Travel Tuesday - Margarita in Rome

So let me tell you about this one time when I went to Italy...

Prior to the first trip to Italy, my international travel was comprised of accompanying my parents to family visits in Mexico. My mother's prim and proper upbringing meant that I was attached to her hip while the quebradita (Mexican for dirty dancing) was practiced by the adolecents in the plaza. In high school, over priced schools overseas schools would send their recruits for us traveling dreamers who  wished to spend their summers away from their parents. I thought then that some semblance of freedom, to travel without the leash of propriety (my mother) was attainable. For a moment I thought I had heard the whisperings of my mothers acquiesce to a semester in Egypt. As I geared myself to make the final pleadings for an allowance to leave, some assholes decided to put two fucking planes in the Twin Towers. It was the beginning of my senior year. It took less than a moment for my mother to say  "ni creas que to voy a dejar en un avion" (Translation: Don't even think you are getting on a plane anytime soon.). My appeals in the form of arguments resembling phrases like "the best time to travel is right after something like this, everything is on lock down and super safer" fell on deaf ears.

It was three years later when an opportunity to vacation to Italy was presented to me. Settling on Rome and the neighboring area, my father and passed me a credit card. I was elated. Rome would be the destination for a nerdy history freak whose study of the bloody battles in the Coliseum were easy Saturday reading, and to top it off with Spaghetti? It all was too fucking fantastic

So there I went to Rome. I am in the mind set that travelers should acclamate the local culture and fully immerse oneself, not standing out like a "stupid American". I studied Italian language and Italian fashion, filling my bright yellow suitcase, with wheels and a handle, with nothing but pastels and mesh over shirts. Have I mentioned that I am a plushy girl? Pastels make me look like a fucking easter egg. So I am in the airport, and because I want to be one of "them", I think, hey, I can do this, I am going to take the trolley, to which I have no map, all the way in to town, get off with my big ass yellow suitcase, and find my hotel..how fucking hard can this be?

The trolley dead ends in the middle of town...and there is no hotel in sight. I am close to some ruins, but if you have ever visited  to Rome you will quickly realize that almost everything is a ruin with a modern building on the inside. The trip was in August, a sweltering month for almost every part of the world, Wearing two sizes too small jeans (because tighter is better in Italy) and a knitted pastel blue short sleeve sweater...its fucking 90 degrees at 11 in the morning. I walk along cobble stone streets, all the while wheeling a  big ass bag that screams "Tourist". But no, I am convinced I fit right the fuck in. I take a right turn, I take a left. I can't fucking find the Trilussa Hotel. Someone is king enought to point me to the street Trilussa, but he knows nothing about the Trilussa hotel. I hobble down some more, all the while fully conscious of the fact that I am sweating, my crotch is rubbing against the fucking jeans, I am tired, I am hungry, and on the verge of a melt down.

I decide that before the tears commence that I take a seat at this cute little cafe. I waddle in, trying to ensure that I get some breeze towards my crotch. A few weeks prior I turned the ripe age of 21, making me eager to get started on what is to turn in to a long history of drinking. I take the seat at the table closest to the street, and I order the only alcoholic drink I can name, a margarita. I order in spanish because  because italian and spanish are the same...right? The waiter smiles, responding in English "sure, I'll bring it right out, and what would you like to drink". I take a breath...I am thirsty and I want my motherfucking alcohol, clearly he had not understood, so I repeat "a margarita". The waiter continues to smile..."I'll bring some water, no gas". I wonder if the no gas comment by the waiter meant he was planning to fart in my water cup.

I took the next few quiet moment to enjoy my surroundings. I had never crossed an ocean by myself, never been so far and removed from my "Pacific Standard Time". Rome is fucking amazing. Despite modernity  its history is captured in every stone, every building, and despite the crotch sweat and inability to find the hotel, I was enjoying this non parental adventure. Twenty minutes passed when the waiter came out to my table, with a pizza. I look at the waiter, and back down to my pizza. He is still fucking smiling. I look at the pizza again and before I can look up, the waiter has skipped his happy ass back to his counter. I politely flag him down..."sir, I still haven't received my margarita..."
"Miss this is your margarita, margarita pizza..."

I stammer, and start to cry...why? Because I am a fucking girl, my pants are stuck in my crotch, it's hot, and all I want is my god damn alcohol...I compose myself, explaining that my flight was so long and that I am very tired. I muster in broken italian/spanish "back home a margarita is a cocktail". My waiter, an angel in disguise I would have to assume, who was kind enough to politely and sweetly deal with  my emotional vagina bullshit, smiles again, and says, "a bella, I get a you a bellini". That fucking saint got me my drink, and a cab to drive me to my hotel...that was only a block away!

So began my lone travels, as a  Stupid (Mexican) American. 

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TT: Geek and Freak?

Let me tell you gentle readers, I never imagined this subject would make me think so hard and ponder on what to write. Geek. Its connotation once held such negativity that I sometimes shudder to hear the buxom blonde with black framed glasses to proclaim her moniker as geek. The fuck chick, the only thing geeky about you is your barbie collection softly stored in the hall closet, and even I have something like that. But its true, in this day, the word no longer means the end of a social life. Geek no longer encompasses trench coats and dungeons and dragons ( I had a brief d & d phase, and I didn't call it d &d). In this day, almost all can quote Star Wars, make references to Khaleesi, and explain the history of House Harkonnen. But in my infancy, in my dawn of creation, I had many phases of geekdom,  many of which lead people to believe that not only was I this geeky chick wearing two sizes too big pants and band shirts, but that I was a amrginal frreak. I present to you, my many stages of Geektacity:

The Truth is Out There
The truth is out there, and I was certain that the love of my adolescent life, Mr. Fox Mulder was going to lead me to this truth. Let me tell you people, the X-files was more than just a show, this was THE show that introduced me into puberty. I didn't know what crushing, daydreaming, or tingling was until I watched this show. Yeah, I know what I just said. This was more than sci-fi, this was my life. It helped that I had been softly steered towards sci-fi whle I was still a toddler, but it was Fox, Mr. Hot man Mulder that really dragged me in to the depths of the unknown. He was the one that made me question our existence and to look for signs everywhere. I didn't care that they weren't on the cover of teen people, or that his hair didn't wisp like JTT (in case you didn't know, that's Jonathan Taylor Thomas), this was a man's man, with a gun, and a badge! I was going to join the FBI and find this man, and together we would gather the evidence to prove once and for all that the existence of aliens is here!!! And then after we would settle down on Catalina Island and have geeky FBI babies. I had to settle for the X-Files special edition barbie dolls. But I want to believe.

ASOS
Let me tell you, if you don't know ASOS, you don't actually know Game of Thrones. And if you only know Game of Thrones through HBO, that's ok, but shut the fuck up, because you don't actually know shit. You don't know what it is to sit there, at 16 years old, and cry yourself to sleep because the hero of the hour just had his head chopped off in front of everyone. You didn't lay awake at night wondering why George hates you so fucking much, why he chooses to pick off those people (and they are people, not just characters) and leave you there in a vat of tears, your heart in your throat, compounded with a loss of appetite. I do want to take this time to thank my friend for introducing me to the series and essentially making me the most annoying girl that my boyfriend has ever had to endure. Thanks for letting me geek out on you babe. And quite honestly, I am grateful to HBO...that show is fucking amazing.

History
I spent my Senior year perched on a tree in the quad of my high school, or in the corner of the media center reading about Henry Rex (VIII) and his marital conquests. Why? Because he was bad ass whose dick prompted a religious reformation and broke ties with the Pope. He was also a bad ass because the guy married six times...six times!!! I believe that number can only be rivaled by Elizabeth Taylor, who conincidentally was married to Richard Burton (twice), who played the role of Henry in "Anne of the Thousand Days". But now I have gone off on a tangent.

Lets not forget Schindler's List and the impact it made on my historical brain. Ralph Fiennes in a SS uniform. Holy shit...I was sold. I had to know everything and anything about World War II, Germany, the SS, Hitler, genocide...my world had become endless, a vast canvas of lives and events that had all come before me. I had to learn of them all. I had to know them, their speech, their dress, their friends. I devoured each sentence and voraciously searched for the next chapter. I still do.
It doesn't stop there. Each event that passes I somehow tie in to fascism and fanaticism. My references to the wars, great or civil, sometimes are too much for my listener to comprehend. Many a time I have gotten the "here we go again the with nazis" or "the romanovs are dead".
But those that know me and love me, and maybe not love me, but know me, will tell you, "that's just her, she really geeks on this shit."

Margarita in Rome

So let me tell you about this one time when I went to Italy...

Prior to the first trip to Italy, my international travel was comprised of accompanying my parents to family visits in Mexico. My mother's prim and proper upbringing meant that I was attached to her hip while the quebradita (Mexican for dirty dancing) was practiced by the adolecents in the plaza. In high school, over priced schools overseas schools would send their recruits for us traveling dreamers who  wished to spend their summers away from their parents. I thought then that some semblance of freedom, to travel without the leash of propriety (my mother) was attainable. For a moment I thought I had heard the whisperings of my mothers acquiesce to a semester in Egypt. As I geared myself to make the final pleadings for an allowance to leave, some assholes decided to put two fucking planes in the Twin Towers. It was the beginning of my senior year. It took less than a moment for my mother to say  "ni creas que to voy a dejar en un avion" (Translation: Don't even think you are getting on a plane anytime soon.). My appeals in the form of arguments resembling phrases like "the best time to travel is right after something like this, everything is on lock down and super safer" fell on deaf ears.

It was three years later when an opportunity to vacation to Italy was presented to me. Settling on Rome and the neighboring area, my father and passed me a credit card. I was elated. Rome would be the destination for a nerdy history freak whose study of the bloody battles in the Coliseum were easy Saturday reading, and to top it off with Spaghetti? It all was too fucking fantastic

So there I went to Rome. I am in the mind set that travelers should acclamate the local culture and fully immerse oneself, not standing out like a "stupid American". I studied Italian language and Italian fashion, filling my bright yellow suitcase, with wheels and a handle, with nothing but pastels and mesh over shirts. Have I mentioned that I am a plushy girl? Pastels make me look like a fucking easter egg. So I am in the airport, and because I want to be one of "them", I think, hey, I can do this, I am going to take the trolley, to which I have no map, all the way in to town, get off with my big ass yellow suitcase, and find my hotel..how fucking hard can this be?

The trolley dead ends in the middle of town...and there is no hotel in sight. I am close to some ruins, but if you have ever visited  to Rome you will quickly realize that almost everything is a ruin with a modern building on the inside. The trip was in August, a sweltering month for almost every part of the world, Wearing two sizes too small jeans (because tighter is better in Italy) and a knitted pastel blue short sleeve sweater...its fucking 90 degrees at 11 in the morning. I walk along cobble stone streets, all the while wheeling a  big ass bag that screams "Tourist". But no, I am convinced I fit right the fuck in. I take a right turn, I take a left. I can't fucking find the Trilussa Hotel. Someone is king enought to point me to the street Trilussa, but he knows nothing about the Trilussa hotel. I hobble down some more, all the while fully conscious of the fact that I am sweating, my crotch is rubbing against the fucking jeans, I am tired, I am hungry, and on the verge of a melt down.

I decide that before the tears commence that I take a seat at this cute little cafe. I waddle in, trying to ensure that I get some breeze towards my crotch. A few weeks prior I turned the ripe age of 21, making me eager to get started on what is to turn in to a long history of drinking. I take the seat at the table closest to the street, and I order the only alcoholic drink I can name, a margarita. I order in spanish because  because italian and spanish are the same...right? The waiter smiles, responding in English "sure, I'll bring it right out, and what would you like to drink". I take a breath...I am thirsty and I want my motherfucking alcohol, clearly he had not understood, so I repeat "a margarita". The waiter continues to smile..."I'll bring some water, no gas". I wonder if the no gas comment by the waiter meant he was planning to fart in my water cup.

I took the next few quiet moment to enjoy my surroundings. I had never crossed an ocean by myself, never been so far and removed from my "Pacific Standard Time". Rome is fucking amazing. Despite modernity  its history is captured in every stone, every building, and despite the crotch sweat and inability to find the hotel, I was enjoying this non parental adventure. Twenty minutes passed when the waiter came out to my table, with a pizza. I look at the waiter, and back down to my pizza. He is still fucking smiling. I look at the pizza again and before I can look up, the waiter has skipped his happy ass back to his counter. I politely flag him down..."sir, I still haven't received my margarita..."
"Miss this is your margarita, margarita pizza..."

I stammer, and start to cry...why? Because I am a fucking girl, my pants are stuck in my crotch, it's hot, and all I want is my god damn alcohol...I compose myself, explaining that my flight was so long and that I am very tired. I muster in broken italian/spanish "back home a margarita is a cocktail". My waiter, an angel in disguise I would have to assume, who was kind enough to politely and sweetly deal with  my emotional vagina bullshit, smiles again, and says, "a bella, I get a you a bellini". That fucking saint got me my drink, and a cab to drive me to my hotel...that was only a block away!

So began my lone travels, as a  Stupid (Mexican) American. 

Acrostic Schmostic

So for this TT post...we were told to do an acrostic poem...NAILED IT!

Have you ever been so
Interested in something that all aspects of your life consumed by it?
Sometimes I catch myself making the most abstract of references, comparing
The modern to an ancient past.
Or trying to find a parallel between the events of today with the kings of yesterday.
Regularly I am looked and referred to as a nerd.
Its intent to demean what you after making so many references to World War II,
And sometimes the audience can't seem to grasp the concept, so I get called a
Nazi!