Globetrotting | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Globetrotting

Fish Pâté

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 5 Comments

Q: “Can you describe the exact sensation of being a dying and/or delirious fish?”
Normal, respectable, sane human being: “No.”
Me: “OF COURSE!”

So what, you ask, led me to my proud moment of gasping and flopping on a blue plush train seat, watching the air spin giddy circles around my head, feebly moaning with my rubbery fish lips for water?

That would be my husband. See, Dan knows some things that I did not use to know, like money is not essential for a European tour. Neither is common sense. And forty-five minutes is PLENTY of time to disembark from our international flight (provided it lands on time), gather our luggage, go through customs, buy Underground tickets, cross London, and get on the Chunnel train to France which, if missed, would leave us stranded in England with neither money nor common sense (which I did not yet realize were unessential).

Dan assured me we’d make it, and I wondered if “make it” was some European phrase meaning “die penniless, delusional, and certifiably insane when we get lost somewhere in East Upton Worcestershire and fail to mind the gap.” I, you see, am a realist. But wouldn’t you know it, the stars aligned. Our plane landed early. Our luggage came out first. The customs officer waved us through. We caught the Underground just before it left. We successfully minded the gap and donned our brick-laden backpacks and ran, and ran, and died briefly, and ran some more, and flopped onto our train with EIGHT WHOLE MINUTES TO SPARE. Even though I was delirious and a fish and all, gasping for breath on that blue plush seat was one of the most ridiculously exhilarating experiences of my life.

We made it, just like Dan said, and catching the train was just the first of many marvelous European adventures, including but not limited to getting lost in Paris, ordering pâté thinking it was potatoes, getting pregnant, getting lost in Venice, hiking in the Alps, getting lost in Zurich, antagonizing cows, getting lost in Paris again, climbing 16,300 steps (I counted), getting lost in London, and being interrogated in Iceland in Icelandic about the terrorist nature of our bottled water. Also getting lost in Iceland.

In case your head has not yet exploded from the vulgar number of lists in this post, here’s what I learned from that particular trip:
Money really isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of funness.
Neither is common sense.
My husband, in addition to being right, is a fabulous person to get lost in foreign cities with.
And most important of all, “pâté” does not mean potatoes.

4Jan

Serenity

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 10 Comments

The new year is already up and running, but I’m wandering somewhere on the other side of the line with untied laces, trying first not to choke on the dust, second to figure out how the hell to catch up, and third to find serenity in the midst of personal chaos. That’s my wish-on-a-star for this year–serenity. It was conspicuously absent last year, and I’m suddenly feeling desperate.

Don’t get me wrong–last year was fun… in the way that hurricanes and tornados and seizures are fun. It was like a twelve-month play date with a schizophrenic giant. Dan got his master’s, we were unemployed, we were homeless, we moved three times, we shipped our possessions and selves overseas without any guarantees, we started a new life in Italy, we had a baby, and our two-year-old inexplicably turned thirteen–each a circumstance saturated with stress. 2007 should have come with a label: “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: This year may be hazardous to your health; proceed at your own risk.”

I’m wildly glad we took so many risks to chase our huge dreams, not letting practicality or security tie us down. I also know that one day, I will realize how truly incredible the payoff is. But for now, I’m spent, running on a backup generator. This holiday break has been rather disastrous, with all four of us contracting bronchitis, influenza, or a hairy scary combination of the two, and I haven’t found the space to recharge. Thus, I find myself entering 2008 with my sanity tied in knots and my view of the future splattered with calamities.

If I still believed in the power of resolutions–or at least in my own power to keep them–I would make several:

To have fun with my girls every day.
To try cooking a gourmet recipe every week.
To learn Italian fluently.
To get in shape.
To reach out to new acquaintances without fear.
To rediscover God.
To make friends with new books and rekindle my friendships with old.
To write, constantly, with all the beauty and honesty and creativity I have to offer.

But I would give up these hopes, these efforts, this carousel of trying and failing and trying again if only to have a year drenched in serenity. Then, I think I could finally find the craziness to be me.

22Sep

Operation Visa

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on Operation Visa

Up this morning at 5 a.m. to bid farewell to my hero of a husband, off to Operation Visa. Or, as I like to think of it, Operation Please God Help The Female Hitler Who Works In The Consulate To Temporarily Get Over Her Chronic PMS And Give Us The Visa Before I Have This Baby Or Teleport Myself Across The Ocean To Her Cubicle To Break The Sixth Commandment, Whichever Comes First. We have gathered every official-looking document within a 20-mile radius and have only refrained from including Dan’s first-grade report cards because The Womanazi would tell us they need to be signed in triplicate by the king of Libya. Only if our names were Dan & Bethany bin Laden would I understand the efforts this lady has put forth to not help us.*

Exaggeration aside, I truly am worried about this trip. Roundtrip airfare to the States seems an enormous price to pay for the chance to get a stamp in my husband’s passport. Yes, he’s been approved and authorized and affirmed by every necessary Italian office, and yes, he’s taking literally every document one could possibly show to get a Visa (and then some!)… It’s just that we’ve already tried so many times, and after nine months of waiting, my sense of realism feels a lot more like pessimism.

Plus, there’s the little person inside me kicking in Morse code, “I’m coming out soon!” Which she’d better, considering that her 33-week ultrasound showed she was already 6 lbs, 3 oz. If she goes to full-term, the doctor says she’ll be 10 lbs. So, ahem, she’d better come out soon. Just not next-week soon. That would result in a 1991-style comedy caper of Dan running through the airport to catch the next flight to Italy while I gracefully hyperventilate at the whole childbirth-in-a-foreign-country-without-my-husband concept. Which I would rather avoid.

And then, reasonable fears or not, I just miss my hubby when he’s gone. Quite a lot, in fact. Sure, Natalie and I will stay busy, and life will go on, but we’ll feel the empty space at every meal and during every long evening and when we go to bed every night. Our world just doesn’t rock anymore with him gone.

So now that it’s almost a reasonable hour to wake up, I’m going to curl back up in my big, empty bed and console myself with the knowledge that at least life is never boring.

(Ever.)

______
* Yes, I used a split-infinitive… ON PURPOSE. Oh, how daring I am!

12Sep

Is There Life Outside of Blogging?

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

What I’ve been doing instead of blogging:

– Staggering around in a state of ~~mild~~ extreme shock at the fact that our earthly possessions actually made it across the ocean and to our door. Intact! In just one month! Our stuff! (Keep in mind that we haven’t had access to it since May. See, it’s not that bizarre for me to keep groping our lovely, soft mattress…)
– Unpacking, and unpacking, and then unpacking just a ton more.
– And cleaning, which you would think could have the decency to wait for a week or two while I tackle our sea of boxes. (You would be wrong.)
– Eating marvelous food at the homes of marvelous new friends, and keeping up with conversation more easily every time. Perhaps I will learn Italian after all, despite the fact that I have been
– Not studying my Italian books. Bad, Bethany, bad!
– Growing more bellyful and simultaneously less capable of things like movement and rational thought.
– Pining away for DSL, which I am estimating–based on current speed and helpfulness of phone company–will arrive in 2010.
– Forgetting how to write.

To those of you still reading, thank you. I’ll get back into my daily rhythm eventually. Or rather, since I haven’t had a daily rhythm since EVER, I’ll just try to carve out more quality time with my laptop in between unpacking the picture frames and forgetting where I put them. (Ah, the joys of placenta brain…)

21Aug

La Vita E’ Bella

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

You start to realize you’re no longer in America when:

– The day’s top news story covers the arrest of a dad who made his son a marijuana pizza.
– The Godfather casually pulls 1,000 euro in cash out of his pocket to reimburse moving expenses.
– Your pregnant belly is viewed as public property.
– You buy peaches, grapes, cantaloupe, lemons, tomatoes, carrots, celery, zucchini, potatoes, and a 30-lb. watermelon at the market for a grand total of 9 euro.
– All the other moms at the park have 0% body fat and glitter on their shirts (and pants, and shoes, and sunglasses…).
– The cheapest espresso money can buy tastes like a rich, velvety version of paradise.
– Every person in town takes a vacation on August 15th because — hey, August 15th is a great day to take a vacation!
– Swimsuits are optional.

I like Europe (and I’ll let you guess which reasons why… ::grin::).

6Aug

The TSA Should Be Banned

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Navigating airport security with a toddler:

1) Grit teeth.
2) Take shoes off two-year-old.
3) Explain to distraught two-year-old that she will get her shoes back, provided that they don’t turn out to be flowery size-6T bombs.
4) Go through security gate to wait for our unsecured valuables.
5) Watch helplessly as husband–shoeless, beltless, and holding toddler–is instructed to take stroller to the farthest outskirts of civilization for special processing.
6) Observe x-ray technician letting our carry-ons through without even glancing at the screen.
7) Suppress the urge to put the carry-ons back through security just so someone will notice my excellent Ziploc-bagging skills.
8) Attempt to re-pack liquids and/or gels, laptops, teddy bears, and boarding passes while putting on shoes, belt, and four backpacks before next person in line manages to clear security gate. (Keep in mind that husband and child are still trekking back from the nether regions of Stroller Security Land.) Hope that next person in line will require a strip search.
9) Feel guilty.
10) Reunite with husband, daughter, and–eventually–stroller, once it has been deemed innocent of international terrorism. What a relief.

(We have, in fact, arrived in Italia. More updates once I snap out of the hazy world of Jet Lag.)

27Jul

Countdown Begins

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

After 7 months of being told “your papers will come any day now…”
After 960 unanswered phone calls to The Godfather…
After 2 summer moves to homes that aren’t actually ours…
After 6 excursions to the Italian Consulate…
After 38 emotional upheavals in the last week alone…
…the real countdown begins:

6 days until we leave for Italy.

Naturally, my brain has been replaced by a kaleidoscope. Cheerful orange elation clashes with deep purple worry, which keeps running headlong into clean green practicality, which occasionally shifts into an absurd yellow panic. And then there are the sudden revelations speckling across my vision like a TV gone haywire:
We won’t get Mac ‘n’ Cheese in Italy! (How will we ever survive?)
I’m going to be delivering this baby in a foreign country! (Do they know about C-sections over there?)
Italians speak Italian! (Why, oh why didn’t I put more effort into becoming fluent?)
We’re leaving behind some of the best friends we’ve ever had! (How have I never realized how much I’ll miss them?)

But then my less-placenta-brained husband reminds me of that day three years ago in Venice when we talked about throwing away our return tickets. And then I remember early morning bike rides and noontime strolls through the open markets and lazy afternoon drinks in the piazzas, sunset walks through the parks and hilarious late night gatherings in the pizzerias. I remember how effortlessly the Italians talk, their whole bodies animated with the joy of carrying on conversations. I remember the lovely winding roads and the rolling hills lined with grapevines. I remember the pizza and the pasta and the coffee and the wine and the chocolate.

And then all the pesky, swarming details seem less than important because, hey — we’re moving to Italy!

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