Forget Bryan, bring me back to Bourbon

Someone asked me the other day, “Why don’t you blog any more?” and I was like “oh yeah, blogging, I used to do that.”

The last time I posted I was in Rome. It seems like so long ago, but it’s only been a few (7?) short months. Since then I’ve come back to the States, started working a crappy job again, been living in a small town, and not traveled much at all. That’s the bad news. The good news is I spent basically the entire summer with my boyfriend, who I had missed a lot in Italy. It was hard to come back, but it was good.

And believe it or not, he’s actually changed my sleep schedule. That’s another reason for the lack of blogging – I was rarely up until 1 a.m. or later at all this summer. I worked a lot, and I would come home and watch movies and eat dinner and hang out and then go to sleep well before midnight. Even once school started, I was going to bed early and getting up early to do my homework.

That all changed this past weekend, though. The madness started on Thursday, when I worked my typical 2pm-10pm shift at work and came home. I avoided homework, hung out with Shane, watched something not-that-memorable on teevee, and went to bed around 1 a.m. I woke up at 4:20 a.m. to do homework that was due on Friday. I went to class at 8 a.m., fell asleep in Chapel at 10 a.m., ate lunch and packed my things, and went to my 1 p.m. class with Shane. After that, we finished up some homework, and left Dayton, TN around 2:45 p.m. We drove down through Soddy Daisy to pick up his sister and brother-in-law, Chelsea and Casey. They packed their things into the car, and we drove to Biloxi, MS where we picked up our friend Nico who’s stationed there with the Air Force. We finished out the drive to Baton Rouge, LA, arriving around 1 a.m. (CST). My best friend and little brother were there waiting for us, and we stayed up for several hours catching up and goofing off. We went to sleep some time after 3 a.m.

Jessi and I woke up at 5 minutes til 7 a.m., packed it up and drove to Boyce, LA to photograph a wedding for an old friend of mine. We arrived after 10 a.m., the ceremony started at 3 p.m., and we left the reception after the bride and groom’s exit a little after 6 p.m. We then drove three hours back to Baton Rouge, picked up Shane, Chelsea, Casey and Nico, and drove another hour down to New Orleans.

Arriving after 11 p.m., we checked into our hotel and navigated our way to Bourbon Street for just around midnight. I’ll leave it mostly to the imagination what 6 college kids did in New Orleans until after 4 a.m., but I’ll at least tell you there was a lot of dancing, good times, some tragic falls, and a few beads involved.

We got back to the hotel around 4:30 a.m. and collapsed at various times throughout the morning. At 10 a.m. we were up and at ‘em, showering and packing and driving back to Baton Rouge to drop Jessi off and see my family for lunch. We left in the afternoon, drove back through Bilox and Soddy and finally arrived back in Dayton at 3 a.m. on Monday morning.

At 5 a.m., I woke up and put together a presentation for my World News class, met with my group at 7:30 a.m., and presented at 9 a.m. I was in chapel, in class, at the golf course (for class, really, I swear), in a meeting for the newspaper, at Amigo’s (for 75 cent taco night!), in a student government meeting, and with good friends who needed to talk until midnight, when I finally collapsed and managed to sleep for 7 hours.

And that is what a weekend in the life of a college senior is about.

10:53 a.m. (EST)

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Maddie Kay.

Being behind.

Well, I have my computer back, but I still haven’t caught up on picture editing, blogging, or anything else really. I’m sitting in a hostel in Rome, thinking about how I’m never ever ever going to remember enough to write interesting blog posts when I actually have the time to sit down and write them. Good thing I have that whole photo fallback thing.

 

The past month has been amazing. I’ve visited Venice, Verona, Florence, Assisi, Rome. I’ve danced in the streets of small Italian towns. I’ve learned how to order gelato, drinks, and stamps in Italian… (the most important things.) I’ve met some awesome friends. I’ve eaten way too many carbs and not cared at all.

Now I’m about to walk around Rome for the day with a large pack, in the rain. Tonight, we’ll drive back to San Lorenzo, wayyy to the North. Tomorrow, I’ll leave for Barcelona. Tuesday, I’ll be in Paris. The rest of spring break, I’ll be sitting in the French countryside near the coast.

 

Maybe I’ll blog… some time after that.

7:31 a.m. (Italy) // 2:31 a.m. (Tennessee) // 1:31 a.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.

 

Technical Difficulties.

The other day, I was sitting in my room on my bed during riposo, doing something or another on my computer (probably watching Dexter, since I just started season 4 and it’s amaaaaazing and I can’t stop.) And then I saw this bug, creeping across our bedroom floor in the Princess Palace. Like a good human being and roommate, I set my computer aside to get up and squash the bug. The results did include the bug being killed, but also my laptop falling violently onto the hardwood floor.

At first I was excited because my computer was still functioning by the time I made it back to it. But then, I realized that my computer cord had been jammed/bent inside of my computer during the tragic fall. I’m pretty sure the metal piece has broken off inside of my computer, but is still loosely connected, so I can do things on my computer with my left hand while I finagle and twist the power cord with my right hand to make sure it holds a charge.

When I emailed my dad to let him know what had happened, he replied, “Really? Expensive computer vs. bug. Really. What would you do if, say, a wild dog attacked you. Obviously a laptop wouldn’t be sufficient.” I sent back something like “It was a really scary bug.”

Needless to say, it’s not fun working from my computer right now. I’m blogging from the dinosaur desktop in the school lounge now, and arranging to have a new power cord sent over from the States. I’m way behind, but I have stories from Venice and Udine that will be shared soon, along with pictures as soon as I can work from my laptop again.

Until then.

7:16 p.m. (Italy) // 1:16 p.m. (Tennessee) // 12:16 p.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.

Gelato, per favore.

A little behind on my blogging, but I’ve decided not to concern myself with consistency this semester. That might not be the best life choice ever, but you know, whatever.

On Thursday, our afternoon classes were canceled in lieu of a field trip up the road to a little town called Spilimbergo. There are portions of the city that date back to the 1400′s, and overall it’s beautiful and colorful and just fun.

Here, too, we as a group had our first experience with gelato. For most of the students, it was our first time – and it was delicious. I ordered my tiramisu and vanilla in a cone in my choppy Italian – at which the cute waiter smiled, as if to say “you stupid American girl, you are adorable.” That’s what I thought he was thinking, at least.

Later we went to the church in the town, which is older than… a lot of things. It was a beautiful building, and had a super-cool crypt below with an altar constructed by Lombardi. We walked to the vista point of the town. Right by city hall, it’s a view of the surrounding countryside and mountains. You can actually see parts of Austria from where we were, which was pretty nifty.

Overall, it was a great afternoon and a reminder that we’re living in one of the most beautiful places in the world for three months of our lives.

7:05 p.m. (Italy) // 1:05 p.m. (Tennessee) // 12:05 p.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.

The Situation.

Italy is cozy.

The living situation here has been wonderful. The small campus of our school is adorable. It also happens to be yellow, all around.

Today, during riposo, I went for a jog (right after lunch – almost puked, but didn’t.) I hate jogging, it hurts my knees, and I have a hard time breathing in cold air. But somehow, jogging along a small Italian road surrounded by the freshly stripped vineyards, with the Alps on my left and the old homes of San Lorenzo on my right, was infinitely more enjoyable than jogging anywhere in the humidity of Louisiana or the hills of Tennessee.

The color, the weather, the atmosphere, the food – somehow it all combines to make for a relaxing living experience despite 30 hours of class a week.

Speaking of which – class was rough today. 6 hours a day seemed fine yesterday. Then today we started talking about predestination and Calvinism vs. Armenianism and church history and our professor (Sam, Sr. – the founder of the school here.) just took a sledgehammer to half of the students’ worldviews…including mine. By the time we got to the last hour of class, my foot was shaking nervously, I was tugging at my hair, and Garrett and I were Skyping snide, cynical comments across the room to each other in lieu of being so frustrated with the subject matter.

After class ended for the night, I went back to my room and tried to do some Acts homework. Quickly realizing how unproductive that would’ve been, I plugged some Postal Service into my headphones and took a 20 minute nap before dinner.

I’m not sure whether it was Ben Gibbard’s voice, the nap, or the dinner, but somehow all the world’s problems seem alright for now.

10:31 p.m. (Italy) // 4:31 p.m. (Tennessee) // 3:31 p.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.

Changes.

Italy is different.

The money is different. Using European currency isn’t all that confusing. It sort of makes sense, actually – kinda more than American dollars do. The bills are all arranged according to size; the more valuable the bill, the larger it is. Same with coins. Because the exchange rate is so great right now, it’s pretty easy to make petty purchases and just think about Euros like I think about dollars. When spending larger amounts of money, however, the low value of our own currency becomes a lot more obvious. Spending $200 on books and school fees is a lot in the States. Spending 200…is a lot more.

 

The food is different. Obviously, much, much better than the average college student’s meal in the States. I just ate lunch here, and the spaghetti was probably the best I’ve ever had. Some things aren’t necessarily better, though – just different. Breakfast, for instance, is nothing like it is at home. In America we may have cereal, oatmeal, toast, eggs, bacon, biscuits, etc. for breakfast. In Italy, things are much more low-key. Usually a bread-based breakfast is served with jam and the oh-so-good Choco Nussa, which is like chocolate Nutella from heaven, basically. There’s a lot of fresh fruit involved, coffee and tea, and that’s about it. Some Italians just grab their espresso and a few cookies before starting their day.

Works for me, since I’m not usually a big breakfast person. And I heart Choco Nussa on basically anything.

The schedule is different, too. In Spain and many parts of the Spanish-influenced world, they have siesta every day, where collectively as a society they decide to take a nap. Businesses shut down, people leave work, policemen are off-duty, thieves don’t steal, babies don’t cry. Et cetera. Italy does the same thing. It’s called riposo and from 12:30-3:30, every day, no matter what, it happens. Where I live in San Lorenzo, there are even town-wide quiet hours during riposo. Weird, right?

So, that’s where I’m off to. I’ve sacrificed a certain amount of riposo to blog, and now I’m claiming the rest of it for sleep until classes start again at 3:30.

2:29 p.m. (Italy) // 8:29 a.m. (Tennessee) // 7:29 a.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.

Oh wait, we do.

Italy is wonderful.

I was strolling down the road yesterday on my way to the water fountain with my roommates and our RA. On our way to the town’s water fountain (where we get our entire drinking water supply for the school, as well as our personal water bottles – thus the stroll), we were walking past the acres of dormant vineyards and looking at all the beautiful homes in San Lorenzo, and I found myself saying aloud:

“OhmyGOSH, I just want to live here. Oh wait…we do!”

Living in Italy is already an adventure. I can’t wait to share more of it. But for now, sleep. Before midnight. Look at what living in Europe does to college kids.

11:29 p.m. (Italy) // 5:29 p.m. (Tennessee) // 4:29 p.m. (Louisiana)

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Maddie Kay.