the best thing i've seen so far...

okay, i know what you're thinking... suitcases? so here's the story...

a few months ago, when i made the decision to go abroad again we were given a packet that laid out what we should bring with us. without an art supply store within the small resort town of vico morcote, and the nearest one in milan, the packet stated that we should bring any and all of our architecture supplies. x-acto knives, olfa blades, cutting mats, straight edges, computers, and cameras filled my bags. our instructor also advised us to bring drawing pads, graphite dust, pencils (hard and soft leads), pens, and artist tape of varying sizes. my luggage became a small art supply store, it also became a small khiels store, and diesel store.

i packed so much stuff that i had to pay extra... yikes...

so i left lax and arrived at dulles without a hitch. but that's where it stopped. i had a 1 hour lay over to catch my next flight, but i was so confused in the airport. apparently dulles airport is composed of parallel terminals, all of which are connected by these big trams (think hummers and prison buses combined, but not as cool). i walked the length of one of them, on the advise of a airport information worker, to find that i needed to go another tram. at this point i had about 20 minutes to get on my flight. it might sound like a lot of time, but i had never been at this airport to gage time. at this point i'm sweating and rushing towards the ticket booth to alitalia airlines (which apparently isn't that great to fly on). they totally know my name b/c i'm one of the last people to arrive. everyone has already boarded...

so i get on the plane and sit right by the wing and the emergency exit. things are looking up, i have all of this leg room!!! i'm also sitting next to this old, but friendly italian man who starts to tell me how he's going to show his friends around milan and how he flys between d.c. and milan. he also suggests places and things to go see in milan. in the middle of our conversation he starts to tell me about watching my back and beware of the gypsies.... (which totally reminds me of the time we were in chinatown in london and these kosovo gypsies started begging for money. i think it was a diversion so that they could steal our wallets and money...) he also tells me to watch my back in with the swiss people, he doesn't trust them b/c he's italian.

anyways, i get to italy and wait for my baggage for like 30 minutes and apparently, IT'S BEEN LOST!!! it might have had something to do with all of the liquids that i brought and they thought it was a bomb, or they're just kind of incompetent people and didn't get it right... in any case, i got lost in milan, but found my way to the lugano via a tram, that seemed kind of shady, got lost in lugano and basically took a $50 taxi ride into vico morcote. the funny thing is that even though the taxi driver had a gps in his car he still couldn' find the villa.

so i get in the villa and no one is there except for the cook beppi. so far this trip has been great.

and what makes it worse was that there was no internet, and i had to share a room...

boo!