Some Birds are Like That

exactly

2012-01-08T17:09:00.002+01:00

We strolled a lot of streets and, although sometimes I probably led with a bit more purpose than was necessary, we did it rather well.

We were both watching a pair of elderly women walk, their arms linked despite the bulk of their full fur coats, carefully placing their stylishly-shod feet on the cobblestones when A said, Let's be exactly like that someday.

I grinned and linked arms with her. We should practice! I declared. Immediately one or both of us tripped over our own feet or fell out of step or both and, as is the norm, we began to laugh.

It's okay. We have time.

after all this time

2012-01-04T19:13:00.015+01:00

When we were growing up, A and I spent days upon end together. We read the same books and watched the same tv shows; we sat next to each other on the bus each morning.

The end result of all those hours is that all of those strange little inner monologue thoughts that one tends to think, the little tunes I hum, the phrases that are our outbursts, the things that we think even when looking at the skies ... well, the end result is that we share those things. I know why she says "None of your beeswax, Nosey Parker!" And she knows enough about me to be one of the few people with whom I can't even begin to argue. She knows where I'm headed before I do.

When we were young, we had hours and hours, sleepovers and rodeos and piano lessons galore. And now, it's time snatched from our lives, in one country or another. We've had a few days in Ireland, a few in Kentucky and now, a long, lovely almost-week in Italy.

And in that almost-week, we ate amazing food and drank good wine.

We sat and talked at cafes in three cities and laughed in those cities and everywhere in between.

We had yet another sleepover and improvised a Monday evening when it didn't go as orginally planned.

And, in those days, I thought more than a few times how I wished we lived closer to each other ... or that there was more certainty that we'd see each other again very soon. But then, I realized that it was all the hours and days and months we had together years ago that make it possible for us to patch together our lives now as if we did indeed again have all the time in the world.

better together

2012-01-04T18:20:00.010+01:00

I'm still finding post-it notes. They're in the medicine cabinet, the linen cupboard, on the walls, the pictures, even in my drawers. Each one was placed carefully for the maximum comedic effect. J is fluent in Italian. Fact. one reads.

It started with an email last summer. You have a break in December. Want guests? A wrote. The answer to her is always Yes! Because she's fun to travel with. Because we grew up together. Because she's welcomed me. And so, after some planning emails and a skype conversation, I raced to a train on a Wednesday afternoon and headed to Venice, where I was to meet them.

A pause: Stations, airports and city streets alike, I love meeting people and being met. The longer I'm abroad, the more I travel, the more I love finding the familiar: the key turning in my lock here, the text message from someone far away, the reunions with friends.

And so, to see them at the end of the platform that evening was ... perfect. I grabbed A in a hug, You'd better get used to this, I said, squeezing her tightly. She just laughed and hugged me back; J, who'd watch the two of us from the time we were capricious seven year-olds, swiped at a tear or two. That night, having wandered darkening streets in the general direction of San Marco, we toasted to those girls ... thinking it was pretty cool that they'd found themselves in Italy.

And, that they had a few more days more to enjoy it.

hellenic again

2012-01-04T15:55:00.007+01:00

So, there was Greece.

At the end of the longest week of work, there was a night in Athens... a few hours spent completely forgetting all of the work that we'd done over the last week and drank honey raki and laughed. We said, over and over again, it's a good life... and it was easy to say that because we were happy with our hard work, we were eating gyros and we were chatting with new friends. And, above us, as it has been, the lit Acropolis.

We walked the Plaka, briefly, that night.

Dark, shuttered shops made it the opposite of the last time I'd visited, that rainy spring day a couple of years ago. I grinned as we all strolled the almost-familiar streets, and anyone who may have glanced at me might have wondered why. I'm glad to be back, I would have said. But, it would have been more than that; I was glad to be back in exactly that way.

Earlier that day, we'd sat, our group of new friends, bundled up a bit against the crisp Kifissia afternoon, clutching glasses of milky ouzo and talking about just what had made all of the work so incredibly worth it, what had made us enjoy each others' company so very much.

And the conclusion, upon which we agreed as we'd agreed on more or less everything over the last few days, was that we had been lucky enough to find a group of like-minded people. We're all abroad - all over - and we've chosen that for some reason. To be in a group all together felt ... excellent.

Common goal! I say often enough. All it takes is people with a common goal. And, it seems that warm honey raki and an amazing view is a pretty good way to celebrate finding that.

vocabulary

2011-11-13T14:59:00.005+01:00

One night at the B&B Opicina, L and I were curled up on the couch - or I was perched in a kitchen chair while she worked culinary magic ... or one of us was sprawled on the pullout - and she said, "I realized today that my concept of love comes from watching my parents.

"To me, love is two people reading at night and then taking off their glasses and turning off two lamps. And, even though they've been reading different books, in some way they've been occupying the same space. And, that just before they go to sleep makes them even closer."

I think we talked about it a bit more and I know that I just smiled my way through the conversation, having seen firsthand what that looked like for the two of them. For them, love is commandeering the laptop to play their choice of songs, hosting parties and making fried chicken, staying inside all weekend and inviting us all to join them in the pajama party, making fresh bread and warm tea for whoever needs it, buying a foldout bed so the apartment can fit even more people, learning favorite recipes just in time for birthdays, trying over and over again to successfully order a pizza, and not even arguing about whose fault it was when that almost never worked.

All of that, plus L's definition, is more than nice... and more than nice to be around.

repeat

2011-10-14T21:36:00.011+02:00

We got our reunion.

K and I packed our bags, ignored our responsibilities (a reasonable amount) and spent a crazy 48 hours in Massachusetts for a long-awaited wedding. We met the others, in true Adventure style, in Boston and ventured north, talking our way through the jet lag so that it never really mattered.

For two days, we shared a hotel room - not because we had to but because we'd rather be together than even a room apart. For two days, we were able to relax like you can only relax with the best of friends. I feel better just being with you guys! K (the other K) said within a few hours of her arrival.

For two days, I had my twin back.

How is it possible to miss you guys this much? we said.

For two days, we acknowledged how much we'd really rather be all together - always. And, despite or because of that, we were just as goofy as ever. For two days, we were the Adventure Squad again.

And, those crazy kids, the ones just married, danced like it was Thanksgiving in Opicina.

And, so did the rest of us.

For two days, we ignored that we only had two days.

concluding

2011-10-12T20:18:00.007+02:00

Summer seemed longer in that lovely lovely way that means that the weather stays warm and the days seem long. It means that school may have begun, but the rain hasn't yet.

While it was still summer - proprio summer - I booked tickets to a concert in the Arena in Verona. Are you sure? I asked my potential companions. You don't have to, you know.

But they said yes anyway. And, by all accounts, were glad they did.

Because the night was warm and the moon was rising over the edge of the Arena. It was standing room only. And we stood. For hours... well, when we weren't dancing. Because there was much reason to dance. Because it was Jovanotti.

It was, again, a grand and wonderful party.

There were guest performers and all the old songs and all the new ones, too. And there was La Mia Moto. I never thought I'd get to hear that live. When the opening notes began, I laughed and shrieked along with those around me. I ended the evening again amazed at having found friends willing to jump headfirst into something as quirky and foreign as my chasing Jovanotti around the country. At the end of the concert, he came back out on stage and we all (every person in that arena and the person whom we were all watching) danced like it was the end-of-summer party for which we'd all been waiting.

On the platform of the train station the next afternoon, making our way home, slowed by a train strike, one of my friends asked if there was another concert with an understated, I'd go again. I promptly pulled out my phone to check and laughed at what I've found. It seems that K and I had seen both the first show of the tour... and the last.

There's another concert scheduled already... even closer to home this time. And, we'll be there. Front row? my students asked, the ones who told me about this newly-scheduled show. No, I replied. I don't need to be.

(To learn the true extent of my delight with Lorenzo: Jovanotti at Nublu and Rimini.)

frontiere

2011-09-21T20:46:00.006+02:00

Walking through my neighborhood, no matter the hour, I collect images, moments - anything that reminds me where I am...

I've passed the window with the globes for two years and I smile every time. The shop is on my street and open only every so often, which is fine as I have a studio apartment and a white elephant. As much as I love them, it seems I would need to purchase them all for the effect.

Vintage globes look better in a herd.

Last night a man passed me carrying a snare drum. There's a music school around the corner and the snare bounced against his leg as he hurried to meet the rest of the group.

There's a grocery store in the neighborhood that's open half an hour later than the others. And, a few minutes before closing time, people rush in the door and hurry through the aisles. I join in the race too often, just coming home from work. Too many times this is where I've purchased the orange juice that is supposed to save me from an approaching cold. Early one morning, a grocer whistled as I passed.

There's a cafè in the main piazza that has a reputation for being expensive. It's historic and lovely and is a bit famous. The waiters wear vests and 5 people greet me each time I walk in. They have the best whole grain brioche. And, walking out, having been greeted and served in great style, I've paid the exact same price as I would anywhere else.

The parking lots by the sea that are normally home to the Polo are being cordoned off for the festivities that will return to the city for the next couple weeks. I walked the city tonight, figuring out what the best options were, lucking out with a spot a not-so-long walk away. Should I leave in time tomorrow, my morning commute will include a coffee and brioche in a bar along the way.

It bears mentioning that I am getting better at parallel parking. Perhaps I was simply trying for the wrong spots all those months.

Speaking of those festivities, tonight I'm listening to the not-so-distant sound of fireworks. This is the third set in a week - it's a great season to be in this city.

same as the first

2011-09-08T20:27:00.006+02:00

Day Two isn't quite as glamorous as Day One. Day One means you're up early, putting on an outfit that you planned. In advance. New shoes? Yes, please. Even if they're heels? Especially. Jewelry? I think yes.

Day Two is a hint of what is to come. I can sleep until exactly 6:27 without being late. I think my hair looks... fine. Is this clean? Enough. Wear the flats because the heels are stashed under the desk at school. Still. Of course, honestly, Day Two is much more like Day Fifteen, which Day One thrown in somewhere in the middle.

But, then, walking to the car this morning, a grocer stocking fruits and whistling worked a wolf whistle into his song as I passed. And, no, I said when I told the story on the commute, the song did not originally include a wolf whistle.

Not a horrid beginning to a Day Two, seeing as the scene was complemented by the fact that the sun was just up and a breeze was coming off the sea.

*****

On the night before the first day of school, crossing against the light in a hurry to meet friends, I (for one of the first times since June) ran into two of my students. Instead of longing for another few hours of "freedom," I was thrilled to see them. Luckily I didn't need to hide my smile - okay, grin - as they were beaming just as broadly.

But, I have so much to tell you! one enthused as we realized that, happy as we were, we were all late for something.
Well, tomorrow will be busy, but maybe later in the week we can find a time, I offered.
You're right, he replied. I'll come in early.

The next morning, 30 minutes before any other student, there he was. And I want to hear your stories, too! You are, you know, a collector of them.

And, now that the year has begun, I will begin that again.

summer still

2011-09-04T17:49:00.007+02:00

It is hot here. It has been for a while, and is cooler and less humid than a collection of days in May and certianly better than the week the new teachers arrived. But, it's still the sort of hot that makes siestas sound like a good idea and tends to determine one's choices around midday. There have been any number of days when Harper Lee's opening lines to To Kill a Mockingbird have run through my mind...

Somehow it was hotter then ... Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum ... There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.

These lines seem especially descriptive when I'm walking through the nearest piazza. The edges are shaded, thanks to cafés and umbrellas, but there's a stretch in the middle where the sun seems to shine a bit brighter, where I find myself walking more slowly, weighed down by the heat that seems to rise from the cobblestones as well.

There are always a few people seated outside, tourists perhaps, as everyone sensible has gone home or to the beach. There is a new group of musicians that play accordian and fiddle and upright bass, providing a soundtrack to their coffees and my strolls. And, suddenly, it's a scene from any number of movies shot in any number of piazzas, with a sleeping dog somewhere and an expat or two caught out in the heat. It's the sort of scene where the heat radiates off of all surfaces ... you can see it in the air.

It's hot ... but because the scene it creates is one through which I get to walk, even that is something I like very much.

fielding

2011-09-03T21:33:00.003+02:00

I am a fan of the soccer pitch outside of the school. I've watched a thousand pick-up games played here by students of all ages. I've screamed when the games were part of a tournament, when my kids were one of the teams. It's been home to races and contests and antics of the sort that are nearly impossible to explain. It's a high school soccer pitch. One evening, it was the site of a middle-of-the-night soccer game where the only ball we could track down was an unfortunate shade of black. This, I must admit, was likely only one of the reasons that it hit me repeatedly in the head.

One corner serves as our whiffle ball field, and, yesterday, we played the Annual Expat Game. I don't know if the true history stretches back any further, but, as far as I know, the game began the fall I moved here. Quite a group of us decided that this was as good a way as any to celebrate two weeks of Italian life and played with a surprising degree of seriousness considering that we'd only just met and that first base was actually a chair. Since then, we've reconsidered that ... but haven't improved things much as, until yesterday, second was always someone's shoes. There was a middle-of-the-night whiffle ball game as well in June, one that trailed off when we Americans realized that we might actually lose if we kept teaching our opponents the rules. We started stealing bases, too.

Yesterday was significant as we actually had bases - those orange, rubber ones used in every elementary school seem to exist here as well - and new whiffle balls, although our enthusiasm has already cracked one.

I like everything about this soccer pitch - whether I'm playing on it or not. But, yesterday, in advance of all the other games that are soon to begin, I simply liked that I could hit a whiffle ball in a rather pretty line drive over the fence toward the playground.

"paddle faster..."

2011-09-03T17:06:00.008+02:00

It is the calm moments now that I'm hanging onto. I'm doing this first-day-of-school thing again ... for the 8th time as a teacher. And, thinking about that, I look for differences in those days and don't see very many. I always send myself to bed a bit earlier and fight against that just as I did when I was 8 and resistant to the idea of sleeping when it was still light out. I always have some outfit idea, despite the fact that on most working days, I spend very little time thinking about what I'll wear. Last year, I'd slid and skidded my way into being just barely ready, with a full weekend spent at school, not getting much done. This time, we start on a Wednesday and so I have a few more naps to take.

Eight has never been a magic number for me, but I'm finding it interesting this year. It's nice and even and it seems, first and most, like a long time to have been doing anything. I'm glad it's teaching that I've been doing this long - very glad. Yet, a tiny part of me knows that the confidence I feel is ever-so-slightly constructed. When teenagers contribute in large part to your sense of effectiveness, professional reflection gets a bit interesting.

****

The best place received the long-awaited permissions to add an outdoor section to the cafe. We had our meeting with bagals and cream cheese and revuelta and coffee with a breeze and curious passersby who have never seen the space as anything other than a brick pathway between two bookstores.

Last night, when the only evidence of this expansion was a stack of tables and chairs and two potted plants, S led me there. Have you seen it? he asked in Italian. Tonight it is only the cats ... but tomorrow it will be all of us! They've been waiting for a year to be able set out those tables and chairs and potted plants. Che bravo tu sei! I responded, loving the pride in his tone as much as the thought of coffee outside in the breeze, a dozen steps from home.

****

On the plane between Chicago and Munich, I sat next to a hockey player heading to Germany for a season. He was eager and nervous and very talkative. He asked me about bank accounts and bars and travel advice. And, he woke me up to ask about driving a manual transmission. "If I am coasting to a stop ..." He interrupted the last minutes of Catfish to chat and, hours later, when he saw that I was awake, he elbowed me. Good morning! We slept pretty well, I think! It was the most ... engaged I've ever had to be on a plane ride.

He was hitting on you! a friend here said when I asked how Catfish ended.

That's great, I replied. But, he made me miss the end of the movie. I wanted to hit him in his overdeveloped tricep.

pace

2011-07-30T03:52:00.004+02:00

Even though I'm quick to cite the pace of life as one of my favorite things about Italy, I manage to replicate that in some way when I'm in Michigan during the summer. I go slowly. I accomlish one good thing a day. I sleep in. I lay in the sun. I read (because books about here should be read here). I ignore all of my to-do lists.

I always pack more clothes than I will wear, more books than I can read and more projects than I will get to. Once here, I have a permanent uniform of flip flops and cuffed jean as is Northern Michigan summer-approved apparel. I know this when I'm leaving Italy, but I still pack one too many pairs of nice shoes.

In my flip flops, I bike down to Front Street and set up camp in the bookstore. It is the best place to watch the world go by. And, during the Film Festival, it seems as though the entire world does indeed go by.

*****

While on Mackinac Island, I was on the porch and was asked about life in Italy. The inquisitor was innocent but kept prodding me to stereotype Italians. Well, he really wanted me to explain the culture... in a neat, 10-second summary. And, even though I don't get to be Italian - and my students would be first to say that I'm not - I don't like making up categories either. Because, if it comes down to us and them ... well, I'd be hard pressed to choose.

(re)unità

2011-07-25T04:26:00.005+02:00

I might be a season behind in saying it but ... my Spring was excellent. It was packed with trips and guests and late nights and early mornings. Montana sometimes seems a million miles and a million years away. But, it wasn't that long ago that I was completing worksheets and carrying around my copy of 501 Italian Verbs on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings with an eclectic group of people that managed to become pretty important to me.

Before I moved away, M and C promised to visit me in Trieste - and this May, they did, spending a long weekend during which they were game for absolutely anything.

That Friday, I rushed down the hill from school with great purpose, and found myself, just a bit earlier than usual at the usual place with the usual glass in my hand. I'd printed a few copies of the articles from the Times that I've referenced before. As the women read them, I watched them realize something that had just come to me as well: they were having the exact vacation the Times recommended. They'd eaten at that restaurant, were staying in that hotel, had seen those sights, had eaten that gelato. It was one step better than planning an vacation based on a travel article or two, it was realizing part way through that you're doing everything on the "best of" list without even trying.

The next day, after a tiny hiccup that involved a "misplaced" car and an hour spent learning just how to get it back, we continued seeing the very best Trieste had to offer, then piled into my little rescued Polo and took off for Slovenia because it seemed like a good day to eat seafood by the sea (and Isola can't be beat for that).

All weekend, we ate the best food and saw beautiful places in the best weather, heading across the border again to a Slovenian hilltown with a Sunday market, and I joined them in taking pictures of flower pots and stone walls and narrow streets. We stood at the edges of things, looking into the hills that I didn't even need to see with new eyes in order to appreciate.

Because I don't think I need reminders anymore of just how great my corner of the world is. I did a year ago, even though I'd been happy from the beginning, but I don't anymore. What my weekend with these friends gave me was a chance to talk about what I love, to recite my facts and learn some more, to play tourist and tour guide with people I've known for a few years and a few time zones. I think I told stories the entire weekend, talking a blue streak about anything that came to mind, a couple of years worth of anecdotes filling our rides and dinners and strolls. And, I don't think the ladies minded too much, although perhaps they laughed at me just a little bit.

I didn't mind - because as we were zipping in and out of countries and as they met a whole crowd of people who make up my life in Trieste, there were plenty of chances for me to laugh along.

timing

2011-07-25T03:16:00.005+02:00

The porch is still there - just a shade brighter and surrounded by the most perfectly sunny skies. The island is as good a place as any to recover from jet lag and the school year that wouldn't/still hasn't quit.

The island is where we bike and walk and eat and ignore our cell phones, pretending it's the old days (read: two years ago) when you couldn't get service anywhere. It's more silent and more other-worldly than your average re-entry locations.

And, when I'm not on the chairs on the huge expanse of lawn in front of the Mission Point, the porch at the b&b is a good place to read and drink coffee and watch the bikes and eat a sandwich ...

... and it's a good place to return to.

verdict

2011-07-17T00:16:00.005+02:00

For the past few days, I've been reading. It's summer. And, time for me to read more than essays and thesis papers. Having finished my context (Last of the Free: History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland), I finally have my own permission to begin the book I really wanted to read: James Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community, the one I wanted to read in the first place last winter, sitting in The Elephant House, avoiding the rain.

Last of the Free... was unlikely, but good, company at the beach club in the days before I left Trieste. And, The Making of the Crofting Community seemed somehow suited to the annual island trip - lowing my reading pace to a crawl. Mid-1800s Scottish economics is ... not your average beach read.

*****

Before I left, in just a a day or two, I finished one of the books long resident of my to-read list (a shelf, really). Christine Dwyer Hickey's Last Train from Liguria is slightly better suited for the summer than the histories but by no means "just" a beach book. E had recommended it months ago, which meant I needed to give it my complete attention.

And, the book deserved it. Hickey's story of WWII-era Italy is a bit hard to pin down. And, it's summer, so I'm not going to try. But, there is somethng significant about it. The narrative is engaging and reflects a period of Italy's history that is both too recent and too unfamiliar. I place it on the list near The Thieteeth Tale and a few of my other recent favorites.

For the moment, it's back to the (non fiction) history books for me... well, those and a serious stack of New York Magazines that make me feel a bit more culturally caught up with every issue.

And, once I'm caught up, it's back to the beach club for me...

*****

A brief addendum:
Looks like it's time for a pause (the 1850s can wait a bit longer) in my Scottish reading and for me to pick up something a bit more local. Aaron Stander's latest book is out and I need to catch up.

la seconda volta

2011-07-16T19:18:00.009+02:00

K and I spent a long weekend in Florence, in between work and trips and guests. It was necessary - January was too distant a memory. We did everything that is on the list of a perfect weekend in Florence - we ate sandwiches and shopped for books and wandered and tried a new place or two. We laughed. We did none of the things that the guidebooks say - we didn't need to.

I introduced her to F and my Florence home. F and I met 8 years ago when I studied in Florence and I see him every time I return. When it's pouring rain, I sip prosecco while he readies everything for the evening. K and I did exactly that, perched on tall stools. Later, we ventured into the city with him, drinking shakerati at a cafe down the street. This was the first time I'd met his girlfriend (who is wonderful) and he pulled me aside to find out what I thought of her. Even though we see each other intermittently, the very fact that he'd ask me was a reminder of just how long 8 years is. Stretched out over years and continents, we have quite a bit of history.

And, when, at the end of the weekend, it came time for us to head home, K and I sprinted for trains in the rain, navigated the local lines home as a series of thunderstorms (or just one) followed us across the country. We arrived in Trieste late late late Sunday night, relieved to have made it at all as yet another strike had complicated travel.

Despite the travel hiccups and the pouring rain that occupied every taxi and made for a long walk to the station, when describing the trip, K said with great seriousness, It was a great weekend. Maybe the best of the year.

That statement is only impressive if you know her itinerary from the past year: more countries and cities and weekends than I can remember. So, why such enthusiasm for a city she'd seen before - one swarming with tourists and video cameras? I can't say exactly why, even if I tried to speak for her, but I can say that I agree. Maybe it was the fact that I've not been in Florence as often this year, maybe it's how I feel every time I am, maybe it was just how very much I needed a break at that point.

Maybe it was simply the view.

the return

2011-07-08T20:24:00.013+02:00

After our first victory (yes, when one is competing really only against oneself, or maybe an iphone app, one may still consider a marvelous day a victory), we needed no excuse to return to Venice, unless it was to prove how committed we were to adventure. In theory and in practice. We arrived at the Trieste station, clutching our tickets and gasping a bit, having rushed - startled when the track number disappeared and our train was listed as cancelled. Startled to have the lovely day we'd planned so ... interrupted.

I'd recently returned from a lovely but sleep-deprived week in Berlin, and looked at M, who'd returned from London just the night before. Having spent a week with 8th graders, she got first refusal. I'm game if you guys are, she said.

So, we persevered. Jumping on the only train heading toward Venice, paying more once on board, being assured that the sciopero would end at 9pm that night and that we'd most likely be able to get home. We rushed in Mestre, crowding onto a truly tiny train and waiting, stubbornly, for it to leave the station. Determined.

We arrived and continued tradition by purchasing maps. We have quite a collection going - one that never quite manages to make it back the next time. So, we scour the same tourist stand near the train station for the best map, the most streets labeled, the best index. And, we buy two different ones, remember the first time when it took three maps and an iphone to navigate the city.

We had something to prove, too. The night before our departure, we'd been turned down by a potential addition to the squad. But Venice, she said in a sensible tone, is so crowded this time of year. We protested, but no one believed us. Not for a moment.

So, it was left to the 5 of us to take off across the bridge, headed for San Polo, reveling in every empty piazza and deserted street. Venice is so crowded, we muttered, taking pictures as proof. It was left to K to kick off her flip flops and climb her roommate to answer the first clue, one made much more difficult by the season's cascading flowers.

We followed our maps and our clues to new neighborhoods. Take my picture! K exclaimed when we found the grafitti below. Not only does she love (good) grafitti, but K was also in the middle of a move and a series of job interviews. Love the lost.

No matter the crowds that will always fill the main streets, Venice is gorgeous. I love this city, one of us will enthuse every so often, having rounded a corner to a certain piazza or certain play of light or certain sound. We are getting to know it! I usually add. That is the best part.

We're getting to know the city, yes, but we're delighted, speechless, when we encounter something entirely new.

We conquered the city again that day. Heading home on one of the last trains, running to make connections, worried that we wouldn't indeed get home in time for work the next day, wondering exactly who was going to make that call. Startled again when the trains ran basically on time, and we made it home just fine.

Victorious.

sunned

2011-07-08T19:36:00.003+02:00

M and I went to the beach club on her second-to-last day in Italy. We'd made a list of things to do ... one of the lists written on the corner of a paper placemat in an enoteca somewhere and filed with great importance in a pocket or corner of a purse. I saved this one, especially important as it began with Tease A about the gelato guy, and I didn't want to forget that.

We went to the beach club we've been meaning to try, rented chairs, read books and fell asleep in the sun. When we were hot, we dunked ourselves in the frigid Adriatic, laughing with the shock of the cold water.

When we'd made it back to the city and were resting comfortably on the couch in my second home, the others joined us as we squinted at each others' new freckles and tried to figure out if we'd re-applied our SPF50 successfully.

One of the new arrivals paused as he joined us. You're both looking very ... pink, he said. We laughed.

*****

M and A left this morning, after a whirlwind week (is there any other kind?) during which we celebrated their presence and ignored their impending departure. As I explained the rather frantic schedule to a friend, she wrinkled her nose in pity. The hardest part is wishing that you'd done this from the beginning, isn't it? she asked.

Thinking back to all of the music and laughter and perfect evenings that began a few days after their arrival last August, I grinned suddenly.

Well, actually, we did, I answered.

giving in

2011-07-06T01:19:00.007+02:00

I was dragging my heels about visiting Verona.

I know, I know. I'm a Literature teacher. I live in Italy. I should have been there a thousand times, toting around a tattered copy of Romeo and Juliet and quoting lines as the mood struck me.

But, I'm not that kind of Literature teacher. And, despite the obvious draws and my own sense of adventure, I was dragging my heels. I was tired. Busy. Preoccupied.

I went anyway.

And, it was wonderful. Now, the only thing that I am (not tired or (as) preoccupied) is planning to return.

stacks

2011-07-01T22:51:00.008+02:00

There are books to be read. Many of them.

I usually have a running list in my agenda or on a post-it on my kitchen cupboard. I accumulate titles in the in between times and when I head to Florence, I go immediately to the English bookstore there, thrilled to pay far less than if I were to order to to - by some miracle - find the titles in a store here. And, most recently, with the post-it in hand, I searched for Italian books in English. Pirandello? I asked, unsure exactly which of his works to choose, slightly chagrined not to be able to read the texts in the original language, hoping that day is still to come.

My list, my purchases and our home city (Pirandello, Manfredi, Svevo ... Trieste) were interesting enough that the store owner paused. He and I had, even here, spoken mostly in Italian - which, of course, I liked very much - and he continued in the same. You know, before you come here, you can send us a list and we can begin to look for books for you. I grinned at the offer and thanked him, liking the idea, the additional link to the city. Yes, both my hair cut and my books come from Florence.

Since returning, I've read the Svevo, starting it on the molo in the city where he wrote. And, unsurprisingly eager to being in Florence again, I read Cristobel Kent's A Party in San Niccolo'.

Kent joins Donna Leon and Magdalen Nabb on a genre list - for me at least. I've enjoyed Donna Leon for a few years - ever since the lovely A handed me a copy during a stay in Munich and said, I can't believe you haven't read her! My very favorite thing about these books is the image of Venice they present. The characters are locals - natives - and they know those streets and canals better than I ever could - but as I'd love to.

I've described reading Leon's Brunetti series to others as like taking a walk through Venice but that misses something. Leon seems eager to explore more than just the winding alleys of her city, but presents current social issues as well. Only the reader intent on being frivolous would be able to set down The Girl of His Dreams or Blood from a Stone without having addressed his or her own prejudices.

If you're looking for a summer project, check out the Italy in Books Reading Challenge. I must admit that even with all of the time I don't have, I thought, Hmm... 12. I bet I could read 12 books about Italy. I'm going to hold myself back though, and continue to choose whatever book strikes me at the moment.

And, here's what I'm reading next. Or, almost next. Soon, at least.

southern

2011-07-01T21:38:00.005+02:00

After the morning's tour of Cartegena, we had a few moments for something cool and fizzy along the sea.

For K and I, even these few moments cemented our plans for the next day. The beach, we said. We need the beach. And so, we drove south.

And, we ended up at the beach.

In between sips of something else fizzy and cold, I asked K, On what planet do two girls from the Midwest get to hang out in the south of Spain on a Thursday? I don't remember her answer exactly, but when I posed the same question later on the fb, one person responded, On Planet Amazing - which is obviously where you moved.

Planet Amazing. I could get used to life here.

warming up

2011-07-01T20:56:00.007+02:00

I'm stretching my blogging muscles a bit this week... trying to remember all of the things I've been meaning to write about. Best laid plans and all that.

Despite my time abroad, there's a rather embarrassing list of places I haven't been. It's embarrassing only every so often, when someone assumes that I must have been to ----- or -------- or how did I like -----? and I have to deal with the look on their face. In a second, in their minds, I go from intrepid traveler to anti-social shut-in. Nevermind the three new countries I've visited since last Fall or the new cities or the work that's both encouraged and inhibited me - sometimes it's the places I've yet to see that seem to count more.

Spain was, until April, one of those places. Many friends have studied and lived there, but I'd never been. Really? people would ask. Really.

Then, the most lovely, unlikely trip to Barcelona where I saw the tiniest corner of the city - and a lot of soccer pitches. Still counts, I decided.

Then, Spring Break in Murcia and Andalucia and a few days of sun and rain and Spanish food.

And, being adopted by my friend's mother, who treated my must-be-a-break illness with fresh orange juice and concern. K led the charge, letting me sleep in and cheerfully rumaging through her meds, sticking a thermometer in my mouth as I drove us back from Granada.

And, somewhere, in my stubborn, foggy brain, I thought, It still counts!

(forced) hiatus

2011-06-27T21:37:00.002+02:00

I'm back.

It's summer - at least in theory - and I'm back.

The last month was excellent, but one entirely void of time to write. Two inboxes and certainly this blog reflect that. It was a month of too little sleep and a few low times, but mostly a whirlwind month of lovely highs and reminders of why I do what I do and why I'm so glad that I get to do it here.

So, now that I'm back out on the molo, reading, there will be a bit more time for me to be here, writing.

Thanks for letting me pause.

same as the first

2011-05-29T20:55:00.010+02:00

We call ourselves the Adventure Squad.

We wear hats and buy kazoos. We take turns with the iphone. We avoid the crowds.

We are goofy. Incredibly so.

We see new things every time and we take pictures of them all.

We take morning trains to the city and then the latest train home, dozing and ignoring all the things we have to do. We walk our feet off and then eat at a fantastic restaurant that's hard to find. We have a routine.

There is a very cool company with very cool ideas that make traveling in Italy even cooler than it is by default. And so, one Saturday - bravely declaring, "If this is even half as awesome as it seems, it will be completely awesome" - we headed to Venice.

And, it was awesome

So awesome, in fact, that once wasn't nearly enough. On the train ride home, we planned out our spring trips, and we thought for just a second about returning to the city that night, staying over to play one more game.

You don't have to take my word for it.

Potsdam

2011-05-29T18:27:00.008+02:00

It seemed to take forever to get there.

Into the city to a main station, out via a different line, a change or two we didn't expect, and, hours later, we were finally in Potsdam. But, our energy for the Prussian Versailles was limited. Metro, Metro, Train, Train, Bus, Walk can really take it out of you.

And, instead of the gorgeous weather that had been forecasted, clouds were moving in as we neared the park. All of that for a half hour in the gardens and a search for lunch? I asked myself. Bummer.

It was beautiful, though. So we hid our doubts from 18 hungry kids as best we could, and I did my best to convince them that all of this was part of the plan. And, we took off on a walk. Just a few minutes, I said. And, every so often, Group photo! Kids like to pose.

So, we walked. And, we took a left when left looked interesting and a right when we didn't know where else to go. And, then another right when it seemed like a good idea. And, even though the clouds didn't lighten up much, the rain held off. And the kids played soccer. Eventually, the walk that was intended to justify our travels became a thing in itself. When the rain finally came, pouring down for a few minutes as we waited for a bus, the kids found a tree or two under which to take shelter and didn't seem bothered at all. There was suddenly joy in the journey.

And, the journey led us back into town. There, we found excellent food and a pedestrian street lined with shops, flooded with sunlight. Can we stay longer? they asked.

We could.

all'italiana

2011-05-29T17:41:00.004+02:00

There is something of a tradition among expats in Italy, one I heard of before I arrived and one confirmed by first-hand accounts from friends here. At the end of a year, or so, or after a prolonged guest, a bill arrives for water or gas or electricity. And, instead of being the usual monthly amount, it's a shocking, startling, terrifying number. A year's bills are based on an estimate from the previous year, so any changes in that apartment can mean that the difference between one year and the next is sizeable to say the least.

Having lived here over a year, I have emitted a few small sighs of relief when no such bills arrived. Maybe in January, I thought. And, later, Maybe after a full year. Then, Maybe the next January. Each marked passed with no such ominious arrival.

And then, March of this year, an email from the school's secretary. A fax arrived from the agency. You should pay xxx euros each month. Come to me if you have questions.

I had questions.

After my questions and a few more conversations, it was settled that I owed a significant amount of money for the water and heat that I'd used. I was shocked at the number, especially considering the amount of time I'm not here. For a while, it seemed that the reason was that the entire building was linked instead of having autonomous systems, then that was disproven. I concluded that I had no idea why I owed more, but if paying was what it took to stay in my lovely, perfect apartment, I would pay.

Then, a week or so later, another fax. It seemed I'd been billed incorrectly. And, that, in order to obtain the right number, I should be at home at noon on a Thursday to open the door for the meter reader. His conclusion, as recounted to me by the friend who volunteered to wait here so that I wouldn't have to run home from school, was that I couldn't possibly live here. These numbers haven't changed at all! My friend berated me for living like a hermit; I justified by counting for her the weeks each year that I'm not here. But, more than anything, I breathed another small sigh of relief. If the numbers don't show that I live here, it's unlikely that I owe hundreds of euros.

I've just started reading That Fine Italian Hand and the introduction, another ex-pat's perspective, uses the phrase all'italiana to classify those things that don't work quite right in this paese del sole - bills and bureaucracy at the top of the list. Don't use this phrase, the author cautions, but I've ignored at for the moment. Adding my own story into the mix, and hearing others about the simple act of registering to vote here, I feel as though I've passed a test of sorts. Or entered a fraternity. Or had an adventure. And, I've so far come through unscathed.

At least, I think so.

Ma se no, boh. Viva l'A e pò bon.

impressionable

2011-05-29T00:39:00.010+02:00

Traveling with students is entirely different. You miss plenty and you see things you never would. Five days in any city is quite a bit (well, 5 including travel - I exaggerate), enough to really get a feel and decide where it falls on the list.

It doesn't seem like quite enough, though, when it's 5 days on a school trip. It feels like looking at the city out of the corner of my eye. Only out of the corner of my eye because my entire focus is on the 18 travelers along ahead, behind and around me. I have an idea of Berlin based on bits and pieces and photos and a metro map now ingrained in my mind. Have you been here before? the students asked.

I like the idea that I have of Berlin.

It's a big city, sparsley populated; it's got history and a sense of its own present. It's got currywurst. It's got Starbucks. It's got a good metro and plenty of shopping. It's figured out, I think, a balance - a delicate balance - between that past and that present that make it interesting, self reflective without being self destructive.

At least I think so.

I think so because I saw all of this a fragment at a time. I let myself become absorbed at Tacheles (a fascinating, doomed artists' squat) and I trailed cheerfully along as our guide explained the culture of some of the more fascinating areas.

I got a little lost in the silence of the Holocaust Memorial, amazed that with all of the students and others around, knowing our bus was illegally parked half on a sidewalk, that I was able to feel the solitude that the architect intended.

Along with these half glimpses and vague impressions, I've a few days in a new city, which is always a good thing. From my 18 companions, I have their impressions and pictures to supplement my own. I've a guidebook, purchased in Florence, which I used almost daily and a pop-up map (my signature travel aid), purchased in Edinburgh, that's a bit more worn than when we left. I've a few hundred pictures, a few postcards and quite a few stories.

It's a good trip when you return with more than you left.

return

2011-05-29T00:28:00.002+02:00

But, you seem full of stories! one of my students said one day, most likely after an anecdote. I do have them, a number of anecdotes that relate - or don't - to whatever we may discussing.

I am full of stories - even more so after the past month or so. I am full of stories and the more stories I have, the less time to sit quietly and reflect upon them and turn them into something interesting or funny or the tiniest bit polished.

The last month or so has meant a second trip to Spain, a first to Berlin, an Adventure Squad Weekend in Venice, a birthday, my birthday, and guests. And so, as the year whirls on, I'll do my best to catch up. Because some of the stories are to be told, some are to be processed, some may be simply foreshadowing.

Ya, Darling

2011-05-19T08:38:00.003+02:00

And Berlin it is, my latest map-dot adventure spot.

It's been lovely.

And I'm traveling with students, so that's saying a lot.

On second thought...

2011-05-16T22:42:00.010+02:00

The reading of the Times articles and Rilke (however flawed and ill-equipped to give advice he may have been), has prompted a number of conversations about this city.

The first and most passionate of these conversations happened exactly where it belonged - in the classroom. I was regaled with stories and songs and descriptions and opinions - these kids talking about where they're from. And, talking about it with a lot of pride. They quoted from songs and poems, translated from dialect to Italian to English ... to me. They sang the songs they knew, then found online videos of more.

The most recent conversation on the topic began with a friend asking if I was going to stay for the next year. Thanks to my recent, student-led education in all things Triestine, it ended with he and I laughing as well sang Viva l'A e pò bon! the same oh-so-Triestino chorus the boys sang in Barcelona after an unlikely victory.

Last week, I went with my about-to-graduate-and-so-just-a-bundle-of-nerves students. We walked to the trail that looks down on the sea and onto my city and we found a few benches and we sat and we talked about what we'd read.

And, we talked a little about what they're headed off to do next. And, I tried to say in the least patronizing of ways, You'll be fine... everything will be okay. You'll have grand adventures and someday (soon) will look back and think 'How perfect that all was.' But, you can't really say that to a bunch of trepidatious teens. You can't say it because it's all been said so very many times before.

So, I let Rilke say it ... Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

One of the students read the passage, then I read it, then I made them think and talk and then I read it again. Earlier in the same letter, Rilke writes, ... ten years is nothing... and I realized just how impossibly true that is. Ten years since I was in the place of these kids and how those ten years have flown and I reach the other side of it, amazingly, having done exactly as Rilke said.

la Vita

2011-05-02T21:35:00.011+02:00

Almost exactly two years ago, I booked a plane ticket from Michigan to New York to Kentucky and back to Michigan. I booked a plane ticket and a couple of concert tickets and, later, a hotel room in Chelsea.

And, I waited. I packed and moved and unpacked and repacked and spent a summer reading high school textbooks and studying Italian. And, in the middle of it, I went to the City.

And, I saw Jovanotti.

Up close.

I leaned back when he leaned forward. I took pictures whose flashes lit the stage. I sang every word I knew. Knowing that if I shouted loudly enough, he'd be singing along with me.

And, in Rimini, just over two weeks ago, I sang along again.

It was the opening night of the ORA tour, the first concert in Italy in a long time. And, with six or seven thousand others, I got to be there. I got to be there and to scream along with all the words I knew. I got to be there with friends, friends who said in the rental car on the drive down, You know, I don't really know anything about Jovanotti... and who, when the concert was clearly winding down, shouted I don't want it to end! and who walked out with an armload of t-shirts.

We sang (to every great song he's ever recorded) and we danced and we laughed. He's like a guy dancing in front of his bathroom mirror, L shouted to me with amazement in her voice. He's like a guy dancing in front of his bathroom mirror and every person in this place loves it!

We were a bit farther away this time - I didn't exactly make eye contact with Jova, not like that time on the street in Chelsea, or when he sang Seranata Rap to me. We were a bit farther away this time, but I'd like to think we mattered all the same.

Last Things First

2011-05-02T21:02:00.003+02:00

One of my teachers gave me Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet when I graduated from high school. I knew that it was interesting, famous, but I didn't crack its spine for a few more years. Even then, after I had a magnet with the most famous quotation from the text, I never finished it.

I finished it tonight.

I finished the book - a slim, white volume - sitting on the Molo Audace as the sun set over the sea.

It is one of my favorite places in the city.

My city, it seems, is becoming a bit more popular. I could have told you that from the way I see more maps in tourists' hands and hear more English in my neighborhood. And, if that weren't enough, it seems the Times is starting to say what I always knew.

Trieste is pretty cool.

I knew it before the Times did. I knew it from the first weekend I moved here and realized that Trieste was more than I'd ever have expected. It was a lot ... more.

And, I knew it before the Times published a second article last week, this time in the Travel section. And, oddly enough, reading this second article, I felt a sense of ownership of this place. That's not the right picture of Urbanis at all... or of Bar Stella. And, Why not more of my neighborhood? The street with SaluMare, in the right light... well, that's a much better picture.

Rilke wrote here - none of the letters in the book I read tonight, but he wrote here. He hiked the paths above the sea near which I sat (in fact, those trails are named for him now). I knew that before I moved, having done my research. I knew it and so I slipped in the slim white volume into a box or suitcase and moved it along with my Italian grammar books and cute shoes.

And now, I've read it.

not in Kansas ...

2011-04-30T00:57:00.002+02:00

... not even close.

Spain is lovely this time of year.

è questa la vita ...

2011-04-18T21:24:00.006+02:00

... che sognavo da bambina.

travel team - part three

2011-04-17T21:27:00.004+02:00

And, it just got better.

My girls proceeded to lose every game - but with such fierce determination that they were everyone's favorites. Once or twice when we neared the goal, teams watching cheered like we'd won the finals. They're getting better, I think, said one of the tournament organizers. They even get to play offense sometimes. They played defense so hard that they held the future winners of the tournament to one goal, frustrating team after team on the 2nd and 3rd days.

It's one thing to cheer for the underdogs and another thing to have them shut down your attackers.

After the fifth game - by far their best, toughest game - the sprinklers came on and instead of screeching and running for cover, my team shrieked with joy and danced together in celebration. Their almost-victory dance the best of the day.

When the last game of the last day had been played under the fierce spring sun, with fierce rivalries emerging, and it was time for each team to receive their placing, my girls were the ones who jogged together to the podium, laughing. Their pride in themselves barely rivaled mine in them, though.

Now, one girl said to me that day, you can go home and take a class and be our real coach next year, right?

Gladly.

----

I couldn't have cared less about the girls' record, but it might be worth noting that the boys did very well, giving reason for us to send a flurry of text messages home that Friday and for them to take the podium on Saturday, battered and bruised but having surprised everyone.

And my girls cheered for them at the top of their lungs.

----

When the All-Tournament Team was called to the podium one by one, another team's goalie stood slowly to his feet, a recent injury meaning that the long walk up the steps of the building to receive a medal was daunting to say the least. And, if, after all that I've described already, my heart had had any more room to grow, it would have, watching one of our team walk alongside him, supporting him with an arm and making him laugh, taking each small step together.

----

One more step down, we said on the way home. Each leg seeming a bit daunting after the adrenaline-fueled weekend. And, everything was going smoothly until both of us chaperones were pulled aside for passport checks, our EU-passported students charging ahead through security, our organizational plans thwarted by a determined airport employee. I cannot allow you to pass this line, she said. I just looked at her and took two (rebellious) steps forward to shout for the last student in line, explaining as best I could in about 6 words what had happened.

Hurrying back out to the checkpoint, annoyed, I realized that I had a phone list and called one of the students to make sure everything was clear. Yes, yes. We're fine, he answered. Then, a pause. But, sorry. Where are you?

When we returned, they were all accounted for, just barely on the other side of the security point, having followed my hurried instructions exactly, and, I was pleased to see, looking the tiniest bit nervous.

----

Briefly, as a conclusion, it's worth pointing out that the ramifications of this trip have been immediate and powerful. There's a new spirit, my friend said. You can see it. The goalie listened to a lesson (perhaps the first of the year) and an attacker volunteered to read Chaucer in Middle English (certainly a first ... and then a second as the feat was repeated two days later). Both teams limped through the halls for a day or two, and there are still a few bandaged extremities as well as a turf-burn that makes people cringe.

And, at a time in my career when I was wondering about the next step, I find myself more assured than ever that the next step ... well, is to stay right here.

travel team - part two

2011-04-12T20:47:00.008+02:00

I used to coach middle school girls softball. Each year, the first game of the season was away, in a town called Ennis. That team had new uniforms, a great field, lots of coaches, lots of practice. They beat us every time. We learned how to take it in stride, promising ourselves hamburgers at the Bear Claw on the way home. I'd like to say that it made the team tougher, but to tell the truth it was a little demoralizing and the place where my girls were most likely to break Rule #1: No crying unless there's blood.

Barcelona, Spain has nothing in common with Ennis, Montana, but by the time we left for the trip last week, I was starting to feel a bit of déjà vu.

We all knew how this was supposed to go, I said once the girls were in their uniforms, watching the first game of the tournament. Mr. V was supposed to be able to coach you - but that's not how it worked out. I know that I'm your Literature teacher, but for now, I'm your coach. They nodded, looking a little relieved that they weren't going to be left on their own.

The girls signed up at least in part so that the boys could play. They were promised days off of school and cute Spanish boys. There were just enough of them to make a team - only two subs, the minimum. But, in the days before we left, one of the girls was admitted to the hospital. One sub.

The girls had played in PE class. They'd practiced together three or four times, once on a regulation-sized field.

That was it.

We played 5 teams from Africa and Europe - all of which were part of proper programs with JV and Varsity teams. And, not surprisingly, we lost. The first game went to Tunisia (0-7). It was just what we'd feared. In the minutes before the game, one of the girls pulled a muscle, taking herself out of the game, and, effectively, the tournament. No subs. This meant that all of the team had to play all of the time: okay for the 3 girls training for another sport, not as okay for other 8 whose muscles were already cramping.

Except, that's when my girls became ... incredible. Alright, I said after the first match. You all just became defensive players. They bore down, pushing themselves in a way that I'd never imagined - nor, had they, I'd guess. They couldn't really have a break, so they didn't take one, keeping themselves in the game after hard hits and more pulled muscles. The next two games were also losses, but they slowly increased (by seconds only) the amount of time spent across the center of the field. 0-3, 0-1 - they took my comment about defense to heart, getting in the way of everything, flinging themselves to the ground in front of shots, muscling their way in.

The goalie made save after save, earning the respect of every opposing team. Did you practice a lot before we came? I asked after a game, amazed at how excellent she'd been. Not really, she replied. I talked to one of the boys before we left. He taught me how to fall.

At the end of each of the three games that day, half of the team was in the nurse's office, quickly learning their way around sprays and ice packs and ace wraps. I watched them limp on and off the field, watched them stretch almost constantly between games, watched them struggle to climb stairs, and I began to worry about the next day.

During the final minutes of the last game that afternoon, one of the girls fell to the pitch, clutching her leg. I told them to kick it out of bounds, she said later, having known her leg was cramping. But they kept telling me I was fine! When it became apparent that she wouldn't make it off of the field on her own, two of her teammates hoisted her into their linked arms, sprinting her off the field, all three of them laughing, leaving me to walk behind, amazed.

When the game was over, the team grabbed their bags and helped each other walk to the boys game, screaming their support the instant they walked into the stadium. They shouted themselves hoarse, barely flinching when they learned there wouldn't be time to shower, proudly walking the streets of Barcelona's center still wearing their uniforms, covered in scrapes and bandages.

Your girls have a lot of heart, the opposing coach had said after the last match, still looking slightly startled. You have no idea, I thought.

travel team

2011-04-09T01:02:00.010+02:00

I wasn't supposed to coach. I'm a pretty decent chaperone on school trips, and I love travelling with students. So, I was happy to be asked to come along to Barcelona for the first soccer tournament in which our school has participated. We just need a female teacher, I was told. You won't have to do anything.

Except, then, the schedule started to look a little different. Problem, I was told. There is maybe one game for the girls at the same time as the boys.

I like coaching - quite a bit, in fact. I like watching a team come together. I like seeing what kids are made of. I like competition.

I like soccer. Since moving to Italy, I've watched a number of games and gotten very enthused about the kids' tournaments at school. I've learned a lot about players and leagues and whom I should cheer for. I've learned not to voice support for a specific Italian team as at any given moment, my classroom is home to rabid Inter, Milano and Roma fans who take any excuse to argue. Any.

But, I've never coached soccer. And, barring a first grade club team and last year's inaugural game, I've never really played soccer. I don't know the rules. Or the positions. Or, well, very much at all. I can coach one game, I said. Sure.

A few days later, just a day before our departure, I quickly printed an updated tournament schedule for the captain of the boys team. An hour later, he was in my office. Problem, he said. Look at the schedule. I've underlined the problem. The game times were circled - quite a few at the same time.

Oh, I said. That's more than one game.

Underlined, he responded. I've underlined the problem.

Oh. I said. Then, again, Oh. Because he'd underlined the field names for the two teams. And they were different.

Rules, I said, walking into my homeroom 20 minutes later and handing a handful of board markers to my students, I think I just became a soccer coach and I need to know the rules.

seems

2011-04-06T00:15:00.010+02:00

It turns out that some things are just as fantastic as I've envisioned them.

It turns out that a day in Venice in the spring is always a good idea, and it turns out that I know the city well enough to avoid the crowds (and it turns out that I love that more than I can say). It turns out that even wrong turns make for good stories and that right turns can lead to the best piazzas.

It turns out that it's useful to have a compass. Even in a city.

It turns out that moeche are in season. And that a tiny little restaurant hidden behind the Rialto with no sign other than the vague Osteria written above the door is the perfect place to try them for the first time.

It turns out that a game can be just the thing one needs to liven up, well, anything. It turns out that acting like big kids just means a lot of laughter. And when you have laughter and games and people who give each other code names, well, that's a good day in Venice.

And, lucky for us, it turns out expats may never have to grow up.

encountered

2011-03-29T11:52:00.005+02:00

My life is on this street, I said one morning or afternoon walking up or down to or from the car or home. I park at the top, I live, and eat, and am social in the middle. I trailed off then, mostly to think to myself, And the sea... the sea is at the bottom.

When I was offered this apartment, I said I'd think about it and asked for the address. A few minutes later, I was staring open mouthed at googlemaps. Distance to the sea, 300 meters. I instantly, frantically typed my response: Yes, please. I don't need to think about it.

This year, my street sprung to life. Closed storefronts became amazing cafes; dark bars brightened to become comfortable places where we'd spend hours. My friends had to give in and agree that the place I lived was pretty amazing, making the trek across the city or down the hill on a regular basis.

Last week, just after a working dinner out, K and I were headed home from one of the wonderful little places, exhausted, when we overheard English... American English. It's strange enough to warrant a conversation ... and in this case, a glass of prosecco and a shared dessert plate and hours to talk about books and school and living abroad. A few days later, on the eve of their departure, we encountered our new friends again, and there was more talking and more laughter.

My life is on this street. Thank goodness.

home from home

2011-03-28T15:25:00.014+02:00

Home from home is an unfamilar phrase to most Americans (I can credit a certain tv show for broadening my linguistic horizons in this regard). In Italian, home away from home (yes, we Americans use ALL the words, despite our reputation for economizing language), translates to my second house, which I don't like quite so well. It's funny, in the language of the country I would like to describe, there aren't really words for feeling, now, that this is where I'm from. I'm often asked if I miss anything from the US, and my response is generally, People, of course.

I can, in fact, live with the buffalo wings and doritos, without the tv and movies, with the language barriers and cultural moments. A big part of the reason that I can be perfectly content here is because of the same thing I left behind: the people. Last Saturday, home was a bit too far away and I ended up texting a friend: Come over! I'll make oatmeal raisin cookies! she responded. You had me at 'oatmeal.' I typed.

And so, I graded papers there, diminishing my stack and feeling quite proud, taking over their kitchen table and having to push stacks aside to make room for the tea and fresh-from-the-oven cookies she served me. The sun shone in through the window, brightly. The three of us chattered a bit, leaving plenty of space for the music that piped quietly through the room.

Eventually, once everything that could be graded was graded, I moved to the sofa, meaning to make some serious progress in the book I'd tossed in my purse before leaving the house that morning. Finding my eyelids drooping instead, I drifted off. L sat on the other side of the couch, her feet curled under her, most likely having been able to predict my nap. Then, waking me up a bit later with the clatter of cups and saucers as she brought a tray of warm, homemade bread, jam, honey and tea for an afternoon snack. Honey makes absolutely everything better, D mumbled between bites.

And so do sunshine and naps and friends and the feeling that I'm never far from a home from home.

anticipation

2011-03-22T12:08:00.006+01:00

I've always been a big fan of Spring. When I was very young, it meant playing barefoot in the yard, our toes squishing in the still-cool mud that lay just beneath the shoots of greening grass. As a teen, it meant softball season, sometimes shoveling snow to clear the field so we could practice, playing in the gym when we couldn't.

Last year, I felt the same enthusiasm for the change of seasons as always, and Trieste didn't disappoint. Both spring and summer were absolutely gorgeous - days of bright sun and time spent by the sea. We walked home from school and commented on the smell of the rain and told stories.

And this year - despite the impact of seasonal allergies so strong as to make one friend mutter The pollen count is in the millions... in between sneezes - my enthusiasm is greater than ever. Because, this time, I know exactly how amazing spring is in this part of the world. I recognize the smell of the air after rain, and the clear skies of the past week have been like the clear skies of last June.

The changes and the sunshine have woken people up a bit, and the stories come more easily than ever. But, we paused in our tales for a moment last week when passing a lit baseball field we hadn't known existed. The scene was familiar, from a thousand movies and a thousand more summer evenings. We were quiet after our initial observations, until I said, That looks pretty good, knowing the comment would be met with agreement.

The verb form of the season name is about to be true as I head off on a number of adventures, most of which I approach with the same blend of trepidation and enthusiasm that has marked my year. I'll add a new country to my travel map (twice), visit a new city or two and have a number of visitors. Before all of that, though, it's nice to just to be at the starting line, knowing I've a moment or two to lift my face to the sun before the race begins.

if you squint...

2011-03-14T15:42:00.005+01:00

...these thoughts might actually fit together.

****

With the arrival of even slightly warmer weather and the regression of my illness, my Italian Weekends seem to have returned. No, not strolling leisurely through purple hills, or basking along the sea, but sprinting gleefully from one commitment to another, constantly double-booked but trying to avoid adding a third engagement.

This has been the pace of things, off and on, since I moved here (at the beginning of last year, there was so much excitement and so much to do that I would crash eventually, with the lights on, intending to have gotten so much more done, only to startle myself awake in the middle of the night ... and turn off the lights). And, I like it. I like not knowing exactly what will come next. This is a good thing as I've decided that my life is a series of Whoa. Where'd that come from? moments linked by good food and a disproportionate amount of work.

Like Saturday, when, after a lovely, social day, I had a lovely social evening, with A getting us into the opening of a new osteria down the street. A place so new that one could almost smell the paint that had turned it from a dark (and creepy) bar into a silver and simple place where the promise of good food means we'll certainly return.

Or Sunday, when I ended up out for a walk for the 45 minutes of the afternoon when it rained the hardest. But, that was all the time we had. Normal people check the sky and put on rainjackets, so it really was our own fault. And, then I was out again, headed to an evening service packed with people I didn't know.

Those weekend evenings had something in common with many other evenings of the past year or so ... this delicious sense of anticipation and the squirmy out-of-place feeling that one might as well embrace when living abroad. My routine this year has provided a buffer from that: the places I go, people know me ... and my preferences ... and my friends ... and my level of Italian. It's been a while since I've flung myself (or been dragged) into a situation where I feel just strange(r) enough for it to raise my pulse a bit.

****

With a professional development day (read: no students) Thursday and a day off today. Wednesday was as good of a fake Friday as one can get. I celebrated with fajitas and good conversation, staying at my friends' long past the kids' bedtime and certainly past mine. As I left, driving in the driving rain, a grand, long flash of lightning filled the sky. Since I was out of the city and up in the hills, I could see it and smile.

Growing up, we'd stand on the back porch to watch the sudden Wisconsin thunderstorms move in. Or, Grandpa would head outside to the top of the hill near the barn and watch the weather. In Michigan, we found ourselves on the top of a sand dune at least once, watching a storm move north along the lake, big enough to obscure the islands we saw easily moments before. We used to watch the lightning move across the valley in Montana. Those are all nice things.

****

I've finished The Imperfectionists for book club and am allowing myself to speak of it as I choose. If we have any breakthroughs when we finally meet, I'll share, but in general, I liked it. Rachman doesn't write a warm, fuzzy series of stories but he does craft characters who are rather real; rather, well, cautionary tales, maybe especially for us expats in Italy. He pulls his characters away from their relationships and throws a harsh light on their selfishness and disconnection from those around them.

Enough on that for the moment, but, if you've read it, Herman is my favorite.

****

I've started this post a number of times, forced to save and close over and over again as my days started or ended or the phone rang or buzzed. With that in mind, I'm headed into a weekend a bit longer than the others and grateful beyond belief for some quiet hours.

aftermath

2011-03-11T10:50:00.008+01:00

Carnevale was last week. Instead of heading to Venice, I slept through the weekend and spent Tuesday doing my best to teach students, even if they were dressed as giant pandas.

At the end of the day on Tuesday, I intentionally walked through through Piazza Unità, just to see. The leftovers of the parade and festivities were entertaining, as was the dinner that followed. What are people doing tonight? one friend asked. It was a Tuesday, and a busy week, but it didn't seem like a night to stay in. It seemed like a night one should spend out with tiny, tired Teletubbies and a grown platypus or two.

Tuesday was also Women's Day, and, at the very end, around came D, giving bunches of mimosas to each of the women. Mimosas that we declared, to the amusement of the men, smelled like lemon cake.

sounds like...

2011-03-07T17:55:00.003+01:00

Nothing sounds exactly as it should quite yet and L has figured out that she can sneak up on my left side and stand directly behind me and I won't know. But, despite the buzzing, ringing and echoes that persist, I feel a bit lighter.

Maybe it's because the antibiotics are kicking in, but I'd like to think it's maybe because I left school before dark today. Maybe because the sun has been shining like mad. Maybe because it's Carnevale season and I passed a teenager in a dinosaur suit on the way home. Maybe because on the way home I remember those afternoons when Renee and I would cruise down the hill to make it to the Barcola in time to nap in the sun.

Maybe it's because of all that ... because all of that added together starts to sound just the tiniest bit like springtime.

continued

2011-03-05T23:01:00.003+01:00

At some point last year, N went to Venice for a Saturday. He decided at the last minute, took a book, wandered the city and read by a canal in the sunshine. It was, he said when relating it to us the next week, a very Carrie-esque day. I thought I'd heard him incorrectly and made him repeat himself.

Well, he asked then, doesn't it sound pretty much like your perfect day?

It did.

---

There was another day in Scotland.

This one began with pouring rain and tea in the b&b. I'd fallen in love with my cosy room with the astonishing wallpaper and windows that opened onto the back garden. And, with the breakfast room at the front of the building, where I perched myself and watched the rain come down.

Eventually, I ventured out, finding a Starbucks with a view of the castle. And a bookstore. And, later, once the rain stopped, the castle itself.

Around tea time, I was in the Elephant House, pretending to have been drawn there by the promise of Earl Grey and Shepherd's Pie ... and nothing else. I buried myself in a book, enjoying that I wasn't the only one doing so and that there seemed to be no hurry to leave.

I was off the next day (to Cambridge and beyond) where there would be more tea and more rain and more reading. Pretty much perfect.

Idyll

2011-03-01T20:20:00.008+01:00

For the moment, I'm upright, having used what can only be antibiotic-fueled energy to go to the store for kleenex, orange juice, toothepaste and - rather inexplicably - tortilla chips (I decided not to argue with the urge seeing as nothing has really tasted like anything in about a week. They do not, parenthetically, taste like anything; it could be the cold or the fact that I believe they were made in Sweden).

I fall victim to it often enough (my blog, my illnesses come up) but reading about someone's need to stock up on kleenex is tedious at best. At best. So, my one good ear and I have decided to move on... or back.

About two weeks ago, I was in the process of falling completely for a new country, thrilled that leaving the Schengen territory meant that an Edinburgh stamp was actually in my passport. A and I had taken advantage of our overlapping intineraries to venture out of the city for a day along the sea at St. Andrews.

Having been there a moment or two, I understood, finally, the game of golf. I've never been a great fan, but now see it as a traveller's desire to simply stay in this amazing place. How can I invent a game that will take long enough for me to establish residency? Flippant as that may be, I was won over, if not to golf, than to the place that gave it shape.

And the university. I also understand the idea of being a lifelong student. Something in the buildings and courtyards and Harry Potter-esque font encourages one to stick around.

We were pushed home more by the approaching darkness and train schedules than anything else, having fully loved our blustery day along the sea, among the ruins, up and down the lanes.

At the station, even as I was glancing down the tracks, giving in to the desire to hum Moby and lean out a bit for a picture (I was in training, you know, for a brief encounter), I was certain I'd be back.

literary reference

2011-02-28T22:48:00.006+01:00

In Sushi for Beginners, somewhere in the plot, the author, Marian Keyes, does indeed have her main character learn how to order and eat sushi, making it sound, to this Midwestern girl, like a bit of an art. It wasn't long after reading the book that I decided that I was indeed capable of the same art, putting Dave's on speed dial and ordering take out whenever I wasn't meeting someone there. I perfected, I think, my own style of ordering and eating: practice makes perfect. L liked her ginger to sit in the soy sauce, forgotten for a few minutes; M liked to order sashimi and made us brave enough to try, too; Erica liked to order something new every time. I liked the shrimpifornia rolls when I couldn't make up my mind.

Of course, later in the book, the main character develops a debilitating ear infection.

Unfortunately, that, and not being out nightly for sushi, is true to life for me.

In the book, oddly enough, it brings her closer to the love interest and advances the plot. In my life, it simply means I've been sleeping 20 hours a day and navigating the Italian medical system.

Not quite so glamorous.

a glimpse

2011-02-20T22:14:00.005+01:00

I like series (books and movies, alike). And, one cold Montana winter, I watched a good portion of a BBC series called Monarch of the Glen. And, I watched an episode or two the weekend before I left on my recent travels. Set in Scotland, it seemed like the right way to start the trip.

Having done my homework came in handy sometime late Saturday afternoon when one of the actors from the show walked into the London Starbucks where I'd perched myself out of the drizzle.

I looked up from reading The Last of the Free: a History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and I squinted first, sure that I was just imagining. Then, I decided that I wasn't so crazy after all. Then, I may have snuck a picture with my phone, just to confirm later. Then, after he sat down nearby, he may have caught me and my attempts at subtle glances. I wasn't holding the book upside down, but I don't know that my "reading" was very convincing. I was certainly smiling to myself more than one normally does when studying pre-clan era fighting kings.

But, I'd like to think that being recognized wasn't so bad for a certain post-clan era Scotsman's day. And, his chance appearance kind of made mine.

prediction

2011-02-16T12:50:00.007+01:00

I thought that I just might fall for Scotland with its coasts and castles and accents and history and horizons.

I thought I just might fall head over heels for this new country. And, I did.

packed

2011-02-12T18:12:00.005+01:00

It's back on the road for me. Since my return from Florence at the end of the Winter Break, I've been at what feel very much like a work-related dead sprint. In fact, A and I even did work while we were traveling, finding a tall table in a nice cafe where we spent an afternoon editing a googlesite for new hires.

That dead sprint didn't leave much time for travel planning and, in fact, threw a couple curve balls at me once I did (I might be mixing my metaphors, but they're all sports-related). So, I find myself a bit relieved to know that I've got a Sunday morning flight to Rome, a Monday afternoon flight that will add Scotland to my map, a reservation at a little B&B in Edinburgh's city center and a flight home from London on Sunday afternoon. A bit of the in-between is settled as well, thanks to traveling companions planning ahead.

The gaps will soon be filled in, I hope. With a little (more) time spent online and a little bit of organization, I think I'll soon have a trip all sorted.

Of course, I leave for the first leg in about 12 hours.

And, even that, if I may end with my typical sentimentality, is amazing. The fact that my schedule can be more packed than ever, and that I still get to see a new country this week, well, that's ... nice.

separation anxiety

2011-02-05T19:13:00.012+01:00

It is impossible to leave the mountain house, Renee said with far more chagrin in her voice than one would expect from someone "trapped" in a winter idyll of the sort photo albums and children's stories are made.

Considering Renee and I hadn't seen each other since her lovely, last day in July, I was perfectly content. There was nothing that could make the day less than excellent. Besides, if only all delays were like that one.

We packed up our things and loaded them in the car after an excellent breakfast of homemade muffins (not native to the mountains of Italy, but Renee's contribution to the table) and coffee.

And then we left? No. And then we stayed...

We drove up the road a bit to the ski area at the base of Monte Rosa and met a few of F's friends, determined to find true mountain food (polenta, cinghiale, mushrooms, etc.) before we left. We found a corner table surrounded by windows and ate delicious food that helped ward off the winter cold. We drank a bit of red wine and got to know each other. M had knocked over a completely full coat rack earlier and it was impossible to be embarrassed by, well, anything. Mispronounced Italian is nothing compared to 20 strangers' coats on the floor of a crowded restaurant.

And then we left? No. And then we stayed...

M hadn't seen the mountain house since it was finished a few years ago, so we headed back there, deciding a coffee was a good idea. We sat around the kitchen table in front of the fire and talked a bit about work and winter and plans for New Year's.

And then we left? No. And then we played Chinese Checkers...

F decided he could beat us again (the previous evening had been a rather poor showing) and that he wanted to introduce M to the game. I don't remember who won. I do remember it wasn't me.

And then we left? No. And then we stayed...

Perhaps it was the coffee and the competition, but our eyes started to droop. The four of us piled upstairs, leaving the warmth of the fire for the comfort of the living room. I'll choose the movie! F said as we curled into bean bags and chairs and the couch, grinning in a way that should have tipped us off. When the opening chords of the theme to Star Wars piped out of the surround sound, we began to laugh. We took naps.

By the time we actually departed, it was late enough that the stores were about to close and we reached our destination in time to eat dinner (soup made that morning by F's mother) and go to sleep.

It is nearly impossible to leave the mountain house, but I've no complaints.

freedom

2011-02-05T18:11:00.007+01:00

We are perhaps, but only by others' standards, the worst book club ever.

From what I understand, book clubs are serious groups of mature adults, choosing best sellers and classics, meeting one time per month and planning in advance. There are readers' guides and discussion leaders. Sometimes, there is themed food and maybe even costumes.

We do not have any of these things. Except themed food: last night we ate L's amazing chicken pot pie while discussing Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. It was fitting as both the book and the pot pie seem inextricably linked to the pot luck, casserole culture that it represents.

We chose the book in October, I believe. Planned to meet toward the end of November, planned again toward the end of December (but decided that seeing the new Harry Potter in Slovenia was more appropriate to our ability to focus) and finally met (officially) last night. Only about half of us could make it. First, we sat around for an hour or two, eating gorgonzola and salami on crackers and dissecting our weeks.

Eventually, though, we moved on to the real discussion, about the time that M - who hadn't read it - arrived (You were supposed to be done! she said accusingly). We looked at character arcs, setting, theme, author's voice ... and just about anything else we could pull out, considering that two of the group had finished it in November and one not at all. We still felt, I think, a sense of satisfaction. Well done us; we're actually meeting.

I really am pleased. The point was, I think, to take advantage of the time we already spend together and perhaps make something useful of it. Something self improving. And we did. I've already had a few conversations about the book (even if the first was slightly hesitant as we weren't sure if a pre-meeting conversation was going to be breaking the rules), including one on a wild ride one Wednesday morning. How do you define a protagonist? is an unlikely question for 7am on a road trip, but it got us through a few kilometers.

One of those conversations was Thursday in the canned goods aisle at a grocery store, three of us pausing in our hunt for plastic bags and crackers to say things like I really identified with Patty... and The real change is when Joey finally interacts with his father as a son... and I'm just proud that I finished it! until a man cleared his throat in an obvious way and we realized just how long we'd been blocking the beans.

It came up again at brunch this morning, as I recapped the discussion, sharing my observations about setting and continuing a conversation about the protagonist's development. Nodding wisely to comments like, I don't think that her competitive nature has changed ... just that she'd using it to prove that she can be the most genuine as I munched my bagel and lox, simply enjoying the fact that my Saturday mornings have the capacity for literary discussions.

It's really only in others' eyes that we may be lacking the organzation and drive to be an adequate book club.

We think we're the best.

anecdotal evidence

2011-02-04T13:39:00.005+01:00

A weekend or two ago, K and I left our massages, ignoring the Bora and feeling incredibly relaxed for the first time in ... a while. We, not surprisingly, took our drowsy selves with newly-polished nails up the road to Zoe for 'just a quick dinner.' Two and a half hours later, pleasantly full of the best sorts of food, we parted, startled as always at how time had ceased to matter.

A had greeted us with I've never seen you so relaxed! launching us into rave reviews of our day. And, though I've no idea of the conversational route, ending up with her describing a free day ticket she'd received to the Venice Film Festival a few years ago. I saw Brad Pitt! she said, her face lighting up. I was eating a sandwich and smelled this amazing smell. I looked up just in time to see him walk by with George Clooney. Oh...his walk! I just sat there with my jaw dropped.

Was he beautiful? K or I asked.

So beautiful! A paused for a moment in the telling, back on Venetian streets for a moment, in the heat of August, sandwich in hand.

Brad Pitt, she said definitively after a moment, smells like orange blossoms.

"a vague sense of excitement..."

2011-01-30T21:26:00.003+01:00

On Friday morning, when I checked in with A to let him know we had a table reserved at MB that night, he grinned at me and said I don't know why, but I feel a vague sense of excitement about tonight. I agreed entirely. There would be Springsteen covers and dinner and an escape from both the Bora and a long week.

Those were just the things we knew were on the agenda.

We didn't know that the band would have a soul-patch-wearing accordian player or that they'd play This Land is Your Land in honor of us - "our American friends." And, that we'd sing along as best we could, despite the fact that the lyrics were only slightly familiar (thanks to a bit of creative translation).

We didn't know that, around the time Country Roads came up on the song list, we'd have embraced the translation and the evening enough to sing along.

We didn't know that Liz would manage to convince F to make a Sidecar... and, shortly thereafter, politely ask for it to be called the "Liz Lemon" in a nod to both her and the character. Or that K would break into a startling impression of the character, shocking us into laughter.

We didn't know for sure - although we certainly hoped - that the singing and the stories and the laughter and the friendship would go a long way in taking us a step or two farther from a week that, while productive, was rough and long.

But, after all that, I'm very ready to count on A's 6th sense.

adjustment

2011-01-25T22:25:00.006+01:00

Okay, I'll admit it: despite my recent boost thanks to very good news, I've been a bit off lately. Tired, grumpy, more easily affected by life than I'd like to be. I can blame a thousand things (or just the thousand things I try to do everyday) - and I might even be right - but that doesn't solve anything.

Tonight, somewhere among all of the emails about all there is to be done, I wrote to a friend, Did you see me take a deep breath and set my shoulders just now? I did. Oh, and the first line of the first song of my new Jovanotti (love him forever) CD translates roughly to "this is the life we dream of as a child." This IS for me and I refuse to behave as if it's anything else.

Then, I went back and read what I'd written. And again, over and over until even I believed it.

There is a 17 year-old version of me (one I've mentioned before, just returned from Italy for the first time, already trying to figure out how to get back) who frowns every time I get grouchy. And a 21 year-old version (just back from three most excellent months abroad) and a 26 year-old (waiting anxiously at a London job fair for sunrise and a job offer) whose desire for the very life I am leading now was so strong it is almost tangible.

And, just that is all the adjustment I need. E' questa la vita che sogniamo da bambino.

enchanted

2011-01-24T23:00:00.002+01:00

We've had the most amazing foggy days. For almost a week, the city was obscured by a fog so thick it limited driving speed and sat like a lid over all of Trieste. It added an air of mystery to the humidity. We bundled up, amazed every time we went out at just how warm it was.

After a while, I said a sentence I never imagined I would: We need the Bora. And we did. The city needed a gust of wind to clear things out and bring in the winter sunshine we know exists.

One evening, though, the fog was simply... gone. No Bora, no fuss, leaving as quietly as it had arrived.

The Bora, of course, came the next day.

***

I get to stay. I hadn't intended to write that so quickly but a prohibitive case of writer's block coupled with the sheer joy I feel when I think about this means that I'm no good at keeping it quiet (luckily, there's no need).

I get to stay. I've told myself since I moved here - euphoric, the word Finally running through my head in a nearly constant refrain - that it might be a limited time offer, that paperwork and legalities and a thousand things I couldn't foresee might mean that the two years of the initial contract were all I'd have. I was so cautious in speaking about it that some of my friends in the US were convinced that I only had two years, no options.

But, I have options. One of them, amazingly, is to remain here, in my excellent apartment in a most excellent neighborhood, surrounded by friends, eating amazing food, and finding excitement and adventure even at the busiest of times.

I get to stay. And suddenly the late nights and early mornings (oh, they're not over yet!) are most certainly worth it. I have new energy for the tasks ahead, even on days like today.

I get to stay, I repeated to myself over and over one night last week after a conversation about the details of a contract had finally been had. And, I grinned, feeling untouchable. I found a perfect parking spot, people held doors for me, the woman at the cash register scanned a membership card so my scamorza was on sale (I can get a membership card, I thought.); there were practically talking chipmunks and singing bluebirds a la some syrupy musical number in an old film.

I get to stay. I get to stick around for more foggy days and more blustery evenings. I get to grumble about the wind, even as I wish for it sometimes. I get more time to figure it all out: the politics and literature, the gaffs I make, the language, the kids.

I get to stay. And, I couldn't be happier.

Back

2011-01-19T22:39:00.004+01:00

So, I took a deep breath and handed the keys to the purple Polo back. I'd been preparing for it for a while... well, since I got them in the first place. I'd seen each parking moment and each careening drive up and down the hill as an adventure, each muttered exclamation as an Italian vocabulary moment. I'm going to miss your narrations, one friend said.

Walking home one day over the break, enjoying the sun of Trieste in between jaunts, I snapped a picture of a Fiat 500...one of Trieste's symbols. I've always liked them ... they're cute and quaint and they roar up the streets here.

And then, a few weeks later, to my great surprise and, well, joy, I got the keys back. The purple Polo and I careen up the hill once more.

maybe tomorrow

2011-01-17T23:51:00.003+01:00

For the moment, here's a picture of a building I find beautiful:

It's just been a series of days so packed (and lovely, but definitely packed) that it's a good thing I didn't make New Year's Resolutions about writing more often.

wrapping up

2011-01-09T21:07:00.002+01:00

The holiday break is coming quickly to a close. And, among the things I should be doing is unpacking from a long weekend in Florence. A and I wandered the streets, ate my favorite food, and even worked on school just enough for me to feel slightly proud of us for crossing two huge items off of the huge(r) to do list.

Florence is always a good idea, I said the night before I left, borrowing a movie line without chagrin.

and so on

2011-01-06T23:33:00.009+01:00

And so on I traveled. Spending the next 3 days driving and eating and drinking with people with whom I will always choose to spend my time ... seeing a bit of Italy I'd never have otherwise. And, more importantly, enjoying myself profusely. At one point - I don't remember if it was thanks to road rage or an entertaining translation, or simple a cultural moment - Renée warned F, You're going to get a blog post about you!

And so, it seems somebirds is multipurpose outlet for me and behavior modifying threat for my friends.

Except it didn't modify anyone's behavior.

We still decided any time was a good time for aperitivi. We still wandered through piazzas.

We still laughed about F's desire to visit every church we passed. Church! we screeched, F screeching along with us. We still layered every article of clothing we'd packed for night walks through villages and drank hot chocolate at the end, ignoring our hat hair and taking pictures nevertheless. We still stopped on our walk the moment we realized that the drum beat was a soundcheck in a bar we were passing. We still stopped to listen and stayed for a while, grinning at the keyboard player and giving our thumbs up to Country Roads.

We still sat around a kitchen table one night and again the next day and solved our problems, then moved on to everyone else's.

No, no behavior was modified at all. That's good ... I like us just the way we are.

didn't see that one coming

2011-01-05T23:05:00.008+01:00

Twenty-four hours ago, I thought I'd be soon hopping on a bus, heading home from a relaxed dinner. Maybe I'd sleep in a bit this morning. I'd hang out with friends recently back. Maybe I'd do some school work. Or read.

But, see, I didn't catch the bus. I didn't even try for it. In a Sliding Doors sort of way, Wednesday headed an entirely different direction.

And, I ended up halfway across the country by 11 this morning. Wearing yesterday's clothes. Eyes blearly from lack of sleep. Jittery from an infusion of caffeine. Suddenly in charge of a car whose gas light was on and flashers were blinking.

There's something very cool when, looking back, there would have been no possible way to predict how the day would turn out, I said at some point between here and there (or there and here), making conversation to ward off the encroaching exhaustion. I like that.

Good thing.

visions of sugarplums

2011-01-04T16:55:00.004+01:00

We woke to a white Christmas morning, one L had requested a number of times during the previous, snowy-only-in-the-mountains day.

There were stockings and gifts, breakfast pancakes and more gifts, skype calls to family and a turkey. There were Christmas Crackers - bought by the always thoughtful Herr Fifa so that J could feel a bit more at home despite spending the day away from his family in England. There was a lot of laughter... thanks to the crackers (which shot the prizes into water glasses and onto plates as often as not), the turkey and, at the end, a game of Cranium that was both terrifying (mostly thanks to my horrible charades) and hilarious (only in part thanks to my horrible charades). There was also a game of Catch Phrase (a round, really, won by the women) during which Herr Fifa would shout Left turn! whenever my clue-giving would take a decidedly interesting and unconventional tact. Which was often.

It was both comfortable and the tiniest bit raucous. But, only in the best possible way.

...a very good place to start

2011-01-02T15:37:00.013+01:00

There were many times over the past week or so, when I sat back on a train or in a living room or restaurant or bar or cabin and thought, This, I must remember this...exactly as it is. Maybe it was because of the conversation, or because we'd found something new to laugh about, maybe it was the grappa or the excellent food or the stories told. But, mostly, I think, it was a result of it all combined.

First, there was a train trip into the mountains of Switzerland with Engelberg and the Trubsee as our destinations. It was somewhere along the way, on a train or in a gondola, in a snowstorm, that I thought, Remember this.

And, I thought it again a few hours later, zipping around a tiny track on a surprisingly heavy snowxbike.

(I also thought, Live through this.)

I had the presence of mind to think it a bit later, jaw dropped in appreciation of the igloo hotel that would open the next day. In awe not only of the amazing artistry but also of having the place all to ourselves to explore as the workers put on finishing touches.

And, a few minutes later, sliding and spinning down the tube run with L, Herr Fifa and her parents, I heard my own laughter and that of my companions and thought, I'll definitely remember this.

Even later, warm in the restaurant of the hotel/lodge, having started a fiercely competitive game of Phase 10, I thought it again.

And, again, when, back in Engelberg, we lurched off the bus a stop early just to join in with the carolers in the park, accepting the offer of a songsheet and adding our American accents to the voices that filled the cold, crisp night. Joyous.

And, I know that it wasn't just the mulled wine speaking. It was the deep contentment of a Christmas Eve unlike any I've had yet... one spent in jeans and ever so slightly cold. But, bundled up and happy nonetheless. One that started with a train trip and ended with a Christmas Eve Kabab in the train station back in Zurich.

Preface

2010-12-30T19:38:00.005+01:00

Last year, during the spring, I think, L, S and I were hashing out travel plans, trying to figure out how and when and if we'd be able to meet up. In the middle of the conversation, someone, I think it was L, said We're so lucky.

We all paused, knowing exactly what she meant, and any frustration over travel times and ticket prices evaporated. Some people spend their lives planning a trip to Switzerland (L was commuting between Zurich in Trieste to spend time with Herr Fifa) or Spain (S was hoping so squeeze in a second or third trip to Barcelona before returning to the US) or Italy (I was headed to Florence for the upteenth time and for my favorite day of the year, too). And, despite the relative ease with which we were able to plan these trips, in that moment, they were just as important as if we'd saved money and vacation time for years. We were good, appreciative, unassuming expats.

Part of this good, appreciative, unassuming thing is giving ourselves permission to be permanently in awe. We get to tube and sled and ride snowbikes... and we get to think it's really cool to do that in the Swiss Alps. Why? Because they're the Swiss Alps and we're Americans. And we think it's kind of amazing to tube and sled and ride snowbikes in them. We get to tromp through snow and drink hot chocolate and try to wrap our tongues around new place names: Magnana? Macugnaga. Pecetta? Pecetto. And, as we do this, we're pretty sure that the snow we've tromped and the places we've seen are excellent...because who gets to spend Christmas vacation in the Italian mountains, drinking grappa with the (almost) locals and playing Chinese Checkers?

What I'm really trying to say is, before I continue recounting travels and encounters, I get it, I promise. Crossing borders, booking hotels, waiting for trains: I understand entirely how excellent these adventures are.

all is well

2010-12-26T11:47:00.003+01:00

More than well, really.

How can it not be with train trips to the Alps and adventures in the winter wonderland - playing absolutely like little kids - and snow on Christmas morning? How can it not be when in between skyping with family around the world, we're laughing so hard we're bent double and eating fantastic food, safe and warm inside?

There are tales to come... of igloos and snowbikes and tubing runs and sleeping in. And eating warm brownies with vanilla ice cream late at night, because we'd saved just enough room for dessert.

But, for now, Merry (Day After) Christmas.

zurigo

2010-12-24T00:02:00.004+01:00

As quickly as the break has been approaching, I'd put little time into making actual plans. I bought a train ticket on Sunday, though and was relieved that, if nothing else, I'd make it to Zurich. Well, I'd make it here as long as I could drag myself out of bed on time after the half week I was sure to have.

As it was, I slept on the train today, so soundly that a neighbor had to tap me and explain that the train had a problem and we'd have to change near the Swiss border. I'd slept entirely through the announcements.

And so, I'm a bit startled to find myself in Switzerland, strolling along the river after eating my share of the fondue and sausage and veal. I'm slightly startled, but I love hearing the stories of Herr Fifa proposing to L in the city along the same river, and I love seeing their life together.

I love the smell of the mulled wine at a thousand stands...and the fact that it was L's first action upon meeting me at the train station. Gluwine? she asked. There was only one correct answer. Just as there had been only one correct answer when L thoughtfully invited me to Christmas here.

Yes, please.

glorious food

2010-12-23T23:54:00.005+01:00

This image didn't quite belong in the previous, rather sentimental post. But, it's a must-see. S and A made a mascarpone and curry sauce for the rigatoni, then shaved out bits of a wheel of Grana Padana (a Parmesan cousin) , poured on something flammable and lit the shavings on fire. Then, poured in the pasta and then scraped it, along with the cheese, into serving dishes.

This had followed trays of meats and cheese served with fig jam and honey as well as spring rolls, adorable in their rice paper wrappers. And, this was followed by porchetta so tender it fell apart on the plate. Even some of the most cautious of eaters were asking for seconds.

And, then the prosecco and hot chocolate and ginger cookies and bread.

Sometimes, we just call it the Best. Place. Ever.

splendid indeed

2010-12-21T22:50:00.007+01:00

Lots of choices this holiday season...

We could have gone back to last year's location for the staff holiday party. But, instead of huddling around a stove in the back room of what one colleague called 'a dive bar in the middle of nowhere', we chose our favorite place. We chose long tables and porchetta and prosciutto and spring rolls and curried rigatoni tossed with parmesean scraped from the wheel and lit on fire to melt it just enough.

We chose a basement wine cellar for the toast, one filled with bottles of prosecco and hot chocolate so good that A went against his better judgment and drank 7 cups of it. We chose gingersnaps and shortbread and dunking both in the hot chocolate when no one was looking.

I left behind a CD (Christmas with the Rat Pack, of course) and two boxes of Christmas lights. Una serata splendida...splendida. S said when I came to retrieve them the next night. He and A had served us with such grace and joy that they made the party even better. The warm welcome they always show was practically a glow that night and somehow, a simple staff party felt like a grand celebration. So, when S said it had been a splendid evening, I was glad that our contentment had transferred to them as well.

Then, on Wednesday, I could have thrown up my hands and left school at 1pm (thanks to a half day), but, instead, I stayed to help L with the college applications of what will soon be our first graduating class. We edited and submitted and edited and submitted until our eyes swam with adjectives and I couldn't read one more essay about an person who had influenced their lives. We giggled as we listened to NPR streaming from Washington DC, laughing as the test tones of our childhood came on, amazed that 20 years, thousands of miles and the internet later, we were listening to the exact same thing.

I could have been packed, but instead scrambled to make my apartment presentable and throw clothes into a suitcase, having chosen all week to spend time with friends after staying too late at school, trying to squeeze as many hours out of each day as possible. But, instead, I listened to Ben Lee and Steve Earle (and unlikely mix) and answered emails and tried to figure out what absolutely needed to be done before I left for 8 days.

I could have gone a number of places over Christmas, or I could have stayed in Trieste. But, instead, I hopped on a train at o-dark-thirty this morning and find myself in Zurich, with L and Herr Fifa as hosts and the Alps on the horizon.

Nice to know that I've made the right decisions.

Merry Almost-Christmas.

countdown

2010-12-21T00:31:00.004+01:00

I'd be counting down if there weren't quite so much to do. But, even all the busy has an expiration date as come Wednesday at 1.30, there will be a holiday toast at the school...and, eventually, the building will empty and the doors will lock. And, come Thursday, we will scatter to the far ends of the Earth (read: mostly - but not only - Europe and the US), acquiring stories to tell over dinners to come.

We've amassed a few to tell each other in the meantime, of holiday parties and movies in English, country music and wasn't there dancing in a basement a while back? We tell the stories of the 7 cups of hot chocolate that A consumed at the staff party (despite the way he felt after Number 3). We tell stories of the missteps and mistakes from our days, saving room for the triumphs. We tell each other about the artistic scenes of the latest Harry Potter, ignoring that the listener was sitting only a seat or two away. We talk about snow and weather and that time we got pulled over. Now, I can add to that the time I took the car to a 'garage' about the funny noise I hear and am assured It is normal! All the cars make it in this weather! It is the humidity! just before Oh, and we only work on tires. Yes, we find new stories all the time.

We tell them in the box at the theatre during the intermission of a ballet on a snowy evening during which, on our walk, the flakes drifted down as flakes do, to rest on our gloves and hats and eyelashes. We tell them over dinners and on drives and as we argue over when on earth we're going to squeeze in book club. We tell them to anyone who will listen.

We talk about our plans: the flights and trains and families and friends in our near futures. And, we make plans for our return, when we're all together again and can go night sledding or on a trip ... or both. We tell stories that don't mean much at all. And, sometimes, we tell the stories that matter ... because we know we have someone to listen.

We don't seem to be in danger of running out of stories. Not as long as there are students and a school and a city and a language barrier. But, just in case, I think we'll go stock up.

it's times like these...

2010-12-17T11:29:00.005+01:00

... that I'm so very grateful for the calm, relaxed, encouraging and uplifting moments.

I consider it a very good thing indeed to have mulled wine at the end of a Thursday when the wind chill and the forecast (coupled with the restrained insanity of a day leading up to a break) combine to make life seem a bit ... cold.

It is also advisable to laugh, about as many entertaining things as possible, with people who like to laugh as well. It is advisable to, at least once, almost make dinner companions choke on their beverages. But only almost.

At times like these, one must remember to leave school earlier than planned - the papers can't get any less graded, emails any less sent - in favor of company ... or just a warm apartment and a book.

it's beginning...

2010-12-08T19:11:00.004+01:00

...to look a lot like Christmas.

The trees are up in the piazza, the carols are being played, the lights on the pedestrian streets are lit, their stars and snowflaked shapes adding an instant air of festivity to every step.

Today was a holiday, and the break from the routine of school was a welcome one. I'd at one point had grand plans of sprinting off on a day trip, but, when the time came, realized that rest was all I really wanted. I wanted to sleep in and drink coffee and read my book club book and finally feel the tiniest bit caught up with something.

And that's exactly what I did. After the sort of delicious breakfast normally reserved for weekends, I headed out, using my own curiousity about what shops were open on the holiday as an excuse to walk through the city. It wasn't raining and the fog shrouding the hills and the sea lent an air of mystery to the scene. At the end of one street, I looked at the castle above me and smiled, the picture it made too beautiful and other-worldly to do anything else.

Before last Sunday, it'd been a long time since I'd taken a walk like that, one without a destination. It'd been a while since I'd strolled, without time constraints or commitments, through Trieste, eyes open for new stores and new displays, feeling light as my feet follow familiar streets.

It's a walk I took far more often last year. It seems that in order for it to happen again, it took the arrival of the holidays and the lighting of lights, the calming of schedules (or at least adjusting to them) in order for it to happen. And, now, with two such lovely chances in a few days, I'm ready for this to become my new routine.

buon weekend

2010-12-05T20:31:00.008+01:00

This truly is the best day, A said, glass of wine in hand, among the meats and cheeses and fresh horseradish of the Slow Food Trieste Assaggio Divino tasting tonight. We'd started the day at a lovely, slow pace, waking up and strolling the 8 steps to bagels, smoked salmon and coffee. The sun came out as we ate and chatted, meaning that when we left, we headed through Piazza Unita', curious to learn whether or not the questionable Christmas music had begun yet.

It had.

And so, in the crisp coolness of the early afternoon, A danced and the rest of of us laughed, not at her but at the tinny music, the beauty of the day and the sea in the background and the unfamiliar sunshine. Not much later, walking past a classic cafe' recently redone, we decided that an hour or so between snacks was good enough and, lured by the second floor couches we could see through the windows, settled in for torte and hot tea.

Only eventually did we make our ways home, ready to attempt a bit of work before the evening. And, only eventually, A and I headed back out, noticing that the cool, crisp day had turned into a cool, clear evening. At the Stazione Marittima, among the foodies and wine experts, we nodded and smiled and tasted and sipped and swirled. The food was excellent - prosciutto and cheese from happy pigs and cows - and the wine was as good as we'd been promised. But, maybe even more than that was the experience and the conversation, although the view of a dark night sea didn't hurt either.

Usually, on Friday evening after school, the cleaning staff wishes those of us stragglers a Buon Weekend! with smiles that generally say Go home! We do not understand why you are always here! I think, should the conversation come up and should we have a chance to describe what we did and where we went and with whom, anyone would be happy to define this weekend as buon indeed.

Linguistic Gymnastics

2010-12-01T19:55:00.003+01:00

I got a call from a friend tonight... a friend who lives in another town a few kilometers away. Do you have a minute? she asked. Of course, I responded, expecting any crisis or serious conversation under the sun.

I'm trying to order a pizza, she began. I just laughed. Her small town has a number of pizza places, but none within easy walking distance. All fall, she's been trying to successfully order a pizza. A maze of wrong numbers and confusing exchanges later, she thought she finally had found the right place. But, a week ago, the delivery person drove around for an exceptionally long period of time and never found her cozy little home.

So, armed with a page of information - phone numbers, an address and even the pizza orders - I called. Sono un'amica della altra donna americana, I began, explaining as best I could where they lived. It took two more phone calls, and for D to actually meet the car at the main road, but L and D got their pizzas tonight.

And, tomorrow, 5 of us will pile into the Polo and rush down after school, ready to line up at the new Aveda for much-needed (at least in my case) haircuts. I made those calls, too, sounding decidedly silly as I did my best with hard-to-spell names.

One year in, not all of my interactions go as I wish they did. But, in the past week, I've completed 3 or 4 parent conferences in Italian. And, L and D did get their pizzas. And, 5 of us do have hair appointments tomorrow. I don't mind sounding decidedly silly; I've got good backup.

allors on danse

2010-11-28T18:49:00.011+01:00

The snow began to fall midmorning. Despite the warm weather, it quickly began to stick. And, as the hours passed, the flakes grew in size just as my students' attention spans decreased. I've never seen snow like this! one said. Well, maybe... no, never! In celebration of them staying (at least partly) focused, we stood at the window for the last 5 minutes of class, simply gazing at the huge snowflakes and saying how beautiful it all was. I frowned down at my car as the inches accumulated, wondering if I'd be able to drive it home when the time came or if the evening's planned Thanksgiving party was guaranteed to be a sleepover.

As they left, students took full advantage of the packing snow ... one young boy and his mother even had a snowball fight on their way out of the gate. I took advantage, too, as we left the parking lot, packing and throwing a few snowballs of my own.

The clear roads we'd been promised didn't apply to driveways and, after we dropped off our contributions to the Thanksgiving dinner, we moved the car back up the hill to the road to avoid being stuck when the slush turned to ice. The slush was slippery enough, on its own, though, and we slipped and slid and laughed as we pushed and drove. Back in the house, I dried off the soaked cuffs of my jeans in front of the fire, doing my part by staying out of the crowded kitchen.

Eventually, once the house was packed with people, we ate. The kitchen table nearly creaked under the weight of every family's traditions, translated into Italian for the occasion.

Every so often, under the strain, the breaker would flip off a collective groan (sounding suspiciously like laughter) would go up. M, muttering something about Italian engineering, would have to hurdle the electronic fence to reach the fuze box outside of the electronic gate.

Between the blackouts and the mason jars, the laughter and the conversation, the hours of dinner flew by and soon we were snacking off of communal plates of apple crisp and pumpkin pie. And, later, we danced, all equally (un)skilled and all having an equally fantastic time because of that. This must be, A said, the most turkey ever eaten while dancing. It's a record.

Choosing to live abroad means choosing to make some trades. But, on a lovely snowy evening with great food and better company, it becomes clear that the things and people here - the ones that replace the things and people that I miss - are exceptional indeed.

Gratitude

2010-11-27T22:37:00.005+01:00

When I was young, I spent Thanksgiving with my family: waking up when Mom put in the turkey and rolling over, grateful for a few extra hours, padding downstairs in my pjs and curling up on the couch. When I was very young, these meals were with the entire extended family. Everyone arrived armed with casserole dishes...except for my aunt and uncle who introduced me to amazing things like cavier and sushi. After, we napped on any available surface, usually with football in the background. That night, we'd eat turkey sandwiches.

When I lived in Montana, I spent Thanksgiving far from family, but adopted: joining friends for their traditions and feeling grateful to be absorbed into the warmth of another group, calling home that night. One of those was in Winnette, where we spent the weekend trouping along on my first hunting trip. We started Thanksgiving Day with mimosas and ended it with board games and laughter.

Last year, I spent Thanksgiving at a church, serving others and trying to explain my culture's traditions in a new language, my own gratitude at this new life almost overwhelming.

And, this week, I spent Thanksgiving with good friends, ignoring the fact that we'd worked all day and spending hours on a meal only to eat it late late late; opening a bottle of the sort of wine you save for a special occasion, watching clips of Singing in the Rain simply because it made us smile, eating clementines and M&Ms for dessert, agreeing that right where we were was a good place to be.

And, for that, especially, I was thankful ... very, very thankful.

Day Job

2010-11-22T15:40:00.002+01:00

Last year, I was told that, according to my blog, I didn’t ever work and instead spent all of my time traveling and drinking red wine. That was untrue, but the effort to disprove it by constantly posting about school and how busy I am is unintentional. I would love for my blog to be, again, carefree and filled with trips to islands and cities and weekends off. But that, despite my checking out ferry routes to Corfu, is on only the distant horizon.

So, despite the adverse impact on my readership, perhaps, I write about work.

If you’d have told me last year about all of the late nights and early mornings. If you’d have told me about the makeup hurriedly applied at 7.45 in front of a tiny mirror in the student bathroom, about the running and conferencing and meeting and the list making, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. Well, not entirely. I would have said that I left those things back in my 3rd year of teaching - the year that I overcommitted to the point of distraction and realized just how one could burn out on teaching in a few years.

There are a couple reasons that I’m living through a crazy fall and still am (usually) smiling: good friends with similar (over)working habits, and happy customers. Parents aren’t usually too hard to convince that what is happening at school is positive. Kids take a bit longer to swallow the This-will-help-you-in-the-future-so-please-stop-arm-wrestling-and-discuss-Shakespeare argument.

But, for the moment (and I am perfectly aware that it may indeed last only another moment), things are going well. I teach King Lear to a difficult class, and I cheerfully teach it with the door open, proud of what is happening. Proud that kids who struggle with English now read to the end of punctuation (not the line!) without effort. Nothing makes my heart go pitter patter like a kid who decides on their own that Lear’s punishment is greater than his crime…and can tell me why. I get reports from other teachers about the positive things the students say (they’re kind enough to keep the negative to themselves). Although it’s only one way to measure how classes are going, quizzes are okay, test scores are good. Kids, sometimes, even do their homework.

I’ve said, ad nauseum how much about this year is new for me. The teaching isn’t. And, it’s good to see that, in my 7th year, the classroom is still a good place for me to be. There are days when, in the middle of it all, I skid into my classroom, markers and text in hand, trying to remember what chapters we’re studying. But, usually, those 40 (or 80) minutes are a bit of a break from the rest. The class whose 5 minute discussions turn into 30 minute dissertations, they’re entertaining, too, and have recently developed a way to examine character and plot development that is incredibly intuitive. The class who doesn't seem to mind studying poetry even when I took a gamble and started them off with two poems about love.

I was asked, recently, what I thought made my class different from others. And, while I didn’t answer with exact these words, it may just be the Buy In. The kids (well, most of them) are willing to take my word for it when I say that what we're studying matters.

And, with conferences tomorrow, that's nice to know.

Some birds...

2010-11-21T20:42:00.009+01:00

I intended the title of this blog to be almost entirely tongue in cheek. But, since I decided to use the internet to make writing a priority 3 years ago, I find birds to be a comfortable image.

On the latest, very comfortable, trip to Florence, I returned to the Bargello for the first time in years. The exhibit that brought me there was worth a post on its own, but I found myself smiling at a strange little collection of bird statues.

I especially enjoyed this little guy...

Maybe he's just intended to be bathing, but sans context, all I see in this little bronze is pure joy. It's a nice way to approach life: wings spread, eyes closed to the sun.

Some birds are like that.

Necessary

2010-11-21T20:13:00.004+01:00

I used to count the hours. I could have told you how many I spent at school on most days during the busy periods: coaching seasons and play production weeks. Enough 11 hour days for me! I'd proclaim, just adding it to the tally in my head. I wasn't looking for a medal, but somehow it was important for me to know just how much work I was doing.

There was one spring when I directed two plays at the same time. It wasn't planned and it certainly wasn't ideal, but it was just the way that things worked out. It was necessary. The result was well worth it. Much Ado About Nothing introduced a new group of people to Shakespeare's sense of humor and brought an already close senior class even closer. The student-written Robin Hood raised an amazing amount of money for the best cause I can imagine and the performance itself was the most community-building experience of my life. It was worth every late night and early morning and day of double rehearsal. The counted hours didn't matter one little bit.

Now, I don't count as I'm too busy to even do that. Lessons stack upon lessons which stack upon grading which stacks upon meetings and planning and more meetings and catching up on all of the other things on the many lists written on Moleskins and on post-it notes. I slam into the weekends at a dead sprint and spend them cocooned in my duvet, trying to make up for all the late nights and early mornings.

The late nights aren't all work, thankfully. Even when I'm tired, I choose laughter and excellent food over an early night in. It keeps me going.

I can do it all - and will continue to - because I know that it's all worth it. Just like the late nights and early mornings of a double play season, these are necessary. And the outcome - while not as obvious or as immediate as a weekend of performances - will hopefully be just as memorable.

New Tricks

2010-11-14T22:50:00.003+01:00

I drive in Italy. And, perhaps even more suprising to me, I park in Italy. After a few years entirely off from parallel parking (Montana is big), I have numerous opportunities to cram the tiny Polo into tiny spaces.

My parking is a bit of a team sport. My friends know well enough to give quiet instructions or to just gasp as I execute one of my many narrow misses. Sometimes, I even get praise.

One afternoon, early on, I found a small spot in a decent location on a one-way street. My rusty parking skills meant that a left-side spot just about the length of the car certainly presented a challenge. There was an elderly man just turning off his motorino as I began the process. He stuck around, watching as I would tuck it just far enough in to be out of the way of traffic, then pull out to start again. He stood in the street, actually, starting with a rather stern expression. When, at long last, I approached success, his frown deepened. And, at the moment when I finally squeezed into the spot, he raised a hand for just an instant, letting me know I was there.

As he crossed in front of the car, I expected a smile or greeting of some sort. But, he didn't even look up as he entered his apartment: his work complete.

I've improved - dramatically, I think. Not long ago, I managed to park half on the sidewalk, on the left side of the road, on a steep incline. Well, more than half. While other cars settled for 2 or 4, I managed to get 3 wheels onto the narrow sidewalk. Try that.

Legal parking is another matter all together. I've got a registry in my mind of all of the legal parking in my area. My neighborhood has almost none but the surrounding areas have a few options. White = free. Blue = pay. Yellow = resident permit. Nothing = entirely legal or entirely illegal (depends on the signs).

The street outside my apartment is the latter: entirely illegal. I've ignored that fact for brief periods of time when stopping to pick up something at home. Last weekend, when we returned from Tunis, without dropping off people or bags, we parked 6 inches outside my door in order to eat brunch across the street, parking only after consuming smoked salmon and bagels and tea.

I did about the same yesterday, hungry for brunch and frustrated with a lack of parking in the usual places. Halfway through the meal, though, the lovely owner of the cafe cried out Polizia! Instantly, half of the customers (myself included) rushed toward the door, car keys in hand. We were met there by a young, handsome officer, each of us trying to figure out how to squeeze past him and move our vehicles. Seeing this, and hearing the owner's lament (Oh no! My poor little car! Are you going to give me a ticket?), he began to laugh and spoke over us saying Calm down! Don't worry! We, the herd in front of him, simply stared, curious.

Can I make a reservation for tonight? he asked.

Italian parking: subjective.

tunis-trieste

2010-11-07T22:27:00.007+01:00

I woke up impossibly early this morning. We checked out of the hotel and emerged into the comfortable cool of the morning to a waiting taxi. I could hear, as I zipped my suitcase closed, the sound of the waves through the open door to the balcony. We walked out to the beach last night, late, to get a bit of sand for A's collection, first navigating the expanse of the pool area as it sloped toward the sea.

We spent the days in Tunis in the hotel... after Thursday's amazing lunch in Sidi Bou Said. The conference was exactly what I'd hoped for: a chance to listen to experts, but - even more - a chance to work on things that I need to do with my classroom. Over mint tea, we met, finally finding a few more hours to plan and talk and problem solve.

Instead of heading into the center of Tunis last night as planned, we found ourselves in the hotel restaurant, eating a version of Italian food that was just fine at the end of a long day. Despite my usual practice of squeezing every single adventure out of a trip, I was content. And, I was even more grateful for the hours we'd spent out at upon our arrival.

We were in a bit of a hurry even then, having let the afternoon get away from us. As we walked quickly through the town in search of a taxi, I took pictures on the fly.

But, even on the fly, we were able to appreciate the beautiful, bright doors. And, even on the fly, we could see how amazing it was that their color matched the sky.

When, 7 hours later, we were firmly home in Trieste, munching on bagels around a white tall table at our favorite place. The skies weren't so blue, but - just like a weekend in a hotel instead of adventuring - that was okay, too.

Introduction

2010-11-04T22:27:00.010+01:00

Today, I met North Africa ... and its cab drivers and mint tea and lamb couscous and blue doors. I lurched out of the airport in Tunis, into the muggy air, skipping the deep puddles left by the morning's storm.

I joined my friends in paying too much for a cab from the airport ... and in laughing when K actually bid higher than the driver's request. And, I bobbed my head to the music on the radio, feeling the breeze in the windows as we slowly melted, three crammed together in the back seat.

I looked out to the sea from our balcony ... and laughed at the construction half blocking the view. It didn't matter, really. Not when we could hear the waves.

We ate lunch overlooking the sea ... with me reveling in the fact that I didn't have to hold in any of my appreciation for the view and the food and the series of moments that together made up a most excellent lunch.

And, while the desserts were eaten and the mint tea drunk, I started thinking about where I wanted to go next. The scenery reminded me of other trips - those taken and those only planned. And, suddenly, I felt a lot less like a tired teacher and a lot more like an intrepid adventurer.

I found myself wondering just exactly how quickly, with more time and fewer commitments, I could return.

routine

2010-11-01T23:57:00.005+01:00

We arrived in Florence after dark, thanks in part to the time change of Sunday morning. This is new for me as I'm normally grabbing the first train out of Trieste in the morning, ready to stretch out my stay as long as possible. This time, I knew that I'd need a bit of rest and had some catching up to do with friends.

But, beyond the late arrival, I've done all the usual things: sat under a loggia, checked in with Francesco, strolled piazzas, shopped for books, eaten a sandwich, stayed in the same hotel. I have, over the past year especially, become very much a creature of habit here. But, in my opinion, these things that have become habit to me are still, indeed, rather amazing. They may be far more familiar than I could have ever expected, but they've lost none of their lustre for being so.

Although I haven't gotten my hair cut (and therefore haven't been able to test this at Aveda), I am recognized: at the hotel, a shoe store, even the sandwich shop. The sandwich shop is the most understandable as I was there last week, playing the part of a harried teacher with students in tow. Today, the man behind the counter said, You're here without the school today? I grinned. He serves a lot of sandwiches to a lot of people, so I'll give my 11 cherubs full credit for my being remembered.

The warm greeting at breakfast this morning from the manager of the hotel was lovely. You've returned! she exclaimed. I thought I recognized your name on the reservation. There are a lot of names, but it's nice when it's the name of a friend.

I love that in Trieste, I can cross the street and meet friends and drink excellent coffee and eat smoked salmon on a bagel. I especially love that when I do so, I'm greeted warmly. I love that there's a bar up the street from my house that serves some of the best cheese I've ever had and that the owner waves enthusiastically even when we're only passing. I love these things because they're signs that I have a routine there... one I like very much. And, just as much, or maybe more, I like that I have the same feeling of comfort in a city where I no longer live, but where I am very much at home.

Typical

2010-10-30T21:53:00.005+02:00

It shouldn't come as a huge surprise that I plan to head back to Florence tomorrow. I spent most of the week there, but I spent those days counting: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11... 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, uh oh... 2, 4, 6, 8, uh oh... 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11. And, when I wasn't counting, I was looking for the other chaperone or counting money or planning the route to our next destination.

As E said in her comment on my previous post, I have the best job in the world. Travelling with the Grade 6s was excellent. At the end of most days, I'd send an email back to school, pictures of gleefully smiling children attached to the brief update. The students won over almost every person they met, eliciting maternal responses from waitresses, tour guides and other tourists. A and I got our share of free meals, I'm sure thanks to just how adorable our 11 charges were.

The week, though, was almost entirely free of down time. We walked with students, ate with students, did room checks, asked them to be quieter, told them to hurry up, listened to stories, answered questions, reminded, reprimanded... a million times a piece. Unlike traveling with older students, there were no leisurely coffee breaks as we waited in a central location. By the time A and I made it onto the train in Rifredi (after sprinting for our car with all 11 students sprinting along with us), we were exhausted, shattered, destroyed. The 7 hours of train travel that followed were exceptionally long. We were punchy beyond belief.

I taught Friday, grateful for the years of experience that mean I can get only a few hours of sleep and still make it through moderately productive classes. But, that night, instead of staying awake to meet a friend, I feel asleep with all the lights on, lurching awake - briefly - at 4am to remove my contacts and fall back into bed.

So, why, if I'm barely able to stay awake long enough for a bagel and coffee with friends on a Saturday morning, am I repacking the same black suitcase to take off again?

Because, I need a break. I can take that break here: crossing the street for a hazelnut latte, strolling along the sea, reading. It would be grand. Or, I can take that break in Florence. And, for all the reasons I've written here over and over, I choose Florence.

Unique

2010-10-26T22:46:00.003+02:00

The rain had stopped by the time we arrived here Monday afternoon. There were still puddles and the occassional dark cloud as a reminder that we were already lucky. Having discovered that hotel rooms with the basic amenities were miracles to students away from home for the first or second time (tvs! windows! beds! questionable wifi!), we were off with our guide, A. She quickly fell for the charms of the all-too-excited herd of cats that is our students. I don't blame her; 11 adoring smiles beaming up at you are rather nice.

We've had guides, a lovely break for the other chaperone and myself as it gives us a chance to walk at the back of the group for once, but often enough are the ones in charge. As I joined the other chaperone watching the boys kick around a soccer ball at Piazzale Michelangelo this afternoon, he simply said, I'm trying not to have a heart attack. Looking at their surroundings (kiosks, food vendors, cars, tourists), I quickly understood why.

I've never seen the city quite like this before, even when I traveled here with my American students a few years ago. I've barely looked up, much more concerned with constantly counting heads. But, today, I watched them all work on the activity and response packets that I created ... and they were working under the Loggia dei Lanzi, my favorite place to sit any time, any day, and I realized that I didn't need to be looking up. I've seen the city before, and I'll be back astonishingly soon. It's the kids, the ones who behave as though they've never seen a gelateria or eaten a panino, the ones who ask the same questions ad nauseum, the ones who can barely cross a street without tripping or lagging behind or losing something, the ones who give us so much to laugh about every evening (once they're in bed), those are the ones who should be looking all around, memorizing the place.

And, from their exclamations, they're doing just that. From behind me, as I traverse the city with a train, I hear, This trip is fantastic...this trip is marvelous... Today, as one boy viewed the Duomo yet again he exclaimed, It is amazing to me they could have built something so ... beautiful! I grinned, a bitmore largely than was warranted perhaps. Because, yes, it is amazing. But, it is even more amazing to me - a jaded high school teacher - to learn that an 11 year-old would think so too.

off again

2010-10-24T23:27:00.005+02:00

This time, off to Florence, where I haven't been since July. But, this time with a pack of students in tow...ready to introduce a few new people to the city I love. I put together a packet of information and activities for the trip, using my rusty layout and design skills and all my own pictures. I bound the packets in a hurry Friday after school, trying at the same time to get all of my plans set for the classes I'll be missing. Knowing full well that once Sunday night hit, I'd breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that there was nothing more to do.

I did breathe that sigh of relief at some point today. And, in celebration, left a half-packed suitcase in favor of a pizza and stories at the place at the top of the hill where they recognize us.

Because, there's only one day of school left for me before the week-long fall break and after this week of adventures with 6th graders, perhaps I'll head back to Florence on my own before heading to Tunisia.

That's right. I'm off to Florence for the bajillionth (kidding... I think it's the 12th) time - something about which I couldn't be happier - and after that ... Africa.

Postcard

2010-10-18T17:01:00.009+02:00

As I've said, hilarity ensued, as it will when you have two cars carrying 7 teachers to an apartment that sleeps 6 in a city a healthy drive away. And, at times (say, when you're driving down the same stretch of highway for the third time, delivering gas to stranded traveling companions who drive with their hand blocking their view of the gas gauge), the journey overwhelmed the destination. But, despite a delay or two, despite the lateness of the hours, it was a lovely and relaxing weekend in Cortona.

The city itself deserves a mention. Despite the fact that we heard more American English in an hour there than you'd hear in a year on the streets of Trieste, it's an easy city to like. Yes, of course I realize the awful hypocrisy of that last sentence. But, just know, when Saturday night found us among only Americans in a small restaurant, we were the table that switched to quiet Italian, with everyone making at least an attempt.

Back to the geography of the place: there seemed to be enough dimly-lit corners, winding streets and beautiful vistas to calm the mind and spark the imagination of the most harried traveler. There are cafés galore, each one with a different feel - most of which we visited. We drank macchiati at each, usually discussing nothing more serious than the next café on the list or how two of our party had had to push a car down the A1. Then, we'd stroll on to ... somewhere, wherever we thought we might want to be next. We strolled to wine tasting and to shopping and back to the apartment to nap.

But, on Saturday afternoon, before the naps, we strolled up the hill as it continues above the city. We took the long road, in order to pass a certain house, mostly to say that we had. Then, we took the short way down, because the mosaics along the Way of the Cross are beautiful, because wine tasting awaited us back in the center and because a certain musician sometimes calls a certain place home. I was teased for my devotion and took a picture or two, and we continued down.

After Saturday's shopping and walking and tasting and eating, I crashed, victim to yet another (but, thankfully, brief) cold - most likely a product of not coming home to crash often enough. Sunday dawned a grey day that let us sleep a bit later than planned and slowly take our things to the cars before drinking our macchiati. Then, the grey turned to a drizzle, to a downpour that forced, yes, forced, a few of us to take shelter in a beautiful jewelry store, chatting with the artist as we tried on rings.

He, like the others we met, was kind and welcoming. Watching me take a picture of a door (not the photo above) of one of the grander but more run-down houses in the city, a woman passing by stopped and explained to me in English the story of the family who had once lived there. They hosted Queen Elisabetta, she said. When I was little, it was full. Now, no one. They should turn it into a flat. Startled by her outburst of Tuscan warmth, I smiled and agreed, thinking that there would be something very nice about having a flat in Cortona.

Under a Sun

2010-10-17T22:17:00.006+02:00

I'm just back from a weekend in Cortona...yes, setting to Under the Tuscan Sun and, more importantly, sometime home of Jovanotti. It is a lovely Tuscan hilltown well worth a visit.

As we were packing the cars at school on Friday afternoon, I asked K if she had her camera ready. Do you want me to take a picture now? she asked. We were, after all only packing the cars.

No, no. I clarified. I am sure that hilarity will ensue. You can wait until it does. Then, you must be ready.

And that is how K became the official photographer of the weekend.

Racing

2010-10-10T22:53:00.004+02:00

The boats are back.

I've had a week slightly less hectic than the others and took the opportunity to spend the entire weekend out, finding rest and relaxation in fine food, good company, a wine tent with barrels on which to set the glasses, a slumber party with late night pizzas, a sunny morning in the hills above the sea and lots and lots of laughter.

Feedback

2010-10-08T18:57:00.006+02:00

It's hard to miss the feedback - verbal and non - that heads my way each day from colleagues and students and friends alike. But, every once in a while, out of the fog of the usual, comes a rather lovely, shiny moment of interaction. Today, that came, briefly, in the form of returning students stopping by and informing me that their new school's literature classes are a breeze thanks to work we'd done last year.

And, this week, I got an email from a student in the US, one who's just graduated and is finding his feet now at university. He commented on how Speech class prepared him for his first semester Communications course and thanked me for that. But, even before that, he wrote something lovely and shiny that rather made my day and reminded me of a couple of things I already knew.

...it's good to hear that Italy has worked out so well for you. I'm definitely not surprised, though. It kind of seemed like you belonged there all along.

I know I didn't spend my time in Montana pining for Italy...or even Europe. But, I do know that I spent plenty of time flying back and forth. And, I know that as I was flying home after the London job fair, knowing that breaking the news to my students and friends was going to be difficult, that I thought, At least it's Italy. They'll understand that.

Borderlands

2010-10-02T23:49:00.011+02:00

I'm a little surprised at myself. One year in, life here feels normal.

I like that feeling, very much. But it's a little surprising that I'm no longer so easily...surprised. I think that the amount of work that had been a part of my days has had something of a numbing effect. I love the views of the sea going to and from school but am often so preoccupied that the bulk of my day offers little chance just to grin about where I live. That has been especially true this week, and so it seems even more important than usual to pause long enough for a long sigh of appreciation.

One of the many things that now seem familiar is the accessibility of the neighboring countries. It's exceptionally simple to leave Italy - so much so that I constantly carry my passport in case a trip across the border begins to sounds like a good detour on the commute home. It is in crossing that border that I do again find myself amazed at where I live.

Predjama Grad is more than an after-school trip: it's perfect for a Sunday afternoon when the sun is shining and the crispness of fall has crept into the air. It is, for those of us slowly slowly slowly learning Slovene pronunciation, often referred to as The Castle in the Cave. Because it is.

The small town of Predjama Grad embraces the colorful history of the castle and hosts a festival each summer, complete with costumes and jousting, one I would very much like to see. For that Sunday, though, I was content to lean against the fence and take a thousand pictures, conversing even as my mind was beginning a thousand stories, most of which opened with Once Upon a Time...The castle, and the deep, dark forests that surround it, are straight out of a Brothers Grimm tale. The impossibly tall pines seemed to absorb all the light that should have shown through them, and images of lanky wolves prowling the edges came unbidden to my mind. It would be easy, I commented, to keep me out of forests like these with stories like those.

I may have shuddered a little then and turned back to the view of the castle of cold stone. But, I did so with a smile on my face, still constructing those thousand stories in my mind.

I was home by 8 that night, curled up in bed and ready to sleep away the cold that threatened. I know that I looked at my pictures first, though, incredibly pleased with the day. It's nice, that, when living in Italy feels like real life, the wonder of it all is just a border crossing away.

Addendum to a Day

2010-09-30T00:11:00.003+02:00

It was a bit of a long day, as Wednesdays with multiple meetings halfway through the first quarter tend to be.

But, as we drove down the hill (me rushing a bit as I had a dinner to host), the sun was setting over the sea ... as it tends to do. It was glowing gold and framed perfectly by the buildings on either side of the street, making the most gorgeous picture. Something in the scene, no matter how many Trieste sunsets I've seen, was breathtaking.

We get to live here, I said. Yes, responded my friend, we get to live here ...

Packed

2010-09-27T11:16:00.009+02:00

Thanks to an absolutely lovely Friday evening with both excellent company and excellent food, I found myself packing for Saturday's trip on, well, Saturday. That, to me, is a good example of exactly why it was time to get away. Not because I haven't had some wonderful days - both in the city and out and about in Slovenia and Croatia - but because it was time to make time for something completely different. While that something could have come in nearly any form, a quick trip to the Veneto was perfect. I traded a rainy weekend for brilliant sunshine and had a chance to recuperate in the fresh air of the countryside.

Perfect.

We started on Saturday afternoon with a stop and a stroll in the hill town of Torreglia, where my friend's grandparents lived.

Then came Arquà Petrarca, the final home of the famous poet and a lovely hill town that, while aware of its marketability, manages to remain charming. The great red wine doesn't hurt. Nor does the local, loyal canine population.
Sunday morning found us under the startling blue skies of Monselice, a medieval town with two castles to its name. We strolled up the hill at a pace well-suited to a Sunday morning, eventually treating ourselves to another cappucino.
I'm having to re-learn all of last year's tricks for clearing my head at the end of a long week. But, I'm getting there. And, the practice is pretty great, too.

Fulfilling

2010-09-27T08:03:00.003+02:00

As soon as I was back in Italy this past August, I made a list of places to go, people to visit. I realized that I wanted to see new places, get to know parts of Italy that I'd not had the chance to before, take advantage of the opportunity that I have now. For me, that means making a conscious attempt to see more than just the cities, even those that I love.

Over the weekend, thanks to a bit of time and the generosity of friends, I found myself in the hills outside of Padua, enjoying the beautiful views and hairpin turns of the Colli Euganee. Come sunset on Saturday, we were in the tiny hillside town of Arquà Petrarca, watching the sunset. I was carrying a bag holding a few ripe pomegranates, on the way to a glass of lovely red wine at an enoteca around the corner. As we sat, the bells of a church below us began to ring.

It was a very nice way to reach a goal.

Morning

2010-09-22T08:04:00.002+02:00

I've come to love morning walks in this city. Last year that meant sprinting toward public transportation, listening to Jovanotti. This year, that means - some days - hoofing it to wherever I've left the car, sometimes cresting the hill near the castle just as the bells ring and the breeze picks up. For the moment, the crispness of Trieste fall weather is perfect.

And, this morning, that walk up the hill came with a bit of encouragement ... in my native language.

3-hour Tour

2010-09-19T00:11:00.009+02:00

I'm all in favor of appreciating moments. I think that's one of the many life lessons that have been reinforced again and again over the past year. Having a few days with L? Absolutely amazing? Having just an afternoon with Kelly and Joe? Just as lovely, just as amazing.

I met them at the train station, arriving just in time to be at the end of the platform as they disembarked, for Joe to see me and start to grin, waiting for Kelly and I to rush toward each other. Which we did. I liked being the one meeting people at the station. It's a lovely feeling, straight out of the movies.

Starting with pizza along the canal, we hit, in fine style, all of the the high points of Trieste... The castle... Gelato..
.
The sea...

Another castle...

We really just wandered, with me leading and asking them for opinions, but realized early on that the conversations were far more important than the destinations. Get there, pause briefly in whatever we're saying, take a picture, pick up the conversation, move on.

Somewhere in all the catching up, we talked about my hopes for life here - the ones I have in those brave moments when I plan for the future. And, I once again back in Montana, on the phone with Kelly having just taken this job, sitting at my dining room table as we talked for a long time about the excitement that at that point was still on the horizon. I think I grinned then, feeling grateful to be continuing our conversation as we walked along an Italian sea.

At one point, they debated delaying their departure, a plan that I supported entirely. But, I also knew that we'd had a fantastic time. If they stayed, great, but no harm done in enjoying every moment of a single afternoon.

Break

2010-09-18T23:46:00.003+02:00

Life caught up with me at some point last week. I was waiting for it to happen and wasn't overly surprised when the crippling exhaustion set in. It was almost a relief to realize that I did not, indeed, have the ability to keep up the pace I'd set over the past month. I needed a break.

And, as it happens, I had one all planned. As early as a year ago, Kelly and Joe had begun to plan for their European honeymoon, and, always the planner, Kelly emailed me. I want to see your city, she wrote. And, of course, I said Of course. As their beautiful wedding took shape, my comfort in missing yet another major event thanks to distance was that they were on their way to me, making me a part of it in some small way. Letting me off the hook.

Two weeks ago, in the middle of the craziest of the crazy school preparation, I submitted the forms for a personal day, half apologizing (the first weeks of school are not prime vacation time) but knowing that I was making the right choice. When people you haven't seen in years come all the way from California, you take a personal day. Done.

That morning, I had to get up in time to move the car, which I did, and came back expecting to be wildly productive. It seems my body had other plans and I found myself dead asleep, dragging myself awake just in time to meet them at the train station. Instead of frustration, I just felt grateful that I'd been able to crash for a couple of extra hours.

We had an amazing day together - one that deserves its own post and not to be coupled with comments on sleep deprivation - and once they left, before I went to school for a late evening meeting, I slept once again, finally realizing the necessity.

Today, with its thunderstorms, was another break: a chance to rest a bit and politely turn down invitations to brave the weather in favor of an evening in with a movie. I haven't chosen it very often lately, but it's a good thing now and again. Something tells me, with the foreboding winter forecast, that I just might get caught up.

Streak

2010-09-12T21:47:00.005+02:00

I've already written about my past tendency to (ahem) push the limits for speed set by the proper authorities ... in the US. And, I would like to say that I made it clear that those days were behind me.

As a recent addition to Italian motor traffic, I've attempted to remember that. There may have been a rushed trip to the airport that pushed a limit or two, but, in this borrowed car, I have no desire to make the commute any more of an adventure than it already is. And, with mopeds skimming past whenever they choose and the tiny driveways that enter onto tiny streets, it is certainly an adventure.

Last night, the adventure quickly reached a fairly terrifying point. All it took was a simple wave of a flashlight on a darkened street late at night for my streak to be broken. Routine traffic checks are relatively common in Italy, but to a load of Americans in said borrowed car, it was enough to raise our pulses. Instantly. A lot. The papers we found - so quickly it looked as if we knew what we were looking for - could just have easily have been a Jiffy Lube Service Record (if Italy had Jiffy Lube, of course). But, with great [read: feigned] confidence, I handed them over. A chat in English and a few minutes later we were on our way, sighing with relief.

Perhaps I can't quite communicate the terror of those few minutes - everyone in the car has had between 1 and 4 years experience with bureaucracy and paperwork here - but, once it was all done, I think I laughed. At my own calm voice, at my friend's attempt to join help answer questions from the back seat, at the sense that the rest of the people around me were holding their breaths, at how, as I slowed to a stop, I declared to the others Okay, I don't know how to do this, and how the person on whose experience I was counting for help responded with a tense, Me neither.

But, mostly I found ... find ... myself entertained by the fact that I drove in the US for 12 years without incident and now, less than a month after beginning to drive here, I find myself weak with relief after being pulled over for the first time. Ever.

Once again, Italy provides the excitement that makes life a whole lot more interesting.

Neighbors

2010-09-10T00:21:00.002+02:00

So, there's a place across the street that I've been meaning to write about for a while now. Well, maybe less than a while, but certainly as long as I've known about it, which is a week. This, though, is also as long as it's been open.

Let me interrupt myself to say that, since I moved here, I've had few American-centric cravings. Feed me pizza every so often, and I'm content. While others moan about Starbucks and pancakes and tacos, I quietly profess to be happy with everything Italy has to offer.

And, I am.

Especially now that, across the street from my door is the BEST. PLACE. EVER.

It's a restaurant, very recently redone, with vaulted ceilings and brickwork, with tofu sandwiches (that I've never loved before) and good coffee, with cheese and wine and meat all produced within a few kilometers, with Sunday brunches and bagels. And, if this weren't enough, the owners are two exceptionally kind, genuine people - the kind who remember you after meeting just once, the kind who treat you like family right away, the kind you feel better just being around.

Tonight was their Grand Opening (last week's was just a 'soft'), and we wouldn't have missed it for the world. There were parent meetings at school, and, immediately after, we flew down the hill back into the city, tried in vain to find a good parking place and settled for walking down from the castle, where there is always parking. When we arrived, there was a crush of people that spilled into the streets, but, still, we were greeted with hugs and champagne, the sangria long gone.

Just like the first night we visited, we remained for hours, lured by the soft lighting and good music, by the interesting characters and the appetizers, the conversation and the window seat.

And, at one point, late in the evening, long after they'd planned on closing, the owners danced, husband and wife, to some lovely song. As he twirled her around the room, the rest of us clapped, grinning, with the final glasses for the final toast forgotten in our hands. We were forgotten, too, as he twirled her. We exchanged glances that said, simply, Perfect, this is perfect.

Average

2010-09-08T23:29:00.002+02:00

I got home early today...early enough to collapse face first onto my bed and sleep and sleep and sleep while incoming text messages made my little phone beep away cheerfully at my side. I'd glance at them bleerily and gauge: 'Not an emergency... handle it later.' 'Kind of an emergency... handle it later.' And I slept, for hours.

Very eventually, in reponse to one of the text messages, I braved the rain to grab the car and pick up a friend for dinner. And, because it's Trieste, other friends saw us and texted to meet. And, we all ended up at Campanon eating exceptional pizza and laughing until tears filled our eyes.

Good night.