Ara Pacis Day

Posted on December 17, 2006 by Meg

We went to the Ara Pacis today. I love the Ara Pacis. (Zorro, if you turn on my computer, that’s my background) My Roman history is the Julio-Claudians with some Livy stuff before and some Constantine stuff after. If Robert Graves didn’t care about it, then neither do I.

I’m exaggerating, but only a little.

I wrote a paper on the artwork of the Ara Pacis (actually, in the class in which I met Stick). There’s a whole frieze around the Ara Pacis with natural motifs, animals and flowers and fruit. Through my China eyes, I see wide-breasted birds like hanging smoked ducks, marble lizards worn by time into baobao fish. On the back is a personified wind, sitting on a weird pearl-less dragon.

We had high (nerdy) romance, then we walked around town and finally went to eat in a tiny cafe. I tried to order something with cheese (because my favorite things in Rome are Stick, the Ara Pacis and food with cheese. Oh, and being on Bejing time so I can sleep late everyday!), but the waitress told me in Italian that they were all out.

“Deng yi xia,” I began, because being told in a foreign language that the menu is wrong is not new to me. “I mean….” Why didn’t this happen when I was in Yantai, trying to keep my head above Mandarin waters? The time for my Chinese to become automatic is NOT in Rome.

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Marco Polo (part 2)

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Meg

Today Stick took me to Chinatown and the fish market so I’d feel at home.

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Getting Rid Of My Jiao

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Meg


…in the Trevi Fountain.

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Roman Holiday

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Meg

One my first Roman day, Stick and I went to the Pyramid of Cestius, and to the Non-Catholic Foreigners Cemetary where Keats and Shelley are both buried (not together… although both are buried next to their “good friend”) and we saw the veiw of the city from the Garibaldi Monument. Mostly, though, we walked around classics major Disneyland, catching up and talking about those days after Age of Augustus when we walked by the student travel agent and watched the prices of Rome flight fluctuate. If you have to walk around all grinning and googly-eyed, Italy is the place to do it.

You all know I’m way better with sarcasm, so this might be my last entry for a few days… or until something goes wrong.

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Beth’s Favorite Joke

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Meg

Why do they polish this gate everyday?

To protect the Finnish.

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High Romance

Posted on December 13, 2006 by Meg

Stick took me to a little coffeeshop near the Centro for breakfast.

°Itàs been a long year.° I said, over cappucinos at a small table. °I missed this,°

°I missed you too, baby,° he said.

°I meant my sandwich.°

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Marco Polo

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Meg

When I thought about seeing Stick again in Rome, I imagined coming off the plane, with shining hair, and possibly a cute shoulder bag, and running towards Stick’s arms. I forgot a lot of little details, like dragging all my luggage with me (Baggage Girl in Beijing: °You are overweight° Meg: °No, all Americans look like this°), and the awful sleep deprivation, and the feeling that I was just about sick of looking at icons and trying to guess which corridor I was meant to be taking. In Arrivals, I realized our reunion was not going to go quite the way I’d imagined it, but I’d see Stick in a moment, and everything was about to fall into place. If only I could find him…

In my defense, he didn’t recognize me either.

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Phineus Fogg Never Had These Problems

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Meg

The combination of emotional goodbyes and all the stuff I left until that last minute, the anticipation of seeing Stick again, and worrying about getting through 3 international airports speaking 0 of the national languages meant that I didn’t eat or sleep properly my last 48 hours in Yantai. I knew it would catch up to me sooner or later, I just didn’t know how.

I was in the Moscow airport, when it occured to me that I was waiting in a long, cold line in Russia, and I started to giggle. And giggle. And I couldn’t stop. (I may have been the first person to think of Russian literature and get uncontrollable giggles.) When it turned out that I was in the wrong line, and I was accidently trying to enter the country without a visa, it just got funnier. And funnier.

The border control officers who escorted me to the correct line, though, were less than amused.

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Looking Into The Future

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Meg

I know what’s going to happen. In a few weeks, I’ll be back home and living with Stick (Stick’s mother has asked me to please stop calling it Shacking Up).

“My apartment in China,” I’ll tell him sometime when he’s moved my books and papers from one surface to the next, looking for a place to sit down. “had three bedrooms. One for my clothes, shoes and jewelry, one for my books and my desk, and one to actually sleep in.”

“My apartment in China,” I’ll tell him, “had marble countertops in the kitchen.”

“My apartment in China,” I’ll tell him, “had a little sunny balcony.”

“But, my dear Meg,” Stick will say, because even in my daydreams there’s a limit to his tolerance. “Your apartment in China also had an electrical outlet in the shower.”

Well, yes.

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Eavesdropping In The Valley

Posted on December 9, 2006 by Meg

Ok, you know how I am on the cutting edge of all internet trends read blogs all morning? I just discovered Overheard In The Valley, a fledgling Overheard in New York for the Pioneer Valley. It doesn’t have the gems that OINY has, but it’s got some good local giggles.

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