Home for the Holidays

After a quick trip to Strasbourg and some festive get-togethers at the high school, I was headed home for the holidays.  If you’re wondering if it was even worth it, a transatlantic flight just for two weeks home, the answer is yes, yes it was.  Nothing beats being home for the holidays.  Nothing.  Last year I spent my first Christmas away from home in London with my friend Anna who came to visit from the States.  We had a really pleasant time decorating my small dorm room for Christmas, making Christmas dinner together, watching all the best BBC Christmas specials, and of course, going to mass at Westminster Abbey was special, too, but being with family always trumps the lonely, vacant streets of London on Christmas Day.

My journey started on December 23, just two days before Christmas and one day before the Italian side of my family’s big celebration.  There was something really symbolic and special about leaving from this airport train station:

which closely resembles this lovely iconic Milwaukee hot spot...

..probably because they were both designed by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.  This makes it the 3rd Calatrava I've been to haphazardly, including his Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden.

So Calatrava is a pretty clever and creative dude, and it was definitely a pleasure seeing something familiar as a liaison home.

This was probably the most nervous I'd ever been flying.  No, not because of all the hours and transfers etc, but because of the contents in my suitcase that I could only hope would make it through customs and/or not break all over the place.  2 bottles of wine, 4 large bottles of beer, some individual beers, a whole lot of cookies and chocolates tucked away, hopefully safely, in between shoes and clothes for a week, and some cheese which may or may not have been illegal for me to smuggle in, but I was clever and declared it on the customs form under its cheese name and not just "cheese" and they were none the wiser.  I believe I mentioned this kind of cheese in an earlier post somewhere (my weekend in Nevache), but the cheese I brought back is called Raclette and it's a cheese mostly eaten in winter and used for fondues.  I'm pretty sure it's a legal cheese to take on planes, but for excitement's sake, let's pretend it's not.  When I arrived at O'Hare I was one of the first people through customs (winning) and went straight to the baggage claim belts as I tried getting in contact with my parents to let them know I'd be out soon.  So there I was, impatiently expecting my bag to come out first, and as bag after bag came tumbling down the belt I got more nervous.  No bag.. no bag yet... they probably took it and are drinking my beer and sending a bomb squad on my cheese... crap..crap..no, really, it's Chistmas, it's okay... until about 25 minutes later I felt relief as my bag fell down but at the same time was expecting to see a huge puddle under it, or some plastic wrap on it, or a quarantine sign attached to it.  Whew, luckily it was there, in seemingly good shape, and I was just a 10 foot walk past a beasty customs officer away from Christmas with my family.  They looked at my customs card and completely overlooked anything important, asking me if all I had was cookies and candy.. a simple "yep" was all I needed and I was free.  Yessssssssssss!
 
 Coming home from a transatlantic flight is always an enjoyable haze of a night.  I love the excitement and emotions I get seeing my parents at the airport, knowing I'm in the safety of familiarity again.  Then, of course, since I'm always starving, we have to get a ridiculously huge and delicious American sized meal somewhere before I go home and pass out for 14 hours until the next morning.  This time we tried going to a new Italian restaurant my parents discovered in my absence, only to find that it was too busy to get into.  So, for the biggest reverse culture shock of all, we went to a place called Texas Roadhouse.  Just imagine the most over-the-top sports, beer, country music, suburbanite-filled restaurant ever with portions big enough to make anyone obese, naturally.  I definitely forgot about the unclassy-ness that springs up in suburbia.  Yet all the sports teams and Milwaukee beer posters on the wall were strangely comforting to be surrounded by, although expat Angela was judging a lot.

Waking up at home on December 24th was a dream.  My LaRosa grandparents and my brother's girlfriend/my good friend from high school, Sarah, came over to open Christmas presents before heading to my aunt and uncle's place for a big Christmas meal.

The highlights of my gifts:

My forever-anticipated trip to Iceland was finally solidifying!  Over my break at home I booked flights and airbnb's and made plans with two of my best friends, Deanie (studying in Cambridge) and Anna (visiting from the States for a month in February) to finally reach my dream destination.

Needless to say I was pretty much on top of the world this Christmas, and seeing more of my family just made it all the better.  Some nice highlights from our Christmas Eve meal:

Spiedini! The perks of being Italian.

Sarah, T-Bubz, and my cousins Alex and Andrew; still at the kids' table

We ate.  We drank.  We were merry.  And then my uncle started singing the Beatles while Alex played piano and things got even merrier.

After the Christmas festivities were over I spent the majority of my time meeting up with friends, going to Alterra (a few in one day, even), and hitting up some familiar Milwaukee bars with familiar faces.

Ice skating with Anna and Helena (my roomie in France who studied at Marquette last Spring and lived in Global Village with me and came back to Milwaukee for 3 weeks over Christmas).

Skating with Anne!

Skating with Helena!

I also enjoyed some of this...

Italian Christmas cookies

Wisconsin beer and cheese.

 Hung out with a lot of these...

 

Adam with his new kitten mittens

Did a lot of this...

Shared a lot of tender moments...

Went to a wild underwear edition New Years Eve party with all of my favorites and thensome...

This is as wild as I'm letting it get on here.

With Helena and Maggie who came back from Spain for the holidays!

Leaving all this behind was hard to do again when it came time to go, but Milwaukee is dear to me and holds many memories, friends, and family members and I will never be too far away. <3