Bye Bye, Hua Mei
Oh yeah, right. Vicky and I went to the zoo today. That whole "Hua Mei's leaving" thing is all a big marketing ploy. Discreetly placed by the panda exhibit is a sign that informs the visiting public that Hua Mei's date of departure is as of yet, indefinite. Plus, I'm sure after a date is set it takes a few months to organize the transcontinental transport of an endangered baby panda bred in captivity. So, those of you who were already making your dates with Hua Mei, rest assured that you have some more time than you thought.
Plus, today she was sleeping and all we saw was her back.
We did get a full aerial view from the Skyfari cable car of a disco-jivin', sun-bathin', gay mega-fete hosted by Penthouse Productions. All we saw were topless gay men, a sea of bronze pectorals and washboard stomachs. Yesterday when I cruised by Balboa Park I saw a similar parade of man love and wondered if it was gay pride week or something. And yet, it wasn't advertised anywhere through Hillcrest. But as we were leaving the zoo we saw carloads of gay dudes pulling into the parking lot, to join the line of thousand or more lined up outside the zoo, to join the thousand already groovin' inside the zoo, and I really didn't believe that this assembly was a normal occurrence for San Diego's gay community. Something was amiss. Vicky and I were whispering around them, "Funny -- is it GP week or something?" Another family man with his stroller and two kids muttered, as a couple walked by, "They're all over the place!" That wasn't very politically correct.
The strangest thing about all the gay men we saw today was that they all had the same outfit on: New Balance sneakers, board shorts, muscle tanks, and clear sunglasses (usually Valentino, Armani, or Chanel). What gives?
I saw Goldmember on Friday night. This is the best movie of all time.
Serendipity
I like it. I depend on it. And it happens to me.
Just When You Thought It Was Over...
I got 4 letters in the mail yesterday that made me really emotional and sent me to the beach to read and reflect.
While I was there, a scruffy kid with a skateboard came up to me and said, "Excuse me, I know you are reading letters, but I just want you to know that you give new meaning to the expression Asian Persuasion!"
"Thanks," I said a little bashfully, hoping he didn't see the zits on my neck.
Another man came out of the water, and while squeezing out his long hair noticed the sheets I had in my hand, and asked me, "Uh-oh, good news or bad news?"
"Both," I said.
"Just be glad you got handwritten letters! Nobody gets those these days," he remarked.
Today I am a tiny bit miserable thinking about what might have been. Other than that, I'm having a good hair day. So it all balances out.
Dolce Far Niente
That's the theme of my summer.
Dance class and getting drunk make my face the same shade of red. I hate that consequence but I generally enjoy both activities. I'm taking a lyrical jazz class at the Academy of Performing Arts and it's fantastic. It really perks up my Wednesdays.
Last night there was another great find: Gelato Vero Caffe' in Mission Hills. The consistency of the gelato is a little odd but the vanilla bean and gianduia can really rival some of the gelato I had in Florence. As I described it to Po, "It's not better than the best, but it's not worse than the worst in Florence." OK, that is not a glittering recommendation but it means there is now a solution for my gelato fix.
We also went to the San Diego Aerospace Museum at Balboa Park. I really enjoyed seeing this exhibit that shows the evolution of commercial airline carriers. I want to ride in a Concorde someday: less than 5 hours from Washington, D.C. to Nice, France!
You know, it's quite nice being here. Po pointed out that the worst thing that could happen did not happen and so I should be overjoyed. That brought me a lot of clarity. And then I realized that I have not really been over-rationalizing the pitfalls of my life these past few years... maybe I just know how to make the best of every situation! I like being happy, so I do what I can.
Sole, Cuore, Amore
Those are the "three words" from an Italian song, "Tre Parole," where Valeria Rossi asks her lover to give her "sun, heart, and love." So simple, so pretty.
My boredom is reaching all-time highs. Boredom is a synonym for non-productivity, because all free time has potential. Yesterday I went to Mission Viejo for the first time, and then stopped by San Juan Capistrano to finally take a look at the old mission. I paid the $6 and everything and finished my self-guided tour in 30 minutes. It was an impressive sight but the curators and administrators really could have spared a little more for the smaller things, like signs and maps and lettering. I mean, some of the exhibits' accompanying descriptions look like they are printed out on construction paper with a dot matrix printer, using PrintMaster or something. After seeing civilization's most classic and impressive buildings in Florence and Rome, the mission was a bit of a comedown, but it does carry the prestige of being California's oldest standing building. There are really just two things to see there, and that is the chapel and the Great Stone Church, of which 30% remains after the 1812 earthquake leveled it. It's "America's Acropolis" but I'm sure next to its namesake, it's pretty sorry. Still, the mission had a lilting, serene beauty thanks to its gardens and its unique "Spanish ranch in the desert" personality.
I then took the Pacific Coast Highway all the way through San Clemente. Now, that was a real find! It definitely looks like the unsung California coastal community. Some of the apartment buildings there had to be strategically built, so awesome the ocean views must be from the balconies. Then you see the custom made homes -- all with terraces, whitewashed, open, and spacious -- that are neatly lined and layered over the cliffs. The locals walk the street carelessly brandishing their bronze tans and highlighted hair. San Clemente is probably such a well-kept secret because it's in that awkward, not quite Orange County, not quite San Diego County location, but as a result its beaches remain relatively unspoiled.
I had a headache for the rest of Sunday. But the first part of the day wasn't so bad.
Friday At the Beach
... is a good time to get caught up with friends. I have a good network down here in San Diego.
I remember the day Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" was playing on the car stereo. We were zipping down some winding road that curved around a green, Tuscan hill, pretty fast. The sunroof was open. Our hands ended up outside the sunroof in the open air, resisting the wind. I laughed a good deal, praised the sun, looked all around to savor the moment. I was very happy with myself. We went through a tunnel and the car slowed down. Some seismic work had been done to it within the past decade. There were concrete supports on the tunnel to hold it up, prevent erosion, reinforce the natural cave. We peered up and there was the company logo darkly stamped on each rampart. I was in awe.
The sun pulled through for me today. In the beginning he was faking me out because it was just warm and you could only sense the sun's radiation. But around 4:00 the clouds shifted and golden rays touched my body, and I was happy.
Things That Are Helping Me Get Over It
(and not in any particular order)
1. Laura Fraser's book
2. Whole Foods Supermarket
3. Po, Meghan, Reyna, Tammy, Lindsay, Abbie, Eve
4. The Golden Girls
5. Alanis Morissette
6. San Diego weather
7. purses and shoes
8. dance class
I've got to continue this list as more good things come.
The Road Less Traveled
It is a lot to feel like you've gained and lost the world in such a short time. I can't figure out if I'm depressed or bored, or both. Certainly, I wouldn't mind just being one or the other. I think that years from now I will look back on this time and call myself stupid. I will call myself naive and spoiled and foolish for allowing myself to mope and moon over things when I really had it all. This leaden feeling that possesses me seemingly has no source; usually it would be because I felt overweight, had money woes, was doing poorly in school and my professional future jeopardized, or was involved in a lame fight with someone in my family which threatened the very fundamental sense of security a person could have about being loved. I still have my youth. I still have my looks - at least as much I am biologically allowed. I have enough money and there are no practical problems in my life.
It's not that I think the world owes me anything. I think it's that I distinctly feel as if I have nothing to give the world.
They say, the end of something means the start of something else.
More than a year ago, I would have never anticipated this kind of depression. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
.. and all that jazz.
San Diego is truly lovely. I never realized how phenomenal the weather really is. I'm really not up to much these days except nurturing my travel-weary self back to California form. I'm looking for a new roommate for the 2002-2003 schoolyear. I hope she is clean and doesn't mind the smell of garlic.
Today I spent a good deal of time at Aaron Brothers' Art Mart reviewing the framing options I had at my disposal to house some of the works of art I brought back from Italy. I picked up 3 very special pieces in Lucca - and I think it may be 4, and I left one back in Assisi - which are all of irregular size. It may cost as much as $60 to have a custom frame made for one of them. I'm presently trying to weigh the long-term benefits of splurging on such a thing, because these prints are unimaginably charming and even signed in pencil by the original artist, even if they are copies, and preserving them early on may be a good investment. They illustrate the Piazza Ovale in Lucca, which may very well be my favorite city in Tuscany second only to Florence. I also picked up matte frames for some vintage art I picked up in Cortona, and now I have a quartet featured on a wall in my bedroom which I am supremely pleased with.
My classmates, on the other hand, have more productive projects going this summer than redecorating their apartments with European knicknacks. Most are working as law clerks and knee deep in legal research. Others are taking required courses like Tax and Professional Responsibility. I may have knocked down International Intellectual Property and International Negotations while abroad, but come on, I was in Florence, and it's hard to say there was any gravity to those courses at all.
But those courses mattered a whole hell of a lot to me. If you know what I mean.
Great. I'm Still Home.
I guess it's a permanent situation. American TV is the best part and I have it constantly humming in the background: the score to my life story. Infomercials, syndicated programs, old sitcoms - they're all welcome.
Shopping bags, luggage, backpacks, and purses still litter the floor of my room and it will take a while to sort out the contents of the best month and a half of my life.
In standard Karen post-Europe blues fashion, I am again surrounding myself with mementos, books, magazines, and other kinds of paraphernalia that are related to my trip. I saw "Chicago" on the West End and so today I bought the soundtrack. Bebe Neuwirth was what I was really looking forward to. Then out of an interest in Bob Fosse, I rented "Cabaret." I kinda can't figure out what the deal is with Joel Gray. Or Liza Minelli. Or Michael York.
I've been struggling with assimilating back to normal life. I'll waver between being disgusted at the bland meaninglessness of everything around me, and then feel relieved that I am in a situation more comfortable than what more than 75% of the world enjoys. Of course, comfort is relative. But it's important to realize these things as objectively as possible before I start turning ungrateful and bratty about being "stuck in San Diego" instead of some remote, outdated European town.
Oh, but the remote, outdated European towns! How I miss them.
The mosaic in my mind: I said, in London, "This sucks!" He said, remembering my usual utterance, "Monkey balls." Locanda del Galluzzo and the vending machine in front of the farmacia, then lighting a candle and, "Ma', che puzza!" Talking about what "chickabow" means while circling the church in Assisi. Sitting on the Ponte Vecchio in my jogging clothes. Eating my first panino scaldito at a sidewalk cafe. In bed in London and pinching my face. Talking about Pericles, and "Ma tu sei colta!" Being teased about my Prada shoes and my indignance. Never remembering on which street to turn left to get to Pembridge Palace.
It's Good to Be Home
I've been home for 2 days now. I was in L.A. on the first full day and spent QT with Reyna. We ate dinner at Barefoot, which was surprisingly good, so much so that I kept proclaiming it, "my new favorite restaurant of all time." Today was a pure San Diego day. The weather was beautiful and I was at Horton Plaza, then Robert Cromean, and then later Typhoon Saloon and E Street. I have so many good friends here. "I'm so glad you're back," Lindsay and Abbie said. "You look so pretty," too. I got more positive support than even what my self-absorbed expectations anticipated.
Tracy asked, "Do you have travel depression?" I said, "Yes."
Jason asked, "Do you miss Italy?" I said, "Let me think, YES."
I had a successful venture making pollo cogli odori and opened a new pack of Lavazza to celebrate being home.
It's really as if being away in Europe for a month and a half, regaled with more liberty than my little brain could handle, obliterated the experiences I had shortly before I left. Those things just don't seem to matter anymore.
You can have the universe, but give me Italy.
- Giuseppe Verdi
There is something so precious, so inumerably dear to me, that is neither mine to have nor to hold, but which I tenaciously will not let go of.
These precious illusions in my head did not let me down when I was a kid, and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends.
- Alanis Morissette
On Leaving Europe
Sometimes I get so sad that I want to cry, but I suppose I am ready to go home. You can't spend money like this and live so frivolously on a permanent basis. I think that this trip was designed well in terms of phasing in enough elements from home to slowly introduce me back into my normal, banal life, so that the shock wasn't so great. I went from Florence to my family in Pisa, so it felt like I was with the home folk even while I was still in an Italian environment. Then the environment was slowly Anglo-Americanized as I moved into London, and with friends I had been with in Italy, so it felt like I was not leaving anything really behind. I actually brought the best part of Italy with me. Then after my friends left, a friend from home, Jose, met me here. He'll be at the airport with me tomorrow. Transitions can't get any smoother than this.
During the course of this month and a half I was conscious to not harbor little mementos, collect every song or business card in my path, or take pictures of inconsequential moments, because I didn't want to create opportunities for myself to go home and immerse myself in this memorabilia in an effort to relive what is no longer there. But now that I'm about to leave entirely, I've got tinges of regret for not having done so, because maybe it means that later on I will sit there in loneliness with no relics to nourish the longing.
I'd like to someday live in London or a city in Italy. Florence would be fine but it's "troppo casino," kind of too much, too messy. I could deal with London, because they are so good about diversity, structure, style, and order. But I'd better damn well have a job whose pay is relative to the cost of living here. It's ridiculous. The weather also is quite intolerable. There are people here who are so alabaster white and it calls to mind just why in nature plants need sun to live. Pallor is nasty.
Jose and I had dinner in Chinatown last night, and Indian food for lunch today. Both were great meals and a good value for London. We were also at Tesco, a 24-hour megamarket. Combine that with Selfridge's Food Halls and I think I could really adapt to a London diet.
Jose has been quite patient with me, because I spend like a madwoman and am terribly impulsive, especially about coffee. I keep trying to incorporate habits I had in Italy into my actual environment. For example, today I was still in search of the perfect cup of coffee and actually spent £4, which is about $6, on espresso shots and cappuccinos. All were disgusting and hugely dissatisfying, and it all boils down to the kind of milk the British use, which is like American milk. When I go home I will have to start buying Parmalat again. Now that I have left Italy I realize how content I was there. My initial fascination and ardor with it grew into a happy kind of stability, and now I'm a little at a loss with what to do with myself. It wasn't just the place. It was the people and the ways. Maybe I could not live there forever, but I certainly would not mind trying.
Sometimes I get so sad that I want to cry, but I suppose I am ready to go home.
Pret a Manger, Pret a Get Fat
There is this marvelous cafe chain here called Pret a Manger tailored for the Londoner on-the-go. It's so tempting to me, and I've already had like 3 lunches today. There is a delightful selection of sandwiches, most of which have an Indian or Middle Eastern influence. The Indian presence around here is inevitable, and I think mango chutney in a Londoner's pantry is like ketchup in an American's. You don't see Worcestershire sauce and fish and chips as often as you would expect anymore; they've since been replaced by chicken korma, tikka, or tandoori.
I had a crayfish and rocket sandwich for lunch, which is a refreshing change from tuna and mayo on white. Rocket is the word here for what the French call roquette, what the Italians call rucola, and what the Americans call arugula. I can't really figure this one out, but I love that shit. It just occurred to me too that maybe we call crayfish, crawfish. There is also this yogurt drink here that is really popular, which is simply yogurt mixed with apple juice, honey, and vanilla bean. It appeals to the organic Zone girl in me. You know, yogurt is really good for digestion. I'm sure I could use the boost considering the foreign foods I've been pummeling down my esophagus.
An old-ass Scottish man offered me his help today as I was finding my way to the tube stop around Francesca's area. First, the customary question every European asks me, "Are you Japanese?" Then he told me several times in his long-winded discourse, "Watch your stuff! Watch your stuff!" which were probably the only words I understood through his thick Scottish accent. He then proceeded to show me several punctured scars in his wrist, "A pickpocket did that to me! Watch your stuff!" and really started to scare the shit out of me. "Where are you from?" he asked. "Los Angeles," I replied. "Jesus! What the fuck are you doing here?" Well, he did successfully lead me to the West Hampstead stop, so all was well.
I've had two bad cab experiences here, because the drivers are really thick, even while they proclaim to know all of central London "like my hand!" An Iranian driver spent most of the time telling me how the British Parliament really knows what they're doing, and how life in England is heaven on earth. "American government, too corrupt, and Los Angeles is really dangerous." We get a really bad rap. I didn't bother to tell him that my parents' house in Diamond Bar is actually quite safe from terrorism. Anyway, someone tell the Queen that her subjects are really down with her.
My habib Jose is rolling into town tonight. Yippee!
The Eternal City and Londontown
It's been an unbelievable week. We left for Rome on Monday of last week and I'm now in London, having been here nearly 4 days. In Rome I got to attend a free concert at the Piazza di Spagna where I got to see Laura Pausini perform live. Close friends of mine have heard her 2001 hit, "Fidati di me," many a time in my Tacoma. I also saw Zucchero and some French gal. The piazza was lit up with multi-colored lights; what a spectacle. I've had sushi many times this week because members of my party fancy it; it costs a pretty penny in Europe and is half as good. In London, however, it's alright; at Selfridge's Yo! Sushi yesterday we had the freshest sashimi this side of the Atlantic, so far.
In Rome I rolled out to see St. Peter's Basilica and said "wassup" to Michelangelo's Pieta' for the second time. I finally got to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, too. So many people in that goddamned room (it probably isn't damned by God, though) all craning their necks up, and it's also the only room with air conditioning in the entire Vatican museum. I believe my favorite piece in the whole museum was a bust of Pericles, king of ancient Greece in its golden age, because it was the same bust I had seen many times in my 7th and 9th grade social studies courses.
There is this fantastic fusion restaurant in Rome called mangiamoci that I highly recommend. I also went to Caffe' Greco which is the most famous cafe in perhaps all of Italy, where all the "veeps" (VIPs) go. Rome is a mess, though. On Wednesday morning when we were going to the airport we were following the hotel manager in his car who was trying to show us the right way out of Rome and to the outskirts, where the airport was; he was careening around like crazy and bringing his Fiat through lanes and lanes of drivers, cutting people off and veering and speeding when it totally was not necessary. I learned more Italian profanities in those moments than I have in all 4 years of my studies of the language.
Now I'm in London. I've seen a West End show, rode the London Eye, went to a cricket match, visited Harrod's and Selfridge's, saw Big Ben and the Parliament, went to the Hippodrome, poked around Piccadilly and Oxford Circuses, all courtesy of the tube. I love mass transit.
I'll be home soon.
Message to the Folks At Home
I am still in Italy and I am still OK. I am in Umbria now and later today I will be in Lazio. Yesterday I was tooling around Assisi, Perugia, Cortona, Lago sul Trasimeno, and Torricella. I've covered extensive ground across Tuscany and Umbria. It's bad-ass.
Rome should be pretty fly. Vicky, tell Mom and Dad that I am A-OK.
I left the Valtrianis' pad on Sunday morning and was genuinely sad. I love those guys. They are my family away from family. Auntie Ping Ping made me fried dumpings (gwo-tieh) to go. Cristina gave me Q-tips for my smeared makeup. Marco sent me off on the train in Florence.
Arrivederci, famiglia. Sniff sniff.
