missing home on the holidays
Nov 22 AND 23I feel sorta blue right now. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since I’ve been here… I tried to snap out of it by decorating my bulletin board with new pictures and letters people have sent me recently; I helped but didn’t take the feeling away. Today was just a regular day sooo I’m not too sure what actually triggered the blueness. I think it has to do with something a friend and I talked about on AIM this morning; I dunno.
This morning our Italian teacher was nice and took our class out for coffee – having class in a bar instead of the classroom made it much less painful and more enjoyable, that’s for sure. Later in printmaking my friend Jackie had a brilliant idea to make dry-points of hand-print-turkeys. It was really fun… my turkey/handprint had a mohawk, a pierced gobble, sunglasses, bling, and an arrow through its heart. Hahahahahaha. Afterwards I started working on my next zinc plate… um, the image looks a little bit scary right now BUT it’s getting there… I’m not giving up until it’s perfect.
I’m glad I had those things to distract me from feeling depressed. I went straight to the gym afterwards hoping to get some endorphins flowing… it helped a little I spose. I really wanted to call Steph to chat about anything and everything BUT my poor little friend got her wisdom teeth out on Monday and I’m pretty sure that making her talk to me on the phone would be a form of torture. So then I called Pete; he does a really good job of cheering me up when I’m down – I called him a million times and couldn’t get a hold of him once. Boo. So then I called my mama. They were up in San Francisco at Ree and Kev’s for Thanksgiving dinner.
I love my mama; by the end of the conversation I was smiling and laughing again. It felt good to talk to her. I think that I’m starting to feel homesick. This time of year is one of my favorite times at home because it means Christmas shopping, family, friends coming home, snowboarding, a long winter break, Pete’s birthday, the advent calendar… and I’m missing all of it! It’s hard to be happy when you feel like you’re missing so much.
However, Italy is still fabulous. It’s starting to get Christmassy around here too. Stores are all decorated, Christmas lights are going up, it’s freezing cold… Tonight Susana says that she’s making us “Thanksgiving dinner” (this should be interesting) then tomorrow we’re keeping up with American tradition by going shopping since the day after Thanksgiving is THE biggest shopping day of the year.
But anyways, it’s the next day now (Nov 23; HAPPY THANKSGIVING)… I’m feeling a little happier today BUT if anyone happens to be bored and have nothing to do give me a call. I’d appreciate some love. CIAO CIAO!
PS. Pete please call me. = /
Ouzo, PROTECT ME!
Nov 22
So last night Marilena and I laid in our beds and watched the horrible storm going on outside. It was POURING rain and alternating between bright lightening and loud thunder ALL THE WAY THROUGH THIS MORNING… More than rain, i HATE HATE HATE thunder and lightening. I think it’s because when I was younger my mom made me watch “Poltergeist” with her… yea, I think I was traumatized. Ouzo is scared of the thunder and lightening too – he was in our room all night because we were the only people home to protect him! It’s a bummer because a lot of people took Thanksgiving break to come out and visit people here in Florence… they got here at the worst weather we’ve had this entire time!
Hahaha, speaking of people visiting I had another “small world” moment yesterday down in the Villa Rossa computer lab. A guy came into the computer lab that looked a lot like a guy I know at home in Manhattan Beach but I wasn’t completely sure it was him. Sooo I sat there for a minute and eavesdropped on him talking to someone else to see if I could recognize his voice and sure enough, it was Kevin Halcomb! He was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He’s here visiting a friend of his from Boulder that’s in the SUF program too. Hopefully if the rain let’s up we can hang out… at this rate it’s hard to tell.
Last night at dinner was funny. It was me, Manuel, and Marilena. Manuel is seriously more excited about my trip to Amsterdam coming up than I am! That’s ALL he wanted to talk about. Hahaha, I think he just wants me to sneak some souvenirs across the border for him ifyouknowwhatimean. Sorry Manuel; unlike you and your family thinks, I’m actually a good kid!ps. thank goodness for marilena's boyfriend and all his knowledge about drugs... we think manual has a meth lab in his room; would that surprise anyone?
1 month to go!
Since we have only 30 days left I figured today’s an appropriate day to post this:
“Things I Really Miss At Home”
1) “MY” things: my beach, my strand, my car, my camera phone, my Vans, my big bed, my straightener, my computer speakers, my DVD’s
2) people: Steph, Molls, Taryn, Chow Mein, The Fam (obviously), Gus
3) El Sombrero
4) blonde roots
5) Diet Coke
6) American electrical plugs
7) wireless
8) fabric softener and dryers
9) somethinginappropriateformetotypesincemydadreadsthis :)
10) movie night with Pete
11) not being injured, sick, or hungover
12) manicures and pedicures
13) professors whose first language is English
14) Coffee Bean (specifically sugarfree vanilla ice-blendeds w/ whip cream)15) a variety of clothes to pick from
what day is today???
November 20This ones going to be a quick one because I am freakin exhausted. The days are starting to blur together and it’s getting hard to keep things straight… our train pulled into Firenze at 9:30 this morning instead of at 7 like it was sposed to. It was pouring rain and everyone missed morning classes. I was relieved to have the morning to bober around and do random things… I mostly just messed around on the internet and replied to e-mails people sent me (thanks everyone and I miss you all too!), checked out pictures of my beautiful little niece, and caught up on my tabloid gossip.
After printmaking (happy birthday Thomas!) Marilena and I made a quick trip to the grocery store then strolled home. I’ve been in my bed ever since; completely exhausted and ready to sleep for the night.
To: my future husband
November 19Since I wasn’t able to fall asleep until around 3AM (and was awoken several times throughout the evening to POURING RAIN; yes it was raining so hard that I was woken up!) I had a little trouble waking up the next morning. I slept in til 9:45 (which is crazy for me). We dragged ourselves down to breakfast in full pajamas cuz we thought it was going to close then pulled ourselves back upstairs to pack everything up to go. We were taking another night train back to Firenze and had until 6:00PM that evening to do whatever we felt like.
Originally the plan was to go to Versailles but since it was raining sooo hard overnight and still sorta drizzling outside that morning we decided against it.
The first thing we decided to check out was the Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately, tickets to a show and dinner were almost up to 100 euro sooo we weren’t able to actually go to it but we saw the outside with its big red windmill. It was really cool actually. This is another place where my future husband and I will be going on a date to. (Future husband, if you happen to be reading this, you’d better be taking good notes!)
Afterwards we didn’t really have anything to do so we roamed around and did a little souvenir shopping. We almost saw a movie (most of the ones playing were in English with French subtitles) BUT none of the times worked out with our schedule.
For lunch we had fondue. Okay. I could live off of crepes and fondue for the rest of my life. It was DELICIOUS! The three of us agree that French food (minus the frog legs and snails and stuff…) is awesome – got that future husband? If a boy ever wants to impress me/have me as their instant best friend all he has to do is take me to get fondue or nutella and banana crepes. Hahahahaha.
After our fabulous lunch we sat at our favorite crepe café and watched all the people go by. Eventually it got really cold and started to drizzle so we headed back to our hotel and hung out in the lobby until it was time to go.
Soon SUF students started to pour in… Mar, Rach, and I agree that some of the girls that came in were THE most obnoxious girls we have ever heard. Here are clips of the convo that they were REALLY LOUDLY shouting about: “I WAS SO DRUNK LAST NIGHT THAT I’M SURPRISED I DIDN’T GET RAPED.” “I WAS TOO BUSY SUCKING FACE WITH A RANDOM GUY,” as said by a disgusting girl. “I MET A GUY FROM AFRICA; HE PROLLY HAD AIDS.” No joke. We were sitting there like, you guys are the reason why Americans are laughed at/hated by EVERYONE in the world. Ew, god, I mean, c’mon. Later on when we were talking about the huge scene we saw and heard about in the lobby our friend pretty much summed all of them up: they have no standards.
Friends, if I’m ever like that, EVER, please please please just slap me in the face. Thank you.
We were hearded to the train station around 6ish and our little crew lucked out and got our own room to the 4 of us again. It was weird to get on a sleeper train that left at 7PM cuz we were really sure what to do. We were going to have to wake up the next morning around 6ish sooo we knew we should prolly go to sleep kinda early BUT what were we sposed to do until then?
I bought a bottle of wine a little while before getting on the train, drank it, and contently spaced out until it was time to go to sleep. Unfortunately again, I couldn’t ever fall asleep. I was thinking too much again… I actually got up around 1ish (after laying there for 4 hours and not being able to relax) and wrote down all the things on my mind:
-how badly I have to go to the bathroom but don’t want to because a) I’d have to climb down from my top bunk and b) the power was out for most of the train ride and it was PITCH BLACK… when you’re scared of the dark, that’s kinda crazy. I kept thinking a robber or a killer was in our car the whole time.
-how much going to class tomorrow is going to suck since tonight seemed like it was going to be another “no sleeper” night.
-how to lose all the nutella’s worth of weight I’d gained over the weekend.
-a text message I’d received that day.
-what kind of bed to get once I get back to school… I’m thinking a small one wouldn’t be that bad.
-getting stoned in Amsterdam.
-Pete
-What to get people for Christmas
-what to write in my family Christmas letter about myself.
-taking 5 classes next quarter
-going to Mammoth for new years and how i’m not sure if I REALLY want to drive all the way there…
-how much I hate flying.
-how much I love my i-pod (and its ghetto-ness) and how much I love my “Boys Really Suck” mix.
-what to make my new website (I’m making for my art) look like.
-turning 21.
-what image to use for my next printmaking project
-my sore throat.
That’s about it for today. Man I loved Paris.
every monument in Paris
November 18We were out of the room by 9 in the morning and didn’t return to it until 11 at night… today was quite a day:
1) breakfast in the hotel’s mini dining room – uneventful except that I drank two American size mugs of espresso. Yes, I was quite jittery afterwards...
2) metro to Saint Chapelle Cathedral– yet again we were serenaded by a rather pushy homeless woman… it was really funny actually.
3) Saint Chapelle Cathedral – thank goodness French metal detectors are there for decoration (?). Marilena went through the detector with her Swiss army knife (AGAIN) and the dude wasn’t even looking at the screen when our purses went by! Ooh well! Hehe, Saint Chapelle was awesome – tons of gargoyles and stained glasses.
4) walk from Saint Chapelle to Notre Dame
5) Notre Dame Cathedral – really beautiful inside and out… it was HUGE too. The outside was cluttered with gargoyles and flying buttresses.
6) walk to the “island behind Notre Dame”
7) SHOPPING on the “island behind Notre Dame” – we went in just about every store on the island because they were all fabulous. Most were very boutique-ie. I wanted to buy every hat that I saw but I resisted… it was tempting. I figure that since my roots are about 4 inches long I can allow myself a few new hats to cover them up.
8) long long looooooong walk along the Seine to the Orsay Museum. Seriously, according to Rick the two were really close to each other… they weren’t at all. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day AND along the Seine there were tons of little stands set up selling touristy type things… I was quite entertained the entire time. I might have bought a gift for my best friend at home… hehe.
9) lunch/bathroom break at a little café where the ladies were big bitches and kicked us out because we didn’t pay to eat there… or something weird like that. We ended up eating on the steps of the Orsay. It was nice (minus the pigeons with the nub-legs that were harassing us).
10) Musee d’Orsay – LOVED THE ORSAY! Loved loved loved it. I was freaking excited and was running around like a crazy person looking at all the Degas, and Monet, and Manet, and Van Gogh, and Cezanne, and Munch, and Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec, and Seurat, and Renoir, and Matisse, and Klimt, and Courbet, and Daumier, and Delacroix, and Renoir.... Omigod. GO TO THE ORSAY. Set aside maybe two hours for it too. It was freaking awesome.
11) more walking…
12) a stroll up Champs Elysees – there were tons of people and tons of shopping and it was really cool.
13) Arc D’Triumph – Rach climbed up it to check out the view from the top while Mar and I went in search of some coffee/Coke Light. We ended up in McDonald’s listening to Paris Hilton (Paris in Paris… hehehe, we’re so clever) and getting harassed by moooore homeless people.
14) walk to the Eiffel Tower…
15) up the Eiffel Tower (!!!) – by this time it was dark and the tower was already lit up for the night! It was so exciting! We waited in line to go up it (the stairs were closed and we had to take the elevator) for about 45 minutes. It was FREEZING cold. We were bundled and spent most of the time in line evesdropping on the three kids in front of us trying to figure out WHAT language they spoke. Seriously, it was really cool cuz they kept switching off between 4 different ones!
Marilena only headed up to the first level (she was scared of heights) but Rach and I wanted to go all the way to the top. Half way up you have to change elevators… we waited in line for about 30 minutes on the second level and it was about 20 degrees colder up there. Rach and I hardly spoke because we were so freaking cold AND annoyed by the stupid people in line behind us that were being super loud and super American.
The view from the top was INCREDIBLE. We were freaking HIGH too… I’m not usually scared of heights, but looking down from the top of the tower made me a little nervous. It was pretty lonely because EVERY SINGLE PERSON UP THERE was snuggling up with another person. Even Rachel was busy making a romantic phone call to her boyfriend of 3 years at home… psh, iiiii wanted to call someone toooooo. I looked through my cell phone book about 5 times before I settled on calling Derek. Hehe, that’s what little brothers are fooorrr… I was really excited to say “I’M CALLING YOU FROM THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER!” and he seemed pretty excited to be chatting with me (even though I think I woke him up). Whatever… that’s another thing on my to-do list: go on a date up to the top of the Eiffel tower. :)
16) walk to a café for some din din…
17) Dinner at Café Corona – I had a really really really good grilled cheese, ham, and fried egg sandwich. Marilena and Rach got really yummy omelets; the French know how to do eggs, that’s for sure!
18) walk BACK to Saint Michel – After some wine and some defrosting, we headed out on the trek to Saint Michel for some desert crepes from our FAVORITE crepe man. The walk there was a looooong one but we all felt rested and a smidge tipsy after our wine sooo the fact that it was freezing cold and starting to rain didn’t really make that big of a difference.
19) Crepes – nutella and chocolate crepes… my newest favorite food. God they were good. We sat out in the freezingness and watched people for a good hour while we ate.
20) metro back to Hotel Rocroy – no serenaders this time BUT we did run into Julie who was visiting Paris for the weekend (I think she’s studying down in Barcelona)… haha, small world!!!
Seriously, this was the longest sight-seeing day ever but I loved every minute of it (even when my feet were completely flat from walking too much). Amelia called me about going out with them to some dance club but it was past 11 by the time we got home and I was exhausted. I thought I’d have a really easy time falling asleep but for some reason I tossed and turned for a good 4ish hours before I was able to doze off. I think I had too much on my mind. I’ve actually been having a lot of problems falling asleep and staying asleep lately and I really think it’s because I think too much when it’s bedtime. It’s the time of day that I miss home the most…
not sleeping on the sleeper train
Nov 16 and 17After dinner with Susana, Marilena and I had a tearful goodbye with the family (they were, liek, REALLY sad/worried to see us go… I was a little confused cuz it’s not like it’s the first time Marilena and I have left the country; we do it, liek, every weekend)!
On the walk to the station, I laughed harder than I ever have in my whole life (it made my stomach muscles hurt) because of the “midget trying to get out of our suitcase.” After our last trip to Spain and Hungary, Marilena’s luggage completely broke so a few days ago she spent 15 euro on a new bag. It has a compass that doesn’t work, a lock that has instructions to it in Japanese, AND three wheels that get really bad speed bobbles and cause the piece to flip over at any moment. Marilena and I, since we’re a married couple more or less, put BOTH our stuff in this bag… hahaha, thanks for packing my stuff wife! (I’m def the man in the relationship…)
At the station we met up with the SUF crowd (about ¼ SCUers) and managed to end up in a room with me, Marilena, Rachel, and Amelia. Our room was pretty much the same as our room on the train from Madrid to Barcelona. I hopped on my top bunk, snuggled up in my stiff (but clean) sheet and tried to fall asleep; there was NO way that I was gonna feel like I did after the train ride in Spain. Around midnight, when I WAS STILL WIDE AWAKE, I popped a few Nyquil and tried to relax… Around 3ish my blanket fell off of me down three beds to the floor. The room was pitch black and freezing (we were prolly in Switzerland at this time) sooo I didn’t want to monkey down the beds to get it… I ended up stealing Rach’s blanket cuz she was all bundled in her marshmallow of a jacket. Thanks Rach!
Nyquil or not I ended up sleeping horribly. I kept getting text messages every hour or so (for all 10 hours of the train ride) that said: “Welcome to Switzerland!,” “Here in Switzerland…,” “Bye from Switzerland!,” “Welcome to France!,” “Here in France…,” etc. I got ELEVEN texts and heard my phone blow up for ALL OF THEM. It was so annoying.
The 8AM wake-up-knock was not gracefully received. We all felt like crap and weren’t ready to head out for sight-seeing for the entire day. Somehow we managed to get our stuff together (even though I felt like I looked like a homeless person who hadn’t slept all night long and was still feeling the effects of sleeping pills) and hopped on the metro with the SUFers and headed to Hotel Rocroy. On the metro we were serenaded by a homeless guy singing karaoke. Oh jeez.
At the hotel, there was drama about our rooming situation – there were only two triples available and somehow Marilena, Rach, and I managed to snag one of them. This girl that pretty much everyone at SUF hates basically threw a fit about not getting a triple. EW. Biatch. Go away. No one likes you.
It was only about 9ish when we arrived at the hotel and our room wasn’t quite ready for us so we threw our stuff in the holding area and headed out in search of some French breakfast. We walked by a million cheap wedding dress stores (reminded me very much of downtown LA)… it kinda made me feel like our hotel might not’ve been in the best part of town… in the end, we stopped in a bakery (I got a brioche and it was the closest thing to King’s Hawaiian Bread I’ve had since I’ve been here) then grabbed a cappucinno at a sidewalk café (where our bill flew away? Oh wait no, jk. It didn’t).
Back at the hotel we were finally able to check in – our room was on the 5th floor. Just your standard hotel room I’d say, BUT it did have a really nice bathroom; after our hotel bathroom experiences in Spain and Hungary I was, liek, REALLY excited! Anyways, I finally got to brush my teeth, we bundled up, and headed out to explore Paris!
Fortunately we were able to meet up with a local only minutes after stepping out of our hotel. Megan Lyons I studying here and even though I woke her up this morning AND even though she was sick, she hopped on the metro and volunteered to stroll around with us for the few hours we had free before we had to meet up with SUF at the Louvre. We love you Megan!
After a quick stop in Starbucks, we continued on down the street to the Opera House which was really beautiful. Did you know that UNDER the opera house there is a lake? AND there is a HUGE chandelier?! Very Phantom of the Opera if you ask me…
Then we headed back to the Louvre. On the way there we stopped to have a quick view/sit on the Seine… romantic huh? I love my Phi’s!
I loooove Paris too. Love love love it! I am coming back here someday with a guy and it’s going to be romantic and fabulous! No joke.
The Louvre was cool. HUGE (and I need to go back someday) but cool. Art History 13 was fresh in my mind from spring quarter sooo it was really exciting for me to prance around, recognize works, AND be able to explain the significance of them. Well, actually the prancing was minimal; I decided for the first time since I’ve been in Europe to wear my boots that I bought brand new from home… after a few hours in them I almost fainted from the pain they were causing me!
After being lost in the Louvre and not being able to find our way out for 45 minutes, we ran back to the hotel and changed my shoes (YES!). My favorite sights at the Louvre: Nike of Samothrace and Venus de Milo, for sure.
Two baguettes later, we headed to Saint-Michel. The plan was to meet Megan for dinner then bar/club it for the rest of the night. While we were waiting we chose a sketchy bridge to hang out on to sip from our bottle of wine BUT after being harassed by a French man (who we spied on making out with his girlfriend for, liek, a half an hour) AND being approached by a bunch of shady people, we moved to another location: the garden benches in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. Unfortunately AGAIN, one too many sketchy French men came and bothered us; we even told one dude that we spoke Italian, not English, in order to get him to go away!)… I got a hold of Megan after a few calls but she wasn’t able to meet us sooo we braved dinner on our own… oh god…French language…French food…dun dun dun.
Dinner actually went really well. The French onion soup was the best part, for sure. We TRIED ordering in French but it was kinda embarrassing when every word we said had to be corrected. Hahaha, oh well. After dinner we strolled up the lane to an outdoor crepe-maker… nutella, bananas, warm crepe, homeless people playing good music… it was a good way to end our first day in Paris! By the time we got back to the hotel we were full of French food, freezing cold, and ready to call it a night. Psh, it was, liek, 11:30 – we had a looong day of sight seeing the next day!
getting ready for France...
November 16Even though I briefly mentioned a detail or two from last night, I feel like I need to give the evening a little bit more credit because it turned out to be so much freakin fun. When Ben called around 9 to see what Marilena and I were up to, we were both in our beds playing Solitaire and not really in the mood to head out. However, he sounded pretty convincing about it being a fun night soooo we got dressed, drank a bottle of wine, and headed towards the Duomo to meet up with our crew.
First we had a few drinks at JJ’s then decided to head to a club that Ben somehow knew the manager of… ? It was called Mericana and cool-wise it was up there on the same level as the club that we went to in Belgium. For the first 30ish minutes we were at Mericana we watched a break dancing contest that was going on down on the dance floor. Okay, even though the guys dancing were all really weird, they were DAMN good. I was, liek, mesmerized. The second the floor turned back into a dance floor we sprinted out to dance because we were all so inspired by the break dancers!
Dancing was fun as always (even though the boy I was dancing with turned out to be really disgusting… ugh, I shuddered just thinking about him). Around 2 we called it a night. Ben was awesome. He walked Marilena and I home even though I don’t think he lives anywhere near us. On my way home I managed to get my shoes REALLY wet… NO CLUE how that happened. AND I tried to call my little brother but he didn’t answer. Then I called Stephanie but she didn’t answer. I was hoping that the first two people WOULD answer so that I wouldn’t be tempted to call person #3; unfortunately they didn’t soooo I called Pete. My favorite part of the call was when I got to talk to Karri!!! Aww, I miss her lots.
This morning… Well. This morning Marilena and I both woke up feeling like death (Marilena said that this morning she looked over and I was laying in Jesus-on-the-cross position… hahaha, AND she said I was snoring really loud all night long; actually, I remember that because I woke myself up a few times!!). Maybe it was the long island we had to chug in a minute around 2 right before we left the club to walk home… yea; that might’ve been it. We were both still drunk during Italian class for sure. Thankfully today was movie day and we got to vegge out for two hours.
Later in Fam and Gender we got to space out again because it was movie day in that class as well. After class we went to the gym. Ugh. It was disgusting. My sweat smelled like booze. AND this morning I wore my hair wavy and put tons of hairspray in it to hold the waves… the hairspray smell was making me nauseous. After 15 minutes on the bike and 50 sit-ups I was done for the day. Hahaha, hey at least I WENT to the gym!
Right now Marilena and I are in the process of packing for our weekend trip to Paris!!! We’re actually going with Syracuse; it’ll be cool because we’ll have lots of friends on the trip, woooo! We’re taking a sleeper train… god, not again. I’m bringing a fatty pack of Nyquil this time!!! Yay; sooo excited for France!
Um… it’s freezing in here; when we came back into our room after the gym we almost died because I WREAKED of red wine… we both thought we were going to be sick sooo we have the door AND the window open in attempt to air it out. Ugh; I hope no one plans on partying on the train because I’m just not in the mood tonite!!
