the hospital workers patients and ye olde visiting pilgrims.
The biggest event in Siena is Il Palio. It's some crazy horse race they have in July, and it is their life. I mean it. That's the only thing they learn about in school. There is no creation vs. evolution debate but rather it is widely excepted that the world was created after the first Palio in 983 BCE when the first 7 Palio horses suddenly morphed into the 7 continents. AMAZING! Kentucky school boards, there's your answer - it's not creationism NOR is it evolution. It's Paliotionsism! Moving on... we ran across 2 contradas (neighborhoods of Siena each with a mascot - not normal mascots either... snail, giraffe, fish...I don't know where they come up with these) practicing their drumming and flag throwing for the July race. You had every generation there from age 5 to 75 (men only may it be noted) drumming or learning to flag throw. They evidently started practicing in February.
We ate a dinner that deserves note. A deliciously sauced and cheesed and/or vegetabled pasta- the best one we ate in Italy. This place evidently grows their pasta on the highest quality pasta trees in a small, nearby farm where they hand water every leaf.
After running across a high school band show (let's not talk about how the singer sounded, poor fellow) we went to a really great tea room.
The next day was off to Rome after our short 'sejour' in the 'countryside.'
After our early morning departure, we arrived at 4:30 in Rome. If you know anything about Italian geography, that should seem bizarre. Let's not discuss how infrequently Italian trains run on Saturday. Once in Rome, on our post luggage drop-off wanders - in one church out the other, just like ears - we found the Trevi Fountain. The fountain is a billowing, pompous mass of sculpted marble featuring Neptune at the reigns of his horses and it is 'impressionant.' Tradition says that if you throw a coin in the fountain that some day you will return to Rome. I threw in a one cent piece. Do you think tradition is kind to misers?
Later on in our wanders we had one of those moments where you say, "Hey I know that building I've seen that a million times!" The Colosseum. The old arena was lit up against the night sky like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the sky. (Kerouac. What did he do in that book anyhow? With him getting on the road so much and doing nothing, I decided to hit the road in the middle of his "travels" and not come back no more no more no more no more. At least he wrote poetically.)
The next morning we did the obligatory tour of the Colosseum. By tour I mean we listened in on as many French or English tour groups as possible. When looking at the Eros (the Roman's cupid) exhibit on the first floor, I wandered up to a look at a sculpture only to feel the old man next to me fondle my "fez" aka "derriere." aka butt. "Oh wow. I'm being molested," I think. We both turn to look at each other and I'm amused to see him even more shocked than I was when he saw that I wasn't his wife. She'd moved on to another display case, and he had thought, without looking, that I was her. (Or so I hope).
Then we continued our runification and went to the palatial hill where some king took a village and turned it into his palace. I'm an old pro at that, taking villages and turning them into personal housing. I do that allll the time. Afterward, we took a tour of the Roman forum. Impressive: what them Romans used to do. Not so impressive: the guy on the tour who kept asking questions trying to stump the guide. "So people leaves flowers on Constantin's grave? Who leaves them?" Guide: "I dont know, I've never met one." Guy who's been doing this the whole tour, continues asking questions about it and then asks "So do these people have some sort of feeling for him, I mean do they love him even after all this time?" At which point, I tire of his millions of obviously answerless questions and turn to him and say "How is she's supposed to know, she's never seen anyone do it!" Aie aie aie.
Afternoon we met up at the Pantheon with some other friends who were in Rome. Paris's Pantheon is bigger and better, but I suppose Rome has that whole originality claim. It's some feat of architecture I guess, but not too much to see. It, unlike far too much of Italy though, was free! Next finite destination was this castle, where instead of having to pretend I was a French EU member to get a discount, we, in talking with the cashier,
found out art history students get in free. I KNEW there was some reason I chose this major. The castle had some nice overlooks on the city and, surprise, more frescoes. I saw so many frescoes in Italy that they're painted to the ceiling of my brain. The evening we ate at a pizza joint where the pizza ,in their good, Italian way, were falling off the edges of the plates in a Dali-melting-clock sort of way. That night we went to
a jazz club and were cultured like good young'uns. A neat little joint with writing all over the walls from every musician who'd played there.
Next day, up early for the Vatican. We went to the first line we saw and ended up in St. Peter's. Ok, I admit, it was pretty astounding, head to toe, corner to corner, lavished with elaborate decoration. The podium had columns painted in black and gold that, like gnarled old fingers, twisted their carved way up to the golden and frescoed dome above.
Then, after a one hour wait in the sun being chased by men handing out restaurant flyers, who were attracted to the tourists like bees to honey, we made it through the grueling line to the Vatican museums. Room after frescoed room danced through our eyes. Not one inch was left uncovered. We saw old sculptures and Rapheal's famed "school of Athens" fresco. After a few hours, we wound up at the final destination, the Sistine chapel. You walk in and the first thing that strikes the eye is the sea of heads attached, evidently, to bodies squished together in the small chapel. Despite the constant multilingual announcement not to take pictures, flash bulbs went off left and right like paparazzi with Brittnay Spears. Yes, yes, it was impressive. However, after so SO many frescoes in the preceding rooms, I honestly thought to myself, "Self, well this is pretty, don't you agree? ""Yes, self, I agree, but really, it's just another fresco." "Mmmm. Quite right, quite right." What makes it more special than the next, I'm working on figuring out. After the half hour we passed in there that eventually I felt like I'd come to appeciate its beauty... somewhat.
Afterward, Nick and I met back up with Dana and her travel buddy at Piazza Pupolo. We all wandered to the Spanish steps, covered in blankets (or rather pots) of fuchsia and white buds. I bloomed with the flowers and walked with the steps, and we sat out and baked like browning marshmellows in the golden sunshine.
The last day, Dana and her friend had left and it was down to two again, just like monkeys jumping on a bed. Nick and I went to the synagogue in the late morning. The only way to get in was to take a tour, so we did. It too was, like Florence's synagogue, pretty and a nice change of scene. Next, ate our last gelatto, and used a whole box of tissues to mop up my tears resulting from the devestatin event.
We tried to go to the Capotoline museum, only to find it closed for some workers' meeting. Actually, they selectively staffed ONLY the parts that no one would really want to see. We said no Grazie to paying 8 Euro to see an 8th of the museum and wound up in a different, free museum highlighting Italy's independence and unification and famous generals and wars. Inspiring. They kept such lovely souvenirs on display as the bandage that wrapped Garibraldi's wound when he was injured in such and such war. Tasteful. My life is complete now that I've seen that.
Late afternoon and we were off to the airport, where things went a lot smoother than the Paris-Venice leg of the trip.
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And so I'm back in P-town (blamsphomous nickname, eh?) which is burning with the inflammation of the impending May 6th elections. Today is the EU equivalent of Labor day and I will be joining some friends for a picnic in the Bois de Boulogne. The Bois de Boulogne is evidently quite pretty, but not to be gone to at night, lest you be accosted by a stark naked prostitute or money-wielding pimp. At our picnic, we will sit in grassy green fields
and eat "fromage" before the fields are copulated upon during the evening hours.
French culture note. Glasses. Some french people seem to be in some unwritten contest to find the ugliest, most bizarre or nerdiest glasses possible. I bet they have clandestine meetings where they take their odd-spectacled faces to secret places and have votes on who has the ugliest glasses of the week.
Also, in the supermarket this week, I discovered that you can buy horse meat. Who wants to eat Black Beauty? Takers? Anyone? Anyone?
That's what its all about, just like Looney Toons.
A bientot,
Hannah
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