22. Balcony Living

Six days of Italian day dreams come true! My friend, Annie, and I took a last minute trip to Milan, Venice, and Rome a couple weeks ago. It was a tourist marathon - 3 cities in 6 days was so much fun, but a ton of work. I loved every minute, except the hungover transportation bits, but even those were well worth the self-inflicted struggle.

But first! A short vocabulary lesson:
Balcony Living - a sophisticated lifestyle where every place you lay your head has an attached balcony with a fabulous view
Lobstitute - an escort who enjoys dinner dates, nothing more, nothing less

It is also important to note that all of my recent vacations are preceded by the jokingly serious verbal agreement, "No judgement." No judgement about anything by anyone present. That's the way to travel. No stress, no judgement - do whatever you want.
 

Having a pre-flight beer.

So, here are the highlights. We landed in Milan and did a belly-flop into our cute little hotel beds. The next day, we got up bright and early and hit the streets. Milan isn't my favorite in Italy because it's so super modern. The charm is a bit lacking in some places, but we only spent one day sight-seeing and then had the best night being wined and dined!

Rewind a couple months to Prague: I met a couple guys in a rock bar. One was annoying (sorry... kind of), but I really got to talking to the other one. We started really blabbing it up about music and life and travel and on and on. He was Italian and I told him I'd be in touch if my little Italian extravaganza actually fell in to place for suggestions. Anyway, he met us in Milan, took us to a wine store/bar/restaurant overlooking the Duomo, taught us about wine, then, to a lovely restaurant and to all the bars we wanted! It was fantastic! Such hospitality. The three of us had such great conversation and tore up the town! He and I are now BFF's. Thanks, Alvi!

 

Going out for dinner and my first wine lesson. The only thing I hate about traveling is that you can't bring your hair tools because they're all different plugs and watts and all. So, then, you're stuck with whatever your air-dried hair wants to do. I realize that it's not a very valid complaint, but still...

They raised the curtain as the sun went down and that was the view. This was definitely a moment when I couldn't believe my lucky life.

Deciding it was a good idea to do a Fernet Branca and Branca Menta taste test.

Our first and only throw down - and it was staged.

We paid for the drinking the following morning when we made our train to Venice, hungover, with 3 minutes to spare. We were cutting it close, so we got on the train, awkwardly dragging suitcases and handfuls of regrettable breakfast items, before looking at our assigned seat numbers. It was like a movie joke or something. We pushed through the whole length of the train, it just kept going and going, before we came to our seats... in which, other people were seated. We both did the obligatory, appropriate amount of fake confusion and fumbling through our tickets to make everyone involved feel polite. They moved and I put my forehead directly against the window (mouth open, of course) and we were on our way!

Venice looks like a fairy tale (duh). It really looks like all the buildings are just made of plaster or something for a movie, like you could just push one down or something. Most other places I've visited have some "old town" area where you go to see all the beautifully decaying buildings and all, but it was like that on every street.

Ok, a very useful piece of advice for a Venice dinner!: Go to the little delis and grocery stores and get yourself a bed-picnic. Stock up on some meat, cheese, olives, bread or crackers, tomatoes and you're in business! There is absolutely no night life in Venice, so, do a Youtube movie night and binge. It was so good.

I'm telling you - we learned our lesson the hard way about the crap restaurants. We were so tired and hungry and just thought, "Ok, we'll split a cheese plate and a vegetable plate and just pay the €10 each and €4 for water and €3 for a napkin. Whatever." (The last one was a joke.) Anyway, the food came out and it was so stupid. The cheese plate had 6 thin slices of 3 different kinds of cheese on a huge plate with a tiny pile of shredded carrots in the middle and no bread. It looked so funny and sad.

We were both very pleased with our purchases.

Cute little gelato-pops!

Rialto Bridge

St. Mark's Clock Tower

Enjoy a little music from St. Mark's Square:

Our view. One of the two nights we were there, there was a thunderstorm with tons of lightening! We watched from the balcony.

Then we caught our flight and jetted off to Roma! At this point, we couldn't believe how smoothly everything had worked out. I was sure that I had made some mistake when planning all the planes, trains, shuttles, cabs, hotel check-ins and check-outs and on and on that had to be perfectly coordinated. I kept thinking someone was going to come knock on our door and tell us we were due to check out 3 hours ago or something.

As you may know, one of my absolute favorites.. and it must be true that you'll return to Rome if you make a wish in the fountain! I had no plan to return only and exactly 2 years later.

Here's a story! See the pizza, above? We were walking and walking in circles around Trastevere for about an hour. We were in completely the wrong area and I didn't recognize anything. We were both starving, but I really wanted to find some pizza LIKE the place I had eaten it from years earlier. I was in no way trying to find the same place, just something like that - I was actually completely lost and dragging poor Annie along on my pizza quest. I gave up and we both agreed we'd go to the next place we found. Just then, we turned a corner and there it was - the EXACT SAME pizza place! It's the best pizza in the world. I still don't know where it is and I forget what it's called, but I know I'll find it again someday if I'm in the area. It's fate. - The pizza from that place is my soul mate.

Seriously, who is going to get stuck in the subway door as extremely as these guys? That's a bad day.

Another night out in Campo de Fiori.

The Colosseum is right in your face when you get off the subway.

The joke in Rome was that I was the tour guide because I had been there once before. We had one day to cram all of the sights in and still have fun. I would get us to the place, saying get ready, we're coming up to it, you're gonna love it, there it is... and then we would just speed walk past. I had already done it all, inside and out, and Annie didn't want to stand in line and pay the money and all, so it worked for us. I was going to call my tour EXTREME ROME. The tour would start and the guide would say something like, we're going to see how far you can walk today. You see everything in one day and, by the end, you're completely delirious and sun burned and literally can't walk anymore - just like we did. It's not for everyone...

And that was Italy. Now, to end with the dreaded reality check: I move home in less than 2 weeks.

21. I'm in Control! ...in Prague

I took a girly getaway to Prague with my friend, Shannon. It was wonderful because it was this no-stress trip where we had these really deep conversations about what we want to do with our lives and careers, where we want to live, the importance of travel and living! It was pretty intense. From all of this talking, I have come to several life-altering conclusions! They will be reported after the following pictures, just to keep you on the edge of your mouse!

It's always good to find out what's at the bottom of a staircase like this.

First, she rolls out the dough and then puts it on to those spinning wheels to make a yummy, cylindrical pastry treat!

Terrifying statues - check out that hand reaching out on the guy on the right. Yipe!

A little market

Charles Bridge

View from the bridge

All are gingerbread hearts at the Gingerbread Museum!

I just really liked the colors and patterns of these two buildings, together.

My adopted son and new best friend. At dinner, I said, "I want to find a marionette. It's an investment for my life." Shannon had to stop and call attention to that bizarre sentence.

Getting ready to be packed

Yes, that's a huge marionette next to me.

I spy original, Czech Charlie Chaplin advertisements.

Ready for Prague nightlife!

After the trip, I have never felt so motivated! It seems like everything is coming together and my career aspirations are more clear and on track. Here is what I realized:

1. What I love about librarianship is not the technical aspects of cataloging and metadata, but, rather, the promotion of the library. This makes so much sense to me because, although it seemed like such a drastic career shift from music management to library and information studies, it's really just about promoting something I love (music to books).

2. I went home to NYC for a quick, last-minute trip (more on this, later) and was able to squeeze in visits with almost all of my friends. It was so nice to see all of the Mean Girls! They are so inspiring. Most are in creative industries and talked about all of the progress they're making and all of the exciting events they have been to and the new developments they have coming up. It made me consider my own career path and what I could do to steer it in a direction that would be creatively fulfilling.

3. I think there is a not-so-obvious connection between punk rock ideals and libraries and librarians. The library promotes this concept of accessibility and free information for all! See what I mean?

4. I have never regretted not finishing film school, but I have wondered what movies I could make.
 I was, recently, at an event for library professionals. There is this recurring story of a librarian of some form or another being at a party and someone says, "What do you do for a living?" and then, all of the librarians in the room sigh and roll their eyes because if you say, "I'm a librarian," then, people think you just sit around reading and stacking books. My attitude toward this is, why should anyone be obligated to know what exactly you do at your job if you don't tell them? If someone told me they were a scientist or a doctor or something, I might picture the wrong thing if that's all they said. Either tell someone what you do or leave it at that and get over it. I'm tired of librarians who complain about stereotypes, but don't do anything about it. So, here's what I plan to do about it:

5. I want to make a documentary about what it means to be a librarian, now, and innovative librarians, starting cool, new projects and companies in NYC and Brooklyn. There are so many exciting changes in this field and I think people should know about it. I want it to be relevant to info professionals, but, also and especially, people in their 20's and 30's, who may not be as interested in libraries and their services. It will look like a music documentary or punk rock movie because I like that all-over-the-place style  and those are the ones that inspire me.

6. There will be a photo book to go along with the movie, to be released at the same time. It will be like a coffee table book with pictures of all the people in the documentary, with interviews and quotes from them. I also want to add a bunch of stuff I've learned and advice I've gotten from talking to library directors on my European travels. I think it will be great. What do you think?

7. In order to do all of this, I need to move back to NYC in August, which is bitter sweet, but I can't put these ideas on hold any longer than I have to.

20. "Building the Portfolio"

I did a few more photo shoots, here, in Dublin, over the past several months. I don't know if I'll do any more, while I'm here, but if I do, you'll be the first to know! Take a peak:

Roman Corner

Roman Corner

Oisin Vink

Oisin Vink

Oisin Vink

Oisin Vink

Oisin Vink

Martin Tarkowski

Martin Tarkowski

Martin Tarkowski

Dave Kavanagh

Dave Kavanagh

Dave Kavanagh

Dave Kavanagh

ME, ME, ME! I feel pretty egotistical after this post, but whatever. I'm proud of the pictures, but it's weird because when I look at them, I don't feel like they're pictures of me. I just think, "Oh, that's a nice picture." Recently, I learned that pride is one of the 7 deadly sins. I don't like that. Isn't pride like confidence? And I think confidence is good. Anyway, I hope you like the pictures and don't judge me for being so explicit in my documentation of how I looked at this age, at this time in my life, during my year in Dublin.