It's the end of the semester and life is getting HECTIC. Even for ME here in pretty city Madrid! All of a sudden, there's talk of final trabajos and presentaciones... but I'm taking this weekend off from running wild in the night to catch up on life stuff, including this blog. So obviously I'm listening to weird music and writing (Dirty Projectors' Rise Above: TRIPVILLE, USA).
Florence was my favorite! Florence also draws many tourists -- not as many as Rome but a fair share -- but it doesn't need them to survive. Florence says, "I'll take your tourists, rest of the world, but I will never depend on them for my well-being, and I will always maintain my sexy, stylish European shimmer. Because I believe in myself. Have you viewed from my various vantage points? And I take pride in all I have to offer while sharing it with others, because it's DOPE and all of your historic buildings ain't got nothin' on my DUOMO. I'm glad we had this talk!"
L. literally stopped in her tracks, turned to me and said, "Dude," when she turned the corner and saw that. And then I looked up.... I LOVE THE DUOMO. We stopped and marveled at it every time we passed it; it never got old. It's just so gorgeous in person in all those pretty pastels! What's more, there are some sweet ice cream options in that little square. Priorities. Anyway, you see that tall tower to the right? We climbed to the top and got some sweet photos for our troubles.
Oh, to fly!
Okay so, two enthusiastic thumbs for Florence. After that, we returned to Rome before heading back to Madrid. That will come soon, but for now, it's J.C.O. time (picked up her book of short stories called Faithless today. So far so good!)! Until then!...
Our first stop on this Italy trip was ROME. Rome is full of ancient ruins that will make your head spin such as the Roman Forum (main city center where civic business went down, I believe) and the Colosseum (MEN WOULD FIGHT ANIMALS and/or each other in a huge stadium full of cheering spectators thirsty for YOUR BLOOD). Julius Caesar, the Roman empire... it all happened THERE!
Ancient ruins are hard to... ruin; seeing these grand sights in person and standing in the very places where world history events went down is special. At the same time, present-day Rome where these treasures are located (the walkable center of town) has NOTHING to do with all that history. The phrase I've been using to describe it is "a tourist circus." Of course, it's Rome and everyone wants to see -- I get that. But you can't blame me for HAT-ING IT! Imagine a perfectly grilled and seasoned steak.... And now imagine drowning it in ketchup and mayonnaise and mustard and God knows what else! Que pena! And it's not like, "Man, I wish Rome could be more authentic for my three-day visit!" It's that the whole situation is depressing; in the center, you're either a tourist or someone selling useless shit to tourists, or peddling overpriced pizza, hot dogs and ice cream because Impulse Buy is Vacation's middle name! OR, -- better still! -- you're going from person to person trying to sell flowers. FLOWERS. Then, you know what beats flowers? Dressing up like a Roman soldier and asking people to take a picture with you and then charging them a euro for it! Ha. No, this is more of a sadness for the spirit of Rome. This disappointment is for Julius Caesar and Brutus and the whole lot of them who believed in a Roman Empire so great that it could run the whole damn WORLD; who would brutally murder their neighbors for power and wealth! And maybe that makes them complete assholes and they totally deserve this! But I shed a tear for them, wherever they are (probz. imperialist hell), and for every sacred, significant thing on this earth that's inevitably doomed by globalization and the all-mighty DOLLAR! Haha. But really, Rome was beautiful. :)
Rome was also our first hostel experience of the trip, and it was excellent. The hostel gets green checks in all main categories: location, lockers, atmosphere, people, cleanliness, STYLE! We also met some great people with whom we have since stayed in touch and even seen again! I say, meeting and getting to know fellow travelers abroad is clutch. Listening & learning. And pub crawling? ;)
We also visited Vatican City. The Sistine Chapel was as amazing as you'd imagine it to be and the Vatican museum was nice. And early in the day, we even ran into the pope in the square during his weekly public address! It was woefully unspectacular, but interesting to be there during such turbulent times with the Church. I won't go there ("oh, COME ON - nobody wants THAT!"). But I will direct you to Maureen Dowd's recent columns in the NY Times that have been like daggers to the main arteries of the dragon! She's a FORCE and her recent stuff about the Church drama has been fantastic & fearless.
If you predicted I would fall short of my blog blitz promise, ... good call. The truth is, if I did manage to power through all of that writing, it would turn out rushed and just so much less than what it could be. And for what? THAT is not what we're here for. We've got TIME! Or I do, anyway - haha. So, coming soon, there will be Rome, Vatican City, Florence. Oh yes, there will be blood.
Something else did come up too, though. I'm allowed to geek out about music at least once in a while on this blog, right? K!: I mean it when I say that Land of Talk is one of my favorite & most excitement-inducing bands right now. A few quick reasons why:
1) I at least like and often love EVERY song they've ever released (one EP, one LP, another EP I'm finally hearing now!). Talent, passion and care.
2) Lead singer Liz Powell. Gorgeous voice and songwriting ....
+ 2a) Her lyrics can be mysterious and it's hard to pin songs down, but there's definitely a sense of *this is what it's like to be a GIRL* in the music that is painfully honest, insightful, original... MUCH NEEDED. Not unlike Emily Haines (see: goddess) in this regard.
3) They're from Canada. If music was my religion in the form of Christianity, my Jerusalem would be Canada, and all the important peeps like Jesus and Mary &c. would consist of Broken Social Scene members/friends. Land of Talk is in with BSS (Liz Powell is actually an official member now).
So today I decided to check up on them and found that they're going on TOUR and coming to BOSTON in MAY! And THEN, I discovered they released an EP in late 2009 that they must have told like three people about because I had no idea. And all of this great news & new music has put me in a tizzy, hence my not writing more about Italy. I'M FLIPPING OUT / I finally get to see them live, and right after I get home!
I've been listening to their latest, the Fun and Laughter EP, on repeat and I can safely say that it's damn good - already falling for it.
Ok, I am limited with what song I can feature here (why don't more people love this band?!) but they all really do have their own charms. This is "All My Friends" off of their first EP Applause Cheer Boo Hiss.
Fuckin' around, Pretending there's a PROBlem Figure it OUUUUUUUUUUUUT!
SO! We took a little weekend trip to Granada back in mid-March. I have to agree with my mom and say, there is just something about this city! There is a word, ambiente, that roughly translates to mean atmosphere (and also something like character and identity, I think). Well, Granada's got it. The famous Alhambra (big royal Muslim castle/grounds) sits on a hill and can be seen from all over. It seems to cast a shadow of mystique unto this curiosity of a city, which is burgeoning with students and young people yet frozen in the past (you love my fictional prose). The castle rooms boast intricate wall-to-ceiling-to-wall script and a whole lot of juicy prince and princess stories. Talk about dramaaa!
How do you like this storytelling mode? I'm into it. Let's continue.
Now, something I was not so aware of until I got there: Granada is full of hippies (or at least people with many hippie-like qualities). Comfortably & colorfully clad, long haired, pot smoking, guitar sing-alonging, grungy dogs for companions owning hippies. Below, observe a crowd of local Granadians *chilling* at El Mirador, a high up hangout spot with a view of the city. They certainly were high up. ^^
Jokes, jokes! For real, though, the vibe of this place - que ouais! You pick it up from the get-go. It's in the streets, the air, that castle, and it's with the people. Late one Saturday night, hanging around the city center (still lots of people out & about -- this is Spain, babez!), we met this guy who was really... out of the ordinary. In a good way. He spoke English very well and he liked to talk, so we got to chatting, and it was that immediate click you feel with people whose perception of the world lines up with yours. We talked in the spirit of appreciation of people, time and place, and of our chance meeting that night (for a reason?). He told us how he had traveled around the world, had a child, worked in opium fields - how he studied psychology in university for a short time but couldn't stay in such a heartless environment (knowledge for wisdom?). We talked about religion, and he said his idea of "God" or some sort of higher power beyond us was in a group of people at a concert (Durkheim's definition of religion/collective effervescence?). He was selling pot and other stuff. Hahaha, can you see how I would be super into this encounter?
It was that kind of night, and Granada is that kind of city. All in all, a successful & meaningful weekend trip with new friends. You definitely get to know people on a deeper level when you travel with them. Non-stop fun & fascination for this moi. :)
I'm back from ITALY. We hit Rome and Florence over the course of nine days. I think it would be best to split posts up by location, so that is my plan over the next three days. I promise this. You know why? Because I'm broke! I am absolutely positively out of money and it just so happens that blogging sits right up there with walking outside and sitting in nearby parks on my Pleasurable Activities I Can Actually Afford list. That's a lot of blogging, and I still owe you a Granada post, so concise is the goal. This, then, will serve as both an introduction to spring break in Italy AND some words on the influential book I read during that time: Franny and Zooey by the late, great J.D. Salinger. (I was inspired to pick it up after reading a friend's Quad article, and I'm so very glad I did.)
I had high hopes for this little book. The perfect book, the perfect song, the perfect cheer... are like nudges in the right direction when you hit questionable intersection times. Or at least detailed street signs in a language you can speak. Franny and Zooey is this ultimate ice cream sundae of a book that combines the yummiest flavors and toppings into one awe-filled sight to behold. And then eat. (I've been eating gelato on a daily basis in Italy for over a week... ice cream metaphors are gonna happen.) Hay: religion & spirituality, education, suicide, family, societal pressures, sex, youth, celebrity, playing roles, being nice, acting normal, being a freak, and more!
BLAST - I've already said too much! First, a photo from gorgeous Florence:
And now, I excerpt. I won't comment. I'll just say I found the following ideas/quotations to be really, REALLY something.
"Anyway, your sister says he's a brilliant boy. Lane."
"That's just sex talking, buddy," Zooey said. "I know that voice. Oh, do I know that voice!"
"Sometimes I think that knowledge -- when it's knowledge for knowledge's sake, anyway -- is the worst of all. The least excusable, certainly.... I don't think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while -- just once in a while -- there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge.... I'm not saying that happens to everybody, but I just get so upset when I think about it I could die."
"....That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I want -- in this case, enlightenment, or peace, instead of money or prestige or fame or any of those things -- doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so! I don't need the famous Zachary Glass to tell me that!"
"....I take it that mostly you're gunning against the system of higher education. Don't spring at me, now -- for the most part, I agree with you. But I hate the kind of blanket attack you're making on it. I agree with you about ninety-eight per cent on the issue. But the other two per cent scares me half to death. I had one professor when I was in college -- just one, I'll grant you, but he was a big, big one -- who just doesn't fit in with anything you've been talking about. He wasn't Epictetus. But he was no egomaniac, he was no faculty charm boy. He was a great and modest scholar.... What'll happen to him when you start your revolution?"
"....But what I don't like... is the way you talk about all these people. I mean you don't just despise what they represent -- you despise them. It's too damn personal, Franny. I mean it. You get a real little homicidal glint in your eye when you talk about this Tupper, for instance.... That is not right -- and you know it."
And lastly, maybe my favorite of all, this one comes from Franny:
"I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete -- that's what scares me."
Soooo GOOD! I could go on but those are some highlights. Worth your time and consideration to the max - I swear it. And the use of italics is just so perfectly dialogue! I loved it all.
To close, the red belt (think karate) line is from Tegan and Sara's "Red Belt," one of my favorite tracks off of Sainthood. I'd say it's about achieving calm and clarity in the face of emotional chaos. I love the steadyness of it all.... Sara sounds so sure and you catch the beat immediately and never get left behind. Everything just works here. Kneel - to condition all the feelings that you feel.
Sorry for the neglect! Don't mean to play my blog like a dodgy señora plays her host student regarding food. Oh snap!
A couple days before I left for Madrid back in January, I was texting with a friend about it. He asked me, what are you most looking forward to? I believe I said, "feeling different." And then he laughed at me via text because that's such a Samantha thing to say, lol. But he said he understood, because he had moved around a lot growing up, and he could relate to wanting to reinvent yourself in new places. I asked him if it had worked - if he had changed out of pure will to change and the clean slate of a new setting, new strangers? He said he did -- in a way -- but he thought of it more as growing, not abandoning who he was.
I first heard that dicho, "Wherever you go, there you are" from a recovering drug addict who came to speak at my high school. It was in the context of, I wanted really badly to start over and be clean and I thought moving to a new place would work magic, but it wasn't so easy. This theme of *can people change?* has always been something that fascinates me. Like in my favorite TV show, the BRILLIANT-at-times Alias, season one I think, when Sydney and Francie are talking about Francie's EX-boyfriend who was cheating on her (maybe with a guy? it escapes me at the moment), and Syd says to her in earnest, "People change." And then Francie looks her in the eye and says, "No. They don't." !!!!! Que fuerte! By the way, one of the many things I loved about Alias was Syd and Francie's friendship. Besides the whole Sydney lying about her entire life thing.... they were so tight that you got their styles tangled. It was really lovely. Ah, Sydney Bristow. What a hero! Can you believe such people are out there?
But we can talk about that later! Wherever you go, there you are - fact. BUT of COURSE something must be said for this wonder that is TRAVELING. Here. Of COURSE I do feel different. For the first time, nothing really separates us from the adult world; we are right there in it with the rest of this city and it's like going to Disney World for the first time, or at least Universal Studios when E.T. pops his head out of your bicycle basket, looks at you and says, "Goodbye, Jessica" at the end of the ride and you're just like, what a trip this life is! To be in Madrid, to turn 21 here ... you know how Jenny Lewis sings, "and sometimes when you're on, / you're REALLy fucking ON!"? There are just so many of those moments! There are so many just sky high highs. And we can be in our favorite pub talking about how the world is surely ending or losing it over "Teenage Waste Land" at our favorite bar, and it makes no difference. It feels like we're "doing it right" (it = living) and there is really nowhere else in the world we should be. And it's not all about the partying eithz. For whatever reason, I ended up with the best living/homestay situation ever and my señora and I get on like an absolute house on fire! She's wonderful and cool and she treats me like her daughter, but also like an autonomous, capable adult. (And for good reason - surely I could do a lot worse ;) It's humbling and just really NICE. Sincerity cannot be bought.
We talk about what this semester is & what it's supposed to be or whatever - our high expectations for all of this. I think, more than anything, I'm learning to let go and let myself enjoy this. I'm still me, but maybe a better version of me, and I feel as if things are as they should be. Anywhere you go, the lines of people and place and self surely overlap. And that's a good thing.
NO ONE IS AS LUCKY AS US!
p.s. - Stay tuned for a Granada post. That trips earns a post on its own. Also, spring break has officially begun, and travel adventures begin next week! Italy much? Yuh - this is my life right now and we'll be in touch. Don't you dare fret.
There was a huge, horrible earthquake in Chile today. "I'm feeling badly; it's not an attempt at decency." (Grammar glitch alert! To feel badly actually refers to literally feeling something -- say, with your fingers -- badly. So maybe they are burnt or something.) The world is an AWFUL, sad place. I usually find it extremely difficult to... reconcile this fact. And I wonder how other people do it. I'm not sure if I succeed or not - I think I might just carry it for most of the time. Does that count as reconciling it? I will say, it's a huge relief to come across people who think & feel similarly. Especially when they are brilliant, crazy articulate professors making an honest effort to do good and help other people. It makes me feel less like an insane, depressed, mood-swingin', existentialist weirdo, lol. To be understood so hard is kind of a miracle, I think. "Life is like banquet food for us lucky few," says Annie Clark. It sure is, and I'll never know how or why. Many people are far from lucky.
I got an e-mail from the sociology department yesterday: "BU School of Social Work--Optimists Wanted." I couldn't decide if I am an optimist or not. My friends would laugh at me for saying this, because apparently I'm Optimist of the Year Friend, haha. Well, I don't totally disagree. I am an optimist in that I hope for the best and believe that people are inherently good. I like this (from Wikipedia on optimism, lol): "Antonio Gramsci famously called for 'pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will': the one the spur to action, the other the resilience to believe that such action will result in meaningful change even in the face of adversity." Yes, even though that doesn't make it all any happier, yes. I say, do your best, and make use of the good you have - we all have (being nice is the new black! ;). And, for the love of God or whatever entity is watching us go up in flames and tsunamis from somewhere, LIVE YOUR LIFE! Don't wait, don't be afraid to change, and recognize that most of the time, people don't know what they're talking about, so come to your own conclusions about things. Everything!
All right, enough preaching. Preachsta22 I am not, lol. I will lighten this post up with arguably my best Spain photo to date! We went on a group trip to Sevilla, where it never rains unless we're going on a group trip there. In that case, cold & rainy times 2010. We visited a museum and mosque (I THINK!...) and an IGLESIA (church), but I'm not totally convinced it wasn't the same exact one we visited in Toledo because it looked, I don't know, EXACTLY THE SAME? *It's not clear.*
Right, so we ended up in a maze. It happens. And HERE is where I just had to go all Tyra Banks-that-week-on-ANTM-when-she-goes-behind-the-camera and kill it. Below, find my friends in forest explorer, movie poster mode (que ouaaaaais!):
Love it. So I originally set out to write a real downer of a post with maybe my favorite album ever, Rilo Kiley's The Execution of All Things, as the soundtrack, but I have since moved on to less heavy fare... some Jaymay, mostly THAO! I know - damn my undying optimism! I'm going with "Travel" from We Brave Bee Stings and All, a new favorite of mine from that wonderful album. Still weight but less weight, ok? Reconcile.
"But I took / a million looks / how they ate me up, made me heavy, and for what?..."
