I Want That.

This post is will not be similar to the other stories I have told before. It is something that happened to me about one hour ago, I couldn't help but skip over the other chronological stories and tell this one. This story is not really a telling of a story, or for me it doesn't feel like that, but more my thoughts and feelings that occurred at a point in time.

This morning at eleven o' clock, Rocco's baby sister was born. I was in French class praying to God that time would speed up, while Anna was probably praying to God asking for the pain to stop. We went to visit the baby this evening with Rocco.

I stepped out of the car and away from the seat-warmer and felt the cold but refreshing air hit my chest and continue it's way up to my chin, on to my cheeks, around my nose and into my eyes. The cold air seemed to clean my lungs from the hot humid air of Palermo. With every breath I took I felt my body freeze and reheat with my exhale. Over and over, I concentrated on this cleansing feeling while I almost unconsciously walked toward the hospital. Then I realized where I was going, this had been the first real memorable time I had been to a hospital since my father's accident. I had never thought about it, but I hadn't experienced the feeling of being in a hospital for over a year. I stepped through the sliding doors, and even though the smell of cigarette smoke overpowered the room, images of the Roseville trauma center flashed through my mind. At first I wanted to remember what it was like, it seemed that I had forgotten a familiar feeling, whether it was good or not, it was familiar and had left my mind for a long time. I wanted to feel it again, so I tried to remember as much as I could. Images overtook my mind and it seemed uncontrollable, I saw my family sitting in the waiting room, I heard Dr. Bosco telling us what was going on. I was finished, the memories became too overwhelming, it became hard to breath, and my vision blurred. I concentrated as much as I could to remove the feeling that I brought on. I heard Rocco's voice asking to push the button on the elevator, and it was gone, I felt free almost, but trapped at the same time. A couple seconds later I managed to forget that that experience had ever happened.

The elevator doors opened and we walked into the room where Anna and the baby were. We greeted them with the usual "Congratulations" and "she is so cute!". They began to speak Italian very fast about things that I probably wouldn't have understood in English. I began to look at the sleeping baby, but not just look, I examined all I could see. Her head and her hands were the only things showing outside of the blanket. She was asleep, her eyes closed, moving slightly every minute or two. I stared at her for so long, I had never really gotten the chance to really look at a baby for a long amount of time. All the sound in the room seemed to disappear, the congratulations, the laughing, even the sound of people moving and breathing faded into silence. It was just me and this baby that was born mere hours before. Her skin was perfect, not a blemish, or wrinkle anywhere, her eyes were closed and I could have examined just her eyelids for hours. There was nothing, completely blank. There was a small circle right in the center of her noticeably larger upper lip, followed by small folds that waved out from that circle. Her hair was never consistent, a spot of hair here, another one there, a noticeable hair line was nearly impossible to find. It just seemed to exist, there was not a starting or stopping point of her hair, it faded from skin to hair, it's almost impossible to explain using words. And her hands, I can't even begin to talk about her hands, because there is no way that I can possibly describe the perfectness of them. They were small and seemed so frail, she had no control of where they went or what they did, her fingernails were long and hard to distinct from her actual finger, they seemed to blend in with the rest of her hands. The color of her skin never changed to a different shade, there was no tan line, there were no freckles, no moles. It was her skin that I was most fascinated with. She seemed so peaceful lying there, people all around her congratulating, eating, giving flowers, and there she was, completely unaffected. All I could think while I spent what seemed to be hours staring at her was "I want that". Over and over, the words ran through my head. I knew that I could not have that peacefulness for myself, but I wanted to get as close to it as possible. All I wanted was to have something close to me that was unaffected by the world, untouched. Then, all of these wonderful thoughts were destroyed within seconds.

A smell floated across the room. A dreadful and yet alluring smell, A smell that not only took me away from this peace, but put my mind in a place that seemed to be a hell at the time. The smell was simple. It was a disinfectant that they use in hospitals. In January 2006 we had to put a disinfectant foam on our hands before entering into a room where one of the most unpeaceful men lay for six weeks. This smell ripped me away, punched me in the face and threw me back to January 2006. Now instead of not hearing anything, I heard one of the most spine tingling noises I know. A calm and yet choked breathing, that sounded as if it was being breathed through a tube. Slowly, and calmly, it never changed it's pace, it never changed it's tone. Then another noise followed, two high pitched beeps, quickly and then pausing, then again. Never in time with the rhythmic steadied breathing. Then came the images, I saw myself turning the corner and entering room number 11. I was shaking and my palms were sweating, along with the images came more sound, I could hear the nurses walking and talking as if nothing was wrong, but something was wrong. I saw my father, whiter than I have ever seen any man, there were tubes and wires coming out of holes all over his body, tubes that didn't seem to go anywhere, and wires that didn't seem to do anything. Then I turned to my right and saw the small bottle hanging upside down with the nozzle pointing at the ground. I pulled the nozzle towards me almost as a reflex, a muscle memory. The disinfectant foam fell into my hand and the dreadful smell that would haunt me two years later flowed into my nose and implanted itself in my mind, making sure that I would never forget those weeks. A tube was going down the throat of my father preventing him from speaking, and providing yet another haunting memory that was to be planted in me. He had very little control of his head and could not move it easily. I walked in the room and his eyes opened, scanned the room for someone or something. His small shrunken pupils found me, and watched me put the latex gloves on. I walked over to the left side of the bed, and his hand reached out and limply grasped my fingers. I was pulled out of this memory once again, by a screaming baby. Although she seemed to show it more than I, she was not the only one who felt like screaming. I felt limp and loose, again my vision was blurred and I was dizzy. It had been a long time since these memories had hit me this hard, and at such an unexpected time. I couldn't breath and I felt sick, I had to find a chair but they were all taken by the women tending to the screaming, helpless child. I fell up against the wall praying that I would be able to take control over my body and my mind. The smell still lingered, and although I was not thrusted as violently into the memory as before, disturbing images and sounds flooded my mind. Tubes filled with flowing bile, thousands of machines beeping uncontrollably, my father's face cringing from the pain of the dozens of cuts and slices in his body, nurses yelling at others to get various implements. In and out of reality I flashed, both unbearably chaotic. The last thing in the world that I was thinking was "I want that", I didn't know what I wanted, it was to riotous to know. And all of a sudden, it stopped. I don't know why, or how. All I know is that the baby stopped crying, and I was once more able to think clearly.

I don't know why I wrote about this, but afterwards, I stood there leaning against the wall and thought to myself, "The only way I am ever going to understand this is if I write about it". The only problem is, is that now that I'm done, I still don't understand. If you began reading this hoping that there was going to be some end point or some moral, I apologize. I originally thought there was going to be.

-Dustin Douros

Little Red Men

This next story I have to tell is most likely the most exciting story that has happened to me yet.

As I am sure everyone has been told at some point, European drivers can be kind of crazy. I had been told this but it never really hit me, until it actually hit me.

I walk back from school every day on one of the main roads called Via Notarbartolo, coming off Notarbartolo are many smaller streets. So it all begins here, I was walking back from school one day, crossing the mini streets normally when I had to, glancing to the right and glancing to the left. Then I came upon that one street, that one street that would almost be the death of me. I remember looking down at my feet for second, quickly examining the newly made hole in my shoe, looking up at the small illuminated yellow man that seemed to be telling me, "Don't worry, cross the street, you have nothing to worry about". Almost taunting, challenging me to take those eleven steps to make it across. I took up the challenge, I was going to show that yellow man that I could cross a street safely. Determined, I fixed my gaze on that yellow guy, staring it down and intimidating it. After the first three steps I thought "Maybe I should look both ways..." Quickly I looked to my left to make sure no cars were going to disrupt my subjugation of the little yellow man. Confirming that no cars were coming from the left, I swung my head in the other direction, what used to be yellow had now turned red. "What was that?" I thought, I stopped half way through the turning process to center my head, the little yellow man didn't look so taunting now, in fact he looked kind of angry. He had changed from the seductive yellow to the infuriated red. This time it was not me who was intimidating him, but rather the other way around. Then there was a sound, not a nice calming sound, but a sound that seemed to represent the feelings of that small man. The sound blared in my right ear, if I had time to squint and mush my face into unnatural shapes I would have. But there was no time for this, I saw out of the corner of my eye a car, thinking as fast as I could, I decided not to run ahead or to jump backwards, but to jump a foot or two in the opposite direction of the car. This however did not aid me whatsoever because the car's reflexes weren't as fast as mine, and it had no intention of stopping. People tell stories and they say "Then everything seemed in slow motion..." Let me say right now that what happened next, was not in slow motion. It was very fast, and very painful. The next thing I knew I was on top of this motorized piece of metal with the horn still blaring in my right ear, but this time more intense because I was directly above it. The horn finally stopped and I lay there for a couple second savoring the silence. Once again, my peacefulness was interrupted by a click and a voice speaking words that I didn't understand. Slowly I got up, my vision blurred, I looked around and saw yet another red man, this time not so small, but red nonetheless. This red man was more animated than the first, and seemed to be more furious. All I could say to this man was a mumble of Italian words that seemed to flow, dribble and roll through my mind. Words like "Scus... dispia... giorn... dove..." A couple of English words leaked their way through, random words that had nothing to do with the situation. Once consciousness was gained I was able to blurb the words "No parlo Italiano". The red man did not seem to care whether or not I spoke Italian, in fact he seemed to care more about the fact that his car might be hurt more than me. Since I was in the middle of the street I did not plan on going back to where I came from, like I said I was going to show that red man who was boss. I waited until there was a break in the traffic to finish crossing the street. Once on the other side I realized that I had just been hit by a car. I turned around, saw the car that had hit me, waved to slightly less red man, slurred a quick "Ciao" and immediately began to examine my legs. Determining that they were not broken, since I was able to walk, I continued on my way home. It wasn't exactly "continued" it was more like, "limped."

Lesson learned: Always look both ways look both ways before crossing the street. And never take on seductive yellow men, because they will kick your butt, or your legs.

Dustin

What Were We Thinking?

If anyone has ever mailed food or anything breakable and found it completely and utterly annihilated on the other side, read on! For I can relate.

Because we could only take one bag with us on the plane to Palermo from Bologna (yes it's a city and not a food) we were forced by ASSE to mail the other that we had brought. After waiting about a week, my bag finally came. I was rather eager to open it, not only because it had more clothes that I needed, but more because we had packed a couple jars of blackberry jam in there for my family. Not only had we packed blackberry jam but we had also packed some shampoo. Just in case my host family had privacy issues I guess.
I opened the bag hoping to find the blackberries from heaven. I found blackberries, I found blackberries all over my clothes. Not only was there blackberries on absolutely everything, but it was coated with a thin layer of the shampoo. I opened the bag, reached my hand in to begin unpacking and a slightly cold substance touched my fingers, the nerves beneath my skin immediately detected this and sent a message up through my arm, past my shoulder, to my neck, into my spinal cord, and arrived at my brain in an instant. At this point of the arrival my brain became stunned, for the first time in my life, my body was completely unable to function. For about a minute or two (or what seemed like it) I stood there staring at the cold slimy substance that had just transfered itself from my clothes onto my hands. And then it happened, I blinked once or twice, my mouth opened and my tongue became dry, I swallowed and the next feelings were strange. At first it was shock, then fear, from fear it went to fury, from fury to curiosity, and back to fear. I called out and my voice cracked "Lilli...", there was no answer. I called again, and she came in, "Abbiamo un problema".
From that point on I had to unload my suitcase and place every contaminated article of anything on newspaper that covered more of the room than the actual floor. Once my suitcase was completely unloaded onto the floor, we took it into the bathroom to hose it down. However they did not have a shower head that was made for efficiency, but more for looks. So we spent about an hour hosing a mix of shampoo and blackberries.
We then left the suitcase to dry in the bathtub while we tended to the massive amounts of jam exposed clothes. Because Lilli is a magicianette, we managed to get all of the stains out of my clothes using bleach. And I now will refer to the title of this post, when we were in America, what in God's name were we thinking when we packed six glass jars of jam into a suitcase that would be traveling in control of the airport staff.

Lesson(s) learned:

1. Never ever put any type of breakable glass filled with staining fluid into a suitcase.
2. Bleach will solve even the greatest of problems.

Dustin

Well my first couple days in Italy after I arrived were rather uneventful, so these next stories won't be quite as interesting as the others, but they are stories.

The plane landed and we met our host families for the first time. I must admit that I became quite confused because not only did I meet my host family, but I also met Chaney's at the same time. So I had no idea who I would be living with or what anyone was saying. So after I sorted all that out and discovered who was who, we got in the car and began to drive to Lorenzo's house for a quick meeting about the year that was to come. We drove past a famous theater called "Teatro Politiama" Gabriella (who speaks perfect English) pointed it out to me by saying "Dusty if you look to your right you can see Politiama which is a famous theater." And of course, you can guess what I did. I pressed my nose up to the window in anticipation, my eyes were wide and I was breathing only through my mouth, I was about to see an international Italian monument. This action was responded to by Gabriella saying, "No Dusty, your other right." Congratulations Dusty! What a first impression. It was then followed by a slight awkward exchange of looks and then an explosion of laughter. She then yelled, (because it was the only way to speak at all because we were laughing so hard) "I said it in your own language!" Thus fueling another eruption of laughter. By the time we had finished laughing I barely got a chance to look at Politiama, so much for the epic viewing of the monument.

The lesson: Well I suppose I learned two lessons that in a way, contradict themselves. 1.) If you ever feel that you need to create a more loose or comfortable first impression, just act a little stupid, but make it look like an accident. 2.) Learn your Rights and Lefts.

Dustin

The Beggining

First, I would like to make sure that Jeff J. gets credit for this blog. It was his idea for the topic and the name. Thank you Jeff!

for now, this blog will be dedicated to all of the adventures and stories I have experienced here in Italy. Each post will be about a new story or experience.

The First story I have to tell is from very early on in the trip. In fact, It happened the same day I left America. In New York we met up with about ten other people who were also going to Italy through ASSE. They flew with us to Frankfurt, Germany. We had about a five hour wait in Germany, so as you can imagine it wasn't very interesting and became rather boring. One of the other ASSE members and I decided to walk around the airport while we waited. Not thinking at all we left the gate area. Don't ask me why, we were very tired and bored. However, we did ask the woman "guarding" the door if we needed to bring anything with us (e.g. passport, boarding pass). She said we didn't need any of that. We walked around for about ten minutes, found a small bar and decided to get sandwich. Then we realized that neither of us had any money, we decided that since we were dying of hunger, bored, and had free time, we would just go back through the door that we came from, get our money and buy the sacred sandwich. We made our way through the door and heard a voice yell something in German in our general direction. We looked around to see a German woman waving her hands and blabbing off in a language that we definitely didn't speak. We looked at her for a couple seconds, marveling at her ability to cough, hack and choke without actually dying. After the awkward staring session we come back to our senses and told her that we only speak English. And what do you know, so does she. We ask her what the problem is and she simply says "boarding pass and passport". Not really understanding what she wanted, we raise our eyebrows, twitch out heads, and reply with a thoughtful "huh?". The next attempt at communicating with the Americans was a bit more elaborate, it went something like "to get to the gates I need to see your boarding pass and passport." Finally understanding, we nod our heads, say "oh ok, totally" a couple times and pat ourselves down. After the unsuccessful search, we realize what she actually said. Our eyes shrink, our toes scrunch, palms sweat, arms tingle, fingernails ache, and worst of all we begin to pop our knuckles to no end. What are we going to do? How are we going to get on the flight? What will happen when other ASSE people come looking for us only to get stuck without the passport and boarding pass? How can we get in there? Wait, wait wait, who are we? We are American! So what's the first thing an American does when in trouble? Duh, bargain with them. "Well, uh, can we just go in and come back and show you? no, ok. Can one of us stay while the other goes and gets them? no, ok. Can you come with us to go get them? no, ok. Is there any way at all we can get in there?" All that this very sick woman had to suggest was to call someone we knew inside to bring out the documents. I remembered that Chaney had her phone with her, Tara, the other person I was with had a calling card. Finally we might be able to figure this out. We try and try to call Chaney, since we don't speak German, that proved to be rather difficult. We even got someone else who spoke German to help us. In the end the calling card didn't work, to this day I still do not know why, maybe it was because Chaney's phone was off, maybe the card didn't have money, maybe the phone was broken, or maybe this German lady just wanted to watch us suffer. So after about fifteen minutes of attempting to use the calling card, we finally gave up, decided to go ask Mrs. Hitler for another suggestion. As we are walking up to her, mind you we didn't say anything, she sees us and the first, and only thing that she says is, "no". Another stunned and awkward silence, after a couple seconds of shock/confusion we ask her if there is anything else we can do. Finally she has a suggestion that is worthy of note. Lets call the cops! Which is exactly what we did, let me tell you right now, German police are some of the most intimidating and scary police there are. We go through security, get wanded (twice) and continue our journey to the documents. Once we find our group of ten (whom we had never met) we routed through our bags while people stared at the police-accompanied-exchange students. We showed our documents, and the problem was solved... for the most part. We had to explain ten times why on our first day with ASSE we got escorted by the cops. After that experience I do not believe that we left the gate again during our stay in Germany.

I will try to end each of my posts with a lesson I have learned from each experience.

Lesson learned: 1.) Don't ever, EVER, leave a gate without your boarding pass and passport. 2.) If you ever need help be sure to ask police first and not Germans.

Thank you

Dustin