Home Sweet Home
Nov. 12th, 2008 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerHome.
The trip was fan-tab-u-lous!
It was a 2-week slumber party of giggling interspersed with museum visits, window shopping, mad adventures late at night and unravelling the mystique of the various train systems of France and Italy.
My plane ticket on the way out said "World Traveller", which is fancy plane lingo for "economy class". However, every hurtle in our trip was overcome and we would cheer and say, "why of course we dealt with that. We are, afterall, world travellers." Followed by laughter and then a super-twin fist-bonk and cheer of "Shape of World Travelers".
Highlights:
Museums (I have to start here because think my costume/needle buddies are most interested in this).
It seemed all "lose" on the textile front at first. The textile collection at the Louvre was closed. There were no textiles on display in the Cluny. The Textile Museum in Lyon rocked. I saw "the joupon" and sketched madly and made notes. And lace and silk/gold stuff that I will need to write up for my needle-geek-friends. The textile museum in Prato was a bust until, through a series of accidental conversations, I found myself talking to the head curator. I walked out of there with her business card and a follow up appointment to return on Monday, Nov 10. And on Monday, Nov. 10 she showed me 10 examples of Italian Ren embroidery and then she showed me several embroidered shirts, talked to me, let me handle them and let me photograph them. I got to (with my own fingers!) open them up and look inside to inspect the seam treatment. (My brain is overwhelmed) (Note: she was also at the conference and we talked there. I'm pretty sure I got the ace-treatment because I met her in person and then we ended up sitting together for a day and talking; yay for turning on the charm and not being an ass... more comments on the "how to be an ass at a conference" later). In the Piti Palace I saw the Eleonora of Toledo clothing, et al, carefully on display in humidity/temp controlled rooms. In Pisa I saw the 16th century clothing that is being restored (which was taken off the Madonna statue). It was on 3 dress forms and it was not behind glass... yes, I got to touch it, look at the inside of hems, and was there to watch the conservator flipped up the front of a bodice so we could see the lining. And I got to quiz Thessy, the lead conservator, about construction details and her opinions, etc.
Yeah, there was so much win, the Cluny and Louvre disappointments are buried under a mountain of 'yay'.
Conference
Holy fucking "I'm surrounded by Textile Rock Stars", Batman. No shit. Movie costumers. PhD professors of design who are department heads at universities. Museum curators. Textile Conservators. People who worked with Janet Arnold and are published. I realized I was in shark infested waters on Day 2 of the conference when I was at lunch w/ 2 new friends and they were gossiping about who they liked to work with on movies and who they didn't... but they were only using first names and even though one lives near Chicago and the other in New York, they knew who they were talking about. And then they were pointing out people near us at our cafe and THEY were impressed (I didn't recognize the names they dropped). I joked that I was surrounded by rock stars and I was on the receiving end of 2 very serious pairs of eyes who said, yes, I was surrounded by rockstars of the textile world. (Could the earth just freaking swallow me up right now? Please?) I was quelled. See the quelling? I unquelled after our shared bottle of wine, though, and ended up clicking with several of these rockstars before the end of the conference. However, inevitably they'd start passing out business cards and I almost peed myself when I read them. I learned to dread the question, "What do you do?" Me? I'm nobody in "this" world. Jess talked me out of saying that, though, and we worked on a different answer. I'm an independent researcher and I work on developing practical application of textile and costuming discoveries. (Ta-dah).
Most Memorable Conference Moment:On the last eve, after touring Pisa and seeing (touching) the real clothing that's being restored there, we had dinner at the Opera Costume house in San Guilliana Terme. Feted with good food and good wine, a dozen costumes on display (including some by Zefferelli's from Romeo/Juliet and Taming of the Shrew) we were seranaded by an Opera singer who did pieces from Carmen, etc. It was magic. I had the biggest grin on my face.
Then, before I left, I thanked my new hero, the Rocking-est rockstar of them all, Mary Waterman Bulgarella (lead conservator for the Eleonora of Toledo find and with whom Janet Arnold corresponded about those clothes). She chatted with me and then kissed me on both cheeks as we said goodby.
wow. There are no words.
How not to be an Ass at a Conference
I don't think any bride wants to hear about someone else's wedding. Seriously, no one wants to hear about YOUR wedding dress on HER wedding day. Get past it already. Bragging about your littls SCA hobby to someone who restores textiles dug out of a crypt is not going to impress them. I did not have to be told this; apparently my chip was loaded with that clue-set. I was at this conference to learn from the "brides", not brag about my weeny little hobby. Too bad not all the SCA folks knew that. Fortunately, I didn't know any of them beforehand and skillfully avoided them after. But the degree of geekery was annoying. I occasionally found them messing with my buzz... E.G. I was taking notes on the Piti Palace display and jotting down where I wasn't seeing seams and mentally laying the fabric out flat for patterning. Someone would start to ask me what I was doing, so I'd make a "hmmm, do you notice that there is no seam there? that tells me..." And one of the geeks would rush over, jam herself into the conversation, and expound upon her opinions, brag about her hobby and, in some cases, even say that she's done a complete "Eleonora" gown, etc. I saw Mari shortly after that and begged to be saved from self-important, ignorant, assholes who might break their wrists patting themselves on the back.
For my part, I did an unexpected amount of networking. Especially with the conservators from Belgium. Turns out that if you know some history (like about the roll of women in the legal system in 15th century Flanders or how the change to inheritance laws in the 15th century changed the social and economic dynamic in 16th century in Flanders), people from that region get excited. So there I was, squashed on a bus next to some gals who's name tag said "Belgium" and I told them how much I enjoyed reading about their country and the history of the Flemish cities. They were stunned that anyone would know anything about their corner of the world. 20 minutes later the business cards came out and they wanted to know what I did. (eek!). However, they seriously want to continue the dialogue on textiles, culture and women. Yay! I'm going to.
On a side note, I was surprised that I walked away with so many business cards from curators and movie costumers and department heads of costume and (in one case) Chemistry. They wanted to talk more and seemed serious. I am not a "rock star"... I'm pretty sure no one was pointing me out in restaruants, etc (lol.. unless it was Mari and Neva, who I kept running into at all the fun spots like the book stores and museum exhibits). Jess thinks that because my interests aren't mono-focused on textile that I bring something different to the table; I've got some chemistry in my education, the various aspects of social history that interest me, etc, plus the practical application of costume and embroidery, I'm sort of a horse of a different color. It bears further pondering. I'm going to make up a calling card, though, for these types of events. I need a logo... and catchy phrase...
On Travel
Communicating in France:
I related our train adventures to co-workers and they think Jess and I should do "the amazing race" or whatever. We'd totally rock. Or, even if we didn't rock, we'd have a freaking blast and probably laugh so hard, there'd be tears and side-pain. We are definitely members of the "have fun with what you have and where you are" as opposed to people who sit back and expect life to hand them a good time.
My kids taught me all the French I needed to know on the way to the airport:
Miss E: Bon Jour (with cute little girl voice)
Supper N: hunh-hunh hunh (with cheesy French accent)
(which had us laughing hysterically in the car)
Turns out this is all I can really handle. Despite phrase books and borrowing an IPod w/ French lessons, I sucked really badly. It was aweful. No one understood me. In fact, they didn't understand my English unless I spoke it with a cheesey French accent. I did, however, become most excellent at charades, to the applause of Jess (my travel buddy) and non-english speakers everwhere. In Lyon we were trying to order lunch as a shmacy restaurant and no one spoke English. It seemed like there were all these different meat options with a salad, so to signal my understanding of each option, I pretended to be the animal, so there I was going "moo" and making finger-motion horns on my head (le beuf), making piggy noises with my hand fisted over my nose, and making fish signals (my own unique intrepretation). We were trying to communicate our preference, but it turned out the salad had all those in it. Whatever. Everyone laughed and we ate "moo", "oink", and 'swimmy hand motion' with our salad. yay! International charades.
(The hostess and the kids nearby clapped for me. Thank you! Thank you very much! Hope you enjoyed the show! )
"Hunh-hunh-hunh" became our code word for "oops, stupid americans trying to speak French again and failing". (insert girl giggle fest)
I kept working on my glower. No one over there smiles. But Jess kept laughing at me and I'd lose it. One person even asked us, "Why do Americans smile so much?" I responded, "Life is short. You can laugh or cry. I choose to laugh." They nodded and actually looked thoughtful.
First night in France: We went out for cookies at 8pm. I thought it was a good idea and we weren't going to go too far. In fact, we wandered around a monument named "Vendome" which was charming because that's part of Genevieve's name. Unfortunately, it was not a quick stroll down the street. It was a mad ramble and, without map or phrase book, we got lost about 40 minutes into it. 2 hrs later, exhausted and foot-sore, we finally found someone who could speak enough english to direct us to the Louvre (and thus our apartment). Lesson learned. And, special joy, we got to watch the homeless set up in the shmancy store-front windows and on heater vents, which was odd.
Streets of France I am approachable in France. For whatever reason, strangers come up to me and talk to me, even brushing by Jess to talk to me. I think they were asking directions, but I don't know. I just smiled, said "Bon Jour, I don't speak French", slowly and clearly in cheesey French accent. Highly amusing.
On the other hand, Jess is approachable in Italy. People everywhere would talk to her. I think it's her olive complection - she looks like she ought to be speaking Italian.
Planning your stay near the train station and World Traveller skill of Map Reading
(I was not issued my "World Traveller" status from British Air until after these plans were made, so my super-twin powers were not yet installed).
First, it was hit and miss at finding the train stations on the Yahoo-Goggle maps. Learning to recognize the symbols (which had no key) would have been nice. I got lucky most of the time. I did not in Lyon and we had a 2-mile trek to our hotel. Jess, who's not athletic but not out of shape, gave a mighty protest, "2 miles!?! Are you serious?! Two? MILES? Two miles!!", voice raising in amazement at the end. I pointed out that we walked more than that in Paris, it was paved, our luggage had wheels and it looked well light... I hung head. She stared in disbelief. We marched off to find our hotel. We took a cab back to the train station on our way out. It was funny a few days later. Every now and again one of us would go "Two MILES?" in that tone of shock and disbelief and we'd both start cracking up.
In Prato we were off my map. I thought I'd booked us near the train station, but I'd found the train yard instead. Not quite the same. It was at least another 2 mile hike but we didn't know it because we were off the map. Another return trip to train station via cab.
Second, Rick Steve is getting a letter from me so he can update his guidebook. The hotel in Padua might have been 3-star, and only 2 blocks from the square in front of the train station, but it was a 1-star neighborhood. We dragged our baggage down what must have been the worst 2-block stretch in the whole freaking town. And since we toured it the next day, I'm pretty confident in that assessment. It was a gravel path that used to be a side-walk for the 2-block stretch from the piazza to our hotel. It was full night and fenced in on our right, creating a funnel between the store fronts and the fence as we trekked the 2-blocks to the hotel. To add some spice to the walk, it was lined with clumps of men hanging out, drinking beer, and measuring us up. My "I'm gonna kick your ass" vibe totally pegged out and I was on the verge of mayhem by the time we reached our hotel. Jessica called over her shoulder at one point, "Why are we here again?" To which I responded kind of doubtfully, "Frescoes...?"
Rick Steve's book doesn't mention any of this and it looked like it had been this way for quite some time. A letter will be in order so he can update his guide book.
More Map Reading Misadventures
Last time we were in Ravenna (in 2001), I didn't get to see S. Apollinare in Classe. So we headed out with our handy Rick Steve guide on Monday, 11/3. Since Rick Steve's map said it was 2 miles from town center and since we'd already proven we could walk 2 miles straight with luggage, we were game for a luggage-less stroll in order to be wow-ed by 1500 yr old architecture and mosaic.
It was NOT 2 miles. Even if we'd correctly interpretted the street signs and didn't take the 1.5 mile detour (maybe they ran out of street signs?), it was marked as 8 km from the Classe side back to Ravenna town center (which estimates to a little less than 5 miles). By the way, it's S. Appollinare "en Classe" because "Classe" is the town next to Ravenna. WE WALKED TO THE NEXT TOWN... No wonder it took so long. Fortunately, it was scenic and we took pictures of the farmers puttering in their plots next to the river. However, we took the bus back (once we figured out where we could buy a ticket). World Travellers Ho! (another note to Rick Steve in the offing so he can update his book)
Family Run Restaurant Adventures I told Jess about the time in 2001 Taver'nell where the mom/pop owned restaraunt would not clear Farin's plates unless we ate every morsel. We laughed. Then, while having an excellent dinner after our 7 mile stroll in Ravenna, (at Ristorante Rustica, a R. Steve recommendation), they cleared Jess's half-finished plate. The host first had to be talked into taking her plate; yes, she really was done. Then he came back to say the kitchen was concerned she had not eaten every bite and wanted to know what was wrong with it. (bwah-ha-ha!) He was very reluctant to return with the line, "I'm done". Like he knew they'd take it out on him. We finally convinced him it was lovely, but she was not a hearty eater. He pointed at me to point out that I'd eaten every morsel and I just replied that I eat like a man. We laughed, he looked sheepish and sallied back to the invisible "clean your plate squad" in the kitchen. Apparently it worked.
Food Fun
I wanted Jess to see how the seafood is served. They don't decapitate or deshell their shrimp or remove the shell from the clams. So when I finally got around to ordering a seafood risotto, I couldn't resist waggling my antennaed and eye-balled shrimp at her and uttering some of the opening lines from Shark Tale. "Don't eat me...." . She replied, "Fish not food!" Bwah-ha-ha... lots of laughing. then I decapitated, deshelled, and ate them. Nom nom nom. Fish are food!
If you want a latte, order "cafe latte". If you order "latte", they will say, "Freddo or Caldo". If you say "caldo y menta", you get hot/steamed milk with mint. If you were expecting a cafe-latte with mint, you will be surprised. On the other hand, minty-warm-milk is very very tasty. Jess made this discovery by accident. We were ensconced in a front alcove of the church across the street from our apartment, cooling our heals for almost 2 hrs while we waited for our landlord to show up. I was on the phone by the time she came back with drinks and watched her stir each drink up, peer in them and shake her head. Then she asked me to taste-test one. I was so charmed by how good it tasted, I didn't realize there was no coffee until she asked me if I tasted any. LOL. I'm a dork. Minty Milk is definitely a keeper, though.
My liver is tired
The beverages I drank were coffee and wine with brief interludes of water and occasional evenings of cocktails. We did find tequila in Florence, but it was a total rip off. E15/drink (15*1.4 = $21/drink) and it wasn't even good sipping Tequila. But the bar across from our aparment sold us shots of Bacardi rum for E5, so we'd get that to-go, some cokes and have a giggle fest over card games.
Catacombs They need a cheesey gift shop. Seriously. They could make a ton of money with t-shirts that say, "I met Robspierre and kept my head". Or skeleton key chains. Or bobble-head skulls. Jess and I spent our hour in line speculating about all the cool ways we could cheese it up and make money.
By the way, the catacombs were really neat. Really glad I got to see them.
Modern Art
You have to love a place named "Pompadou". We went. It was interesting. Finding the entrance was very exciting - another one of those moments where speaking French would have been helpful since we were repeatedly directed to what looked like the exit. And it sort of was "outside" since the entrance is via some covered escalators on the outside of the building. heh. I think I've had my fill of modern art for a few months, though. Some of it is thought provoking, which is my definition of "good art" and some of it looks like it was scraped together because the art teacher said the project was due. Different strokes...
Luggage My one suitcase was a tad over 43 KG at the end of the trip. (I have not weighed my back-pack, which was filled to the brim with books). It was half full of books, around which I packed clothes and a folding stool. I picked up the stool on day 2. Yes, I bought "furniture" and hauled it in my suitcase for 2 weeks, much to the amusement of my travel buddy who laughed everytime I had to repack around it. Related to this, I had to drag my suitcase up multiple flights of stairs in hotels and trainstations and onto/off trains... one step at a time. It was my penance according to Jess. A few hotel guys tried to carry it... I tried to protect them, but they wouldn't let me. Ain't Italian machismo great? I loved when their eyes bugged out at the first attempt to lift it, but then their egos puffed up. I thought the guy in Prato was going to lose his balance on the stairs and crush us. "Death by suitcase" would be the headlines. Bwah-ha-ha.
In order to avoid the penalty for heavy suitcase at the airport, I bought a cheap suitcase in Milan the night before flying home. Yay!
Laundry in Prato The laundromat gods were in a cranky mood. The one in Ravenna never opened in the mornings (despite posted hours). We apparently failed to read the sign in the one in Prato and started our load right at closing time. The guy who came around to close it about 10 minutes later (dressed in a cop-like security guard outfit complete with combat boots) did not speak English. So we whipped out our phrase books and talked to him. It was officially closed and it was a "bad" neighborhood. (eek!) He wanted us to let him lock up (leaving our laundry there) and come back in the morning to get our stuff. (We freaked). We talked, and stalled and begged and talked for 20 minutes. At that point there was only 10 minutes left to the load and the three of us stood there watching the washer do it's thing. We returned in the morning to dry it all and ended up using the less efficient dryer, so it took 2 tries to dry our laundry. Oh, and the machines only took exact change, so we lost the equivalent of about $2. We scored it as "Italian Laundromats: 4, World Travellers: 1". And laughed.
Fashion shopping and Window Shopping The skinny leg/low rise jeans (the type the teens wear that show off their brand of underwear) have invaded Europe. Oh well. however, they also have so really nice stuff, too, and it's not that empire-waist, shirred neckline crap I see all over the place here. Bah. And everyone is wearing boots. Yay! Lurve Boots! I got 2 pair. yay. and a skirt.
Trains The ride from Lyon to Padua took all day.
The first time they checked our ticket, we were informed that we were on the wrong car. In fact, the train would "split" and the portion we were on was not headed towards Milan. There was one stop where we got off and, dragging suitcases, ran as hard as we could to the right portion of the train, me yelling, "faster" as I watched the conductors reboard the train. But we made it. We are, afterall, world travellers.
The Alps were goreous. And for long hauls, riding first class rocks. At the first stop in Italy the police came on board, asked to see passports, asked us how much money we were carrying and then asked to see our money. Jess stared at the police kind of surprised/confused while digging through her purse. They didn't really seem to notice me (I'm not approachable in ITaly, Jess is. hahaha!), but I stage whispered from the corner of my mouth, "show the man with the gun your money..." We were wondering if we were being robbed, but we were not. I speculate they were keeping vagrants out or illegal trafficking out. Or something. But we didn't fit the profile so they let us in.
We have become pros as running through trainstations, dragging heavy luggage up and down stairs, and demystifying train schedules, keeping in mind that France, Switzerland and Italy all "post"/organize the information differently. We had 5 minutes to detangle the situation in Geneva and get on our train. It was a wild race and no one spoke English, but we found the right hallway to the right platform and made it. We are, afterall, world travellers.
It wouldn't be a train trip in Italy if we didn't experience a strike. And it wasn't just the train, it was all public transport and it was on the day I had an appointment in Prato with the curator. "Taxi!" We made it to Prato by Taxi and then, through patience, eventually, to Milan by train. Though even then they only ran 2 trains, one to Milan and one to Naples. whew! good thing we weren't flying out of Rome.
US PoliticsThey love Obama over there. It was interesting to be over there and talk to the Europeans while our election was going on. In fact, we got some gold-star treatment on our last night from our hotel in Milan after they realized we were pro-Obama. We were foot sore, exhausted (me with a ton of books in back-pack and suitcase), and could not find the hotel that Rick Steve said was 5 min from the train station. After 20 minutes of searching, we started looking for one that had a room and lucked out at our 2nd try. La Flora in Milan - beautiful, has a lift (cheer!), clean rooms, breakfast if you stay for it, and truly 5 minutes from the train station. It was reasonably priced in comparison to what we'd seen (E90). We got set in and were heading out to find food. The Manager, after chatting w/ us about politics, pulls out a restaurant card, writes Chef Salvatore's name on it, and says, "Tell him I sent you." Then he decides to call the restaurant himself and let them know that he was sending 2 american girls over so that our table would be waiting. We were greeted by the staff, seated immediately, served wine (compliments of the restaurant), served nummy food, and then they served us limoncello in frosted glasses (again, compliments of the restaurant). Wow. Thank You Mr. Obama!
Wandering I seem to have a skill for finding the tribes of my youth. Just wandering around the place, I found the "Games Workshop" in Padua (took pictures... told them I had friends in SF that played; they were thrilled in true-geekiness). And I found the headshops in most cities. I insisted we go in and admire the new generation gothiness of it all. AC/DC must be having a Euro tour because their T-shirts are EVERYWHERE. Highly amusing. I have a new Jack-Skellington bag from the headshop in Lyon, FR.
Jess was an amazingly patient travel buddy. She cooled her heals with a book while I'd peruse museums. We retreated to our room several times with Bacardi and cokes to play San Juan and Catan. Nary a complaint about any of our interesting hurtles and always willing to wander down one more alley to see what was at the other end. One of the things you have to wonder about before a trip like this is, "will we still like each other when it's over?" All I can say is, "Hell yes!" We will, infact, see each other at work later this week. It will be very hard to resist hugging her... we wouldn't want to break the engineering code of no-contact.
I hear not all the post-cards to the family have arrived, but they didn't all get mailed at the same time.
Now I'm home. It feels good. I fell alseep on the sofa with Super N on my lap and Miss E tucked up under my arm. Then they snuggled me in bed, hogging my pillow. I woke up later, the kids had been put to bed and the hubby was snuggled up next to me.
Home is where the family is. It's good to me home. I doubt I'll take such a long trip without them again.
Edit
You know you're home when
1. There's an unpaid parking ticket from (ahem) July. And even though you paid it (having checked your bank statement!), you find out you got TWO tickets that day, not one, and this is the one for expired tags. So, indeed, there really is an outstanding ticket with lots of money due. (fuck!)
2. No one has gone to the post office to pick up the package that no one signed for while you were gone. So maybe your contact lenses have been returned to sender. (yarg)
3. It's weigh-in day at Weight Watchers and you find yourself wondering how many points are in a croissant and how many more are in a croissant with chocolate, cuz daily breakfast was pastry and coffee. The best news of all is that (drum roll) dragging luggage up and down stairs really is a good calorie burn and I'm only up 1.5 lbs. Which is a freaking miracle based on all the pastry I've been eating and the total lack of fresh fruit/veg I've had for over 2 weeks. Squee!
The trip was fan-tab-u-lous!
It was a 2-week slumber party of giggling interspersed with museum visits, window shopping, mad adventures late at night and unravelling the mystique of the various train systems of France and Italy.
My plane ticket on the way out said "World Traveller", which is fancy plane lingo for "economy class". However, every hurtle in our trip was overcome and we would cheer and say, "why of course we dealt with that. We are, afterall, world travellers." Followed by laughter and then a super-twin fist-bonk and cheer of "Shape of World Travelers".
Highlights:
Museums (I have to start here because think my costume/needle buddies are most interested in this).
It seemed all "lose" on the textile front at first. The textile collection at the Louvre was closed. There were no textiles on display in the Cluny. The Textile Museum in Lyon rocked. I saw "the joupon" and sketched madly and made notes. And lace and silk/gold stuff that I will need to write up for my needle-geek-friends. The textile museum in Prato was a bust until, through a series of accidental conversations, I found myself talking to the head curator. I walked out of there with her business card and a follow up appointment to return on Monday, Nov 10. And on Monday, Nov. 10 she showed me 10 examples of Italian Ren embroidery and then she showed me several embroidered shirts, talked to me, let me handle them and let me photograph them. I got to (with my own fingers!) open them up and look inside to inspect the seam treatment. (My brain is overwhelmed) (Note: she was also at the conference and we talked there. I'm pretty sure I got the ace-treatment because I met her in person and then we ended up sitting together for a day and talking; yay for turning on the charm and not being an ass... more comments on the "how to be an ass at a conference" later). In the Piti Palace I saw the Eleonora of Toledo clothing, et al, carefully on display in humidity/temp controlled rooms. In Pisa I saw the 16th century clothing that is being restored (which was taken off the Madonna statue). It was on 3 dress forms and it was not behind glass... yes, I got to touch it, look at the inside of hems, and was there to watch the conservator flipped up the front of a bodice so we could see the lining. And I got to quiz Thessy, the lead conservator, about construction details and her opinions, etc.
Yeah, there was so much win, the Cluny and Louvre disappointments are buried under a mountain of 'yay'.
Conference
Holy fucking "I'm surrounded by Textile Rock Stars", Batman. No shit. Movie costumers. PhD professors of design who are department heads at universities. Museum curators. Textile Conservators. People who worked with Janet Arnold and are published. I realized I was in shark infested waters on Day 2 of the conference when I was at lunch w/ 2 new friends and they were gossiping about who they liked to work with on movies and who they didn't... but they were only using first names and even though one lives near Chicago and the other in New York, they knew who they were talking about. And then they were pointing out people near us at our cafe and THEY were impressed (I didn't recognize the names they dropped). I joked that I was surrounded by rock stars and I was on the receiving end of 2 very serious pairs of eyes who said, yes, I was surrounded by rockstars of the textile world. (Could the earth just freaking swallow me up right now? Please?) I was quelled. See the quelling? I unquelled after our shared bottle of wine, though, and ended up clicking with several of these rockstars before the end of the conference. However, inevitably they'd start passing out business cards and I almost peed myself when I read them. I learned to dread the question, "What do you do?" Me? I'm nobody in "this" world. Jess talked me out of saying that, though, and we worked on a different answer. I'm an independent researcher and I work on developing practical application of textile and costuming discoveries. (Ta-dah).
Most Memorable Conference Moment:On the last eve, after touring Pisa and seeing (touching) the real clothing that's being restored there, we had dinner at the Opera Costume house in San Guilliana Terme. Feted with good food and good wine, a dozen costumes on display (including some by Zefferelli's from Romeo/Juliet and Taming of the Shrew) we were seranaded by an Opera singer who did pieces from Carmen, etc. It was magic. I had the biggest grin on my face.
Then, before I left, I thanked my new hero, the Rocking-est rockstar of them all, Mary Waterman Bulgarella (lead conservator for the Eleonora of Toledo find and with whom Janet Arnold corresponded about those clothes). She chatted with me and then kissed me on both cheeks as we said goodby.
wow. There are no words.
How not to be an Ass at a Conference
I don't think any bride wants to hear about someone else's wedding. Seriously, no one wants to hear about YOUR wedding dress on HER wedding day. Get past it already. Bragging about your littls SCA hobby to someone who restores textiles dug out of a crypt is not going to impress them. I did not have to be told this; apparently my chip was loaded with that clue-set. I was at this conference to learn from the "brides", not brag about my weeny little hobby. Too bad not all the SCA folks knew that. Fortunately, I didn't know any of them beforehand and skillfully avoided them after. But the degree of geekery was annoying. I occasionally found them messing with my buzz... E.G. I was taking notes on the Piti Palace display and jotting down where I wasn't seeing seams and mentally laying the fabric out flat for patterning. Someone would start to ask me what I was doing, so I'd make a "hmmm, do you notice that there is no seam there? that tells me..." And one of the geeks would rush over, jam herself into the conversation, and expound upon her opinions, brag about her hobby and, in some cases, even say that she's done a complete "Eleonora" gown, etc. I saw Mari shortly after that and begged to be saved from self-important, ignorant, assholes who might break their wrists patting themselves on the back.
For my part, I did an unexpected amount of networking. Especially with the conservators from Belgium. Turns out that if you know some history (like about the roll of women in the legal system in 15th century Flanders or how the change to inheritance laws in the 15th century changed the social and economic dynamic in 16th century in Flanders), people from that region get excited. So there I was, squashed on a bus next to some gals who's name tag said "Belgium" and I told them how much I enjoyed reading about their country and the history of the Flemish cities. They were stunned that anyone would know anything about their corner of the world. 20 minutes later the business cards came out and they wanted to know what I did. (eek!). However, they seriously want to continue the dialogue on textiles, culture and women. Yay! I'm going to.
On a side note, I was surprised that I walked away with so many business cards from curators and movie costumers and department heads of costume and (in one case) Chemistry. They wanted to talk more and seemed serious. I am not a "rock star"... I'm pretty sure no one was pointing me out in restaruants, etc (lol.. unless it was Mari and Neva, who I kept running into at all the fun spots like the book stores and museum exhibits). Jess thinks that because my interests aren't mono-focused on textile that I bring something different to the table; I've got some chemistry in my education, the various aspects of social history that interest me, etc, plus the practical application of costume and embroidery, I'm sort of a horse of a different color. It bears further pondering. I'm going to make up a calling card, though, for these types of events. I need a logo... and catchy phrase...
On Travel
Communicating in France:
I related our train adventures to co-workers and they think Jess and I should do "the amazing race" or whatever. We'd totally rock. Or, even if we didn't rock, we'd have a freaking blast and probably laugh so hard, there'd be tears and side-pain. We are definitely members of the "have fun with what you have and where you are" as opposed to people who sit back and expect life to hand them a good time.
My kids taught me all the French I needed to know on the way to the airport:
Miss E: Bon Jour (with cute little girl voice)
Supper N: hunh-hunh hunh (with cheesy French accent)
(which had us laughing hysterically in the car)
Turns out this is all I can really handle. Despite phrase books and borrowing an IPod w/ French lessons, I sucked really badly. It was aweful. No one understood me. In fact, they didn't understand my English unless I spoke it with a cheesey French accent. I did, however, become most excellent at charades, to the applause of Jess (my travel buddy) and non-english speakers everwhere. In Lyon we were trying to order lunch as a shmacy restaurant and no one spoke English. It seemed like there were all these different meat options with a salad, so to signal my understanding of each option, I pretended to be the animal, so there I was going "moo" and making finger-motion horns on my head (le beuf), making piggy noises with my hand fisted over my nose, and making fish signals (my own unique intrepretation). We were trying to communicate our preference, but it turned out the salad had all those in it. Whatever. Everyone laughed and we ate "moo", "oink", and 'swimmy hand motion' with our salad. yay! International charades.
(The hostess and the kids nearby clapped for me. Thank you! Thank you very much! Hope you enjoyed the show! )
"Hunh-hunh-hunh" became our code word for "oops, stupid americans trying to speak French again and failing". (insert girl giggle fest)
I kept working on my glower. No one over there smiles. But Jess kept laughing at me and I'd lose it. One person even asked us, "Why do Americans smile so much?" I responded, "Life is short. You can laugh or cry. I choose to laugh." They nodded and actually looked thoughtful.
First night in France: We went out for cookies at 8pm. I thought it was a good idea and we weren't going to go too far. In fact, we wandered around a monument named "Vendome" which was charming because that's part of Genevieve's name. Unfortunately, it was not a quick stroll down the street. It was a mad ramble and, without map or phrase book, we got lost about 40 minutes into it. 2 hrs later, exhausted and foot-sore, we finally found someone who could speak enough english to direct us to the Louvre (and thus our apartment). Lesson learned. And, special joy, we got to watch the homeless set up in the shmancy store-front windows and on heater vents, which was odd.
Streets of France I am approachable in France. For whatever reason, strangers come up to me and talk to me, even brushing by Jess to talk to me. I think they were asking directions, but I don't know. I just smiled, said "Bon Jour, I don't speak French", slowly and clearly in cheesey French accent. Highly amusing.
On the other hand, Jess is approachable in Italy. People everywhere would talk to her. I think it's her olive complection - she looks like she ought to be speaking Italian.
Planning your stay near the train station and World Traveller skill of Map Reading
(I was not issued my "World Traveller" status from British Air until after these plans were made, so my super-twin powers were not yet installed).
First, it was hit and miss at finding the train stations on the Yahoo-Goggle maps. Learning to recognize the symbols (which had no key) would have been nice. I got lucky most of the time. I did not in Lyon and we had a 2-mile trek to our hotel. Jess, who's not athletic but not out of shape, gave a mighty protest, "2 miles!?! Are you serious?! Two? MILES? Two miles!!", voice raising in amazement at the end. I pointed out that we walked more than that in Paris, it was paved, our luggage had wheels and it looked well light... I hung head. She stared in disbelief. We marched off to find our hotel. We took a cab back to the train station on our way out. It was funny a few days later. Every now and again one of us would go "Two MILES?" in that tone of shock and disbelief and we'd both start cracking up.
In Prato we were off my map. I thought I'd booked us near the train station, but I'd found the train yard instead. Not quite the same. It was at least another 2 mile hike but we didn't know it because we were off the map. Another return trip to train station via cab.
Second, Rick Steve is getting a letter from me so he can update his guidebook. The hotel in Padua might have been 3-star, and only 2 blocks from the square in front of the train station, but it was a 1-star neighborhood. We dragged our baggage down what must have been the worst 2-block stretch in the whole freaking town. And since we toured it the next day, I'm pretty confident in that assessment. It was a gravel path that used to be a side-walk for the 2-block stretch from the piazza to our hotel. It was full night and fenced in on our right, creating a funnel between the store fronts and the fence as we trekked the 2-blocks to the hotel. To add some spice to the walk, it was lined with clumps of men hanging out, drinking beer, and measuring us up. My "I'm gonna kick your ass" vibe totally pegged out and I was on the verge of mayhem by the time we reached our hotel. Jessica called over her shoulder at one point, "Why are we here again?" To which I responded kind of doubtfully, "Frescoes...?"
Rick Steve's book doesn't mention any of this and it looked like it had been this way for quite some time. A letter will be in order so he can update his guide book.
More Map Reading Misadventures
Last time we were in Ravenna (in 2001), I didn't get to see S. Apollinare in Classe. So we headed out with our handy Rick Steve guide on Monday, 11/3. Since Rick Steve's map said it was 2 miles from town center and since we'd already proven we could walk 2 miles straight with luggage, we were game for a luggage-less stroll in order to be wow-ed by 1500 yr old architecture and mosaic.
It was NOT 2 miles. Even if we'd correctly interpretted the street signs and didn't take the 1.5 mile detour (maybe they ran out of street signs?), it was marked as 8 km from the Classe side back to Ravenna town center (which estimates to a little less than 5 miles). By the way, it's S. Appollinare "en Classe" because "Classe" is the town next to Ravenna. WE WALKED TO THE NEXT TOWN... No wonder it took so long. Fortunately, it was scenic and we took pictures of the farmers puttering in their plots next to the river. However, we took the bus back (once we figured out where we could buy a ticket). World Travellers Ho! (another note to Rick Steve in the offing so he can update his book)
Family Run Restaurant Adventures I told Jess about the time in 2001 Taver'nell where the mom/pop owned restaraunt would not clear Farin's plates unless we ate every morsel. We laughed. Then, while having an excellent dinner after our 7 mile stroll in Ravenna, (at Ristorante Rustica, a R. Steve recommendation), they cleared Jess's half-finished plate. The host first had to be talked into taking her plate; yes, she really was done. Then he came back to say the kitchen was concerned she had not eaten every bite and wanted to know what was wrong with it. (bwah-ha-ha!) He was very reluctant to return with the line, "I'm done". Like he knew they'd take it out on him. We finally convinced him it was lovely, but she was not a hearty eater. He pointed at me to point out that I'd eaten every morsel and I just replied that I eat like a man. We laughed, he looked sheepish and sallied back to the invisible "clean your plate squad" in the kitchen. Apparently it worked.
Food Fun
I wanted Jess to see how the seafood is served. They don't decapitate or deshell their shrimp or remove the shell from the clams. So when I finally got around to ordering a seafood risotto, I couldn't resist waggling my antennaed and eye-balled shrimp at her and uttering some of the opening lines from Shark Tale. "Don't eat me...." . She replied, "Fish not food!" Bwah-ha-ha... lots of laughing. then I decapitated, deshelled, and ate them. Nom nom nom. Fish are food!
If you want a latte, order "cafe latte". If you order "latte", they will say, "Freddo or Caldo". If you say "caldo y menta", you get hot/steamed milk with mint. If you were expecting a cafe-latte with mint, you will be surprised. On the other hand, minty-warm-milk is very very tasty. Jess made this discovery by accident. We were ensconced in a front alcove of the church across the street from our apartment, cooling our heals for almost 2 hrs while we waited for our landlord to show up. I was on the phone by the time she came back with drinks and watched her stir each drink up, peer in them and shake her head. Then she asked me to taste-test one. I was so charmed by how good it tasted, I didn't realize there was no coffee until she asked me if I tasted any. LOL. I'm a dork. Minty Milk is definitely a keeper, though.
My liver is tired
The beverages I drank were coffee and wine with brief interludes of water and occasional evenings of cocktails. We did find tequila in Florence, but it was a total rip off. E15/drink (15*1.4 = $21/drink) and it wasn't even good sipping Tequila. But the bar across from our aparment sold us shots of Bacardi rum for E5, so we'd get that to-go, some cokes and have a giggle fest over card games.
Catacombs They need a cheesey gift shop. Seriously. They could make a ton of money with t-shirts that say, "I met Robspierre and kept my head". Or skeleton key chains. Or bobble-head skulls. Jess and I spent our hour in line speculating about all the cool ways we could cheese it up and make money.
By the way, the catacombs were really neat. Really glad I got to see them.
Modern Art
You have to love a place named "Pompadou". We went. It was interesting. Finding the entrance was very exciting - another one of those moments where speaking French would have been helpful since we were repeatedly directed to what looked like the exit. And it sort of was "outside" since the entrance is via some covered escalators on the outside of the building. heh. I think I've had my fill of modern art for a few months, though. Some of it is thought provoking, which is my definition of "good art" and some of it looks like it was scraped together because the art teacher said the project was due. Different strokes...
Luggage My one suitcase was a tad over 43 KG at the end of the trip. (I have not weighed my back-pack, which was filled to the brim with books). It was half full of books, around which I packed clothes and a folding stool. I picked up the stool on day 2. Yes, I bought "furniture" and hauled it in my suitcase for 2 weeks, much to the amusement of my travel buddy who laughed everytime I had to repack around it. Related to this, I had to drag my suitcase up multiple flights of stairs in hotels and trainstations and onto/off trains... one step at a time. It was my penance according to Jess. A few hotel guys tried to carry it... I tried to protect them, but they wouldn't let me. Ain't Italian machismo great? I loved when their eyes bugged out at the first attempt to lift it, but then their egos puffed up. I thought the guy in Prato was going to lose his balance on the stairs and crush us. "Death by suitcase" would be the headlines. Bwah-ha-ha.
In order to avoid the penalty for heavy suitcase at the airport, I bought a cheap suitcase in Milan the night before flying home. Yay!
Laundry in Prato The laundromat gods were in a cranky mood. The one in Ravenna never opened in the mornings (despite posted hours). We apparently failed to read the sign in the one in Prato and started our load right at closing time. The guy who came around to close it about 10 minutes later (dressed in a cop-like security guard outfit complete with combat boots) did not speak English. So we whipped out our phrase books and talked to him. It was officially closed and it was a "bad" neighborhood. (eek!) He wanted us to let him lock up (leaving our laundry there) and come back in the morning to get our stuff. (We freaked). We talked, and stalled and begged and talked for 20 minutes. At that point there was only 10 minutes left to the load and the three of us stood there watching the washer do it's thing. We returned in the morning to dry it all and ended up using the less efficient dryer, so it took 2 tries to dry our laundry. Oh, and the machines only took exact change, so we lost the equivalent of about $2. We scored it as "Italian Laundromats: 4, World Travellers: 1". And laughed.
Fashion shopping and Window Shopping The skinny leg/low rise jeans (the type the teens wear that show off their brand of underwear) have invaded Europe. Oh well. however, they also have so really nice stuff, too, and it's not that empire-waist, shirred neckline crap I see all over the place here. Bah. And everyone is wearing boots. Yay! Lurve Boots! I got 2 pair. yay. and a skirt.
Trains The ride from Lyon to Padua took all day.
The first time they checked our ticket, we were informed that we were on the wrong car. In fact, the train would "split" and the portion we were on was not headed towards Milan. There was one stop where we got off and, dragging suitcases, ran as hard as we could to the right portion of the train, me yelling, "faster" as I watched the conductors reboard the train. But we made it. We are, afterall, world travellers.
The Alps were goreous. And for long hauls, riding first class rocks. At the first stop in Italy the police came on board, asked to see passports, asked us how much money we were carrying and then asked to see our money. Jess stared at the police kind of surprised/confused while digging through her purse. They didn't really seem to notice me (I'm not approachable in ITaly, Jess is. hahaha!), but I stage whispered from the corner of my mouth, "show the man with the gun your money..." We were wondering if we were being robbed, but we were not. I speculate they were keeping vagrants out or illegal trafficking out. Or something. But we didn't fit the profile so they let us in.
We have become pros as running through trainstations, dragging heavy luggage up and down stairs, and demystifying train schedules, keeping in mind that France, Switzerland and Italy all "post"/organize the information differently. We had 5 minutes to detangle the situation in Geneva and get on our train. It was a wild race and no one spoke English, but we found the right hallway to the right platform and made it. We are, afterall, world travellers.
It wouldn't be a train trip in Italy if we didn't experience a strike. And it wasn't just the train, it was all public transport and it was on the day I had an appointment in Prato with the curator. "Taxi!" We made it to Prato by Taxi and then, through patience, eventually, to Milan by train. Though even then they only ran 2 trains, one to Milan and one to Naples. whew! good thing we weren't flying out of Rome.
US PoliticsThey love Obama over there. It was interesting to be over there and talk to the Europeans while our election was going on. In fact, we got some gold-star treatment on our last night from our hotel in Milan after they realized we were pro-Obama. We were foot sore, exhausted (me with a ton of books in back-pack and suitcase), and could not find the hotel that Rick Steve said was 5 min from the train station. After 20 minutes of searching, we started looking for one that had a room and lucked out at our 2nd try. La Flora in Milan - beautiful, has a lift (cheer!), clean rooms, breakfast if you stay for it, and truly 5 minutes from the train station. It was reasonably priced in comparison to what we'd seen (E90). We got set in and were heading out to find food. The Manager, after chatting w/ us about politics, pulls out a restaurant card, writes Chef Salvatore's name on it, and says, "Tell him I sent you." Then he decides to call the restaurant himself and let them know that he was sending 2 american girls over so that our table would be waiting. We were greeted by the staff, seated immediately, served wine (compliments of the restaurant), served nummy food, and then they served us limoncello in frosted glasses (again, compliments of the restaurant). Wow. Thank You Mr. Obama!
Wandering I seem to have a skill for finding the tribes of my youth. Just wandering around the place, I found the "Games Workshop" in Padua (took pictures... told them I had friends in SF that played; they were thrilled in true-geekiness). And I found the headshops in most cities. I insisted we go in and admire the new generation gothiness of it all. AC/DC must be having a Euro tour because their T-shirts are EVERYWHERE. Highly amusing. I have a new Jack-Skellington bag from the headshop in Lyon, FR.
Jess was an amazingly patient travel buddy. She cooled her heals with a book while I'd peruse museums. We retreated to our room several times with Bacardi and cokes to play San Juan and Catan. Nary a complaint about any of our interesting hurtles and always willing to wander down one more alley to see what was at the other end. One of the things you have to wonder about before a trip like this is, "will we still like each other when it's over?" All I can say is, "Hell yes!" We will, infact, see each other at work later this week. It will be very hard to resist hugging her... we wouldn't want to break the engineering code of no-contact.
I hear not all the post-cards to the family have arrived, but they didn't all get mailed at the same time.
Now I'm home. It feels good. I fell alseep on the sofa with Super N on my lap and Miss E tucked up under my arm. Then they snuggled me in bed, hogging my pillow. I woke up later, the kids had been put to bed and the hubby was snuggled up next to me.
Home is where the family is. It's good to me home. I doubt I'll take such a long trip without them again.
Edit
You know you're home when
1. There's an unpaid parking ticket from (ahem) July. And even though you paid it (having checked your bank statement!), you find out you got TWO tickets that day, not one, and this is the one for expired tags. So, indeed, there really is an outstanding ticket with lots of money due. (fuck!)
2. No one has gone to the post office to pick up the package that no one signed for while you were gone. So maybe your contact lenses have been returned to sender. (yarg)
3. It's weigh-in day at Weight Watchers and you find yourself wondering how many points are in a croissant and how many more are in a croissant with chocolate, cuz daily breakfast was pastry and coffee. The best news of all is that (drum roll) dragging luggage up and down stairs really is a good calorie burn and I'm only up 1.5 lbs. Which is a freaking miracle based on all the pastry I've been eating and the total lack of fresh fruit/veg I've had for over 2 weeks. Squee!
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Date: 2008-11-12 07:31 pm (UTC)