Ciao ciao!

Last week, I took my first ever real (by real I mean more than 5-day) vacation since I've become a slave to The Man in the working world. I'd never been to Europe before, so a few months ago I'd jumped at the chance when my boyfriend's friend's girlfriend ('s dog's neighbor's kidney's aunt's best friend) invited us to join her in Italy and Ireland for a 10-day European-countries-that-begin-with-I extravaganza. 

First stop: Venice (2.5 days). General impressions: woah, everything is beautiful and slightly run down. Obviously a beautiful city to get around by foot (and even more beautiful by boat!)...it was a pleasure to explore the streets, get lost in the alleys and cross the hundreds of bridges - some grand, others tiny - that connected all the islands making up the city. The city was also quite touristy, which I'd been expecting (though we did manage to haggle the obligatory gondola ride from 100 euro to 80 euro... I guess that counts for something?)

After Venice was a day spent divided between Maranello, where our friend got a surprise birthday present - a 20 minute Ferrari test drive! - Milan, where we drove around in some craaaaaazy ass traffic, and the airport. A lot of European flights are extremely inexpensive compared to domestic US flights, but the fines for too-large baggage are enormous in order to compensate for the low ticket prices, which was tricky to circumvent but we managed to foil the system anyway. We landed in Rome late that evening and collapsed into bed, exhausted.

Trying to see Rome in two days was a bit like trying to eat a Chipotle burrito with a straw. Rome was seriously, in my professional opinion, out of control. Walking down the street yielded so many sights, from ancient ruins to posh restaurants and hotels to freshly roasted chestnut street vendors (sadly, the chestnuts were not as good as they smelled. TRICKSY HOBBITSES!). We basically grabbed a map of the city and tried to bypass as many sites as possible within the time we had. We were pretty efficient at it too, with the exception of two incidents: one in which we wandered around the Domus Aurea ruins for about an hour in a stupid haze of lost confusion, another in which we started walking in the completely wrong direction after getting diverted by a set of ruins filled with adorable stray cats (we dubbed it "cat city"). We ended that night by grabbing a bottle of wine and tipsily weaving our way back through the city - not shabby, eh?

Although I loved seeing and hearing about the famous historic staples of the city, like the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum, I still think what I'll remember most of Rome is the spontaneity of walking around her streets and finding beautiful architecture in the least expected places. That, and all the horrible parking all over the city. 

We flew an airline called Ryanair from Rome to Dublin. It's a low-cost airline and in an effort to save every penny possible, Ryanair actually speeds up their planes instead of slowing them down during landing to maximize fuel efficiency. We hit the tarmac and literally bounced. When the stewardess announced that 90% of Ryanair planes landed on time, I was surprised that her sentence didn't end after "landed."

Temperature-wise Italy had been a hot and pleasant affair, with sunny skies and no precipitation whatsoever. Ireland was quite the opposite. Rain, wind, clouds, fog, terribleness... we were lucky to catch a few rays of sunshine during the few times a day when grey clouds would break overhead.

In Ireland we spent day approximately one day in Dublin, Galoway, and Cork each, and then back in Dublin again. My favorite part was definitely in Galoway, when we visited the relatively remote Aran Islands, famous for their wool sweaters. Everywhere we went, we'd see acres and acres of green grass, hand-built walls of grey stone, farm animals, and the occasional local, many of whom spoke the traditional Irish (Gaelic) instead of English. Our tour guide was an old man with a thick accent who spoke extremely slowly and deliberately such that the entire tour started sounding like a poem. "This church was built in 300 A.D. Yeeessss, threeeee hundredddd affftteerrr deaaattthhhh."

Everything in Ireland reminded me of either Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones (I need to spend more time outside). Perhaps why that's why we have so many talented European fantasy authors - they don't have to look far beyond their back yard to see fantastic and beautiful landscapes. Another thing I found marvelous about this tiny yet beautiful country was its hospitable, kind people. Completely stranger were absurdly nice to us everywhere we went:

- a bus driver calling another bus driver to let him know that a directionally-confused girl was looking for his bus and that she'd already paid on his by accident

- a friend of our friend driving us around the countryside for two whole days, answering our n00bish questions about his country and taking us out for dinner & drinks

- a cab driver who stopped in the middle of the street to give us directions - and we hadn't even asked

- a hotel concierge that "took the liberty" and "hoped we didn't mind" that he'd made us lunch...again, without being asked, when lunch was not included, and after he'd spent 20 minutes giving us directions to the airport

Ireland, on the whole, felt like a cleaner, greener, and peaceful version of the American countryside. The only things I didn't love about the country were its weather and its food. Fish and chips, beef and guinness stew, full irish breakfasts (complete with black pudding, made of pigs' blood! Oink oink)... these things are good once in a while, but for three meals a day, noooooo thank you.

Overall, it was a beautiful and busy vacation, one I know I'll never forget. Having seen a bit of Europe, I'm eager to return and explore more of it, especially France, Spain and Germany. Ciao ciao!

Today I hit an all time low...

The most ridiculous and pathetic thing ever happened to me today.

For a few weeks now, my eyes have been acting up a little. I'm convinced it's from the combination of constant airplanage, air conditioning, and bleach from the hotel pillows and towels. One eye or the other will start getting extremely red and irritated in a matter of minutes. I know - hot. I got it checked out by an eye doctor and he told me it was due to lacerations from dry eye and prescribed me some antibiotics to make it go away. Nonetheless, my co-workers have started referring to it as "poop-eye" and refer to me as such endearing terms as "poop-eye the sailor BA" and "poop-eyehauntas fangully". 

Today, my right eye came down with a case of "poop-eye". It didn't look so great so instead of scarring the entire gym I usually go to, I thought I'd just use the treadmill at the Residence Inn's small fitness area. I went downstairs, took off my glasses, plugged in my earphones, and turned on my treadmill, ready to take on the world. It was a great workout. I did my best 5k time ever, sweated a gallon, and felt a ton better afterwards. As I was ready to leave, I suddenly realized that I couldn't find my glasses. I'd taken them off to run (because my sweaty nose makes them slip. I AM THE SEXIEST) and they were nowhere in sight - not in the cupholders, not in the ledge for MP3s, not on the ground, or so it seemed.

The catch is that "nowhere in sight" for me doesn't really mean anything because nothing is really ever in sight for me - I have horrible, HORRIBLE eyesight. As in -7.5 in my left eye and -7.0 in my right. So I was essentially standing in the Residence Inn fitness room, blind as a bat and unsure if my glasses really were missing or if I just couldn't see them. So I did what I had to do. I got down on all fours, Velma style, and patted around, looking for my glasses.

Let me assure you that I felt like a fucking idiot. There I was, crawling around like an infant, all sweaty and splotchy and panting after my workout. Oh, and also did I mention there was somebody in the ROOM with me this entire time? A nice-looking elderly Asian dude had come in about 5 minutes before I finished my run and bore witness to the whole thing.

But wait, it continues. I gave up searching after about 3 minutes of awkwardly shuffling around patting the carpet (which, goddamnit, was dark green). My plan was to run up to my hotel room, put on my contacts for a few painful minutes, come back down and find those goshdarned glasses. My plan was also to be unseen. Nobody else needed to know how pathetic I was.

So of course when I went outside the fitness area the first thing I did was almost collide with my co-worker.

Co-worker: Oh hey Rose! Good workout?

Me: Uhh, yeah, uhh -

Co-worker: What's wrong?

Me: (5 seconds of silence) I can't find my glasses.

Co-worker then helped me look for them, all the while probably secretly laughing/disgusted by how blind and helpless I am. He looked to no avail and half-convinced me I never even wore them in the first place so we parted ways and I ran up to my hotel room and put on my contacts and came back down.

Another few minutes of searching - and conversing with the Asian dude, who did turn out to be really nice and even searched his own treadmill for them - and I found my glasses all the way across the room, underneath a side stand that held towels. I guess they'd fallen onto my treadmill and had been shot back directly behind it. Thank goodness I didn't step on them.

Anyway. Yeah. That was a humbling and embarrassing situation. If I ever feel like I'm some hot shit ever again I'm just going to use that mental image of myself playing patty cake with the floor of the Residence Inn gym. 

A letter that I, present-day Rose, wish that I could've written to myself and read about 18 months ago:

Hey you.

It's 11 PM on a Thursday night. You're probably at the fifth floor of the Reg, buried in some econometrics book, holding back the panic that's rising in your throat because it's been three hours and thirty games of Robot Unicorn Attack and you still can't seem to come to terms with the ordinary least squares method that you'll be tested on tomorrow morning. Then there's that upcoming Mock Trial tournament this weekend and you cannot recite your opening without stopping midway to want to throw up a little. Oh, and you don't have a job or any prospects of ever finding one. And your hair looks awful, girl when was the last time you took a shower?

I know. Everything seems stressful right now. The world as you know it is being held together by a thread of sanity that grows thinner every day. Dinner for the past week has been Subway and outside it's a bleak 20 degrees. Your body has been vitamin D deficient for oh, approximately five million years.

Guess what, n00b Rose? It's all gonna be okay. In 18 months, your life will be completely different as you know it. You'll have visited new countries, met new people, seen new sights, discovered new facts, and most importantly of all, learned new things about yourself. All of what the next year and a half holds for you, both the good and the bad, will mould you into a person that is not who you are today. Sounds scary, yeah, but trust me. It's for the better (just look at Spider Man!). 

Many of these life lessons you will have to digest and learn in due time. They are little nuggets of wisdom that require patience and realization to settle within you and become valuable to you. Most of them I cannot give to you right now, because they would either spoil all the good stuff that's coming, or because you simply wouldn't heed my advice. But there are a couple of things I wish you'd know:

* In order to sustain any sort of meaningful relationship, whether it's with a friend or a family member or a boy or a squirrel, you have to love yourself first.

* You don't have to be at every party or meet up or event. Take some you time and enjoy being alone.

* You look fine without make-up. Don't wear so much of it. 

* Often times the mind is stronger than the body. What you can make yourself believe can have a huge effect on what you actually accomplish. As such, you should treat your mind well because it's your best asset. Start by getting a reasonable amount of sleep each night.

* Try to set goals for yourself. Start small, like cutting out soda for a week or scheduling a Skype date with your best friend. Always be working on something to improve who you are, how you feel, or what you know.

* Delete Angry Birds from your phone. Nothing good will come out of keeping that game.

* Stop getting haircuts that make you look like you have a mullet. 

That is all for now. You're doing a good job. The days seem like they're going slowly and stressfully, but try to find something good about where you are. You are an incredibly lucky person - never forget that or take it for granted. 

Good times are ahead.

Love,

Future You