The other Number 11 (why camping sucks)

So they let us out of hell (read: Friday field trip for both history classes) at around 4:00 Friday afternoon, at which point we've been on our feet for about 6 hours straight with no lunch break. Following our basic survival instincts, we immediately make a break for the train station. Trains=seats=SITTING. Sitting=my feet stop twitching in death throes. It's time to catch a train to Venice for Carnivale! And that can only mean one thing: sitting for five glorious walking-free hours.

And Venice, too, of course. We get into Mestre at around 9:40 (Mestre is on the mainland, which is also where our hostel is. The desirable place to be is on the island of Venice itself, of course, but all the hotels and hostels (below €1,000,000,000) are already booked, so we have the hostel on the mainland, with the cosy campfire-type name Camping Fusina. That's somewhere you know you want to be when it's rainy and cold. Excited to get to our fun hostel, we wait for the number 11 bus, just like the directions to the hostel say, and get on to ride to Fusina. After maybe a 20 minute ride, all the other passengers have gotten off, and the bus stops on the corner of a deserted intersection in a dark, empty section of town (We'll call this Lot A). Adrienne, Peregrine and I look at each other worriedly, and ponder the pros and cons of asking the bus driver if the bus goes to Fusina. Finally, after we've been sitting in the empty lot for approximately 5 minutes, we creep up to the front of the bus. "Ummm, questo bus va a Fusina?" No, the driver (we'll call him Luigi) tells us rather sadly (he looks pretty lonely, as though he's 40 and his wife just left him). That would be the other number 11.

Of course, the other number 11! Which of course someone BOTHERED TO WRITE ON A SIGN SOMEWHERE WHERE WE COULD HAVE SEEN IT. "Ma che facciamo?" we ask him. I guess you could get out here at this stop, he suggests, gesturing to the dark, abandoned street corner. The other number 11 should be coming soon, though I don't know when since I don't have that bus schedule. We look out into the night. There doesn't even appear to be a bus stop on this side of the street, but a little way down the way on the other side of the intersection is one. "Dove aspettiamo? C'è anche quella fermata li," we point out. Oh, not a problem, says Luigi listlessly. The bus stops at both stops. Ummm, we respond, the stops are like 20 feet apart. Why would any bus driver stop at both if he could get away with just stopping at one? I suppose Luigi felt bad for us (three lost kids such as ourselves), because he got out and walked to both stops to see if there was a bus schedule posted (there wasn't), and finally he told us just to stay on his bus, since he would be going to Fusina anyway at 11:17. If we came to another stop where we could catch the other number 11, we could wait there.

Okay, fair enough. So after waiting at SKETCHY Lot A for a good 40 minutes (during which time we probably could have gone to Fusina and back about 15 times), Luigi finally turns the bus back on to finish his bus route. As the bus pulls up next to a dark, creepy park surrounded by tarp-covered fence (we'll call this Lot B), Luigi starts calling at us to get off here. The other 11 is on the other side of the park, he points. Forza! We leap out of the bus, barely taking the time to thank Luigi for his extensive helpfulness, and race through the pitch black park to the other side, where a number 11 bus is just getting ready to leave. We leap into the bus even as it's starting to close its doors, ask a passenger if it's going to Fusina, get a positive response, and collapse gratefully into seats at the back. We even dare to give each other relieved high-fives. "Good job, dudes," says Peregrine. "We made it."

About 20 minutes later, we're the last ones on the bus. Just to make sure we know which stop to get off at, we go up to the front of the bus to ask the bus driver, whom we'll name Gianno. "Dove scendiamo per Fusina?" we ask, bright-eyed and innocent. Gianno, turning in his seat to look at us with concern, responds: This number 11 doesn't go to Fusina. You want the OTHER NUMBER 11.

Well. As though on cue, we arrive at an intersection that's horribly familiar. Remember Lot A? That's right, guys. It was the very spot we'd just escaped after a 40 minute wait. "Quanto tempo stiamo qui?" we ask Gianno timidly, afraid to think how many more precious minutes of our lives are to be spent at Lot A. Oh, only 30 minutes. A half hour down the drain, that's it. So we hang out with Gianno. He seems nice enough, though he can't seem to accept that we can actually speak and understand and read Italian. As though we haven't just been talking to him for 20 minutes IN ITALIAN. He tells us we can wait at that intersection for the next number 11, which should be around soon enough, though he too doesn't have the bus schedule (go figure). "When you wait for the other number 11, read the schedule at the stop - leggete l'italiano? bene - to make sure it goes to Fusina. And then when you get on the bus, ask the bus driver - parlate l'italiano? bene - if he's going to Fusina. That way you have to get there!"

At long last, we depart again from Lot A, now with more sentiments because it's become so like a home to us. A few stops later, we recognize the twisted evil trees of Lot B (sketchy park place), and Gianno points across the way to another bus. That's a number 11, which is going to Fusina! Get it! Grazie, grazie, we chorus to Gianno, and race (again) across the park to at last get on the number 11.

The bus is pulling away as we run up, and we knock on the door even as it's moving. Reluctantly and rather bad-temperedly (is that a word?), the driver opens the door for us, and we race to the front. "Questo va a Fusina?" we ask, gasping for breath and expecting the answer yes. "No," he says, not opening the door. "Well, then can we get off the bus, dumbass?" we say, though of course in slightly politer terms. As though it were a tremendous grievance to his very existence, he makes a face and effortfully makes a show of pulling the tiny, simple, easily maneuvered lever to open the door next to us. We don't bother saying thank you.

So we wait. On the edge of highly sketchy Lot B, with its abandoned-park vibes. It starts raining (and not one of us said "It couldn't get worse" - well, at least not at the point when it started raining... maybe the rain was just delayed from a point earlier on when we said that). At last (long last!), who should arrive but dear old Luigi, on his 11:17 run which goes to Fusina. Gratefully we get onto the bus, asking, just to be sure, "questo va a Fusina?" "No," he says. He's joking. It's not funny.

Finally, arrived. Open the door, ready to fall into bed, inside where it's warm, since it's pouring rain and freezing cold. And the electricity is out.

Venice Part II coming shortly (decidedly less depressing than the number 11 debacle, but no less adventure-ful).

Blind day

You know, before I came to Italy I didn't use my alarm clock. My mom woke me up every morning; I could not be trusted to wake myself up. It wasn't till this morning - when I slept through my alarm clock for the only the second time since I've been here - that I realized that I get myself up every morning. Admittedly I've shifted the time my alarm clock rings from 6:30 to 7:00 to 7:15, but I'm still up on my own and downstairs in time for breakfast every morning.

The result of getting up late on this particular morning, however, was that I did not have time to put in my contacts. I pulled on my pants, a shirt, and my jacket, and I could have sworn I put my contacts case in my pocket before I left the house. Well, shucks. When I reached school (a 10 minute drive away, so I couldn't go back), I reached into my pocket for the case, and found the memory stick I'd thought I'd lost three days ago. That was nice, of course, but there was that rather significant deterrent that I couldn't see more than a foot in front of my face. Growing gradually more apprehensive, I began to search my other pockets. And searched them again. And a third time just to be sure. And just as I suspected, I'd left my contacts at home. So I suffered through the day, going from class to class unable to see for beans, unable even to make out things by squinting. I never appreciated my contacts more than I did when I got home and put them in. I love you, contacts! You help me function every day and I never realized it till now. But now I see!

In other news, I've done little to no homework this week, have started knitting a shawl, and am going to Venice tomorrow after school; up for the weekend for Carnivale! The only sketchy part is that we're staying in a hostel on the mainland (I called too late, after all the non-suspicious hostels were full, bugger) named "Camping Fusina." I'm more than a little worried, but... we'll see! Optimism always, guys! Anyway, the director okayed it, so it must be safe.

Way to have cultural heritage

My awesome Italian phrase of the day: non me ne può fregare di meno. I could not care less. Said while shaking the hands in front of you in a "watcha doin' buddy?" manner. Annunciate slowly to show your utter disinterest. Perfetto!

You know, I've been taking AP Latin Vergil all year, and have talked to Armida a number of times about it, but for the life of me I still can't pronounce Aeneas's name in Italian. It sounds like "Uh-ney-uh" which should be simple enough, but I keep on wanting to put the s in at the end, or pronounce more vowels, or something. I try so hard, but I just can't get it. Armida was telling me about her friend's new dog, named Aenea. I didn't recognize the name (even though we've talked about the Aeneid before), which sounds distinctly more feminine than manly and heroic, so I asked if the dog was a girl. "No, è un maschio!" she replied as though reprimanding me for not knowing who Aeneas was. "Aenea è il nome di un personaggio nell'Eneide!" (Eneide = the Aeneid) Well ok, I thought, I can deal with this extremely femine sounding pronunciation of Aeneas, and added, just to show her that I had in fact heard of Aeneas: "Aenea è il personaggio nell'Eneide." "No," said Armida again. "Ulissea è il personaggio nell'Eneide." What! Woah! You're Italian, woman! You shouldn't have to be told that there's a difference between Homer and Virgil! Virgil is your history, not to mention his ancestors were in the crib when Homer was writing. Unacceptable! Though it makes me wonder how much of my history I'm pretty sketchy on. Probably a considerable amount more than I'd like to admit...

I got Othello - scusate, Otello - today in Italian and English. I'm in a theater group which is daring to do Shakespeare in Italian! Brainfreeze! I have yet to pick the scene I'm doing, but I was thinking of doing one of Iago's monologues. I just hope that I can do that; coming from Westridge I think it's totally normal to let a girl play a guy, but I don't know what this theater director's opinion on that is. I don't see why he wouldn't let me, though; it's not like we're doing the whole play, everyone's picking scenes from various Shakespeare plays. It's looking a little shaky at the moment, though, since we're all stuck on pronunciation and can't really get on to the acting, much less the memorization. The director wasn't helpful, either, when he said rather bluntly, "I would have thought you'd all be better at Italian by now, after almost 6 months here." Ummm... we're trying? I'd like to see you read a string of obscure English words and sound good, buddy. Nevertheless it's going to be pretty awesome. I'm definitely jazzed for this: who knew, Shakespeare in Italian?

I'm dying of bird flu!

Well, that's a slight exaggeration. In that I don't exactly have bird flu. But I am dying of a cold! Brought on by that exciting last night on the boat no doubt (I can't say much here, but let's just say it involved me staying out on the deck till about 1, and then sleeping on the floor of someone else's room, as my cabin was... occupied). But anyway, I'm suffering now for that by being forced to sit in my bed, blowing my nose every 3 minutes, snuffling pitifully into a mug of tea, and watching the Olympics. By the way, Happy Valentine's Day! A big wet kiss to everyone who reads this.

As soon as I started coughing and sniffling and turning pinkish, my host mother said in just about the scariest voice you can imagine (think Frankenstein. Frankenstein with bird flu), loosely translated, "You were in Sicily all week. They just found bird flu in Sicily. This has to be that! What else could it be? I recognize it, the pinkness, the sour throat, the hacking cough. What if you have to go to the hospital? There was a girl last year who had to spend a month in the hospital, and she didn't even have bird flu! YOU'RE DYING!!"

It was discouraging, to say the least. But on the bright side, you all have to be nice to me now. I'm dying of bird flu. Bonus points to my mom, who sent me a box of chocolate (See's is as good as Lindt truffles any day). Admittedly, the chocolates might have been for Valentine's Day instead of my impending death (the red, heart-covered wrapper could be a clue), but oh well. Chocolate is chocolate.

So between blowing my nose, sleeping, and coughing, I've been doing college research. It's strangely.... fun. Until I stop and think wait, not only do I have to get myself into one of these places, then I'll have to choose which one to go to, and then choose a major, and then write a THESIS and then get a job, and then realize that I have turned into Dilbert, at which point I'll go insane and break down my cubicle and then steal money from the company (think Office Space, only cooler... like, with more chocolate and fewer dead fish). I feel so empty and purposeless when I think of that. The future I'd kind of like to see, on the other hand, is me surviving college by taking some cool courses that I'm really into and nothing more, and staying up till three every night watching Blockbusters rentals and drinking smoothies. And being able to take as many showers as long as I like as often as I like. That's the clincher right there, that is. And then when I graduate, I was sort of planning on retiring to a flat Lugano or Sicily (or other cool places I will have gone to by then and fallen in love with), where I'll write for the rest of my life, traveling on the money I make from my bestsellers and making amazing scientific breakthroughs on the weekend. Then I'll leave all the money I will have earned by then to future students. It'll be called "The Holly McKelvey fund, for kids who plan to get through life brilliantly without actually ever doing anything."

I sort of want to apply to.... (this doesn't quite match up with my life goals, unfortunately... however it'll leave me with an INCREDIBLE linguistics/language degree, which is sort of a minor goal, secondary of course to the whole brilliance-without-doing-anything plan, but nevertheless something I'd like to aim for) ....Cambridge. Someone said to me a while back, in a terrifically pained voice "I'd love to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but then there's the problem... which one would I want to apply to?" Implying, of course, that should he apply to either one, he'd get in, so the real challenge would just be deciding which one was good enough for him and his superior skills. I wish I could brush off Oxford and Cambridge with such ease, but I can't help but take them really seriously, and grovel in their presence. Cambridge, at least. I didn't like Oxford's website, so I didn't even look into it very much. If colleges were books, I'd be judging all of them by their covers. But after I'd glanced at Cambridge's site, more to amuse myself than anything, I became utterly enamored of everything it has to offer. Frankly, I still have no idea what I want to do (other than live somewhere scenic and write), so I've been taking note of all the subjects that are of interest to me, and what stands out the most is linguistics. In the Cambridge language program you study two languages, in one of which you already have to be proficient (can you say Italian?!). The other you can start from scratch, and then starting in the 3rd year you focus on one. At that point you can also move into the Linguistics program - how rich would that be, doing Linguistics with two languages under one's belt? Ah, dreams. You know, my greatest role model at the moment is Danny from Stargate. Basically, I want to be him. Maybe I could even have a boyfriend on every planet, like he has girlfriends! Yes, that's what I'll do! Now, to find a stargate....

By the way, I've fallen in love with Valentino Rossi. If I ever finish La Fabbrica di Cioccolato, which has so far taken me a month and a half, I'll read his autobiography. Although I think anyone who fancies he can write an autobiography that young is lacking a little thing we like to call humility. But it's okay, because when people are as beautiful as Valentino Rossi, it doesn't matter if they're a teeny bit egotistical. If you don't know who Valentino Rossi is (probably not, he's really only big in Italy, I think), he's a champion motorcycle racer here. His autobiography is probably all about the challenges he faced in becoming a motorcycle racer. Because, as I'm sure you can imagine, there are many. There are the cutest little "home videos" on Italian TV of him when he was maybe 6 or 7 riding a motorcycle about the size of your fist (well, a little bigger, about two fists). What kind of parents were those, who put their kid in motorcycle races when he was 8! Italians and their motorized vehicles. Though I can hardly talk, coming from the land of gas-guzzlers and SUVs, specifically the part ruled by Schwarzenegger...

Hey, did you hear the one about the duck? It's really something: What is the difference between a duck?

. . . . waaaaait for it

One leg's the same.

Yes, that's right. It's brilliant.

Sicily: Cannoli and Oranges

Cannoli are amazing. That's a fact of life. Only Sicilian cannoli, however. I had one in Viterbo and it totally put me off cannoli, so that I was hesitant to eat them in Sicily. Well, let me tell you: you can't go to Sicily and not eat the cannoli. I had one every day, I'm proud to say. And can we say marzipan? IT IS INCREDIBLE! Emily, Aleja and I all split one marzipan apple because it was so rich that we could only eat a tiny bite at a time. In every city we went to we were sure to stop at a pasticceria to have some sweets.

While the sweets were amazing, the oranges were intoxicating. They're sweet and sour and rich and blood red... They're amazing, not to mention plentiful: as you drive through Sicily, you see endless stretches of orange trees... at which point you start drooling and throwing yourself against the window of your vehicle because the oranges are just that delicious. At Piazza Armerina there was a man with a little truck completely full of them, selling bags for 1€ each.

Also at Piazza Armerina, or at least in the nearby town... snowball fight with the Italians! We were innocently going about our business, heading down to the grocery store to get lunch, when we saw a group of Italian teenagers lurking in a parking lot. And of course, since it was snowing (remember: non nevica mai), and since we'd been sitting on a bus for a few hours, and since we had a little spare time, we launched an attack. There were 5 of us, and at first about 5 of them... but as the snowball fight went on, maybe 6 more suddenly emerged from behind a nearby building, as though they'd been waiting for this. I am sad to say that their aim was slightly better than ours. So, armed with two snowballs each, we charged, and they were forced to make a hasty retreat. Americans 1, Italians 0. Take that.

But then they made a full scale attack on the bus, just as we were about to drive to Piazza Armerina. Mr Scanlon gave a little speech about how we couldn't let America be insulted like that, and sent us after them. It was a grand but short lived battle. In our defense, there was much more snow on their side of the road... And speaking of roads, one of the guys blatantly got hit by a car! The car was going really slowly, and just sort of bumped his legs out from under him. He went down laughing, and suffered only a cut on his knee, but what a cool battle wound! The car didn't even stop, though... sketch!

Piazza Armerina was frigging boring after that. I spent my time eating snow. That's what happens when you let Californians loose in snowy places. Fools.

The Baccantes

This photo rather appropriately documents the demise of the Greek play. We were in the gorgeous theatre of Syracuse, in the middle of the play (which involved screaming "ite bacchai" till we were all hoarse), when it began to rain. Stoically, we finished the play, then made a run for all our jackets and backpacks which were sitting in the center of the theatre, collecting nice little puddles of water. Once we'd salvaged those, it was time for the other play, Aeschylus' Persians. By now it was pouring, and the entire class was huddled in the shelter of the caves, as we stood umbrella-less in the open striving to read the ink that was rapidly bleeding as our scripts drooped soggily. The students Ms Vicini had gotten to film the plays were being protected by umbrellas as they tried to film us. It didn't help that Nahin was behind one of the cameras and kept cracking up. I could barely keep a straight face myself, especially when Ms Vicini clapped at the end and said "it couldn't have been more dramatic, guys. That rain was perfect."

A Sicilian Mountain

If I were to live in Italy, I think I would choose Sicily. I've said that about quite a few places (including Lucca, Bologna, Lugano, which is actually in Switzerland, so never mind, and Florence) but this time I really mean it. Sicily is incredible, with its food, its vegetation, its mild climate, its people, the dialect which Italians can't understand, the cats, and basically just about everything. The week that we were there it actually snowed. As Italians say, stressing never: "non nevica mai in Sicilia. Mai!" But even with the snow, even with the whipping winds at the temples, it was still warm and gorgeous.

We started off in Taormina, a city built on the very top of a mountain on the north east coast of Sicily. From the top you can see the toe of Italy in the distance across the Straight of Messena. Besides the ridiculously beautiful town itself, the two main attractions are a Greek theatre, and the castle built at the highest point of the city. We went to the Greek theatre first (after a cappuccino, of course) for some Latin presentations and to start filming for the Greek play/movie. Regarding that.... it was insane!! No one actually knew what half their lines meant, or in what order they should say all of them, but Ms Vicini was determined to make a movie out of it, so make a movie we did. It has yet to be put together, and since it was shot in three different locations it'll look a little patchy, but by gosh we did it. It was the Baccantes by Euripides, and I can only imagine that he's rolling in his grave at our Greek/Italian/English interpretation.

Upon our release from Greek play filming, we made a beeline for the castle. You know, there was a short way up to it. If only we had seen it... We walked half way around the mountain and up winding residential streets that seemed to lead us further and further away from the castle, only to double back and turn into nearly vertical stairs. When at last we reached the top, clutching our sides and gasping, it was to find.... a locked gate. Fiends! We took it upon ourselves to rattle the gates as ferociously as we could and bemoan our efforts a great deal, but at last we were forced to accept that the gate was not going to open any time soon. It was as we turned to go back down the mountain that Max saw the stairs. "I've got some good news and some bad news, guys," he said. "There's a short way down." Rather than going about half way around the side of the mountain, the stairs hairpinned straight down to the town and the theatre. Mocking us with their simplicity, damn them. I'm sure the people of Taormina have hidden video cameras near the top of those stairs, to look at the reaction of people who couldn't find them going up...

But it was some excellent exercise, and there were some spectacular views, not to mention Taormina had some incredible almond brittle to offer.