Full Circle: Year in Review

This year I have already learned a few important lessons. It is bad to watch your team lose two years in a row, it is worse to stay up all night to witness it. Kickoff was approximately 2am Rome time, leaving us on Tuesday morning with little sleep and heavy hearts. The mourning period is officially over.

First it begins with “there is always next year”, and then the off season slowly slips away from there; filled with the NFL draft, recruiting and basketball to take the edge off. A full week after witnessing our favorite team lose in its second consecutive National Championship, I’ve decided it is time to move on and start the traditional healing process. It occurred to me during the past week of gloom that I have traveled thousands of miles, up rooted life as I know it, and here I am, exactly 365 days later, in the same place that I started. Now this thought can be excruciatingly depressive or thoughtfully peaceful. Am I really in the same place that I started? I think not!

My year in review:

National Championship Game, Glenville, Arizona. The trip was fun, right up until and through the opening kickoff. After that… there was a lot of “there is always next year”.

Josh and I took our first stab at hitting the slopes, I was terrible, but I think I looked cute.

My first trip to Rome, who knew that we would move back 3 months later? A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome.

Josh also made a trip to Rotterdam to check out the Architecture there, I am glad we moved to Rome instead.

We went to China!

After three years of hard work, I got my Master’s Degree, I feel much smarter in 2008…

We sold everything we owned.

Had a big party.

Josh and the cat moved to Rome.

One last hurrah in NYC before I moved to Europe. Josh sent me to Trapeze school with Kelly for my birthday!

I suppose from here you know the rest of the story, (if not read the blog). I moved to Rome, we made a quick trip back for our football fix (aka Visa issues) to watch the Northwestern game. Since then we’ve been making our way through Italy and Europe trying to see what there is to see.

So, you see, I have came a long way to end up in the place. Which is comforting. No matter how far we travel, I will always be disappointed when the Buckeyes lose, but its good to know you how far you can go in the off season.

Ho Ho Ho!

With the Christmas season approaching and not being in proximity to our friends and family, combined with the warm temperament and lack of snow in the quasi-Mediterranean climate that is Rome, I have had to put some real effort into getting into the holiday sprit this year. I think my hard work is paying off though, a few days before Christmas and I am feeling no less spirit than Mrs. Claus herself.

In fact, last weekend, I was Mrs. Claus for a few short hours. The American Women’s Club that I belong to sponsors a few local orphanages during Christmas; we bought gifts for all of the children and hosted a party at their home. I had volunteered to help work on the project and subsequently got so carried away with my newfound Christmas spirit, that I enlisted Josh’s help as well. I volunteered him to play the role of the good Saint Nick at the party! It took a bit of time before he would believed what I had actually signed him up for, but if you know my good hearted-husband, you know that he wouldn’t have refused anyway, so what is the different if I asked or not!?

We had a fantastic time, when Josh walked in as Santa Claus, or as the Italian tots say, Babbe Natale, the place went nuts, I think he was bigger than Jim Tressel walking into a dorm room on South Campus. He was immediately mobbed, hugged, pulled and kissed! Lots of the usual questions were asked, like where does Santa live, and how does he know their names, etc etc. We did our best to try to answer back in our broken Italian, but the kids didn’t seem to mind too much, if at all, they were just happy that we were there, never mind the gifts and pounds of sugar that we brought. In fact, I think I might seek out more 2 year olds for conversation, I can hang with them, you know. We stuck to the "how old are you" and "I like cookie", I could totally be an Italian toddler.

We had a moment thinking that our cover was blown, when one small boy walked up to Josh and said, “Non sai babbe natale” (You are not Babbe Natale). “No?”, Josh answered. “No”, he replied knowingly, “Parli inglese, sai Santa Clause” (You speak English, you are Santa Claus). What a little wise guy, there is one in every bunch; it might be cute this year, but if he keeps this up, he may be finding a lump of coal in his stocking sometime during his adolescent years.

We left the orphanage with our hearts full and a good feeling, although after further discussion we figured out that “Ho Ho Ho” in Italian, is the first person singular (“I”) form of the verb essere, “to be”, so Josh probably walked around all morning much to the confusion of the Italian kids saying “I am I am I am”! They are still pondering what Santa thought he was. Oh well, if they bought into the awful fake beard he was wearing, they probably didn’t think much about it.

Rest and Refrustration

Last weekend Josh and I headed to Switzerland on a quest for some peace and quite after a whirlwind of a few stressful weeks here in the Eternal (as in eternally hectic) City. Being married to an architect is tricky business or perhaps it is just being married to Josh. Somehow, anywhere we ever travel, we end up trekking somewhere odd to see a building (usually by a dead architect) that, after awhile all seem to look like the other buildings (by dead architects) that I have viewed on previous “vacations”. This trip was no different, however, hugely interesting to me. This time we were going to see a boring old building, but inside it was a thermal spa! I love architecture!

Seeking nirvana and inner peace is a tricky business and to be sure to make our rest well deserved, we decided to take TrenItalia to get to Switzerland. After hours of hard work squinting at train schedules, a few trips back and forth to the train station and lots of waiting patiently for our turn at the ticket counter we thought we had a pretty safe plan of travel. We bought tickets to take the overnight train to Milan on Saturday night, switch trains in Milan early on Sunday morning and continue on a Swiss train to Zurich. From Zurich we would take a local train to Ilans, change to an even more local train to Chur and then hop a bus to Vals…this concocted itinerary itself should have alerted us to trouble. We excitedly left the house on Saturday evening (just before both WVU and Missouri lost to secure our spot in the NC) to catch the 11:00pm train. I had never taken an overnight train before and we decided to splurge for a good nights sleep by buying tickets for the sleeper car. This was my last pleasant memory of our train ride through Italy. When we arrived at our assigned car, instead of a sleeper car, it was a 2nd class coach car, a dirty one at that. Instead of a private little cabin with a bed, there were a series of cramped cabinettes, three seats on wall with three seats facing them. When the car was full, you had to sit up perfectly straight not to knock the knees of the person across from you. Not only was this not what we envisioned, it was a disaster. Most people didn’t have seat reservations and it was already night, so people were wandering around the cars aimlessly trying to find a seat, while others in the darkened cabinettes were stretched across all three seats asleep clutching all of their belongings. Other seedy characters were pacing up and down the corridors eyeing any luggage that wasn’t being looked over or clutched for dear life. Our compartment mates consisted of a Italian man who smelled like beer (and was in fact drinking a beer). A women with a huge suitcase that wouldn’t fit in the overhead shelf, so instead she left in the middle of the already cramped compartment, a pregnant lady and her husband, who did not have seats reserved, but instead bullied their way into the compartment by speaking very quick and terse Italian to the rest of us. They were compartment squatters; ownership is 100 percent of the law in this case.

After taking a look at our tickets, we decided that we must have purchased the wrong tickets from the ticket counter the day before, something must have lost something in translation. After a few passes by the purse snatchers and a burb from the beer guy, Josh decided to try to find the conductor to see if perhaps we could upgrade to a sleeping compartment…there was still hope. After about a half hour of true terror for me, as I sat wide eyed guarding all of our bags, Josh returned with the news. Like a lot of situations in life, there was good news and bad. Good news, there were sleeping compartments available. Bad news, instead of buying an actual seat on the train, we purchased a 6Euro RESERVATION for the seats… we in fact, had no tickets for the train which was now well on its way to Milan. No wonder the tickets were so cheap! After a few bad experiences with Italian train conductors on previous trips we decided to go to the conductor immediately, pay any necessary fines for having boarded a train without a ticket and purchase tickets for a sleeper car. It is now midnight and we load up with 4 heavy bags, my purse and a bag of snacks and sway and swing while walking up about 10 cars to the front of the train where the sleep cars were located. We found the conductor, settled into the sleeper car and went to settle our bill. A lucky break, we found the only nice train staff in Italy and the head Captain was willing to only charge us for the trip to Milan from the last station the train had passed, a pretty significant discount and a heck of a nice thing to do. As Josh was working out the details of the transaction, I chatted with his junior colleague. "So you are married?" he asked, "Yep" I told him, "Five years". "So... when are you having kids?" was his reply. SERIOUSLY? Is it in the middle of the night on a train to nowhere and I am AGAIN (see below post) being interrogated by an Italian man about motherhood!? Just when it looked like sleep would be ours, the total amount for the tickets added up to a bit more than we had in cash. As both of our credit cards were denied Josh and I both were recalling a conversation we had just 3 hours ago in front of the ATM machine at the train station. “Honey, should we get more cash out for the trip”, “No, lets not, I don’t like to carry a whole lot with me on the train”, “yes dear, that is true, lets wait until we get to Switzerland so we can get SwissFrancs instead of Euros”, we’re so smart…

After a series of painful failed attempts both of us, redfaced and barely awake, dug through our wallets hopelessly trying to find enough cash to make it work. Josh found a 50 US dollar bill tucked into the back of his wallet (don’t ask me why, I have no idea) and after some negotiating and figuring of the current exchange rates, it was determined that we had enough cash to buy two seats in a four person sleeper compartment, located 6 more cars up the train. We would have to buy them there though. So we packed ourselves up again and trudged up swinging and swaying to the designated car. Finally, at a little past 1am, the conductor determined that, after all, he could not print a ticket for this and we would have to go back to our seats, some 16 cars back with the pickpockets and drunks. To tired, frustrated and astonished to argue, we took our euros, dollars and newly purchased tickets and walked sadly back to the hell that is the back of the train.

Always the girl scout and ready for anything, I found a sleeping pill in my purse and knocked myself into oblivion, sleeping most uncomfortably on top of suitcases and backpacks in the stench of human filth until we arrived in Milan the next morning at 7am. Relieved to be off the train and breathing fresh air, we headed for our connection to Zurich. This is when the conductor outside the train pointed out that our tickets were for yesterday and therefore were not valid for today. Indeed, upon closer examination, the extremely helpful woman at the ticket counter had sold us tickets for the wrong day. And indeed, in the wonderful system that is the “Italian way”, despite 45 minutes of arguing at the Milan ticket counter, these tickets were not valid and we had to purchase two new tickets to board the next train to Milan. We may be living the Italian way, but our American selves wrote a very strongly worded complaint at the customer relations office! That should show them. Finally after this disastrous night, we arrived in a heavenly place. It is called Switzerland. The trains were clean, the people nice, things ran on time! The conductors instead of being scary and sneering, actually made sure we knew how to make our connections and told us to have a nice day. It was the opposite of everything we have come to know and expect from our adopted mother country. From here the trip was wonderful enough to make up for its ominous beginnings and we ended up having a wonderful time and a relatively uneventful trip home.

The thermal spring of St. Peter is located deep in the Swiss Alps in a tiny little mountain town, Vals. Besides the bottled water facility, and goat farms, the thermal bath seemed to be the main attraction in Vals, a town of about 1000 residents (not counting the goats). Once we arrived, the trip was everything we could ask for and more. The town was a little cluster of chalets at the base of the mountain, the spa was wonderful, both inside and out. My skin is glowing from the mineral water treatments and my mind was soothed by tall glasses of red wine in the piano bar at the adjacent hotel. A snowstorm moved in on our first night and we woke up to a winter wonderland on Monday morning before gorging ourselves on an organic buffet breakfast that would make anyone forget that they were about to spend the day in a bathing suit! It continued to snow throughout the day and Josh and I experienced the wonderful feeling of swimming in the snow. The air was so cold it was breathtaking and the water so hot that you could barely see through the steam, it was in fact, the best architecture experience I have ever had!

I could have stayed the whole winter, if I didn’t prune so easily.

Tacchino!

What is a Thanksgiving Feast without the traditional honored guest bird, the turkey?

With our first guests coming into town, I was determined to make a dinner that grandma would be proud of. The first major obstacle was where to find a turkey. The meat counter here barely has enough turkey to slice for sandwiches, and there is no such thing as a freezer case, so lets just say that the Butterballs aren't lined up here like they are in the states. I was told that I would have to special order one from the butcher. Now, being a culinary novice and in a new town, I wasn't even sure where the butcher was, I knew the vegetable lady and the deli stand guy, but I did not have a butcher, or machellaio, in the Italian Rolodex. Since he seemed to at least dabble in the art of meat, I thought I would start off by asking the deli guy. After explaining why I wanted a whole turkey and not my usual supply of thin sliced turkey breast, he was quiet for a minute or two and then slowly leaned over the counter and said in a low whisper that he knew the butcher of the "presidente della republica"! In fact, this presidential butcher was right in my neighborhood, what luck! I wonder if the president of the republic ever likes a nice whole turkey. I wound through our little neighborhood a few weeks before Thanksgiving to find the special butcher and put my order in for a nice little Tom. Surely there would be other crazy Americans out and about demanding poultry? I found the little shop which I must have walked by a hundred times. I am not sure how I missed the window, as I noticed with a shiver 6 or 7 dead naked birds hanging in the window along with some other parts that looked eerily like they once belonged to something alive. It was certainly the right place for meat.

I had been forewarned about this process by some seasoned expats so I came with my list ready. You cannot simply order a turkey here in Italy. Here is what I ordered: Una tacchino interna, con ossa, e pello, senza testa e pulito, sensze interiora abbastanza per quatro personi. Basically, I had to specify that I wanted a whole turkey, with skin, without feathers, without a head, with the insides cleaned out, and enough of it for four people. I encourage all of you to try to order your turkey like this next year and see how much you look forward to biting into him when the time comes. It is truly a wonder that all Italians are not vegetarians.


With the turkey ordered I moved on to other necessities, I spent a large portion of three days trying to find a can of pumpkin (ironic after the Halloween pumpkin search), cranberry sauce and a potato masher. I wound up with two out of three and still no ideas on where to find a potato masher. By the time our friends Jamie and Wade arrived the day before Thanksgiving, I had an admirable collection of American food stuff. Then, a bit of Italy came seeping back into my red, white and blue day dreams. There was a mix up with the butcher. He was not able to a small turkey. He had a few birds in the creepy window display that were large enough to lead a foul revolution, but certainly too large to fit in my tiny oven. Disappointed and confused at his rapid fire Italian, we compromised and I walked out of the shop with my new Thanksgiving tradition: a Turkey Breast Roast... who eats the dark meat anyway?


In the end we had a wonderful holiday. Jamie and I hit up the local market to buy all of our ingredients fresh on Thanksgiving morning! We ended up with quite a feast. A rughetta, pear, walnut and pomegranate seed salad, fresh bread from the baker, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, asparagus and of course a pumpkin pie... which actually turned out to be more of a pumpkin torte. We still ate it. The best part of Thanksgiving in Italy... the men do the dishes!

Everything's Coming Up Roses!

It has been a truly exciting two weeks! All good things happening here in Rome, except for my lack of blogging. I will attempt to make up for this by posting numerous blogs in one night. Pretend that you read the following a over the past few weeks.

Ohio State beat Michigan which makes all well with the world. We have been showing our pride (and trying to bother the neighbors) by proudly flying our flag. So far, we have received only one comment on it, our neighbor wanted to know which squad it was for and guessed that we were football, as in soccer, fans. Our Michigan fan/guest for the game was very well behaved, as was Josh. There was much peace and harmony to go around. I attribute most of this to Ohio State winning and that Josh and I are probably much better fans than any one who rooted for Michigan could be. Josh showed his graciousness through a floral arrangement.