We Have Each Other

With three weeks to prepare for our departure, I'm taking inventory of what Ava and I will both need for the next 3 months.  It's exciting to think of our next adventure, and I get so happy thinking of seeing all my Italian friends and adopted family again!  I am searching for new art exhibits that will be on display during our time in Firenze, wanting to find new places to discover with Ava and fun activities for us to do together when she isn't in school. But deep in my heart, I am also trying to prepare for the big change she and I will be experiencing again.  We've been settled in Alaska for 7 months, and it's always a struggle to pack up and move, let alone move to another country with a different language and customs.  In a way, I love that Ava and I have been able to see so many new places, and meet new people.  On the other hand, it is tricky not having any roots in one area.  She and I don't have much in this world...we really just have each other and our suitcases as we move from here to there and everywhere.  And I don't think we'd be able to do it any other way, except by having one another...



I found this song the other day, and it made me realize how much she and I need each other as we transition yet again.  The few weeks leading up to our moves, Ava recognizes change is on it's way.  She will get a little more clingy, needing more attention and affection.  Sometimes her sleep becomes disrupted, and I find her in my bed early in the morning, needing my arms around her as a comfort.  Change can be intimidating to anyone, let alone a 4 year old, and I won't deny that it's hard for her to say goodbye to people so often.  But in all the times we have relocated, Ava is my little side-kick who accepts our vagrant lifestyle, taking it in stride with the grace not many adults could even grasp.  I thank God that he has blessed me with the most amazing little girl who has an excitement and curiosity for life. She can be a little timid in new situations, but usually after 5 minutes she's ready to explore a new environment as twenty questions pop into her head, wanting to know and understand everything around her.  I love that about her.  And so, when she wakes up at 2am in Italy from our crazy jetlag and 10 hour difference in timezones, I can sing her this song...   

Pack Mule

24 days until I leave Alaska, 30 days till I leave for Italy. I keep asking myself, is it too early to start packing? I'm one of those ridiculous people who loves being prepared and organized when it comes to traveling. No waiting for the last minute to pack bags and make decisions about what to bring or else it totally stresses me out and I lose all excitement for the trip ahead! I remember heading over to Italy with Ava for the first time.  I don't think I'll ever forget F's face when he saw I brought 4 huge suitcases...because I honestly must have looked like a pack mule with my huge cart!  The customs person stopped me and Ava on the way out with our load and asked "Uhm...how long are you staying?"  I replied 3 months.  And she gave me this "Ahhh...well....enjoy your time in Italy" while mockingly sniggering at my over-preparedness.  It would probably be best to avoid such a situation again, cause who likes to be sniggered at??  And besides the mocking, AirFrance has changed their luggage policy yet again.  So Ava and I can only bring 1 suitcase each if we want to avoid paying out the nose for extra bags.  We'll see if this miracle can occur...I'm aiming for just 3...but if I really work my magic, I could possibly keep it to 2 with some stratgic weight-distribution tactics and the clever use of carry-on luggage!!

 

 I think this time around it will be a little easier to leave stuff here in the States because I have a better idea of the things I'll still be able to find in Italy. Our last time in Italy I packed everything but the kitchen sink..because I knew that at least we'd have a kitchen sink over there. This time I know where I can get most anything we really need and it's a comfort being more familiar with a foreign city, even though I still have so much to discover over there! 

 

With that said, I know there are a few thing I'll still want to bring from America. For example, within the week of my arrival, it will be my 26th birthday.  And you better believe I want my own American boxed cake mix and frosting for my birthday!  All-time favorite birthday cake is dark chocolate cake with lemon frosting. It just wouldn't be my birthday without it! I'll also throw in my suitcase a nice big box of ziplock baggies of varrying sizes...does that sound strange?  Hmm..well, I haven't scoured Firenze for this small item, but I've never really seen them in the stores either. They are cheap here in the States and light to pack, and Ava and I use a million of them for so many things. I also will bring a good stash of taco seasoning mix...silly, I know...but it just makes us feel happy to have Taco Tuesdays, even in Italy (yet I still need to find a good tortilla in that city).  Obviously I'm a huge supporter of trying to meld into the Italian culture and do things their way, but sometimes you just gotta take a break and enjoy your American-ality when a little homesickness sets in!  For now, I'm itchin to leave this ridiculous coldness in Alaska and look towards the relative warmth in Firenze...I might even pack a swimsuit if I have room! 

Swimsuit Insanity

Yesterday was a holiday, so Ava and my dad had the day off.  When waking up and it's -35, you don't particularly feel like getting out of bed, let alone doing anything outside.  So, what did my family do?  We headed up to Chena Hot Springs Resort to put on our bathing suits and go swimming outside!  Seriously.  We did that.  It looked kinda like this, except when it's -35 there is a ridiculous amount of fog over the water and you can't see anything!

From chenahotsprings.com

It was so foggy, there was no way to get any kind of pictures.  But let me see if I can paint you a picture with words.  Basically, you remove your 10 layers of normal Alaskan outerwear in the locker rooms.  Blinded by your own paleness, you proceed to don your swimsuit that hasn't been out of your closet since July.  Entering the indoor swimming pool area, you quickly head into a warm pool, embarassingly trying to cover your "winter warmth" layer of flubb that you've been able to hide so stealthily for the past 4 months since it first snowed.  After that warm water starts to feel chilly (after all, it's indoors, but still not hot by any means) then you go to hot tubs nearby.  These are hotter still, making you get goosebumps while your body adjusts to the temperature.

It is at this time you sit for a good 5 minutes, raising your body temperature, as well as your courage.  You see...it is at this point that you realize what the ultimate goal of this journey was...driving 1 1/2 hours outside of Fairbanks...in the middle of nowhere, quite literally where the road ends.  And the ultimate experience is to do the most stupid thing you can do in an Alaskan winter: walk outside in your  wet swimsuit in -35 degrees.  But I did it.  All for the sake of enjoying the therapeutic waters of the Chena Hot Spring...an area that has been hot since it was first discovered in 1905 by some Swedish brothers who obviously were lost in the wilderness and stumbled upon the best thing they could find...a hot bath!

So, before I passed out from the super hot tub inside, I worked up my nerves and told myself "You can do this...it can't be too bad...people do this all the time...and it'll all be over soon...and you probably won't lose an ear or anything!"  My dad gave me the "you ready for this???" look and I knew it was time.  I waved goodbye to Ava who was happily swimming in the pool, bidding farewell to my sweet girl, hoping I'd see her again soon with all my skin still attached to my body.  We opened the door to go outside and I was smacked by a wave of needles.  Then we walked quickly through fog, down a ramp, barefeet on the ice, getting poked by the hard salt they laid down so we wouldn't fall.  Ouch!  I could hardly see my dad leading the way because of the steam, but all I heard his saying was "Almost there!  Almost there! Almost there!"  And finally I heard him sloshing into the warm water ahead of me.  I would have gladly laid down in 2 inches of that warm water if that's all I had..but thankfully it lowered into a nice 4 feet of hot water.

It was such a surreal experience.  Snow covered the rocks on the perimeter, fog and steam inhibited viewing anything more than 2 feet away, it was quiet and relaxing.  Informed not to get my head wet or else my hair would freeze and break off, I kept my head up above the mineral water.  Soon icicles were on my eyelashes, and my dark hair frosted into white, snowy cobwebs.  But it felt lovely.  We waded around the pool in quiet relaxation, happy to have made the journey.  As I walked around, I'd feel random pockets of scalding water, almost hot enough to feel like my skin was burning.  Besides coming upon various "amorous" couples enjoying the water, I could have probably stayed in the water all day. 

Thankfully I didn't bump into this guy!

For a while I considered the possibility of just permanently staying in the hot spring...besides prune fingers, would it really be so bad to try and construct an abode in these waters?  That way I wouldn't have to feel that cold air all over my body again.  Adjusting to the reality that I would eventually have to see Ava again and not shirk the responsibilities of motherhood, I started working up my nerve to exit the pool.  It honestly wasn't as bad walking back up out of the water, because I was more prepared for the extreme pain and knew what to expect...kinda like getting your second tattoo..it's not as scary as the first time!  In the end, I'm happy I experienced such a unique kind of swimsuit insanity.  I can say I've been there, done that, and don't intend on doing it again.  Here's to living life and having the courage to freeze your booty in an Alaskan winter!

Cheddar Busses

My dream car...

Alright, I'm about to bite my own cheek while I've been chomping at the bit this week.  I am soooooo ready to pack my bags and head off.  Ready to set sail and hit the high seas!  Alas, 5 more weeks till I go to Seattle, my first stop on my way to Firenze.  So, what can I do while I count down the hours, days, minutes until I depart?  Hmmm....well, I turned to cheddar cheese and bus maps today.

Yummmmmmmmmy

1. Cheddar cheese.  Seriously, I am not a foodie...I'm probably the one person who wants to move to Italy, yet does not have "Italian food" at the top of my list for reasons to go there!  But for anyone who knows me, they all understand cheddar cheese is a big part of my life.  A large portion of my very specific diet consists of this dairy product....mmm...orange colored calcium!  And so what is a difficult item to find in Italy?  Cheddar chesse, of course!  Don't get me wrong, I've come to appreciate a good pecorino and parmigiano...I enjoy it, but there's always something left to be desired in my opinion.  Maybe the lack of orange color?  I don't know.  But I will surely miss my Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese while I'm away...so I better indulge in it these next 5 weeks while I can!  (Can we say I'll leave America 10 pounds heavier?  Yes, indeed!)




Huh?

  2. Bus map of Firenze.  This is another thing I will terribly miss while I'm in Italy: the ability to drive my (automatic...no stick!) car, arrive at the place I intend, and park wherever I want.  In Italy, that isn't an option.  So, I turn to public transportation!  Which I am very happy to partake of, and love the fact that I can get anywhere in the city during a 70 minute interval for just 1.20euro.  Yet, my spoiled childhood of having my mother as a chauffeur, and then the access to a car when I was 16, has led me to have a major lack of bus-map-reading-skills.  Seriously, I think I'm great at getting around places, give me a map, and I can get there!  But busses just throw me off completely.  It doesn't help much that the ATAF website for the city of Firenze's bus system is lacking in clarity.  It looks like it should make sense, but it's kind of like trying to read heiroglyphics.  I definitely need someone to help me translate this map so Ava and I can get around the city independently and have some new adventures!  I'll pay good money for a tutor....any takers?  Anyone?  Well, I think the only thing better than figuring out this map, would be if I could drive that cheddar bus around the city!  Now THAT would turn some Italian heads!

Somewhere, Beyond the Sea

Ava at 2 years

I have a ridiculously adorable video of Ava when she was 2 singing the song, "Somewhere, Beyond the Sea".  Why would a 2 year old know that song?  Finding Nemo, of course!  Every now and then I'll hear that song and remember how tiny my precious girl was, and how she was singing that song without even understanding the words.  But as I'm preparing to cross the continent of North America, span the width of the Atlantic Ocean, and hop down to Italy, I'm recalling more of my past.  Yet it is a past I don't know anything about...like a strange mystery novel that never reveals enough information to garner a guess about the characters involved!

My blood is 1/4 Italian, a fact I've always proudly announced when asked my heritage.  Sure, it's also Scotch, Irish, English, Welsh and German.  But in my opinion, the 1/4 Italian seems to win in the most exotic and interesting aspect! As the tales always begin, "Once upon a time, in a far away land" some of my distant relatives were making the opposite journey than I'm about to make.  From what I believe, it was my great-grandparents who traveled from Italy to America so many years ago.  And that's about all I know.  My father's mother was born in the States, but I think it was her parents who moved from Italy.  It's like a mystery to me, that somehow the information of my Italian heritage has been lost so quickly and so easily.  I don't even know exactly what city they came from, but I usually hear "they came from somewhere near the heel of the boot" from my father (the most Italian member of our family).  Maybe Bari?  Brindisi?  Lecce?  Where did my great-grandparents first live in America?  How did they pay for the boat tickets to cross the Atlantic?  What year did they actually arrive? 

Grandma Bennett

I'm so curious and wish there were some concrete answers, but have no idea where to begin.  My full-blooded Italian grandmother passed away when I was only 3 years old, though I hold one solid memory of her in my mind.  Now, how I wish I could ask her all these questions, or to have heard her speaking her family tongue (something she only spoke with her sisters when the children were around..so my dad says!).  I imagine that she could have told me where her parents grew up, when they arrived in America, what they had to do to bring their family here, and why they chose to do so!  I see the beautiful pictures of when she married my grandfather, a woman so beautifully petite and Italian, and whose wedding ring I have now in my possession.  A couple years before my grandfather passed away, he lived with us, and I remember trying to ask him questions about grandma "Minnie".  He gave me some of her jewelry, some precious old cameos, but not much else to let me know about the woman she was.  Well, it's no surprise that my grandfather never spoke much of his wife, because he hardly spoke of anything to anyone. 

Beach along Viareggio

Maybe somewhere, beyond the sea, I will find some answers of how my relatives lived their lives in the past.  But for now, I will look forward to my future, in a country that feels like home because it's in my blood...

"It's far beyond a star,

It's near beyond the moon,

I know beyond a doubt

My heart will lead me there soon."

Half way to the Moon

At the end of November I wrote that it was 90 days until I would be back in Italy...the countdown began and I hoped the time would fly by.  Yesterday was the halfway point, and so we have only 45 days to go!  Maybe it's silly or pointless to keep track of these things, but what can I say?  I feel compelled to do it!  It's as if counting away the days helps me see the light at the end of the tunnel...especially when days in Alaska are cloaked in cold darkness that could easily be suffocating.  

Yet I feel like I may have finally found a little niche here in this city, of course with only about 6 more weeks to enjoy it.  Believe it or not...gasp...I have even made a few friends!  Isn't this always the case?  The minute you truly yield yourself to your environment, it has the possibility of enveloping you and holding you close.  So why don't I just do it from the get-go?  In all my travels around the states, living in new cities and with various people, I can openly admit I haven't been very content.  I've had moments of happiness and enjoyment, but the chronic desire to always be somewhere else, with someone else, doing other things...these have inhibited me from really living in the moment and loving my surroundings.  I can probably only count on one hand a few times and places where I have enjoyed moments of total contentment, feeling like I was exactly where I was supposed to be at just that exact moment. 

View of Italy from the Space Station

And maybe that's one reason why I long to return to life in Italy, to people I love, in a city that I adore...because I have felt it there more than once.  Sure it can be exhausting and frustrating.  But when I work up the courage to take not only myself on new adventures, but my daughter too, it's like I'm able to see the world anew, through her eyes.  It can be scary, it can be beautiful, it can be refreshing.   Everything can be so out of the ordinary there, so off balance at times, so I must readjust myself out of necessity and view things differently.  It's like when astronauts exit Earth's atmosphere, and head towards the moon, it's at that point that they are able to view the planet more clearly and completely.  Living in Italy forces me to reach in deep and find parts of myself that I rarely ever use.  To really see what I'm made of and how I can look from a different perspective.  Maybe it's at that moment, half-way to the moon while living in Italy, when I find the truest version of myself.

Belated Greetings

And now, I present to you all a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greeting!!  I'm not sure if it's super lame to send this out there after it's already the 3rd day of the new year, but I figured it couldn't hurt!  The past few weeks around here seem to have been busy, yet altogether lazy.   Our family is big on tradition when it comes to Christmas, so we would have fits of "traditional activities" that were strung together by countless holiday movies in front of the tv drinking hot cocoa!  We made traditional butter cookies (that I had to refrain from freaking out when sprinkles landed all over the table).  Made a gingerbread house that looked like it had melted in the Tropics.  I think we found and brought home every single Christmas book that the library had in the children's section!  And I was secretly counting down the days till Ava would head back to school...That's normal, right???  Then to top it all off, we had a lovely head cold sweep through the house just a week before Christmas, causing the blessed morning of Christmas to be filled with a symphony of coughing, sneezing, and all around hacking our heads off!  But it was lovely...

There is just nothing like spending Christmas and New Years with a 4 year old...and I can't think of a better place to celebrate all the winter-wonderland-ness than in frigid Alaska.  This is the first year that Ava totally got the "concept" of giving and getting presents.  We went to North Pole, Alaska to visit Santa...seriously the best, most amazingly genuine Santa I had ever seen!  I honest-to-goodness really thought he'd be flying to our house to deliver our presents cause we've been such good girls this year!  haha!  On New Year's Eve we headed out to our church potluck (those two words always go together, don't they?).  Since it was a balmy 15 outside, we set off fireworks in the parking lot at a strange 10:27pm (the natives were getting restless...ie, I was ready to head home)  But I was honestly blown away by these fireworks...and thers were not just skimpy bottle rockets..I'm talking, like...I was literally jumping up and down, clapping my hands, screaming and laughing because I was so impressed by these huge fireworks exploding right over my head!  I probably should have been embarassed by my behavior, but hey...how often does 2010 end, and 2011 begin?  There's a first time for everything!