bye

Paulina's reaction to the world's best lasagna

//~fRiendS~//

my other half, Ruby~*

wait Paulina literally fell asleep sitting up LOOK

*~~*~HI GUYS IT'S MY BIRTHDAY I'M 20 THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT~*~~*

Due to the recent turn of events, my plans to meet the rugged love of my life, become a bilingual wizard woman, and stay in Italy forever and ever have changed.  Saturday, at 9:50 AM (Italy time, listen I don't know what that means for you), I boarded my flight back to the states.  I was actually lucky enough to book the same flight as Paulina, so we spent a wonderful drugged-up 9 hours from Rome -> JFK drooling on sky malls together.  I'm now home in ~Los Angeles~, after a television-deprived connector flight, sitting on my bed post-AMERICAN breakfast, soaking up the glorious sounds of my mom and brother arguing downstairs.  Also jet lag is a real thing I'm a zombie.

IF YOU WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE THAT WAS MY LAST 48 HOURS IN ROME READ THIS (BUT IF YOU DON'T JUST KEEP ON SCROLLING UNTIL THE PICTURES OK):

On Thursday afternoon, Margherita emailed me and asked if I would be able to babysit on Friday night from 8:45-midnight so that she and her husband could go out to dinner.  She was away in Fano, a town three hours away from Rome, for business, and we had been communicating via email for most of the week.  To be honest, I was surprised, and a little offended, that she was asking me to work on my last night in Rome.  After 3ish months of work and only one day off, her refusal to give me my work schedule more than a day in advance (despite my request for a weekly schedule months ago), working 40+ hours a week (au pairs are not supposed to work more than 35), living according to their irrational cleaning standards (where it was required that I sweep the kitchen after I eat a bowl of cereal), I assumed that Margherita wouldn't ask me to spend my last hours in Rome watching Edoardo sleep.

I politely declined, explaining that my friends had scheduled a goodbye dinner for me a week prior (this was not true but how can you argue with that), and in response, Margherita told me that because I refused to work, she would not be able to host me any longer.  I was told to return my keys to Nonna (grandma) at 1 pm on Friday after dropping off/picking up Edoardo from school.  Paulina and I concluded that she was nuts, decided we would spend the night at the airport, and went on that evening to cause a scene with our pantomime dancing at The Yellow, a bar/hostel that refused to play Diamonds by Rihanna despite my multiple requests.   The DJ was much too busy licking his girlfriend to touch the switchboard.  This was easily one of the best nights of my life.

On Friday morning, after dropping off Edoardo at his ridiculous trilingual preschool, I was pouring a bowl of cereal when Nonna came through the door with four construction workers and the house maid, Lucy.  She walked into the kitchen, clearly irritated, and started not-quite-yelling-but-almost at me, saying something about me needing to wake up "Paige" because they needed to do some work on my room.  Nonna doesn't speak a word of English, and she's ignored my countless requests to speak slowly, so that translation was really the best I could do.  I was completely caught by surprise, for I hadn't yet heard anything about this, but I rushed into my bedroom and shook Paulina awake.  I was in the process of tossing Paulina her pants when Nonna and a couple of worker bees started fiddling with the lock to my door that works as a second entrance to the house.

We scurried to the kitchen, where I was eating my "Extra with Chocolate Bits" cereal, the only food in the house that I could stand, when Nonna entered the room with an armful of my pillows/sheets and dumped them on the table next to me.  She then returned with another armful of my clothes and dropped them on the floor.  She ended up making six dramatic dumpings, scattering all of my things around the house- in the kitchen, on the dining room floor, beneath the front door, before she started actually screaming at me in front of all the house help and Paulina.  If I understood what she was saying I'm sure I would have been livid- as the construction workers were clearly uncomfortable and Lucy was horrified.

When she was finally finished berating me, Paulina took one look at me and said, "Kaylin, let's just go."  So we did.  We packed up my bags, gathering all of my things from various floors and tabletops, set my keys and shattered iPhone (for those of you who haven't been following this blogadoodle regularly, my host mother lent me her old iPhone to use while in Rome- I ended up dropping it and breaking the screen within two weeks and never told her) on the bench, and walked out the door.  We made it all the way to the train station until I realized that I had forgotten my passport back at the house.  But we were lucky- when we returned, only Lucy was home.  As it turns out, she found my passport, drivers license, credit card, debit card, and health insurance card in a very forgettable drawer, and set them aside for me.

Margherita emailed me soon after all of this, with a long-winded report of my incompetence, making it ever so clear that they are perfect and I am wrong.  Because I'm the bigger and better person and I deserve a medal, I said nothing, and wrote out a pretend "Are you kidding me?" response email that will remain safely locked in a word document buried deep within the files of "My Documents" for the rest of this computer's life.

our expert cappuccino-maker waiter man, who claimed he was related to Dracula

Obviously after all of this Paulina and I were a bit jaded (and dirty- we ended up brushing our teeth and washing our frowning faces in the train station bathroom), but we were lucky enough to meet up with the unbelievably charming Ben Harris, who pulled us out of our funk.  One strawberryandlemon gelato, Pope Francesco shot glass, and allergic-reaction-inducing mojito later (Mahmoud- these were absolutely amazing, but Paulina really shouldn't have eaten the mint leaf), I was a happy camper.

Coming home is a relief, really.  These past few months have been... educational.  I've learned loads, mostly how to cry in front of police officers to get them to do what I want.  But the whole expat/au pair thing is exhausting.  Chasing after an over-emotional toddler is one thing, moms everywhere know that, but being taken advantage of time and time again by a wealthy italian women is another.  Also, living in somebody else's house, specifically the house of a couple minimalist clean freaks when used to living like a slob, and abiding by all of their unspoken rules takes a toll.  And to avoid being totally and completely alone, it was important to be proactive in terms of friend-making~ which is tough, ask any unathletic 8 year old.  But I would have to say that the most challenging aspect of living abroad is having to be hyper-aware of my surroundings all the time- so that I can occasionally understand people when they yell at me, refrain from getting lost as much as possible, and avoid standing out as an American asshole.  It's a constant effort, and the only relief I get is lying under my covers streaming Mad Men I know I've talked about this before I'm still on Season 5 nobody tell me what happens.

Unfortuantely, because of the messy ending, Italy now leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I am so incredibly psyched that I was able to pull this off.  I did what I had set out to do- I had a poor man's adventure, and grew up a little along the way.  I'm quite in debt to mom and pops, due to the occasional mandatory credit card swipe, but that should be taken care of as soon as I get off my jet-lagged ass and find a job.  And if all goes according to plan, I'll be back at Columbia in the spring, eager to wake up early and read and stuff.

Love n hugs forever until next time,
Kay

P.S. my mom bought me some "Welcome Home" shark-themed onesies can i hear an amen

happy camper

PAULINA IS HERE AND EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL
For those of you that don't know, my other half has come to visit me.  She arrived last Tuesday, and is the best thing that has ever happened to Rome ever.  I'm looking at you, Caesar.

I don't have a lot of time, since I'm having fun and stuff, so I'm gonna go ahead and incorporate my love of list-making by, once again, jotting down a few things that happened this week pre-London:

Edoardo got a microphone.  This is not okay.
Paulina hitched a ride to her hotel from a stranger by speaking almost french, after trudging through a field of horses and scaling a freeway in a thunderstorm.
She checked out of that hotel and crashed on my bed during an accidental 12 hour nap.  We have been alternating between the wood floor and my bed ever since.
I didn't want my host parents to know that I was hosting Paulina without their permission, so I forced Paulina to hide in my bedroom while we waited for the house to clear of any and all grandmas.  It worked fine until the maid needed to use my bathroom... I don't know why I do things.
While taking a walk through the park, Edoardo fell into his own stroller, locking his hips between the back wheels, forming somewhat of a human seesaw.  I pissed my pants.

On Thursday night, we ditched the klutz before his bedtime to catch a flight to London.

We grabbed dinner at the airport, where Paulina took a bite out of her cooked ham sandwich, made a disapproving face, flipped it around, and exchanged it for a new, unbitten, and uncooked sandwich.  To be fair, i also exchanged my good-for-nothing sandwich.  My passport was finally stamped by the important Roman at the Customs desk, who wasn't exactly thrilled to see that I was so surprised upon receiving a manual stamp.  And because neither of us bothered to check which airport we were flying into, we were forced to spontaneously spend the night at a Wifi-less Hilton (thanks Paris) near Stansted, hours from downtown London, catching a ride from an old survivor of throat cancer.  He and I spoke quite a bit, but between the accent and the hole in his neck, I can only guess that we got along famously.

After a chilling "December in The Worst New York" day, running from one pub to the next to avoid catching pneumonia, we spent the second sunny day accidentally walking in circles around the London eyeball.  After a meal I'll never forget at the "Udder Belly Festival" (burgers with fancy cheese that starts with an "s" idk), we ignored our better judgement and hopped on a duck boat tour.  Our flirty guide, sporting dad jeans and a beautiful face, blasted the James Bond theme song as our WWII veteran bus/boat/miracle drove into River Thames.  Paulina and I were easily the most engaged passengers, laughing at every over-rehearsed joke and never breaking eye contact in the hopes that, in an act of justice, he would tip the boat just enough to dump all the other tourists in the choppy water and whisk us away to a long and happy life of amphibian love.

Later that evening we were invited over to my favorite Jack's house for dinner with his family and it was perfect they are perfect- especially the dog, who left me with a layer of sticky love slob all over my neck.  We killed the rest of the night splitting pitchers of girly mixes at some loud bar club thing, dicking around with my camera, and trying not to stare at the black albino guy make out with every ~lAdY on tHe dAnce fLo0r~.

The friend who was supposed to host us Saturday night messaged me HOURS before meeting up and cancelled, leaving Paulina and I to panic and reach out to every london contact we had (this includes my friend's father's cousin).  Hotels were nearly all booked up, and the only rooms left cost over $400/night due to some big rugby match I don't know I don't watch sports.  We ended up staying with Paulina's kind-of-ex, who was incredibly kind and even spent the night on a friend's couch down the road so that we could have his bed.

After a well-balanced breakfast of barbecue roasted peanuts, I took off back to Rome, leaving Paulina in London to drink cheap beer, steal wifi, and dance with her pinky in the air until Tuesday night, when she returns back into my Italian-by-the-transitive-property arms for a ghost tour of the city.

I don't know.  This week acted as sort of a sassy smack in the face, reminding me of just how wonderful my friends are, waiting for me back at Columbia as soon as I get my shit together.  I gotta get my shit together.

Okay.  Wouldn't want this to get emotional, bye,
Kay

vencie schmenice

I went to Venice over the weekend.  Some of the time it felt like Disneyland and all of the time it smelled like salty laundry.  These are the things I remember:

Staring at my gelato cone face down in the concrete after I licked it too hard sorry.
Buying a "it's all gonna be okay" gelato in a cup.

Riding in an overpriced gondola solo.  My striped guy sang and whistled as people took pics I’m a star.

Getting lost (surprise), ripping my useless map in pieces, skyping my mom from an internet cafe, and ending up in yet another police officer’s presence.  This time, however, the cop called me a cab.

Staying the night in a campground with complimentary alcohol.

Hiding in my tent post-check-out because rain.

Spending my entire second day with a Brazilian girl I met on the bus, practicing her English.

Playing musical chairs on the train ride home trying to avoid the ticket man.

I spent the rest of my time in Canal World wandering in and out of souvenir shops looking for a Christmas ornament for my mother.  Supply is low in late May.

Love and hugs,
Kay

didn't fall in love though

I thought I should start this out by letting you all know that I watched 17 glorious hours of Mad Men this weekend.  Since Saturday morning I’ve learned that women are the lesser sex, scotch and business go hand in hand, and affairs are fine in moderation.  Also, Christina Hendricks is actually just Jessica Rabbit with more dimensions.  Dad, google Christina Hendricks.  

In my defense, I'm trying to save money.  Last weekend I spent every dollar I had on a trip to Paris, because I’m fancy, and I wanted to visit my buddy Andrew (better known as “Roo”) who’s studying abroad at Sciences Po. 

Because I’m 19 and I’d rather make faces in the mirror than plan, I checked the time of my flight only four hours before boarding.  Obviously I was running a bit late, so you can understand my frustration when the wicked Ryanair check-in clerk told me that because I had failed to print out my boarding pass before my arrival (my family doesn’t own a printer), she would have to charge me 70 euro, 70 EURO, that’s $90.81, to print out my ticket.  At the very least I expected my ticket to be a weighty gold bar dipped in unicorn blood, with some sort of key to heaven hooked on the corner.  Instead, it was just a sheet of 8x11 computer paper with a barcode.  I made sure to tell the blue collar devil incarnate that she was robbing me as she swiped my credit card and cackled with a mouth full of shadows.

I made my flight because I'm a wizard, but when I landed I realized that I had no idea where Andrew lived.  I never even bothered to ask.  I just assumed that when I stepped off the plane he would be waiting across the runway, lounging in a bed of baguettes making out with the ghost of Joan of Arc.   I was able to get a hold of Andrew via Facebook a couple of hours later in a Starbucks, after I had accidentally wandered into a fancy mall with chandeliers and suede trash cans.

I didn’t know (and still don’t, really) anything about French culture, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect other than glossy haired snoots in Chanel.   I was warned by stereotypes and well-traveled friends about Parisians’ attitudes toward Americans, and had decided upon using pretend sign language and smiles to get through the weekend without having any baristas roll their eyes at me.  I figured I could just memorize and execute the hand movements to Napolean Dynamite’s classroom performance of “The Rose” every time somebody looked me in the eye.

But communication was actually a non-issue, because I only spoke with three or four French people over the course of the entire weekend: two ponytailed cashiers, a broad-smiled metro ticket checker, and Franck.   Handsome Franck from Grands Boulevards caught me laughing to myself in the metro, and made sure to tell me in loud, slow English that I was giving myself away as a tourist because “the French do not smile here”.   He didn’t even mention the camera around my neck, map in my pocket, or the fear in my eyes.  He told me to “look bored and avoid eye contact”.  Flirty Franck went on to ask me if I was enjoying my trip, and if I wanted to give him any suggestions for his upcoming summer vacation to Los Angeles.  Nice guy.  Andrew later told me that smiling at another person on the subway is interpreted as a sort of “suggestion”, so considering the extent of my grinning ignorance I’m disappointed with the lack of Gastons and Jeans (and Francks, let's be honest) in my phonebook.

Franck-less, I was able to walk all around the city and shamelessly do some of the traditional tourist things like mispronounce “Notre Dame” and take pictures of Spanish couples in front of the Louvre.  Also, the Eiffel tower is BROWN.  Did you know that?  Am I the only one who didn’t know that?  

I had heard that the Not-So-Iron Lady did a cool sparkle trick every hour after sunset, so I took a seat on the lawn down below and started judging all the couples around me.  After witnessing a bearded 40-something tongue a woman’s ear, I switched my attention to my PDA-free camera.  While I flipped through old pictures to kill time, I was approached by 10-20 individual bangladeshi men selling wine and champagne.  I knew that swigging from the bottle solo could only lead to me improvising songs about my bitter opinions on love and marriage, so I refused.  I also quickly learned to deny their drinks in Italian, for English encouraged conversation and very personal questions regarding whether or not my boyfriend was coming any time soon. My go-to hair toss and response, “My boyfriendS should be here any minute, yes” was simply not as effective as italian spaghetti babble.

As wonderful as Paris was, my favorite part of each day was coming home to Roo, changing into my “comfy clothes”, gossiping about high school, ordering delivery sushi and watching Sex and the City it doesn’t get much better than that nope wow I adore him can you tell i just really need to wrap this up? bye.

I said bye,

Kay