When we got home from Ireland, we crashed for a good long time. There was nothing that was going to make me get out of bed, or stop me from just sitting at the kitchen room table with my latte and a good conversation. It might not seem exhausting, because I have gotten more “relax” time abroad than I ever did at Capital, I have been worn out here. The first five weeks we had 3.5 hours of Italian every other day. We did more than a typical semester’s worth of work (4 semester hours) in 5 weeks. I was honestly burnt out. So we chilled out in Italy for 6 days, and then set our alarm for 5am again. Why, why, why? If you know me, you recognize my complete inability to be a morning person. I am not able to be anything less than cranky when I do not have any sleep. We dragged ourselves down the stairs to the front door to find that it had rained. So in the cold and wet, we lugged our bookbags across town to Porta Fiorentina, the port opposite ours, and waited in huddled groups of overly-excited, squealing American students and nicotine-enhanced, brooding European students. We left the gate about an hour later than we were scheduled to, and therefore set the trend for the rest of the trip. USAC booked a double-decker bus for our combined trip with Erasmus (the European exchange group through Universita della Tuscia). We were lucky enough to get seats near the front so I would limit my chances of getting motion sick, and were luckier still when the 2nd and 3rd rows faced each other with a table in the middle. The loud USAC kids, mostly, and all of the Europeans sat upstairs away from the program directors. I could not sleep because two girls behind me were talking really loudly. Holly sat across the table from us and could sleep through anything, so we were jealous, ha ha. When we got a little farther, they stopped for a bathroom break, and we noted how most of the girls on our trip neglected to give the attendant a coin for the utilities. I want to blame it on their sleepiness or say that they did not bring their wallets, but most of them were awake in the upstairs of the bus, and everyone bought breakfast, so I just cringe a little at their lack of tact.
Back on the “Pullman,” as they called our bus, I got about a 20 minute power nap. We made it to Verona, and filed off into the rain. The weather was either rainy or misty for the majority of our trip, and many kids bought umbrellas sold by venders who accosted us as we descended the bus stairs. I don’t think I wrote about my trip to the Vatican where I was threatening different levels of Dante’s hell for those who would thrust umbrellas at me in the pouring rain when we already had umbrellas. Anyway, most of the USAC kids had the same plaid umbrellas. Kevin and I ditched the loud group and went to this little pizzeria with prints of famous pictures suspended on plastered yellow walls. It reminded me of my bedroom at home. I had sausage and Kevin had margherita (cheese and sauce). We were trying to stay a little dehydrated because pretty much everywhere the bathrooms had the “holes in the floor with plumbing” toilets, lovingly called “Asian style” in (stereo)typical fashion, ha ha. Also, because we would have to pay for any use of utilities, and because being on the bus as much as we were, we were not able to use the bathroom.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that the lavatory on our bus was not functional… on this study abroad experience, 3 times, my transportation has failed to have a working restroom. If you are a Jones, you are laughing your butt off right now in reference to my infamously small bladder. Yes, it has been ridiculously common, and it has made my travels rather dehydrated ones “just in case”. It’s not like they can land a flight because I have to go.
We made for Castelvecchio (the old castle) to see a few relics that were removed from the 5 large cathedrals and churches in town. Unfortunately, because of renovation, we could not get a tour of the actual castle, but we did get to walk around the grounds. They had paths in one of the courtyards, and stairs, so we gallivanted as long as we could stand the rain and went back into the museum area. We then tried to head towards “Juliet’s house,” a complete sham, created by locals to claim Shakespeare’s made-up Juliet and draw tourists. There is an official house they recognize in the town, as well as the “tomb” of Romeo and Juliet. I wanted to go and get a picture, just to say I did it. We did not quite make it clear across town, though. A parade was going on for Carnevale. I cannot remember if I relayed that Carnevale is like Mardi Gras. Not with the whole “beads” thing or getting drunk, but still, it is for a week before Ash Wednesday. Carnevale translates as “Meat, Go away” because of Lent, and many Catholic communities eat rich foods and lots of meat and have parades. Oh, tangent, Carnevale cakes are AMAZINGLY good; they are donut holes filled with flavored ricotta cheese or puddings or coated in sugar. Anyway, I was a little frustrated with the parade, because we literally walked right into it. The big thing for kids to do for Carnevale is to get cans of silly string and shaving cream and spray people and throw confetti on them. But I am a rebel: I did not get silly stringed and confettied by children… I got silly stringed and confettied by an 80 year old man. It was rather odd, I must say. I came around the corner and got splattered right in the face, ha ha ha. I guess is “young at heart.”
We decided the parade was going to take over the town, so we stayed to watch, and got two of Kevin’s newest pins: an Italian flag and a pin with a Verona shield. They are cute. Then we went to get coffee at a place with another “interestingly” plumbed bathroom. The guy at the bar was annoyed with me for not following typical protocal at his café. In many cafes you either “order, drink, pay,” or you “order, pay, get receipt, take to bar, drink.” We did the latter (which is usually safer), but appearently instead of just placing the receipt down and getting your coffee in return, you have to order at the bar too. He made fun of me because he asked me what we ordered in words that I was unfamiliar with. Kevin was in the restroom, and I had no one to save me while the bar tender laughed at me and made faces at me. He was not the only person that reacted strangely to me, in that piazza. These boys in the parade told me to be in the piazza at 4pm in Italian, and I told them “non parlo Italiano” (so they would leave me alone), to which they responded in English with the same they had said in Italian. They were being a little creepy, so I said I was going to stay with my fiancée, and they said “Everyone can come” and winked at me. It was disturbing.
So we left Piazza della Erbe and went to a church, which was very lovely. It was at least quite dry. We made our way to the Sham of a Capulet’s house, and there was a line of 30 million Asians on a tour in front of us, so I squeezed in, took my picture and we went back into the under pass. It was popular to put little love monograms on the walls. There was an open spot on a place that had been whited-out with letters, so we wrote our own letters on the wall, just to be cheesy and cute, and left. We walked around some more, and it was getting close to leaving time, so we went to the Arena. It is like a baby Colleseo. It seats 16,000, and they have the largest open air operas there in the summer. It was really quite pretty. We walked all the way around the top layer (something we didn’t get to do in Roma), and then met our group.
We waited an extra hour, and a girl in our group got on the bus looking really out of it. I really wanted to ream the girls she was with: they drank a lot. She is underage in the US, and apparently did not know her limit. They did not watch out to make sure she was ok. She was not coherent, and even after an hour on the bus and a bottle of water she was awake, but not making sense in her sentences. When we got to the hotel, she got mad about the line to the restroom and went in her pants, then walked down the hall looking for a bathroom. Her “friends” were still not taking care of her, so I had to chase after her to tell her she could go to the front of the line if she would just go in the real bathroom. We were in a part of the hotel that was off limits. The signs were in Italian, but I could read them. I told her she had to come back, and she yelled at me and cursed at me. To top it all off, the hotel manager came and yelled at me in Italian, but I did not know how to tell him in Italian why I was there, and get the girl out of the restricted area. Eventually I got her to leave, and she went into the restroom, but it was not a happy moment.
She got put to bed, and we went to the restaurant and had some pasta, and some pork, and went back to the hotel. We shared a room with Holly and Danielle, so it was nice to have people we liked and trusted in our room. There was a queen and two twin beds, which I had never seen before, and our room was really big for a European room. I was amazed. Apparently our heating wasn’t working or they don’t like to let us have heat, because even when we turned our thermostat up to 30 Celsius, it was freezing in our room. We took our showers, and went to bed.
We awoke far too soon. After no sleep day number one, starting day number two at 8am (with a wake up call ordered for every room by our director) was a little difficult, but we stirred ourselves, got ready, and went to our “continental breakfast.” The definition of “continental” is different in Europe than America. Here it means “a bread product, juice, and coffee laid out at tables.” In Ireland it was a large roll, and here it was a cornetto (kind of like a croissant). In America, I am used to having cereal or a muffin or donuts, and coffee, and fruit, and such all set out on a buffet table with like a napkin. Here, they fill glass pitchers at 8am, and when you come downstairs at 8:30, the hot coffee is cold, and they set the tables with cornetti, so they are not always there, and the plates and sliver are probably used.
We loaded ourselves onto the bus again, and rode to Venice. We eventually made it to where we were supposed to be, got tickets for a waterbus, and all rode “down town” on the water. It was very picturesque, and molto fredissimo (very, very cold). I lost my gloves in Dublin (is that like “I left my heart in San Francisco?”), so my hands were bright red all day, even though they had a permanent home in my pockets. The boat ride was the best part of Venice. We were on the water, even though it was not in a gondola (which cost over 75 Euro… wish I had that job: I’ll take $94 an hour for pushing people around on a boat). It was beautiful, and made us feel like we were really getting the Venetian experience.
We stopped at the bus stop for Piazza San Marco and froze our buns off while people in complete costume with full facemasks stood for people to take pictures with them. They did not even ask for money, so I imagine that they were paid by the city for Carnevale purposes. Eventually the rest of our group arrived, we got instructions for meet up times, and we walked to the piazza. Upon arriving, we suddenly realized exactly how crowded it was going to be all day. We literally bumped someone at every other step. I am really afraid of crowds; they make me antsy. We waited in line at the Church of Saint Mark, and went in to see it, but after all the churches in Ireland, and our most recent trip to St. Peter’s Basilica, I was really not all that impressed, even though it was very lovely inside. You can only see so many mummified popes, ya know?
I do not know that I could go to a church with gilded ceilings. Yeah, I know they were trying to make it pleasing to God, and that the temple of the Ancient Hebrews was full of rich and beautiful things, but I think it’s a little scary that these churches are still functional when there are so many people in the world without enough to eat, or who do not have shoes or adequate housing. I see people pan handling outside of them, for heaven’s sake, and even though I know that not all panhandlers are impoverished, some of those outside of the cathedrals have to be. I do not know that I could go to a church that looked like that while my fellow human beings suffer in front of my eyes. Isn’t church supposed to be about helping others? Maybe they missed that part in the New Testament when they built these things. Sorry, I rant.
We decided to go to lunch, and wandered a bit off the beaten path to try to find something less expensive. We found a place with 7 euro pizzas, and we crammed into the most crowded restaurant I’ve ever been in. In America, several fire codes would have been broken. We decided that because we were hungry and the price seemed reasonable, we would be ok sitting at separate tables in twos, because they did not have seats available. We ordered two cokes, two pizzas, and ate. Kevin went to the men’s room and was gone for an abnormally long amount of time, so I was concerned, but really there was just a long line. I went to stand in it… behind all of China, I swear. The worst part was that the men’s room was open. The only people in front of me were on a tour together. They were all Asian, and they were not using the men’s room when it was open. They would get flippant if I tried to step out of line to use it. In three different languages (Italian, Spanish, and English) I told them that they should use the men’s room as it was free and no men were waiting. It had a real toilet and not a urinal, but whatever. When I had waited for 15 minutes, I decided to cut line anyway and use the men’s room. So I decided to take a stand, and other women followed me, luckily, but it still made the Asian women in line angry.
When I got back, I found out that not only did the restaurant charge over 3 Euros in Coperto a person, they also charged twelve percent in “service charge” for tips for the waitress for parties of two or more… this is nearly unheard of, and the coperto was not listed in the menu, but the service charge was, so I assumed that the “service charge” was acting as a coperto to help American tourists understand the cover charge, but no. Oh, and a glass of Coke was 6 euros... also not on the menu. So if paying almost 40 euros for 2 small pizzas and 2 cokes was on my list of things to do before I die, check that off the list.
You hear stories about pickpockets, and sometimes you even see them like we did in Roma, but I just did not expect to have an experience personally. On the way back to the piazza, a girl pushed herself into my back and stuck her hand in my right hand coat pocket. I had my hands there because I lost my gloves, so I know there was a hand on top of mine. She was behind me, so I leaned backwards, and pushed her back really hard, and then hand slipped out. Yay, pickpockets. Luckily, I kept all of my valuables in my inside jacket pocket, but even so, what an experience.
Danielle, Holly, Kevin, and I went then to the Doge’s palace. Now, I don’t particularly categorize myself as a fool, but I did not know what a “Doge” was, and had to ask since it wasn’t becoming clear as we walked around the palace. Because of this, I do not feel badly explaining to the other “not fools” out there that a Doge is the (somewhat symbolic) ruler of all of the Venetian empire. So we learned all about the functions of different aspects of the old government. We spent several hours exploring the interior of the palace, but after a while, all the frescos start to look the same, and so we went to try to get into the restroom.
I do not know what it was about the bathrooms on this trip, but sheesh. We had a huge line, but we did not expect The Restroom Nazi, The Toilet Tyrant, the Monarch of the Men’s Room...er… I am getting carried away. She was the attendant, but she had to personally check each stall before anyone entered and would hand pick a man from the line to use one of the two men’s stalls at a time. So there were no men in the line and Kevin went to the front (before we knew you had to Heil Hitler to get into a stall) to see if the men’s room was even in the same place, and she yelled at him and sent him back into the line with me. It was all in Italian, so half the people knew what was going on. When I got to the front of the line, the lady was doing something else and not checking on the stall that opened up. In Italian, she yelled at me for not entering the stall when people were waiting. Note to crazy Fascist of the Facilities: If you are going to start a system and not let anyone else in front of me go into the stall until you check it, do not neglect to check my stall and yell at me for not entering before you check it. That is just cruel and unusual punishment.
After we had endured yet another restroom fiasco, we were going to try to go to the Ghetto where they locked in the Jewish community at night. It was made of particular importance in the Al Pacino version I saw of “The Merchant of Venice” and I was very interested in seeing it. We then bumped into 3 guys from our group who offered Kevin to join in their cigar fest, and we stood around while the boys smoked on the pier. As you can imagine, many jokes of the “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” or “I did not inhale” variety were coined. The girls got antsy about time, and we realized that if we took the water bus, we would not make it to the Ghetto in time to see anything and be able to make it back to our bus to leave the city. So the guys went off to do whatever, and Danielle and Holly wanted to buy glass, so I went with them. There is an island where they hand blow glass in Venice, but we did not get to see it. The girls spent 45 minutes in a store with glass jewelry and eventually bought some things. Everything was too expensive for my blood, and I was looking for a blue, glass gondola for my mother, but never found one. We walked to a café so Danielle could get a coffee for her headache and it was so crowded that I had to stand out on the street and get mauled with Holly, who was scared of all the people passing by acting creepy. We could not get down any of the little streets, and so we had to get to Piazza San Marco to hurriedly catch our boat. We got squished into the waterbus line, and had to wait in that squished position for almost a half hour. We were about a half hour late to the Pullman because of it, but there were students who were an hour late, so I did not feel too badly about being late. Holly called the director to tell him we were on the boat, but would be late, and Kevin called me because he was worried about me. We made it back to the bus and our nice seats in front were taken, and I got a little sick on the way back.
We had dinner at the same restaurant, and had to rush to go to this Erasmus disco that they made us go to. We were supposed to get a free entry and a huge discount on drinks, so over a period of 3 hours, Kevin and I (combined) had a total of 5 drinks, the number they had on the cards that appeared to be discounted. We danced a lot, and Kevin did the “man dance” which is holding my drink and nodding while leaning on a bar or table. FYI, Spanish guys are still being creepy on this trip, just ask my friend Kristin, who danced with one at the club. After the song ended, she tried to go find her friends. Mr. Creepy held onto her hands and started making sexual comments and graphic motions that were large enough that I noticed across the room, so I went to save her. His wingman caught onto my arm and tried to keep me from Kristin, but I managed to grab her hand, give Wingman and Mr. Creepy both nasty looks and pull her away. It was really scary. Taso made Kevin go dance with me, which was fun because we never dance fast songs together. Stefano, our 30-something program director, was getting his groove on in the background, which was adorable. He deserves big hugs for putting up with all of our nonsense. When we left, they charged us 32 Euros. We were confused, but our assistant program director was outside holding a taxi for us, so we did not argue and just left. We waited a half hour for a cab. It was really cold, and I was so sleepy that I was practically nodding off standing up. We got back to the room around 3am and went to bed. Holly, Danielle and the rest of the group who did not leave early got back after 4am, and the girls waited outside of the door and tried to wake us because there was only one key. It was a very short night of sleep. They gave us wake up calls at 8am again.
We thought these calls were a mistake. The schedule said that checkout was supposed to be at 11, but the directors changed their minds and told everyone on the bus that came back from the club, but it was 4am. Kevin and I did not have the faintest idea that we weren’t allowed to sleep until 10 because we came home in a cab instead of staying at the club until 4am, so we stayed in bed. The phone rang again, this time it was our assistant director calling the rooms because only about 10 kids out of 50 remembered being told the new times. So we lugged ourselves out of bed after only 4 or 5 hours of sleep, and ate our “continental” breakfast, and waited in the lobby for more instructions. It turns out that the reason we were roused was so that our bus driver could sleep later and we could catch a city bus… uncomfortable, definitely.
We rode on the orange city bus to Padua. We walked to a city square and got our meeting times, etc, and then Danielle went to the ATM to draw out money for lunch. I decided to try my ATM card, and still no dice. So, Kevin used his. Everything was going fine, until the machine decided to eat his card. Literally. So here we are, standing in Padua on a Sunday morning, (so the bank was closed) with literally no way to get funding. My ATM card doesn’t work at all. Kevin’s ATM card got eaten. All that is running through my head was how completely messed up the entire thing was. The day before we had been in a bit of a financial tizzy because of expiration dates and so forth, and then Sunday this happens…
We had about 25 euros in our pockets, so we saw a church, which was free. We walked around a park a little, and another street vendor came up and started bugging us. He tried to sell Danielle a necklace, fake Rolexes and belts. She was uncomfortable, and kept telling him no but he wouldn’t leave. I ignored him, because all I really wanted to do was tell him to scram. Kevin told him in Italian to “go away, and leave us alone.” This is a good phrase, our book says, and it will make them understand that you are seriously not interested. The vendor got all peeved and told us to not be rude and just tell him we don’t want anything and he would leave. He still doesn’t move too much, so Kevin says “go,” and the vendor finally gets out of our faces. I was really relieved. Bad days with limited money and even less sleep are not good days for me to deal with venders.
We found our directors and went to lunch. It was fine, but a particular person we spend lots of time with on this trip has a goal in life: to make everyone around her feel inferior, and she was doing a mighty fine job of pulling it off on me the whole weekend. So at lunch, when she assumed once again that I was uncultured, I decided to just keep my mouth shut for the rest of lunch. I was tired; I was broke, and I was most certainly cranky. The pizza was good, and I was surprised when Kevin ordered “vegetarian,” which was roasted seasonal veggies. There are not a lot of veggies in season that he likes, but he managed to eat all of it except the artichokes.
We walked to our meeting point, and tried to find the bus. There were supposed to be bathrooms near the bus stop, but the women’s room was not working. So Kevin went to the men’s room, which did work, and so I used it as well. These restrooms were “high tech.” Put in a coin, push a button, a hydrolics system opened the door. Push a button to close the door. Push a button for toilet paper. Push a button to leave, it would close the door and flush the toilet when you were gone. It was supposed to be 25 cents, but all we had was a euro, and the machine said it would give change, but it didn’t when I went, so I spent a dollar twenty five American to use a porta potty in Padua… yes, I am bitter. Erin, a girl on our trip, had to go too. She put in her coin, and it opened the door, and she walked in. It closed the door. And opened it again. So I had to stand holding her coat so people could not see into this “high tech” dysfunctional bathroom. We hurried back to the bus only to wait to leave for another 45 minutes. Driving home started out ok. I even got a little nap, but when we stopped for a bathroom break, we got some soda, and it all went downhill from there. I was carsick for the next 4 hours that it took to get home. We stopped again, and Francesca and Vanessa (our ast. Director, and Erasmus’ ast. Director) were really nice to me and gave me peppermint gum and little breadstick things to keep me from getting any worse. I sat in the very front row behind the driver and tried to make my internal dialogue in Italian. Eventually, I was so sleepy that it turned into Spanish, and I almost spoke to Stefano in Spanish, but luckily caught myself in time to make it in English. We got to Viterbo around 10:30, and we walked from our port instead of the one across town and shuffled up our stairs to our apartment. I did not know that one flight could be so exhausting. We made spaghetti, which we inhaled and collapsed into bed around 11:30. I slept for over 12 hours. It was amazing.
So you thought my Ireland entry was long, huh? Sorry to make you read all of this, but it really needed to be said in order for you to understand what I am experiencing. You can’t get the full flavor of the trip without all these seemingly needless details. I told my parents when they called that I will appreciate this trip when I am not on it. I have not started to have “warm fuzzy” feelings about it yet. Even so, I am glad to be able to say “I have been to Venice, Padua and Verona.” So, a word to the wise: don’t go to these places if you are pregnant or have a small bladder, and if you do go, ride all day on the water bus and avoid the crowds, ha ha. Mom, don’t forget to water my plants!
A Presto!
Doreen