We Have Furniture AND Snow!

We've been sitting on cushions for the past three and a half months. A few days ago, we got most of our furniture (the last of it will deliver when we get back), and we couldn't be more excited. The living room is far from finished... the second couch is still in boxes, there's nothing on the walls. BUT, it looks lot better than it did, so we had to show it off. See that? It's a couch. We can sit on it. There's a place to put our TV. A shallow table takes up a blank wall. What more could you want?















It snowed here this past weekend and again today. Judging by our balcony railing, there's a few inches on the ground. I took this picture on Sunday. You can only see the tops of our apartment buildings from the street because they're built on the side of the mountain. It was gorgeous - sunny and snow.

We're doing Christmas a little different this year. Ryan and I are always together, and we don't totally understand the stores, so that rules out a lot of surprise gifts. It got us thinking last night of the presents we've already received. This year has been a big one.

We got an amazing apartment. We'll probably never have a view like this again, so that's a pretty cool gift. I got to talk to my brother today on his birthday. He's five, and that's old enough to carry on a funny conversation. That was an unexpected present. I have in-laws that think nothing of taking care of my cats for the next two years. If you've never cleaned a litter box for two BIG cats, I'm not sure you know what kind of a gift this is. My mom gave me a ton of books before we left, and in each of them she wrote a little note about the stories. It's like having my own personal Barnes & Noble. On top of the books, today she told me that I was a good sister. Because that was a great gift, I told her thank you, but I should have told her she was a good mom. I thought of it too late. Ryan and I have never spent so much time together. We walk everywhere. We talk all the time. And we spend most Fridays and Saturdays making up something to do. That's been the best gift to come out of Switzerland, and I hope it's one that we can give each other in the future. So, for our parents who have at one time or another hoped their kids were happy, here's a gift for you. We're the happiest.

Speaking of gifts, Switzerland has chocolate. If you order a hot chocolate, this is what you get. It's the thickest, richest, chocalatiest drink in the world. Notice my use of "spoonful" as a verb... the chocolate made me crazy!

Expats WITHOUT Cats

Our cats will not be coming with us after Christmas like we planned. Apparently Gracie showed her true colors when Mr. Kelley brought her to the vet. By true colors I mean her Linda Blair from The Exorcist side. They are the most passive cats (to people) you'd ever meet. But get them around animals and they'll cause concern for human life. That experience mixed with the fact that he and Mrs. Kelley actually like having them around led them to offer us the BIGGEST favor ever. They were hoping to save us from the 10+ hours in the air, the hour or so getting through customs, the 3 hours on the train to Lugano, and the 20 minute bus ride to our apartment. Can you picture it? It looks like two angry cats covered in whatever mess they've managed to make in the previous 15 hours. Knowing we can avoid this AND have our "precious angels" taken care for the next year and a half, is amazing.

So, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. We can't THANK YOU enough.

Catching Up

It's been a while. I'm going to give you the same answer I gave my mom... school is requiring more time, we actually have friends now, and I found a website that lets me watch Mad Men. Moreover, I tend to write when I'm upset (my seventh grade diaries will totally back me up), and we've been pretty great lately.

A lot has happened, so I'll attempt to catch you up. First, we got to really see family over Thanksgiving (this is opposed to sort of seeing them through Skype, which is very helpful, but not the same). We met Mom, Bill, Bizzy, Jon and Lisa first in Sienna and then traveled with them to Rome. I'm going to quote my sister from Facebook here and say that "it was ah may zing."

I had the best meal of my life in Rome. It was also the craziest meal experience I've had to date. Hopefully the pictures help you understand. Lisa found this restaurant in a New York Times travel article two years ago, and decided to hold on to it. I'm not sure we would have ever found a place like this if not for her efforts. There was no sign out front - nothing telling you they might actually make food. The room was only big enough to hold 4 or 5 tables. The kitchen was right behind our table. It consisted of one big stove with a propane tank out front. Bugs were everywhere. And not just the flying kind that might be attracted to the inside lights when a door gets opened. I'm talking roaches, but smaller. I'm not good at eating around bugs. In fact, they typically force me to stop eating all together. So the fact that I not only ate this meal, but loved it, says a lot. If I saw a bug on the wall I'd just look away. By that point I had already eaten an appetizer and I wanted nothing to stop me from trying more. There were two people cooking, one with a cigarette in her mouth. About halfway through the meal a dog walked in off the street. I thought it was an accident until the lady (with the cigarette) called it by name - Aldo. While we were eating, Aldo walked right up and put his head on my lap. That got him a piece of chicken. He stayed, without much protest from the cooks, and continued to beg.















Aside from the bugs, cigarettes, dog on lap, and stove top behind Mom's head, the food was unbelievable. There was no menu. Instead, they had a fixed meal for the night that included bruschetta, mashed potatoes (that had tomatoes, beans, olive oil, garlic and spices - this is what made me stop looking at the bugs), beans, 3 kinds of pasta, chicken, and pork. For dessert, they brought out grappa and limoncello. The picture's a little dark, but Bill's face says it all. We were blown away.


We did lots of other things, but eating was definitely the highlight. We saw the Colosseum, lots of churches, and Nero's palace that had been converted to a dog park. It's crazy how many ruins can fit in one city. We had a guided tour of the Vatican, which was helpful. In Sienna, I learned that I loved Brunello wine. When I returned to Lugano, I learned that it was the most expensive. It was a great trip.
Since we've been back we've gone to dinner with friends and met friends in Como. Friends! There was a moment at lunch one day when I realized something had shifted. I was giggling with someone who wasn't Ryan. Not just laughing appropriately as a response - giggling. The other day, I actually took part in an inside joke. These things are slowly seeping back into my life, and it's nice.

The making of friends has been interesting. There's a girl Laura that I've gotten close to. I was sitting next to her today when we were told to form groups. I didn't even question it - I was with her. I also knew there would be a few others who were givens as well. One boy came and asked us if he could join. Laura gave him some push back... we were already four people, but eventually told him that if he got approval from the teacher, that yes, he could join our group. I just watched, noticing how I was in, and this boy wasn't. Total role reversal from just one month ago.

One thing I've learned, just in case anyone's interested, is not to be weird. Weird is a hindrance to making friends. I was probably a little weird in the beginning. I wanted to put myself out there, let people know I was up for going out after school, grabbing lunch, that sort of thing. I thought if I didn't explicitly say so, they'd just go along with their normal groups and assume I was fine. But that's not the weird I'm talking about. I look around the classroom and there are still people who haven't found friends. I can't explain this except for the weird factor. They're too negative, too awkward, can't seem to follow normal conversations. I hate it, and in fact, I make it a point to try hard with them. But the group as a whole doesn't. They leave the outliers alone. Because they're weird. So, just in case you move to Switzerland, the "take away" is to be patient, and fight the weirdness. Eventually, friends will come.

I had a class today that was taught by an American. Even though all my classes are taught in English, being American someone makes it different. He spoke quickly (English being his mother tongue), made jokes no one else understood, and single handedly made me the resident interpretive expert. I often get strange requests. People want to know what some word is in English, and even if we've never met, they somehow know I'm American, so they ask. Some are easier than others. One time they wanted to know what the "red points" were called. You know, on your skin, after the bugs? The word they were looking for was "bites." Anyway, at every break today I had a line of people at my desk... did I know the date of the assignment, how many people will present on Friday, did I understand the lesson? It was all pretty funny.

Speaking of school, I have a paper to write. Early America - Spoils System vs Merit System. I'll leave you with a picture of some olives we bought from an outdoor market on Saturday. Ryan wanted me to take the other picture... we see produce here we've never seen before. Anyone know what this is??? In person, it seems like spiky cauliflower, but that's just our best guess.

The Tides Have Turned

Things have officially gotten easier here. The reason? I think it's time.

Ryan was given some reading material before we moved. It mentioned suggested timelines, one of them being 3 months. That's the time it typically takes people to adjust to these international rotations. I started feeling better at about 2 1/2 months... so, look who's above average!

There's a line that struck me in a new book I'm reading. I wasn't expecting to find anything insightful in Paris to the Moon. I just picked it randomly out of a pile Mom gave me. Oddly enough, it's about a man moving himself, his wife, and his young son to France. The line reads "family life is by its nature cocooned, and expatriate family life doubly so." I'm not sure that has much impact on you guys, but it made a lot of sense to me.

We were busy in Memphis. My friends were the type that met for dinner during the week and shopping trips on the weekend. Ryan's were the type that called on Friday at 9:00 and wanted to be out by 10:00. Between the two of us we had a pretty well rounded social life, and loved it.

It's obviously different here, and at first having no friends only added to us feeling isolated. But lately, it's felt good. We still have fun, just by ourselves. We still laugh, but just at each other. Cocooned is a perfect word. This apartment, this city, it feels like it's just us in here. And something's changing. We're like a family of two.

To celebrate this new found dynamic, I set out today to make an authentic Italian meal. I got as far as bruschetta, and then made lentil soup. That's me LOVING the result, and that's Ryan, sitting on our "couch" making fun of me taking pictures.














PS - I just read this post to Ryan to see if he liked it, and he's making me laugh so hard I can barely type. His response... "now we're a beautiful Italian butterfly of love." He's shouting out one word zingers like "metamorphosis."

I Miss This Sister

Bizzy is 15 today, and that is insane. I could say that I remember her being born like it was yesterday, but I'd be lying. It seems like she's been around forever. How does that work, exactly? How does someone you've only known for 15 years seem like they've been a part of you your whole life? I don't know, but I like it.

So, I'm wishing you a happy birthday all the way over here. We're celebrating by eating leftover spaghetti, reading a chapter on Group Dynamics, and washing clothes (maybe). Here's hoping your day is a little more exciting. Happy birthday!

Friends

It's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened in the meantime. The theme of today's post is friends. Wow, we miss 'em, we are starting to make friends here, and we had an oldie but goodie come visit us last weekend. I'll start with the story Malinda was referring to in her last post.

So for the last three weeks I have been taking 4 hours of intensive Italian lessons in the morning, and I've had the afternoons off to let my brain absorb all this new information. The afternoon of the day of Malinda's last post, I was in the apartment taking a nap or conjugating verbs or something; and I heard a buzz. The building we are in has a call box outside where people can call into our apartment and it makes a buzzing sound such as the one I heard. Naturally, I did not get up to answer it because I know almost no one here and certainly no one who would be stopping by at 3pm on a workday. I figured someone must have accidentally pressed the wrong button when they were trying to reach someone else. Plus I had a nap to get back to.

Maybe 30 minutes or an hour later I here the buzz again, and I feel obligated to get up to see if someone really is trying to reach me. So I go to the phone beside the door that lets you talk to whoever is outside of the building and start saying "hello?" etc. and get no answer. I even threw out some Italian greetings in case the person did not understand English (pretty bold since I would not have understood any response in Italian).

Malinda comes home from class eventually and we talk about her day or whatever and decide to go down to the basement to wash some clothes. On the way out two guys that look to be about our age are on the stairs between the floor of our apartment and the floor above us.

Guy 1 - "Mr. Kelley we are so glad we ran into you."

Me (so pumped to hear someone speak English and look my age that I almost freak out) - "Hi."

Guy 2 - "We just moved in upstairs"

Me (looked at Malinda and we gave each other a super sweet mental high-five using ESP) - "Great AND YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!"

So then we continue to make small talk and find out these guys are new to Lugano. They speak English. One is from Hungary and he is getting his PhD at Malinda's school. He also rides bikes and was a semi-pro marathon runner/triathlete. Awesome. The other guy is Austrian and is here for work. He also seems to be about our age. They moved into two of the vacant apartments above ours and were without any internet connection (we know how that feels). They could see my connection and offered to split the bill with us in exchange for the password to access our router. Done and done.

As we say our goodbyes and Malinda and I head back to our apartment, I notice the doorbell beside our door and give it a push. It makes the exact same buzz sound as the one from outside. So, then I realize that these guys have probably been ringing my doorbell all afternoon and listening to me say "hello, boungiorno, ciao, anyone there, etc. etc." like a moron while they were standing outside the door. Malinda thought that was pretty funny.

So, I hope these become some friends we can get to know well and hang out with. It's very hard to go from a place where you have made friendships that will probably last for the rest of your life to a place where you know absolutely no one and the closest person that is a friend (excluding your spouse) is 3 hours away in another city. I took for granted the ability to be able to hang out with people I felt completely comfortable with at any time I felt the urge. There is nowhere for me to go on Saturday to watch football with a friend, there is no one to call to play a pick-up soccer game or to do anything that would be "normal." The friendships we are making now are going to take a long time before we're past the point of getting to know people enough to even know if it's someone you would enjoy being around. But at least we are actually starting to meet people. And it only took 2 months....

We had our first visitor from Memphis here last weekend. My old roommate, Glenn, had to go to Milan (1 hour south of us) for work this week. He came in early on Thursday to spend a few days with us, and then we all went to Milan on Saturday. It was fun to enjoy our city with someone you can be yourself around and that you know very well. Glenn and I went to the top of Monte Bré (the mountain behind our apartment) by bus on Thursday, and I got some decent pictures, but the weather wasn't great. I recommend you click on the pictures, so you can see them full screen...Then we went to Milan the next day. Here are some words I have heard used to describe Milan from Swiss and Italians here that I think give you a good idea about it: gothic, heavy, ornate, medieval, dirty, chaotic, expensive, beautiful, busy. Malinda and I are going to add: scary subway, nice restaurants, gray, imposing, graffiti-ridden, crowded, interesting, dark. I have heard more than one person in Lugano say they do not like Milan. I wouldn't say that we didn't like it, but it certainly is different. I should also note that the sun never came out while we were there which probably enhanced the gray/dark feeling. It has every high end store you can think of and 5,000,000 more you have never heard of.

In the heart of the city is "Il Duomo," the fourth largest church in the world. According to wikipedia (not exactly known for gospel truth), the church took over 500 years to be constructed. My Italian teacher told me it took 400 years. Whether it's 400 years or 500 years, that's pretty freakin' nuts. Per wikipedia, construction started in 1386. It's the seat of the Archbishop of Milan. Napoleon was crowned the King of Italy there in 1805 and had the French government pay for the facade to be completed during his time. For that, he got a statue of himself on one of the 135 spires that shoot out 350 feet above the ground. If you are interested, you can read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Cathedral. They also had some pretty thick books in the church devoted solely to it's history. Here's a little snippet lifted from the wikipedia page, but originally written by Mark Twain in Innocents Abroad:

"What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!... The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures-- and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest...everywhere that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself...Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. ... (Up on) the roof...springing from its broad marble flagstones, were the long files of spires, looking very tall close at hand, but diminishing in the distance...We could see, now, that the statue on the top of each was the size of a large man, though they all looked like dolls from the street... They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands."

For 5 euro, you can walk up a staircase to get to the roof to walk around. For 8 euro, you can take an elevator. As my friend Glenn said after climbing to the top of Monte Bré the day before, "Stairs are for peasants and suckers." We are neither.

The view from the top is pretty amazing. All the details are unbelievable and everything is unique. The statues on the top of each spire are unique, the gargoyles that spit out water draining from the roof are all different, and the intricate details are everywhere. The guys who built it did not have Dremels either. This is all marble too. The roof is made of marble tile. The church itself must be sitting on the bedrock of the earth, because it has to weigh some immeasurable amount.

You could (and I'm sure some people have) spend a lifetime walking around this place and understanding the symbolism and history behind it all. We were there for probably 2 or 3 hours on Sunday and it's a lot to take in. We probably walked 10 miles over the course of Saturday and Sunday in Milan and I don't feel like we really saw much of it. We stuck around Il Duomo and all the zillions of shops nearby. We ate sushi and pizza, both were really good. We rode in the subway which was completely empty in one section and jam packed with people in others. We drank some beers in a bar nearby and met some guys from New Zealand who were there to watch a Rugby game (New Zealand vs. Italy). They won. It was fun, but I would have rather had a night in Memphis with the friends and family we are missing.

Long Time No Blog

It's been a while. Mostly because Ryan and I hit sort of a slump. We read that this would happen... it's exciting (and scary) at first, until you realize that it's not going away. Then it just hits you. This empty apartment really is supposed to take the place of your comfortable old house, you have no friends, and no matter how hard you look, you won't ever find a jcrew. It's not much fun to write when you're down, so guess what that means? Today was a good day!

I'll start with school. Wonder why I haven't written on this subject? Because up to this point it's been pretty bad. Try coming in 5 weeks late to master's classes, forcing your way into group projects, and doing homework without text books (or a clue). I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to quit, thinking I had made a huge mistake. It turns out I just needed to give it a couple of weeks.

This week I started "November" classes. This means I come in at the beginning, just like everyone else. This is HUGE, and I feel better already. Organizational Behavior is awesome. I answered a question in class and the professor said, "your colleague has suggested a sophisticated theory." Hello - you're my favorite.

Those first three friends I made have been a life saver. It's so nice to walk in and be recognized, much less talked to and sat by. Ryan and I have even been invited to our first party! The theme? A celebration of chestnuts! Not kidding. People eat them like crazy here, and Isabel (from Bern) thought we should have a proper "Chestnuts and Wine" party. Sign me up.

We went to our first soccer game on Sunday. We were warned that the Lugano team was bad, but that was apparently by European standards. We were still impressed. Bonus - the fans were hysterical. There were a lot of old men, drinking wine out of little plastic cups, yelling "a casa, a casa" (go home) to the opponents.

I saved the best for last. Today, we got an iPhone. I'm going to let that sit a minute, so you can really feel the awesomeness of that statement. I say we because it's technically mine, but we all know who's playing with it. I took a picture of Ryan's face right after we walked away from the counter... that smile says it all.

I haven't had a phone since we left the states, so going from nothing to this is like taking the bus and suddenly driving the Bentley that's parked down our street. There's a "take me home" app on sbb (our swiss transport site) that tells me exactly what bus or train to take plus the pick up times. Those who know me well (Bill - I still don't like maps) know how great this is. Up to this point I've researched exactly which routes to take, checked the bus times ocd style before I left the apartment, and got to where I was going at LEAST 15 minutes early. This phone lets me relax (maybe). Ryan even put a picture of a lotus flower as my screen saver (is that term appropriate for a cell phone?). In Memphis, he liked to make fun of my yoga classes. I kept telling him the light within me respected the light within him, but he wouldn't listen. So, not only does the phone make my day, but I laugh a little when I see that flower.


Right this minute, we're watching last night's Saints game (against the Falcons). Thanks to Facebook updates, I already know they've won, but it's still fun to watch.

So now you're caught up... until next time, GO SAINTS, 7-0 BABY!

PS - Preview of future post - we may have made friends in our building... this story is so good I'm going to let Ryan write it (he thinks he's the funny one).

I forgot one more thing (it's late here) - we have light fixtures! I picked a bold one for the bedroom, but it's really growing on me. In fact, I love it. It's HUGE (but in its defense, the furniture is low - I was going for contrast) and made of paper. I can't really explain it, so here's a picture.