eudaimonia & anagnorisis

Ok. I’ve had several requests to update my blog more frequently. I’m not sure how I feel about blogging at all at the moment, but nevertheless I’ll try to send something interesting out into the internet void for my readers (a.k.a.: My dad, brothers, and maybe jennPan and bMurray.)

It’s somehow June. Life since March, minus the beautiful birth of my first and fabulous niece, seems like an opaque haze with only fleeting moments of feeling alive. Nevertheless, these past few weeks have left me feeling like a weary but contented traveler unpacking and organizing baggage after a long and winding trip. Where to begin?

[ milano ]

For the first time, in my entire life, my little Treo360 jingled and reminded me that I was expected to be returning, as promised, to someone or somewhere and I was actually doing it. This alone felt fantastic. The familiarity of Malpensa, as familiarity with any other airport, brought me an interesting mix of travel-addicted comfort, slight depression, and beautiful nostalgia. My time in Milan can be summed up in three probably exaggerated and subjective statements:

1. Italian has forged ahead of Arabic as the world’s most beautiful language. Che lingua bellisima!
2. FC INTER is the world’s most fantastic football team. Bravo Inter, winners of this year Scudetto. Siamo noi i championi dell’Italia…
3. My short life experience has led me to believe that the worst of men might be Italian, Catholic, or simply named Alessandro Bellati.

[ nice ]

I escaped to Southern France for an extremely brief time. Despite the short, short, short duration of the visit, it was a most relaxing little adventure. When my dad travels to new places he seems to measure their worth by his ability to live there. For example, the clean streets and efficient street cars in combination with beautiful terrain and his highschool Spanish, lead him to remark, ‘yea, we could live here’ of Tenerife , Isole Canaria confirming that he likes this place. I certainly felt like my father’s daughter upon whisphering to myself, “Oh yea, I could do this place. I could do this place for a while. Maybe forever.” Nice is, without competition, the most lovely city I have ever visited. I was a bit nervous upon arrival having not booked a hotel only to find limited availability due to the Grand Prix in neighborly Monte Carlo the same week, but I wound up staying in this fresh, funky hotel on Via Durante: 30 Euro got me an impressively comfortable king-sized bed, two balconies, bright orange walls, and the sound of the waves in the distance. I was momentarily in bliss.

The only flaw of Nice is the prevalence of loud American accents at cafes. I remember one particularly obnoxious man visiting his daughter studying abroad who inadvertently informed everyone in the café of his preference for wheat baguettes, feelings towards this year’s election and own study abroad experience in Spain. Boisterous tourists aside, the people of Nice are warm and inviting and completely break the Parisian stereotype of French people being arrogant assholes and the Provencial stereotype of French people being incomprehensible oddities. The beach is marvelous.