the usual

Nov 29
It was clear today but the air temperature was about 10 degrees (that’s maybe 45? 50?). I always shower in the morning and as I’m walking to school get really mad at myself for wearing my hair out wet since it always makes me about 10 degrees colder than my already freezing self.

For my 20 minute break between Italian and Printmaking I bought myself a beer at a near by grocery store – it only costed 30 cents! No one would be able to resist that… it was nice to tune out and drink my beer and download my music during my lunch break. I might have to do that everyday…

I just found out that next week we have a student art show and our teacher is requiring all of us to submit two prints from this semester... i'm a little bit dissapointed because even though i have learned a lot about technique and style, nothing i've made is really that great since i'm still trying to figure out how to actually DO everything. I'm a total perfectionist when it comes to my art and i'm not happy about having to display stuff that i don't think is exactly the way i want it to be. UGH.

I only spent about 20 minutes at the gym this afternoon. A combination of a low blood sugar and really bad stomach pains made me decide to call it a day and head home.

I’m still upset about El Sombrero. I talked to my friend at SCU about it and his response was, “Don’t worry, just have Chipotle instead.” Um. No. If he had said that to my face I would have slapped him. I think I’m in phase #2 of grieving because this made me really really angry. Wait, isn’t that right? Phase #1 is sadness, 2 is anger, 3 is depression, and 4 is acceptance? Something like that? Watever, I’m def angry.

Mona Lisa Smile and Iraq

Yesterday -- Nov 29
I bought an Italian Cosmo magazine this afternoon because Rachel Bilson was on the cover and I love her. It only costed two euro and included a second gossip magazine called “Tu,” a poster of a girl modeling some Christmas lingerie, and a CD with a sample version of the Sims computer game. Cool! I’ve only flipped through Cosmo for a few minutes so far but am excited because I think that if I really sat down and concentrated I would be able to understand about 90% of it. I’m excited because at home it takes me about an hour to get through an entire magazine and I’m always sad afterwards because unless I want to read the same articles over again, I have to wait an entire month for the next edition to come out. BUT with my Italian Cosmo I figure that it’s going to take me about two weeks to get through the entire thing! THEN I only have to wait two more weeks for the December issue!

I’m surprised by how many words don’t translate from English into Italian AND by how all the celebrities in the magazine are American. I’m not sure if that’s exciting or a sad. Whatever, I guess Cosmo IS an American magazine after all and I shouldn’t be complaining.

Today at school was hardly a “day at school.” For Italian our class had to meet at the Horne Museum (which turned out to be a good 30 minute walk away from our house; ugh, it’s GREAT to not have a broken foot anymore). Our tour was in all Italian. I understood pretty much everything she said. A few times I caught myself not knowing what was going on but I think that might be because it was so FREEZING inside the museum (that’s actually a house) that my brain was more focused on raising my body temperature than translating Italian to English.

After the museum tour, Marilena, Christy, Mardee, and I took advantage of being downtown and grabbed sandwiches at Oil Shoppe for lunch. I’ve been there about 5 times now and have ordered the same thing every time. A #1. If anyone ever goes there, that’s the sandwich to get.

We made it to Fam and Gender right on time. We watched the rest of Mona Lisa Smile today; god I love that movie. HOWEVER. I have a huge problem with my teacher.

Firstly, she’s trying to convince us that the director decided to shoot this movie because it has huge statements to make about America’s involvement in war with Iraq. The entire class thinks that she is full of shit. Here’s what she says:

-Mona Lisa Smile was not filmed in order display what life was for women back in the 1950’s, it is really propaganda supporting America’s war with Iraq.

Wait what? I’m not saying anymore; it gets me too angry.

The Worst News Ever

I have been crying for the past hour. El Sombrero burning down to the ground is the most tragic thing I’ve heard since our cat Tootie committing suicide off our roof deck last summer. I’ve been planning since BEFORE I left home for Firenze, my first day back in Manhattan Beach and a big part of that first day was going to be spent eating as much as I can fit in me at El Som. I feel like a family member died. That’s how much the news hurts. I had a lot of stuff to type about today but now, none of it seems that important. Maybe I’ll save it all and post it tomorrow. :(

Today’s entry is dedicated to El Som #1. RIP.

grey skies in Italy

November 27
Because of a three hour nap yesterday afternoon (after working so hard at the gym that I made myself feel sick – ah!) I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. I feel like I always have a lot of things on my mind these days and before I go to sleep is always difficult because that’s the time of day when I have unlimited time to do nothing but think and stress and feel happy and get lonely about everything.

I started Running With Scissors. It is freaking classic. I was laughing out loud the entire time I was reading. I think Marilena might think I’m crazy.

Pete called me before I fell asleep also. He was leaving to drive back up to SCU – ugh, I hate the San Diego to SCU drive… it’s looooong. Oh well, it was good to hear his voice.

This morning I got a 6:30AM wake up call from him. I was in phase-four of sleeping and was ready to cuss him out for waking me up but when I realized why he was calling I stopped myself. His car had broken down on the grapevine and he had just been towed and now was staying in a motel overnight until tomorrow to get his car fixed. Maaaaaan. He sounded reasonably calm; I would have been a total hurricane of anger/panic/fear if it was him.

It’s hard being thousands of miles away because I wanted to help but I didn’t know what to tell him to make him feel better (I hate when that happens). I was kinda worried about him (um… the grapevine/5 is a sketchy place full of truckers). I called my dad after we hung up and passed the problem onto him. I love my dad. I hope that wasn’t weird of me to ask him to check up on Pete… oh well, there’s not really anything else I could do.

We talked again while i was at school; three calls in one day? a for sure sign of lonliness. poor guy. :(

It’s cold and foggy in Italy today. Hopefully it’s one of those days that starts out grey but ends up clear.

le domeniche

Nov 26
Sundays in Firenze are always really mellow. No stores are open. No one’s out on the streets. People just hang out all day. After a loong time on the tread-mill at the gym I headed to school to catch up on some work that I’ve been putting off for, um, a few weeks now.

That’s where I am right now. School. Blogging. And writing e-mails. And downloading music. And doing everything BUT studying. Heh.

Viva Firenze!

November 25
Yesterday… let’s see… what happened yesterday… I don’t even remember.

Oh, wait, yea I do. Yesterday was day #2 of “Viva Firenze.” Marilena and I had an entire list of museums and monuments and famous sights in Florence to go visit. Unfortunately due to some bad blood sugars we only went to two of the eight places BUT they were both awesome.

Our first stop was the old monastery in San Marco. Lots and lots of frescoes depicting. The. Same. Things. Over. And. Over. Again. Religious frescoes are really beautiful BUT when you see a million of the same one they get a little bit old. I’m glad that we went to the monastery though because the upper level of it was the sleeping quarters and all of the cells were open for the public to see. It sorta looked like a really depressing dorm with lots of religious symbols everywhere. It was really cool to see. Considering how much of an asshole he was, Savonarola was given a really big room.

After San Marco, we continued our walk downtown and were planning on heading up the dome of the Duomo but a long line and a low blood sugar stopped us. Instead we went to the Uffizi. Even though I’ve been to Firenze before and even though I’ve lived here for three months now, I have never been in the Uffizi. Unacceptable.

The line was reasonably short which was nice. The Uffizi is really great. Huge and full of super famous stuff. Even though we just sorta power-walked through it we did go to every single room. It’s cool because I have now taken so many art history courses that I don’t need a guide to tell me about any of the pieces. It’s like I can give myself my own tour of famous museums! Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was as impressive as I’ve always imagined it to be.

For lunch we ate at Yellow Bar. When we got there the guy seated us in a booth that fit four and already had two 13 year old boys sitting in it… eh, they really cram people into their restaurants. The boys looked horrified to be sitting next to us. It was awesome. A really good pizza and a really good beer (and a really good buzz) later we decided to head home.

At a bookstore on the way home I bought myself a new book. It’s been, well, three months since the last book I read (I just couldn’t get myself through the one I brought here, Wuthering Heights, for some reason) and have been itching to get back to reading – at SCU I always have about 5 books lined up to read. I ended up getting Running With Scissors. I can’t remember who it was that told me this was really good but I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time now. YAY! I’m so excited. Ahhh, new books; it’s the little things in life!

For the 10 minutes we were in the bookstore, it rained. How lucky are we?

For the rest of the afternoon Marilena and I watched one of the only in-English movies our family has. Out of Africa? I think it’s called that. We only finished about half of it but so far it’s been good. It was so freezing in our house that Marilena and I both pulled our huge comforters out of our rooms to bundle up with on the couch – we got laughed at by the entire fam. Figures.

The plan for the night was to go to dinner at a well-known restaurant called Za’ Za’. We were excited cuz a) it was, liek, the first time that we were eating out for dinner since we’ve been in Firenze (Susana’s cooking is so good that we’ve been resisting eating out) and b) a lot of our friends wanted to go with us. Well… somehow our group of eight people ended up being a group of three. God I hate flakes. Well, it’s not even flakes – I hate when people say their going to do something then decide they’re not going to but assume you know they’re not doing it anymore and never formally let you know. Whatever.

Dinner with Marilena and Amelia was so much fun I’m actually happy no one else came. Our waiter LOVED Marilena. He kissed her on the cheek. Hehe. It was cool because he only spoke to us in Italian even though he knew that we were American and spoke English. AND it was even cooler because he knew that I understand everything he was saying and, liek, complimented me on it! FINALLY. Jeez.

Gnocchi, pasta del mare, bruschetta, a liter of wine, bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar later we headed home. On the way Marilena got in a fight with a lady in a gelato shop. It was retarded. Wait, no, the lady working in the shop was retarded. The whole scene was really funny actually. So gelato was nixed and our second option (which we settled on) was McDonald’s soft serve. It was yummyyyyy (and reminded me of late night trips with Steph to get soft serve at school; ahhh miss you steph!). At home before bed we tried to watch more of Out of Africa but it was so late and we were so dead that we only watched it for about 10 minutes before calling it a night. I must admit, our Viva Firenze weekend was a real success.

let the christmas countdown begin

November 24
The first thing I did this morning (after drinking a whole bottle of water and taking a few Advils… heh) was turn on my Christmas music playlist!!! Oh yes, the countdown to Christmas has begun and I am soooo excited!

Marilena and I decided to spend our entire day today Christmas shopping. We’ve been planning our shopping day today for weeks… no joke. We left the house around 11ish and headed downtown towards San Lorenzo. I can honestly say that San Lorenzo is MY MOST FAVORITE PLACE TO SHOP IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. It took us a little while to get into the swing of things and to commit to purchases but once we did time and money flew by. Eventually, my bags weighed sooo much and were cutting off the circulation in our arms and hands so badly that we decided to call it a day and head home. I hope everyone is excited for me to come home – if not, they should be because I’m going to be, liek, the blonde version of Santa Clause with a big sack of treasures for everyone!!!

I’d love to list off the millions of things that I bought for everyone BUT (in the off chance that anyone still actually reads my blog) I don’t want to give away any of the surprises. Some funny things happened today while we were out… let’s see, we witnessed the Africans selling illegal purses and sunglasses get the signal from their homies that the cops were coming and they all literally packed up and in a matter of seconds were SPRINTING away – I could not stop laughing. Also, a guy selling us **** ***** ****** (I don’t want to give anything away) had a huge crush on Marilena and I and gave us some Hello Kitty pins for free. Eh… THANKS buddy; we weren’t really sure how to react. Around the time he offered us his lunch that he packed himself for the day we said our “no thanks’” and moved on. Hahaha.

On our walk home there was a Manuel sighting… he was riding by us on his bike in THE most classic outfit I have ever seen: aviator sunglasses, a snow hat (the kind with string that you tie around your face and a big fluff ball on top), and a really small, bright, turquoise sweater!!! Just picture that. I laughed so hard that it hurt.

After we got home and sorted through our loot we spent a few hours at the gym working off our turkey feast from the night before. It felt good to sweat, notgonnalie. We were confused by the abundance of cute boys at the gym today… I think that’s the first time I’ve said that in all the three months that I’ve been in Italy. We were more confused than excited about it… haha.

Our room has been FREEZING lately. Right now more than anything i’m missing my usual SCU outfit of Uggs, sweatpants, and hooded sweatshirt – if anyone sees me over winter break, don’t be surprised if this is what I’m wearing. Everyday.

Dinner conversation was really entertaining last night. Susana and Kike were out for the evening sooo it was Manuel, Marilena, and I. Manuel went into a tangent about how Santa Clause only wears a red suit because Coke wanted him to so that he’d advertise for their company… I told him he was full of shit and we got in a fight as usual. He and I have a love/hate relationship and I think we both get a lot of pleasure out of telling each other that the other person is stupid. Ohhhh Manuel.

We’re trying to convince the family to decorate the house for Christmas; well, I am atleast – besides carving pumpkins, decorating for Christmas is my favorite decorating time of year! I’ve learned so far that on December 8 ALL Italians buy their Christmas trees (it’s, liek, designated Christmas tree day or something). Unfortunately Marilena and I will be in Switzerland that weekend BUT I’m going to bother them everyday to make sure that they buy one for our apartment!!! Ahhh, I’m in such Christmassy mood already and it’s not even December yet!

After dinner Marilena and I dragged ourselves downtown towards the Duomo and met up with Navid, Natalie, and Chris (her boyfriend from SCU that’s here visiting) at Astor for a few drinks. Navid cracks me up. It was a mellow night and we ended up coming home around midnight-ish. Lots of stuff to do tomorrow….

"thanksgiving dinner"

November 23

Man oh man… I cried today. A bunch of times. That’s all I’m going to say about it. BUT, ironically, today waaasss a much happier day than yesterday.

Class was the same as usual. Nothing exciting to say about it EXCEPT that today was the first time in 20 years that I’ve been required to be in class ON Thanksgiving day.

After Fam and Gender, Marilena and I headed downtown to a hair salon. Marilena had a hair appointment this afternoon to get highlights… FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE! She is prolly one of the only people I know that’s NEVER gotten her hair colored, it’s crazy! She was really nervous and I originally planned on sticking around but there were no waiting chairs soooo after I grabbed her a sandwich from Oil Shoppe (to calm her nerves, of course) I headed back towards home. Her hair, bytheway, turned out really pretty! It has really pretty sun-kissed-light-brown-tints in it! She’s having trouble getting used to it, but I’ve already decided that it looks awesome.

The gym was the same as always. Full of Italian creepers. Ugh. Oh AND, my newest annoyance with the gym: the locker room FULL of naked Italian ladies. I’m sorry but I think it’s really weird when people walk around/lather themselves with lotion completely naked. Liek, 20 of them are in there everyday. All the boys I tell this too get all excited and, liek, think it’s “cool” but seriously… naked, really hairy (and I mean REALLY hairy; girls here don’t shave anything), middle aged, bodies, that have eaten one too many bowls of spaghetti, and should have taken the stairs instead of the escalator, talking about politics and their husbands is really gross… I try to avert my eyes…

When I got home the dinner table was set for nine (god; extra plates meant GUESTS were coming over) and all ready for a big feast… man oh man. The first thing I did after locking myself in our room was pull out a bottle of wine from our wardrobe stash and pop it open. This was def looking like a night where being a little drunk before dinner wouldn’t hurt! Two bottles later, Marilena and I were eating turkey, rice and olive oil, hummus, corn, potatoes, and artichoke hearts with the family. It was a FABULOUS dinner; not quite your typical American Thanksgiving meal BUT it did the job and we were both totally satisfied afterwards.

I finally talked to Pete after dinner.

Marilena and I were PLANNING on going out after dinner but after our feast and our wine we felt a little lazy and instead, curled up in bed to play a few rounds of Solitaire. A few rounds turned into us passing out for the rest of the night.