Travel

Washing Clothes in Italy

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I bought produce. Today, it was time to tackle doing a load of laundry.

I thought it would be simple. My host had shown me the order of operations already: First, select the setting I wanted. Then, select the temperature. Put soap in the dispenser, place clothes in the drum, close the door, and pull the handle to start the cycle. When finished, press the (un)lock button to open the door.

In other words, this is like doing laundry at home.

Except of course it wasn’t like doing laundry at home.

At home, I have the option for cold water and a gentle cycle. Here, I have neither. My cycle choices are:

  • Rinse with spin
  • Short spin
  • Rinse without spin
  • Drain (I think; the Italian word is “scarico,” which means “drain” but in context that doesn’t make much sense to me)

For temperature, the closest thing to cold I could get was warm. Cold does not seem to be an option.

My temperature options are:

  • White cottons with pre-wash 60-90 degrees C (140-194 F)
  • Colored cottons with pre-wash 40-60 degrees C (104-140 F)
  • Short cycle cotton 30-40 degrees C (86-104 F)
  • Synthetic with prewash 40-60 degrees C (104-140 F)

This one baffled me. How was there no cold water option? Should I wash my things in the sink? There’s no way Italians wash everything in the sink. If that were the case, there would be no washing machines.

I decided to go with the options that were as close to cold and delicate as I could get: short cycle cotton and short spin.

I put in my clothes. It’s a good thing I only had a few things to wash. The drum was just big enough to hold my two shirts, one pair of shorts, one pair of pants, two sets of socks, and two pairs of underwear. I maybe could have squeezed in one more shirt, but that’s about it.

I put in the clothes, put in the soap, pulled the knob, and waited for the action to begin.

After a few seconds, my clothes started to slowly spin. Then, they spun so fast they seemed to disappear. Calling the spin cycle a “centrifuge” was spot on.

This stop>spin slowly>spin super-fast cycle repeated for about fifteen minutes, and then stopped for good. That was it. That was the entire “wash” cycle. Except, there was no wash. No water entered the machine.

Why on earth would someone choose to spin their clothes around for a while without actual washing?

I tried again. This time I chose “rinse with spin” as my setting, and this time I got water!

About 15-20 minutes later, I had clean clothes that I hung on a drying rack so big it’s taking up most of the living room, which is hilarious when you consider how few clothes fit in the machine for a single load.

Doing laundry while in Italy: complete.

I still have no clue if I used an appropriate amount of laundry soap, but I’m calling this a win and going to bed.

I have water!
The temperature settings.
Soap drawer
Wash settings
Dry spinning

Buying Produce in Italy

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

I’m in Italy right now. I came for a month, because, well, because I can.

I teach middle school during the school year and have the luxury of my summer off, so I decided to make the most of it. So I’m here in Parma, doing my best to learn my way around my new neighborhood, practice speaking Italian, and embrace living in Italian time.

Today’s mission: find the local grocery store. That’s one of my favorite things to do when I travel. You learn so much about a culture by what is – and isn’t – on the shelves at the local market. Peanut butter? Not a chance. Chestnut spread in the jam aisle? Absolutely.

Other interesting finds: pesto-flavored potato chips, lemon-burrata ravioli, and fun beverages: Lambrusco, the local wine, and Chinotto, the national soda.

The regular price tag
The sale tag
The scale

I got my things home, including lugging a six-pack of 2 liter bottles of purified drinking water (the pipes are old so the water that comes out of the faucet is safe for cooking and bathing but it’s not advisable to guzzle it by the liter on a hot day). Then I realized I forgot to buy fruit. I wanted to go to the local fruit vendor, but couldn’t find him, and ended up back at the grocery store. I grabbed a few peaches, bagged them up, and headed to the checkout line.

The cashier lifting the bag, and looked confused. I didn’t understand her words, but I understood her body language. She kept lifting and dropping the bag, pantomiming that I needed to weigh the fruit.

I took the bag back, said a quick “mi dispiace” (I’m sorry) and headed back to the produce aisle, hoping I would see what other people were doing.

I saw one guy weighing fruit at a scale. Great! I followed him and put my peaches on the scale after he walked away, only to realize I had no clue how to tell the scale what I was weighing. There were no stickers on the fruit, and no product number (it seemed) on the price tag label on the shelf where I got the fruit. There was only a scale and a keypad with – get this – keys numbered from 1 to at least a hundred. It may have gone higher, I didn’t take notice of when the numbers stopped. I just saw blank number after blank number and no instructions on what to do with them.

I half considered leaving. Putting the fruit back and walking out the door was an option that was available to me.

But in that moment I became even more determined. I was buying that fruit! Those peaches would be mine! There was no way I was letting buying produce in a supermarket beat me.

There had to be a code for the scale. Nothing else made sense. I went back to the fruit stand. I looked at the tag again. And again. I saw the name of the fruit (peche), and the price per weight. I did not see a code.

I put my fruit on the scale, got the weight, and pressed a random number to see what would happen. My button rang my fruit up as l’aranche: Oranges. I had a clue!

The scale was covered with discarded bar code stickers, implying that people screw this up all the time or do exactly what i just did, and leave the discard stickers there.

I put the bar code sticker for the oranges on the scale with the other discards and went back to the peach display. I stared hard at the tag, looking for anything that looked like a code.

I noticed three tiny numbers, each in a separate box. There was a teeny tiny “1” in box. Next to it, there was a teeny tiny “8” in its own box. Next to that was another teeny tiny “1” in its own box.

I went back to the scale.

I put the fruit on the scale, and got my weight. I pressed “1” to see what would happen. The wrong thing rang up. I put the sticker on the scale and tried again. This time I pressed the only other number I had: “8.” It worked! The price tag popped out for my peaches and I headed back to the check out counter. The lady smiled when she saw me back with my properly labeled bag.

I’m still a little embarrassed by the fact that I actually considered giving up. Only for about half a second, but still. Then, on the way home, I found the produce vendor that I had been looking for from the beginning. I bought some apricots from him, no bar code needed.

I have fruit. I have wine. I have Italia. What more do I need?

How to Cure Jet Lag

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ 1 Comment

Friends, I did it.

I found the cure for jet lag.

In the past, I would fly from the East Coast to Europe, or from the West Coast to Australia, and resign myself to feeling exhausted the next day. I would force myself to stay awake and walk, walk, walk outside in the sunshine until I basically collapsed into bed, usually around 6pm local time. Then I would sleep for at least 12 hours, and wake up still feeling tired.

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One of the sights on my post-nap stroll.

I was an exhausted, useless mess for a solid 24 hours, if not more.

On my last trip, I did a little research about sleep. I learned that we need to sleep in 90 minute increments in order to get the full cycle of sleep. If you sleep less than 90 minutes, you wake up too soon, groggy, cranky, and no better than had you never slept at all. If you just sleep until your body is ready to wake up, the result is nearly as bad.

My most recent trip involved traveling from the mid-Atlantic region to Italy. That involved an overnight flight of about 8 hours. Which means that after the in-flight meal service after you take off, plus breakfast about an hour before you land, you really only have about 6 hours to try to sleep, if you’re lucky.

I was flying in economy, which usually isn’t the worst thing on overnight flights, but this time I was on Alitalia and I swear they must have done research on how to design an airplane seat that is the least likely shape possible to support the human body in any sort of recline. They even had non-removable headrests that forced your head into an unnatural position if you were of average height. Or, of any height, quite possibly.

As an added bonus, there always seemed to be a bright light hitting my face no matter which I way I shifted.

In short, this was the least comfortable overnight flight I have experienced yet. I got the least amount sleep I have ever gotten on a plane, despite my noise cancelling headphones, melatonin, blanket, and pillow.

But, while the overnight portion of the trip was a frustrating, sleepless mess, I tried a few

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The sunshine was a great help.

new things upon landing that made all the difference in helping me conquer jet lag.

This is my new overnight routine to beat jet lag:

  • Wear noise-cancelling headphones. Mine are Bose over-the-ear wireless headphones. They are comfortable and the sound quality is great. They weren’t cheap but were worth every penny.
  • Wear compression socks. I don’t know how I ever traveled before compression socks. They feel like normal socks while you wear them, except your feet don’t swell up like balloons by the time you get to where you’re going.
  • Drink water. Buy a metal water bottle (less likely to break than plastic, plus, you know, the environment) and a metal carabiner. Fill that bad boy up at a water fountain in the airport before you board. Hang it to the magazine pocket on the seat back in front of you the minute you sit down. Drink from it liberally. Make it your goal to drink every drop of water in that bottle before you step off the plane. Do this for every leg of your flight. Don’t worry if you have to pee. Dehydration is worse than needing to go to the bathroom. Just drink the water. Plus, getting up to go to the bathroom frequently is good for your circulation.
  • Check with your doctor first, but if you can, take some melatonin before you try to sleep. It’s a natural supplement that will help trigger that sleepy feeling you need to fall asleep. It’s not a sleeping pill, though, so you won’t wake up groggy. But again, I’m not a medical doctor and I have no idea if melatonin can interact with medications, so do your research before you put anything in your mouth.
  • Set your watch to the local time of your destination the minute you board the plane. Don’t do the mental math of what time is it really, just accept that you are on the time of your destination already and that’s it.

    When you get to where you’re going, do the following. These steps are really key:

    • Fill your water bottle with fresh water and drop in an airborne tablet. You can get the cheaper generic kind at CVS or Costco (and probably lots of other places), if you like. Let it fizz, and drink it down. All of it. You’ll get the full benefits of hydration plus electrolytes.
    • Take a nap. That’s right. Do it. Sleep right in the middle of the day. But, and this is the key, only nap for an amount of time divided by 90 minutes. I set my alarm for exactly 90 minutes, but you could also do 180 minutes or 270 minutes. You get the picture. When your alarm goes off after that period of time, get up.
    • Go outside. If you flew overnight, it should still be daylight when you wake up from your nap. Walk around. Drink more water. Keep walking. Walk walk walk. Drink drink drink. (just water – no caffeine or alcohol)
    • Go to dinner at the local dinnertime. You will be tired, but you won’t be the kind of tired where you feel like you were hit by a truck and want to die, face down in your plate.
    • Go to bed at a normal bedtime. You’ll wake up the next morning after sleeping for about 8-10 hours feeling like you can conquer the world. Just like that, jet lag is gone.

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Walking in daylight after my nap + hydration helped me adjust to local time quickly.

While I was tired when my alarm went off at the end of my nap, it wasn’t terrible. I definitely felt energized and ready to go outside. The hydration and the electrolytes made a huge difference. Thanks to the nap, hydration, and electrolytes, I was able to both enjoy a nice dinner in polite company of others the day of arrival AND wake up the next day feeling great – without any trace of jet lag.

**I am not expressly endorsing any of the products to which I have provided links; I am providing links as a courtesy, for informational purposes only. I do not receive payment of any kind should you choose to purchase these items.

The Drama of the DMV, aka Why You Need Precise Words

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

I recently moved to a new state. I need to update my vehicle registration and get a new driver’s license. I did this a few years ago and don’t remember it being all that difficult, and so wasn’t prepared for it to be that hard this time around, either.

I went online to my new state’s DMV website to figure out if I needed to get my license first and then my vehicle registration, or the other way around.

Wow, does the person responsible for my state’s DMV website like to write. There are words upon words upon words all over this site.

I spent – no joke – at least three solid visits to this site, reading carefully, and copying the sections that pertained to me into a word doc, so I could create a series of steps that I needed to get all of this done.

My goal was to compile a list of documents that I needed to gather, plus the order of operations as to where I needed to go and when.

Screen Shot 2019-10-06 at 8.48.23 PM
This is a fraction of the dense text I had to wade through, on only one of the several pages I needed to consult. 

This should not have been that hard, and at first glance, aside from needing to wade through all of those words, it wasn’t.

I put together my list of required documents. I added a few extra that I have at hand, so I show up loaded for bear.

I saw that I needed a vehicle inspection prior to getting my license. So, the order of operations was clear: inspection first, appear at DMV second. Got it.

Today, I went to a nearby Jiffy Lube and asked if they do vehicle inspections. “No, only the DMV does inspections for registration,” the man there said.

“Only the DMV?” I asked.

Yep. It’s essentially one-stop shopping, which isn’t a bad thing, I suppose, except, remember that part where I went to the website several times and read through it with a fine-toothed comb?

Somewhere in all of those words, it either didn’t say that you had to get your registration at the DMV itself, or it says it somewhere on that site but is so buried, good luck to anyone trying to figure it out.

How about, instead of all of those words upon words upon words, the DMV offers a simple checklist for people just moving here from out of state. Provide an order of operations, along with the list of necessary documents. It shouldn’t require reading through multiple paragraphs of dense text plus going back and forth between several pages to find the necessary information to accomplish a simple task.

This experience made think about what I do with my writing business, and why I have chosen to call my business “Precise Words.”

I have been given a lot of advice from people in the writing community about how I need to have a niche for my writing to take off. Choose a specialty, they say, perhaps personal finance, or wine, or pet care, or…?

I’ve been lucky to have worked in a variety of different fields, including personal finance, wellness, real estate, travel, retail product descriptions, direct mail fundraising for nonprofits, and blogging for small businesses as varied as air purifier companies to landscape businesses to commercial packaging plants. I’m working on adding wine writing and more real estate and travel writing to my portfolio.

“Precise words” IS my niche. Plenty of people think that in order to write effectively, you just write down all of the things in your head and shove it at people.

Please do not do this.

The result of that approach is the DMV website with all those words that don’t really say anything you need.

My skillset isn’t just about knowing which words to use, it’s about knowing when to use fewer words. This is important. This is also a skill that comes with training, education, and lots and lots of practice.

There’s a saying that when you hire someone to provide creative services, you aren’t hiring them for the minutes or hours it takes them to provide the work; you’re hiring them for the decades of practice and experience they have put in to honing their craft.

So, if you have a website with all those words, and you aren’t sure it’s saying the things you really need it to say, don’t be like the DMV. Reach out to me and let me help. I can use my writing precision to help you say exactly what you need to say in the clearest, most effective way possible.

 

 

 

What Does Fifteen Minutes Mean to You?

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

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View from the elevator of the hotel once I finally checked in.

I can do a lot of things in fifteen minutes. I can hardboil some eggs. I can run a mile and a half. I can take a cat nap. I can read a chapter in a book.

What I find frustrating is spending that fifteen minutes on hold, in particular when the hold is with a major hotel chain known for their customer experience.

I won’t name the hotel chain today. I’m not looking to shame a specific business, in particular because the specific business isn’t the real problem.

The real problem is what passes for customer service these days.

Who actually thinks that it’s good for business or makes customers happy to need fifteen minutes before you can speak with a live human about your reservation?

All I needed to do was call the hotel and confirm that I did make a request for a refrigerator in my room.

That’s it. That’s all I wanted to do.

I had the phone number for the hotel. I had my confirmation number. I gave them a call.

The woman who answered asked for my confirmation number, and then cut me off before I had finished reading it out to her.

She insisted that was not my confirmation number. Oh, but it is, I assured her. I called this same phone number and gave this same conf…

“Ma’am, our confirmation numbers start with a 7 or 2. Yours started with a 3. That’s not a number in our system.”

Again, I started to explain that I had just called the other ni…

“What’s the last name, ma’am, perhaps I can find the reservation that way.”

I spelled my name.

It turns out that she couldn’t find the reservation because it’s more than 8 days prior to check in.

Excuse me? This is a major hotel chain. The company is worldwide. Yet you can’t find my reservation in the system a mere 25 days out?

I started to again try to explain that I had actually called this same phone number, and provided this same confirmation number just last week and spoken with a person who found my reservation right away, but Ms. Customer Service had no time for that.

“Ma’am, the best I can do is transfer you to another office where they might be able to find you by that confirmation number, which is the number provided because you booked as part of a group rate.”

“But just the other da….”

And, I’m on hold. Awesome.

I wondered how, exactly, this major hotel chain remains so major despite this bizarre idea they have for what constitutes customer service. I wasn’t being argumentative. I wasn’t being difficult. In fact, I was as nice as can be. I simply wanted to talk to a human and be able to finish my sentences.

Turns out, that was a lot to ask.

I was transferred to one of those automated systems we all know and do not love. With the robot woman’s voice saying, “Hi there. I just need to ask you a few questions to route you to the appropriate person.”

I seriously could not even deal with this. Not after I called the same number I called a few nights ago and got a person who could help me. What was different tonight? Why was I now speaking with a robot? Argh. No.

“Human being,” I said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” robot-woman said. “If you could just answer a few questions…”

Me: Human being.

Robot-woman: If you could just…

Me: Human being.

Robot-woman: “If you can answer a few questions, I can route you faster to …”

Me: Human being.

Robot-woman: “I think you are saying you would like to speak to a customer service reprsentativ…

Me: Dear god, yes.

Robot-woman: If you could just answer a few questions first, I can better route you to…

Me: ARGH HUMAN BEING.

Robot-woman: If you could just…

Me: HUMAN BEING.

Robot-woman: If you could just…

Me: HUMAN BEING.

Robot-woman: If you…

Me: HUMAN BEING HUMAN BEING HUMAN BEING!

Robot-woman: Please hold while I connect you.

I was then on hold for fifteen solid minutes. I folded some laundry. I poured some wine. I contemplated having pie for dinner.

Finally, a nice lady named Nancy answered the call. Nancy was able to look up my confirmation number. Nancy confirmed that the reservation is not fully in the system until 8-10 days prior to check in (what? seriously?), but she would be happy to make a note of my request on the reservation.

Nancy was lovely. I appreciate Nancy. It is not Nancy’s fault that it took me fifteen minutes, one less than helpful customer service representative and a robot to get to her. She couldn’t really explain – or understand – why the original person wouldn’t or couldn’t help me, nor provide a different phone number or way to contact the hotel in the future. But, this is not Nancy’s fault.

I’m sure it’s cost-effective in the short term for big hotel chains to use the robot lady, but I’m not sure what their excuse is for the difficulty with the conversation with the first person with whom I spoke.

I’m also willing to bet that with so many business travelers, people just deal with this nonsense, because their job is paying for it. Or maybe they’re used to it. I find it hard to believe that people might not care. A simple phone call to request a refrigerator in my hotel room for a reservation occurring in less than a month should not have taken fifteen minutes, two humans, and a robot. This call should have taken three minutes, tops, and been far more pleasant.

This experience, though, is a crystal clear picture as to why, when I travel for myself and not for business, I avoid big name hotels. I much prefer AirBnB rentals, where the accommodations are better, and where there is more of a personal touch.

You Can Learn a Lot From a Grocery Store

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is visit local grocery stores. These spaces are often the best way to learn about the similarities and differences of local culture.

In France, the wine selection goes on for days and days. Sometimes there is even a wine cellar. The wine is all dirt cheap (think $2-3 a bottle for something that would easily cost $25-30 in the States), and very good.

The French also love smoked salmon, apparently, because never in my life have I seen such a selection of that particular item.

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I wasn’t kidding about the smoked salmon.

In Italy, what’s not on the shelves is interesting: peanut butter. While you may find familiar labels (Nivea, Dove, Nestle) on the shelves, peanut butter of any brand has not infiltrated Italian culture.

In Iceland, I found a variety of dried fish, candy that tasted like menthol, and skeins of wool right there near the cash registers.

In Japan, a four-pack of peaches cost $20. A lot of fruit has to be imported, so the prices reflect that.

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I wasn’t kidding about the menthol candy, either.

One thing I have noticed in particular is that in European countries, eggs are found on a non-refrigerated shelf. I was happy to have the opportunity to explore why when invited to write an article about it for moneysmartfamily.com. The short version as to why some cultures refrigerate their eggs and some do not lies in how we approach managing salmonella. The chickens, and the eggs, are essentially the same.

I hope you enjoy reading about the cultural differences of egg storage. Please share the differences you have found with grocery store food when traveling!

My Story

~ Marie Morganelli, PhD ~ Leave a comment

Just over ten years ago, I made a decision.

I had been working at my job, writing direct mail fundraising letters for nonprofit organizations, for five years, and I was bored. Not of the work itself – I loved the writing. I loved telling stories, finding the meaning behind the ask, and making connections between organization and donor. I especially loved putting pen to paper, which I did, literally. I would frequently gather up my research materials, a fresh notepad and my favorite pen, and head to the conference room or the kitchen or even a bench outside to scratch away at some ideas that I carefully shaped into stories that become fundraising appeals.

Eventually, though, I wondered what else there was out there for me to do. I had expanded my role quite a bit from copywriter and editor, to freelance coordinator, to ad hoc public relations representative for my agency. I wrote articles for publication, edited fundraising letters that come in from freelancers, and carefully selected new freelancers to test on different appeals. But, after several years of similar mail plans, of membership packages, and of checking calendar proofs, I was ready for something more.

I took that hunger and curiosity and applied to graduate school. I only applied to two programs: an MFA and a PhD. The MFA program turned me down. The PhD program welcomed me in. Suddenly, I knew what I would be doing with my time for the next five to ten years.

My agency graciously allowed me to shift from full time to part time hours while I gave graduate school a try. That lasted for a time, but the call to explore new options was strong. I eventually left the agency that had been my professional home for five years and jumped in feet first to a new challenge: teaching.

Let me tell you something: teaching is far more difficult a profession than you think it is. My first teaching job was with a community college where I was handed the textbooks, a sample syllabus, and my schedule, and told “Welcome! We can’t pay you much, but we’re glad you’re here.”

That was the extent of my training. I walked into class the first day absolutely terrified. Somehow, I found my way. I even managed to have fun. Hopefully, I taught my students something. In time, I learned how to be a better teacher, but those first few classes, wow. Talk about a learning experience. That job was easily the toughest – yet most rewarding – job I have ever had in my life. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to do it.

Because I had some flexibility in my schedule, I began volunteering at the local zoo. Not too long after that, an opportunity opened up to teach at a different zoo, marrying my teaching experience with my volunteer experience into one very awesome yet spectacularly low-paying experience. I stayed at that zoo for more than seven years, advancing over time into positions with greater levels of responsibility.

The call to teach writing beckoned, though, and, quite frankly, so did the necessity of earning a better living. I began teaching for an online university while working at the zoo full time. I did this for two years. Once I knew it was time to move on from the zoo, I began applying for other positions, and was offered one in Miami that was very tempting. I knew, though, that the move was not the right one, for a variety of reasons. I also knew that, moving forward, I was only going to apply for local jobs that did not involve a move, with one exception: if the university where I taught had an opening for a full time position, I would apply.

Within three months of making that decision, a full time position did become available. I applied in September, gave notice to the zoo in October, started my new position remotely in November, and moved to a new state in December. It has now been two years, and I still sometimes look around, shake my head, and ask myself: how did I get here?

Over time, I will expand on this story a bit. I will share more about the different pieces of what led me from a pathway to a traditional academic career to a very different life at a zoo and then back to academia, but still in a somewhat non-traditional fashion.

Throughout the years, though, and throughout the experiences, the constants for me have been: education, both formal and informal; love of learning; love of nature and how it ties into our lives; travel experiences and how they foster a great love of global community; nonprofit missions, and their connection to direct mail; community and customer service; and putting pen to paper to tell a story. These are the themes I will explore in this blog moving forward. I hope you will join me.