More Tales of Big Adventure from the Land of the Little People

So last time we discussed the merits of having a pseudo-local tour guide, Oprah solving your problems… or the unlikeliness of that happening, and bacon sandwiches as a diplomatic tactic. We also touched briefly on The Big Freeze and how infinitely amusing this label should be to anyone who has actually experienced the phenomenon more commonly referred to as winter, but also how, paradoxically, the snow that would only allow for, in Montana or Michigan, maybe waking up a few minutes earlier to wipe off the windshield of your car, makes the entirety of this island (including the intrepid Montanans, who might have been a little cocky) stop. Point blank. Well, now we’ve got another basically two weeks to cover in Ireland… and of course, this could get very long if I’m allowed to go off on a tangent. But honestly, the impressions that I got from this trip were so many and varied that the write-up is going to be tangential any way you slice it.

The house in Doolin was not actually in Doolin, but up on what is called The Burren, a huge slab of limestone upon which grow the most beautiful, unlikely flowers… but not in a foot of snow. The Burren was beautiful in the winter weather, and even more beautiful once the seemingly omni-present fog and freezing rain lifted after two days and Lo! there was the ocean, not two miles away. It’s one of those windswept sort of places where you can practically hear the wind whistling even when it’s still, and where, when it is windy, you’ve pretty much got no choice but to hunker down, because there just ain’t nowhere to hide. The house itself was luxurious by my current standards, which consider a shower in which shoes aren’t even necessary as a precaution to be some sort of unthinkable extravagance. It had beds with heating pads, a kitchen, a shower with no shoes necessary and (get ready for this) a microwave, a washer AND a dryer.

I know that those of you who are currently reading this blog in your kitchen (barefoot) making Easy Mac while you wait for your jeans to come out of the dryer won’t appreciate the epic-ness of this, but you must consider something: Europe is an incredibly high-tech place in certain areas, but, at least in Italy, a dryer is something that only the weak (the incredibly wealthy weak) possess and the strong scoff at. A microwave just takes up space on your counter, because you’re not eating anything microwavable, because they don’t sell that short of nonsense in Italy. The point is that these were two appliances that I had not seen in four months. The smell of clothes right out of the dryer is something that everyone should stop to appreciate whenever they come across it. There’s simply nothing like putting on something straight out of the dryer. Respect it. Love it.

Long story short, Doolin was an excellent place from which to explore the west of Ireland. It was nice to have a home base to go back to each night, from Galway, Limerick, the Cliffs of Mohr, Connemara, the Aran Islands… we certainly got a lot done! Go to Galway, if you ever get a chance. It’s a beautiful city, and there’s something there called a Galway Hooker that seemed particularly to pique my brother’s interests. But that’s also where the Clauddagh ring was ostensibly invented, and where there are allegedly a lot of black haired, blue eyed sirens who ask men to dance and then make them travel all over the world. Just get within a three hour radius of Galway and this reference will become clear. Go to the Cliffs of Mohr one, because they’re the freakin’ Cliffs of Mohr, and two, because that’s where they filmed The Cave for The Half Blood Prince. I know. I saw it. I freaked out and tried to get down there. I was restrained. Some people don’t want me to have any fun. Or to join the wizarding community to which I truly belong. Go to Limerick because there’s a really good place from which to watch the sunset, right along the Shannon. There’s a stone block to sit on and everything. Curious? Ask Scott the next time you see him. Go to Connemara because it’ll remind you a little of what the Montana Hi-Line might be like (this in reference to town size and the saltiness of certain local characters) if it were on the sea coast and in possession of any legitimate elevation.

And for Bob’s sake, go to the Aran Islands because I have simply never been to a more bewitchingly magical place in my whole life than Inis Mor. Part of the appeal for me was certainly the remoteness. Looking back on it now, when I’ve been out of Ireland and traveling for about two weeks, it appeals to me even more because I’ve been mostly in cities (this was true when I was in Italy, too), and I’m a girl who grew up under the Big Sky (proper noun), and so am, if not distrustful of big cities, then at least more cautious in them than I am when in small towns. There are just different sets of behavior for each of these places, and I was so happy to just walk around and feel the cold air on my face and look out over spectacular vistas and climb treacherous paths to beautiful things… it felt almost like being back in Montana. Except with ocean. And Dara.

Dara Molloy (yes, another maybe-relative) is a small, neat man, probably in his middle-50s, with a very well-kept white beard and a tam. He carries himself as if he is much taller than he is, looks you straight in the eye when talking to you, and seems to radiate this sense of purpose and serenity that is instantly attractive. It makes you notice him. Or it made me notice him. He was dressed in woolens the day that we met him, and looked very much the weathered islander… until, upon offering to take us on a tour of his adopted homeland (he’s originally from Dublin), he whipped out an iPhone and began speaking in rapid Gaelic to his favorite bus driver, Oliver. I don’t know what caught me more by surprise: the fact that this character out of The Playboy of the Western World should have an iPhone when I do not, or that he spoke Irish so rapidly, so nonchalantly, as if it were nothing at all. Not some huge revelation or great endeavor to safe a dying language, but just business as usual. I was immediately enchanted by the sensory overload that the smells, the sights and the sounds of this little island, and I think I had a goofy grin on my face as I gazed rapturously from one beautiful, historical, cultural site to another all day.

On an island that is 11 miles long and about three miles wide (I think… don’t quote me) at its widest, it is absolutely astounding how many of these historical and cultural sites exist. Beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover the isolation, the desolate limestone criss-crossed everywhere by stone walls, some without gates, which separate one man’s property from another’s, that comprise Inis Mor. For some reason, after days and days of, if not outright cruel, then at least very cloudy weather, the sun burst forth upon the limestone (it’s said geologically that Inis Mor and the other islands were once connected to the Burren), making it hard to look at it, and you could see for what seemed like ever from Dun Aengus, the crowning archaeological glory of the little place, which Dara told us about with professorial while at the same time encouraging us to hang over the ledge (a 300 foot drop) to take pictures. Oops. Sorry, Mom.

We ate lunch at a little café with Dara. We all had Guinness stew, which, after a morning of very cold ferry rides and windy cliff-tops was a very welcome warming sensation indeed. Dara knew everyone in the café and everyone knew him, and they were all speaking Irish to each other. It’s amazing how used you can get, in a little under two weeks, to being in a country where you understand everything again, and so hearing a different language spoken all around you is once again a weird sensation.

When he was speaking English, Dara proved to be a wonderful conversationalist. He’s a fascinating man with an amazing life story (for more on which I’ll direct you to his book, The Globalization of God). Suffice it to say that he retains enough of his ecclesiastical demeanor, even after leaving the priesthood and beginning a family, to make you really want to talk to him. And the encouraging thing is, it felt like he was really listening to what you had to say and recognizing the value in it. Sometimes, with people you’re only just meeting, and especially when you’re much younger than they are, conversation can seem more like the recitation of resumes in order to impress, but Dara gave the impression of really listening with the expectation of getting to know you. It’s no wonder that he works with young people.

I could rhapsodize for another four pages about Inis Mor and Dara and how desperately I want to go back, and the immediate plans to appeal to K to let me do my SIP there… but I’ll shut up. If you really need to hear more about this particular subject, it’ll probably be enough to just say the words Aran Islands when I next see you, and then sit back and enjoy the show.

We took final leave of Sean on Inis Mor, where he was planning to stay and talk more with Dara. I was jealous, but if my plan works the way I want it to, that won’t be the last time I see him. I think that I’m not out of line when I say that this trip was absolutely one of the most memorable of my life, and what made it so awesome were primarily the people that we met. A lot of those connections, including the ones with royalty, the ones that give me an excuse to write the word ‘chieftainess’ and the ones with magical islands with seals and cliffs and history, would not have happened without his willingness to get in touch with people. So, to Sean, from the bottom of my heart: thank you so much for the unforgettable connections. But onward.

Now Sean-less, the Johnson, and Teague and I (creepers on a family vacation) started southward, toward Cork. The entirety of Ireland is really more beautiful than you imagine when you’re sitting around thinking about it, mostly because it’s real. The vistas and the ruins and the sheep are all there, but they are tempered with gas stations and highways and people. And the people are awesome. We visited a town called Cobh, right outside of Cork, which was beautiful and from where the Corbett side of our family seems to have left Ireland on the boats. Well, the name Corbett was more present in the landscape than it had been in any other place we’d been, anyway.

There was one thing along our route which we were anxious to see, simply because it is what it is: the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle. I honestly don’t know why it’s such a big deal (since I still haven’t seen it), but for some reason you’re supposed to go kiss the Blarney Stone if you’re ever even in spitting distance of Ireland, so that’s what we were going to do.

Remember that Big Freeze we were mocking earlier? Well, we were thwarted once again by the Irish weather. The Big Freeze had, at that point (in our Montana opinion, anyway) dissipated beyond the point of legitimate threat. Well, that was not the case in Blarney. It rained, then froze, then rained and froze again before we got to the castle, and as we made our way across the increasingly treacherous parking lot, they closed the castle for fear of law suits. It was probably a good move, but disappointing nonetheless.

We did find Blarney Woolen Mills that day, and spent a few hours frolicking amongst the framed Irish Blessings and Waterford Crystal before heading to Kilkenny and a hostel to spend the night. This being a Sunday night, there wasn’t much open in the way of food. We had to resort to a little (read: kinda sketch) counter place called Uncle Sam’s, with a pizza place next to it. And here, a quite unexpected thing happened.

Some of our party ordered what was purported to be “Real Italian Pizza”. It even had the right names, like funghi and quatro stagione… but when it came, it looked like your average, not-terribly-good American pizza. Round, too much tomato sauce, too many toppings… I don’t know why, but it set me off. I couldn’t stop crying for a good forty minutes. I probably looked like a crazy person. It was probably tasty pizza, but the discrepancy between it and what I know to be possible brought about a wave of Rome-sickness that just about knocked me over. I basically took it easy for the rest of the night after that, grappling with what I’m sure will only become more persistent culture shock when I get properly back into one culture.

The next morning was an infinitely more successful culinary outing. If you’ve never heard of something called The Full Irish… well… here’s how I’ll explain it. Take the Atkins Diet and multiply by four. Add tea, a tomato boiled to within an inch of its life, and a ton of toast, and you’ve basically got the Full Irish. I loved the sausages, the rashers and the white pudding, but couldn’t get past the “blood” part in the blood pudding enough to enjoy it. The fried egg and baked beans further ensured that I am no longer protein deficient, even after four months of basically nothing but pasta.

This was the last day of Maribeth, Scott and Kealey’s trip. I honestly can’t thank my godparents enough for allowing me to hang out with them on this amazing, memorable adventure. I admit to a certain amount of loneliness and homesickness that crops up from time to time throughout this experience, but having them there was enough of a taste of home to make me forget that from time to time and totally immerse myself in the experience. Thanks for everything, godparents! Love ya! (And Kea, you’re an excellent bed partner and Glee DJ. Thanks!)

This is getting stupidly long again, so I’m going to keep you in suspense about the hi-jinks that the boys and I got up to after we were free of adult supervision and at liberty to roam where we pleased. Give me a few days… I’m getting way behind in this thing, mostly because I’m moving from place to place so fast right now, but I’ll try to update as soon as I can!

...Are Potatoes Roots?

I'm a dispossessed Irish princess. But of course, you already knew I was royalty. It's pretty obvious.

This is just one of the many, many incredible things I had confirmed when I finally, after nearly 21 years of waiting, made it back to the land of my mother's fathers. Ireland. And Jaysus, was it an eventful three weeks.

I left Rome with a pit in my stomach, which then evaporated when I got to Florence, but then returned when I went back to Rome and realized that it was the last time I'd be back there until February. It's odd how attached you get. Anywho, after taking a header when rushing to get the Terravision shuttle to Ciampino and subsequently making friends with some Belgians and speaking French and English the entire VERY STRESSFUL bus ride when I didn't think I would make it to the plane on time, only to get there and find out that everything was being delayed because the Europeans are pansies and won't fly in little snow flurries. So, I didn't get to Dublin until about 2 in the morning. If you're ever in an Italian airport and they're threatening not to let you fly out until the next morning if you don't get off the ground by midnight and it's quarter 'til, make sure you're on a plane full of Irishmen. They're not shy about yelling if it gets the doors closed faster. What an adventure.

Got to Dublin, saw this guy walking along beside the taxi as it pulled up to the gates of Trinity College... pretty standard-looking Irish guy with a tam on, hands in his pockets... it was Ryan. The first thing that I noticed when I got to Ireland (besides the obvious point that people were once again speaking a language I understand, with much better accents than you generally find in Michigan or Montana, however) was that I looked like everyone else. This was an incredibly disorienting thing, after four months among the swarthy, slender Italians... I don't look like them, as much as I tried to pose. But I got to Dublin, and there are pasty, blue-eyed, dark-haired, big-boned people all over the place. It's no wonder I thought Ryan was just a random Irish creeper as he walked along next to the cab... we do look incredibly Irish.

It was so awesome to see Corbin and Ryan. It honestly didn't seem weird at all that we should be hanging out in Dublin. I know I've said it before, but that's been one of the strangest things about this whole Euro-adventure: I really do feel like it's not that big a deal that I'm here. Well, I oscilate between being abnormally, hyper-aware of where I am and the implications thereof, and living life with the nonchalance of one who really wants the whole world to be her oyster. The point is: it felt very natural to be there with them.

Maribeth, Scott and Kealey arrived the next day, and we all set out to explore Dublin. I cannot stress enough how beneficial it is to see a city for the first time with someone who really knows it. It may sound weird to say, but sometimes I think it's better not to do it the first time with a local/native, but someone who has recently moved there. Corbin knew all the cool local spots (MacTurcal's Pub, for instance, and a magical substance called Purple Rain...), but he was also aware of the fact that, with only a few days in a place, you kinda do need to do the tourist stuff. That's why it's tourist stuff, right? Because you're only there for a little while. My point is: Corbin was still excited enough about showing us around this city he's been discovering that he was full of information, but he knew enough about it to weed out the unnecessary, too. I feel like I was effective at doing this when people visited me in Rome, and seeing Corb in action makes me think it must be a study-abroad thing.

Dublin is so different from other cities in Europe. It feels a lot smaller than most, for one, and that's probably because it is. But it's also a completely different fusion of the old and the new than you find in cities like Rome, where the old is omni-present and totally its own thing, or like Paris, where the old has been given a spit-and-polish and made to look classy and completely up-to-date. Dublin wants you to know that it's been around for awhile, but not in an in-your-face kind of way. It's more matter-of-fact about its history, and focuses particularly on its Irish-ness. The most notable element of this is the bi-lingual signs. I don't speak a lick of Irish, but it was still fun to see the two different languages on basically every sign. It's an encouraging sign that, even in our increasingly globalized world, we're not forgetting the importance of preserving our heritages.

It was wonderful to spend Christmas with the Johnsons. I was sad that my family couldn't be there, but honestly, Maribeth and Scott have been like other parents to me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I don't remember a time when Ryan and Corbin and Kealey weren't like other siblings that I fought with less. So, if I couldn't have my own parents and siblings come for Christmas, I couldn't have asked for anything closer. We spent Christmas in a little cottage south of Dublin, near a town called Wicklow. It was fun, once we got it warmed up, and we went hiking on Christmas Day in the Wicklow Mountains. While we were up there, it started snowing. Now, for a girl who has spent pretty respectable portions of her life wishing she lived in Narnia and went to school at Hogwarts, the aesthetic was nothing short of perfect. The consequence that we were all soaking wet at the end of the day (eastern Irish snow has little staying power, and tends to turn into slush mid-air. The west is a different story). Corbin knew a lot about the area, and we got to visit an old monastic city that has been preserved. It was so cool to see this reminder of all the things that have gone on on this tiny little island.

The Irish are big on heritage. That's awesome, because post-colonialist diaspora is alive and well all over the world, and I, though from an extremely well-assimilated family who are American, have had my moments of really wanting a solid grounding in where we come from, more than just the hazy idea of Ireland.

Well, all the grounding I could ever want was brought home with all the force of a frying pan full of rashers to the face on basically one day. My cousin, Sean, who is the oldest of our generation of the Molloy family, has some pretty incredible contacts that we got to take full advantage of while in Ireland. Remember what I said about that princess thing? Well, there's a castle in Birr, which is in County Offaly, which is basically in the middle of Ireland. This is O'Molloy Country. It's also, problematically, O'Carroll country. Apparently the two clans were cousins, and, being family, decided that there was no better way to spend the time before the invention of Scrabble than to feud. And not the kind with Al from Home Improvement, either. Apparently, this is the kind that gets so destructive that the English can just get right on in there and steal your castle. The thieves (not really... it's just selective memory. They're wonderful people) in question are the Earls of Roth, and yes, that's Earl, like royalty. Not Earl like My Name Is.

We (including by this point Sean, who flew in from China, and Teague, my barely younger brother) stayed a night in the Bothy, which is apparently Irish for enchanted cottage in the middle of a ridiculous woodland park. The next morning we walked up to the castle through this beautiful park, and all the while I oscilated between noting good, defensive points for when we put the castle under seige and drive the intruders of 400 years out and composing my letter to Oprah, appealing to her love of helping homeless people get their homes back... or something to that effect. Dear Oprah, I'm an upper-middle-class, liberal-arts-educated white girl with an extremely supportive family and a Golden Retriever. Can you help me get my family's castle back from the people who have owned it for almost four centuries? ... yeah. That'd go over really well.

And the thing is, we didn't end up needing to storm the castle by force. The Earl and Countess (!) let us right in, gave us tea and the grand tour of their home. This included (I shit you not) three different secret passageways, a portrait of Anne Boleyn (they're related. Distantly, but still...) and a letter from a guy named Phelam Molloy (that's an ancestor, folks) dated 1645 or some ridiculous date. It all didn't seem quite real, even while the Earl was leading us around and showing us, white-gloved, this incredibly old parchment with my middle name written on it in this incredible old calligraphy. They were really the most wonderful people, and I can't begin to express how much that experience meant to me.

But Sean hadn't finished digging up the family tree yet. Not even close. We next made our way to Tullamore, which is the home, for you whiskey fans, of something called Tullamore Dew. I, who had never tried whiskey before this day, was fairly ambivalent about the whole thing. But I have to say that it was cool that a Molloy was the original owner of the distillery, and that I now know how both Guinness and Tullamore Dew whiskey are made. It makes me feel cool. What did not make me feel cool about this visit was the tasting at the end. Though the woman who gave us the tour was originally from Michigan and her neice is the student body president at Teague's school (the little dolls from that horrible Disney attraction seem to be following me around, singing their horrible song at every opportunity), the drinks she gave us made me gag. That's because all of them were whiskey, and despite my hard-bitten, lusty Irish lass exterior, I am a total weenie when it comes to whiskey. I'm glad that I tried it that day, and I'm fairly certain it was a once in a lifetime thing in more than one way.

We continued on, stopping a little while later at the house of, get ready for this, our clan cheiftainess. Yeah. We have a cheiftainess. Her name is Frances. And she gave us bacon sandwiches and tea, forever endearing her to me. It was incredibly surreal to be sitting here in this woman's, who I don't know from Eve, house, and her telling me that I look like a Molloy. Like, there's just nothing cooler than that. She announced to her daughter, when she called, that there were eight of her cousins from Montana there at the house. Hahaha... I love how far-reaching family can go, when you have the right mindset. Frances's mindset certainly made me want to get to know her better, and hopefully return the hospitality she showed us (bacon!) when she can make it to Montana.

This all happened in one day. You must remember that. We basically went on a whirlwind tour of our family origins in the space of about 15 hours. If I had any diasporic inclinations before this trip, they've certainly been quieted now. That night was the beginning of what the Irish call "The Big Freeze", which those of you who have ever experienced a Montana or a Michigan winter will find very funny. There was quite a bit of snow on the mountain passes, and I use both the words "mountain" and "snow" ironically, but the irony was lost on the tires of both our vehicles. Apparently gravity and what the Irish call snow tires do not mix, so we took the long way round (after about an hour of fruitless pushing... thanks, Volvo) to Doolin, where our home was to be for basically the rest of the stay.

Since this post is getting extremely long, I will stop there for now. Stay tuned for tales of Doolin, Galway, Lisdoonvarna, Kilkenny, more Dublin and Belfast, as well as later stories about London, Stockholm, Oslo and the other crazy places I'm currently exploring!

I'm Falling in Love with Il Magnifico

Florence is the center of the world. Perhaps, geographically, this pronouncement is a little suspect, but art historically, at least in the Western tradition, it is the Gospel truth. It's been about a month since I was there, and I've been galivanting around Ireland with my family since (more on that later), but the experience was a pilgrimage not soon to be forgotten.

I made it to Florence from Rome in the middle of the day on Saturday, after a morning of frantically cleaning the apartment with Kelcie after our slovenly roommates left, leaving a fridge full of rotting food and full garbage cans in their wake. So, good riddance to them... I'm never going to see them again, so I don't feel bad for saying that the experience of living with them was one I am glad is over. But that's beside the point. I got to Florence, found my hostel after a little walking up and down the same street over and over before finally noticing the sign, and set out to explore the city in the late afternoon.

Ever had one of those moments where you know, categorically, that you've never been somewhere, and yet you know exactly where you're going? I guess, in this case, it's not a spooky reincarnation thing so much as a "I've basically studied this city exclusively for the last three years of my life... lots of maps involved in that" thing. But it was still a little unnerving to have the layout of a place so firmly lodged in my brain, while the on-the-ground scene was totally new.

Walking around, I was shocked by how close together everything is. Yes, that's what you hear about Florence all the time, but they also say that Rome is a very walkable city, which it is, but my hostel was literally a street away from San Lorenzo, which is a street away from the Duomo, which is only about 5 minutes from the Palazzo Vecchio, which in turn is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the Ponte Vecchio and the River Arno. You could hold your breath and walk from one famous, world-alteringly influential building/sculpture/site to another one and not even get woozy. I tried. Involuntarily, of course, because when I am confronted with things like that... which is basically the whole city of Florence, I tend to stop breathing.

I could go on rapturously about how much I loved Florence and how cool it was to see everything I've been looking at continuously for three years, but I won't. It was a lot more matter-of-fact than that. It wasn't like the first couple days in Rome, when I was wandering around, lost as the writing staff of Lost, and things like the Pantheon would just pop out at me from nowhere. The element of surprise was missing in Florence, because I know how everything in that city fits together, and where all of it is in relation to the surrounding areas.

And that was very exciting in its own right, actually. Because who doesn't like to realize that they actually do, when they're education is put into practice, know something? Sure, my education often seems sort of limited to the confines of once city, but I'm secure in that, too. Because the one city my education has equipped me very well to know things about and be able to share that knowledge is not Cut Bank, Montana. Nothing wrong with Cut Bank, you understand, but if I only knew stuff about Cut Bank, I would know decidedly less.

Florence is the cradle of the modern Western artistic aesthetic. It's the reason why a lot of Western people look at a very skillfully rendered Chinese silk-screen and not be as impressed as they are by Leonardo's Last Supper, because of the lack of Brunelleschian perspective. Sure, you can make the argument that it was the Greeks during the Golden Age of Athens who really developed the perception of conventional beauty that is still widely acknowledged, but it was the citizens of Florence (the Ninja Turtles in particular) who solidified the representational, perspectival ideal into a subconcious way of seeing that influences the way we judge all art, right up until today. They messed with our collective mind so effectively that we don't even realize, when looking at art, that we're being messed with.

And when you're walking around Florence, contemplating how this tiny little city changed the entire world, and probably gave rise to your discipline of study, you can't help but ask who is responsible. I am prone to put the blame to the Arno, since basically all of the influential players in the Renaissance (politically, literarily and artistically) came from Florence. There has to be something in the water. Galileo, Machiavelli, Dante, Donatello, Giotto, Brunneleschi, Michelangelo, Alberti, Leonardo... all of these guys were hanging out in Florence.

But if you look deeper... or maybe just more pragmatically, it's pretty clear that the Arno isn't to blame here. It's pretty, yeah. But not sentient, as far as I'm aware. There was just a very welcoming environment for innovation in Florence that allowed all these men, over the course of some years, to become what we remember them as: geniuses who changed the way we see the world. There was a particular burst of creativity and innovation at one point toward the end of the 15th century, and the blame for what we now know as the Renaissance can fall squarely on the shoulders of one man: Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" of the Medici.

With a nickname like "The Magnificent", you know this guy had to be good. He patronized Leonardo and his family fostered Michelangelo from childhood. He promoted humanism and scientific inquiry during a time when a lot of people were still rubbing bird poop into their skin to get rid of acne. He believed in the power of the human mind and free thought. He decided that it was good to be feared, great to be loved, and pretty awesome to be both. He's "The Prince".

The Florentines, up to this day, really enjoy Il Magnifico, but discreetly. He is, after all, the one who made them FLORENCE and basically invented their tourist industry. There are statues of him in a few select, highly prestigious places, but for the most part, he's part of the ether. The fact that Florentine is the language that was adopted as official upon the unification of Italy, the fact that they own more than 50% of the world's recognized artworks, and the fact that people like me will pay lots of moola to go to the Uffizi and bask in the glory of Bottecelli, del Sarto, Leonardo et al. make him the reason that Florence achieved the vaunted status it has.

So the next time you're giggling at a Dress-Me-Up-David magnet or staring at the stars with the surety that they are, in fact, stars and not fireflies stuck up in that big bluish-black thing or describing some exacting professor as being Machiavellian... thank Lorenzo. He's the man.

The End/Beginning

I am currently sitting in my apartment, with a pit in my stomach as big as the cliche about having a pit in your stomach.

Our very annoying collection of all the wine and booze bottles accumulated throughout the semester is gone, leaving the kitchen table looking naked and forlorn (and yet the dishes are STILL not done... hmm). My backpack and the suitcase I'm leaving here in Rome are mostly packed, due to my neurotic obsession with preparedness that leaves me without clothes for sometimes weeks, but this time only a few days, and they're sitting in my room, which is now devoid of any personal touches it might have accumulated during our time here. I finished my last final this morning, walked out of the garden at AUR and down the stairs to my house. It's a beautiful, sunny, sky-blue day, and Rome is no longer my home.

They call Rome 'The Eternal City'. While some places have names that are complete non-sequiteurs (read: The Big Apple, The Garden State, The Big Easy (ask FEMA about this last one)), Rome's is completely, 100% accurate. Not only has it been here forever, but it feels like it's going to be here for longer than that. Once you're here, you feel like you've always been. Once you start living your life surrounded by all the history of the world incorporated matter-of-factly into your everyday life, you start to feel as though nothing ever ends. Nothing really ever does. At least here.

Yes, I know that sounds a little melodramatic, but it hit me with all the force of the buses that I've gotten so adept at avoiding while J-walking... I don't live here anymore. Yeah, we have two days left until we're kicked out of our house, but those two days are going to be filled with cleaning, goodbyes, packing, goodbyes, and finally, leaving for real.

There's still a weird veil between me and realizing that I'm leaving and, after this European jaunt of mine is over, I don't have a clear idea of when I'll be back. I've become so completely at home here that most days it doesn't even cross my mind that it's only been a temporary thing. And yes, there have been some very annoying, even negative things about being here, but those things have just served as normalizing factors making life seem completely natural and ordinary. I had no idea at the beginning of this adventure that I would fall so hard and fast for this city, but it's taken me even more by surprise that, even after the honeymoon decisively ended, I'm still in love. And it's hard to have a long-distance relationship with a city.

My thoughts right now are all over the place, but I want to write some of them down, so we're going with list form:

Why I Love Rome:

*My inability to explain why I love Rome. I just literally sat here for five minutes thinking about how to start this list. I think the fact that I can't quantify the reasons should just be an indication of how important this city has become for me, and how very integrated into it I feel. It's an aura more than any number of things that I enjoy. Rome's personality and mine just match really well, I think. I'm a big-picture person who sees the big picture in the details.

It's a little counter-intuitive, maybe, but looking at the color blue in the Virgin's robe in a Venetian versus a Florentine painting will tell you entire volumes about trade and commerce in the Italian city-states during the Renaissance. The shift of a villa from the center of the property to one end smacks of the uncertainty and imbalance brought about by the Reformation and the Sack of Rome that changed the Renaissance into the Baroque. The palle in the Medici coat of arms run through the political unrest of Florence in the 1490s and all the way back to the saints Cosimo and Damian who the family claimed as their ancestors and who gave legitimacy to the power of Il Magnifico, who basically made the Renaissance possible. The little things are the big things.

Rome is like that, too. Everything means something else. The Palazzo Venezia built by the Venetian ambassador in the mid-1400s has a balcony from which Mussolini appeared to the people of Italy, and it now hold the art history branch of the Italian National Library. The ridiculously busy bus stop that is a hub for basically anywhere else in Centro is also the Flavian Amphitheatre... that's the Colosseum for the uninitiated. The beautiful little church where I've taken every visitor I've had here to see the spectacular view of my city is also the place where St. Peter was ostensibly crucified and sits at the top of the steep, winding stairs that lead down to my street. Everything is something else, but it's all connected into this living, breathing city that is still, even after all these centuries of shift and calamity and restored peace, the center of the world. At least as far as I'm concerned.

I wrote before I left Montana that I'd never encountered a place that could make you feel so small and yet so important at the same time. Now, I have. Having grown up in my beloved home state is probably the reason I feel such an affinity for this place. It's not necessarilly big in the same wonderful, natural gradiosity that I grew up with, but big things have happened here, big things that made the world. It's hard not to be surrounded by the achievements of all the singular men and women who changed the world over and over, for good or for ill, and not think that, no matter how big the world is, it's small groups and single people who change it. It's hard not to feel like great things are possible. That's particularly empowering when you're 20 years old and trying to figure out where you're going to take your life.

I love Rome because of the things that have happened here that infest the place like a constant fog of larger meaning. In every corner of town, there's been some decision made and acted upon that rocked the world, for entire populations or for only a few, but that sense of purpose remains the same. I love Rome because being here makes me feel like my aspirations and goals are entirely possible, because they're much more modest than the incredible things that have been done in the world before I showed up. I love Rome because it is Rome and I am me, and we understand each other perfectly.

Things I'm Going To Miss:

*Pizza: It's just pizza, right? I mean, of course, it's not even comprable to the fried bread and two pounds of cheese we eat back in the States, and I'm going to be in Italy again before I leave the Continent for good, so it shouldn't be that big a deal to not have regular access to pizza. Well, since pizza is basically the go-to takeout food around here, it's become rather a staple of my week to bop over to Simone's after my early class lets out at noon and get some funghi e mozzarella. It's just like going to the caf for lunch, except way more delicious and I'm allowed to take food out of the store without being chased by Eyebrows. And yes, I can get pizza that's good other places in Europe, and even some in the States, but Roman pizza is a completely unique thing that is a lot more suited to my tastes than the heavy stuff we eat in the States or the paper-thin, charred nonsense that the Neopolitans claim is the real deal. I'm like the Goldilocks of pizza, and my two places in Rome have gotten it just right.

*Water Fountains: The novelty wore off after a little while, and they became situation normal. I'm trying to forsee how problematic it's going to be for me when I go to places where they make you pay for water. It's not going to be pretty. I might die of dehydration.

*ATAC: The public transit system in Rome. So easy, so omnipresent, so necessary to my life. I've become a huge believer that public transit can be effective and easy, and it can be convenient. We don't all have to be martyrs for the green cause... if every city had a slick system like Rome's, we'd ride the buses and trams completely selfishly without even a thought for the good of the planet. But that's a plus, too.

*The sky: I'm from Big Sky Country. Michigan is hard for me in this respect. You can't see a whole lot of the sky through the trees, and it feels clausterphobic a lot of the time. Also, for a large portion of the year that I spend there, it's grey. And cloudy. Rome has this incredible blue blue sky and the lay of the land reminds me a lot of Missoula or Helena or one of the other more picture-esque towns in Montana. That's been really comforting when I've been homesick. And now, I'm headed north, where it seems that there is no big, open bright blue sky, and so the fact that I'm leaving Rome for a sojurn in a place with a sky much like Michigan's, only to go back to the States and the wonderful sky of Montana seems eerily full-circle.

...I've spent a long time writing this post. And this encompasses only a small, small part of what my experiences here have meant to me. For more, I obviously refer you back to the rest of this blog, or you could just wait til I see you again and bore you silly with the details. It's your decision.

I'm off to Florence in literally a few hours. Remember those posts at the beginning of this blog, where I gush like a thirteen year old at a JoBros concert? Lather, Rinse, Repeat. It is literally going to be a shambles. I'm happy that I get to experience it the first time on my own, because I think any friendship that I had with any travelling companion would be ruined as they desperately tried to escape my dramatic hyperventilating. Much better that no one sees this.

Internets, as many of you are well aware, don't grow on trees. This meaning that my posts might be fewer and further between on this next part of my adventure, but keep checking! I promise I will update as often as is humanly possible, for my own sake more than for yours, but you can pretend you're really that interested if the mood strikes.

Thank you, Rome, for everything you've taught me. I don't know precisely when I'm coming back, but you haven't seen the last of me. So... until next time... ci vediamo!

La Bella Figura

Perhaps this is a foreign concept to you, perhaps it's not. 'La Bella Figura' is one of the most interesting facets of Italian culture that I've witnessed and yes, also attempted to adopt into my own life. It's really presented me with an interesting conundrum, but not a new one. Women for millenia have struggled with the same question, from the first woman who decided that wearing mastadon fir could be a fashion statement as well as a survival essential to those idiots in Victorian England who squished their organs into porridge trying to cut themselves in half with corsets to basically the entire state of California and the resulting thriving plastic surgery industry. The question: are looks really that important?

The answer: DUH! Seriously, in our society, one of the only ways women manage to make a blip on what is taught as history is through fashion. But this is not the place to get into that, so I won't. The point is: of COURSE looks are important. We'd all dress like Midwesterners if they weren't. Just kidding, Michigan!

For the Italians, though, appearances aren't just important. No, they're essential. To keep them up is basically the reason we exist. Now, that might be hyperbolizing just a tad, but think about it. What do you immediately think of when you think of Italy? You think of art, certainly, right? Is there anything more beautiful or pleasant to look at than a good piece of art? Right. There's not. And the Italians have been raised on this stuff. There's beautiful art literally sitting in the middle of piazzas here. You can close your eyes, spin around three times and walk in some random direction, and guaranteed, within ten steps you'll have hit something aesthetically pleasing and historically important. Trust me, I've tried this.

So the Italians have this desire to make basically everything as aesthetically pleasing as possible. It's in their blood. If they're serving you pig intestines (as they're wont to do in Rome, so you have to be careful), they're calling it trippa with their stupid, musical R sound that foreigners just can't do and serving it to you with such rustic elegance and simplicity that you'll forget what its function was just a few days ago. If you're walking through the supermercata pulling a jar of Nutella here, a box of pasta there, you can just bet that there's some girl who is dressed to the nines like no Meijer employee you've ever seen coming around after you and straightening the lines on the shelves again. People make a big show of interacting with everyone else with a confidence that often comes off as downright bitchy. The thing is, though: the Italians treat everyday life as though it were an opera. Emotions are meant to be felt strongly and articulated with the complete confidence that one is in the right. Think Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird mixed with the most enthusiastic orchestra conductor you've ever seen. That's basically la bella figura.

Conclusion: it's an attitude much more than it's a tangible style. Though that's certainly part of it. The Italians aren't as palpably judgy as I hear the French are on this subject (I made sure to bring only my trendy Euro-clothes with me to Paris, so as to avoid that sniff of disapproval), I think they take it more as a matter of course that you're going to want to look your best to take out the garbage or run to the store. They give you the benefit of the doubt, which means, of course, that if you don't, you're going to just look really dumb next to everyone else who DID make the effort this morning. Way to go, you silly americana.

Here's how la bella figura functions in everyday life, at least for me: you wake up, wash your face and brush the teeth, put on enough make-up to make yourself look put-together and, well, made-up, run your fingers through the wild tangle of curls that I had the remarkable foresight to procure before coming here, without even knowing how in moda that was, put on your clothes, which are, of course, colorful or accented by some interesting jewelry or pashmina, apply chap-stick to make your lips look softer and shinier without being too obvious that you thought about making your lips look softer and shinier, put some girl-power music on the iPod and walk out of your apartment like you own the world. That was a long sentence. It takes a lot less time in real life, since you get used to it pretty darn quick.

Fashion is very important in Italy. Maybe you've heard of Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna, Fendi... but most people aren't walking around looking like those ridiculous runway models. Nope. They're walking around looking ridiculous without any help from the runways, since for the Italians, style often means looking like you got dressed in the dark. At least color-wise. This is a phenomenon in which the Italians wear these really odd color combos (like... mustard and terra cotta orange and navy) and still manage to rock it. If I tried this, I'd be laughed off the continent. If they're not playing color-roulette, the Italians are wearing violet/plum, which, in case you're one of those poor souls who doesn't live in continental Europe (sarcasm here), is The Color. It's everywhere. Try to find a store that doesn't have an entire purple section. You can't. Which is nice, since I like the color, and it's an easy way to look like you know what you're doing.

Americans would tend to think, with all this emphasis on how you present yourself, that there would be a huge consumer culture here. Well, if there is, it's the tourists who are doing all the consuming. Romans (I don't know if I can speak for the rest of Italia, since the country is so localized in culture, but I think this is pretty much the same everywhere) do not spend a lot of money on clothing. They buy a few really basic, good-quality items and then supplement their wardrobes with trendy pieces that make them look completely with it.

The concept of 'shopping' as we understand it doesn't exist here, unless you're in the UCB right by the Trevi fountain... which is, I venture a guess, more like being in a mall in Novi on Black Friday than in Rome. This is because the Italians go into stores knowing what they need to be in style. They buy that thing. And they leave. There's not a whole lot of dithering about if it's useful or will I wear it or all the other nonsense that's part of shopping culture in the States, because they know it's going to be useful, and of course they're going to wear it... that's why they're buying it.

Is this a healthy way to look at things? That's an extremely complicated question. On the one hand, it's nice that the Italians aren't so hung up on consuming for the sake of consumption. Their take on fashion is more measured, less hysterical and fetishized, than it's become in the States. On the other hand, the reason it's more measured and deliberate is because there's basically only one style, with little variation, to which everyone conforms. On the street, no one looks exactly the same, but you'll begin to notice a pattern as to what constitutes la moda.

Basically, you conform or... that's really it. You conform. There's not a whole lot of variety, and people know what they want to buy only because they buy what they need to look like everyone else. Now, on the whole, they come off as pretty wacky-looking if you're not used to the colors and the big hair and the bigger attitude, but it's all the same kind of wacky. Is this a problem? Really, it depends on what your biggest hang-up is. Is individuality more important than responsible consumerism? Or is it more important to guard against becoming one of those horrible mall-girl cliches maxing out Daddy's credit card than to guard against becoming an unthinking fashion sheep in a purple puffy coat. That's hyperbolizing a bit, but you get my point.

I don't actually mind either way, since me trying to fit in here is like trying to teach cats to walk in a parade; it's ineffectual and dumb. I'm an americana, and in spite of my big hair and newly developed strut, I still look like a foreigner. I might not look like an AMERICAN, precisely, but I think I've become some sort of weird amalgamation of Montanan functionality (my horribly ugly tire-shoes) and Italian flair (that look-at-me-aren't-I-fabulous walk that still makes me laugh at myself every time I catch me doing it), with a little bit of Michigan college-girl and wannabe fashionable person thrown in for good measure. It's weird. It confused the hell out of the French. I've definitely noticed it as it's developed. And I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not.

La bella figura is incredibly interesting. It's incredibly problematic from a feminist perspective. It's incredibly hard to explain if you haven't experienced it for yourself. And it's also incredibly necessary for living here. I didn't come to Italy fooling myself that any person anywhere would mistake me for Italian, and nevertheless I'm sure I'm going to go home with some wacky colored clothing that will be totally out of place in the States, hair like I stuck my tongue in an electrical socket, too much makeup for a college girl, and a walk that might be appropriate for some girl on America's Next Top Model who doesn't make the top 25. Thanks, la bella figura. Thanks a lot.

A Pseudo-Italian American Who the French Think Is Irish In Paris

There have been writers throughout the ages who can describe Paris a lot better than I can. Indeed, many of those who I'm thinking of loved the city so much that they were buried there, such is the allure of the place. There's a magic kind of energy in the air that immediately brings to mind the elegance, the grandeur and the creative vibes that have made the city a hot-spot for the great and the stylish since God was a boy. These great and stylish legends whose names will always be linked with the City of Lights could give the city its due much more articulately than I will be able to, but here it goes anyway.

We, meaning Christine, Casey, Michelle and I, went to Paris for the weekend. We needed a break from Rome (shock!) and the schoolwork that being here implies right now, and where better place to take a break than the city that invented joie de vivre? We could think of nowhere.

Christine and I left from Ciampino very early Thursday morning, and man oh man, what a way to start the trip. I was packed and ready the night before, with my clothes laid out fireman-style on the off chance that my traveling neurosis would fall through and I would actually get a wink of sleep. Well... you shouldn't tempt fate. I awoke to my phone ringing at 4.15 am... I was supposed to wake up at 4. Now, 15 minutes might not seem like a big deal, but when you're me, and you have my luck with travel, every second is crucial. So I saw the time on my phone after I accidentally hung up on Christine the first time and shot out of bed with an adrenaline rush that pretty much lasted the rest of the weekend. When she called back I yelled into the phone in a shaky, panicky voice that my alarm hadn't gone off while at the same time trying to hook my bra and pull on my leggings... humans need more hands.

So I probably looked like a crazy person as I flew out of the apartment building, with my coat half on, socks hanging out of the pockets, hair like Albert Einstein on his worst day, my leggings basically around my knees and my eyes still bleary from sleep. I sprinted the two blocks to the bus stop (it was important that I get THE NEXT BUS because they only come about every half an hour until 5.30) waving my arms and screaming as I watched it leaving the stop. And then I did something very stupid. I ran out in front of the bus and stood there to make it stop. This could have ended very badly, as I'm sure you can imagine, in a city renowned for its favorite pass-time of pedestrian bowling. But the driver stopped, opened the door, and thoroughly cussed me out for about half the ride to Termini. I deserved it, but I also didn't care too much. About 15 minutes after I was awakened, therefore, I was at the train station. This has to be some kind of record. Could someone research that? Thanks.

And then, as I sprinted once again off the bus to get the OTHER bus to Ciampino (the last one until after our plane took off), I realized that I had neglected to find Christine. Well, we tried the phone thing, but apparently I don't even speak English that early in the morning, because she didn't seem to be understanding my directions. We ended up playing a rousing game of parking-lot Marco Polo, during which I spent about two minutes screaming CHRISTINE! CHRISTINE! at a very confused woman who was, in fact, not Christine, but just hoping to get her commute over with... but we eventually found each other, and did some more dramatic running to catch the bus. We caught it. We got the plane. All was right with the world. On to Paris!

Beauvais airport is around 70 km from Paris. This is not ideal. But I'll be damned if Ryanair isn't still the best thing in the world, so I was willing to make some sacrifices. We got another shuttle bus and spent the lovely hour and a half ride to Porte Maillot looking out the windows of the bus and discussing the differences we saw. Difference number one: no palm trees. Now, I know this might seem shocking to you North Americans, but palm trees don't only grow in Hawaii. They are a common (though transplanted) part of Italian scenery. Not so northern France. However... I don't think I like anything more than I like the fun balls of mistletoe hanging in the oak trees. So, you trade one novelty for another. Difference number two: not really a difference so much as a Maggie-Freaks-Out moment. We saw a Buffalo Grill on our way into Paris. This doesn't mean a damn thing to most of you, but that was the first meal I ever had in France. It's this horribly kitchy cowboy place where they serve you hamburgers sans buns and really awful fake ketchup while you're sitting on a wooden bench staring at a Charlie Russell print on the wall. Yup. A little taste of what the rest of the world thinks Montana is like. Oh what fun.

But we got to Port Maillot and walked basically the length of Paris, from behind the Arc de Triomphe (by La Defense) to our hostel, which was in the East Latin Quarter (past Ile de la Cite) in Rue Mouffetard. This, my friends, is a trek. And this assessment is coming from me, the girl who doesn't really use public transportation at all, preferring to rely on her feet. But we got to the hostel in the end, but not before I had to ask several people where we were going. You know what rocks? Being able to ask people where you're going. I had forgotten just how amazing it is to communicate in a language you both speak and understand. Thanks, Mom! I basically spent the weekend starting conversations with random, very confused strangers for the simple pleasure of speaking to them. So, the French think I'm insane now. Check.

(Also, since I was speaking with such confidence and more ability than I think they're used to expecting, they couldn't seem to figure me out. I think the French really like to pigeon-hole foreigners, and they just couldn't get me. I think Italy must have changed me more perceptibly than I realize, because they didn't once guess American. I guess I dress and carry myself more like a European now. I said 'ciao' to one guy, and he gave me a funny look and asked me in French where in Italy I was from. I said Rome. He seemed satisfied. Most of the others (and there were quite a few) who asked me where I was from guessed Ireland before I could answer. That was fun. I would like to think that my ethnic heritage is that evident. The Irish people I know are awesome. It was also nice that they couldn't peg me as being from the States right away. I'm proud to be an American, but there's something to be said for being a citizen of the world.)

The hostel was called (please try not to vomit...) Young & Happy. Yeah. Ick. But it looked nice enough for how cheap it was, and Rue Mouffetard is perhaps one of the coolest little streets I've ever seen. THAT is what the Latin Quarter is supposed to look like. Christine and I spent the rest of the day wandering around (Michelle and Casey weren't supposed to be in until late that night) from the Jardins des Plantes to Notre Dame to Place de la Concorde to the Eiffel Tower to watch the light show. Yeah. The Eiffel Tower has developed this charming little habit of turning into the Vegas strip every hour on the hour. It's not classy, but most of the tourists (excluding yours truly) seem to eat it up. By the end of this day we were both about ready to die from the sheer amount of walking I had put us through, and Christine was sort of walking like an old woman due to her hip joints randomly popping in and out. So we took the Metro back to the hostel.

I love the Metro. It's so easy to navigate and it always feels like such an accomplishment when you can successfully figure out a route from where you are to where you want to be... I really enjoy the problem-solvingness of the whole thing. Also, musicians ride up and down the lines with everything from the old standby, the accordion, to the more innovative traveling jazz band, complete with their own amp, which is transported by dolly. And not the kind that little girls are given as a tool of gender conditioning. Although that would probably be more interesting to move an amp with. I digress.

The hostel, despite its initial appearances, was actually kinda sketch. But hell, it was a hostel, not the Ritz Carlton. But there were some particuarly special little quirks that made the three nights we spent there a heck of a time.

1) Never underestimate the awesomeness of clean bathrooms. It's very hard to effectively execute "the hover" while at the same time trying not to touch anything that is not necessary, and never with your bare hands, and trying not to let any of your stuff touch anything lest you contract some strange strain of alcohol-resistant-obnoxiously-loud-venereal disease. I think this is actually a real thing. I can't fathom how else many North American hostel-using kids exist. They must have contracted this. Tell your friends. Spread the awareness. Knowledge is power.

2) Structural integrity makes the world go round. Our bunk beds in the dorm would not have made the cut in a more seismically active area. In fact, if you had particularly bad allergies, one good sneeze would probably have brought the whole thing down on top of you. This was problematic for me, since I tend to roll around alot in my sleep. I think Christine feared for her life down on the bottom bunk. So I spent the three nights lying stiffly on my back, trying not to twitch so as not to cause a gravity tragedy, letting my body touch only my sheet sleeping-bag and the coat I was using for a pillow. The best nights of sleep I've ever had? No. The worst? Probably not that either, but hey, I was in Paris. It couldn't ever be super SUPER horrible.

3) Roomies. Two of the three nights, our fifth room mate was a large, silent, hairy naked guy. He was in bed when we got there each night, shirtless and apparently preparing for a long winter of hibernation, judging from the amount of hair on his chest. We didn't exchange pleasantries either night. Here's the kicker: it was a DIFFERENT large, silent, hairy naked guy each night! It blew my mind! How many of these creatures can their be in Europe? I haven't seen any... but then again, the places I've been have mostly been in Italy and France, where the men come in the more svelt, stylish, possibly gay varietals. It was very jarring to see not one giant hairy dude, but two. The third night, it was a mysterious suitcase whose owner never showed up while we were there. But whoever she was (I say she, since the suitcase was bright pink... gender conditioning again!), she was apparently very concerned about waking up at 5.13 am, since that's when her alarm was set for. And it reminded her to get up every four minutes from then on. So, Michelle finally got up and turned the thing off. I was a proponent of spiking it on the floor and leaving it as a surprise for her when she showed up, but I was overruled.

Enough about the hostel, as lovely as it wasn't. We only slept there, so blah. The city was the real destination. Since this blog is getting obscenely long (no great surprise) I'll just go through and list. Maybe. You know me. It probably won't end up being that. But I'll go in chronological order starting on Friday morning and ending Sunday afternoon. Here it is:

1) Pere Lachaise: Bury me here. For real. I love cemeteries... I'm very creepy that way. We spent literally like, four hours here. I couldn't have been happier. Plus, I got to kiss Oscar Wilde. Life: complete. Request: Come on, baby, light my fire.

2) Sacre Coeur/Montmartre: It was really amazing to come back to this church that I remember as being so very unique, and having the tools to recognize why that is. Very, very gratifying. Also, can you get better than that view? Methinks not. Also, Nutella crepes. They're the thing that proves the existence of a higher power. Yummers.

3) The Louvre: Okay, so really, being me, this deserves it's own post. So this'll be longer. Sorry. Casey had the wonderful idea of going to the Louvre on a Friday night, when it's open from 6-10 and it's a reduced rate. Turns out, that reduced rate is FREE! Can you imagine how cool this was? I'm stingy, but I would pay any amount of money to hang out in the Louvre, and it turns out that I didn't have to pay ANY amount of money! Yay! Anyway, we decided to split up, since we all had different priorities. For me, this visit was a very strong full-circle experience. The Louvre is the reason I'll be living in a box for the rest of my life. So I was wandering around, looking at all the things that once struck me as miraculous and foreign and incomprehensible and greeting them as old friends with familiar stories and completely relateable personalities. What a difference four years can make. If there was ever any experience that made me think that my life and work for the last four years have been worth it, this visit was it. It's fun to know things. It's fun to realize why I love what I love. That's why I can never leave Europe, I guess. Oh well. :) But as wonderful as it was to walk around the incredibly un-crowded museum (example: I stood face to face to the Mona Lisa, making unobstructed eye contact for a full fifteen minutes before leaving of my own volition, instead of being pushed out of the way. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, at best.) there was something better. The Louvre does this program where, three of four Friday evenings, college kids studying in Paris come to the Louvre and present very basic information and research on a work of art. Best volunteer job ever? Yes. But the fun part was that I could have discussions with the presenters. Some of them were American kids, so I talked to them in English and bonded over being abroad and what that means, but most were French, and I could talk to them, too, and discuss what I thought of the art they were presenting. SO COOL! I loved being able to actually say things other than "I would like some pizza with mushrooms, please" and "My name is Maggie. I'm American. Can I please have some gelatto?". The best part was finding other people my age who think that art and the meaning it brings to humanity's history are as important as I do. The Louvre is still a magical, life-changing place. (It was also fun to meet up again with Michelle and Casey, who were both Louvre virgins. I remember that feeling really vividly.)

4) Dinner: I forgot about prix-fixe menus. We basically shut down the Louvre at ten and then returned to Rue Mouffetard, where we found this little restaurant with no discernable name and a menu for 15 euro. Two new culinary adventures and two nostalgic standbys: escargot and duck confit, and creme brulee and cidre. YUM! I heart French food. Like, legit. It's awesome. We shut them down, too, around 12.30, and went to bed with full tummies.

5) The d'Orsay: I love this museum. Always have, always will. I found some new favorites, too. "Eve After the Fall" by Eugene Delaplanche, "The Young St. John the Baptist" by Paul Dubois, and "The Disciples Peter and John Rushing to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection" (a mouthful, it's true) by Eugene Bernand. Look 'em up if you're curious.

6) The Eiffel Tower: We had to take Casey and Michelle. Funniest moment: watching the stampede of vendors running for the grass like so many crazed bison at the sight of a cop.

7) The Christmas Market on the Champs-Elysees: The City of Lights certainly does cash in on the fetishization of Christmas in Paris. Also, Nutella crepes again. Win.

8) L'Opera Garnier: Holy tacky gold embellishment, Batman! It's a beautiful Opera house... I just wouldn't recommend going inside if you're prone to seizures. The tour guide, Martine, tried to tell us that the Phantom is a myth. Ha! That's just what he wants you to think.

We did a ton of other stuff there, too, but these were some of the highlights. I forgot how much I loved Paris the first time I went, but I don't think I'll be likely to forget again. It has such a unique vibe, and I think, since I'm more acclimated to Rome now, and all the quirks of this city, I'm more in tune with those of other places. Cities are so, so individual. It's easy to forget that sometimes. I was happy to get to go back. It was an incredibly fun, but also very legitimizing experience. I can't wait to go back again! Hopefully there won't be such a long gap between this visit and the next one!

I Miei Genetori Sono Bravissimi

Well, after a weekend of (allegedly) working my butt off on papers and research excursions to the Aventine, the Capitoline and Ostia Antica, and the rest of this week, which will doubtless be fraught with stress of varying shades and urgency, I'll be off to Paris for the weekend.

Let me say that again. I'm going to go to Paris for the weekend. That's one of those sentences that, if you're ever lucky enough to get to say it, you should take a close look as the reasons why you can. I am fully aware of the two main reasons I'm able to say it: their names are Kurt and Kathy Jackson.

I had another moment this morning, while standing in the Pantheon taking notes on centralized, domed structures of antiquity (find me a better place in the world to have this class, I dare you) when it hit me again. I've gotten used to the kind of suffocating joy that occasionally shows up when I take a mental step back from the mundane (hah!) of everyday life here and actually realize where I am and what I'm doing. It's at these moments when I realize how undeservedly, phenomenally lucky I am to have my parents.

For my entire life, which now borders on being 21 years long, my parents have basically done everything for me. They've provided me with every opportunity, every chance I could have possibly wanted and more. For my entire life in Great Falls, they not only sat through plays and awkward recitals in sweltering auditoriums, but they got more involved in my strange activities (judging for speech tournaments? ugh.) than I had any right to expect. They were constantly doing everything they could to keep me safe and happy and to give me a future and an education that they thought I deserved. They supported me and gave me everything, even when there wasn't a person on the planet who could have been less aware of how lucky she was.

And then they sent me to college. They didn't just send me to college, either. They drove me there. From Montana to Michigan. That drive sucks. And my dad has done it four times now. If that's not a testament to love, I can't think of one. Now that I've seen comparatively more of the world and have more experience with people my age and the concerns that they face, I realize that my chance to go to college is more of a gift than I will ever be able to deserve. College (mine in particular) is expensive. The economy is weak. There are two kids coming up behind me. And yet Kurt and Kath don't ever mention any of that.

In fact, as incredibly huge as the chance to matriculate at a school that literally seems to have been tailor-made for me is, they've given me still more: they've given me this chance to travel and experience new parts of the world. And every morning, when I wake up and head to class at the Vatican or the Roman Forum, and when I can plan to go to Paris for the weekend, I can't help but take a step back and marvel at the sheer generosity and love of which I'm the undeserving recipient.

I don't pretend to have been the easiest child to raise by any stretch of the imagination, and I know for a fact that I was often supremely, audaciously unaware of just how much they did for me, and are still doing for me. But right now I'm having a moment of clarity that compels me to thank them. I really like the person I am. I like the fact that I am able to deal with situations presented to me competently (a lot of the time...), the fact that I like to try new things, and the fact that I'm not intimidated by putting myself out there. I like my curiosity and my eagerness to learn. I like my work ethic, which is a lot less sporadic in real life than it manifests itself here. I like my sense of humor. I like my sense of right and wrong. And I know that I have my mom and dad to thank for all of these things I like about myself. I also know that these things have helped me get to where I am, will help me get to where I want to go, and most especially are helping me right now deal with the curve balls that life in a foreign country will throw at you.

I'm going to go to Paris this weekend, and I'll joyfully return to speaking a language that's always been such a constant part of my life. I try to emulate my mom's passion for French and transfer the joy she gets from speaking that language into my own academic pursuits. I try to remember her enthusiasm and interest in people as people in my daily interactions. I hope that someday I'll have the courage that she does to put herself out there and really try to make a difference, even in the face of indifference, which is often a more disconcerting enemy than outright antagonism.

My dad is going to celebrate his birthday while I'm in Paris. I feel like the only way I'll ever be able to express how much his constant, unerring dedication and commitment to giving me, as well as my brother and sister, the best of everything have meant to me is by applying those principles of dedication and commitment to my studies and my life, which he has worked so hard to provide for me. His love of learning and his intimidating knowledge of basically everything make me want to work harder so that I can make him as proud of me as I am of him. I can't express how much I appreciate everything you've done for me, Dad. Happy Birthday!

I'm a lucky person in so many ways. I'm sure this fact hasn't escaped you, as I recount my adventures, and I'm sure it'll be made clear to me once again with all the force of a frying pan to the face when I'm reunited with Mona Lisa on Saturday. And I really just want to acknowledge where all my opportunities have come from, and to thank my parents so much for my life. It's pretty damn awesome.