Dio Mio! Look at you! You’re so grown up since I saw you last!
I can’t believe everything that has happened since I saw you last. First off, let’s discuss once more how I went to Italy, because boy, that was something. I will try to make this blog more entertaining by peppering in some random Italian pictures of Genova, because I know that’s what you’ve really come for, you lazy bum. Before this trip, I had no desire to go to Genova, mainly because I had never heard of it before, and I’ve been to a lot of places in Italy. Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Pisa, Milan, Florence, Assisi, Venice, Bologna, San Gimignano…and a couple of more here and there that I’ve forgotten about. Even after I received my assignment, I wasn’t thrilled, especially once JZ (who had taught in the same area) told me it was a fairly industrial town. But Genova is awesome; it’s gorgeous, it’s fancy. It’s a seaside stretch of town that spoons some lovely hills, which makes for some pretty delicious scenery.
If you read my last post, which I will assume you did not, you will know that I was staying with a host family, and that I had a host cousin, Selena, of the same age in the apartment across the hall. This was great, because Selena would often take me (or us, if the other teachers weren’t being lazy) to places I normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to go. But it was also a bit unnerving, because they were often things I wouldn’t normally want to do as well. For example, she left me a note to meet her at the train station after work around 9; in my mind (silly me), I expected drinks.
She picks me up, and we walk along the lovely Italian street talking about our days, when suddenly she says, “Now, I will take you dancing.” These are words that do not generally thrill my ears, especially when she informs me we will be dancing outside, in plain view of the public. The idea was lovely; we were doing some kind of mountain folk dance (I heard the talk of “dancing in the mountains” quite a bit from my host family, and I’m still a bit unclear about what this refers to, so I guess we are speaking very literally here) next to the port, with lights from the hills glittering peacefully off the water, accordion music playing jauntily in the background. I, however, was full of unease and nervous laughter, which I need not explain to anyone who has seen me dance/danced with me. There was a lot of that kind of dance where you grab hands and make circles, which I felt confident enough with. But then they would break off into couples, with the outer line of women rotating with the inner line of men every 30 seconds or so. Every new partner that approached had that look in their eye, like, “I shall be the one to tame this wild stallion!” The first 5 seconds or so, they seemed so cocksure with their firm grips and their confident directions. But 15 seconds of sweaty hand fumbling and shuffled missteps, you could see the frustration set in, and by the second overly forced twirl, they were only too happy to spin me off to the next unsuspecting chap with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. For one partner only dances, men would come up to ask me to dance, and I would try and spare them the pain by saying, “I’m really not good at dancing.” They would laugh off my fears, but by the end, the sweat above their brows and the confusion in their eyes said, “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
Things like this would happen every time I met Selena. One night, when we had actually planned to get drinks, the rest of the group cancelled, so Selena offered to take me on a small walk around the neighborhood. Two hours later, at midnight (after a day of teaching wild Italian children), I collapsed into bed. Another night, we hitch-hiked up 3/4ths of the way up a mountain, then hiked in the dark the rest of the way to get to a “party”, which turned out to be more of a fair with an 80s cover band, followed by a ska band (not sure how they picked the music). After a rousing mosh pit got started, one guy grabbed my hand and pulled me in. There was a brave moment where I thought, “I can do this!” Almost immediately after, someone smashed into me, and I thought, “I can’t do this.” After slightly crashing into a planter, I crawled my way out of the heaving mass of men back to the slightly calmer feminine circle I had been a part of originally. Every adventure with Selena had me stumbling into bed late at night and waking up completely sore the next morning.
Now, you might be thinking, “But Juliana Maria” (of course I would choose another country where they can’t say my name), “What did you think about the work?” Well, it was alright. 16 Italian children are, as you can imagine, fairly unpredictable, except when it comes to volume, which will always be horrifically and predictably at full blast. One of my favorite students was this very camp 8 year old named Luca, who could usually be seen linking arms with Michele; together, they made up the tiniest little couple I’ve ever seen. Luca would usually come up to me, very seriously, and say, “Teachers.” And I would say, “Yes, Luca?” And he would tell me a very long and animated story in Italian. When he finished, I usually gasped and said, “REALLY?” And maintaining his serious composure, he would nod and say, “YES” before swiftly turning away, Michele in tow, off to swing on some palm fronds (I…I feel like this last bit sounds made up, but I assure you, it happened). If you would like any stories about how I would terrify the children, go ahead and ask me in person, because these stories will be best told with actions and sound effects.
Now, there are some non-Italian things worth mentioning. Recently, you heard that my older sister Jenni got engaged to that Bostonian, Brian (who is really a lovely fellow, even if he has the slightest hint of what is probably the worst accent in America). But what you might not know, and what I might not know, is that my older brother Rory also got engaged. You might have seen on Facebook that my uncertainty about this situation stemmed from time zone differences (also, FACEBOOK, we are going to have words about you showing statuses to people who I have continuously tried to hide status updates from), but when I emailed my mother to confirm the actuality of the occasion of engagement (i.e. “Did Rory and Ashley get engaged?!?!?), she replied back, “Sounds like it,” so apparently, we are all just placing bets right now. I still haven’t been able to Skype my mom since it happened, which, if our roles were reversed, means that it would be time to start posting pictures on milk cartons to locate a missing person. I just find this whole lack of information as strange, because everyone knows that Rory is the biggest gossip in our family. I did at least know slightly more than my younger sister Tara, who told me, “I didn’t even know they had gotten back together until she posted that ring picture on Facebook.”
Speaking of Tara not knowing things, here is a conversation we had on Skype (with my Aunt Kelly present as well).
Me: Well, I’ll be finished with school in September, but I won’t get my master’s degree until January.
Tara: OHHHHH! You’re getting your master’s!
Me:…What did you think I was doing over here?
Tara: I thought you were still in school.
Me: What do you think a master’s program is?
Tara: Well, I guess I never realized what you were doing there. Nobody ever tells me anything.
Aunt Kelly: Nobody ever tells Tara anything.
Me: I’ve definitely told you multiple times what I’m doing here.
Then, a little while later…
Tara: Do they celebrate Christmas over there?
I tried to hint a little later that I think she should stop smoking so much pot. On a related note, whenever I want to experience amusement and depression at the same time, I read my little sister’s Twitter feed.
On a closing note, if you REALLY want to be amused, watch this routine by John Mulaney. I’m pretty certain John Mulaney is my dream man, but shucks; he’s taken. I’m also pretty certain that if I was born a man, it would be John Mulaney (those are two disturbing statements to put back to back). So I spend my days watching his bits on repeat to console me.
whereisjillian 