Home

I am relieved June is over. It turned into this experiment to see how burnt out I could possibly get. Here is an update of how the past three weeks went....
I successfully survived a hellish finals week which included four finals, all nighters and resisting the urge to call the police when the neighbors stumbled home at 3 am (hours before my last final) and decided to teach the drunk girls they brought home to play the drums. Friday the 13th was spent celebrating with people from my major our accomplishment of making it through college. Beer, some interesting concoctions with barely any cranberry juice, guacamole and tacos, bocce ball, and successfully getting one of the two professors that attended drunk before she had to go to an awards ceremony. There was going to be dancing included in that list of details but while others went home to prepare to go out, three of us remained at my house cleaning up and ended up getting in an intense conversation about life, relationships, and what the hell we are going to do next.
Four hours of sleep later, I was up getting ready for graduation. I should have brought a pillow and blanket so I could sleep through that ordeal. We had one of the Seattle Mariners' board members as our guest speaker. So boring and random. He went on about gas prices, the Vietnam war, making mistakes, the war in Iraq, and that was pretty much the only snippets I caught cause I was too busy talking to keep myself entertained. I was more inspired by the text messages I was sending Brigid than I was by his speech. The one entertaining bit of my graduation was looking up into the stands and seeing my grandpa taking a nap. Yep, that pretty much explains how invigorating that was.
The next day, Sunday, I traveled to Bainbridge for one of my best friend (Lia)'s graduation party. I met her parents on Saturday at graduation and by Sunday we had already progressed to hugs. They are fantastic. By Sunday evening, I felt like I had gained a second family in two days. It was so nice because there has kind of been this hole that was left empty. Though it will never be filled in the same, the Laytons patched this void and made me feel completely included. I like second families.
That evening, I found myself having dinner at Jay Inslee's house along with Lia . Kind of random. I know his son, Joe, through Lia. I made it back to Sultan that night just before midnight.
Monday morning began the adventure to Italy. We got to the airport at about 10am with our flight scheduled to leave at noon but tornado warnings in Newark delayed our flight by about four hours. We arrived in the pit hole that is Jersey at 11pm thinking we were going to be spending the night in that marvelous (being completely sarcastic) place until 5pm the next day when the next flight to Italy was scheduled. Luckily we made our connection by twenty minutes since that flight was delayed by and 90 minutes.
Arriving in Rome, we made our way to our hotel which ended up being way on the outskirts/ghetto part of the city. Here I learned my first lesson about Italy: Rome buses=Meaghan HATES. This lesson was emphasized by the fact that we had to cram ourselves and our luggage onto the bus which led to smacking several Italians in the face with straps from our bags. We had no idea where we were going and attempting to ask people seated around us which stop the hotel was at was unsuccessful as nobody around us spoke English. Luckily, one of the men rang the bell and pointed us off the bus at the correct place. It was horrible. That is how I imagine my hell would be. Also, the buses do not stop at marked bus stops so that was completely confusing. I prefer Bellingham buses by far.
The next few days, we explored Rome. The ruins of the city were cool but I learned my second and third lessons here. Second lesson= Rome is dirty and not one of my favorite places. Third lesson= Diet Coke is not the same as Coke Light and of course you can't get Diet Coke in Italy. We also made our way to Vatican City. The anthropologist in me got annoyed here because one of the various collections on display is an Egyptian display with artifacts from Egypt. I don't get why that was at Vatican City. I seriously think that they should give it back to the Egyptians instead of making money off of it. I realize that people would go there and pay the ridiculous admission without that there but I just completely failed to make the connection why it was there.
The next part of our adventure we spent in Tuscany. We stayed at an incredible little vineyard outside of Florence. It was gorgeous there. I could have spent all two weeks at that spot. We visited Florence and of the places we went to in Italy, it is by far my favorite. I had already started learning my fourth lesson in Rome but it was completely apparent after Florence. Fourth lesson= I am not so into seeing every single piece of art. It all runs together in my head.
Next, we made our way up to San Remo with a stop in Pisa. The hotel we stayed at in San Remo was completely sketchy and I am pretty sure we came in on a drug deal going down between the guy who checked us in and a load of other people. I was so glad to be out of there. I was so glad to be out of there and on our way to Monaco the next day.
I absolutely love Monaco. I love Grace Kelly so it was amazing to see the church where she was married and also were she is buried as well as tour the palace. We also went to the Monte-Carlo Casino.
Our next leg took us to Gallarate, which is outside Milan. That night, we got three pizzas for ten euros (which was a steal compared to our other meals) and watched Italy play Spain which they sadly came out the loser. It was a lot of fun to experience the emotions of the Italians we were with throughout the game.
We ended up skipping going into Milan and headed straight up to Lake Como. Fifth lesson= Lake Como is not as blue as they claim and I much prefer the Mediterranean. We then ventured to Venice after making a stop in Verona for Maura.
As hard as I tried, I did not get arrested in Venice. That was kind of disappointing. I fed the birds, I had a picnic with Maura in the city, and I sat on the steps around St Mark's Square, all which are illegal in Venice. I would have loved to have been arrested for feeding the birds and then had to have explained that one on an interview.
We then made our way back to Tuscany through Bologna and Ravenna to stay with some friends of my dad's. There, Maura made friends with the gecko in the bathroom and we ventured back into Florence. The next day we went to Perugia and Assisi, which both are amazing places. We spent the night back in Rome so we could go to Pompei the next day.
We took the train down to Naples and then onto Pompei. It was sad to witness the crazy trash problem that is occurring in Naples and we learned a lot more about what is going on. Pompei was amazing though. It was completely overwhelming and indescribable. It was crazy how many people died with the mountain as far away as it is.
The last day we spent in Rome doing random things and watching Spain fans parade the streets before the game making their way to the Spanish Steps.
It was an interesting trip, but unlike my sister, I have no desire to live there. I am glad to have some down time now. I have reading a lot. I read the book PopCo while in Italy and began P.S. I Love You. It is so nice to be able to read whatever the heck I want to. I can't remember the last book I read for fun. I am starting to feel the need to get this life figured out, I have realized that the person I am hasn't changed much over the past few years. The things I want and the person I want to become is still the same just the desire to do them has strengthened.