Grand Northern Italian Adventure
So, lesson learned. My kind of travel is of the slow, relaxed variety. It matters to me more the people with whom I'm traveling than the places we go. I'd rather walk around a city without trying to find the attractions - instead, find a nice restaurant and have a leisurely meal there, wander around a bit more, get a feel for the city. I went to so many cities that I feel like I didn't really appreciate them all. They all blend together now in my mind, and when I think of a museum I went to or a gorgeous church I saw or an excellent meal I had I have to stop for a moment and think "Now that was the third night, which meant we were in Bergamo - no, we were in Vicenza the third night, which was the city where we saw those incredible Giotto frescoes. Wait, those frescoes were in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. So what did we see in Vicenza? Oh yeah, that's where we had one of many little spats over meal prices, so we picked the cheapest place, that American buffet. And the next morning we went to Verona, right? Or was that the day before that we went..." and so on and so forth. It was all gorgeous, certainly. I'm definitely glad of at least the first half of the week, before I got sick, when I feel like I enjoyed more all the places we went. Eventually, though, the toll of traveling together and being together every second 24/7 began to take its toll on group morale, and at that point I think I would have preferred going on back to Viterbo a few days early to rest up a bit, and get ready to start school again. As it was I got home the night before that first monday back at school at 7 pm. It was rough.
THE UTTER AMAZINGNESS OF SVIZZERA
Yes, I admit it. I came to Italy and fell in love with Switzerland. I've only seen one city, the beautiful Lugano, and I'm completely taken. It took all of thirty seconds after stepping off the train to realize that it was the most beautiful place I'd ever been in my life. Looking out over the plummeting drop from the station to Lugano below on the shore of the lake and the mountainous backdrop, I said the first thing that popped into my mouth: "look at the air; it's so clean!" Ryan laughed and said, "that's something only someone from California would say," but it was so true. You could see it, taste it: the air is fresh, clean, clear. Not even the slightest bit of haze blemishes the horizon. The entire scene spreads out in all its fantastic and completely visible glory.
TASIS: The American School in Switzerland. I almost applied there instead of to SYA. Never mind that the tuition is about 275 times higher, and that it's probably preppier than most of the prep schools in America. It is gorgeous. Absolutely, stunningly, amazingly beautiful. Pretty much, I want to live there now. Maybe I'll become a teacher there some day just to be there in that environment.... Anyway, I had decided that I would see that school while I was in Switzerland, so I got a map to it from the tourist office, and cajoled Aleja and Nancy to make the trek up the mountain with me to find it. You think I'm joking when I say mountain. Ha. It was funny. I don't think that calling it a mountain fully communicates the steepness of the road between Lugano and TASIS. But at last, perhaps an hour or so later, a bit sweaty, grumpy and tired, we arrived at the top of the sheer cliff, in front of a beautiful wrought iron sign with the name of the school. In we went! The campus seemed practically deserted, yet we could hear the murmur of voices drifting through the streets between the quaint super-Swiss super-boarding school buildings. After accidentally breaking into the science building (hey, they didn't lock it!), we decided that it would probably would not be a good idea to give them the impression that we were young criminals, should they find us. So, we found our way to the front door, and poked in our heads. Immediately, a jovial sort of woman descended to us, and we tentatively introduced ourselves. "We're American students ourselves," we began, "studying at a school in Italy, Viterbo specifically, and we were interested in looking around TASIS." Almost before we could go on, she replied, "Viterbo? Not... SYA Viterbo? Did you come to visit Mr Bradley?" Confused, we asked who Mr Bradley was. "Didn't you know?" she responded. "He's the current headmaster of TASIS, but he was the director of SYA Italy until last year."
And she showed us in to meet Mr Bradley. Rather in shock a) that we were getting ushered into the depths of the school, b) that Mr Bradley worked here and that we were about to meet him, and c) well, all of the above plus the fact that woah, we were in Switzerland at TASIS and just WOW! Well, Mr Bradley was in a meeting with someone named Hans, but the instant he saw us he stood up from his meeting, excusing himself to Hans, to introduce himself to us. He knew (woah, I just accidentally spelled that 'new' and didn't even notice it till I read back over this sentence...) each of our host families and asked after them, remembering the various members of the family, their quirks... And then he offered to show us personally around the school!! So we found ourselves on a personally guided tour by just about the coolest guy we could have asked for. And let me tell you, the school is incredible. The grounds were covered in snow, but there were so many patios filled with chairs where students can study in the warm weather, looking out at the lake below at the bottom of the mountain/cliff. The dining hall attests to the fact that this school was once a museum, with its assortment of medieval weapons and armor displayed on the walls. And the library (can we talk about how SYA's library is two bookshelves with an eclectic assortment of trashy romance novels, a few mysteries, some love guides, and a book or two on "how to find your religious calling in just 3 weeks" - namely all the books that past SYA students got at the airport as they were flying into Italy and didn't want to take back home with them) - the library is AMAZING! It's two gigantic rooms, filled with the ever so slightly dusty aroma of thick wonderful books; the shelves are packed tightly with row after row of books for everything you could want: reading for fun and any research project you should need to do (at SYA research means hitting the internet... my excellent new talent: I've learned how to cite those ww2. pages in the most professional way possible). It's a beautiful library, absolutely gorgeous.
Mr Bradley got us a bus schedule ("You walked all the way up here? From Lugano?), and we discovered that the next bus was in a mere 20 minutes, limiting our tour of the campus. However even the few buildings we saw were enough. Basically, I live there now. Well, I like to think that. Anyway, because it wasn't amazing enough that we'd randomly encountered the ex-director of SYA Italy, guess who else we got to meet: the founder, M Crist Fleming, of TASIS itself. 95, I believe she is, and as spunky as a person could be. Her car pulled up in the driveway just as Mr Bradley was showing Nancy, Aleja and me to the bus stop. He led us up to the car, saying "Ms Fleming will want to meet you. She knows everyone here, so she'll wonder why she doesn't recognize you." And sure enough, as soon as she had gotten out of the car, Ms Fleming waved her cane at Mr Bradley and said, "Who are these three girls, Jeff? I don't recognize them." And that's how we met the founder of TASIS. As easy as that.
And as quickly as we'd gotten there, it seemed, it was time to catch the bus, now armed with a stack of TASIS brochures which we began to devour the instant we'd settled onto our train back to Milan. So basically, because I'm going to become a billionaire in the next year or so, that's where I'm going for my PG year. So there.
A few more days passed, which I don't remember because I was sick and delirious and dead asleep for the better part of the time, and then... School started again. And that's basically been the story of my life for the last two weeks. School, school, school, school and then a little more school. Oh, and did I mention school? Or perhaps more accurately I should be saying: WEEK OF DEATH!!! aka two weeks before the Sicily trip, when everything is due before we break from school for a whole week (yes!!). But wait: half of the things due this week are various projects which are to be presented on the Sicily trip. Geez, way to make us actually do schoolwork on a school trip. I object! Or maybe I'm just spoiled by the school trip to Florence, when the conference room at the hotel was unavailable to us so they had to cancel the class we were going to have. Let's just hope something of the sort happens again on this trip. For the sake of my sanity?
Other news, other news... Ooh, I finally put name to face to music and became completely enamored of Buddy Holly this week. I'd always known his name, and always known his music, but never really connected the two in my mind, until this past week when I got an iTunes gift card (thank you!!!) and completely raided the iTunes music store. Now I'm going through the throes of agony in the knowledge that he died with so much yet to offer the world... tragic.
Oh yeah, and I sort of accidentally poisoned Aleja this weekend... Technically it wasn't me, it was my host mother, but she didn't mean to. She made shrimp pasta for lunch, and Aleja had never eaten shrimp before and, well... you know you shouldn't try something if you don't know if you're allergic to it or not and... well, you can guess what happened. We had to make an emergency run back to Aleja's house, which is about a 10 minute drive from mine, because there wasn't any Benadryl at my house; then I hung out at her place for about 8 hours with her epi-pen in one hand and my cell phone in the other, watching bad tv shows and reading Dave Barry. It was a tense Saturday afternoon...
And now, before this entry reaches epic proportions and before I get to bed too late to function tomorrow morning... Bye, already!
posted by Holly | 9:42 PM
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