Musings on Life, Work, and Love
Yes, that is a blue curaçao daiquiri.
I chose Curaçao because I was freezing in Prague and wanted someplace warm. Boy, did it deliver. For good measure it threw in magnificent cactus formations and one very painful scorpion sting. And it drained me with the oppressive humidity.
Despite, that, here are the highlights:
Sail Away!
A friend said to me “Now that you’ve seen the world, tell me where to go.” The simple answer is everywhere. This year I’ve visited 30 cities outside the US. Most of them for the first time. None of them were terrible, not even Napoli. But some were definitely more amazing than others. Here are the top 5.
(Yes, that’s actually 6. Read on to see which one stole it’s way into my heart and onto the list. Any city that repeatedly inspires that much delight can’t be denied a spot.)
Köln
“It’s even bigger on the inside!” (Not actually possible)
As your train crosses the Rhein and pulls up to the Hauptbahnhof (train station), an enormous monolith towers over you. It’s the Dom cathedral, it’s huge, and it’s so close you can’t see the top of it. It may not sparkle like Italian marble, but it dominates and amazes.
That title sounds so spy-like. Debrief of the Italy Mission. I bet debriefings are incredibly boring – listening to someone drone on about all the mundane details of hours stuck in the surveillance van with bad takeout food and…wait, do my blog posts sound like that?
Here are the results of three months in Italy in a surveillance van
Impressing a taxi driver
I chalk up taxi fares to the “language practice” budget.
Everyone knows that the best judge of language level is a taxi driver. And I passed with flying colors. He couldn’t believe I’d only been studying for two months. We talked about my year of travel, the Italian economy, and how to learn a language. I sounded confident, my accent was good, and most of the words came naturally.
There’s a Chocolate Fair this week!
My goal for the first 90 days is to learn to speak Italian. A few days ago I kept feeling I was going to fail at it. I was spending time on other activities, besides studying or speaking. I went walking. I took long lunches. I played computer games. It seemed like I wasn’t taking this mission seriously and I would have nothing to show for my three months in Italy. Which also meant I would fail at Japanese and German (of course). And the rest of my life really (just a logical conclusion).
Lunch in front of the Palazzo Vecchio
Then I realized I’d only been here for three nights. I had to catch up on sleep, fight jet lag, find an ATM, a grocery store, a cell phone plan, and a library card (of course). So I told myself to chill. Just allow enough fear to motivate me to focus.
I’m in Florence, in a beautiful apartment with all of life’s essentials: water, heat, and WiFi. It’s been a bumpy ride since Saturday. I moved out of my apartment, flew to Italy via Philly, and got moved in to my apartment.
Saturday was a disaster. I alternated between three scenarios of certain doom. The first was that I would have to miss my flight because I would not get everything done. The second was that I would lose a bunch of money by forfeiting my security deposit or having to pay someone to clean my apartment. The third was that I would lose a bunch of money and still miss my flight. I spent the entire afternoon cursing.
Leonard Bernstein said “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time” I’m not sure I really had a plan. But with the help of several people I was able to pack my bags, store the most important things I wasn’t taking, and give away the rest. Thank you – you know who you are.
This month is going by way too fast! I have too many things left to do! Everyone asks if I’m excited…the truth is I’m panicking! (Then going into denial. Then panicking. Then…)
Way, way back right after Christmas I still had five weeks to get ready. It seemed like plenty of time. No worries at all. Now I’m freaking out! Where did the time go? Why didn’t I get more done over the last two weeks?! Oh, yeah, it’s cause I downplay the urgency and spend too much time having fun instead.
Here’s what I have to do before I leave. No problem. It’ll be easy. (Yeah, sure. Right.)