leaving for Paris today

Some random but exciting things that have happened over the past 24 hours:

-on our walk to the Duomo last night Marilena and I saw graffiti-in-action in our favorite tunnel! I’ve noticed that over the weekends (when we’re gone) the graffiti changes and always wondered who was allowed to make new stuff. The guy we saw doing it last night was in the process of covering someone else’s art with a white wash before he started his own. On our walk back home at 2AM we saw the finished product… it was really bizarre but really pretty.

-at Angel’s last night Marilena and I told the bartender to make us “whatever he felt like.” Other than at Angels I would never say that to anyone… ever. The final products were two blended, fruity, drinks with cantaloupe and apples and strawberries decorating the glass! They were both delicious.

-On our way to our next destination I was told to “va fan culo” AND spit at by two Italians that thought I pushed them off the curb… um, I def didn’t. It was a very disturbing moment of my night (how many times have YOU been spit at by Italians?!?) and I stressed about it until the next day!!!

-we went to a jazz bar last night for the first time. It was pretty cool, I guess. Just kinda mellow. I had a long discussion with Navid and had to make sure at school this morning that he was still my friend… hahaha, he is so I’m happy.

-today in printmaking, Kraczyna was wearing the most hideous sweater-vest I have ever seen. Me and Jackie laughed about it for a good half hour.

-when I signed onto Facebook this morning I had TWENTY-EIGHT pokes from people! Hahahaha, in my boredom yesterday I literally poked a bajillion people and it was nice to get a poke back from them. Oh the little things in life…

-I got my first A- on an Italian paper today. Ugh; ALESSANDRO, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?! This paper was no better or worse than ALL the others I’ve written yet for some reason he decided to finally give me an A-.

-I STILL haven’t seen Caitlin Sullivan. Last night we spent a good 10 minutes of the night on the phone with each other trying to meet up; it just didn’t happen. Boooo…

-Manuel cooked Marilena and me dinner tonight. He was all nervous that we didn’t like what he made, but I was actually very impressed. I’m going to miss having dinner cooked for me every night when I get back home (especially since I don’t know how to cook)…

-I met Laura’s Scottish lover… and LOVE him. They should for sure get married! I wanna live with Laur and Natalie senior year… I love them; that would be awesome…

-tonight I danced with a random guy at Mericana for, liek, an hour. It was awesome until he put his tongue down my throat. I wanted to die. EW! I ran away in fear seconds later to find my friends… seriously though dude… ew. Why can't people just dance with each other and call it a day?! I love Mar, Nat, and Laur. Thanks for saving me guys.

-we leave for Paris this evening... 13 hour train ride. HA. sleeping pills anyone? I haven't packed yet... it's okay tho cuz neither has my roomie. Detailed updates about our trip on Monday; yay!

poking people

soooo, this morning italian class was cancelled. Marilena and i attempted to "run errands" to take up the two hours of free time before our next class BUT that lasted all of 15 minutes and now we're back at school and have decided to pass time by spacing out/stalking/catching up on gossip on Facebook. After poking just about every single person i know (which was fun at first but then i realized was kinda creepy of me) i managed to pull myself away from that addictive site and am now focusing my energy on this blog where, unfortunately, i have only my boredom to report.

I called my mom and dad the second i found out class was cancelled to see if we could meet up (i don't think their flight leaves until this evening) BUT they were on their tour in the Ufizzi. This is one of those moments where the time difference really sucks; if i could talk on AIM or on the phone, two hours'd be easy to kill BUUUUTTT it's about 3AM at home and since it's only monday night, i assume everyone's sleeping... aaahhhhhhhhhhh! maybe i'll look for internships for next summer? Marilena's a good influence; instead of poking people like me she's working on her resume to send out to prospective summer work oppurtunities. I've met my match. Woooooooooooooo.

ciao mama e papa!

November 13

This morning started out really annoying. In Italian there is this girl that thinks that she owns the entire class. She shows up 10 minutes late EVERYDAY. She leave 10 minutes early EVERYDAY. She thinks she speaks Italian really well, but doesn’t. Her phone rings at least once during class everyday… she silences it, and it rings again EVERYDAY. She misses at least one day of class a week THEN complains and makes the entire class stop so that the teacher can explain to her things we all learned the day that she missed. She takes 10 minutes of class everyday to tell stories about herself and her “fiancé” that none of us give a shit about. The day that we had to discuss abortion she made really controversial statements that offended half the people in our class. She doesn’t say hi to us when we see her outside of class…. WHO THE HELL DOES THIS CHICK THINK SHE IS?!? Today every single one of those things annoying things that I just listed off happened. I wanted to pick up her skinny body and ugly clothes and throw her out the window.

Printmaking today went well; it was a slow day because I had to put my plate in the acid… and wait. Then, take it out of the acid and cover sections with stop-out varnish, wait for it to dry, put it in the acid and wait again… over and over again, for three hours. Jackie made some awesome guacamole for snack today though; at least it made the waiting part kinda enjoyable.

I met up with my mom and dad around 4ish and gave them a quick tour of Villa Rossa. They loved it! My mom took like 30 pictures. After we walked down to San Lorenzo to go shopping; unfortunately all the stands were all closed and cleaned up for the day sooo we weren’t able to do any shopping. It’s okay though; I was EXHAUSTED today (maybe from staying up too late last night after drinking waaay too much coffee and eating waaay too many scones). We spent the evening in their hotel which had THE most fantastic view of the Duomo I’ve ever seen. It was incredible. I took a little siesta on my mom’s midge bed (their room had twin beds in it! Hahahaha) then the three of us went up to the bar on the roof for some appetizers. I ate so much cheese that I thought I might blow up. Tomorrow’s a two-a-day, that’s for sure.

It was hard to say goodbye to my parents; I’m so happy that they came to visit me. I had an incredible time with them like I always do. CIAO MAMA E PAPA!

Right now Marilena and I are just chillin our room playing solitaire. Yesss.

Ugh… my tummy hurts from eating too much cheese. :(

Parents, meet the parents

November 12
Pete called me this morning; my ringing cell phone woke me up at 8:00… I was still sleeping. AND we didn’t even get to talk because my service in Asciano kept going in and out… booo. Oh well. It’s the thought that counts.

Today we planned on skipping the whole tour thing and heading straight back to my home in Firenze. I think that I’m starting to feel a little burnt out of doing the tourist stuff actually. It’s weird. Marilena, who was in Rome this weekend with her art history class, said kinda the same thing.

Our drive back was pretty uneventful. Just me, and mom, and dad, on the toll road listening to Fleetwood Mac… hahahaha. Seriously though this station played a hundred Fleetwood Mac songs in a row. I’m impressed at dad’s navigational abilities. We only got lost towards the end when we were trying to find their hotel and EVERY single street we wanted to go down turned out to be one-way going the wrong way. Oh, AND we also had a fun little experience getting gas… none of us had a clue what to do! Thankfully some other tourists pulled into the station while we were there and the guy had gotten gas before so he helped dad.

After dropping off mom and dad’s luggage at their hotel (which is right on the Arno!) we returned out little Fiat and walked to my apartment. I warned them that it was no short walk… it took us probably about 40 minutes to get there, but it was a beautiful day and I didn’t think that they really minded.

At our apartment, mom and dad met Kike and Susana. I think they hit it off pretty well. I love my little host parents!

For the rest of the evening I did Italian homework on and off (it was kinda hard and every time it got too hard i’d stop and go back to it later) and chatted with Marilena about everything and anything; whaaat, we had a lot to say!! She and I were apart all weekend! I also ended up being able to talk to Pete for a while. Heh, actually iiii gave him a little 7:45AM, Sunday morning, wake-up-call. He was nice to me about it though and we actually talked for kinda a while.

Before going to sleep tonight I felt really sick because I ate about 20 mini-heart-shaped-scones for dinner AND drank a whole cup of coffee… haha, we had a dad style dinner: breakfast! We STILL don’t have hot water in our house either… I guess tomorrow I’m wearing a hat to school...

Wine Tasting in Chianti

November 11
I had the best sleep last night. I think I slept all the way through the night and didn’t wake up once. I felt so refreshed this morning!

We started out the day with breakfast down in the dining room. For the past 60 days I’ve eaten a bowl of Corn Flakes for breakfast and even though they had a plethora of food for us to choose from I couldn’t seem to break out of my Corn Flakes habit… Hehehe. I also stole about 20 individual-sized-Nutella packets for Marilena and myself for back in Firenze – they are our favorite things and I know she’s going to be super excited when I show her them (heh, it’s the little things in life…)!

After breakfast we went for a walk through the olive groves/hills that surround the villa. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. The air is cool but the sun is out strong and the skies are 100% clear. My mom took literally 100 pictures of us this morning because of how beautiful all the scenery is.

While we were walking it was totally quiet and still EXCEPT for the sound of barking dogs and gunshots in the distance. Yea, there were a bunch of people out HUNTING today; notgonnalie, I was a little nervous that I was going to be mistaken for an Italian fox or deer or something and was either going to get wrestled into the brambles by angry dogs or just flat out shot by a hunter! Everything turned out alright though… the three of us survived.

Around 1:00ish our driver came to pick us up for our wine-tasting trip. Her name was Erma and she was a cute little, old, Italian lady. She spoke MINIMAL English but it was okay because for the first time ever I was forced to practice my Italian with her. I surprised myself (and my parents, I think) by how much I understand and am able to say! Cool. After driving for about 45 minutes on some really windy roads through Sienna, we arrived at our first winery. It was called Fonterutoli and according to Erma it was more on the elegant end of wineries. I took notes for my mom and dad in the “notes” section of the brochure they gave me. Heh, whaaaat? It was my first time! I was really excited. Here’s what I have written about the three wines we tried at Fonterutoli:
-Serrata 2004 (Maremma Toscana)… I gave this one 4 stars out of 5
-Fonterutoli 2004 (Chianti Classico)… tastes like pennies, makes it feel like my teeth are being eaten away by acid, meeh; I gave this one only 2 stars
-Castello di Fonterutoli 2003 (Chianti Classico)… big-mama-glass, mmmm; 4 stars; this one was my favorite AND dad bought 2 bottles of it! Woooo!

Not gonna lie, after winery #1 mom and I were feeling a smidge woozy. Heh.

Winery #2 was called Montagliari; according to Erma this one was a little bit more “rustic” than the first. I actually liked this place a lot MORE than the first. Our um, wine guide (?) was named David and though he spoke little English (and made me practice my Italian even more) we all loved him because he did a great job. First he gave us a tour of his winery (where all the wine is produced); we saw the big tanks and barrels where the wine was fermenting (heh… Tera’s picking up sophisticated vocab left and right). We also got to see his cellar where he has bottles just chillin collecting dust from every year all the way back to 1950! I spent about 10 minutes trying to find the bottles from 1986 and after being unsuccessful asked David where they were. His response? “There are none. The wine was very bad.” Figures. Ugh.

Notes from Montagliari:
-Trattoria di Montagliari 2003 (Chianti Classico)… 3 stars.
-Trattoria di Montagliari 1999, Riserva (Chianti Classico)... 4 stars; this one was really good.
-Brunesco di San Lorenzo 1995… don’t really remember WHAT this one tasted like because I was too distracted by David’s story about the multiplying mosquitoes!

By the time we got to Winery #3 it was about 6:00; it took us about an hour to get there on THE MOST WINDY ROADS EVER. I almost passed up tasting the wine because I felt so sick to my stomach by the time we got there. However, I didn’t want my weak stomach to ruin my first wine-tasting trip sooo I drank some water, ate a saltine, and was ready for round #3. Okay, by round #3 I could tell mom and pop were feeling the effects of the wine from rounds #1 and #2 because of the way they were asking to hear the life-story of our wine guide.

Here’s what they found out. His name was Giuseppe, he was 32 years old, he got his degree in wine at UC Davis, he lived in San Francisco for 4 years, he visits often, he has a successful and growing wine business… he’s husband-material for Tera… At the point that they invited him to our house in California I just about died and was ready to leave. Unlike your oldest daughter, I AM NOT INTERESTED IN AN ITALIAN BOYFRIEND thankyouverymuch mom and dad! He was cool, I must admit, AND said I spoke very good Italian but c’mon… I didn’t take any notes about the wine I drank (half cuz I was sick and half cuz I was distracted by my parents interview of Giuseppe) but I guess it’s okay because my dad ended up ordering a whole case of my favorite one and my mom’s favorite one. Everyone come over for Christmas and try them! Yum yum.

On the ride home my mom and I caught up on our gossip… not much has been going on at home. I feel like I actually had more to fill her in on than she did for me. We ate dinner again at the restaurant at Casa Bianca then turned in for the evening.

I had a FABULOUS time with my parents! I am so happy that I got the opportunity to go away with them for the weekend and am sad that it’s already over.

the FIAT on the Autostrada...

November 10
The first half of the day I did nothing but sleep. I was exhausted this morning. I heard Marilena leave at 7 for the train station and didn’t even have the energy to open my eyes to say goodbye – CIAO BELLA! HAVE FUN IN ROMA (with Niel)!

Around noon I left from my house and walked down to the train station to meet my mom and dad (!!!). I’ve been to the train station a million times while I’ve been here in Firenze and have seen a bunch of people reunioning with loved ones and was always a little bit jealous of them – today was my turnnnn! I didn’t realize that I missed them as much as I did. When I finally got to see them I couldn’t stop crying! Hahaha, I didn’t ever really think I was the tears-of-happiness type girl.

After hugging and crying for about ten minutes we headed out on our weekend vacation. Our plan was to head out to Sienna (the Italian countryside) to go wine tasting. Our transportation to Sienna? A rental car. Yes, my dad was renting a car and driving us through the streets of Firenze onto the autostrada all the way to Sienna. I told my host family this and they laughed at us and wished us good luck (AKA I hope you don’t die because Italian drivers are ruthless). My dad did a fabulous job. Even though the rental car company tried to make the three of us and our luggage fit into a Smart Car (haha), we got incredibly lost, AND I ended up feeling incredibly car sick from reading the map (my mom somehow got the impression that iiii was, liek, an Italian mapquest), we arrived at Borgo Casa Bianca only a few hours later.

If I was going to live in Italy, I would live in the countryside. It is freaking beautiful out here. Our hotel is actually a villa-turned-apartment on top of a small hill surrounded by olive groves and foliage… for as far as you can see. Our apartment is indescribable, but I could probably live here for the rest of my life if I had to.

After a stroll around the property to admire the sunset and the scenery and the beautiful old buildings that make up Casa Bianca we freshened up and headed to dinner at the small restaurant located in the villa’s dining room. Best dinner ever. Good wine, good appetizers, good gnocchi (my new favorite thing), and my mom and dad :)

My mom surprised me with a lot of little presents from Germany. Christmassy things. Marilena and my room is going to be all decorated when I get back! Thank you mama!

We headed to bed early because tomorrow we have a driver picking us up around noon to take us to three of the vineyards in the area for wine tasting! I’ve never been before, but I’m really really really excited because i’ve developed a taste for wine… hehe, Ree and Kev you’d better be ready for me when I get home!

Bytheway… it feels so good to sleep in a big bed again. I love traveling with the parentals!

JESSE!

November 9
Yesterday was pretty uneventful and I was even putting off writing this with hopes that something cool might happen… haha.

After a typical day at school (where I was semi-entertained in Italian class and later visually accosted by my Family and Gender teacher) and a hard work-out at the gym (where I watched a mosquito fly around, thought little of it, and later realized he left his mark on me in several places…ugh) I spent the afternoon with my roomie, napping and writing a “Things I’m Starting to Miss Daily At Home” list (which will be posted on soon).

Wow, I summed up yesterday-day I one sentence.

At dinner, Kike spent the entire hour trying to get Marilena and me to discuss the election. Ok, notgonnalie but I have very little interest in politics. I know anyone I say that to (especially anyone in college) would look at me with total disgust as if I don’t belong on this planet, but honestly it’s just not my thing. I feel like politics is one of those things where, unless you’re SUPER passionate about it, which I’m not, and unless you’re paying attention to it and reading current events EVERYDAY (since things and people are changing all the freaking time), which I don’t, you should prolly just kept your mouth shut. I mean, i do what I have the right to… I read about stuff going on the day before the election, vote, and then just um, well, move on with my life. It helps that Marilena’s the same way… she and I were both able to steer Kike AWAY from the politics topic the 80 times that he brought it up.

The rest of the night began with a BIG bottle of wine – Ah! We’ve advanced onto the big-mama-bottles! Well, not really… we didn’t really even get close to finishing it but it WAS pretty cool to buy those ones at the grocery store this afternoon (especially since they costed 2.69 euro).

After meeting up with Dan, the three of us walked down to the Duomo to meet up with the rest of the crew. I called Laura about a billion times because I haven’t seen her in forever and have been having withdrawals! I love her… I vaguely remember something about a Scottish boy being the reason why she met up with us late…?? Heh. We also saw Amelia and her roommate Becca at the Duomo (it seriously is the gathering spot…) but they headed to Santa Croce cuz it’s where all the bars that the locals go to. Let’s see, what else… oh yea, there were a bunch of visiting people this weekend. Some guy Paul? He was convinced that he saw us when we were in Spain and that I was the girl he was harassing one night… I don’t think I’ve ever met this guy before but he was convinced that I was that girl! People are crazy sometimes.

The best part of the night? After talking on the phone with a total stranger I met up with JESSE!!!!!! Omigod. It was so so so great to see him. I didn’t really realize how much I missed people from home until I hung out with him! I haven’t seen Jesse since June. Um, that’s five months ago and I love it because he is still the same fun guy I remember. It was a nice taste of the old SCU I remember, that’s for sure. We went with a group to Zona (a bar I’d never been to). Unfortunately we only got to hang out for a little bit because my friends had an early trip to Rome the next morning and wanted to call it an early night (even though an hour and a half passed in between the time we decided to go home and the time when we actually GOT home).

Turned out to be a fun day afterall. Tomorrow… MOM AND DAD COME! YAY!!!