6

How can you tell you're in Europe?

pairs of awkward man-capris: 1
denim-on-denim ensembles: 1
man purses: 1
cargo pants: too many to count

I arrived in Italy this morning via Paris. I had amazing flights over courtesy Air France. Private tvs, a self-serve drinks cart -- and that's for those of us at the back of the bus. Kudos to you Air France. And kudos to Delta for partnering with Air France. If I wasn't so excited to be here, I'd say I'm looking forward to the flight back.

Anyway. Florence is nice so far. The hotel is a bit cramped (seriously...where am I supposed to unpack my clothing? I do not want to live out of a suitcase for the next six weeks) and has an interesting shower (a drain in the bathroom floor). I'll admit we already basically flooded the bathroom. It could be much worse though. We even have airconditioning! And a welcome drink tonight, so what could be bad?


Three of us just got back from a walk around parts of the city. We just kind of ambled around, seeing what we could find. Miraculously we made it to the river and the Ponte Vecchio (where I took this picture). It really is beautiful seeing all the bridges. We also found the street of high-end designer shops. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We'll just have to see how that goes when the summer sales start. If it's going to come down to buying food or going shopping, I'm afraid shopping will always prevail. I did just buy a new purse this week though, so maybe I shouldn't be doing any shopping.

Jet lag is starting to hit which is bad, because I really do want to go out tonight. I've already had coffee and espresso though, and I don't normally have caffine. I'm sort of jittery but also sort of exhausted. Let's hope the coffee prevails.

5

My goal for the summer is to brush up on my classic literature. I have a tendency to read trash. It's easy on the mind and still allows for escape, but is generally lacking regardless. This summer I would prefer to read all the books I should have in the past. BBC made a list of 100 classics, which seems a decent starting place. I've read some of them before, but I might as well re-read them all. Crossed out are the ones I've been through since I came home.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Aleandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've got quite a long way to go, but this should keep me occupied for the summer. I am going to be working in Atlanta again once I return from Florence, for the same organization I did last summer.

I'm in the process of reading The Count of Monte Cristo right now. I was searching our bookcases for classics and found it with the old books. The copy is from the late 19th century and is beautiful. It's got a deep purple leather cover with a gold stamped man on it and has that old book smell. Reading it in a modern atmosphere almost feels strange, but exciting at the same time. In contrast to books from contemporary shops, I find myself wondering how many other people have held and read the same copy. I want to know how certain marks came to certain pages and if others enjoyed it as much as I am. It really is a wonderful book, despite its length. Dumas creates a story without holes. It's easy to picture the places and the people because they're so thought out and described with intense detail. I'm pleased to be reading it before heading to Florence, since Dumas spends a great deal of time writing of the areas around the Mediterranean. I wish I could be transported back to Dumas' time. Some of the events he describes are incredible - like Carnival in Rome. Now we tend to think of Carnival in Rio, or Venice if you want to stay within Italy. The characters have such distinct ways of talking and expressing themselves, as well as a manner of reserve that's nearly impossible to find today. It's interesting to wonder about the gradual changes from the 19th century up to now and continue to occur.

4

I have a new favorite artist of the moment. Though he's not exactly new on the scene.

I love Ellsworth Kelly's nature drawings. They're only basic pencil, but I think they're wonderful. So simplistic. It's just minimalist beauty, much like his other work. Kelly isn't know for the drawings, but rather for his large colorful pieces. They're certainly interesting, though they don't hold the same appeal for me.



I saw a handful of the drawings this weekend at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my mother and godmother. There's a truly fantastic Cezanne exhibit at the moment. The museum did a wonderful job of picking Cezanne's work and then pieces by other artists based on the same work. You can see the progression through time from Cezanne's revolutionary work to Kelly's minimalism, and all in between. It was one of the best art exhibits I've ever seen. After exploring that we looked into the upstairs galleries and were blown away again. The Museum is like none I've ever visited before. There were several rooms entirely recreated from historical buildings: a medieval cloister, a Japanese teahouse, a Chinese temple, and Indian temple. They were all incredible. I could have spent hours roaming around and discovering new things.

Sometimes I wonder why more people aren't intrigued by these things. I mean, how often do you stumble upon a medieval cloister that's been shipped from France? Can you imagine? Such a holy place - only the monks were allowed in them. The cloisters really were spaces for God, not human. Museums generally seem to have an eerie stillness to begin with, but it only enhanced the cloiser and temples. The detail and design skill was also fantastic. How did people do that kind of magic? Sculpting and painting ceilings, meticulously polishing and carving. I wish I had that kind of talent. Or better, patience. It wouldn't be a virtue if it was easy to have though.

Saturday was an entirely different story. Mom booked us on a trolley tour. A trolley tour. It's absolutely mortifying! Luckily we weaseled out of it because they were only running double decker buses, but still! The mere thought of having to ride in an old fashioned trolley around Philadelphia gives me shivers. I think those things were invented for total humiliation. Really now. We still made it to the Liberty Bell, which in all honesty is boring. It's a bell. A somewhat large bell with a large crack. I know it represents all sorts of freedoms or something like that, but I just don't care. Maybe if I found American history even remotely interesting it would be a diffenrent story. American history is just so bland though. All the minute details, the individuals...there's only so much that can be done in 250 years. Boring. I'd rather read up on European history, or Chinese history. You can actually see the rise and fall of power, ideals, periodic styles, etc. You just don't get that in this country. There just isn't old.

3

I have my economics final tomorrow. Though much better than micro, macro still loses me sometimes. I think I'll have to concede that I'm just not a theoretical person. I want the practical. I want to envision real consequences instead of staring a graphs or predicting what "should" happen. Sometimes I feel beyond stupid for not understanding the economy or how certain monetary things work, especially as dad uses all that information for a living. I just wonder: what's a mutual fund? a hedge fund? 401(k)? how often do people really take out loans? realistically, how safe is the stock market? do people actually buy bonds? is the US in trouble based on the amount of debt that china holds? how in the world did the government budget deficit get this large?

I think you get the picture. Some of the questions I probably should be able to answer. Others, even economists have a hard time with. I guess I should also ask why people flip out so frequently. Expectations play a huge role in the state of the economy. Actually, they play a huge role in many things. Swine flu for example. I just want to yell at everyone to calm down! This is the flu, simply without a vaccine. People die from the flu in thousands every year. Take deep breaths and perhaps readdress the situation. Stop and think for a minute. Seriously.

It reminds me of that Ani DiFranco song (Dilate):

So I'll walk the plank
and I'll jump with a smile
If I'm gonna go down
I'm gonna do it with style

I find her a bit angsty woman a lot of the time, but she's ballsy. Female empowerment or whatever. More power to her. Her newest cd isn't bad actually (Red Letter Year). Newish anyway. I normally have a bit of an issue with feminists. The radical ones have pushed the word itself into the far, uncompromising left. Sure I believe men and women should be treated equally, but there are some things just too far out there. Namely personal hygiene. Please shave. I don't want to see hairy armpits and I don't want to see hairy legs. Please make use of deoderant and soap. If I want to wear pretty clothing, killer heels, perfume, and makeup - it's my decision. No man has told me I have to do so, nor have I been brainwashed. Take a break people.

I kind of want to be this woman. Or just get away with something as ridiculous.

2

My accomplishment of the day: successfully navigating a club merger. My discovery of the day: I will never work in business (though I knew that one before) because: 1). my diplomacy skills are lacking. Seriously, I just want the issue on the table instead of beating around the bush. 2). I have no idea what most business terms mean. Finance specialty? Portfolio manager? Hedge fund? No idea. I guess that makes me ignorant in many people's eyes. I'll go ahead and say I just have a different specialty. Can you name the schools of international relations theory or varying methods to approaching a peace agreement with the help of third party actors? I feel smart when I say things like that. Woo. Two more years to swell my brain with other fairly useless information like that. Maybe that makes me a pessimist about my education. Terry Pratchett has his own take of course.

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
Terry Pratchett, The Truth

I swear, he's a genius sometimes. I can't even wrap my mind around it. He's right of course. Why consider the negative and positive of anything when you could change that thing instead? I love his books thanks to things like his. He takes history or custom or tradition, and warps it. Every book I find myself asking why I didn't think of it like that. Who would ever consider the merits of a dictatorship or a thieves guild? Plenty of it is useless outside the context of his world, but he has a way of mocking human nature. It's nice to see irreverence sometimes. We certainly have enough self-help books and such to sustain the other school. A little sarcasm and satire could do a lot for the proponents of "self-esteem." Really now.

1

I've always wanted to blog, but worried that I don't have enough to say. We'll just have to see how this goes. I'm going abroad this summer and fall. Now seems as good a time as any to begin. There's just over a week of school left before going home for the summer. I suppose I should be studying for finals. In due time, in due time. I can't believe another entire year of school is over. It seems like I only just got here. Stranger is the realization that I won't be back until January. Summer is Florence and (hopefully) Milan. Fall is Edinburgh. I've never spent so much time out of the country before. It certainly should be interesting. If I had to pick, I'd say I'm most excited about Edinburgh.

It seems almost stupidly sentimental to want to study there. I never thought I'd be one of those people who actually considers the school their father went to. It could be worse though, I could've chosen St. Andrews. Many more family members went there. The city is tiny though and doesn't have much to do, unless you're into the whole golfing thing. It's not exactly a passion of most girls in their early 20s to say the least. Edinburgh is a whole different story. The city has a vibrancy to it, as well as a sense of age. You just can't find that oldness in the US. You can walk the streets and know that people have done the same, on the same cobblestones, for ages. There's something beautiful in that history. Or maybe I just have an overactive imagination. Perhaps they're both possibilities.

Anyway. Something in my room (okay, technically the strange ceiling panel of my room) is making scary noises. It had better not be a mouse, or worse a rat! The idea of that terrifies me. Animals should not be living in ceilings. Or rooms. Or generally indoors in a non-controlled situation. There were squirrels living between the wall of my room and Jamie's when I was little. The scratching was horrific every night. I can't count the number of time I had to run to my parents' room. They never believed me. It wasn't until we renovated and the builders found the skeletons that I was proven correct. That sounds a bit morbid. I'll blame the CSI I'm currently watching. Terrible show, but mindlessly entertaining in that morbid kind of way. I like to think that the colorful shots of Miami somewhat balance the more grisly images. Maybe that and Horatio's calculated coolness. Seriously though, would it kill him to change the tone of his voice once in a while?