Lola

Another Frankensteined creation. Enjoy in the etsy.com shop!

The Homeland

It's been hard to find things blogg-worthy so I thought I'd combine a couple of things that have been sitting on my cammera before I go back to work today. Nothing says the holidays like work.

Enjoy!

Thank you for your drawing Steve! It's now in the middle of my wall of goodness in my room. It's good to be home...

We were in Portland for the (apparently) annual etsy Christmas sale which happened to be near this, the Oregon Artificial Limb Co. Which is awesome, in case you were wondering.

I don't know about anyone else, but every time I drive the Oly-Home highway route I get stuck behind one of these trucks. The cow is saying "drinkamugamilkaday" just like that and winking and every time I wish that the cow would come alive and say it like in a movie or something. And I'm not exaggerating... it's every time for goodness sakes.

Theriouthly Guyth... Thmoking Kills

Cigs. were in the airport, in any airport, in Europe and available for purchase on the plane, the catch is that they have these mega-sized labels on them. Seriously, smoking kills man so... do it in bulk in the airport.

Just Pope-in' Around

A video I took of the Pope while we were in Rome. He pretty much spent about a half-hour saying "Hey, everyone who speaks German, Good morning and Bless you! Hey, everyone who speaks English, Good morning and Bless you!" Etc. for every language or so, in that language. I wanted him to tell everyone to do the wave, but I think that was out of his whole religious theme.

Home Again, Home Again... Sis-boom-bah

3:00 am, Florence Italy (which is 6 pm in Brush Prairie, Washington). BEEP BEEP BEEP! Alarm time. I’m all packed except for my tooth brush and now it’s time to wake up, get dressed and catch a cab to the airport because I’m goin’ home! So I shuffle around, do my business (which includes picking at a stale piece of cake for breakfast and burning my arm on the kettle) and haul my bags with everyone else in the house, downstairs to wait for a cab. It’s POURING outside… as in biblical, torrential rains complete with lightning and thunder.

4:45 am. Cynthia and climb into a cab and rush rush rush to the airport (Ana and Taya are in a separate cab and between the time Cynthia and I pull out, and we see them in the airport 20 minutes later, they manage to lock themselves out of the building where their bags are still sitting. They push all of the buzzers, get soaked and yelled at by the other tenants, but manage to get their bags and to the airport in the end.) where we get to stand in line until check-in opens.

5:00 am. Check in opens. Our flight is canceled. Too much rain for Florentine air-traffic controllers so it looks like we’re stuck in Florence.

6:45 am. Our flight was scheduled to depart right now and we’re still standing in front of the ticket desk watching Sophie wrangle to get all eleven of us to Portland that same day.

7:30 We have tickets! We’re flying from Florence to Frankfurt, Germany to Denver, Colorado to Portland Oregon. Half of us have boarding passes for Denver, but the other half (including me) don’t, so when we get to Denver, not only do we have to pass through customs and passport control, but we’ve also got to go find out where to pick up our boarding passes… all within an hour. In the mean time, our flight doesn’t board until 9:50 so the airline has given us vouchers for breakfast so we grab a hot drink and a pastry and head to the gate. Carrie and I play gin rummy for a while, then war, then speed and finally we just build houses out of cards on the airport floor.

9:50. We board and then take off for Frankfurt.

12:00. We land in Frankfurt and then get right on a plane to Denver, a long long flight.

4:30 U.S. time. We land in Denver, Colorado. There’s snow and ice everywhere but we’re safe and head to customs to pick up our luggage. The Passport controller gives me a hard time about not knowing where Chehalis is (who DOES know where Chehalis is?! Stupid.) I get through customs (after much hurumphing about my passport picture which really doesn’t look like me) and pick up my bags (all of them made it). Elizabeth forgets her bag and I carry it through further customs after much more hurumphing because it’s not my bag, but they’re swamped with people and I look honest enough I guess so they let me through with a warning or something. But what’s a warning really gonna do if I’m going to steal the bag? Not much, but I wasn’t so it doesn’t really matter. I recheck my bags (with ten minutes to spare from when the plane is supposed to board) and pick up my boarding pass where I hear that the plane has been delayed an hour… which turns into two hours when the next person goes through the same process.
5:00. This gives us plenty of time to take the internal train to the gates (yes, Denver has an indoor train that takes you to different parts of the airport… trippy) and go through yet another security check point. We get to the gate, I call home to tell mummy that I’m going to be delayed and then we check the reader board. The time has gone up to three hours delayed and they’ve switched the gates which isn’t too big a deal because it’s right next to the one we’re at.

6:00 Check the reader board again and see that the plane has been scheduled to board at 6:30 and the gate has been changed to one across the airport. ACROSS THE AIRPORT! And Taya, Stephen and Ana have wandered away to smoke so we haul their luggage to the new gate, track them down and run to board.

7:00 We actually board the plane.

8:00 Our wings get de-iced and we taxi out to the runway.

8:15 We finally take off and have a relatively un-eventful plane ride. I pass out instantly and sit there with my mouth open, snoring for the entire ride.

9:30 We land in Portland. I feel terrible after 27 plus hours of travel and much stressing out. I’ve done something to my shoulder so I can’t really move it, but I see everyone at the gate and all of that doesn’t matter anymore. We’re home.

12:00 pm. I’m home after eating and dropping Dharyll off at his cousin’s house. My faith in the superiority of American mattresses is reaffirmed after I collapse in bed and sleep until 7.

More Sun Movements and Landscapes

Dharyll and I got up at 6, picked up Justin and went to watch the sun rise from Piazzale Michelangelo on Thursday morning.

A tower across the river, right before you start to climb the hill to get to the lookout.
David at night... or early morning. You know what I mean.

Good morning Florence!

7:25

7:45

The David statue in the Piazza... like the original, but made of copper and this one has naked ladies around it... a nice way to class it up.

Arches underneath the road have all of this foliage and mini ponds with goldfish in them. It's very pretty at 7:30 in the morning.
This fountain was a little silly. The water was comming out of a pipe that was set in cement. I think it was missing a little peeing boy statue or something.
And now it's daytime and time for class. What's up with this whole "school" thing, always getting in the way?

Commune de Florence

We went to a museum that has things from Florence, a little random but very neat after learning about Florence all quarter.

A model of Florence when it was a Roman city. The wire outlines show where the Duomo is and Santa Croce today.

A map of Florence from the Renaissance...

Complete with dead cows on the banks of the Arno.
BIG KEYS! I thought my apartment key was huge, but these put it to shame.
And it's good to see that the gypsies still show up, even in the engravings.
A model of Florence in the 19th century.
Complete with stains on the cobblestones.

He looks like a muppet. I always get super happy when I see accurate busts... this guy had NO teeth.



Snail! Hanging out behind a gate. Taya wants me to tell you all that while I was trying to get a good picture of our little friend here, she almost died from hunger. DIED. I know, I'm a terrible terrible person.... almost making people DIE and everything, all in an effort to get a picture of this little snail.

Terrible. Monstrous. Un-thinkable.

Darn it all, I'm a sassy pants today.

Bits of Florence

The Ponte Vecchio bridge on the Arno River.
A plumber's workshop that's chock full of pipes and hoses and faucets.

CHOCK FULL!

The "good-luck" pig in a smaller version of the San Lorenzo market. His nose is all shiney from all that rubbin' for luck.

Good Night and Good Morning

We were comming home from Across the Universe last night and I passed by the main drag in Florence that goes from the Duomo to the Ponte Vecchio and Piazza Signoria. It was pretty so I took a picture... actually I took more than one, but that's besides the point.

And then I got to see the sun come up this morning.

Very nice.

Flo-RENZ

I loiks this grafitti.
This is at the Odeon, the only English-language theater in Florence. We've gone to see Silk and Youth Without Youth so far, and then we're going to see Across the Universe tonight! I'm excited.

Oh this is the stained glass thingy in the ceiling... it's not a window but it's darn cool.
The left side of the theater.
Aaannnnddd the right side. Exciting... I know.