29 June 2010

milan thunderstorm? lizzie likes

Will your system be all right
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know, is your heart still beating?

-The Killers, 'Are We Human'
These last few days have been unbelievably hot. I go to bed with a slight sheen of sweat around my lips and at the back of my neck, and I wake up with my hair up in a messy bun (which I can never remember doing in my sleep), on top of the covers, feeling the way babies must feel when they're fussy and can't stop tossing and turning.

At camp each day, I just have this weird feeling, like I'm constantly nauseated from always being immersed in 80 degree weather. I drink as much water as I can, but it never seems to be enough.

Tae kwon do was absolutely brutal last night. Start with the fact that it was upwards of 80 degrees in the studio because it isn't air conditioned (or the AC wasn't on). Then add to that the random running and sprints, and then a little game I like to call 'Toss the paddle in the air while everyone is doing random running and see if anyone catches it; if they don't, everyone does pushups.' It would make an amazing softball drill. In fact, it brought out my softball instincts- I guess I laid out (yeah, on my stomach) to catch one that I saw falling to the floor. Everyone was impressed- at least, I'd like to think they were. And for the price my knees paid, they better have been impressed.

After that, there were a lot more pushups, which I failed at due to my weak shoulder (and just general weakness, really). I didn't even want to try and translate things like 'cortisone shot' and 'impingement' and 'hyperflexibility' so I just took a knee and started doing girl pushups. Unfortunately, my knees had already started to swell, so that wasn't really an option either. They are still nice and puffy today.

There were lateral kicks. There were flying front kicks. There were donkey kicks and roundhouse kicks. There were lateral kicks, bouncing off of a person and spinning to deliver a circular kick with the same leg (without touching the ground). There was some bounching off of a wall and a little bit of punching. All in all, it was a great time (although I'm sure my opinion would be a bit different if I didn't have my prescription anti-inflammatories to run home to after the lesson). I forgot to mention, the other two girl tutors opted not to return, and they hit up the mall instead, so it was just Taylor and myself. No comment.

This past April, while trying to survive my last college softball season, I basically entered into a torrid love affair with ice baths and freezing showers. I thought it might look a little strange if I dumped all my host family's ice (do they even have ice?) into the tub and sat in it for 8-12 minutes, so I took a shower with only the cold water turned on. I think I'd be feeling much worse today if I hadn't done that. After all, I had to lead a couple of songs in the warmup circle this morning, and there is a direct correlation between the amount of enthusiasm you display and the amount of enthusiasm you see from the kids.

We've had some interesting family meals since the horse and cheese fiasco that was the entire weekend. Just one I guess, tonight, unless you count the entire pizza that I ate solo (post-taekwondo) as a family meal (which I would not, since the family was watching Daddy Day Care while I ate alone in the kitchen (which is part of the living/dining/kitchen area). Anyway, tonight I had some sort of eggplant, zucchini, tomato, and cheese casserole while the kids ate kebabs.

Then after dinner, there was some of the ripest cantaloupe I've ever eaten, and CHEESE.

It was arranged in little cubes with seasoning on top, and it looked fairly appetizing. A couple of the kids were excited about it, but the mom literally said, "No, it's all for Liz; she is a vegetarian so she must eat all the cheese she can." Literally. In Italian.

What else. . . the final show is coming together, and the storyline is basically this: There's a girl sitting on a couch (my wheelchair-bound student) and she turns on the TV to the World Cup (which goes into halftime), and then changes to the news, then Twilight, then X-Factor, then back to the World Cup. This way, there will be multiple short, easy-to-memorize scenes and there should be a lot of action. I feel that it's solid. I absolutely forbade the children to sing any Lady Gaga, because I'd hate to have another Michael Jackson situation on my hands. Shakira and Ke$ha, however, are in my show, and they are fair game.

27 June 2010

eat like liz

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
That's amore
When the world starts to shine like you've had too much wine
That's amore. . .

-Dean Martin, 'That's Amore'

So I was going to start a little segment entitled 'eat like liz,' just adding onto my regular posts some info about what delicious Italian delicacies I'd had to eat recently, but I've had some truly awful meals with the host family I've just moved in with (it's confusing, but I'm still in Cassano d'Adda, teaching at the same camp, just with a different family).

Last night, the rest of the family had horse. HORSE. Stringy, nasty, horse meat. Creeped the hell out of me. Today, lunch was comprised primarily of cheese, with the secondary ingredient being starch. Watery rice with cheese, Potatoes with cheese, softball-sized chunks of cheese, that sort of thing. I want to die right now, I'm so full of cheese.

But anyway, I have eaten some delicious things. Friday night, for instance. Liudmila made pasta fredda (cold pasta) with pomodorini (cherry tomatoes), arugula, and mozzarella chunks. You obviously cook the pasta first, then while it's still warm, I think you mix in olive oil, the arugula, and the tomatoes, and then as it's cooling in the fridge, you toss in the mozzarella and let it chill til it isn't warm anymore. Pasta fredda is one of my favorite things to eat here. Make sure you use a small, chunky pasta, like farfalle, rather than linguine or spaghetti. That's how you do it.

Second course Friday night was something fried with a mix of veggies in the middle. Pretty good. There was also some grilled eggplant. . . beware when cooking eggplant: it is very bitter and tough unless you soak it in saltwater or are careful about how you cook it (I don't know specifics). This eggplant was fairly bitter, but interestingly seasoned.

After that, there were some little bagel chip-type things, with spreadable cheese. Our options were gorgonzola (I declined) and some tiny, single-serving Babybel cubes seasoned like fried onions, mushrooms, and blue cheese. If they don't have those in the US, I'm not going back.

So, more about this new host family: the student is a kid named Andrea with whom, in all honesty, I have not gotten on well this past week. We've just kind of had this rapport where we've been constantly bitching at each other in our respective languages. On the way back from the pool, for instance, I had to pull him out of the way of a bike on the sidewalk. He grumbled in Italian something which I guess meant, "It wasn't going to hit me," and I was like, "Yeah sure, thank me later," and then he said something else which sounded a little meaner so I was just like, "Okay, next time I won't do anything. In fact, next time I'll push you." I imagine it would be pretty funny to an observer.

Naturally, I was a little concerned when I discovered, an hour later, that I'd be moving into young, pudgy Andrea's house the next day. But so far he's been great. He's got twin siblings, Francesca and Simone. . . or are they cousins? I'm really quite confused. There were two adult men here when I arrived, but I discerned pretty quickly that one was an uncle, so I assumed the other was Andrea's father, but later the uncle (Marco?) told me that the father wasn't home yet, so I have no idea who this mystery man is. He speaks with a lisp, and the twins call him Papi, but he calls the mother, Luciana, Mamma. And Luciana kissed her husband goodbye when he left for work this afternoon, but then she started prancing around in her housedress and the mystery man gave her a very affectionate kiss on the cheek so I really don't know. And the uncle also has some sort of speech impediment, and seems very concerned with my well-being, and likes to rest his hands on my shoulders. So I don't know. Maybe they're all inbred? Could explain the lisps and the weirdness and the twisted family tree.

It was so much simpler when it was just Liudmila, Alissa, Yuri, and me. Four people to one bathroom was doable. Eight, not so much.

No plans for today. No plans for yesterday- I slept in, napped, and laid out next to the Adda River. I guess I did go out to Inzago with one of the camp directors and her friends. There was a 40's and 50's festival which was prety amusing. But I already miss Liudmila taking me to the train station, out to the mall, around town- I'm just bored. But I think the rest is good, and I'm going to be grateful for it later. Besides, I should be resting up for round 2 of tae kwon do tomorrow. Later this week, we're hoping to see Eclipse in theatres.

Oh ps, my Olympus 550 WP (the WP standing for waterproof up to 10 ft) turned out to not be quite so waterproof. Help?!

22 June 2010

cassano d' out-of-control kids

My life, you electrify my life
Let's conspire to ignite all the souls that would die just to feel alive
Hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold you in my arms. . .
-Muse, 'Starlight'

This week has been exhausting. I’ve left my alarm set at 7am, then I’m at camp by 9, dancing around, teaching, teaching, singing, lunch, supervising, playing, teaching, painting, running, throwing water balloons at kids, making a fool of myself, and going home after 5. Then I usually sleep for a couple of hours or search desperately for wifi, and then I eat dinner with my fam or go out with the other tutors and their fams. I’m rarely in bed before midnight or one.

On Sunday I got to see Josephine! We spent the afternoon wandering around a rainy Milan, talking and having lunch and just being ridiculous. It was wonderful- I've missed her so, so, SO much. It ended up taking me an hour and a half to get home because my host mother neglected to mention the necessary subway change, subsequent bus ride, and sub-subsequent train ride.

We’ve had some interesting characters at Cassano d’Adda camp. There were two boys in my class who were giving me trouble from the very first day. I told them to move to opposite sides of the room so I could hopefully manage their shenanigans a little bit better, and they clung to their desks and chairs and said they wouldn’t move. One of them kicked a girl in a wheelchair. I took it up with the directors, but no major changes were made.

On Tuesday, the boys were separated. One was sent to Taylor’s class, and the other remained with me. He started drawing inappropriate things on the board and just generally gave me trouble so I had the directors in the room to intimidate him a bit. After they left, the kid acted obsessed with his friend. They made plans to meet in the bathroom to escape (something I’ve only ever seen girls do), and when I told my student he couldn’t leave, he started climbing out the window to yell to his friend. I eventually had to grab him around the waist to get him away from there, and then he wriggled away to try and get out the door and to the other classroom. With a hand on his collar, I shouted to Taylor to come help me. He did, and grabbed the boy around the waist and just carried him in front of him to the office.

This is where is got weird. The boy was strangely calm in Taylor’s arms but latched onto him with his teeth and just kept his teeth locked on Taylor until we got him to the director's office. Soooo Taylor had a huge bite mark on his arm after that.

Did you know that human bites are more likely to become infected than dog bites? That's a fact.

That night my fam took me out to the local mall, and I hit up the H&M. I showed remarkable self-restraint and only bought four headbands- I wear them every day at camp and needed some new ones. At this point, you're probably exclaiming to yourself, "What's that? Liz went into an H&M and walked away with only accessories?!" Well, yes, that was the case. The only thing I really need right now are more shorts, and they didn't have any that fit right. I can go crazy and buy dresses and things of that nature once I get settled. Post-shopping, we hit up a bowling alley in the mall. It was definitely interesting, but I'm embarrassed to say that I did not win.

After our Tuesday biting incident, the boys at camp were suprisingly well-behaved. We had a guy from the company come in on Wednesday morning to supplement camp with an English lesson in the form of Beatles songs. It was really entertaining, and he was great. All the kids enjoyed it, and we had no problems with Ale or Leo.

That night, Taylor's host fam had to go up to Bergamo for dinner with some friends. They told him he could come with them and wander around the city, but he was not invited to actually go to dinner with them- so I ended up going to Bergamo with him. It's very pretty, but there was so much uphill walking, and I'd just been running. We had some good pizza, and then some dessert, and we saw some great views. However, there was a period where we were just waiting to be picked up- they didn't come to get us until after midnight. We were both falling asleep in the car on the way back to Cassano d'Adda.

Yesterday we played water games with the kids. Some baby birds had fallen out of their nest and were sort of hopping around near the kids and I kind of freaked out keeping the kids away from them. I was just having these horrible visions of a kid stepping on one of them and for some reason, I didn't think that was a life lesson we should be teaching at camp. A couple of them flew away eventually but there's still one that isn't quite big enough yet.

I taught my kids the English equivalent of "Che schifo!" which is something that I hear from them on a daily basis. I do this every week, but this week I threw in a new one for my own entertainment. There were the usual 'gross,' 'yucky,' 'sick,' 'disgusting,' and 'nasty,' but I decided to add 'How unfortunate.' I just feel like this will give them a sophistication and dignity that will be appreciable in the English-speaking world.

Last night, one of the host fams took us to get a free tae kwon do lesson from their children's instructor. We were in a group with people around our own age rather than little kids. The lesson began with running laps around the dojo, which was a room in the basement of a church I believe. These were laps with high knees, butt kicks, sideways running, and then random running in a tiny group right in the middle of the room. After that there was some sparring practice, which was fun, and then some stretching. Finally we got to the good stuff: kicking.

Taylor, who achieved a black belt when he was just a little teenager, had decided to wear jeans to the lesson. I don't know if he thought it would be easy enough for him to dress up a little, or if that was all he had to wear, but they ripped while he was showing off. So Taylor had to take off a little early.

I enjoyed the kicking, but it became apparent that I am definitely right-footed. The only time I was decent at kicking with the left foot was when I was able to lead with that foot as well, like I was setting up to throw a softball. Sometimes the footwork was similar.

All in all, the class lasted an hour and a half, and I was covered in sweat within probably 15 minutes of it. It was great to get such a workout in though- it definitely worked my entire body. We went out to dinner with the instructor afterwards, around 1030. He invited us back for another lesson next Monday and I definitely want to go. My entire body's sore, but I'm not sure how much of that is from the run.

Today was pool day! We took the kids to the city pool for the afternoon. Funny thing about the majority of Italian pools- you're supposed to wear a swim cap the entire time you're in the water 'for hygienic reasons.' There's not usually a lifeguard on duty, but they are terribly concerned about the possibility of clogged drains. But as long as everyone's wearing one, I guess it doesn't look that stupid. We actually had fun taking pictures with the caps on.

Tomorrow's up in the air. I was thinking about heading up to a lake or something, maybe stalking George Clooney a little, but my host mom Liudmila mentioned maybe heading to the river and laying out, which I think could be fun. So I don't really know. Suggestions?

PS: Shout out to my gpa, who rocked his surgery this week. I'm praying for you! Also, shout out to my grandmom, who I realized was once again right about the few extra pounds I have over my sisters being advantageous in the event of a stomach flu or something worse. Definitely made a full recovery from last week's vomiting episode. You were right, as usual. Rest of my family, I love and miss you! Let me know if there's anything you want from here!

19 June 2010

arrivederci, viterbo!

Can't think of much to say about today besides the basics. I left Viterbo this morning around 9, got into Cassano d'Adda after 6, and am now at my home for the next week. It's a two-week camp, but I'll switch houses next Saturday. This place is complicated.
I hated so much to leave my family in Viterbo! The twins were just amazing and the parents were so nice and so fun! I stayed up watching calcio (soccer) with them after the girls had gone to bed every night. They've said I'm welcome back in the future, and they're certainly welcome to visit me any time (depending upon where I am).
The final show turned out all right. My kids were a little quiet, but the show lasted about 5 minutes, and they looked pretty adorable, especially which they did their Thriller dance (which they actually suggested). The twins, who were in a different class, had a great show, except the star refused to go onstage and the tutor had to be the Little Mermaid instead. All in all, it was a pretty good week at Viterbo camp.
My host family here is pretty great- it's Ludmila, Alissa, and Yuri. They're very nice and fun, and they're trying to speak English as much as possible. We had a great dinner and now I'm in my own room! More tomorrow, after I've met up with Josephine in Milan!!!

15 June 2010

viterbo 2

"Okay, love you, bye! . . .Wait, how do you turn this thing off? I keep getting these spam messages. . . I can't tell when it's off. . ."
-My mom, using skype

I was in a hurry the last time I updated because I was terrified that I would throw up at any second. And you know what? I did. On and off. For 10 hours.

On the upside, I did lose 10 pounds.

But anyway, I forgot to add a few things. Like when I mentioned that Kellan had said that people were asking about me- it was because the next night, on the port, both the woman who gave me my tickets and the guy who checked in with me about everything both said they kept hearing my name, and apparently there had been such a commotion about how to get me down from Baiardo. It's so weird to be so well-known in such a big company, but hopefully this means I'll be remembered later if I want to volunteer at orientation or something. It's good.

So. Viterbo camp. Things have been a little crazy here since I wasn't able to attend yesterday, so I was sort of thrown right into it today. I think I got a pretty successful warm-up song in, and got a good start on our end-of-the-week show. It's Wizard of Oz themed, so if anyone in Kansas dies at any point this week, I take full responsibility.

Dinner time!

13 June 2010

from viterbo

Another week, another fabulous host family. This week, it’s Edoardo, Maria, Alexandra, and Federica. Ale and Fede are 8 year old twins, and their English is wonderful, on account of the fact that they lived in America until they were 3 years old. After that, they moved to their mother’s native Brazil, and then here to Viterbo.

Viterbo is a four tutor camp, and my coworkers are Heather, Sarah, and Taylor. Heather’s the oldest at 28, and Sarah’s the youngest, at 20. I, however, am the only returning tutor. Our director, Silvia, is doing everything by the book, probably a little too much so. I know she’s probably very concerned about everything running smoothly, so I’m trying to keep her relaxed. The more she plans things, the more disappointed she’ll be, because things rarely go according to plan at English Camp- but I think that’s a good thing.

I haven’t updated you since I left Nice, which means you have a lot of catching up to do. Let me break it down for you, Sue:

I checked out Thursday morning and started walking toward the Nice Ville train station. I arrived in time to catch the 10:23, and bought a few postcards along the way. Last year, on my way to Nice, I took the reverse of this train, from Pisa or Genova to Nice, and from that point there were no stops, just long waits in Ventimiglia and Monaco. Naturally, I expected that there would be no stops on this train either.

Well, either the French and Italian train companies are different, or they’ve made some changes since the last time I traveled through, because I ended up heading back towards Nice. I hopped off at the next stop, Cap d’Ail, but I sort of wish I’d stayed on til Eze, because it’s supposed to be really beautiful. Anyway, caught the next train to Monaco- but there was a 30 minute delay right inside the tunnel. The conductor said, in French, something which I believed translated to ‘an accident of persons.’ Someone on the train before had said something about someone being hit by a train, but none of this was really confirmed.

Eventually we de-trained, and I boarded my next train, to Ventimiglia. This train, like the one before, was supposed to be about a half hour, but please just guess what happened. Just guess!

A TREE FELL ON OUR TRAIN.

Now, I’m not sure if the tree fell on our train specifically, but I know that someone was injured by this tree. Probability, however, would seem to favor the train not falling exactly as a train is passing by at high speed for about 15 seconds. There were debris everywhere, and we had to wait nearly two hours for a new train to come by, pick us up (we had to unload all our stuff and walk across the tracks to get to it), and take us on to Ventimiglia.

There, I had another 30 minute wait until my next train, so I used this time to buy my Italian phone with a Danish guy named Bo. He was pretty cool, and we had definitely been talking during that whole delay. He was nice, but he reminded me a bit of Bruno. He was actually in the area to look for an old mountain farm, like a bunch of old, decrepit, stone buildings to buy. “Everything is an illusion,” he told me. “Only nature is real.”

So I got the new phone, but so much was lost in translation that it took forever and Bo and I had to sprint so I could catch my next train. Then we said goodbye, and I, covered in sweat, continued on to Sanremo.

By the time I made it to Sanremo, it was 4 hours later than I’d planned to arrive. I called one of the higher-ups in my company, as I’d been directed to do. He told me to meet him at new tutor orientation, and figure things out from there.

When I arrived at Villa Ormond, where orientation is held, I said hi to Kellan, who had been at my orientation last year. “Oh, you’re Liz, huh?” he asked me. “People have been asking about you.” That was a little strange, but I let it slide. I found somewhere to stash my suitcases for the next couple of hours and then found Liam.

It’s so strange to think that you could become such good friends with someone after just a couple of weeks together, but the tutors at Trevi camp bonded. Josephine and I talk every day when we’re both in America, and my orientation roommate and I definitely keep in touch. Being thrown into new situations definitely strengthens friendships.

I stuck with Liam until 6pm rolled around. Somehow I managed to sneak into the end of the week group photo, something which I’m quite proud of. Then I was told that I’d be heading up to Baiardo for a bit.

Let me tell you a little about Baiardo: it’s waaaaay up in the mountains. Like WAY up in the mountains. Do you remember that time that I went up into the Picos de Europa on a bus and thought I was going to die? Well this was worse. It was a 40 minute bus ride on tiny, treacherous roads, but thankfully I managed to pass out about halfway up. Once I was there, it was absolutely beautiful.

I was a bit confused about how long I’d be staying in Baiardo. Personally, I was under the assumption that I’d be going back down for group meals, but this was not the case. I ate with the on-hold tutors in Baiardo, and I slept in a tiny, quaint house (I’ll be posting a mock real estate video which I made later) also occupied by Jason, whom I know through my friend Jasey, and James, from South Africa.

The next day I got to explore the town a bit, and some of us went down to a bar to watch Mexico play South Africa in the World Cup. While I was there, one of the other girls got a phone call asking about me. It was someone from the company office, and they wanted me on the last bus down to Sanremo so that I could leave at 6:50 the next morning.

I asked around and discovered that the last bus had left a few minutes earlier. Apparently there was a brief scramble in the office before it was decided that the company founder would drive up to Baiardo to pick me up and then deliver me to Sanremo.

This meant that I got to go to the final dinner on the port. It was a fantastic night of bonding with new coworkers and reminiscing with Liam over pizza, wine, and dancing.

The next morning, I was up at 5:45 to get ready to go, and on the 6:50 train. We traveled for 10 hours before finally arriving in Viterbo.

Tomorrow is day one of camp. I’ve got red level once again, and my class should have about 10 students. I’m so excited to see what this week brings!

09 June 2010

just a quick update before i storm a castle

[from paris]

Okay, when did I update you last? Boston? Wow, you're waaaay behind. Let me get you caught up.

So Boston was lovely, lots of strange people (screaming children on leashes, one chick from Brooklyn who seemed to follow me around, the usual) but good food. I was once again one of the last people on the plane to Iceland, which was considerably larger than that first plane I'd taken.

I was in straight-up zombie mode on the plane to Iceland, probably slumped over my seatback tray table, breathing through my mouth or something. Reeeeeally attractive. By this point, I'd little by little cried away all my makeup at varying points throughout the day so I'm guessing that just added to the general sexiness that was me on Flight 540 to Keflavik Airport in Reykjavik.

But as I've been told, the world does not revolve around me, and somehow the plane made it to Iceland despite my ghastly appearance. We got to see the most stunning sunset over the tops of the clouds as we were descending, and it was still pretty bright even when we were on the ground, at midnight Iceland time. I've never been that far north in the summertime, and it was pretty amazing. Maybe civil twilight, if that gives you an idea of the amount of light.

Thankfully, stores were still open in the airport, at least until one. Definitely kept myself amused with Icelandic souvenirs- we're talking Viking hats, little dwarfy things, and lots of wool. I was so entertained that I didn't make it back to my gate until 12:50am, 15 minutes before my flight was due to take off. I might have been the last person to board the plane yet again. . .

As we were flying out, we got to see the incredible sight that was Mount Eyjafjallojokull. I'm sure everyone on that plane had been crossing their fingers that it wouldn't give us any trouble as far as delaying flights and stranding us abroad, but seeing smoke trail out of it over the clouds was pretty amazing. I wasn't able to get a pic because it was on the other side of the plane, but I definitely got a good look.

Now I'm in Paris, waiting for my final flight to Nice. It's 2:23 am at home, which means I've been travelling for almost an entire day, if you count the time I spent at the airport before my first flight. I think my hour of internet is probably going to run out soon, so that's it for now- more tonight, when I get in to Nice!

08 June 2010

[from logan airport]

Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I've ever known
Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone
And I've made up my mind, I ain't wastin' no more time
Cos here I go again. . .
-Whitesnake

I flew out this morning at 630 am. You'd think that leaving would get easier with experience. . . but it doesn't. It didn't help that the last person who'd been sitting in my seat on Flight No. 1 was a little smaller than me and I had to loosen the seatbelt. . . that chipped away at my confidence a little bit.

On the upside, however, I did have my side of the row to myself. This was due to the fact that there were only THREE SEATS PER ROW and I was on the smaller half. I'm not sure if what I'm saying is making sense right now; I haven't gotten enough sleep the past few nights and right now I feel like I could better communicate with facial expressions and hand gestures. Basically there were 20 or so rows in this plane, with three seats per row, so that's about 60 people on this baby plane? Definitely the smallest plane I've ever taken.

Anyway, the point is, I had my seat next to the window, the aisle, and then there were two more seats across the way. It was pretty stellar. At this point I went into Lizabela mode and stopped really focusing on anything, which sort of makes the homesickness go away because it's in the back of my mind.

My first flight landed on time in Chicago, and then I had to sort of dash through O'Hare to catch my next flight within about 20 minutes AND buy some kitschy souvenirs. I've made it my goal to have something from every city I visit. Every single one.

I think I was dead to the world for my Chicago-Boston flight, but somehow I managed to orient myself, grab one of the greatest sandwiches of my life at Earl of Sandwich, and purchase some more things which I think are hilarious. I think my flight to Iceland's supposed to leave soon but I could just as soon sit around here a bit longer. I'm loving the free wifi here at Logan Airport! I'm pretty sure they didn't have that last time I was here, on my way to Madrid in August of 2008.

But I digress. I have to get a few last minute things ready before my flight takes off. I had more relevant lyrics ready, but I've forgotten them. Need sleep.

Later, little monsters!

01 June 2010

una settimanna

And if that's what you have in mind
Then that's what you're all about
Good luck movin' up, cuz I'm moving out.
-Billy Joel

In one week, I'll be in Reykjavik, waiting for my flight to Paris. I should probably start packing.

It's strange that I can't think of anything to write. I guess I still don't realize how soon it is. This last week will be spent with the people closest to me. Just a few of the things I have planned: making the most of my waterproof camera, playing with our adorable kittens, working out like crazy, and trying to figure out what my first few days back in Europe will look like.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion with my company as to where they want me to wait out the first weekend, so I'm still not sure where I'm going after my first night in Nice. Just another European adventure. . . Stay tuned, lizziephiles.