TIMER

I watched the movie TIMER last night on netflix instant play. It’s a romantic comedy with a science fiction element. I’ve been avoiding romantic comedies lately, they are too predictable, and they predictably make me feel depressed.

In the movie, there is a new technology that people can implant into their wrists, which is a timer that counts down, days, hours, minutes, until when you will meet your soulmate. Your One. And then when you see each other it beeps. According to the studies, 95% of people are happy with their eventual soulmate. Of course this can be both liberating and debilitating at the same time. Would we have relationships? Treat relationships differently when we have such a timer? Would you allow yourself to fall in love, make detours from your destiny?

The protagonist Oona (a very cool name) is nearing thirty, and she is in a panic that her timer has not started counting down, and so she goes around finding guys that have no timers, dating them, and then taking them to get a timer installed (and then they discover they are not soul mates and part ways). Her sister Steph has a timer that says she will meet her soulmate when she is 43, so meanwhile she is trying to pass her time by having meaningless sex.

Something about their predicament resonates with me… and reminds me of all my single girlfriends… we are not the young college girls we were, and thirty does not seem that far away from where we are standing- there is something scary about that number, maybe it’s that when we were little girls, 9 or 10, we imagined that everything would be settled by the time we were 30. (because that seemed really old at the time, and it’s a round number.) So we probably had this picture in our little heads of having a good career, nice husband, a house, a dog, and possibly even a baby.

And for some of my friends, they are on their way to that reality. But then for the rest of us single gals, things are still a confusing mess: we date a bunch of guys wondering if we are wasting our time and the other person’s time, we leap into relationships giving our best, but nevertheless getting our hearts broken, and we keep hoping for that magical someday when we will meet a person who is right for us.

As for me, sometimes I don’t feel I know myself well enough, or know what I want well enough to recognize my soulmate(s) when I see him/her. And I don’t know if that idyllic picture I painted for myself when I was younger is what I am aiming for.

But wouldn’t it be nice to have a timer? It would take all the guessing and disappointment out of this process. I would not have to wonder whether or not I’d be single forever- if that was my destiny, I would know. Wouldn’t that make life easier? The movie shows us that although with the TIMER the dynamics of dating have shifted, humans are still complicated, and the timer doesn’t necessarily make life easier.

And I guess if we look at life and love in the context of ONE soulmate or ONE destiny it makes everything else seem like detours. But if we didn’t have this process of learning and getting hurt, life would be much less interesting. As Mikey says in the movie: “Life is all about detours.”

And gradually, I’ve come to recognize that life is not a romantic comedy, the goal is not a happy ending. The only ending to life is death, and before that every moment is precious and contains all the wonderful confusing qualities that are rarely captured by movies of this type.

Lucky

(Written on June 8th, 2010)

It’s my last evening in Torino, and I think I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss the smell of fresh bread from bakeries on every block, I’m going to miss the bustling street markets where I was too chicken to buy anything because I did not know Italian, I’m going to miss the wonderful espresso and perfect cappuccino that come in small cups (and no paper-cup-to-go monstrosities here!), I’m going to miss the fruity flavors of gelato and my excuse to have all the sugar I want… I think I’m even going to miss using badly pronounced Italian words and hand gestures to communicate.

Admittedly, there were some evenings when I felt extremely depressed and alone. The best places on Earth just aren’t fun without friends and people you love. But this was temporary, and I am glad I had to take on this solitude. It has made me stronger.

And I feel like such a lucky girl. As I sit on the bus to the train station to buy my bus ticket to the airport, I literally count my blessings. I am lucky to have such a nice collaborator to invite me here, and he was such a wonderful host. I am so lucky to have a generous advisor who encouraged me to come here. I am lucky to be a carefree grad student who can focus on her project and not worry about funding students or experiments. I am so very lucky to be young and healthy and have enough money to enjoy sightseeing and food and all these nice experiences.

Even things that irked me at the time… as I count I find that these irritations only happened because I have so much. That I am so truly blessed. I am thankful for the occasions my work made me confused, because that meant I had new problems to solve. I am thankful for the way my feet ached for 3 days after seeing Rome, a sign that I had made every effort to see Rome, and that my legs were strong enough to take me around. I am lucky I had the luxury to agonize over whether or not to purchase all those pretty things in the shops, because it means I am able to afford pretty things. I am glad that I had to travel alone, because it means I am still unattached, unmarried, and don’t have children, because I recognize that this time of freedom (probably?!?) won’t last forever. I am thankful for the language barrier, because I had to rebuild courage to communicate, a quality I’d have never thought I lacked. And I am happy that I feel sad to be leaving, because this means I have enjoyed my time here, and it also means I am going home (as defined to be the place we live most of time)!

Out of Place

I have decided to start reading Edward Said.

“…with an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother very much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, al-though I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.” http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n09/edward-said/between-worlds

I tried his famous book and theses: “Orientalism” in college, could not properly stomach it, and gave up to pursue more entertaining English literary such as Shakespeare plays and Edith Wharton stories.

But I love that passage about Arabic and English and being Palestinian and American and living in Egypt. I sometimes feel the same way... balancing Mandarin and English, drifting between the two, and never quite feeling at home in either.

p.s. Out of Place is the name of his memoir. I like the title. Maybe this will be my first pursuit.

23 Days in Italy - Day 13- Roman Holiday (Part One)

I’ve been putting off writing about my trip to Rome, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it justice. I need better writing skills! I need a larger vocabulary! (Magnificent seems like such a pale word against the images in my brain.) But I know that if I don’t, sooner or later, the images and thoughts will fade and I will only remember fragments of stories, mostly based on pictures instead of actual memories.

I have been secretly yearning to go to Rome ever since I was 13 and saw the movie Roman Holiday for the first time. I understand now that mostly I wanted to be the adorable Audrey Hepburn and have a romance with the charismatic Gregory Peck. In reality, in my two days in Rome, I did not feel like Audrey and I did not meet a Gregory Peck. What happened instead is the movies “Gladiator” and “Angels and Demons” kept popping into my head. I did not like those movies. But I loved Rome… And in some distorted way the images from these movies bought the rich history to life while I stood and gawked at the layers of city which form Rome, from the rubble of the Empire to the majestic buildings of Baroque to the modern day tumble of people and tourists and Vespas...

Roma is quite far away from Torino, but for nothing would I pass up a chance to go there. As I've mentioned, I have been dreaming about this day since I was 13. So I took the night train, a sleeper car, to the city. A full 8 hours of sleep, aided by ear plugs and an eye mask. This was my very first time sleeping on a train, and this glossed over everything that hinted at being unpleasant. In my compartment, there was a mother daughter pair, the daughter being middle-aged, and then another old lady. The daughter spoke some English, and told me they were also all going to Rome. So when they all left the car, I stupidly got off too, only to realize I was not at the central station yet

I manage to take the metro and find my way to the hostel. I booked it mainly because I liked the colors in the pictures (which is probably the stupidest reason ever). I arrive at the hostel, and they are serving breakfast, and it seems all clean and nice, and I breathe a sigh of relief… although I’m told to check in later in the evening. And the lady serving breakfast invites me to join them with a smile.

At breakfast, I meet Emma from Toronto (but currently based in Madrid). Emma invites join her for a walk across the main ancient Roman sites. I gladly accept her invitation. After being alone in Torino for 2 weeks, I crave peers to talk to, and in English, and conversations not about science!

The other nice thing about having a travel companion is you can most often transfer some of the responsibility of finding your way through the city streets. And since Emma had been to this city before I shamelessly let her have all the responsibility of leading the way.

The Colloseum is a 15 minute walk from the hostel, and I hear about Emma’s job teaching little kids English in Madrid. She has nearly finished one school year, and has another scheduled. She has learned lots and lots of Spanish on the way, and I am envious of Madrid and the Spanish, and get nostalgic for the month I spent in Barcelona going to an overpriced language school. People often tell me Italian or French are the most beautiful languages, and although I can see their appeal, for some reason I love Spanish best.

But we are in Italy, and we discuss how easy it is to get mixed up between Italian and Spanish (although apparently Emma knows more Italian than I do also haha).

And as Emma periodically checks the map to see where we’re going, I marvel at the fact that- I AM IN ROME. AM I IN A DREAM? I want to scream or break into a dance right there in the middle of the street. But I shouldn’t scare my new friend, so I keep calm and just exclaim how I love the piazzas and the way people eat outside everywhere and even the crazy traffic... I like the crazy traffic.

We take pictures outside the Colloseum and Forum and Palantine Hill and slowly make our way across town also to the Pantheon. It is quite fun to have a photo buddy in addition to a walking buddy. I admit to Emma that when I am alone I am too timid to keep asking strangers for photos, so I never get anything but my head in the pictures. She says she asks people who look like tourists, and she also offers to take a picture for them in return. I decide I should not be such a chicken about approaching people, and for the rest of the time I am in Rome I put Emma’s strategy into practice.

After dropping in the crowded Pantheon, we grab a slice of pizza and a drink and sit in Piazza Navona. The Piazza has a beautiful fountain and people and artists selling watercolors. My pizza is wonderfully crusty and crisp on the outside while chewy on the inside, and it has wonderful tasting broccoli and artichokes on it. Over the course of my trip I’ve learned the crucial thing about Italian cuisine is to not overdo the sauce or cheese. (Americans tend to do this to their pizza and pasta). We sit and savor our cheap yummy lunch and watch the crowd and feel the sun over our heads and contemplate the beauty of having a siesta after such a walk and such a lunch.

But I only have 2 days here, and as much as I would enjoy lying down on a bench next to a fountain and basking in the warm sun, I need to cram in as much sightseeing as possible! I head towards the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The guidebook keeps warning me about crazy lines, so I am pleasantly surprised as I breeze through the entrance and ticket office. Then I see the line is inside… hundreds and hundreds of people making their way through the vast extravagant Vatican museum to the Sistine Chapel at the end. One can see how powerful and rich this small country the Vatican is from the scope of the museum, and the scale of the building which houses it. I proudly remember that the Vatican is one of 23 countries that has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. This must be the most powerful of the 23. I figure I might as well learn something and rent an audioguide and wander through pieces of ancient roman sculptures, renaissance art by Raphael, and even modern art collections that pale in comparison to the history of the old art. So for 6 Euro I get a two hour crash course in art history, and glimpses of Vatican history. Of course l forget all the interesting tidbits and facts and history I’ve learned the moment I step into the Sistine Chapel.

Because Michelangelo is a genius and everything I’ve seen before this is dwarfed by his ceiling. It’s tough being a genius though- imagine having to strain you neck and paint this whole ceiling yourself for a decade! I guess to be great, you not only have to be a genius, but also sort of crazy. But I’m glad he was crazy. As I’m sure the other 200 people sharing the chapel with me at that moment are.

Michelangelo is now my unchallenged favorite Italian artist. I now understand why modern artists focus on the abstract and try weird things. Because who can top these guys of the renaissance and baroque period for capturing human form and emotion? One has to be creative through other methods and images...

I get to St. Peter’s Basilica and see Michelangelo’s sculpture called “Sympathy” with a tender sorrowful Mary holding a limp lifeless Jesus in her arms. Somehow it does not matter that Michelangelo distorts the proportions of the bodies to get across his emotion (Jesus is so small, and the folds of Mary’s dress is so massive), nor does it bother me that Mary looks like a young teenager when she in fact should be an old lady at this point. Because the truth is in the emotions conveyed.

St. Peter’s Basilica is magnificent and horrible all at once. The marble and gold and sculptures and massive hall and sky-high dome all attest to the power and money the Catholic Church had and has. Somehow religion gets lost in all these worldly riches.

My legs and feet are now upset at me for using them in this way. So I sit outside under one of the pillars of St. Peter’s square and try to placate them. The view reminds me so much of the movie Angels and Demons I can’t help but giggle. But then I imagine the sight of the crowd that gathers here to wait for the pope. And his caravan of bullet proof cars. I imagine how people gather outside on the square when they are trying to elect a new pope and wait for that smoke signal from the chimney. I wonder what it is like to be in front of such a crowd. What it is to speak on the steps in front of St Peter’s, and be broadcast all over the world, and have people actually care what you say and don’t say. The curiosity and imaginary thrill is enough to make me want to actually hold such a position. Of course, I could never be a pope… but maybe something else...

Anyways, after having fantasies about speaking to thousands of people in St. Peter’s square. I tell my legs to stop complaining and somehow find my way to the metro station without a map. On the way out of the square, I notice there are two focal points in the oval shaped piazza. And if you stand at one of them, the pillars on the side nearest you line up. It’s really cool. I stand there and laugh for awhile, and attract the curiosity of a tourist couple, who also come and stand with me. They look around and are puzzled as to why I am so intrigued. But they are Italian, so I can’t explain myself to them.

I return to the hostel and the manager tells me he has a plumbing problem, so his dorm room is not available, he will find me a hostel somewhere else. I look at the location of the hostel he has found, which is not near a metro stop and roughly 1 km from where I am and at this point my legs are on the verge of quitting, so I nicely complain that I don’t want to walk… And we make the arrangement that I can stay in the living room, and he won’t charge me for my stay if I don’t give him a bad review (other than the $3 Euro deposit I’d already paid through the booking website). I feel quite proud of myself for arriving at this solution without having to be mean about it. Ha.

I meet Emma slightly later at the hostel, and although we both have really sore feet, we agree it’s a good idea to wander out for dinner and take a night stroll across Rome to the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps.

Dinner is only so-so. But I have the Carbonara pastas with bacon, with a thick sauce made of eggs, cheese, and tomato. It’s pure evil, this combination. And cold zucchini with parmesean.

We stroll along the Colleseum, the Forum and Vitorrio Emanuel lit up at night. And all of a sudden I am overwhelmed with the luck I have to be here, and see all this magnificent history I have in front of me. It borders on surreal.

Emma and I stroll leisurely along the streets, coaxing our tired legs to go further. At 11pm, the streets are hardly empty, and we find out that the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps are even busier than during the day.

We take our tourist pictures at the fountain, and I throw in 2 pennies and make a wish.

Emma and I share a small bottle of Chianti red wine on the Spanish steps. We share the steps with lots and lots of other groups of young people, staring out at Rome in nighttime, talking, and drinking beer. And also street vendors that sell little toys which light up and fly. It’s a wonderful scene. I am tired, but content, drunk on the energy of the youth and night around me, slowly sipping red wine, feeling warm and at home.

Unfortunately, eating at a public monument is against the law in Rome. So Emma and I are told to put our red wine away by the police. We move ourselves to a nearby square, and continue to soak in the Roman night air, sharing tidbits of stories and thoughts, finishing off the red wine and the beautiful night.

The Great Gatsby

“The greatest American novel of the 20^th century.” This is what my flowered shirt white bearded teddy bear of a philosophy professor said about “The Great Gatsby”. I don’t remember how or why it was relevant to our class. We were reading stories and writings belonging to existentialism. The essays of Camus, the underground man of Dostoevsky, the theorizations of Nietzche, have since all faded from my brain. Yet somehow I’ve always remembered that I should go read the Great Gatsby.

That was 5 years ago. Since then there have been multiple failed attempts at reading that book. I borrowed copies from the library only to get as far as Chapter 2… and each time having to start over, because I would forget what I had read already. I finally bought a copy from the bookstore, hoping that seeing it lying around everyday would somehow induce me to pick it up… Of course we all know that tactic usually has the opposite effect. And so I gave up, and actually left the copy at my parents’ house in Taipei.

One sunny day this Spring, after a bike ride downtown to the farmers’ market, I stopped by the used bookstore to cool off and rest. And there was Gatsby on sale. Actually there was a whole pile on sale. It seemed to be a sign. And so I picked up another copy and packed it in my suitcase for Italy.

During the course of my train ride to Milano and plane ride flying out of Europe, miraculously I finished it. I finished the last chapter as I was sitting on a flight that had just taken off, and the flight attendant was making this annoying 5 minute long announcement in both English and French. I felt I needed some quiet to fully appreciate melancholy last scenes of the book. But I couldn’t put it down. So between wanting to tell the flight attendant to shut up, and being swept by a wave of emotion, I read the last paragraphs:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

And I don’t know whether to feel sorry for Gatsby who clung on so hard to his elusive dream he died, friendless, or Nick who saw through the emptiness of it all or for every one of us who beat on in our little boats against the current.

23 Days in Italy- Day Six- Florence

On my sixth day in Italy, I meet the perfect guy in Florence. And he’s hot too.

He’s the one and only Michelangelo’s David.

When I first saw him standing there, underneath his very own dome in the Academia with a gentle sunlight from the ceiling falling on his perfectly toned body, I caught my breath. My goodness, David, no wonder you are Firenze’s landmark! How can you be made of marble yet so look so alive?

I literally sit there in the Academia after my tour ends and drink him up with my eyes for another 20 minutes.

(Image from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo))

Of course I am tired too- after an early morning train ride, and being lost in Firenze under the hot Tuscan sun, and then having a two hour crash course in pre-renaissance art history at the Uffizi I do need this rest.

***

So it was on my fourth day in Italy that loneliness started to sink in. Outside of the lab I have no one to hang out with or talk to or go to dinner with. I have no means of making friends, because I am at a research institute, and there are hardly any students or people my age. So that evening I didn’t go out to dinner and sulked around my apartment, electing to eat canned soup and finish off all the strawberries in my fridge and then started watching an unhealthy amount of Gossip Girl on the Internet.

After three episodes, I decided I’ve had enough of this feeling sorry for myself, and I should definitely not stay in Torino on the weekend and continue this trend. And so I booked a train ticket to Firenze for the weekend and a hostel bed near the city center.

And so Saturday morning, I find myself waking up at 6:30 am so I can get myself to the train station and catch the 7:37am superfast train to Firenze. I usually can’t even get up before 8:30 for work! But Firenze is calling, and I manage. Besides, a 67 Euro train ticket hangs in the balance.

I love trains. Trains are wonderful. The United States needs more trains. Enough said!

The high speed train is worth the 67 Euros because by 11:00 am I am lost in the streets of Firenze. I spend a good 30 minutes walking around trying to figure out which street I am near, because the map in my pdf guidebook on my ipod is too rough to be of any help. In the end I give up, and go in a general direction that “seems right”. A few minutes later I am on the street that belongs to my hostel, and I drop off my very very minimal backpack that only contains a change of clothes and my toothbrush. (It is so nice to have a base to explore from!)

Since this is a semi last minute trip, I fail to pre-book online a reservation to the insanely popular museum, the Uffizi. The Uffizi, the guidebooks say, have the best collection of Renessaince art in Italy. Apparently one can stand in line for 3 hours and get in.

Nor do I have a reservation to see David at the Academia. I walk by the Academia, and the line seems manageable there, but I do not feel like standing in line for an hour by myself with no company…

So I find my way to the tour agency, “Walking tours of Florence”, that Rick Steves’ (and the New York Times and apparently a bunch of other people) have recommended. When you’re in a tour group, they make the reservations and you can bypass the lines. I pay them a hefty price for tours of the Uffizi and the Academia. I figure I have only 2 days to spend here, so I best make the most of it. And later I discover the tour is very much worth it!

I sneak in a large cup of gelato for lunch before the tour starts. I have dark chocolate and pistachio and “flavor of the month”, which involves yogurt, raisons and pecans. As I am eating my gelato, I forget I am lonely in Italy, I forget I don’t speak the language, I forget I am eating too many carbs and will be fat when I get back to Ithaca… Ice cream! Melts all my worries away!

I meet the tour with ice cream in hand. The tour guide, a British-Italian lady, Elizabeth, has a good sense of humor and is quite well read on her subject. As we walk through the Uffizi museum I learn about the evolution of art as a science, and the evolution of art as reflection on culture and life of the times.

Uffizi means office, these were the government offices built by the rulers of Florence (the Medici) and quite a nice space to have a museum. We look at different pieces of Mary and Baby Jesus, and see how these painters learn how to capture 3D on a 2D surface, learn how to make figures look real and full-bodied. The theme of Mary and Baby Jesus is the topic of most paintings, and we see as time progresses from medieval towards the renaissance they become more “human”. Baby Jesus goes from being a minature adult to an actual chubby lovable huggable baby.

We move through the renaissance, and the subject matter starts to be more varied, with paintings by Boticelli of greek gods and portraits of private rich people. And even at the very end an erotic painting. Claimed to be one of the first of its kind. (That I don’t know if I believe. Haha.)

There are two Da Vinci’s in the museum. I am not impressed until Elizabeth points out the interesting facts about them to me. One of them is the Adoration of the Magi, where the kings worship baby Jesus. This is a theme that has repeated itself many times in the paintings we’ve seen chronologically. While in the other paintings, the kings were always well dressed, and handsome, and the people were nice looking, in Da Vinci’s version, everybody (except for Mary and Baby Jesus) involved looks like they’re suffering, and they are ugly. Apparently, Da Vinci is trying to capture true human nature… He says that everybody wears masks all the time, it’s only when they are dying that we take the masks off… I think about this statement. I think about the masks I wear. Sometimes I don’t know where my mask ends and where myself begins. And I wonder do I look like a dying skeleton without my mask? I don’t think I’ve faced any grand challenges in this life yet, and so maybe my true nature has yet to be revealed?

I am so happy to be on this tour. I feel it is worth all of the 40 euros I paid. To hear English. To be with other English-speaking people! I wouldn’t have understood all this art if I had wandered through the museum on my own. I would've been oh, okay, very old art, interesting. Oh, big name here, big name there, must be important.

After the Uffizi, we go to the Academia and hear about Michelangelo and his life and his style of working. How he was a perfectionist who did everything himself. How he would study anatomy- how else could you sculpt a person without knowing what’s going on inside? And this was in a time when dissecting human bodies was illegal. Medical students got to look at one a year. One. He got heaps from the Church. All because he was freaking good at what he did. (Moral of the story: always be freaking good at whatever you do!) He was the first of his kind, a modern artist, who gave this image of the inspired and eccentric genius, and was a millionaire when he died.

We look at the “prisoners”, half-finished sculptures by Michelangelo that were commissioned by a pope for his own tomb, but never got finished, because there were always other popes and other projects. But they are called the prisoners because though they are unfinished, they are already life-like enough to seem to be struggling to break free from the marble and stone that is trapping them.

And then we see David. We walk all around him, and look at the way he is structured. The fine details and precision at which Michelangelo has designed him. The way his muscles are tense, ready to spring to action, how he is swallowing in anticipation, the way his diaphragm is stretched, signaling him taking a breath in, and admire the fact that when Michelangelo got this piece of marble it was something no other sculptor had wanted to work with, being the wrong shape and flawed in a couple of places.

I am so happy to be on this tour. I feel it is worth all of the 40 euros I paid. To hear English. To be with other English-speaking people! I wouldn’t have understood all this art without somebody telling me in my ear what was going on. And to hear all these interesting ancedotes about people long past.

The other members of the tours are three families with college-aged kids, and two couples. I am quite an oddity, in the world of sightseeing. I see maybe one fellow lone traveler the entire two days I am here. People tend to move around in pairs or packs. The tour guide asks me “Are you by yourself? Are you enjoying yourself?” I say “Yes!” with enthusiasm. It is half the truth. The enthusiasm and yes are for me more than anyone else. I fully enjoy keeping my own pace wandering through town and taking things in the way I want to. I enjoy making decisions like taking a tour or going to a restaurant without having to consider the financial circumstances of other travel companions. But then somewhere deep down I do want to be in a pair or in a pack.

But as I stare at David, I don’t mind I am alone. Because in this moment, it is just me and him. It’s perfection.

To be continued…

23 Days in Italy- Day One

So I am in Torino, Italy. Half asleep. Just had dinner. I am too tired to walk around. So I am spending my time typing this detailed and boring description of my first day.

My goodbye to the United States yeterday was a half-price happy-hour Starbucks strawberry and crème frappucino at the Washington-Dulles airport. My uneventful flight was started with a rather bland movie, and then was wrapped up by me trying in vain to get some sleep- armed with eyemask, earplugs, and neck pillow. I kept drifting off into random thoughts but not sleep, one of my tho ughts was wishing that I were one of those really petite Asian girls who could just curl up their legs onto the economy class seat into a neat little ball. I saw a girl from Malaysia do that once- I was at once very impressed and very envious. I don’t usually resent that I am not short. Except when I am on a plane.

But I arrive in Munich! The airport is more spotless than Narita, and I am impressed. The border official asks me what I plan to do in Torino. “Look around.” You really can’t demand people to come up with elaborate sentences when they have just gotten off an 8 hour flight. He smiles at me and teases, “Look around? At hot guys?” I laugh and look at his smile and realize the border guy is quite cute himself, shaved head and all.

I decide I like German people. They have a very clean airport. Some of them (or maybe only the border guy) are quite good looking. They seem to have nice smiles. (The lady at the Lufthansa ticket counter also gave me a smile that made me feel like a million bucks, do they include this in all types of employee training?) And they are tall. I don’t know. I have a thing for tall people. I do. Except for when I want to be curled up into a ball on the plane.

And Lufthansa has free coffee, free espresso. I drink two of them waiting for my flight to Torino, which turns out to be a good idea, because it turns out to be delayed and at 10 a.m. Germany time in the morning my body is screaming 4 a.m.! 4 a.m.! 4 a.m.!

It might’ve been coffee or boredom, but in the middle of the bustling shiny clean airport I get out my laptop, and (gasp!) start doing work! I make 2 rough plots while waiting for my flight, humming “Good Morning Baltimore” to myself. I don’t know why this song has been stuck in my head for a few days now. It is the perkiness I aspire to in my life. Of course I aspire to it mostly because lately I am more glum than perky, especially when it is rainy and cold in Ithaca. But while I’m humming this and working on plots, I feel being in a different country is helping. Anyways, by the time I shut down mathematica, I feel like “every day’s like an open door, every night is a fantasy!”

On the short 1 hour flight to Torino, they have free wine. (okay, I know, wine is cheap in Europe, cheaper than Coke probably). But in actual glasses made out of glass! And the flight attendants smile at you when asking what you want to drink instead of exhuming impatience. (I understand that it is hard to be a flight attendant, but then it is also hard to be a passenger too).

I spend the flight staring out the window at the alps. I tell myself I should go hiking sometime. But at this point the thought just makes me feel tired. And then I stare at the towns in between… for some reason, Europeans seem to have an obsession with red rooftops. I think it is cute.

And I get to Torino, the caffeine wearing off, and I'm tired and beat, but Gianfranco is there to greet me. Gianfranco is a very enthusiastic host, as he drives me to where I’m staying he tells me about the city, where to eat where to shop what to dowhere the main market place is… There is a main plaza: Plaza Castello, that reminds me of Plaza Mayor in Madrid, except better scenery. Torino is situated near glacial hills and mountains. It’s quite pretty. And the holy shroud, it’s on exhibit, I need to go see that.

I notice, on the flight and in the city, that I don’t understand what’s going on, not when people are talking nor reading the signs on the street! I realize this is the first time I’m in a country that I don’t know the language. (So in Mexico and Spain I sort of knew the basics). Here I don’t even remember the word for bathroom. It is an exhilarating thought. Once now and then I catch an interchangeable phrase with Spanish or something simple (such as the pilot apologizing for the delay by saying “molto molto trafico”). This and the fact that spoken Italian sounds like singing is enough to make me feel at ease… for now. Later I’ll have to deal with ordering at restaurants or getting an internet connection or a phone card or something nasty and then I’ll start feeling homesick. But for now I’m excited.

The self-service apartment I’m staying in is very cosy. So it is a room with a bathroom and a kitchenette. The kitchenette turns out to be disguised as a cabinet. Not that I expect I’ll be cooking at all…

Gianfranco shows me around the area and points out where to get essentials, where to get food… it turns out he used to work near here as a scientist some years ago, and so knows where is the best coffee, etc. Then he says "see you tomorrow morning!" And I am ready to venture off into the Italian speaking Torino!

I go to Carrefour and pick up some soap and shampoo. Good old Carrefour! Although I don’t understand anything, I figure out which price is for which thing, I can survive this! I like Carrefour. It was my supply of cheap everyday food when I was in Barcelona three summers ago. It is my supply of cheap snacks and teas when I’m in Taipei. I try to remember Gianfranco’s advice when randomly crossing the road “be certain, that’s the key”. (Basically people are crazy and cars are crazy and I’m amazed that the few hours I’ve been here, I haven’t seen an accident).

But then it’s dinnertime… I decide to be brave and eat at a proper restaurant. No it’s not dining alone that scares me. I have gotten over my fear of dining alone quite some time ago. I have traveled alone enough that it has become a necessity. And I’ve adapted. I’ve found it’s quite fun to rudely observe other people while waiting for food, and then quietly concentrate on the food when it arrives, and then take time to sit and sip water (or a drink) and muse about your experience after you are done. And there’s no trouble in dividing the cheque whatsoever!

No, what I have qualms about is the Italian and my lack of understanding of it. I figure I won’t recognize much on the menu, and I’ll stumble my way in ordering food. I decide to go to a pizzaria. There’s two in the neighborhood that Gianfranco mentioned. One that’s hit or miss, the other that’s good but the people are mean. I figure I’ll go with the nice people my first day here and risk the bad food.

I go into this place. It seems just the right atmosphere. The clientele include people in suits that have just gotten off from work, teenagers hanging out, families with babies… this makes me at ease. This must be the equivalent of applebees or something…

I am greeted with “Buona sera”, and the server points me to a table and hands me a menu. I stumble with a “Grazie”, and start to struggle reading the menu. I decide on the rosmarino, just because I recognize all the ingredients, and then vino bianco. (only because I don’t want beer or Coke, and besides the wine IS cheaper than the CocaCola…) I close my menu and sit purposefully, and the waiter comes over and writes a 30 on the table, saying “treinta”. I look quizzically at him. He says something in Italian and I realize he means that this is my number… And he suddenly understands that I’m a foreigner (I wonder it wasn’t obvious?) and asks, “English?”, and hands me an English menu. But I am ready to order, so I say with uncertainty what I want, and the most difficult part is done.

I do not know if the pizza was good. By my own tastebuds it was okay. Not spectacular but okay. I am too self-conscious at this point to take a picture of my food (which is what I often do when I am a tourist). I neatly finish my food, and ponder how to ask for the check. I remember reading it in the guidebook somewhere. But all that comes to mind is the Spanish version “la cuenta, por favor”, and I’m sure that’s not right somehow, might be close but not right. I’m all frazzled about this when I discover people just up and leave an pay at the front. I am so relieved at this! And as I get up to go I think to myself I need to go look this up! And I'm thinking if only I had gotten that phrase book from my officemate when I had the chance...

It is "Il conto, por favore." And if I want dessert next time, that is "tiramisu, por favore". Haha.