leaving

I'm sitting here in my room, papers scattered around my chair, art study guide blinking away in Word, preparing myself for the next two days in which I take finals. I am sitting here, six days away from the end of the most exhilarating, thrilling and unreal experience of my life. Six days before I left for the castle, I was at work, fretting inside over the thought of three and a half months away from home, three and a half months of travel, three and a half months of change. It seemed like such a long time.

And now it's almost over.

The thing is, so much has happened this semester - I've stormed Western Europe, made some wonderful friends, and learned more than I ever thought I possibly could have. But it feels like there's still so much left to do, so many experiences unlived, so much magic and beauty left to see. And I have to board a plane out of this castle, out of this country, in four days. It doesn't seem right, somehow, doesn't seem fair that anyone should ever have to leave this place. It is such a bubble, such an isolated community of some seventy eight people who grow close and clash and laugh and cry and spend too much time together that it starts to feel like there's no one in the world but the castle kids. It feels like we've fallen off the face of the planet together, and now we have to scatter and go back to the familiar and the friendly and the mundane.

It's not that I don't look forward to Boston, don't look forward to my family and friends and sweet summer - but it's the magic of the castle, the intoxicating sweetness of a different country every weekend, of new experience upon new experience, of friends and memories and shining eyes and bright smiles and the unreality of calling this fortress of brick and stone my home. It's the sharing of this experience with such wonderful people, many of whom I'd never have known if the castle hadn't forced us together and bonded us forever with the memory of this place.

Time here is different than time at home - you can't really hold it, and the end can hover away from you for so long. You can delay the reality of going home by going on trip after trip, spending every weekend until your last traveling and going out and living life the way you do every weekend, and all of a sudden, it's here, it's less than a week away.

They say the castle changes you - it's so cliche to say that you come home a different person, but I guess they're right. It's not anything tangible, anything explainable - it's this role I've been filling, this new person I've been growing into, the things I've been learning, the way you've just got to do all of this on your own. The more relaxed, easygoing nature of Europe. I can't say I'm not still me - I'm still neurotic and insane - but I can say that I'm not the same me who left the States three months ago. And that's good. You hear enough about the readjustment woes of former castle kids that it makes you worry about the way the new you will mesh, the way the castle kid in you can live away from the castle - it seems such an impossibility, because you've fallen so hard for this place, for this life. I know it'll be fine - I know there's so much waiting for me at home - but I don't think I'm ready to leave all of this behind.

It's the knowing that this will never happen again, I think, that does it for us the most. We can come back to Europe, travel all we want, but this experience is so unique, such a blessing, that letting it end is hard. 

But a former castle kid gave me this nugget of wisdom the other night, and I've embraced it.

"You wouldn't want to stay there forever anyways," she said. "The transience is part of the beauty."

This semester at the castle was such an epic story, but lest we forget, it's not the whole book - just another chapter in life's sprawling novel. And damn, was it a good one.

I'm going outside. The air is cool and damp and refreshing and you can smell summer on the breeze.

Stay tuned.

:)

italy

My thirteen weeks of travels ended with the one I'd been looking forward to most - Florence and Rome, Italy. For those of you who might not know, I took Italian for three years in high school and I don't know what did it to me, but all I wanted to do when I first found out I was coming to Europe was go to Italy. It could be something about the language or the history or just some hypnotic power that Ms. Tassi, one of my Italian teachers, had - anything's possible, although to be fair, Ms. Tassi was this short little woman with a wide face and hair constantly tucked behind her ears, and quite honestly one of the most pushoverable people I've ever known. So it probably wasn't her influence, just something about the romantic images Italy brings to mind.

It was just Greg and I on this one, on our last-ever adventure in Europe. We flew into Milan, and proceeded to fumble around with the Italian railway system for a good two hours - way to go, Italy, thanks for being expensive - before catching a delightfully comfortable train to Florence. 

Florence the city was a lot quieter and more relaxed than I'd expected. Granted, we only spent two days there and four hours of that was consumed by the enormous Uffizi gallery - which was really beautiful, by and by, and totally worth the mind-numbing two hour wait in line during which we got to watch two French teenagers attempt to eat each other's faces. But yeah, Florence was stone streets and simple buildings, and oh yes, the Duomo, an enormously puzzling structure that dazzled with color amongst the grey-and-white buildings that surrounded it. Seriously, that thing is BRIGHT - blues and oranges and glimmering marble facade, and of course the towering famous dome of orange. The Arno river weaves its way through Florence, almost lazily listing underneath a line of bridges, deep green water with birds chilling out on the surface.

One thing I observed about Italy - or Florence and Rome, at the very least -is that The Sights are sort of just plopped down in the middle of everything. Everywhere else we've been, important monuments have been sort of set away from the important stuff, surrounded by a park or a fence or something, but no, not here. You could just be walking down the street, and BAM, THERE'S THE COLISSEUM. It's a really unexpected sort of thing, and took us off guard a few times, especially in Rome.

I mean Florence was pretty cool, of course, but it was very slow, quietly paced, and entirely unlike Rome, where waves of people simply crashed on us in some places. It was sort of rainy the first few days we were there, but the very last day it was sunny and bright, puffy white clouds and sheer blue sky, and my GOD, did we walk everywhere. 

Roman streets were short and tight and windy. Our first stop was to marvel at, yes, the Colisseum, in all its ancient and overwhelming glory - tall, imposing and stony-white, crumbling and decrepit. Imagine what it would've looked like now if it hadn't been used as a stone quarry by everyone who needed building materials until they realized, "oh, hey, this thing is pretty cool looking, we should probably keep it around." 

From there, we hit the Trevi Fountain, where I think I may have seen Lizzie McGuire - but she's so busy these days, who knows? It, like the rest of Rome, was inundated with people, but we managed to look past the wishing tourists and sightseers and inspect the fountain for what it really is - a quite stunning bit of architecture, finely sculpted white marble and a sheet of water like glass pouring over everything. (Yes, I made a wish. Can't tell.)

The next day we sort of stumbled upon the Pantheon - an odd thing to see, really: a super classical looking building, absolutely Roman, all pillars and heavy stone, and that one circle of light that lit up the whole place... all adorned with statues of Christ and Mary and other Christian icons. It was a strange juxtaposition, felt forced and wrong - but the building was still insane to see.

And then - Vatican time. St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican museum, and the Sistine Chapel. Now this, my friends, was something probably not adequately describable without you being able to see it. St. Peter's was huge, overwhelmingly ornate and gold and full of light and sound. The Vatican museum was equally loud, more modern, and a veritable labrynth of white hallways and paintings, until - the Sistine Chapel, and this is where I lose my words, because that thing is so famous and so huge and so indescribably indescribable. I hate to fall back on this, but you just Need To See This, because the paintings are so detailed and bright and there's blue everywhere and it is something of a visual overload, and you feel like you could spend hours there.

We walked away dazed and confused, ate doner and gelato, and retired to a comforting hostel with music and beer and balloons and the color yellow.

Was Italy what I expected? Nah. Was it wonderful? Of course.

And that, my friends, was that.

Blog's not over yet, though, so stay tuned. :)!

barcelona

So, here's the thing about Barcelona. I didn't do much. There's not a lot to report.

Oh, sure, the city was beautiful. It was all sun and sand and orange bicycles, and long winding streets and palm trees that sprouted with leaves like pineapples, rough and splintery brown trunks. It was basking on a beach with warmed between my toes and the icy crashing of the Mediterranean sea, cool and blue and opaque. It was icy Malibu and tanned faces and sunburn and a heavy sense of relaxation and laziness settling in our chests. A fuzzy, out of control feeling of delight and no obligations and lying with the sound of waves in your ears and your friends around you and your face on a warm red towel.

Barcelona was a vacation, plain and simple. I coasted by some of The Sights on a bright rented bike, wind whipping against me; a tall, red arc of brick and a church with the ugliest, most square and unpleasant architecture that I've ever seen. Buildings warble and wave, walls smoothed round and circular, giving off the appearance of melting concrete.

Our hostel, Kabul, was bedecked with rainbow lights and red-faced people toting plastic liter cups of beer that foamed and frothed. Wooden tables with chess pieces scattered about and black and white pictures on the wall and laughter and noise. Warm breezes even at night and discussions of politics conducted over shared balconies that look over a plaza populated by waving palm trees and a bubbling fountain. 

Vacation, all I ever wanted.

One last trip to Italy - coming soon to an internet near you.

Starting to think about leaving this place is driving me mad but that's a whole other story, too.

croatia

WELL.

We are BACK from travel break number two, and was it ever a doozy. Before I get to that, though, I think you need to know where we were.

We flew into Split, Croatia, and then took a bus along a sprawling seaside road, where gray cliffs jutted out into the sea which sparkled with sunlight, then effervesced in a luminescent yellow as the sun dipped down behind the horizon, a glowing peach against the cream colored sky. Most Emerson students slipped into a doze, but some stayed awake the whole time, noses pressed against the cool glass windows of the buses, breath fogging as we longed for more of the view before the sun dipped away entirely.

We pulled into Dubrovnik at night, and we were prevented from really seeing what it looked like. We awoke to the Adriatic Sea, wide and blue, directly across the street from our hotel, flanked by palm trees, tall and green. Moreover, there was sun, sun, sun, glorious and warm, and we turned to face it like turtles, eyes closing and faces pasty white shining in the glow. Our hotel was only a twenty minute walk from the walled old city of Dubrovnik, a fortress city where we spent most of our time. 

Let me get this straight for you: the old city of Dubrovnik is absolute magic, a city forgotten by modernization and left back in the times of Narnia and fantasy. It is all smooth white stone, pale orange roof tiles, and sun that gleams and glints over everything. It is worshipped at its feet by the Adriatic sea, hugging up against the city walls in all its cerulean blue glory. The sea is covered with twinkling stars of reflected sunlight. 

We found ourselves, when not carted around for academia, licking at gelato in a rainbow of flavors and collapsing onto a pebbled beach. The ocean thuds against the shore and when the waves slide out, a rain of pebbles cascades back down, making a sound identical to that of a rainstick. We spent days positively basking in the sun, soaking up the rays usually hidden behind a curtain of grey Dutch clouds. We wandered the streets of the old city, sipping on brightly colored drinks; everyone sported red faces and huge smiles. It was magic, magic, magic and no words can truly convey the pinpricks in our chests at such a wonderful place.

That said, this trip was packed to the brim, positively overflowing with unfortunate events; each one was a blow to our stomachs, and it just wouldn't stop.

One. Thirteen Emerson students, walking home from the old city, were jumped by a crew of unruly and angry Croatian teens; everyone turned out just fine, for those of you who will worry, and we rallied together as a group to prevent this from ruining the magic of the city around us. Total number of hospital visits: four.

Two. One student became violently ill; "I've never seen someone throw up so painfully before," one friend professed. She was carted off to the hospital (five), and on a bus ride to Bosnia the next day, three more people had to stop to throw up.

Three. Well - we were supposed to see Bosnia, and drove for two and a half hours to reach the concrete-and-iron gate that is the Bosnian border - only to find that four students had not brought their passports. Because, you know, I rarely bring my passport with me to BOSNIA. If i were going anywhere but BOSNIA I would have brought my passport, but it's only BOSNIA so no worries. We turned around with four "rejected from Bosnia" slips to sunbathe in a random Croatian town by a murky brown river before boarding the bus back to Dubrovnik.

Four. One girl fell over. Got a concussion. Spent two days (?) in the hospital. That's six.

Five. There was a small earthquake in the middle of the night. Scary for those who did not sleep through it like yours truly, but overall harmless.

Six. Several students rented scooters to zoom all around Dubrovnik; they had a very delightful day, or so I hear - until one scooter attempted to turn and instead crashed in a shower of plastic against the side of the road. Minor injuries, but a not-so-minor bill from the scooter place. No hospital visits, though.

Seven. We went to an arboretum, which was a positive labyrinth of green and yellow and purple, flowers and trees blooming and reaching petals and leaves up to the sky, soaking in the sun as much as we were. We decided it would be a good idea to swim in the Adriatic, which looked so disarmingly inviting that we all stripped to our skivvies (yeah, I said skivvies - deal with it) and leapt into the cool embrace of the water. Problem? Well, this grotto we were swimming in was flanked by stone walls we could climb out on - resulting in several students being attacked in the feet by prickly sea urchins that were clinging to the walls. Most of the spines were removed excruciatingly by a pair of tweezers and a sewing kit, but one person's foot was punctures so badly that he was carted off to the hospital to get them removed, bringing our total up to seven.

Eight. Meanwhile, during the sea urchin attacks, a few people decided they wanted to see what was on the other side of a wall - and as such, grabbed hold of a rusty old white ladder to vault themselves over the wall. The problem there? The ladder was electrified. No further explanation needed, I think.

And nine, most academic pretenses had to be abandoned in the face of Dubrovnik's ever-closing museums; we would approach a museum or an exhibit only to find ourselves facing a closed sign. In the middle of the day. This happened about six times, and by the end of the trip, Rob Duckers and Dulcia were practically pulling their hair out, puzzled and frustrated by the lack of quality art combined with the lack of open museums -and the Duke needs all the hair he can hold onto! (love ya, Rob!)

It was the most ridiculous, painful, frightening, unifying and positively unreal trip I have ever taken.

After which time, we got to go to Barcelona.

But that's a story in and of itself.