More misadventures and piteous o'erthrows

Upon returning from Verona, I was about ready to fall off my feet. So instead of going out clubbing as per my original plan, I decided to play it nice 'n easy this Saturday night and just go to a cafe with some friends. Anne, my roommate with whom I had gone to Verona, was with me, but she and a bunch of other decided to split early. So the three of us who were left found a small bar that was still open, split a bottle of 18 euro very nice wine and headed home around 1 am.

At about 1:45 I arrive at my door. Here's what you have to understand about our door. There are two locks on it; one locks the actual knob, the other locks this bolt for which we do not have the key. In fact, Laura, our Italian roommate, even told us, do not touch the bolt. Under any circumstances.

So I arrive at about 1:45 at my door. I put in the key in the lock. I turn the knob.

The door does not budge.

I try again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And....my hands are starting to bruise.

I pound, I scream, I ring, I buzz. I know Anne is inside and asleep. How she can sleep through the ruckus I'm making I haven't the faintest, but currently, she is.

I start looking around for some way out of this. By now it's about 3 am and I'm so incredibly sure that the neighbors hate me (these walls aren't exactly soundproof). I go back outside, trying to see if there's a way I can climb up onto out balcony that faces the street. There isn't. I start looking around for a night warden, someone or something to help me. Nada.

I continue to pound on the door, but it remains impassive, it's one-way eye staring at me. So close, yet so far.

"I cannot do this," I tell myself. "I am not about to let myself fall asleep on the doormat."

I fall asleep on the door mat. Which is extremely uncomfortable. As I fall asleep I realize that this is what being homeless is like, and I felt so incredibly grateful that I don't sleep like this every night. Cause there are people who do. There are people who know no other.

Around 5 am Kazarae comes home, slightly not sober. I wake up and wish her luck opening the door. Pretty soon we're both at it, pounding the door, ringing the bell, shouting. I keep running outside to look at the situation from another angle, cause I just know, I know, there's gotta be a way out of this.

6 am. Nothing. I wonder for the 20th time if Anne is actually there. What if she got hurt on the way home? But no, there's no way, cause the bolt can only be locked from the inside, so she has to be in there. Why hasn't she woken up? How can she possibly be sleeping through this incredible ruckus we're making??
Kazarae starts calling people. Because, of course, as Murphy's law is in full swing here, she's the only one between us who has a cell, it's running out of batteries fast, and she doesn't have Anne's number. We call her friend Andrea, who's roommates with Rachel, who we know has Anne's number. No one picks up. We call Walter, the head of Student Services at IES. He says "I don't know. It'd be useless to call the police. They won't be able to do anything. Just keep knocking and ringing, and try not to wake up the neighbors." We call Laura, our Italian roommate who was out of town for the weekend. She's a bit more sympathetic, but still offers no knew advice.

7 am. I fall asleep on the stairs, my scarf cushioning my head. Kazarae curls up on the doormat. We both look incredibly bedraggled and defeated. I keep having dreams about doors magically opening to me. I can see the other side of the door, the inside of the apartment...then I wake up.

8 am. Anne should be waking up by now, as she said she almost always wakes up between 8 and 8:30. Both Kazarae and I are beginning to get a little delirious. More than a little. We're starting to think that every little sound, every tiny squeak, is coming from inside the apartment. The whole world is there, and here we are, unable to do anything but sit and wait. There is nothing more frustrating, I promise you.

9 am. Still nothing. I look at my emergency card and see a number that I hadn't seen before. "Housing Emergency."
D'oh.
We call. Finally! A lifeline. Manuela tells us she's sending over another RA. We're not sure exactly what the RA will be able to do, but it's something, which is more than what's happened in the past 7+ hours. We recommence making a ruckus.

9:24. What....what??? WAS THAT A NOISE? OH MY GOD!
The door clicks, the bolt turns. Anne's tired face appears. "What's going on?"
Kazarae hugs me. All I can do is laugh. Just laugh. Out of desperation, out of exhaustion, relief, disbelief that I just spent 7.5 hours locked out of my own house, sleeping on the stairs,I don't know. I'm so maniaically far gone.

Kazarae and I had been so determined to be incredibly pissed off at Anne, but when I finally saw her blessed, blessed face I just couldn't. Turns out, as she was the only one home at the time when she came back, coupled by the fact that a creepy guy had just stalked her all the way home out of the Metro stop and to the apartment, she decided to lock herself in. This in itself is not a bad thing, except that, in a moment of mental abstraction, she threw the bolt instead of locking the knob. She then proceeded to put in earplugs so that she could actually get some sleep, as she had not slept well the proceeding nights.

We've learned our lesson now. I'm going to talk to Manuela tomorrow about either removing the bolt or finding new keys for it. And we all have each others numbers.

At some point during the night, I had the very weird thought that this must be what giving birth is like, 'cept without the blood and screaming. But, more just because it's an incredibly painful psychological struggle (and somewhat physical; Have you ever tried sleeping on a set of cold stone stairs?) that lasts for hours and hours. You can see no clear end in sight, you're doing all you can to get it over with, yet really all you can do is just wait for it to happen by itself. And you know there's going to be a fantasticly beautful reward at the end of it.

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene

(there were no ancient grudges breaking to new mutiny, I promise)

Hi guys,

I know I'm a week behind, and I'm sorry. I'm going to skip ahead to this weekend and fill you in and then go back and describe my first week here. Needless to say, like everything in my life, it was epic.

On Friday, after posting an unusually angtsy and self-loathing LJ post about how lonely and isolated I'm still feeling, my friends gave me the slap in face I needed and I decided to email some people to see if they wanted to hang out this weekend. I really had nothing specific in mind, maybe a day trip to Lake Como or Venice. Just, you know, something to be around people. I ended up getting invited to spend a day in Verona with Anne, my roommate, Sarah, and a bunch of other people.

Here's how much of an idiot/nerd I am. As soon as I started talking to Anne about the trip, I said, "Oh yeah, and isn't....some Shakespeare play is set there. Not Merchant of Venice...Oh! Of course! Two Gentlemen of Verona!"

Lit and English people, feel free to slap me in the face for forgetting that THE GREATEST LOVE TRAGEDY OF ALL TIME is set in that damned city. Woops.

Also Friday night, I went grocery shopping and cooked for myself for the first time. I made a simple marinara sauce, which turned out really well. It was nothing special but I was proud of myself.

Anyway, so I got excited. Verona is about an hour and a half outside of Milan (there are no Shakespeare plays set in Milan, as far as I know). Anne and I got up and headed over to the train station and met the others at 9. Buying the tickets was interesting, as there were no trains indicated on the monitors as going to or stopping in Verona. It took a bit of deciphering through the thick plexiglass and our collective lack of italian skills which train we wanted, and then when we got our tickets, they all said "Posto Non Garantito."

Che?

We found out soon enough. Turned out the cheapest tickets we could buy were a sort of standing room only seats. Instead of seats in the compartments, we got to crouch in the aisle on these little fold-out seats with a bar sticking into our necks as we tried to sleep a bit on the way there. There were beautiful scenes of the Italian countryside flying past the window, with mountains and sprinklings of villas...all of which I could not see, because the guy sitting in the compartment in front of me pulled the curtain down. Gee thanks.

Verona was quaint, but very touristy, at least the parts that we went to. Two FYIs: if you ever find yourself in Verona, buy yourself a VeronaPass. It's a 8 euro card that lets you into most of the major tourist spots for free. Totally and completely worth it. Also, La Casa di Giulietta is cute, but unless you think it's worth 6 euro to go into this house, stand on a balconey and pose cutely for the dozens of people below while your friends take your picture, and then walk around a "museum" which has basically nothing in it, don't bother.

The entryway to the courtyard where the balconey is (yes, this is supposedly The Balconey [except it's not, cause, you know, these people didn't actually exist]), is worth taking a gander at. The walls are completely plastered with love notes and declarations, either stuck there on a piece of paper, or carved into the wall. I mean, COMPLETELY. PLASTERED. It's far, far worse than a postering kiosk in the Yard. Also, in the courtyard, there's the supposed statue of Juliet that the Capulets erected when she died the first time. It just basically looks like a statue of a young girl, except one of her bronze breasts is completely discolored. As I watched people walked up and take pictures with the statue, I suddenly felt as though I was in an Italian Harvard Yard. Supposedly if rub you the statue's right breast, it brings you good luck in love. I don't quite understand the logic behind that, considering, you know, SHE DIED, but I supposed it makes as much sense as rubbing the thouroughly urinated-upon foot of a man who's not John Harvard, hoping to get into Harvard.

We visited two other major sites, the Castlevecchio (Old Castle), and the Arena di Verona, reputably the third largest outdoor Roman Ampitheater still standing, and is still used to stage a regular opera season and Shakespeare Festival! Not kidding! It was huge. And of course there was no shade anywhere. Castlevecchio is exactly what is sounds like: an old castle that's been refurbished into an art museum, displaying all sorts of religious art and statues and interesting architecture. Most importantly, it was indoors, therefore out of the sun.

Actually, this entire trip was spent pretty much sweating as much as possible. I once happened to glance at a thermometer and discovered that it was in the upper 30s (that's Celcius, people). By about 4 we were all sufficiently pooped and eventually headed home.

While we were there, we must have run into about a dozen wedding parties. Literally, 12. We asked our waitress at lunch what was going on, and she explained in italian, which I understood surprisingly well, that getting married in Verona is extremely popular for Italian couples. Apparently, the tradition is to rent out one of the huge cathedrals around town (trust me, there's no lack of those), get married there, then go to Le Casa di Romeo e Giulietta, write a declaration of love on the wall of each of those houses, get pictures taken, etcetera, and then go visit "Juliet's Tomb" (that's one site we didn't get to), and emphasis the "Til death do us part" part of the vows. Cute, no?

But wait! There's more to come...interesting events the following night involving an unstoppable force (yours truly) meeting an immovable object (the locked door to my apartment).
As well as the rest of the preceeding week of orientaion and disorientation.

Ci vediamo!

Hahaha!!

HEE HEE HEE!!!


http://www.everybodywantstobeitalian.com/

It's probably not really that good, but the trailer, at least, is cute.

An image

Of coming down into Milan.

I had kept my window open during the flight, and when I awoke suddenly from "sleep" (I can't really sleep on planes) by the captain announcing that we were descending into Milan, I chanced to look out. In the two or so hours that I had been out, the sky had turned from an inky black to an sparkling bright blue and the clouds were making shapes in the air. I flew by huge grey stone heads, next to little white flurries lying in huge blue pools, and golden stacks of pillows and bowls of spaghetti, streaming by in mid air. Everything was shades of orange, gold, grey and blue, even some black, in every shape and size. I even saw a sheaf of dull knives.

And then as we descended through the clouds. The landscape below was round with rich colors of brown and green, dotted with those little red-roofed Italian villas you see pictures of and wish you could live in one, backed by those blue mountains majesty through the fog and sunlight. To top it all off, a rainbow followed me down from the clouds to earth. I took it as a good sign.

Well, benvenuti in Italia.

I've run so long, I've run so far. (Day 1)

Hello all. Long time no post. But don't worry! I'm back shall sate your appetite for risotto and rigatoni!

Plan ride over was uneventful for the most part. Drank a lot of ginger ale. As soon as I waved goodbye to my parents one last time and officially turned my back to go down the escalator on the other side of security, I could feel tears starting, and the finale from "Children of Eden" starting playing in my head, which has lyrics along the lines of "How lovely was the world we had/In the beginning/Now we begin."

Full disclosure: I. Was. Terrified. I honestly had barely any idea what I was getting myself into, and over the summer I had kind of lost a bit of sight as to why I wanted to do this in the first place. I never changed my decision, but the whole idea of this trip, and the fact that it was actually going to happen, had been pushed so far back in my mind that I started to half-believe it wasn't actually going to happen. And then, going down that escalator, the reason why I was terrified hit me. I was the most alone I had ever been in my life. Everything else I had ever done had been done either before by or with someone in my family. I've been to foreign countries before. I've gone to prestitious and expensive institutions before. But this is the first time I was doing both on completely my own initiative. That realization, that basically I had and have no one to blame but myself for whatever happens, that you have finally learned how to make your own decisions and control your own path is a scary, scary thing.

While in Newark (aka New Jersey trying to be NYC) I espied a few people who looked like American college students, and sure enough, when we landed in Milan I saw them with IES luggage tags and folders and booklets etc. We all kind of collided at the luggage claim, picked up our many and heavy bags and silently decided to stick together and find our way into Milan.

You see, Malpensa airport is Milan's international airport. However it's actually located about a 40 min. express train ride outside the city. We had to lug our luggage (seriously, why do you think it's called luggage? You LUG that bag with you. It does not come along quietly and compliantly) down so many stairs, wander around until we found the sign reading "Treni," figure out if it was the treno we wanted, then find the booth or what have you that sells i biglietti per i treni, and then find the platform. All while lugging the damn luggage.

This was a lot harder than it sounds. Refer to video in previous post.

So, by now, I'm wearing clothes that I've slept in and basically been wearing for two days without showering, and now I'm sweating. Best birthday ever.

Train comes, and we start to load all of our 100, 5,000 lb. suitcases onto the train. We're all huffing and puffing and trying to help each other load all of this on before the train takes off.

And all the Italians do is stare. Grazie mille, gente. Grazie mille, e grazie per un simpatico e amichevole "Benvenuto!" in la sua paese.

Finally we finish and collpase into our seats. We chat on the train ride into the city. We are not loud by any means, trust me. We are not being disruptive or jumping around. Just chatting very pleasantly.

And all the Italians around us are shooting dirty looks, thinking "Pah, americani ragazzi. Tutti completamente senza respetto."

So we arrive. At this point, I'm was feeling incredibly adrift in this tidal wave of events and emotions that have washed me up on Milan's non-existant shores and was desperate for a hug from someone, or something farmiliar that I could relate to.

That desperately needed hug came in the form of my future roommate, Kazarae Lowe, born in Jamaica and probably one of the most beautiful people ever. Like, seriously.

So we pile into a cab (again, not easy with that huge LUGgage and a teensy tinsy Italian cab). We arrive at the IES center about, literally 30 secs later, and it turns out to be actually a very beautiful, clean, well-kept structure with an inside to match. Honestly, I was expecting, like, a tiny single office in some remote corner of the city. Nuh-uh, this place is outfitted with WIRELESS baby, something that's practically unknown to the average Italian. Windows in every classroom, a gorgeous courtyard, computer lab, the works.

We drop off our luggage in the basement and are told that we are free until 2 p.m. when the bus will be coming to pick us up and take us out of the city for orientation. Or rather "Thea bussa willa arrrrrrriva ata due, e you arrre frreeea until thenna."

I'm sorry, these people speak absolutely marvelous English, but I just ADORE their accents.

This is where I randomly meet Sarah, a junior at Bowdoin in Maine, and the only person thus far that I feel like I truly click with. Don't get me wrong, everyone on the trip who I've met/talked to/spent any amount of time with is incredibly friendly. I just haven't really found very many actually friends yet.

Then again it's only day 3. I have 109 days left with these people. And then the NEW batch comes in, YEE-HAW!

Anyway, Sarah and I and another girl Lauren, who's luggage was lost, ended up going to a cute little cafe at the end of the street and then completely wandering around a couple of streets in Milan and getting semi-lost. Keep in mind, it's hot. I'm still wearing the same clothes, and still haven't showered. Have been and am sweating. Basically I don't feel human.

Finally we pile on the bus and ship outta town. It seems almost impossible, but even then, after knowing these people for about a grand total of 4 hours, the middle school Maya pokes her head up and starts feeling socially isolated. Already. I do my best to tell her to shut the f*ck up, keep an open mind, be patient and be genuinely nice to everyone. Have the personality genes of my father, none of the above are easy.

I'm missing everyone. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and be in my bed. Or that I'm going home in a week. I haven't wrapped my mind around the fact that I'm going to be here for a very. long. time. And all these people who I'm having mixed or good or bad feelings about are going to be here too and I'm going to have to get on with them. I remember a similar feeling coming to the Netherlands. I just couldn't reconcile myself to the fact that I wasn't going home soon. That this now is home, at least for 7.5 months.

But at this point, I'm beginning to realize the following: There are always going to be people who don't like me. There are always going to be people I don't like. There are always going to be people I am jealous of. It's not worth it to dwell on any of the above. Case in point for me: middle and high school.

Also I have to tell myself that it's okay to be a little homesick. The longing for security and familiarity and predictability is something that's ingrained evolutionarily into all of us, to one extent or another. My world has just been majorly shaken up in every way; I'm in a foreign country, with no one and nothing I know, a language I barely speak and a culture I'm familiar with only through Beppe Severgnini's "La Bella Figura." (Good book. Everyone read it). This is a new and difficult situation, but it's nothing I haven't done before in one form or another. And I am going to see all the people I left behind again. Really, I am.

As the day wore on, I met Anne and Laura, my other two roommates. They and Kazarae honestly seemed like the nicestest people in the world. I lucked out in the roommate department, considering how many girls in this group I've noticed who seem like the blonde-preppy-suburb types that I...shall we say I have difficulties getting on with?

Days two and three coming.

Keep this in mind

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=8L5sMkhUpIQ

...as you read this throughout the year. It's a video that they showed us at orientation, that is just too too true.

Check this out

http://fatcrow.blogspot.com

My dear friend Nell is also taking a year off of Harvard, and going to much more exotic places like India and Israel. Read hers as well!