Eurotopia, and hello NOLA!

I got way too caught up in having fun in Europe to have time to write about it...sorry...

I'll give you a short laundry list so that you can feel bad for me about how hard my life is.  After Italian Brucetopia, there was:

• UEFA Euro Cup madness in Vienna, in which the German and Spanish uniformed fans overtook the city in complete jubilation and intoxication and I almost got thrown into a fountain after the final...
  
• Shopping, sightseeing and spa time in the thermal baths of Budapest
• Exploring the Roman Emperor Diocletian's Palace in Split, Croatia and finding out that my hotel was actually inside the palace walls
• Lying on the beach in Brela, letting the water lap up my legs, and looking at this all day
• Three days of beach partying (and all-night partying) with both the international jetsetter crowd and the rowdy backpacker crowd on the island of Hvar
• Finally outgrowing the nerve to sleep in hostel dormitories when I realized one morning that I was on top of two half naked twenty-year-olds who were sleeping in the bottom bunk...you could almost call that a threesome, no?
• More beach time, exploring, and outdoor living in the gorgeous, ancient, walled city of Dubrovnik                                          
• An eight hour ferry ride-turned-cruise with 15 new friends across the Adriatic from Croatia to Italy
• Pizza, rice balls, and friendly samaritans in the southern Italian city of Bari.  (I ask for directions and these five teenagers say, "We'll walk with you!"  I say, "Oh, that's ok!" and they say, "But we have nothing better to do!!")
• Rowdy street kids, loud grandmothers, careening mopeds, and THE MOST AMAZING PIZZA IN THE WORLD at Da Michele in Napoli.  Marone.
• Nighttime magic at the Spanish Steps, Piazza di Campo dei Fiori, and Trastevere in Rome, along with the best gelato I have ever had.
• Already feeling missed in Italy, even after a few short days.  (My brother's friend Raphaele writes to me:  "Katie! I with pizza maker, Michele!  We cry for you!!!  Make a return to Napoli soon!!!!!  baciiiiiiiiii")

Europe in the summertime let's your whole body smell a year's worth of roses.  I know that I am so, so, so lucky.  2008 really seems to be my year, doesn't it?  Alas, my Euro-extravaganza is over, but I am really, really happy (and feel equally fortunate) to be where I am now:  the great city of New Orleans, Louisiana.  

I decided to come down to New Orleans to volunteer once I heard from my dear friend Alex about how much this city is STILL in need of Post-Katrina help.  Alex jumped on a bus at the Coachella Arts & Music Festival and spent ten days volunteering at various stops across the country, including New Orleans.  He told me stories of people who were still struggling such incredible hardships to get their lives and their great city back in order.  Simultaneously, it occurred to me that I really want and need to exercise my heart muscles in a dedicated way before I make any decisions about how I will spend the rest of my career.  It seemed immediately obvious to me that I should go to New Orleans and not leave until I feel like I have made it better.  You can think of this experience as "heart fitness."  Put another way, I want to give as many hugs as possible while I am here.  I also want to figure out a way to best match my skills, knowledge and talents with the city's needs.  

I have been here a week and feel like so much is happening for me already.  My mind is working a mile a minute, constantly, about how to build smart businesses (and non-profits) that will help this city and it's people.  I am six days into this experience and have already volunteered for three different organizations, with two other appointments set up for tomorrow and the next day.  It is a huge help to be starting this experience with Alex, who has already spent a few weeks in New Orleans and knows the ropes.  My next blog will be about some of the people I have met and things I have seen.  I promise I will try to find time to write again soon.

Love, Katie

Bruce is the BOSS

One of the main reasons that I wanted to start my trip to Europe in Milan is that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was scheduled to play there on Wednesday, June 25th. I was planning on meeting my family in Vienna for the UEFA Euro Cup 2008 tournament and had a few days to play with beforehand. Basically the logic goes: Bruce is touring in Europe this summer. Where is he playing between June 23rd and June 25th? ITALY! Hell yeah.

I was sorting all of this out at the last minute, as I only decided to go on this trip three weeks ago. I was driving across country when I realized that it would be prudent to procure a ticket to the show in advance, and so I got my brother Mike to help me scour the internet. Really, there´s no point in going to a Bruce show in Europe if you´re not on the floor, and so that was a mandatory condition. Mike found an ebay auction for exactly the ticket that I needed - the seller was in Spain and could no longer attend the show. We won the auction for a reasonable price, and as I was logging into paypal to transfer the payment on June 16th, I wrote the following note:

Note:We MUST have this ticket in New Jersey, United States by Friday, June 20 because we depart for Europe on Sunday, June 22. If this shipping method is insufficient, please choose another method and contact me as soon as possible! Gracias

The seller responded with a friendly thank-you email that involved tracking information, and so I assumed all would be fine. But of course, things were not fine. Registered airmail doesn´t get from Spain to New Jersey in one week. I tracked the damn envelope on Thursday, June 19th and learned that it had arrived in New York at 3:31 PM the previous day. But on Friday morning, there was still no additional update. Hence began a really long and involved detective process that involved me calling USPS, then the Customs Office of New York, then USPS again, who was trying to tell me that I had to deal with Correos in Spain, at which point I tried figuring out the direct phone numbers for all of the post offices at JFK International Airport. All of this crap was leading no where. My mother, the post-exec big time balla at a big-time Wall Street bank that she is, entered the scene. We got the damn Postmaster of Long Island involved and still could not track down this envelope in time.

So, I flew to Milan without a ticket. I was running late on the night of the show and had to cross some t's and dot some i's in order to make everything happen. I had to take the metro, transfer, get off, and then figure out how to walk to the San Siro stadium, and then scalp a ticket. Remember that I don't speak Italian...

I manage to get myself onto the second metro, and I see this really hot, tan, buff Italian guy with a gym bag get on the some train. We kind of make eye contact, but then I sit down and a bunch of people stand in the way of me continuing to admire McDreamy-o. At the next stop, however, the people clear, and McDreamy-o and I make eye contact again, and then we smile, and so he comes over to talk to me. Now he discovers that I don't speak Italian, and his English is pretty basic, and so the conversation goes like this:

McDreamy-o: "Whata ara youa doing here in Milano?"
Me: "Ah, I am going to San Siro for a concert to see Bruce Springsteen! And I need a ticket!"
McDreamy-o: "Ah, I ama sorry, my English isa nota so gooda. What stopa you take-a?"
Me: "Lotto. Going to San Siro. Need biglietti! Bruce Springsteen! You know?"
McDreamy-o: "Ah, youa needa biglietti? Here, pleasa, taka these-a!"

And he hands me two metro tickets. Oh dear. So I'm like, "No, no that's ok, I need a biglietti for San Siro!"

And he says, "Noa, noa I insist! For San Siro!"

And so I can't refuse, so I take the metro tickets, and now I am laughing hysterically but am also like, shit, I can't miss this freaking stop, and literally right then we are pulling up to Lotto, and so I run off the train, and McDreamy-o follows, and now I am am worked up and sweating (it is HOT) and nervous because of the time, and this guy keeps trying to talk to me, but meanwhile, I spot two scalpers who look like they have tickets, and so I am like "Wait! Hold on!" and start trying to talk to the scalpers, while this guy starts trying to tell me where he works and that he wants to see me later, and he gets a little piece of paper out so that he can write his number down, which he does by balancing the paper on his mobile phone. And meanwhile, me and the scalpers are trying to communicate about the tickets, i.e. "Quanto?!" "80!" "No no no - cinque zero, cinque zero!" (meaning 50), and then I realize that I need to figure out whether or not these tickets are even on the floor. Pope (my amazing, incredible host) had taught me how to say "prato," which means "floor," and so I am screaming "Prato, prato, prato!" and these guys are ignoring me, trying to get my 50 euros, but finally I point to McDreamy-o (who I now know is named Claudio because I am holding the paper with his number on it) and the scalpers stop trying to bullshit me, and they back off because their tickets are indeed NOT prato. Shit. So now I am running up the stairs, and Claudio is running after me, and as we get to the top of the metro I am like "Dove San Siro?!?!" And Claudio goes: "Thisawaya! No - thatawaya! No......thisawaya!!" SHIT!!!! So so funny.

So then I spot a man and a woman holding tickets and wearing Springsteen shirts sprinting out of the metro station, and so I yell "Ciao Claudio!! Baci!!" and blow him a kiss, and try to catch up with this couple who is boarding a freaking bus (bus?), and I nearly get elbowed in the face because as soon as I step onto the bus behind them, they jolt around to LEAVE the bus because, as it turns out, we had all just boarded the wrong bus. And I didn't even know I needed to take a bus. I am hysterically laughing, and so are they!

I make friends with the couple as we cross the street to wait for the right bus, and in true Italian fashion, it comes ten minutes later than it is supposed to. The concert is literally starting right now, and I still don't have a damn ticket! I am in knots, and the adrenaline is so intense. As soon as the bus gets there, me and the guy start sprinting (leaving his girlfriend in the dust), and he starts helping me negotiate with the first scalper I see. It is so easy. Prato? No problem. 46 euros. I give the scalper a 50 and a huge hug, blow baci to my new friends, and start running.

The music had just started - Summertime Blues. I see a set of bouncers - "Dove prato?!" They point and I blow kisses! Next bouncers - "Dove prato?!" They point, and again, I blow kisses! I am so so happy. I am blowing kisses to all of the handsome ragazzi and am sprinting into the stadium. As I enter, Summertime Blues is ending and Bruce is kicking off song number due - Out in the Street.

I close my eyes and let myself feel it - complete and total overwhelming happiness. I don't want to be anywhere else in the world. I am an Italian-American Jersey Girl seeing the Boss in Italia. If I don't belong here, I don't know who does. And yet, Bruce makes everyone feel like they belong. I see a sign hanging from the rafters - "Bruce - One of Us."

He makes me feel so grateful, so human, and so alive. He is like my guru. He makes more sense to me than any other public figure. He brings me closer to spiritual elevation than any religious figure I have ever known...and so what if his message is my religion? What's so wrong with that?

"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive!"

"Let the broken heart stand as the price you have to pay!"

"I packed my bags and I'm heading straight into the storm!"

Face this world head-on and put yourself out there, and take risks, and feel everything that you possibly can. The minute you are tempted to lock yourself up and put up a shield, remember that you can't really feel the scintillating happiness of life without risking it all, and so dive head-on into the badlands. And let's all do it together. And, New Jersey rocks. That's all.

Haha! So, yes, the concert was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I made so many friends with fellow fans. Some would try to guess the song after the first few notes...like, "Ah! Darkanessa!" So awesome. Bruce played so many fan favorites and even took requests from the audience. He draped himself in an Italian flag. He played ROSIE for crying out loud! He topped the show off with a ten minute version of Twist and Shout. I was quivering with bliss by the end of it all.

The only thing that could have possibly made the night better happened - Pope picked me up on his scooter and we rode home through the Italian summer night.

And then, as if the night could get ANY better - ripe, juicy watermelon at the kitchen table.

I am so blessed. Bruce is the BOSS. Love to everyone!......Katie