allow me to set the scene:
write about me! (that was alena's contribution. grazi)
but okay. back to the scene:
directly ahead of me there is a painting of a fish.
behind me a long banquet table littered with half-empty wine bottles and remnants of a not-so-childhood-game called drUNO.
out a window to my right is a cafe where cappucinos go for 3 euro, more for table service...
and to my left, outside, is my own private moat!
i am certainly in venice.
so okay. from above, venice looks like a fish. which is hilarious. because there is a lot of water here. alot. what i mean is, my boots still haven't dried from a rather uneventful romp in the canals 48 hours ago. but you know what they say: when in venice, accept the fact that there will be clowns on every corner, and also the fact that your feet won't be dry for your entire visit.
which is fine. because i'm in venice! and guess what. so is angelina jolie. and brad pitt. and shiloh and crew. the guy who runs my hostel claims to have seen them this morning. he is also a huge liar, so i do not feel bad about accidentally acquiring 7 sets of sheets instead of the allowed...1. but that's okay.
my friend joanna and i got here thursday after a solid ten hours of traveling. i brought the following things to venice: one t shirt (which was on my person), a sequin dress, patent leather heels, a cardigan. so fearful of the baggage restrictions on my little budget airline was i that i forwent anything other than the (duh) basic nessecities. and so used to the suddenly 75 degree weather in syracuse that i (duh) didn't bring a jacket. because i was going to venice. and so was angie!
my sister alena flew in from seville, her friends from school came in from nice and grenada, and my best friend from home came in from grenoble. which was insane in itself. now imagine this raucous crew being led all over the city at midnight by an afghani guide trying to get us to a bar and in turn leading us across several foot-deep flooded streets and you can begin to picture the experience thus far. which is truly strange, a little creepy, consistantly waterlogged and actually incredible.
i wish i could outline the exact details that i have been fervently keeping alive in my mind all day in order to record them at a later date (journal = extra weight = mad euros = rapid fire sensory overload) and i would recount them to you if i thought any of you would find them the slightest bit interesting (for example, i'm sure you don't want to know the intracacies of the difference between the sicilian cannoli and the venician cannoli, although i'll just go ahead and tell you sicily owns). so i will say simply the following:
being away from my little town has made it truly and miraculously materialize into home.
don't get me wrong, this place is insane. and it has nudged my senses just so, so that i feel constantly as if traversing the front of a postcard. and it has brought me together with my friends and sister with whom i am content to sit with a cappucino and talk for hours as water laps at my feet...(can you drink the tap water? do you have to tip? how hot, exactly, is this host brother of yours?)...
which has been a truly cathartic experience.
tomorrow we head to milan (big city slicker, i know) of which i only know what i saw on the way in, at night, which i would guess sums it up:
a girl, dressed to the nines, on a slick bike.
texting.
on the highway.
in a tunnel.
go milan.
and then it's back to this little island which for a while there, teetered dangerously on the edge of my comfort zone. but now has blossomed into this peculiar little habitat...close to...home.
something in the water?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
yah!
well, i have done a pretty unforgivable thing, and that is completely overlook (in my blogosphere, at least) the visit of a dear friend which lifted my spirits to soaring point. yes, suzanne capehart graced my little island home with her fervent presence and i found myself on the familiar docks of not of a wooden ship, not of a gold ship, but of the most sturdy, unsinkable ship of all--friendship.
suz's bus was supposed to come into siracus circa 1 pm on sunday (last), but i left my house too late and by the time i walked to the bus station all that greeted me was an empty bus marked "palermo". i had found her bus not but her person. if this was anyone else, i would be a little worried that he or she was now wandering aimlessly along the little unfamilar streets of my town, wondering what the hell that sound was (it is almost always a stray cat, or else the horrific popping sound of a pigeon being run over by a vespa), looking for a mouth with lips not permanently turned down at the ends (many of these Italians can't help it, but their mouths at rest give them somewhat of a "bitch face"...stereotype? der. but my observances support this claim). but this was suzanne, who is a champ, and because she wasn't behind the wheel of a car (loveeee you) i was not too worried about her.
i took the back way home by chance and suddenly stumbled upon a very German-looking girl, pigtailed and wearing a luxurious blue parka, focused on a map, sporting very familiar Asics sneakers. this was like getting smacked in the face with a giant inflatable replica of the wooster campus dipped in a smattering of love. no but really, it was cathartic. later suz would recount that hearing her name echoing off the cobblestones was one of her most precious memories (sorry suz, not to quote you on this..) but little did she know it was also one of mine.
so we spent a glorious few days chilling. in italy. together. which never managed to not seem completely weird and strange and crazy to me. it was if our friendship had continued straight on from december 12th and picked right up a month later, no stress. which was amazing. suzanne loved the city, which made me so happy--i would boldly encourage her to, you know, move in, if i didn't think vienna was basically her in a city. even though she was felled for a day by the weird sickness that's hitting everyone here pretty methodically (oops) she was such an incredible force.
so much so, in fact, that at least four of my friends said watching us interact made them really, really, really want a friend to visit them. basically, this sounds very dramatic, but i appreciated the effort she made (bus to bratislava [SLOVAKIA], flight to milan, flight to palermo, 3-hour bus to siracusa) more than she/anyone knows.
so to wrap up this heartwarming post with the only photographic evidence that we were together (WHAT WERE WE THINKING) taken at a bar where the superbowl was put on for us (minus commercials, but still):
grazi mille girl! ti amo!
suz's bus was supposed to come into siracus circa 1 pm on sunday (last), but i left my house too late and by the time i walked to the bus station all that greeted me was an empty bus marked "palermo". i had found her bus not but her person. if this was anyone else, i would be a little worried that he or she was now wandering aimlessly along the little unfamilar streets of my town, wondering what the hell that sound was (it is almost always a stray cat, or else the horrific popping sound of a pigeon being run over by a vespa), looking for a mouth with lips not permanently turned down at the ends (many of these Italians can't help it, but their mouths at rest give them somewhat of a "bitch face"...stereotype? der. but my observances support this claim). but this was suzanne, who is a champ, and because she wasn't behind the wheel of a car (loveeee you) i was not too worried about her.
i took the back way home by chance and suddenly stumbled upon a very German-looking girl, pigtailed and wearing a luxurious blue parka, focused on a map, sporting very familiar Asics sneakers. this was like getting smacked in the face with a giant inflatable replica of the wooster campus dipped in a smattering of love. no but really, it was cathartic. later suz would recount that hearing her name echoing off the cobblestones was one of her most precious memories (sorry suz, not to quote you on this..) but little did she know it was also one of mine.
so we spent a glorious few days chilling. in italy. together. which never managed to not seem completely weird and strange and crazy to me. it was if our friendship had continued straight on from december 12th and picked right up a month later, no stress. which was amazing. suzanne loved the city, which made me so happy--i would boldly encourage her to, you know, move in, if i didn't think vienna was basically her in a city. even though she was felled for a day by the weird sickness that's hitting everyone here pretty methodically (oops) she was such an incredible force.
so much so, in fact, that at least four of my friends said watching us interact made them really, really, really want a friend to visit them. basically, this sounds very dramatic, but i appreciated the effort she made (bus to bratislava [SLOVAKIA], flight to milan, flight to palermo, 3-hour bus to siracusa) more than she/anyone knows.
so to wrap up this heartwarming post with the only photographic evidence that we were together (WHAT WERE WE THINKING) taken at a bar where the superbowl was put on for us (minus commercials, but still):
grazi mille girl! ti amo!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
i know what you are, but what am i?
the title of this post is stupid. for the purpose of full disclosure i'll just throw that out there. that's what somebody said to somebody else in my second grade classroom, and lots of gasps were exchanged and somebody else went and told the teacher, but i was clueless (i'm pretty sure this defined my childhood) because i didn't know what it means. and honestly, i still kind of don't, which i think says a lot about what i want to write about.
they say studying abroad changes you, you know, and when you come back home the place will be the same, but you will be different. but i think for this to work, you have to know yourself in a particular way. and i'll just admit that for someone who wants to do memoir for a living (that or the wnba, whichever's more feasible...) i don't know myself very well at all.
i do know this: before i came here i thought i didn't have a comfort zone.
i was down for anything. i was awkward and thus diffused awkward situations because i recognize the inherent awkwardness of them. i wanted danger and sometimes boundaries but always danger. i wanted the thrill of driving through a six-hour snowstorm to canada three months after getting my license. i wanted to challenge my body: to run faster, to drink more. i wanted to make Statements. i thought, the only thing holding me back is me.
when you live like this, you feel like anyone can throw anything at you, and you can take it. sometimes you need time and sometimes you need to vent because you're not perfect, never will be, but you always feel so...clutch. you creep dangerously close to deadlines but always make it in the end. that was what i knew about myself.
and then i came here. and this might play out like a dramedy, but so be it. here, every minute, every day, i feel a gleeful shirk of fear. sometimes, this fear manifests itself into manic excitement, happiness i can feel so deeply, pure awe at my surroundings. i am here and i am whole.
sometimes, not so much. sometimes i am crippled, sometimes i am floating in a rough haze. i do not speak the language, none of us really do, so we lean in, hard, on each other, waiting to be saved. when i tire of leaning in i reach out, to home, to what i knew before: my house at school, the faces of my friends as i remember them. sometimes i want to hug my mother, hold my cat, eat peanut butter. sometimes i want guido's tortilla chips and green mountain salsa. more than anything. there are times when, more than anything in the world, i want people from my old life. i want desperately to know how they are, what they are doing. because sometimes i feel like i need to be confirmed, my presence in this strange place needs to be externally recognized, because i sometimes don't believe it.
sometimes i can't imagine being here until may. sometimes i can't imagine leaving.
i think about the person i was, finding a routine 48 hours into college. i think about me now, curled up in my friend's bed, in the middle of an ocean, wondering if there is something inherently wrong with me. wondering why after three and a half weeks--that is almost a month, oh my god--i still feel so unanchored, so breezy. so different and lost but also found, in some way. so here, and so not. i exist but i don't. i mean, i don't know if i even exist here yet. how can i?
i know this is weird. i know people will read this and scratch their heads and wonder how the above could possibly align with the truth that i tell when i say i am having the time of my life. because i am.
i. am.
they say studying abroad changes you, you know, and when you come back home the place will be the same, but you will be different. but i think for this to work, you have to know yourself in a particular way. and i'll just admit that for someone who wants to do memoir for a living (that or the wnba, whichever's more feasible...) i don't know myself very well at all.
i do know this: before i came here i thought i didn't have a comfort zone.
i was down for anything. i was awkward and thus diffused awkward situations because i recognize the inherent awkwardness of them. i wanted danger and sometimes boundaries but always danger. i wanted the thrill of driving through a six-hour snowstorm to canada three months after getting my license. i wanted to challenge my body: to run faster, to drink more. i wanted to make Statements. i thought, the only thing holding me back is me.
when you live like this, you feel like anyone can throw anything at you, and you can take it. sometimes you need time and sometimes you need to vent because you're not perfect, never will be, but you always feel so...clutch. you creep dangerously close to deadlines but always make it in the end. that was what i knew about myself.
and then i came here. and this might play out like a dramedy, but so be it. here, every minute, every day, i feel a gleeful shirk of fear. sometimes, this fear manifests itself into manic excitement, happiness i can feel so deeply, pure awe at my surroundings. i am here and i am whole.
sometimes, not so much. sometimes i am crippled, sometimes i am floating in a rough haze. i do not speak the language, none of us really do, so we lean in, hard, on each other, waiting to be saved. when i tire of leaning in i reach out, to home, to what i knew before: my house at school, the faces of my friends as i remember them. sometimes i want to hug my mother, hold my cat, eat peanut butter. sometimes i want guido's tortilla chips and green mountain salsa. more than anything. there are times when, more than anything in the world, i want people from my old life. i want desperately to know how they are, what they are doing. because sometimes i feel like i need to be confirmed, my presence in this strange place needs to be externally recognized, because i sometimes don't believe it.
sometimes i can't imagine being here until may. sometimes i can't imagine leaving.
i think about the person i was, finding a routine 48 hours into college. i think about me now, curled up in my friend's bed, in the middle of an ocean, wondering if there is something inherently wrong with me. wondering why after three and a half weeks--that is almost a month, oh my god--i still feel so unanchored, so breezy. so different and lost but also found, in some way. so here, and so not. i exist but i don't. i mean, i don't know if i even exist here yet. how can i?
i know this is weird. i know people will read this and scratch their heads and wonder how the above could possibly align with the truth that i tell when i say i am having the time of my life. because i am.
i. am.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
la palestra mas fina
if you think i joined a gym because i would rather sweat it out in a dark little box of a room where lady gaga blares on repeat than on the shores of the mediterrenean, because i am a lazy, lazy, lazy and very unmotivated human being, then you are very, very right. and i applaud you, because you know me so well.
so i joined a gym. la palestra di ortigia, to be specific. this is a peculiar little place. besides offering up a variety of american pop music and lovely photos of the female owner in her bodybuilding days (holy shit) it offers a nice cross-section of italian/sicilian culture. for example:
there is always a massive group of italian male students huddled outside the door when my friend and i make our way there in the morning. they like to kiss each other on the cheek while typing furiously into blackberries and rubbing shiny parka-covered elbows and scuffing black and dark purple nikes into the cobblestone. (i truly have never seen more black and dark purple in my life.) these guys also like to engage in massive staredowns with us, which is rather embarssing considering we are usually in, you know, sweats, and they are usually in, you know, d&g tuxedos. its some sort of teenage cultural thing, i guess.
the women adorn their tiny waists with only velour sweatsuits. i dont think they ever sweat. and depite the fact that they are obviously in shape, their workout of choice consists of lifting a kilogram weight 5 times overhead and then standing for five minutes on an extremely awkward vibrating platform (tried it. died laughing. wish wooster had one).
rarely are there men working out when i am, although i did see a lithe middle-aged man supporting his entire body weight on his elbows. theres a picture on the wall of a champion gymnast on the rings. i think its him.
well, i would get into more detail about this amazing little window in italian culture, but i have to go to class. because sometimes i have to pretend im here to be slightly academic. such is life.
miss you all!
so i joined a gym. la palestra di ortigia, to be specific. this is a peculiar little place. besides offering up a variety of american pop music and lovely photos of the female owner in her bodybuilding days (holy shit) it offers a nice cross-section of italian/sicilian culture. for example:
there is always a massive group of italian male students huddled outside the door when my friend and i make our way there in the morning. they like to kiss each other on the cheek while typing furiously into blackberries and rubbing shiny parka-covered elbows and scuffing black and dark purple nikes into the cobblestone. (i truly have never seen more black and dark purple in my life.) these guys also like to engage in massive staredowns with us, which is rather embarssing considering we are usually in, you know, sweats, and they are usually in, you know, d&g tuxedos. its some sort of teenage cultural thing, i guess.
the women adorn their tiny waists with only velour sweatsuits. i dont think they ever sweat. and depite the fact that they are obviously in shape, their workout of choice consists of lifting a kilogram weight 5 times overhead and then standing for five minutes on an extremely awkward vibrating platform (tried it. died laughing. wish wooster had one).
rarely are there men working out when i am, although i did see a lithe middle-aged man supporting his entire body weight on his elbows. theres a picture on the wall of a champion gymnast on the rings. i think its him.
well, i would get into more detail about this amazing little window in italian culture, but i have to go to class. because sometimes i have to pretend im here to be slightly academic. such is life.
miss you all!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
doing as the roman catholics do.
i'm jewish, but besides the seemingly all-night party that was my bat mitzvah, the extent of my religious devotion as a child was jealously eyeing the burger king milkshakes kids brought into hebrew school on tuesday afternoons and devouring the stacks of yellowing equine affair magazines that sandra, my hebrew tutor, kept in her living room.
even though my apartment is in the ancient jewish quarter of the city, there are pretty much zero jews here today. instead, it's catholic fever all the time. which i can live with.
because secretly, i've always been fascinated by catholicism. when i was younger it reminded me of gold and silk and the smell of candles burning. while i was content with the progressive, tolerant sect of my own reform judaism, catholicism had something that we didn't, and that was a little cookie you were allowed to eat during the service. i was sold.
as you can probably imagine, italians take their cookies, and their faith, pretty seriously. yesterday was the last day of the festival of st. agatha in catania, so a few friends and i took the bus up in the morning. last time in catania was two weeks ago. i feel like i've changed so much: i mean, it was only a mere two weeks ago that i was under the impression that wearing a money belt (and thus sticking your hands down the front of your pants every time you get hungry..what..) was necessary/cool. and the city had changed too: what was almost desolate now had the appearance that it had been thrown up on by a maroon-swathed elephant with an affinity for nutella (agatha's color is maroon, and for some reason catania is full of pictures of elephants. oh, and lots of nutella crepe stands. hell. yes.). it was crazy.
we spent much of the morning weaving in and out of children dressed as clowns and fairies and priests (the most popular choice), ducking in and out of amazing churches, eating candy apples, you know, regular catholic stuff. right? hundreds of vendors in the streets were selling candy, sugared peanuts, gelato, and these huge yellow candles. the point was that during the procession of st. agatha, everyone lights yellow candles, of varying sizes. if you're praying for someone who weighs 80 kilo, you carry a candle that weighs 80 kilo. and yes, they exist. which is ridiculous.
anyone can buy and light a candle, but the people in the procession were a bunch of guys (and some girls) who looked my age or younger, dressed in white robe-like things and black hats, and wearing agatha pins. i couldn't really figure out where these guys came from, but they were so interesting to kind of...how shall i put this...stare at. as it got closer to 5, when the procession was supposed to start (though we ended up kind of chilling till 6) a guy would yell out a prayer in italian every few seconds. it was kind of intense, because they were screaming so loud their voices were hoarse. so.
anyway, i got the smallest-sized candle available, which was still about 4 feet tall, and lit it for my friend spencer, who passed away three years ago this month. even though i wasn't in the procession and even though spencer definitely weighed more than half a kilo, i don't think agatha would have minded. it was so amazing to stand in a street with thousands of candles, just as the sun was setting, and realize where exactly i was, how lucky i was to be there.
besides guys carrying huge candles on their shoulders and waving around fire and dripping wax on spectators and screaming in italian, the rest of the procession was made up of five or six massive floats. these were carried from the church of st. agatha by six massive men apiece, lined up in the road, and promptly returned to the church at the end of the procession. which...didn't really make sense. but all in the name of sainthood, si?
anyway, the guys who were carrying the floats were really struggling. they wore these cap-like things which were attached to beams, which essentially meant that much of the weight was on their heads. also it should be noted that these guys allegedly pay the mafia x amount of money in order to keep their jobs as float-bearers from one year to the next. ......yeah.
so the procession started off with a massive fireworks show which made tanglewood look kind of sad (oops) and then...very....very....very...slowly, the procession began. damn, italians take their time. i was standing near the end of the procession, and it took a full 20 minutes before the candle-bearers around me started inching forward. we had a bus to catch at 7:30, and even though the parade allegedly started at 5, we ended up barely making it. so this was a long procession, you might say.
but it was amazing. i watched these people and their intense devotion to something--anything, really--and i felt a faint pull in my chest that might have been the arm of god that i imagined there when i was little, and my cantor told me a piece of god was in everyone. okay, that was weird and probably unnecessary but that's what i thought. anyway, lesson learned: catholics are intensely devoted but also wicked fascinating, and they always dress/decorate well. and they like nutella.
even though my apartment is in the ancient jewish quarter of the city, there are pretty much zero jews here today. instead, it's catholic fever all the time. which i can live with.
because secretly, i've always been fascinated by catholicism. when i was younger it reminded me of gold and silk and the smell of candles burning. while i was content with the progressive, tolerant sect of my own reform judaism, catholicism had something that we didn't, and that was a little cookie you were allowed to eat during the service. i was sold.
as you can probably imagine, italians take their cookies, and their faith, pretty seriously. yesterday was the last day of the festival of st. agatha in catania, so a few friends and i took the bus up in the morning. last time in catania was two weeks ago. i feel like i've changed so much: i mean, it was only a mere two weeks ago that i was under the impression that wearing a money belt (and thus sticking your hands down the front of your pants every time you get hungry..what..) was necessary/cool. and the city had changed too: what was almost desolate now had the appearance that it had been thrown up on by a maroon-swathed elephant with an affinity for nutella (agatha's color is maroon, and for some reason catania is full of pictures of elephants. oh, and lots of nutella crepe stands. hell. yes.). it was crazy.
we spent much of the morning weaving in and out of children dressed as clowns and fairies and priests (the most popular choice), ducking in and out of amazing churches, eating candy apples, you know, regular catholic stuff. right? hundreds of vendors in the streets were selling candy, sugared peanuts, gelato, and these huge yellow candles. the point was that during the procession of st. agatha, everyone lights yellow candles, of varying sizes. if you're praying for someone who weighs 80 kilo, you carry a candle that weighs 80 kilo. and yes, they exist. which is ridiculous.
anyone can buy and light a candle, but the people in the procession were a bunch of guys (and some girls) who looked my age or younger, dressed in white robe-like things and black hats, and wearing agatha pins. i couldn't really figure out where these guys came from, but they were so interesting to kind of...how shall i put this...stare at. as it got closer to 5, when the procession was supposed to start (though we ended up kind of chilling till 6) a guy would yell out a prayer in italian every few seconds. it was kind of intense, because they were screaming so loud their voices were hoarse. so.
anyway, i got the smallest-sized candle available, which was still about 4 feet tall, and lit it for my friend spencer, who passed away three years ago this month. even though i wasn't in the procession and even though spencer definitely weighed more than half a kilo, i don't think agatha would have minded. it was so amazing to stand in a street with thousands of candles, just as the sun was setting, and realize where exactly i was, how lucky i was to be there.
besides guys carrying huge candles on their shoulders and waving around fire and dripping wax on spectators and screaming in italian, the rest of the procession was made up of five or six massive floats. these were carried from the church of st. agatha by six massive men apiece, lined up in the road, and promptly returned to the church at the end of the procession. which...didn't really make sense. but all in the name of sainthood, si?
anyway, the guys who were carrying the floats were really struggling. they wore these cap-like things which were attached to beams, which essentially meant that much of the weight was on their heads. also it should be noted that these guys allegedly pay the mafia x amount of money in order to keep their jobs as float-bearers from one year to the next. ......yeah.
so the procession started off with a massive fireworks show which made tanglewood look kind of sad (oops) and then...very....very....very...slowly, the procession began. damn, italians take their time. i was standing near the end of the procession, and it took a full 20 minutes before the candle-bearers around me started inching forward. we had a bus to catch at 7:30, and even though the parade allegedly started at 5, we ended up barely making it. so this was a long procession, you might say.
but it was amazing. i watched these people and their intense devotion to something--anything, really--and i felt a faint pull in my chest that might have been the arm of god that i imagined there when i was little, and my cantor told me a piece of god was in everyone. okay, that was weird and probably unnecessary but that's what i thought. anyway, lesson learned: catholics are intensely devoted but also wicked fascinating, and they always dress/decorate well. and they like nutella.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
what i learned last night:
come si dice "shot"?
eh...shot.
definite articles--
sing: il shot
plur: i shot
indefinate articles--
sing: un shot
plur: un shot
i am very advanced in italiano, as you can see. last night was my friend's 21st birthday and ramzi, bless his cotton socks, got a bar to open for us and play all sorts of guilty-pleasure-music-americano, and even though the bartender didn't know how to search for "the lonely island--i'm on a boat" he did offer plenty of...i shot. fo free!
i feel entitled to an occasional night of reckless americanness, though i try hard to really melt wholeheartedly into this culture. and even though my next-door neighbor gives me dirty looks when laundry falls off my balcony, and even though getting a gym membership yesterday was like playing charades, i think i'm doing an alright job.
eh...shot.
definite articles--
sing: il shot
plur: i shot
indefinate articles--
sing: un shot
plur: un shot
i am very advanced in italiano, as you can see. last night was my friend's 21st birthday and ramzi, bless his cotton socks, got a bar to open for us and play all sorts of guilty-pleasure-music-americano, and even though the bartender didn't know how to search for "the lonely island--i'm on a boat" he did offer plenty of...i shot. fo free!
i feel entitled to an occasional night of reckless americanness, though i try hard to really melt wholeheartedly into this culture. and even though my next-door neighbor gives me dirty looks when laundry falls off my balcony, and even though getting a gym membership yesterday was like playing charades, i think i'm doing an alright job.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
OH. MY GOD CAN WE PUHHHHLEEEEEZE PLAY MAFIA?!
(note: everyone should go check out my sister alena's blog [siseville.blogspot.com] because even though she often falsely claims that i am the true writer of the family she has consistantly proved herself wrong as you can see in her hilarious and actually super witty writing. here's your plug landers, love you!)
so, okay. i would like you for a moment to imagine a chorus of 27 middle-school girls, whining in a way only middle-school girls can, the title of this blog. because that is what my summer job consists of. mafia, if you aren't in the know camp counselor-style, is a game involving, yes, "killing" your cabinmates but also involving very little spoken word, making it the game of choice for timestretched, exhausted fivestar counselors such as myself. mafia was actually banned from camp for a while because of the fact that it doesnt teach the kids anything except how to hate on other kids, but because i am counselor of the year i often ignore this rule. and i also get a break. as miley would say, it is truly the best of both worlds.
but here i am talking about camp while i am gallavanting around a mediterreanean island. the point of this post is this: next summer (and, let's be real, probably the summer after that) when i hear those famous whines, i will always immediatly think of the door on my street that is riddled with bulletholes.
dun dun dunnnnn.
no, i'm kidding. i mean, there IS a door riddled with bulletholes, but i'm not that dramatic. the point is as follows: besides gaining from this experience a better sense of self, you know, a better sense of my life decisions, appreciation of this (actually crazy) culture, all the things you intrinsically get from throwing yourself abroad, etc., something i will definately take from this place is the intense, incredibly interesting fiasco that is the mafia.
lots of people, myself included, are under the impression that the mafia is an old-fashioned, antiquated fact of a bygone era. lots of people, myself included, are under the impression that the mafia is a ramshackle gang of rather disorganized young men (okay, you may think this is stupid, but i've never seen the godfather nor any other hollywood glamificatin of mafia, so this was my thinking).
the truth is, i am completely misguided. i know this sounds like a research paper, but this is just so goddamn interesting: the mafia is still a force to this day, and the reason it keeps existing is because it is so. fucking. organized. these people are geniuses. for example:
in palermo, on the northwest coast of Sicily (and where, i might add, we're fieldtrippin to in a few weeks), EIGHTY PERCENT of business still pay taxes to the mafia. EIGHTY PERCENT. that's crazy! in fact, these businesses do not simply pay under the table. each month they actually write it into their budgets. paying the mafia tax means protection against random car torching, house robbing, relative killing, etc. IN TWO THOUSAND TEN. i just can't get over that.
when i walk along the water i always cringe when i see a particular wall. three years ago this wall didn't exist, and there was straight access to the beautiful harbor. you could stand on the street and see out onto the water where all the yachts were anchored. there's a huge picture of this view in one of the theatres here, and it's gorgeous.
BUT now there is this huge, ugly, gargantuan wall covered in graffiti and topped with barbed wire. i hesitate to call it that because everything here is so fucking beautiful, but this is...not. the wall is the result of a political scandal involving the mafia, in which the city was essentially forced to erect the wall as a "yacht lot." that was three years ago. to this day the wall remains in its earliest building stages and, most importantly, yachtless.
sometimes the mafia is seemingly out in the open, like for 90 minutes every tuesday and thursday when we discuss it in class.
but other times it's so hush-hush; i feel like i can never mention it outside of school, and everytime i see those bullet holes i walk a little faster.
so, okay. i would like you for a moment to imagine a chorus of 27 middle-school girls, whining in a way only middle-school girls can, the title of this blog. because that is what my summer job consists of. mafia, if you aren't in the know camp counselor-style, is a game involving, yes, "killing" your cabinmates but also involving very little spoken word, making it the game of choice for timestretched, exhausted fivestar counselors such as myself. mafia was actually banned from camp for a while because of the fact that it doesnt teach the kids anything except how to hate on other kids, but because i am counselor of the year i often ignore this rule. and i also get a break. as miley would say, it is truly the best of both worlds.
but here i am talking about camp while i am gallavanting around a mediterreanean island. the point of this post is this: next summer (and, let's be real, probably the summer after that) when i hear those famous whines, i will always immediatly think of the door on my street that is riddled with bulletholes.
dun dun dunnnnn.
no, i'm kidding. i mean, there IS a door riddled with bulletholes, but i'm not that dramatic. the point is as follows: besides gaining from this experience a better sense of self, you know, a better sense of my life decisions, appreciation of this (actually crazy) culture, all the things you intrinsically get from throwing yourself abroad, etc., something i will definately take from this place is the intense, incredibly interesting fiasco that is the mafia.
lots of people, myself included, are under the impression that the mafia is an old-fashioned, antiquated fact of a bygone era. lots of people, myself included, are under the impression that the mafia is a ramshackle gang of rather disorganized young men (okay, you may think this is stupid, but i've never seen the godfather nor any other hollywood glamificatin of mafia, so this was my thinking).
the truth is, i am completely misguided. i know this sounds like a research paper, but this is just so goddamn interesting: the mafia is still a force to this day, and the reason it keeps existing is because it is so. fucking. organized. these people are geniuses. for example:
in palermo, on the northwest coast of Sicily (and where, i might add, we're fieldtrippin to in a few weeks), EIGHTY PERCENT of business still pay taxes to the mafia. EIGHTY PERCENT. that's crazy! in fact, these businesses do not simply pay under the table. each month they actually write it into their budgets. paying the mafia tax means protection against random car torching, house robbing, relative killing, etc. IN TWO THOUSAND TEN. i just can't get over that.
when i walk along the water i always cringe when i see a particular wall. three years ago this wall didn't exist, and there was straight access to the beautiful harbor. you could stand on the street and see out onto the water where all the yachts were anchored. there's a huge picture of this view in one of the theatres here, and it's gorgeous.
BUT now there is this huge, ugly, gargantuan wall covered in graffiti and topped with barbed wire. i hesitate to call it that because everything here is so fucking beautiful, but this is...not. the wall is the result of a political scandal involving the mafia, in which the city was essentially forced to erect the wall as a "yacht lot." that was three years ago. to this day the wall remains in its earliest building stages and, most importantly, yachtless.
sometimes the mafia is seemingly out in the open, like for 90 minutes every tuesday and thursday when we discuss it in class.
but other times it's so hush-hush; i feel like i can never mention it outside of school, and everytime i see those bullet holes i walk a little faster.
Monday, February 1, 2010
(i've been having mad trouble uploading pictures but i have so many so i'll try soon!)
this weekend was bomb. friday we walked around the mainland city with ramzi. basically this involved him dragging us behind him as he chatted with EVERYONE. we ended up at a bar at 11 am where he bought us beer. i love ramzi.
we saw a guy who had been growing his dreadlocks for 30+ years and who kept them in the pocket of his cargo pants. we saw lots of dogs. we saw a man selling fresh ricotta out of the trunk of his station wagon.
on saturday there was a wine tasting at a vineyard about 15 minutes outside the city. you could pick your own oranges and grapefruit and avacado, and there was SO MUCH CHEESE. first glass of wine: 2 pm. shots of grappa: 2:30 pm. last glass of wine: 2 am sunday morning. what happened in between: delirious enjoyment.
today, monday, my three-hour class was canceled so we went and laid out on some hot rocks by the water. even though every italian man on the island between the ages of sixteen and nineteen set up their umbrellas and lawn chairs to view us from above (this is becoming a slight issue), it was amazing.
i feel like i can't write well anymore, haha. everything feels so soft and hazy and not quite real. my friend suzanne is coming down from vienna on sunday, though, which is so exciting. and my friend katie is coming to italy at some point in the next two weeks too. i feel like seeing them will be like coming down from an intense high (not that i've had much experience, parents) and really grounding. i can't wait.
i've been eating strange combinations of things: oranges and vinegar, tomatoes and mustard, chickpeas and ketchup. yesterday i imagined getting an orange from lowry and pouring vinegar on it and i wondered if i'll feel any different when i do finally return. i can't imagine how i'll be tomorrow or the next day. i definitely can't imagine how i'll be in june or august. (hopefully more motivated to run than i am now!)
this weekend was bomb. friday we walked around the mainland city with ramzi. basically this involved him dragging us behind him as he chatted with EVERYONE. we ended up at a bar at 11 am where he bought us beer. i love ramzi.
we saw a guy who had been growing his dreadlocks for 30+ years and who kept them in the pocket of his cargo pants. we saw lots of dogs. we saw a man selling fresh ricotta out of the trunk of his station wagon.
on saturday there was a wine tasting at a vineyard about 15 minutes outside the city. you could pick your own oranges and grapefruit and avacado, and there was SO MUCH CHEESE. first glass of wine: 2 pm. shots of grappa: 2:30 pm. last glass of wine: 2 am sunday morning. what happened in between: delirious enjoyment.
today, monday, my three-hour class was canceled so we went and laid out on some hot rocks by the water. even though every italian man on the island between the ages of sixteen and nineteen set up their umbrellas and lawn chairs to view us from above (this is becoming a slight issue), it was amazing.
i feel like i can't write well anymore, haha. everything feels so soft and hazy and not quite real. my friend suzanne is coming down from vienna on sunday, though, which is so exciting. and my friend katie is coming to italy at some point in the next two weeks too. i feel like seeing them will be like coming down from an intense high (not that i've had much experience, parents) and really grounding. i can't wait.
i've been eating strange combinations of things: oranges and vinegar, tomatoes and mustard, chickpeas and ketchup. yesterday i imagined getting an orange from lowry and pouring vinegar on it and i wondered if i'll feel any different when i do finally return. i can't imagine how i'll be tomorrow or the next day. i definitely can't imagine how i'll be in june or august. (hopefully more motivated to run than i am now!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)