i'm baaaack!

hello everyone,

happy 2010! after two weeks at home for christmas (about a week and a half of which I was miserably sick, but it was still nice), i got back to palermo on wednesday night. i had a hell of a time getting here with the excessive amount of stuff i decided to bring back with me from the states... it involved having to re-pack my suitcases twice in two different airports, pay overweight luggage fees in both instances anyway, leaving one of my bags at italo's in naples to be retrieved god-knows-when, and getting off the plane in palermo with a backpack bursting at the seams, a purse so full it wouldn't close, and a plastic bag with the overflow. but anyway, i, and most of my stuff, eventually made it back in one piece. i was so relieved to see paola waiting for me when i walked out of baggage claim... i didn't have a working cell phone so i couldn't find out in advance whether or not she was going to be there. but there she was, and she was right that it would have been a bitch to have to haggle with a taxi driver in the condition i was in after that epic journey.

(apparently taxi drivers in palermo always try to rip you off, like most taxi drivers in naples, so taking a cab means being prepared to argue. this seems to me totally unnecessary: if they were just required to have meters, and use them, like in the rest of the civilized world, it would be a non-issue. but i guess it's just one of those nonsensical inconveniences that make italy so charming. anyway, i digress.)

i was supposed to go to school on thursday, the kids' first day back after the holidays, which conclude in italy with the epiphany on the 6th -- but i was utterly wrecked by the time i got home, around 5:30 pm, and i just wasn't going to be able to handle getting up at 5:30 am to go do my perky thing for four straight classes. so i e-mailed my advisor francesca and told her so, and naturally she didn't get the e-mail until after school the next day (wtf, why do italians not seem to check their e-mail every 30 seconds like americans do?!?!). anyway, she said it was fine, and i hope it actually was, but i think it probably was because in italian schools everybody's used to never knowing what to expect and just rolling with the punches. a little frustrating sometimes, but it comes in handy when i feel like taking a day off, which, you know, happens.

so friday was my first day back at school, with the weekend afterwards to soften the blow, thank god. no, actually, it passed without incident. the kids welcomed me back with their usual charmingly obnoxious enthusiasm. in 4B i gave an impromptu lecture on the american colonial period, only possible because half of the class was absent, and during which at any given moment only about 2 out of the 12 of them refrained from conversation long enough to catch a few words.

in 5B, they now insist on speaking to me only in italian, and do their best to get a response out of me in italian too, which sort of goes against the point of my being there, but the trade-off is that ever since they got me to admit i could speak italian, they've been ten times more tranquil and cooperative. i think they were majorly offended that, as they perceived it, we had been lying to them about this no-italian business -- though i saved myself by saying the school had made it a rule that i not use any italian, or admit to understanding any, in class. which is essentially true. so now they accept that in front of my co-teacher they must attempt to use english or not talk to me at all (it's usually the latter); though i always get to class a few minutes before she does, and during this time they're tripping over each other trying to chatter away to me in italian, and are delighted to hear any response from me in italian.

(italians in general are usually delighted to hear a foreigner speak italian, as it's a complete novelty to them; while in english we're used to hearing our language in all sorts of accents and all degrees of brokenness, to them italian isn't a language that foreigners bother to learn, and they only ever hear it spoken by natives.)

anyway, where was i? oh yes. jet-lag. everyone knows this already, but it's a real drag. i'm still completely exhausted, and regardless of when i go to bed, i'm up like a shot first thing in the morning. this morning, saturday, i woke up at 6 am, and despite my best efforts, i couldn't manage to sleep in any further. on the plus side, i'd forgotten how much i really do love mornings, though they're preferable without the side dish of exhaustion. especially saturdays. saturday mornings, i think, are the best time in palermo, but this might only be because i've hardly been conscious for any. still, palermo's quite lovely before all the traffic starts and the swarms of people take to the streets. sundays are too quiet, desolate, with all the stores closed and absolutely everybody inside for sunday lunch and then the soccer game. but saturdays are nice, because they start out quiet: things are open, and the shopkeepers stand in their doorways, and gradually people trickle out of their homes and you see the city come to life.

the trouble is how best to savor my rare saturday mornings of consciousness. there's a big open-air market near the city center that i've been meaning to go and photograph; but as it runs every morning but sunday, and i work every morning during the week, saturday's the only time i could go. this morning it was a bit cloudy, off and on, so i decided not to go, but hopefully i'll make it soon and bring back photos to share with you all.

instead i did this crazy little exercise routine my friend jen forwarded me, and i googled the historical accuracy of the pride and prejudice movie adaptations, which is something i've always wondered about (with not altogether satisfying results, however; you know how you can never believe stuff you read on the internet), and caught up on my friend gabby's blog, and then went out and took advantage of the saldi (sales) and did some shopping.

unfortunately for my dad's wallet (though fortunately for my well-being), i did a ton of shopping while i was home for christmas so more sales are sort of the last thing i need. but in italy sales take place only twice a year, by law: at the beginning of january, and at the beginning of july. and since for various reasons i was never able to hit up the saldi during my previous stay in italy, i feel sort of a duty to participate now.. you know, it may be my last chance.

shopping in italy is not my favorite thing to do, actually, since frankly as chic as italians manage to look, in their own way, theirs is mostly just not my style. italian fashion also seems to be a weird disparity of two extremes: real italian fashion, the kind we ooh and ahh over in the states, is super expensive; and then the clothing that real people can actually afford to buy tends to be overpriced and of poor quality. just not well-made. and tacky. think lots of sequins and rhinestones.

anyway, though, one does manage to find some things, if one looks hard enough. i always set out to buy practical things, like in this case gloves and boots and jeans, and seem to end up with dresses: this morning i bought three, and nothing else. what can i say, i just love dresses. maybe all style-conscious people of either sex have that one thing they tend to gravitate towards. i know for a lot of girls, it's shoes or bags, and for guys i'm not sure, but there must be things. for me, it's dresses. you can never have too many, and there's such a range, from casual to slightly dressy to cocktail to formal; there are all sorts of different occasions that call for just a particular kind; and it's the one item of clothing, it seems to me, of which there are styles to flatter every body type.

okay, this is all probably mind-numbing detail, so forgive me. i never end up writing what i set out to write. what i wanted to mention, like five paragraphs ago, was this:

one. i realized on my first real day back (the 7th), that this was the exact date two years ago that i arrived in bologna and set eyes on italy for the first time. (i do tend to remember significant dates, like everybody i've ever known's birthday, and the like.) i remember how exciting it was, after having studied the language and learned the history and devoured the movies for so long, to finally be there. and how novel it all was, in the beginning, every little detail of it, from the little cars to the little elevators to the little old men that clump together in piazzas and cafes for their vigorous discussions. there's little about italy that's still novel to me anymore. which in some ways is nice: coming back to palermo i actually felt like i was coming home, to a place i knew and felt comfortable in, whereas bologna in the beginning felt like a different planet. but i also kind of miss that feeling of novelty, of those everyday exciting little discoveries.

i think i appreciate it all less now. after all, of these past two years since i arrived in bologna, i've spent just about twelve months of them in italy, so as much time in this country as out of it. maybe when i've been away for a while it'll all seem precious again. when i was in the airport in san francisco waiting to board, there was an italian family sitting next to me, naturally being louder than everybody else. and hearing italian again after not hearing it for two weeks, i was startled by how beautiful it sounded to me, and i realized that when i was here in palermo it had stopped sounding beautiful -- the way it always sounded before in the movies and from my teachers and even through my time in bologna and naples -- and had started sounding just normal, even abrasive sometimes. maybe it's a good thing, maybe it means i'm fluent enough now that when i hear it, i hear the words instead of the sounds. but it's also kind of sad, isn't it? maybe it means i need a new language to learn.

two. while i was home, a few people who'd been following my blog and/or occasional (okay, excessive) facebook-status updates said things to me to the effect of, "well, would you say you're having a good time over there?" with that note of optimistic concern in their voices and the sympathetically cocked heads. as if they were saying, "i really want to be reassured that you're having the time of your life over there but i'm not at all convinced." and i, surprised, quickly answered, "oh definitely, of course i am..." and i am, but apparently my blog postings and facebook updates don't give that impression, so i'm afraid i've been whining and complaining entirely too much.

so, to those of you who start to feel optimistically concerned sometimes, be assured: this is my version of having a wonderful time. i've been known to complain a bit sometimes (usually in private), and i think maybe everyone has a tendency to share more or to reach out to people when feeling discouraged, or overwhelmed, or frustrated. those contented moments don't tend to get recorded as much. but really -- and being at home reinforced this for me -- i do get homesick, and i miss things about the U.S., but i have no desire to live at home right now. or anywhere else in the states for that matter, just now. no, there's really no place i'd rather be, not even any other place in italy, at the moment. i was sorry to leave home, and my friends and family and dogs, after this too-short holiday break, but once i was back in palermo i was perfectly happy to be here.

almost everything about this experience has been challenging to some degree, but that's the way it ought to be. i'm young, and i want things to be slightly difficult. it builds character, right? or so i've heard. no, in all seriousness, even i've experienced enough to have learned that nothing meaningful is ever easy. so even though not every day is all sunshine and daisies, i'm having a wonderful experience.

and that's more or less what i wanted to say. so i'm out for now.

until soon,

C


P.S.: A couple of people have told me they've tried to leave comments and haven't been able to... well, i've just poked around in the settings and apparently the default was that only registered users, i.e. people with blogs on this site, could post comments. anyway, now i've changed it so that anyone should be able to; just select 'anonymous' under 'comment as' and leave your name as part of that comment. so let me know if that works and sorry about taking so long to figure that out.