The Act of Traveling

June 16, 2007
When you travel, your journey starts long before you actual step foot on a plane. Your journey begins in your mind weeks or months before ahead. There’s so much planning, learning, and discovering to do. For me, the journey started in January when I made the financial commitment to go to Italy. This was more of a cerebral action because putting out money didn’t make the trip real. It felt more like paying a bill.
When I submitted my leave slip for the weeks, it was a scary thing because I didn’t and still don’t have three weeks worth of leave. It was then, that I made the time commitment. This step of the journey has worried me the most. How do you schedule a 23 day vacation when you only have 9 days of leave? After doing a lot of math, I figure out that I only needed 15 days of leave. I’ll get 2 days by the end of June and 5 on July 1st. That’ll cover all the time I need.
After you make the finance and time commitment, your next step is to get organized. This inevitably brings on the emotional commitment; at least it did for me. With other trips, I’ve been emotionally vested right from the start. This time I felt too overwhelmed to get emotionally attached. I don’t want to say that I was disinterested, but it took a long to feel like the trip was really going to happen. To be honest, it wasn’t until I was in the Dulles airport that I actually felt excited about the trip.
When we changed planes in Montreal, all my feeling hit me. We’re really doing this! We’re going to Italy. Hearing Italian instructions on the plane to Rome really made the trip real; more than ever before.
Later that day…
On the bus from Rome to Siena, most everyone fell asleep. I think I was the only one who actually slept for a long time on the plane; both of them in fact. I slept most of the flight to Montreal and most of the flight to Rome. In fact, I went to sleep on the bus from Rome to Siena. For a while we were on a highway where the traffic was at a standstill. There had been a traffic accident and someone died. Thankfully, the person was gone by the time we passed the accident scene.
When we finally arrived in Siena, Tiffany and I explored the neighborhood and found the internet café. You know that I can’t be disconnected from the internet for too long without losing my mind. So the Internet Train was a welcomed surprise…and it is one block from our apt. During our walk to find Marie’s place, we ran into Celeste, the director of the language group who that she had made reservations at a restaurant for 8pm and that we were welcomed to join her, Marie and Keighley for dinner.
The ristorante was on a hill with tilted tables. I sat on the lower side and it made me look like the shortest one there. The top of the table was only inches away from my chin. Marie said that I needed a boaster seat. The place mats were brown paper bag sheets, perfect for drawing. I need to find some crayons to carry with me at all times. Italy makes me want to draw and I never know what I might draw.
At the table next to us, a signore said, “Hey isn’t this the table that fell last night?” This made me nervous because I hadn’t considered that the table would be stable. Before then, I was most concerned with not falling myself. All the hills and steps make me nervous. I was instructed not to fall and break any bones in Italy.
The meal – it was simple, but good. We had authentic spaghetti with meat sauce. It is Italy after all… how could not have spaghetti? After wards, Tiffany and I walked back home and realized that we forgot where we live. We did eventually find the apt.
It’s funny…for as much as I have travelled, inside and outside the US, this trip feels weird to me. Marie says that I keep “Monk”ing out, meaning that everything is freaking me out. In a way that is true. I still don’t feel comfortable doing some things like showering and going to the bathroom. The shower is so small that I barely fit in it. I’m actually still petrified of the shower, but I usually afraid of new showers for the first couple of days of any trip. Also, not having much Italian under my belt is very disconcerting. When I’ve gone to Mexico, I could communicate with people, albeit slowly. At best, I can say “thank you”, “yes”, “no”, “to the left”, “to the right”, and “straight ahead”. My Spanish is helping in some ways and in some ways, it’s a hindrance. I keep calling the (€) euros, pesos and I’m having a hard time with the pronunciation of some words because they are so similar to Spanish. We have our placement tests tomorrow. I’m thinking about just putting my name on the test and handing it back. I want the beginning class…Italian for dummies is what I want.