welcome home...sort of

it's incredibly strange and normal, all at the same, to be home. for the most part, things haven't changed, but it's still strange to be back where i can understand everything going on around me, can order or request things without having to mentally translate first, etc. and although leaving venice was really sad and involved a long list of lasts, i guess i never realized that coming home would involve the converse "firsts" like my first time driving, tipping, using a drive through, using my american cell phone, doing laundry with detergent and softener, not paying for water in restaurants, using my debit card for any/everything, drinking american coffee, sleeping on sheets and using towels that don't feel like sandpaper...the list goes on. i'm doing my best to enjoy those things instead of thinking about how much i miss venice and the people there.

luckily a few girls from the group will be in w-s this summer and 2 people from the group live in charlotte near me, so i'll hopefully see them all pretty often. brad came with mom, dad, and i to the wachovia golf championship a few days ago so it was sort of like being back in venice. nevertheless, not seeing all 18 other kids every day has certainly been strange and things have been a little boring since i got back.

getting back was an adventure that started at 3am the morning of the day i was supposed to leave. one of the guys in the house had a bag stolen and every one got riled up trying to find it. then the 4 other people on my water taxi overslept and only had about 20 minutes to get ready. then we had to pay a porter to take our luggage from the water taxi station to the terminal at the airport and when we couldn't find the man OR our luggage, we thought it was stolen (we found him eventually).

then i felt so sick i barely made it on the plane to paris. but i survived, and managed to not get sick on poor keron, who was on the flight with me. my only major complaint was that they wouldn't let me use the bathroom on the plane til nearly touchdown time--just plain cruel, really. by the time we landed (on time or maybe a bit late) and got on the bus to the terminal, i was getting concerned about connecting on time. sure enough the bus took forever, then i had to go to an entirely new terminal and check in again and go through security again. once i made it through that ordeal, i had to walk about a mile to the gates (the paris airport is undergoing some serious renovations), and ended up at mine with approximately 5 minutes to spare. whew.

appropriately, the weather in venice was as chilly and rainy the day we left as the day we arrived and the flight attendant on my long haul flight home was as evil about the size of my carry on as the man who yelled at me on the way to venice--it certainly all came full circle in a bad customer service sort of way. the same woman then got snarky when i explained that all i wanted for lunch was an appetizer and dessert. no cheese, certainly no heavy food along the lines of the entrees they were offering--i don't do normal jenny-level eating when traveling. i'm sure she got great satisfaction out of the fact that i managed to drip shrimp sauce and chocolate cake on myself. as if i hadn't made enough business class fauv pas, i then watched the movie Bobby and cried. but hey, when you're the only under 40, single person in the entire cabin, i suppose abnormal behavior is to be expected! despite the newly acquired klutzy behavior, the flight passed really quickly and i was back in the states.

that flight landed on time, but sat on the runway for what seemed like forever, so i didn't even deplane until 3:30 and my next flight was at 4:30. i pretty much ran to customs, where i got the passport stamped, but then had to go hang out in the "agriculture" area since i brought food (cookies, mind you). luckily a porter was helping me with my ridiculously heavy bags and i even ran into my friend alex, whose plane from zurich had gotten in early and since mine had gotten in late, we were claiming our luggage to clear customs in the same area. she and her family saved me by paying the porter (i had NO cash since i'd been gone so long) and telling me to go on. i had to walk out of terminal one, where i'd arrived and cleared customs, to terminal three. this involved walking on a busy highway type road...props to jfk for being such a well planned airport. once i got there, the line to check back in was really long, so a delta rep helped me over to a machine. the amchine told me it was too late to check in. so the rep bumped me up to the front of a line where a human could check me in, then took me to the front of a security line. security was a hassle and didn't exactly go smoothly since i was in such a hurry and the lady in front of me was just plain evil. i then realized after clearing security that signs only indicated gates 4 -15, so a info desk lady told me gate 25 (mine) was in terminal 2 (connected to 3 by a looooooong hall). i pretty much ran to gate 25 where at least 5 different puddle jumper type flights were boarding (no announcements, etc...just a large mass of people, standing). so i pushed my way to the front, got rushed down towards the plane, and onto the plane, successfully making myself one of the last people on board. the three men in front of me were venetian, which only made me sadder about leaving. despite all the stress, i made it to raleigh safely. my bags, on the other hand, never made the flight, and arrived sometime the next day, so waiting that out was stressful!

the day care syndrome

(most of the group celebrating mere and mike's birthdays)

today is the last day we're all together in Venice before people all go their separate ways as the semester closes. we had a slide show and a slew of "most likely to___" awards. we had dinner. i said my first goodbye. and like a little kid who cried when her parents left her at day care against her will in the morning, i'm now throwing a proverbial tantrum a la that same little girl who decides day care isn't that bad when it's time to finally go home at the end of the day.

it's not that i don't want to go home, it's just that i really like being here. there are so many things i'm going to miss--the perpetual piano playing, fresh food markets, the fact that i cook, coffee, bar da gino visits, being a regular at san travaso and ai cugnai, speaking italian, traveling by train, the nearly constant whistling coming from the kitchen, trips to the billa, the crazy old people and their equally eccentric dogs, the fact that i know the habitual location of any given street vendor, the amazing people with whom i live, the vaporetto noises, the gondolieri singing & yelling, sitting in the window and reading, having house parties on the patio, having the entirety of europe at my disposal for weekend trips...the list could go on for pages.

it's also not that i dislike america. i mean i nearly left less than a week into this trip, i had such a hard time adjusting. but after four months here, i think i've realized i can survive and even succeed here more so than at home. like i told tristan, who says where you start is where you're supposed to stay?

regardless...after four months of constant cohabitation with 24 other people, i have no idea what i'm going to do when i can't walk down the hall and see any one of the 24 whenever we feel like hanging out, stressing, going out, etc. what we've all realized in the past day or two, though, is that we're all going back to wake in the fall. we'll be able to see each other as often as we make the effort. it's venice that we won't be able to see again (for a year? for a few years? forever?). and so we've all been trying to figure out how you take with you not just the gifts for friends and all the clothes you've bought over the semester, but more importantly, the intangible things. we know the pictures and the stories will never do it justice.

although leaving will inevitably be harder than coming, i know i don't have a choice (unless mom and dad are suddenly ok with me giving up my summer internship, not finishing my degree, and living a ocean away...). and so the next 24 hours will be full of last goodbyes, last coffee runs, last grocery store trips, last traghetto rides, last pictures, last memories. and after that, i will get on that first airplane to paris. and then the one to jfk. and finally the one to raleigh. and then drive 3 hours to charlotte. and after all that, i'll appreciate this place, these people, this experience all from a distance and hopefully that will be enough.