Dublin(o): Plans, Worries, Romantic Hilltops, and the Queen of English

It's finally time for a post about Ireland. My class trip was all the way back at the end of February / beginning of March, so for this long awaited post I'm delving into old notebooks (Fun fact - I'm currently on my SIXTH journal of this trip, so while I'm not writing enough on this blog I'm still certainly writing a whole lot) and rereading everything I wrote around that time to ensure that I give you the most complete account of my impressions and recollections as possible. This post will probably include lots of stolen bits from my journal and from the article I did about the trip. So, here goes.

When I embarked on my first journey out of Italy in months and months, I was still a little shocked that it was happening at all. For the longest time, the likelihood of me being able to join my class on their trip to Ireland was fairly nonexistent. My Permesso di Soggiorno (Residence Permit) is a required document for leaving Italy and had not yet arrived. In fact, this document was not in my hands until three days before our departure. Only a week before that I was notified that it was on the way and would arrive in time, so I was quite lucky that my school let me pay so late and all.

As I boarded the airport-bound bus with my class and the two other 5th-year classes from Luzzago that Moday, I left behind my huge pile of scholarship applications and everything else that was on my mind for a bit of time to focus on enjoying Ireland and bonding with my classmates. I had some goals in mind:

• Eat a non-sweet breakfast for once
• Enjoy as much Starbucks as possible while I can
• Locate Urban Outfitters and buy something
• Find a bookstore and soak in the abundance of ENGLISH literature
• Be less shy and bond with classmates

I'm proud to say I managed to do all those things. I also left Italy with a few worries in mind. I can be a worrier.

• What if they only ever want to eat Italian food?
• What if I forgot to pack something important?
• What if the girls I room with talk all night and I have to talk back resulting in ultra-tiredness or (worse) am left out of the conversation and turn out to be That Girl Who Goes To Sleep Before Everyone Else?
• What if I can't understand the Irish accents and everyone thinks I'm miserable at my own language?
• What if I'm constantly left out and have no one to talk to for the entire trip?

Now, some of these worries were silly and others turned out legitimate. Like the packing thing. That was sort of a problem because I (and this is strange because I always overpack) did not bring enough outfits to last the whole trip (however, this coincided well with the Urban Outfitters goal) nor did I remember my electrical converter or ponytail holders. It wasn't the end of the world, though. I managed. The other legitimate worry was the Italian food thing. I feel strongly that one should eat Italian food in Italy, but when you're in Ireland for just a few days, it's a good idea to eat Irish food while you have the chance no matter how much you miss your pasta. At every meal there was some group going off to an Italian restaurant. I, luckily, managed to find a select few who weren't at every meal but one. Italians in general are just so attached to their cuisine, and not adventurous with their eating at all.

As our AerLingus plane took off from the Milano-Malpensa airport and started the journey towards Dublin, I scribbled excitedly in my journal: "In the plane! I am going to Ireland! It hasn't taken off yet. The flight attendants are still situating the baggage. It is so strange to be surrounded by English again after 6 months of pure Italian. Hopefully a week in an English-speaking country won't interfere with my Italian learning too much. I don't think it will, especially seeing as I'll be surrounded by my Italian class the whole time. I'll have plenty of practice with them, and at the same time everything else will feel incredibly easy in comparison to how it has been because I'll be able to understand without such intense concentration. And we're moving. No take off yet, but we're moving. I love the feeling of lifting from the ground. I can't wait. AND WE'RE OFF!" My seat on the plane was next to a really interesting Irish psychologist who splits his time between Italy and Ireland and specializes in the effects of living in a new culture. He was super fascinating to talk to, seeing as his studies were basically focused on exactly what my life's been about here. I didn't start chatting with him until the end of the flight, but it was nice.

We arrived late Monday night. We took a bus from the airport to our hostel, the Four Courts Hostel, very nicely located in downtown Dublin, right on the river Liffey. It was very friendly with lots of chatter and brightly colored murals. The rooms were plain and had lots of bunk beds. My first hostel. It made me want to do the whole backpacking-through-Europe thing. I don't remember doing anything that first evening but finding our room, picking out or beds, and going to sleep.

Tuesday morning, we started out with a walking tour and saw some government buildings and such around Dublin. We stopped along the way for lunch and I got my first Caesar Salad in forever, which was awesome.

(lunch break with the lovely 5^B)

That afternoon, we went to a fishing village called Howth just outside of Dublin. There, we went to a place called The Summit, which was gorgeous with all these golden flowers everywhere and an amazing view. It reminded me of a scene from Once. The beauty of the Summit was magical. We only spent about five minutes walking on that hill, but I thought about it a lot more in the bus and later. There was a feeling to that place that I find difficult to describe. The golden flowers, sunbeams, winding paths, glittering ocean all synthesized into something very romantic, yet lonely. Maybe lonely because it was so romantic. Goodness, I just wrote a whole lot of mumble jumble that probably only makes sense to me about how The Summit made me feel, so I took that out, but you can read the poem I wrote about it here. If you aren't much of a poetry person, I won't be offended if you skip that.

After the Summit/Howth Head (A side note: On the day I'm writing this, we read a passage in English class from James Joyce's Ulysses that took place there on that very hillside. Now I have to read Ulysses because I'm enchanted and intrigued. It's lucky I bought a copy when I was in Dublin. I'm going to start it as soon as I finish A Confederacy of Dunces) we went down to the more inhabited part of Howth, the actual village part, and we walked among all the fishmongers' shops and the boats. We stopped and stood on a rounded stone outcropping where we could see across the bay. We took our bus back into Dublin and I remember that I listened to my iPod because everything was very quiet. I think people were tired. When we got back the the Four Courts Hostel, we got freshened up for dinner, which was at a place called the Brazen Head.

The Brazen Head is apparently Dublin's oldest pub. I had some yummy Bangers & Mash. The English teacher, Prof. R that accompanied us on the trip (she's not the one that teaches me) was organizing the paying at the end of the meal and I think she about drove the manager of the place crazy. At one point on this trip I was trying to tell Prof. R that "I hurt my foot," and when I spoke she didn't understand and asked me to please repeat myself but try to speak as if I were from England because she learned British English and I wasn't making sense to her. I put on my best English accent and she still looked at me like I was out of my mind. Eventually I switched back into American-style and just spoke incredibly slowly and pronunciated: "Eyyyyyyyyyyye HuuuuuurrrrT Myyyyyyy FooooooooT" and she finally got what I was saying and congratulated me on sounding British enough finally. It was so weird. I mean she speaks English pretty well despite the fact that she makes no sense half the time, but I always have to repeat myself ten billion times for her to understand me and it gets on my nerves because she's looking at me like I'M stupid and suck at English because she's having difficulty understanding and, you know, she's perfect at English so it must be something I'm doing wrong. I think she thinks that the fact that she's an English teacher makes her the queen of the English language and grants her the power to never be wrong/confused. I'm SO glad my normal English teacher is Prof. G and not Prof. R. I know it sounds like I'm ranting a bit about her, but I think this is a good cultural point. In Italy, THE TEACHERS ARE RIGHT ALL THE TIME, END OF STORY, NO DEBATE, OKAY, MOVING ON. One time (once again this happened with Prof. R when she was subbing in my class) a teacher was trying to find us a video on youtube. She was looking for an interview with Sylvia Beach, but she was spelling it the Italian way, Silvia Beech, so nothing was coming up and she was getting frustrated and I knew what the problem was so I tried telling her (very politely and discreetly, it wasn't like I was calling her out for the whole class to hear) "Why don't you try spelling it with an S-Y instead of S-I and a E-A instead of E-E?" but she SNAPPED at me and said "NO, I KNOW I AM SPELLING IT CORRECTLY!" Which she wasn't. I know because I googled when I got home to make sure. And I found the interview she was looking for lickety-split, too. In the States, the student-teacher relationship is much more relaxed and, in my opinion, lends itself better to learning. We still respect our teachers, but the difference is that if we respect them, they respect us back. Not the case in Italy. Anyway, the lady taking our bill at this pub understood nothing Prof. R said, and I'm fairly certain that Prof. R understood nothing the lady said, yet she pretended to so eventually the poor lady got so stressed that she asked me to help and I did (quietly, so as not to seem a threat to Prof. R's sovereignty) and it worked out fine. Afterwards the teachers let us all go out for drinks, which was fun. My drink of choice on the trip was Bailey's because it's IRISH cream and delicious and seemed appropriate. I don't know if it was that night but at one point I had this thing that was basically a huge Bailey's milkshake and it was heavenly.

Since this post is so long, I'm going to cut it off here and make the Ireland trip posting a 2-part thing. Until then, enjoy this collection of footage from the trip!

~Chandler

Airplanes, Goodbyes, and Free Advice

This is going to be a quick post because I am incredibly tired, but things are happening, so I must tell you all about them! This morning I said goodbye to my hometown and to my state for the next ten months. The already emotional situation was amplified by the fact that I've had only two and a half hours of sleep.

 I stayed up until 2 last night and had to wake up at 4:30 in order to leave for the airport at 5:30. My wonderful boyfriend Zac got up early too so that he could see me off. I rode with him to the airport. The whole ride, I was ricocheting madly back and forth between crying and laughing. As each place we passed receded into the distance, my brain thought "Goodbye, neighborhood! Goodbye, Earth Fare where I always get sandwiches! Goodbye this road and that road and everything that wasn't important but is!" in a way that uncannily resembled the monologue I performed earlier this year when I played Emily Webb in Our Town. And on that ride to the airport, everything looked different, because I'm not used to the eerie lighting that hangs in the sky just before sunrise. So, by saying goodbye, I quite literally was seeing it all in a "new light." I really think that leaving for an extended period of time has given me a new appreciation for where I'm from. I realized, but never fully appreciated the beauty of the Carolinas before I had to leave them.

Saying goodbye to my boyfriend was honestly one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. The whole ride to the airport, he was holding my hand and I hated not wanting to let go, but having to anyway. And when we finally got to security in the airport, and I had to go through, but he couldn't come with me, I cried and sniffled uncontrollably. Zac and I have been dating for six months and I'm completely, totally in love. Ten months of separate-ness, while made easier by Skype, is going to be tough, but we're going to try with everything we've got.

I finally calmed down a bit when I got my hands on a Starbucks, and I was able to remind myself that I AM GOING TO FREAKING ITALY WHICH IS FREAKING COOL. So that helped.  From that point on I focused on getting myself to New York. My family and I were once again flying space-available, and after failing to get on a couple of really full flights to Lagaurdia, we got on one to Washington DC, where the Laguardia flights had much more readily available seats. On the plane ride I napped, which was much-needed and much-enjoyed. During our interlude in DC, we ate at the Five Guys in the airport and it was by far the best not-grilled-by-my-daddy cheeseburger I have ever eaten. I had the realization that food tastes ten zillion times better when you have an emotional experience, cry your eyes out, nap it off, and THEN eat when you wake up. I napped again, but less soundly on our flight to New York, and then we came in a taxi to the Scotts' apartment where we're staying. It felt like 8 pm, but it was really only 3, which was bizarre.

The afternoon turned out to be incredibly fun. We walked all around the area where they live. I smelled fresh lavender, ate homemade pretzels and champagne grapes, discovered a new band, and received a free hug in Union Square Park. At Washington Square Park, I watched a man jump over a row of six people and I sat down for a chat with a few NYU students who had a sign offering "Free Advice." Usually, being the shy, reserved sort of person I am, I'd never sit down with strangers and chat about anything, let alone all my hopes and fears and crazy emotions regarding Italy, but I did. I think my exchange will be wasted if I don't open myself up to experiences like that, conversations with people. And I'm so glad I decided to go ahead and start approaching the world that way NOW, because it turned out to be really refreshing to talk about it all with some sincere, uninvolved strangers. Because the perspective of my mom and dad, family and friends, while extremely important to me, can become so stale. Hearing the same thoughts and perspective over and over starts to not help anymore. The advice and words of new people that I'll probably never see again managed to help a bunch with sorting through how I'm going to handle leaving my family, and maintaining this long-distance relationship, and adjusting to a new country and life and language.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and I can't remember what it was called. I'll edit this when I remember. I had Rigatoni in vodka sauce. Afterwards we went across the street for some gelato and I had a small cup of the tiramisu flavor which was absolutely, breathtakingly delicious. I'm trying to keep these flavors all alive in my mind as well as possible so I can do a good comparison later between Italian food in the United States and Italian food in Italy. So, be on the lookout for that post in the future. For now, I really must go to sleep, because I'm about to collapse from exhaustion. Good night!!!

(Me at the Italian restaurant. I still can't remember its name.)

(The view from the restaurant. On the left is Grom, where we had the amazing gelato.)

Musings of Italy Via New York City

It just occurred to me: Why didn't I go to Little Italy when I was in New York City?? That would've been perfect since I'm going to REAL Italy in less than three months. LESS THAN THREE MONTHS! Someone pinch me, please. It is just too amazing to be real. But it is! I leave from New York City on September 8th and I'll stop briefly in Zurich, Switzerland on the way before arriving in Rome. After that there's a three-day orientation in Rome before I go to my host family in Brescia!

I am so looking forward to it! I absolutely love traveling and airports. I love the sound of rolling suitcases and the interesting people-watching and the feeling you get in your head and belly the moment the plane lifts off the ground. I even love the smell of airports and airplanes, not because it smells good, necessarily, but because of the wonderful associations it has in my mind.

One thing I did discover on my trip to New York, though, was that traveling is slightly less relaxing without parents to depend on. In the past, I've always been able to let them take care of getting me where I need to go when I need to go there, coordinating everything. This time I had to do that all by myself, which wasn't quite as easy. A big part of that may have been the fact that I was flying space-available (I fly for free since my parents used to work for US Air) which is a great deal more complicated than normal flying. There's all the hassle of making sure you're on the standby list and waiting for everyone else to board and keeping your fingers crossed that there'll be a seat for you. But I won't have to deal with any of that on the way to Italy. It'll probably be super fun and exciting because I'll be traveling with a bunch of other AFS-ers.

Alright, so New York City. Wonderful, obviously. The last (and only other) time I went there was spring break of last year. That time I did more of the tourist-y things like the Empire State Building and riding the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and visiting Times Square and all those sorts of things. This time I did more of the shopping-eating-exploring sort of thing. Which was totally fun. I was lucky to get to spend my weekend there with my old neighbors Jenna and Michaela Scott, staying at Jenna's apartment. They were super sweet and hospitable.

We ate so much good food while I was there. I'm about to talk about it in detail, because I'm crazy about food. If it bores you, go ahead and skip over this paragraph. I don't mind... The first night we met their dad (who's one of MY dad's best friends) at a Mexican restaurant. It was super delicious. Their salsa was the perfect balance of spicy-ness and cool limey-ness. We also had guacamole which I've always avoided because my dad hates it so I assumed it was gross, but it was awesome. For my main course I ordered Chiles Rellenos (that's a chile stuffed with melted cheese and covered with an egg batter) and it was really good. The Saturday morning that I was there, we went to the Waverly Diner and I had Eggs Benedict which was yummy and a cafe latte. For lunch Jenna and I went to The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English, where I ate Risotto "Tater Tots" and a Fig & Prosciutto flatbread pizza which also had a rosemary crust, fig jam, and gorgonzola. The figs were so plump and sweet and had the most incredible contrast with the prosciutto and gorgonzola. It was so good. My mouth is watering a little just thinking about it. That night we stopped by Cafe Angelique right down the street from the apartment for dessert. I had a Frozen Mint Lemonade. It was very refreshing and very minty. Unlike most "mint" things, it didn't taste like mint flavoring so much as actual mint sprigs. It reminded my of the mint leaves I used to pluck from my grandmother's garden when I was younger. So, yes. Lots of incredible food.

You can expect that I'll be telling you a ton about the food while I'm in Italy. Food is one of my biggest passions. To be totally honest, the food is a big part of why I chose Italy as my exchange destination. I've considered becoming a food critic one day and this blog will give me an opportunity for some practice in that area. The only problem is that I love just about everything I eat so it is a bit hard for me to be actually "critical." It'll probably be more like bubbly gushing about the deliciousness of everything!

So, I also did some shopping in New York. Whenever I shop now I alway try to think in the back of my head "what will be useful in Italy?" I don't know much about the styles there in comparison to here. Is it the same? I don't really know. All I really have to go by is what I see in the pictures on my host sister's facebook page and the school website. Lots of scarves, I think. It gets cold in the wintertime. The stuff I got in New York is more summery (specifically the most adorable pair of Free People shorts and a flowy white dress, a pretty embroidered tank top and a grey tshirt dress from H&M ) but I think I'll get good use out of it. I'll worry about packing when it gets a little closer to time.

The other biggest thing I did in New York was visiting the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met. It was phenomenal! I could go on and on and on about it, but I won't since I can't rationally connect it to Italy without a big stretch (that's the hard thing about this blog - deciding what is and isn't relevant). But if you're going to New York any time soon I highly recommend that exhibit.

I suppose that's it for now. I'll be back with more about my Italy preparations soon. In the mean time, I want to know who's reading this. Click "follow" over to the right, and if you have anything to say (like maybe what is and isn't cool to wear in Italy if you know, or even just "hi") leave me a comment! Later!