Hello All,
It's Tuesday the 29th and in about 5 hours I depart from Boston to Milan via Frankfurt. After the failed terrorist attempt in Detroit last week, I anticipate an ugly scene at the airport. Also, because I am flying Lufthansa, I do not get the perks of being a United Airlines Premier member... no special treatment, no special seating... I am in row 57 in an aisle seat... I wanted a window, but the plane is full, so I guess I need to count my blessings and be thankful I am not in a middle seat!
I have noticed that I am becoming more and more anxious before my trips. I don't know what that's all about, but I do notice it getting worse as time goes on. Once I actually depart, I tend to be fine. But I have been a basket case for two days, even to the point where I have been feeling queasy, and that is VERY odd, because nothing typically affects my stomach! I feel like I have too much in my luggage, I feel I didn't do enough prep work, I am anxious about not having access to my laptop and having to rely on internet cafes to communicate and research travel plans. I am a little apprehensive about hiring a cab from the Cairo airport to my hotel in Cairo, and I also learned that because I arrive after sundown on Friday in Tel Aviv, this means that the sabbath is in full swing and all public transportation ceases. Great. This could be like a very tense episode of the Amazing Race!
My time in New England has been great. My Aunt Helena is doing well, and we've gone out to lunch and dinner a couple of times together. On Christmas Eve I spent the evening with Joyce and her family, who surprised me with a gift of the first 3 seasons of the TV show The Office, which I only recently discovered and absolutely love. Christmas Day my cousin and his wife hosted a buffet for 27 adult guests, 2 toddlers and 4 large dogs. It was like a three ring circus and I could only cope in small doses, frequently running back over to my Aunt's side of the house to hide out and get some quiet. I also visited with Maggi and the McKinneys on Christmas night... and then it was over, in a flash. I didn't get here until Wednesday night, the next day was Christmas Eve, and now it's over and past. Hard to believe. It was nice to find almost 2 feet of snow on the ground here when I arrived, though a mild rainstorm on the weekend has melted all but the most stubborn drifts. Today the high temperature will only be in the teens. Brrrr.
Have had a few nights of absolutely horrendous dreams about Dominican and the new semester starting and being unprepared. The only bright side is that at least when I wake up I can console myself that I do not have to start school again in 2 weeks! Ugh!
Well, I should get a move on here. Joyce will drive me to the airport in my car today. I arrive in Milano tomorrow and rent a car and will spend Wednesday night near Venice and then going to my friend Brent's place, Priello in Tuscany for New Year's Eve. I hear it's very cold and stormy over there right now.
OK, have a wonderful New Year and I will update the blog as often as possible.
Ciao Tutti,
Matt(eo)
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Leaving the Pressure Behind
What an end to the semester! For the two weeks leading up to Christmas Break, I was getting home from campus around 9:30PM 4 nights a week, and then spending another 3 hours grading papers and answering desperate student e-mails. I'd go to bed around 2:00 AM and wake at 6:00 AM with a list of things that needed to be done that day. Often I'd awaken recalling a dreadful dream, like one of an impending tsunami ovetaking me. By day I felt like my head would explode.
And on Friday, Dec. 11 I learned that that was close to actually happening. While taking care of getting all my required travel vaccinations: H1N1, Polio, Tetanus, Typhoid... what fun! I also had to get prescriptions refilled and a plantar's wart attended to, but all that was a cake walk compared to getting my blood pressure taken. The nurse was so shocked that he repeated it to be sure... 170/110! Then the doctor came in and tried again... 190/110. Yikes. For those of you who don't need to worry about blood pressure, normal is 120/80 and when I was put on blood presure medication 15 years ago it was because my pressure was hovering around 135/95. Very, very scary. I slowly and calmly took myself to the pharmacy to get a prescription for a second blood pressure medicine, wondering if my head would explode if I climbed a flight of stairs.
The next day I used the blood pressure monitor at the pharmacy: 209/134. My God!
All of this made the last week before departing a very mixed bag. The normal jubilation I'd have felt with each graded paper or each item crossed off my to-do list and the sabbatical looming ever closer was definitely dampended by my worry about my health, a little nervousness about my sabattical travels, and sheer fatigue. I ended up delaying my departure for the cross country drive by one day so I could just have an entire day at home with nothing I needed to do except pack (oh yeah.... and buy a portable blood pressure monitor for the trip)! And so after a restless sleep, I hopped in the car at 8:30 AM on Friday the 18th and headed east over the Bay Bridge and points east.
I ate healthy that day, devouring 2 boxes of fresh blueberries, one of raspberries, and some turkey and cheddar sandwiches I'd brought in the cooler. I also had cereal and bananas to munch on as well, and never stopped to eat anywhere. I ended up driving 12 hours, 750 miles to Salt Lake City, UT and stayed at a Baymont Inn there.
On Saturday I slept till almost 9:00 and headed off to a well-reviewed breakfast place that got rave reviews for pancakes. The ones I make at home are better, but I did have an interesting experience when I walked into the restaurant. I was seated at a table beside two men, and one stared at me, pointed at me, and exclaimed, "I know you! But from where?" Hmmm. That was odd. "And then he mumbled something that ended in MATT and extended a hand. How did this person know my name? It turns out that HIS name was Matt as well, and we finally pieced together that we'd chatted a couple of years ago online and he is originally from Australia, but now lives in southern California, and he still remembered my face from my online pictures. Matt introduced me to his companion Sydney, a distinguished older gentleman who was visiting from England. So I ended up having a nice and unexpected breakfast conversation that made up for the sub-par pancakes. Of course, that night when I checked e-mail, there was a message from Matt saying how nice it was to have finally met me. He went on to share with me that after breakfast, he and Sydney had gone back to Sydney's hotel room where they met a third man and they all filmed one another having sex for a home-made porn film. Overshare! Did I really need to have this bit of information? I quickly deleted my e-mail and headed farther east in a speeding car.
I made it to Steamboat Springs, Colorado by 5:00 PM Saturday, dropped my bags off at the quaint Bunkhouse Lodge, and immediately drove up to Strawberry Hot Springs to soak away my troubles in the outdoor hot pools there. There was no falling snow, as there usually is, but there was a canopy of stars taking the place of snowflakes, and the difference between the 25 degree air temperature and the 100 degree pools felt wonderful. I did worry that perhaps soaking in hot water would not be good for my blood pressure situation, but I figured that the psychological benefit of being there would outweigh the risks. I then went off in search of my traditional Steamboat Springs dinner: elk medallions and mashed potatoes. I was not disappointed by my meal at Cafe Diva, and the meal was rounded off by a delicious crab-tomato bisque, and some wonderfully seasoned green beans and snow peas, and delicious bread, olive oil and warm olives!
I giggled at the stories of hordes of holiday travelers stranded at airports around the country, but especially in New England due to the blizzard, while I drove out of the Rockies into Denver and 60 degree, sunny weather. I ate fruit, cereal and bananas in the car that morning, so when I reached Denver I had a late brunch at yet another famous place to have panakes in the U.S., ironically called Toast! This place gets an A for creative pancake concoctions. I had a sampler plate that allowed me to try small "silver dollar" sized panckes of different varieties. I had a blueberry-lemon and ginger snap cake, a crispy apple-cinnamon strudel cake, a basic buttermilk, and a "biscuits and gravy" cake, which was a pancake shaped biscuit topped with sausage gravy "syrup". The apple was the best, but it was definitely a novel place.
I am always taken aback as I drive from the Rockies into Denver. Interstate 70 spills from the mountains down some twisty and steep grades and suddenly before you in 180 view is nothing but the grat plains, and you know that there is nothing approaching even a small mountain for the next 1,000 miles. Cell phone connections become sparse, radio stations fade in and out, and after 3 hours of driving at 75 MPH, only to realize you haven't even reached the border of Kansas yet. It's not my favorite part of the drive.
This time I had lots of company for the drive. In addition to my extensive music collection, I had gotten a few audiobooks before I left: Bill O'Reilly's Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, comedienne Kathy Griffin's Book Club Selection, and yes, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. Helping me stay awake on the road were lines by Palin like, "There's plenty of room for wildlife in Alaska... right on the plate beside the mashed potatoes" and trying to imagine her campaigning for mayor by going door to door while carting her 3 young children in a sled behind her. O'Reilly tells wonderful stories of tormenting the nuns who were his teachers in grade school and gives a very interesting account of how he developed his political perspectives. And Griffin really steals the show with her simultaneously intimate and hilarious life story. She also keeps me alert with her repeated and dead-on impression of Oprah's exaggerated way of screaming out the names of her celebrity guests: "John TRA-VOL-TA! BarACK O-BAMA! KATH-Y GRI-FFIN!" I have heard Kathy do this impression a million times but it ALWAYS makes me laugh.
Sunday night I made it to Topeka, Kansas, and I hit yet another famous pancake place I'd found of the web: Hanover's. That was an intersting little adventure. Once I was seated, a waitress probably my age came racing over and gave me a menu. While she went to get me some coffee, a second waitress appeared and brought me water and offered to get me coffee. She almost bumped into the other one who was returning with my coffee. One of them said, "Whenever a handsome man comes in, we race to see who can wait on him first." I swear that is the first time I have ever been aware of a waitress trying to flirt with me. Unfortunately, the wrong waitress won, as my order was screwed up royally, and when I finally got my order, I found that the insides of some of the pancakes were raw. The waitress was sweet and raced to get another order, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that those too, were raw inside. But they did take my coffee off the bill as a consolation prize!
On Monday it was on to Indianapolis, and tonight, Tuesday, I am in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Tonight is a Courtyard by Marriott and last night was a really luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel that I snagged on Hotwire.com for $42 a night! I made it to Pittsburgh today by 3:15, in time to catch a very late breakfast at Pamela's, a place that is on an online list of the top 15 places in the U.S. to get pancakes... it's in my top 2 list. That was the only meal I had all day and it was as delicious as I remembered it. Pamela never let's me down... though the waitresses there don't flirt.
With each passing mile, I feel more decompressed from the busy semester. Hopefully my new blood pressure medication is helping, or maybe it's the pancake and elk diet or "driving therapy", but my blood pressure has been dropping with each new day:
California, Wednesday: 234/116
Salt Lake, Friday: 182/113
Steamboat, Saturday: 164/102
Topeka, Saundau: 163/100
Indianapolis, Sunday: 149/ 94
and today, Harrisburg: 135/84
At this rate I should be normal by the time I hit New England, and considerably low by the time I hit Israel in mid-January! I am hoping that the Christmas spirit will kick in as I reach Massachusetts tomorrow. I really have not felt the season very strongly this year. But of course, I will be in the neighborhood of where it all happened next month, so maybe the spirit will simply be delayed by a few weeks.
OK, my king sized bed with 80 pillows on it is beckoning seductively to me, and I am finding it far more attractive than my Kansas waitress.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year to all and to all a good night.
Matt
And on Friday, Dec. 11 I learned that that was close to actually happening. While taking care of getting all my required travel vaccinations: H1N1, Polio, Tetanus, Typhoid... what fun! I also had to get prescriptions refilled and a plantar's wart attended to, but all that was a cake walk compared to getting my blood pressure taken. The nurse was so shocked that he repeated it to be sure... 170/110! Then the doctor came in and tried again... 190/110. Yikes. For those of you who don't need to worry about blood pressure, normal is 120/80 and when I was put on blood presure medication 15 years ago it was because my pressure was hovering around 135/95. Very, very scary. I slowly and calmly took myself to the pharmacy to get a prescription for a second blood pressure medicine, wondering if my head would explode if I climbed a flight of stairs.
The next day I used the blood pressure monitor at the pharmacy: 209/134. My God!
All of this made the last week before departing a very mixed bag. The normal jubilation I'd have felt with each graded paper or each item crossed off my to-do list and the sabbatical looming ever closer was definitely dampended by my worry about my health, a little nervousness about my sabattical travels, and sheer fatigue. I ended up delaying my departure for the cross country drive by one day so I could just have an entire day at home with nothing I needed to do except pack (oh yeah.... and buy a portable blood pressure monitor for the trip)! And so after a restless sleep, I hopped in the car at 8:30 AM on Friday the 18th and headed east over the Bay Bridge and points east.
I ate healthy that day, devouring 2 boxes of fresh blueberries, one of raspberries, and some turkey and cheddar sandwiches I'd brought in the cooler. I also had cereal and bananas to munch on as well, and never stopped to eat anywhere. I ended up driving 12 hours, 750 miles to Salt Lake City, UT and stayed at a Baymont Inn there.
On Saturday I slept till almost 9:00 and headed off to a well-reviewed breakfast place that got rave reviews for pancakes. The ones I make at home are better, but I did have an interesting experience when I walked into the restaurant. I was seated at a table beside two men, and one stared at me, pointed at me, and exclaimed, "I know you! But from where?" Hmmm. That was odd. "And then he mumbled something that ended in MATT and extended a hand. How did this person know my name? It turns out that HIS name was Matt as well, and we finally pieced together that we'd chatted a couple of years ago online and he is originally from Australia, but now lives in southern California, and he still remembered my face from my online pictures. Matt introduced me to his companion Sydney, a distinguished older gentleman who was visiting from England. So I ended up having a nice and unexpected breakfast conversation that made up for the sub-par pancakes. Of course, that night when I checked e-mail, there was a message from Matt saying how nice it was to have finally met me. He went on to share with me that after breakfast, he and Sydney had gone back to Sydney's hotel room where they met a third man and they all filmed one another having sex for a home-made porn film. Overshare! Did I really need to have this bit of information? I quickly deleted my e-mail and headed farther east in a speeding car.
I made it to Steamboat Springs, Colorado by 5:00 PM Saturday, dropped my bags off at the quaint Bunkhouse Lodge, and immediately drove up to Strawberry Hot Springs to soak away my troubles in the outdoor hot pools there. There was no falling snow, as there usually is, but there was a canopy of stars taking the place of snowflakes, and the difference between the 25 degree air temperature and the 100 degree pools felt wonderful. I did worry that perhaps soaking in hot water would not be good for my blood pressure situation, but I figured that the psychological benefit of being there would outweigh the risks. I then went off in search of my traditional Steamboat Springs dinner: elk medallions and mashed potatoes. I was not disappointed by my meal at Cafe Diva, and the meal was rounded off by a delicious crab-tomato bisque, and some wonderfully seasoned green beans and snow peas, and delicious bread, olive oil and warm olives!
I giggled at the stories of hordes of holiday travelers stranded at airports around the country, but especially in New England due to the blizzard, while I drove out of the Rockies into Denver and 60 degree, sunny weather. I ate fruit, cereal and bananas in the car that morning, so when I reached Denver I had a late brunch at yet another famous place to have panakes in the U.S., ironically called Toast! This place gets an A for creative pancake concoctions. I had a sampler plate that allowed me to try small "silver dollar" sized panckes of different varieties. I had a blueberry-lemon and ginger snap cake, a crispy apple-cinnamon strudel cake, a basic buttermilk, and a "biscuits and gravy" cake, which was a pancake shaped biscuit topped with sausage gravy "syrup". The apple was the best, but it was definitely a novel place.
I am always taken aback as I drive from the Rockies into Denver. Interstate 70 spills from the mountains down some twisty and steep grades and suddenly before you in 180 view is nothing but the grat plains, and you know that there is nothing approaching even a small mountain for the next 1,000 miles. Cell phone connections become sparse, radio stations fade in and out, and after 3 hours of driving at 75 MPH, only to realize you haven't even reached the border of Kansas yet. It's not my favorite part of the drive.
This time I had lots of company for the drive. In addition to my extensive music collection, I had gotten a few audiobooks before I left: Bill O'Reilly's Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, comedienne Kathy Griffin's Book Club Selection, and yes, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. Helping me stay awake on the road were lines by Palin like, "There's plenty of room for wildlife in Alaska... right on the plate beside the mashed potatoes" and trying to imagine her campaigning for mayor by going door to door while carting her 3 young children in a sled behind her. O'Reilly tells wonderful stories of tormenting the nuns who were his teachers in grade school and gives a very interesting account of how he developed his political perspectives. And Griffin really steals the show with her simultaneously intimate and hilarious life story. She also keeps me alert with her repeated and dead-on impression of Oprah's exaggerated way of screaming out the names of her celebrity guests: "John TRA-VOL-TA! BarACK O-BAMA! KATH-Y GRI-FFIN!" I have heard Kathy do this impression a million times but it ALWAYS makes me laugh.
Sunday night I made it to Topeka, Kansas, and I hit yet another famous pancake place I'd found of the web: Hanover's. That was an intersting little adventure. Once I was seated, a waitress probably my age came racing over and gave me a menu. While she went to get me some coffee, a second waitress appeared and brought me water and offered to get me coffee. She almost bumped into the other one who was returning with my coffee. One of them said, "Whenever a handsome man comes in, we race to see who can wait on him first." I swear that is the first time I have ever been aware of a waitress trying to flirt with me. Unfortunately, the wrong waitress won, as my order was screwed up royally, and when I finally got my order, I found that the insides of some of the pancakes were raw. The waitress was sweet and raced to get another order, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that those too, were raw inside. But they did take my coffee off the bill as a consolation prize!
On Monday it was on to Indianapolis, and tonight, Tuesday, I am in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Tonight is a Courtyard by Marriott and last night was a really luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel that I snagged on Hotwire.com for $42 a night! I made it to Pittsburgh today by 3:15, in time to catch a very late breakfast at Pamela's, a place that is on an online list of the top 15 places in the U.S. to get pancakes... it's in my top 2 list. That was the only meal I had all day and it was as delicious as I remembered it. Pamela never let's me down... though the waitresses there don't flirt.
With each passing mile, I feel more decompressed from the busy semester. Hopefully my new blood pressure medication is helping, or maybe it's the pancake and elk diet or "driving therapy", but my blood pressure has been dropping with each new day:
California, Wednesday: 234/116
Salt Lake, Friday: 182/113
Steamboat, Saturday: 164/102
Topeka, Saundau: 163/100
Indianapolis, Sunday: 149/ 94
and today, Harrisburg: 135/84
At this rate I should be normal by the time I hit New England, and considerably low by the time I hit Israel in mid-January! I am hoping that the Christmas spirit will kick in as I reach Massachusetts tomorrow. I really have not felt the season very strongly this year. But of course, I will be in the neighborhood of where it all happened next month, so maybe the spirit will simply be delayed by a few weeks.
OK, my king sized bed with 80 pillows on it is beckoning seductively to me, and I am finding it far more attractive than my Kansas waitress.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year to all and to all a good night.
Matt
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