and where to start.
i suppose its appropriate to say that the past three weeks have been full of traveling. first to milan/venice with jo and steph. second to canada to attend my cousin's wedding. and last night i returned home from a weekend in paris (with jo steph and camilla)
milan and venice:
was full of nice people. when lost, an ederly couple came up to us, asked which of five languages we spoke, then directed us exactly where we wanted to go - which was to see the last supper. upon arrival, we discovered that we could not see the last supper without making reservations first, and that we might have some luck getting tickets by waiting for tour groups to go through and asking if they had any spare tickets. so we made a sign and waited:
a couple from boston passed us and mentioned that they needed tickets too, and they went inside to try and buy some, hoping that they would have more luck than us. and, remarkably, they did. they also quickly asked for three extra tickets and came outside to fetch us so we could see it as well. it was very exciting.
After the last summer we went to duomo, went up to the roof, took pictures, ate gelato, acted as tourists in a large touristy place. noticed that milan was a mecca for skinny jeans and converse. we then wandered around for quite awhile trying to find a 'quaint authentic italian' restaurant to eat in, but most were closed or not serving meals because of the time, so we settled and had a pretty damn decent dish of pasta nonetheless.
We hopped on the train, and arrived at Venice. Upon seeing the grand canal all lit up, we quickly questioned why the heck we went to milan in the first place. we wandered venice, declaring it our favourite place in the world, then had a pasta dinner on the canal and fell into serious depression when there was no more dinner on our plates - so we ate some desert to lift our spirits. we stayed in a hotel just outside venice - and to avoid trying to remember really sketchy instructions on how to get there, we took a cab.
spent the next day wandering venice, in a gondola, talking about our external hard drives, and surrounded by tourists (venice receives 1 million tourists per day, so its nuts there). pretty much decided to never leave, to quit work, to live there forever.
took 7 hour train back.
Canada:
9.5 hours of flying on Thursday resulted in a very grumpy Dana for the entire four days i was there. wait, three days I was there. A really short trip, but worth it. Saw Katie get married, and even got to do a reading in the church. I'll admit that I was kind of nervous about the whole wedding thing, four years in cultural studies and your conditioned to be weary of it all. That whole thing is difficult to explain, but, I'll just say that Katie was a kick ass bride. Yeah, yeeee heard me, kick ass. like someone would come up to you and be like 'jigga, how was the wedding' and then you'd be like 'dude, it was tight, and that bride was fierce' but like - you'd say it and you'd sound cool. not like now, when im writing in on a blog and sounding like a tool. erm...i'm not making my point. i'll avoid commenting on all the aesthetics (thats what photos are for) but like, katie was calm, and cool, and excited (and excited[!!]) and happy...and you know, the most important thing, i think, like ever, in our lives, the most important thing is to be passionate about life. and there was excitement, and passion, and happiness in the air - and you know, you just can't go wrong when life is that beautiful.
Paris:
Well the entire reason I can write such a long blog entry today is because im home from work because my trip to Paris resulted in some sort of strained ankle or something. essentially we walked a lot, i got blisters, we kept walking, so i tried to walk to avoide rubbing the blisters even more, we walked even more, and my ankle got all messed. Its not as bad as it was yesterday (walking through the champs illyse or whatever I thought I was actually going to die or cut my foot off and have a bloody stump in its place) but its sore and stiff and I figured I wasn't going to torture myself anymore and so I took the day off so I lie and do nothing and be bored out of my skull and write a ridiculously long blog to cover the past three weeks.
Anyways in Paris we went to the cafe where Amelie was shot, walked through the gardens at the louvre, saw the eifel tower at night (when they do a crazy seizure inducing light show on it), saw the arc d triumph at night, ate freaking ridiculously good pastries, lazed in the gardens below the eifle tower during the day, walked through the fashion district, had breakfast at a cute little cafe, discussed layering divs and CSS, saw notre dam and went inside, snuck into the metro, etc etc. we were tourists, out right.
While doing all these incredibly touristy things, we got to thinking about how technology and tourism and consumption and globalization was affecting the sacredness of certain places. jo mentioned that in different cultures there are different schools of thought - where some believe in experiencing moments and others believing in owning moments. certainly, while walking through these large churches in italy and france, with every light from a persons flash or every ding from the cash register, we realize more and more how much emphasis we keep putting into owning the experience. now look at me here, i've retold my entire experience, i've put up photos, i obviously take part in this. but its still a bit disconcerting. to see someone giving confession while people walk by and gawk. to light a candle and have someone take a photo of you while you do it. suddenly these places don't seem so sacred anymore - they - and the practices within them - have become commodities, little coins or prayer cards that you can buy and take home to show your friends. i guess it just makes me wonder what has been lost in it all. what was it like before it was all spectacle and postcards...or maybe thats just the way it has always been, maybe that was the purpose of making these larger than life churches in the first place. technology has just given it a bit more sparkle - you know, the kind of sparkle you'd find on a jean jacket that an 8 year old took their be-dazzler to.
