No Place like it.

I had such an amazing time while I was home for Christmas. One of the best adventures being the day that nearly everyone on my Mom's side of the family went into D.C. for a day of museums.

This is how I feel about being home.


Thanks to my baby sister, 'Bear for shooting this amazing vid.

Snaps.

So I'm about 8 months late, and 10 years too old for this party but I am currently obsessed with snapchat.

One of my coworkers, who I think of a classy southern girl who knows where the party's at, introduced me at a post-work function. Desperate for her approval and perhaps slightly over served, I signed up and connected with all my friends.

I was surprised by how many people I knew on the site. Then I had a sudden thought, 

"Is everyone sending dick pix without me?"

If they are, that's fine (gross, but fine). But my knowledge of snapchat was it was just the newest, trendiest ways to send pictures of your junk (oh, technology, you're the best). Junk pictures, I thought were reserved for politicians and sixteen year-olds who don't quite understand how the internet works.

Turns out, while this is all probably incredibly accurate - snapchat is also just a straight communication tool and useful for taking pictures of things no one cares about (snap chat- for when instagramming will just take too.long) and the ugliest pictures of your own face imaginable.

Perhaps it's just my tribe, but most snapchats look like this:
 

And include text that could just as easily be provided via text message.

Granted, it is primarily my baby sister (who, at 20, is exactly who snapchat was made for) who communicates like this, but my fraaaaands do it too. 

My question is why? Why do we take pictures of our faces/computer screens/doodles/drinks/sketchy fellow commuters? Is it because they aren't permanent? Ugly faces are okay as long as they are temporary? Or we just don't like to waste the precious memory on our phones? 

My personal problem is I always want to write too much and the thing only allows for like 100 characters. Clearly, my words are worth more than my face.

Get a job (an open letter to my baby sister)

Dear 'Bear,

So you are going on a job interview. Congratulations!  While I know that you have gone on a few of these in the past, you will discover that people hiring college students are looking for something a little different than people hiring high schoolers.  When you a hire a high schooler you really just want them not to show up to work stoned and maybe maaaaybe go 5 minutes with out answering their cellphones once in a while (the things we do for cheap labor).

When you a hire a college student (at least, in my experience of hiring college students, which I now do with some regularity) you are using this interviewing process as a learning experience for them, but I see it not as a, "I am not going to hire you just because you showed up 'almost' on time and are learning" rather a, "When you don't get a phone call from me, use it as a chance to learn something about not being terrible at this," learning experience.

And guess what, chances are most of the college students you are competing against for these jobs probably do not have meddling older sisters to tell them how its done.  So, anytime you would like to show your thanks in snowcaps and a diet Green Tea Ginger Ale, is fine with me.  You lucky devil.  You're welcome.

I will say that if you follow these steps exactly and you don't get the job, you have free reign to call your ex-potential-company-of-employment whatever sort of conjugation of "douchebag" you would like.

So - first things first - you better research the living daylights out of this company.  You have a google, use it.  "But this company out in po'dunk nowheresville doesn't have a website." Yeah, but chances are they have been written up in the local newspaper, or are listed as an external link as someone else's website.  Whatever it is - you can figure out a way to make it work.  Figure out a way to bring it up in conversation.

"I want to work here because I truly believe in your mission, [insert mission from website here], and think I would be a valued member of your organization."

"I read about your work with [insert thing you read in the paper/other website] and am excited to be involved in this kind of work."

Here's the thing, this stuff sounds real dumb, but people eat it up, especially from college kids.  Its one thing to want a job, its another thing to want a job with this particular hiring-college-kids-because-they-don't-need-health-insurance jamspot.

And then you get to the interview.  And you arrive 5-10 minutes early.  Not any more or any less.  If you roll up 30 minutes early, people are going to be annoyed.  They have way more important things to do, like play on facebook, and troll around the office looking for free cupcakes.

And good lord, keep your flip flops at home.  And your jeans.  And your bookbag.  You know what you do bring?  Your freakin.resume. Maybe I skipped a tweet somewhere, but I am pretty sure you should bring a copy of your resume with you to every single interview.  Not because they'll ask for it, but because on the off chance that they do, you haven't failed at the very first request they've ever made of you.

And during the interview, remember, the thing people like to talk about most?? Is themselves.  So talk about why you're qualified and answer all their questions (and for the love of god, spend 20 minutes before you walk into the interview thinking about a time you had a challenge/had to over come something/failed so you don't have to make something up on the spot).  But then!  Talk about them!  Ask them about their background and why they like working at whatever place is underpaying them to do way more work than they should be.  Ask them what they would ask if they were being interviewed (oh man!  Double bonus points!) and be genuinely interested in what they have to say.

And then? You leave. You can email the next day to say thank you for the opportunity to interview but that is IT. Do not call, or text or bother them.  Believe me, if they want to hire you, they probably will. 

Be friendly.  Smile a lot.  Ask questions. Be excited about whatever they are saying.  Remember fun facts that you've already learned and drop them like they are hot.  In real life you're going to need actually qualifications and proof that you deserve the job, so enjoy this brief moment where being more prepared counts for all the marbles.

Wear deodorant. Don't play with your hair.

Love always,
your big sister.

Lost and Found

A crazy story to make up for the lack of posts recently.

Last Christmas (I think), my baby sister, 'Bear gave me a friendship style bracelet in the colors of the Chicago Bears:
It lived in my jewelry box until the beginning of this football season when I put it on and vowed that I would wear it every day until the Bears won the Super Bowl (obviously this is not entirely accurate for a variety of reasons, but its a fun hyperbolic thing to say).

So I wear pretty much every day but I take it off to shower because there is something about wet embroidery floss that grosses me out.

On Saturday I had to be at work at 8 AM, which was already poor planning but add that to the fact that I did not get much sleep the night before and it was super snowy outside, I was running extra late, so I threw the bracelet in my bag and put it on on the bus.

I got to work, worked a whole day, went out a whole night, woke up the next morning went out and had a show, a rehearsal, a trip to costco and a Christmas tree excursion. At some point in the midst of all that I realized that my bracelet was gone.

I was super bummed, because while I do not expect the Bears to make the Super Bowl it was kind of nice to think that my bracelet had magic powers that was making them do so well. I figured the bracelet had fallen off at some point on Saturday and having been to about 10 different places and having taken my coat off at all of them I knew it was going to be quite impossible to track it down.

I resigned myself to the Bears not doing so well anymore (despite the win over Detroit) and went about devising a plan to tell my sister what had happened without feeling incredibly stupid and irresponsible.

On Monday morning after taking the company van to run an errand and bringing it back to park it, I had to brush some snow off of the ground to see if I was parked within the lines of the spot (our parking lot is never ever plowed which is particularly fun two or three days after a snow fall when everything is iced over) and low and behold what did I find??

My bracelet! It was right there on the little step up ledge next to the drivers seat completely frozen to the car. Here are some crazy things about this state of affairs:

1-I had not driven or even been near that car (or at least that part of the car) since 8 AM Saturday morning - over 48 hours before I found it.

2- That van traveled over 15 miles between the time I lost the bracelet and the time I found it. At least six or so of those miles were on the highway traveling well over 40 miles per hour.

3- The door handle on that door is broken (classy, I know) which means that I never use that door to get into the van, only out of...which means there are about three or four times I actually used that door AND

4- During none of those times was I taking a jacket or gloves on or off (the typical culprits of lost wrist accessories).

How I managed to lose this bracelet in just the right spot AND it managed to freeze there almost immediately, I do not know, but I do know that it is a sign...maybe. We'll see how the rest of the season goes - and if it it goes well than it it is totally a sign, if it doesn't go well, than it is probably just a bracelet.

Au Revoir Paris (and Europe)

Guys! This is my last Europe post! You can get back to hearing about my boring normal life. Woot. Woot.

Also - I am starting to forget things now (like when we went to that crazy big flea market north of the city - and if we went to lunch at the Tuileries before or after the Eiffel tower) so its good I'm almost done.

So, on our last real day in Paris - we had to do everything we hadn't done yet. Which would have been fairly obtainable except all of a sudden J. gave us a list of all these things we should do and there was no way we were going to get to all of it. So we figured we would do what we could and hope for a magical 30 or 40 hour day.

We started at the catacombs. I explained to Bear what they were and she was like, "um, okay?"

So we walk and walk and walk and continue walking under ground for what feels like forever and we keep wondering if we have missed the bones and we keep walking and finally Bear is like, "where are the effin' bones?"
Oh. There they are.

So. Many. Bones. It was unbelievable.
Finally Bear was like, Um...okay - I'm done. And it was pretty crazy how far the bones went. But finally we climbed up the longest spiral staircase ever (Seriously, what is wrong with Europeans why must things be on such different levels?).

After the catacombs we velibed our way over to the Tuileries for lunch. We discovered the glaring flaw in the velib system, when it took us 4 or 5 bike racks to find a bike near the catacombs and then 4 or 5 bike racks to find a place to put them near the Tuileries. Other than that, no complaints.

After lunch we decided that after spending some qt in Monet's hood we should probably see some of his paintings. Except there was a LINE for Orangerie and we discovered it was going to be 9 euro each (or so we thought) - and we were very rapidly running out of money, due to all the buying of the stuff. So we skipped Orangerie because Bear wanted to spend her money on the Eiffel tower instead and I didn't want to deny her a tall building opportunity. So we velibed over to the tower and waited in line for that instead.

I got a lot of pictures of Paris from the top of it, which are way less interesting than I always think they'll be.
Really, my favorite part was the actual building itself. I don't know when I became such an architecture nerd, but I had so much fun learning about Gustave Eiffel and all the neat stuff he did. Even though, due to my current city I have to say I hate the Eiffel tower, secretly, I love it.


After the Eiffel Tower and some fun getting lost - we headed to the Centre Pompidou for some art (Finally! Seriously, we did not see very much art while we were in Europe, I have a certain God-mother who is probably livid at this confession, but probably not too surprised). The Pompidou is awesome and full of amazing things. My favorite (that we saw) was the Dreamlands Exhibition which I'm sure is a traveling piece. So very cool. There are a ton of other great things going on, but that was my favorite.

My other favorite? Bear got in free for being under 18. Apparently Europe thinks that cultural learning is so important for the youth that they let them do it for free. This helped incredibly when it came to funds.

(this is not actually art, its the shadows cast by art, which I thought was infinitely cooler).

Then it was off to the crepe place which was open! And we juuuust managed to have enough funds to cover it and leave a tip for the nice waitress who explained nox to me. I could not remember that one. We had a breakfast-y crepe and then a one with salted caramel. I think we were so hungry that we didn't enjoy it as much as we should have. But it was incredibly delicious.

Then it was home to bed to get up way to early for our plane home. J. warned us that there was a transit strike already planned for that day, but that it wouldn't probably affect us. How kind of the transit workers to let us know they're planning on effing up our travel plans.

We got on the Metro and got off at the stop we were told to get off at, transferred to where the train to the airport was supposed to be. After a few minutes of there not being anyone around and no trains on the schedule, I began to panic.

Finally a woman in an orange vest came up to me and asked me a question. It took three or four times of her saying it for me to get it. Then I took a minute and crafted my question back to her. Then she talked and then I did and then her. And it was ALL in French. I had a full conversation in French about TRANSPORTATION. Not going to the biblioteque or what I was wearing or anything else I learned in Madam Bensing's class. I was very stressed, but so pleased with myself.

Anyway, we got on the train, and then got to the airport, spent our last 5 euro on some Bueno bars and an Orangina and then got on the plane.

We were sitting on the plane for about 10 minutes before I realized we hadn't started going anywhere. I asked the flight attendant what was happening. I didn't understand her french so she tried it in English,

"the French workers, they don't want to work today."

Despite my frustration this made me laugh. Ahh, well, when I don't want to work - I normally just suck it up and do it, but not the french.

We sit on the plane for another 40 minutes or so and I start to panic about the fact that I only have about an hour and 40 minutes to go through customs and catch my next flight and Dulles isn't known for being connection friendly.

Luckily, I have eight hours to worry about it. And so I do. I also eat the food and get a little tipsy (if you are going to offer it, I am going to drink it).

Once we start our descent, I tell Bear that she can either make a run for it with me, or she can take her time and go through customs alone. I think she was done keeping up with me - and so let me race ahead. I got to customs and waited in line for what seemed like ever. My exhaustion from not sleeping for 10 or 12 hours is catching up with me. Finally it was my turn to be questioned.

Customs and Immigration Guy: So where do you live?
Me: Chicago
CaIG: So what do you do there?
Me: I run a circus.

(pause)

CaIG: Seriously?

at this point I realize I have made a grave error. I could have simply said I work for a not-for-profit, or youth development organization. I could have even just said that I work in the arts but no, I went whole hog and now I am getting Doubting Donny and the precious seconds to catch my next flight are slipping away.

Me: Yeah.

He ponders this as I look impatiently at where I need to go.

CaIG: Okay.

And those are three minutes of my life I'll never get back. Rookie mistake on my part.

So I rush and run and finally I get to my gate and Of.Course. my flight to Chicago is delayed two hours. Sigh.

In all the excitement I also realized that my phone had turned on and then died in Europe so I was without a cellphone in 2010. This was almost more than I could handle. It required me buying peanut M&M's, so that I would get quarters so that I could use a Pay Phone to call Boyfriend and my Dad (my Dad to tell him that since my phone was on in Europe I might have a $700 phone bill) and then just wait and FINALLY. I got back to Chicago. I was greeted with a sign with my name on it and a hug and kiss.

And that was my trip to Europe. The End. Regularly scheduled nonsense to come back the next time I post.

Day 11 - So. Much. Paris. and Day 12 - So. Much. Giverny

Monday was a race to see as much as humanly possible. Naturally this was impossible but we crossed off a number of things on our to-do list.

Champs Elysees

The Louis Vuitton flagship store, which was really just depressing. So beautiful and overpriced. Also, the sales people were so needy...or they thought we were going to steal stuff

Gare Du Nord - where we had to wait patiently for a ticket seller who spoke English. I tried out some French on her and she was amused by my attempts but answered everything in English.

Sacre Couer. Take the tram! Do not take the stairs! It is not worth it. Walk to the tram and take it. Believe me. Oh man, the Europeans love stairs. What a bunch of sadists.

McDonalds! Mmmm, McDonalds lunch.

McDonald's also had the most accessible free wireless of the whole trip. Apparently all the parks in Paris have free wi-fi, but you have to register and it wouldn't let me from the ipod touch. Also I managed to communicate with the non-English speaking cashier and explain that we wanted a 1664, not a six piece chicken nuggets. Progress!

Moulin Rouge - waste of time

Pere Lachaise - Fun gravestones. My most favorite was Oscar Wilde

The idea of desecrating a gravestone with lipstick is not something that ever crossed my mind as an acceptable idea, but its pretty wonderful. Also, Victor Noir. No one ever told me the story of this guy. But we went to check it out and sure enough:

The women of the world are nuts.

After Pere Lachaise we hauled to the crepe place that J. said we had to go to. Naturally it was closed and no matter how many times I said "ferme?" they said "um, yes?" In despair went back to J.'s apartment. We were exhausted but he convinced us to meet him out and enjoy fete de la musique. We listened to lots of bands and had a weak street mojito before finding a delicious Pakistani restaurant with an excellent band playing a bunch of instruments I had never seen before.

Then we came across this drum corps that took up the street of an entire block. They were so amazing. Pictures and videos don't really do it justice but I tried.

That was enough to send us almost right home...with just enough time for a night cap.

On Tuesday we woke up bright and early to use our very last Eurail trip out to Giverny. The train trip itself was fine, except no one stamped our little vouchers which made me mad. If I had known it was going to go down like that I would have planned another trip for us, but c'est la vie.

Once we got off the train we got ready to get on the bus. This was a disaster. You would think the people of Giverny would be better prepared for the influx of people who come ONLY to see Monet's hood and so have enough buses to not have a stampede, but no dice.

Finally we get to where Monet lived and it is adorable and wonderful. We wander around for a bit and then realize that if we actually want to see Monet's house we have to get in this long line of people and pay for it. Sigh. Fair enough.

Since we paid the "young persons" rate it was totally worth it. Monet had quite the house/garden/bridge under the highway to a pond.



I was devastated that you couldn't take pictures inside Monet's house, because it was gorgeous. Especially the kitchen

Thank you Ariane for this gorgeous picture. It was the perfect kitchen and it was connected to a bright yellow dining room. It made me rethink having a yellow dining room was a bad thing.

After we had had quite enough garden and house we went to find a meal that would not cost all our money. Impossible, so we settled for some of our money for a sandwich and the most perfect cup of cider.


We wandered around until the heat made us feel kind of dizzy and then we headed back to the train where once again our vouchers weren't stamped. I was kind of mad, I spent an absurd amount of money on those suckers and the fact that I feel like I didn't use them all the way was frustrating.

After we got back we had dinner, just Bear and I, and I managed to get all the way through that without embarrassing myself too badly. Some of the French people I encountered were so nice and patient as I slogged through my brain to rediscover the french I learned over 10 years ago. It kept me going. Had everyone has been as rude as the women on the first day - I probably would have just never opened my mouth.

Night of Day 9 - and day 10. Train people and Paris.

So as I mentioned - one of the major flaws of Milan was when we got there they told us that our sleeper car was not female only as we thought we had been promised. So I spent a lot of the panicking about what sort of whackado Europeans we would be spending ten hours with. That paired with the fact that when we were in the Police station (confirming that we were not going to get deported because we didn't have Italian stamps in our passports - which we didn't) - we saw a woman who was really, really upset and had no things, so we are assuming had all her things stolen, which was super scary.

Naturally the first thing that happened was we realized that our car was Alllll the way at the end of the very, very long train - I had read multiple times that occasionally trains leave the station very quickly so I insisted we RUN to our car with our 50 lb. bags. Bear was not amused.

Anyway, we get to our car - here were our train roomies:

1- A bitchy french woman (is there any other kind?) - she doesn't understand that she is on the bottom bunk, and then insists its broken and tells the conductor she wants a switch - naturally he fixes it in about 30 seconds which I think pissed her off more. She ALSO had like an absurd amount of bags. WHY? Do you not understand how small the train car is? Where do you think that is going to go, because if you think it is invading my personal space you are SORELY mistaken.

2&3 - A pair of 50 or 60 year-old Italian men. They seemed to be backpackers of the real serious variety. They were far fitter than I could ever dream of being - their backpacks looked so light and sensible. I am sure that a peek inside would have proven that they did not bring a formal shirt, jic. Once they established that we didn't really speak Italian at all they took charge - they got our bunks all set up, put the dumb french lady's bags up and out of everyone's way. Even though one of them snored for most of the night - it was forgiven because they made us feel safe.

4- At the very last minute a gentleman walked into the cabin - he was probably in his late 30's and looked like your stereotypical french man. He was dressed in what looked like a fairly expensive three piece suit and white button up with what had to have been four-figure boots on his feet. He promptly took off his jacket and fell asleep. I was mesmerized by his clothing. How do you sleep in a suit that costs more than my rent? I don't think he said anything the whole trip.

Anyway - the train trip itself was pretty uneventful. I discovered that the rolling of the train does not put me to sleep so much as it keeps me awake. But it was a pleasant awake.

When we got into Paris - we arrived at the Bercy station. I wanted to see if we could get some information about going to Giverny so I walked up to a person sitting behind a desk that said information. In my exhaustion the first words that came out of my mouth were in English. You could see her immediately shut down and get bitchy. She shook her head in disinterest in what I was saying.

I sighed. Of Course everyone was right about the French. So I tried another line and this time attempted some weak French. This girl rolled her eyes and repeated what I had said in a disdainful way. I realized my error and tried to correct myself but the damage was done. She was never going to help me. So I gave up.

We got on the train and went directly to J's. J went to college with my Mom on her first go-round at university. He is tres American but has been living in Paris for a couple years and has had quite the adventure. I would tell you about it, but it would ruin the fantastic book he is going to write in a few years. He was a perfect tour guide and after a quick croissant breakfast he took us right out to experience the Bastille Market.

The Bastille Market is a HUGE farmer's market that has every food I could ever think of. I so desperately wanted to take pictures of all the fish and the piles of tomatoes and perfect pieces of cheese. But there was not that much elbow room to begin with, and the people at this market were not there for photo opps, they were there to buy groceries. So I kept my camera in my bag, mostly because I am afraid of the French.

After a quick coffee J. got us our first Velib. Velib is my most favorite part of Paris. So we tooled around and got a wonderful bike tour (Notre Dame, Louvre, fancy bridges) until we got to the Eiffel Tower and it started to rain.


Please note - this picture is in color - it was just that gray. This was one of the two days of bad weather we had and it was actually a nice respite from the 85 and Sunny of the rest of the trip.

Then there was lunch and then the Hunting Museum. The hunting museum (or Maison de la Chasse et de la Nature) is probably in my top 5 of best Museums ever. For a few reasons.
1- Its a huge old house from back in the day - and it still looks like a house for the most part.

2- the ceiling made of owls.


It was hard to take a picture of but - seriously the ceiling of this (rather small) room, was covered in owl pelts. Many of the other ceiling had antlers and such on them. These paired with the classy chandeliers was pretty much my dream decor.

3 - This guy.


Polar Bears are consistently on the short list for my favorite animal and to get to stand this close to a real (albeit dead) one, was pretty amazing. They are much taller than you think. For reference, I am 5'2.

And many more things (the videos that teach you how guns work, the boar in the hall and the deer in the salon, the pictures of puppies in the touring exhibit) - the bad news? The gift shop was terrible? It didn't even have any good postcards. Just books and books do not do the place justice. I left empty handed and disappointed - try harder Hunting Museum.

Then it was home for dinner (Bear's first duck! So delicious) and game planning for the first full day in Paris.

Venice, yay. Milan, boo. Day 8 and 9

Venice is a great city to spend exactly 2 days in. There is a lot of walking involved in Venice and so.many.stairs. I feel like no one bothered to warn me that anytime you go over a canal, you have to climb way more stairs than feels necessary. But its so small that you can get a solid feel for it in 2 days.


We woke up early and got poppin' on our to-do list that Luigi had so nicely mapped out for us. Most of the things we saw were just big religious buildings, which (again) doesn't really get me all jazzed. But I understood the beauty. I was shocked by the really poor condition of most of the buildings. Chipped paint, exposed cracked plaster - it was so upsetting, because it makes me want to buy one and spend my days fixing it up. But even in those crappy conditions, these buildings cost bajillions of dollars. Sigh.


One of our first adventures was to Piazza San Marco. Venice is a city that has completely dedicated itself to the tourist trade and so on most streets there are signs telling you exactly how to get to all the biggest tourist attractions. It is SO useful (also Venice is like a triwizard cup maze, without those signs people would probably just get lost forever). So we got to San Marco in record time and since we got there really early (like 8:30 AM) we were able to go right up to the top of the bell tower. Fun fact, all the roofs in Venice are red.


Piazza San Marco is pretty during the day, but you should really go at night to listen to all the bands play. And then it was on to more buildings - but mostly the Teatro La Fenice. Which is the main character in one of my favorite books. You should go in and just see the book store, its totally worth it and you can get an idea of how totally gorgeous the place is, post-fire. Or, you know, go see an Opera.

After all this outdoor walking it was time for some indoor time - at the Peggy Guggenheim, natch. Basically she collected art in her gorgeous house and when she died - they made the house an art museum, full of all her art. The best part is all of the pictures of the house when she was living in it with all of the art on the walls. That is exactly the kind of crazy old lady I want to be.

Also she is buried with all of her dogs (there are like 15 of them) and their names are on the gravestone. And apparently she had her own gondola and would just ride up and down the Grand Canal waving at people. Seriously?! Best old lady ever. And her front porch view is not to be effed with.

More walking, walking, walking. Discovering that you pay more for food if you eat it outside at the cafe (boo). Finding the best sheets in the world (they have baby tigers on them!), buying lots of presents for myself (and others), and finally going back to the same bar we ate dinner in the night before to watch more soccer and drink more Beer. I know this was poor form of us but we were exhausted and hungry and didn't want to walk in circles to find something that was in our price range, had the game on and was close to where we were staying. Plus it gave me chances to take pictures of the sunset.

And then we went right to bed to get up (way too early - again) for the train. Most of the getting up early had to do with getting out of Luigi's apartment. He was a very, very, very hospitable host, but also a total European bachelor (nothing creepy happened, but we could tell he wanted his space back).

We got to the train station with our bags that had gotten MUCH heavier in Venice. Oops. We were hoping that Milan would have a bag storage place at the train station much like Venice, Rome and other cities. We get on the train and realize we know nothing about Milan. No problem, won't the Dolce and the Gabana be right there like, waiting for us?

Of COURSE not.

We get to Milan and it is raining, there is no place to check our bags that we can find, and we find out, after a half-hour wait in a line, that we are NOT in a girls-only compartment for our overnight train to Paris. Milan already had its 3 strikes and yet we were stuck there for the next 16 hours.

We haul our duffle bags around the train station for awhile deciding to wait out the rain with some gelato. NO GELATO in the WHOLE train station. Here are some other things that there aren't: wireless internet (even that you pay for), free bathrooms, televisions. What a disaster, Milan.

What there IS, is a fantastic bag store. It is apparently only in Italy (not quite true - but its only in Europe) which gave Bear and me huge fashion boners. The bags are crazy affordable for how nice they are - so we got new purses, which was awesome because then we got to carry them around ALL DAY. (Such geniuses).

Most of our day in Milan was spent walking in concentric circles near the airport looking for something/anything to do, food that wasn't gross/crazy expensive and some Effin' internet. No dice on any of them really. In retrospect we should have gotten on the trolley/tram situation and just gone somewhere, but our bags were too heavy and it was too rainy and we were pretty grouchy. So instead we wandered around and were just mad at Milan, which was far better than being mad at each other in retrospect.

Eventually we went to a cafe to get our last prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich of the trip and OF COURSE it was terrible. They put lettuce on it? wtf? So disappointing. And of course we ordered a beer without choosing a size, so we got 50 cl. beers which was way more than we wanted. So bogus.

Eventually we just went back to the train station and called the day a wash. Bear and I obviously had not packed enough books and so traded which meant she got to read The Namesake (amazing) and I was stuck reading The Summer I Turned Pretty (horrible, so horrible Blogger won't let me tag it). Lose.

Anyway - finally our train got there and we could leave Milan behind.

Day 6 & 7 Rome to Venice.

So, the Venitian adventure started actually on our last day in Santa Severa. It was decided that Bear and I should stay at Eugenio's house the night before our train to ensure that we made it in time. This meant that finally we were going to be on our own. No more hand-holding or translating or standing silently while Dad does all the talking

This was something I was incredibly nervous about. For some reason I wasn't nervous about Venice or Milan, I was mostly terrified of the moment we got to the bus stop in Rome and our ride was not there to pick us up. Then what? No phone, no internet, heavy bags. And like most parts of the world, the bus stop in Rome is not in the best neighborhood. But I sucked it up and got on the bus with Bear, saying goodbye to the lovely beach with the piles of trash and dirty water. Buttmunch lost in an epic game of Egyptian Rat Screw which actually screwed me over, because it meant he wouldn't take all the clothes I had regretted bringing home with him. Instead I still had a 40 lb. duffle bag that I was regretting every minute. If I ever do something like this again (read - travel anywhere) its back packs all the way.

We get off the bus and stand in the designated meeting place. Our bus was running a little bit late which peaked my optimism into thinking that maybe whichever cousin was coming to meet us would already be there.

Nope. No cousins.

We do some laps around the "station" to see if we recognize anyone. Nope. No cousins.

I bite back my panic.

We make a plan that if no one is there in half an hour we look for a payphone. If that doesn't work, we go back to Santa Severa on the next bus and admit defeat. We're not proud (a trait comes from the other side of the family).

After about 20 minutes a cousin shows up!! We are not going to be kidnapped or robbed or anything. Miracles. Ricky was just running late, and had been given the wrong time anyway. Like I said - a very loose relationship with time.

Ricky takes us back to their house on the subway. The Roman Metro only has two lines. Apparently this is because anytime they try to make a new subway line they start digging and run into ruins. Like actual historically significant old things. So they gave up. Which I found hilarious.

After a delicious dinner and much translating by Ricky (the oldest of Eugenio's kids with the best English) we go to bed. I decide that insomnia and a massive panic attack are exactly what I need before a 6 hour train ride and brand new city. So I am very worse for the wear the next morning.

I wanted to give us at least an hour to negotiate the train station that wasn't in English. Ricky said we would need 20 minutes. I won, as I tend to do with things like this and we got to the train station WAY too early. Of course. But we got to people watch and panic about why our train was the only one without a track number before getting on the train.

I had never been on a train in Europe before. I guess I just thought that they'd be situated like American Amtrak trains with the rows of two seats. Naturally - this was incorrect (at least for 2nd class, who knows how the rich bitches seats look). The seats are 3 across and they're each in their own little compartment. And there is not a ton of space - particularly when the stereotypical Italian lady and her "Ma-Ma" get on with their 6 pieces of luggage.

Anyway - it was a long 6 hours. But it ended in Venice! Venice is kind of amazing, because you have to go over all this water to actually get there - and then you're in the train station and you've kind of forgotten about all the water (mostly because you're appalled that they're asking you to pay 80 euro-cents to use the bathroom) until you get outside and there is the Grand Canal. Amazing.

We had another fun/terrifying wait for someone to pick us up. This was way worse because all we knew was that his name was Luigi, he was 37, had brown hair, and was tall. As you may have guessed, this describes about 98% of men in Italy. So basically we just stood around saying "Luigi?" in an a-little-bit-louder-than-normal voice. Then half an hour or so later, we see a guy with a sign with our names. Of course!! Luigi works in the tourism industry (which is pretty much the only industry left besides trash collector and gondola driver) and so knew what he was doing.

Luigi believes that all American girls between the age of 17 and 30 only have one goal - to get drunk. This, naturally, was not really our scene and despite our insisting otherwise, he was sure we wanted to get wasted and come home at 4 AM. I am sure that after we were in bed by 11 every night he is just confused.

The first day we were pretty confused and exhausted but we went on an adventure to find gelato. Instead we found a prosciutto sandwich which was almost as good. Luigi gave us a map that only had about half the streets labeled on it which, if you know Venice, is almost more trouble than its worth.

I tried to calm my OCD and allow us to just get ourselves lost and it worked out okay. There was a lot of excess walking but it was fun. There was so much to see.



We didn't talk to that many people, but the ones we did encounter were all incredibly friendly and willing to work within the confines of our limited Italian. We explored until 8 when we watched our daily world cup game and each drank an Italian beer which was surprisingly delicious before heading back to Luigi's and going directly to bed, despite the fact that we were American girls.

Sing sing

Excuse the extended break - I've been trying to be better about posting at least a few times a week but I went home to the land of crab cakes and football (with a quick stopover in the land of moose and lakes) and did not have a ton of blogging time.  My younger-but-not-smaller siblings both managed to maintain the family average by graduating on time from various academic institutions.  Buttmunch from Plymouth State University and the Bear from our local High School.  I am very proud of both of them, mostly for actually graduating and also not puking/falling during the ceremony (our family standards are pretty low).  

After the graduations (which themselves seemed utterly endless.  Seriously - so so so boring listening to people's names) there was the obligatory graduation party.  Thanks to father time and uh, mother tedious there was an obligatory 4 day lull between the last graduation and the party itself.  Which was good- because it gave everyone time to prepare and call maids to come clean the house (the maids themselves should really be their own blog post - maids are awesome).  It also gave me time to see people I love and hardly ever see - also eat crabcakes, play bar trivia, imbibe a little too much and spend some serious quality time with my siblings.   

My siblings and I are exactly 4 years apart in school - which is convenient if you think that it means my parents only paid for one college education at a time, but also craptastic, because it means they're paying for a college education for 12 years in a row.  2 sides to every penny, Amigos.

Since we're this far apart, our friend circles don't overlap at all.  In fact, there are a fair number of my sibs friends that I used to make sweet, sweet money baby-sitting for.  And we've always given each other a serious hard time.  Buttmunch for being a lazy boy, Bear for being the baby, and me for being the bossy (always right) big sister.  But in general, these days, we get along pretty well.  Which is kind of awesome...but there are still some things that give me flash backs to being little.

Once upon a time, millions of years ago (when leggings were cool the first time around) - Buttmunch and I told Bear that she was under no circumstances allowed to sing in the car unless she knew every single word to a song.  This was the law and it would be followed.  Mostly by her.  Not so much us.

And now, my sister knows every word to every song on the radio.  Which is impressive (although not that impressive when you consider the lack of variety on the radio these days).  Its nice that we could give her this gift by being bossy d-waffles.  You're welcome, Bear.

Anyway - the rest of the 10 days back East were also really lovely (there was a zoo and a wine/beer tasting - at the same.time), but that kind of stuck with me.  The fact that my baby-sister is all graduated from high school and still follows my stupid rules.

In other news - My summer is going to be very awesome, and I'm very excited.  Also exciting? Nora Dunn just walked into my place of employment.  I get excited from the weirdest celebrities