The Movies

My school is actually connected to a movie theater, the Odeon. Twice a week, the Odeon plays a movie in original sound. A lot of people from my school go, and my roommates and I have been going about once a week. It's a beautiful theater with really comfortable chairs and lots of leg room. The candy is good too. They have a huge selection of gummy things, and INCREDIBLE chocolate bars. So, we all load in there with our goodies and watch an American movie. Last week we watched "Casino Royale" and the end of that movie is filmed in Venice. It was such an odd experience to watch a movie that takes place in Europe and then to walk outside and actually BE in Europe.
Last night we watched "Blood Diamond". It was an amazing movie, but very sad. The kind of movie that makes you want to do something, but you don't know how it's possible that one person could be any help. By the way- Mom, it's too grown up for you! : )
By the way, it appears as though I have won the battle with the mosquitos. There's this stuff called "Vape" out here, maybe it's at home too, but I had never heard of it. You plug it into the wall and it heats this liquid that oddly has no smell and it's supposed to kill the mosquitos. I haven't been bitten since I baught it, although I could be slowly poisoning myself with this weird odorless pesticide I've never heard of...but at least I have a clearer complexion....

The Routine

It's really funny, my roommates and I have developed this great routine. Every evening we all trickle in from our days back to the apartment. Michelle starts cooking (she likes it and everything she cooks is better than the last thing, it's great.) Linda helps Michelle cook because she wants to learn how. Danielle and I sit at our little kitchen table and play cards. We call it "Airborne cocktail hour" because we sit and have a glass of Airborne (the vitamin drink that helps your immune system- everyone here is sick). So, we sit in our cozy kitchen, laugh, and play cards. Cara usually wanders in a little later, and we all hang out and joke around. We can see the sun going down over Florence outside of our kitchen window that has view of the rooftops. When dinner is ready we all go into the dining room, which is a really odd room. It's HUGE and has incredibly high ceilings, but just one dim overhead light that is hideous. The walls have these gigantic ugly paintings on them (they cover almost the entire wall), we're still debating about how they got them through the door. I still think they were built and painted in the apartment... : )
Anyway, we have done this almost every night since we got here and it occurred to us last night how much we love this little routine. We all find ourselves leaving that window of time open so we will be home for the routine. It has only been three weeks and I can already tell that when I go home I will be homesick for the routine. Such an odd feeling....

Lost In Translation

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I was in Venice. An excuse I like so much, i'm considering using it once I get home for other reasons. Sorry I didn't finish my paper, I was in Venice. Sorry I forgot to pick up milk, I was in Venice. I like the way it sounds when it's coming out of my mouth. Here's one of my pictures from one of the days we were there. The weather was beautiful.
Anyway, I am at school right now in the dinky little student lounge using their incredibly slow internet connection. I had a great experience today in my Sociology of the Italian Family class. My teacher had 5 Italian mothers come into the class to talk to us and answer our questions. It's funny, because for some reason I pictured tiny old women with schmatas (sp.?) on their heads to come walking in the door. Just goes to show you what stereotypes can do. Instead 5 confident, beautiful Italian women ranging from their 40's to their 60's came strolling through the door. The women each introduced themselves and gave a little history about their lives. It was really interesting. Only a couple of them spoke English so the teacher had to translate a lot for them (she doesn't speak fantastic English either). It was hilarious because one of the women would say something and then another one would ask her a question in Italian, which would spark an erruption of discussion among all of the women that involved loud voices and elaborate gesturing and facial expressions, and then our teacher would say something like, "Her husband and sons eat lunch at home everyday." Of course you had to strain to hear the teacher over the conversation of the Italian women.
I learned some really interesting things though- for example, these women go to the grocery store EVERY day so that they can have fresh ingredients to cook meals for their families. Many families eat lunch together everyday, but it isn't quite as important as dinner which is ALWAYS eaten together, as a family. Many of the men stay at home with their mothers even when they are in their 30's and 40's if they're not married. Their mothers cook, clean, and take care of all of their needs, and this is a cultural norm. When one of the students in my class said that her parents make her pay them rent to stay at home, the Italian mothers all looked at each other and started talking. You could almost tell they were saying, "I should make my son pay rent!" They couldn't believe that. I guess it's actually Italian law that as long as your children live in your house you are required to take care of them.
The most interesting thing I found with these women though was the paradox between strength and obedience. They all are very strong, independent women who speak their minds. They know what they want and how they want it. However, they are also very bound by the sense of obedience- to both their families and traditions, but also to the Catholic church. It's such an odd combination and certainly a delicate balance.
Anway, it was very cool.

Legend Has It....

Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo hated each other. Well, actually, people say it was more that Michaelangelo hated Leonardo...I guess Michaelangelo is well known for being a pain in the ass...ANYWAY....He and Leonardo were both commissioned in the early 1500's to each do a fresco on opposite walls inside the Palazzo Vecchio, which is Florence's town hall kind of building in the Piazza Signoria. Apparently Leonardo painted a magnificent fresco, but had experimented with oil paints. Oil paint and frescos don't mix, and the colors wouldn't dry on the wall. So, the fresco was destroyed. For other reasons Michaelangelo's fresco was never finished either. The two were always competing with each other and arguing over whether or not painting was the most important art form or if it was sculpture (so far this is all truth, not legend).
It is said that one day they were arguing over who was more talented and Michaelangelo claimed he was such a good sculptor that he could scupt Leonardo's portrait with his hands behind his back.
This Etching is hidden on the outside wall of the Palazzo Vecchio, and art historians have confirmed that it matches Michaelangelo's technique....who's to say for sure. But it's a good story.

My Roommates

I haven't had a chance to show you guys my roommates yet so here you go. They're all really different and interesting in their own ways.
Starting on the left is Michelle. She is from a tiny town in Connecticut. This is her last semester of school and she will have a degree in English and Communications. This is her first time abroad and in fact only her second time ever being on an airplane. I am the only one of the group that has been to Europe before and I just think it is so brave to leap into a place you've never been. Michelle works in a restaurant in Connecticut and so we pool our money and she cooks for us many nights a week. It works out well because she loves to cook, we love to eat, and it saves us a lot of money! On top of that, she has a great sense of direction, so we told her that we won't vote her off the island just yet.
Next to Michelle is Linda. She's from Orange County. She's a polysci, sociology major. She actually just picked up the sociology major so she could come on this trip. She's really funny because she has no editing before she speaks. Not in a way that is annoying-it's just really funny. We'll be meeting people and if there is someone with a name she's never heard before, she'll just bust out with, "is that really your name?" she's kind of naive, and it cracks us up all the time.
Then you have Cara. She's a film major from California also. She's the party girl of the group. She goes out almost everynight and somehow wakes up bright and early ready for the day. She brought all of her video equipment with her and keeps threatening to bust out the camera and night vision on us while we're sleeping....
And all the way on the right is Danielle. She is a theater major from Ohio. She is a really sweet, funny girl. She has also demonstrated all of the things that happen to you when you first come to another country (she's the one who brushed her teeth with dish soap.) She's so enthusiastic though. Everything is so magical and amazing to her that I almost like going places with her just because her enthusiasm makes them even more exciting.
So, that's them, in a nut shell.

For Miri

Here ya go....

I don't want to get fat

For a cheese loving, bread scarfing, chocolate addict, Italy is a really difficult place to live. I love pizza. I love all pizza. Even crappy American pizza that you can get in the freezer section of the grocery store. You could probably put cheese on some cardboard and I would like it. So to be surrounded by pizza EVERYWHERE is really hard. I need a ten step program, a support group, and a sponsor. I have high cholesterol. I can't eat pizza. Besides the fact that I want my pants to still fit when I come home. I have visions of stepping off the plane and being like, "hi, sorry you don't recognize me, I've gained 50 lbs. Don't worry about hugging me, your arms won't ever fit around. It's not worth trying."
And the pizza is just the beginning of my problems. They have more gelato stands here than Italians. Everywhere you look there are big bins with mountains of creamy, cold, delicious flavors of gelato. Lets not even go into the fact that I am a chocoholic. It's so annoying too, because at all hours of the day, even in the morning, you can find twig-skinny Italian women walking around eating gelato. I don't know how they do it. I don't think my crappy American genes can take the food here. I am going to have to seriously work on my self control. Wish me luck.

Pisa

Saturday a couple of my roommates and I took the short train ride (about an hour) to Pisa. I actually wasn't expecting much because I had heard that the tower is smaller than you'd think and the town isn't that exciting. But for some reason when we got there I was just enamored with the tower. It is so interesting to look at (it would be even if it wasn't leaning). There wasn't much to do in the town, so we got some gelato and sat in the grass by the tower for a while. It was very pleasant.
On an entirely different note, I have decided that there is some kind of secret agent insect (which I am hoping is a mosquito) that is stalking me in the night. It's war between this bug and I. Every night when I am getting in bed I check all around for the bug. Every once in a while I find a mosquito and kill it, thinking that I have just solved the problem. Then I wake up with some kind of bite on my face. I'm starting to look like a 16 year old with horrible acne because of this stupid bug. Those of you who know me well know that I am kind of narotic about things like this, and so I am trying my best to think this is a mosquito and not imagine that it is some kind of scary, disease carrying, boogie monster bug with 100 legs that crawls all over my face at night.
Anyway, sorry, just needed to vent about the secret agent bug for a minute and now I am ok...until tonight.

USA-Dar

I don't know what the deal is exactly, but I can be walking down the street, not saying a word, and men harass me in English. Put aside the fact that they are harassing me, because that happens to everyone (who is American at least). But how do they know for sure that I am American? I haven't said a word to them, so it's not my ridiculous inability to speak their native language. I know that it is possible that my clothes set it off, but how do they know I'm not from a different country other than the U.S.? which brings me to the exciting things that happened to me today.
Not once, but TWICE today on the street people stopped me to ask a question (I don't know the question because of the afore mentioned language problem) but I know it was a question. And they asked me in Italian. BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT I WAS ITALIAN. I was so excited.
The people were a little disappointed when I opened my mouth and they realized that THEY HAD BEEN DOOPED BY AN AMERICAN. Yeah, I'm American you foolish Italian question askers. So there.
Ah, I somehow feel like I won a little today. Score: Italians-4,030,348
Me-2

Weird Tidbits

Sorry I didn't write yesterday, but I was in Florence. I have actually been in Florence for a week now but yesterday was the first day that I was actually here...in my head. I felt myself settle in a little bit. I found my way around without getting lost (although I will admit that I took the LONG way a bunch of times...I don't count that as lost though- for the record). In fact, I haven't had to look at a map today either. I had another day of classes, one of which was with my hot Italian professor (in my Roman History class). The classrooms are really small and I'm still trying to figure out the boundaries between blatantly staring at him and just listening intently to his lectures...this sometimes makes for awkward moments :)
ANYWAY, things have been good. However, today was warm. Like jacket warm...but I noticed something not good. Humidity. My hair is growing as we speak. I'm a little nervous about this odd warm weather they've been having and what this means for my hairdo. I need a portable hair straightener....

Valuable lessons #1 and #2

Valuable lesson #1 learned yesterday. Anyone who knows me knows my sense of direction is that of a rock. I can get lost anywhere...even if it is somewhere I have been a thousand times. I have come to the conclusion that it is an actual disability. Seriously. So you can imagine that in this city of weird winding roads that change name randomly and end randomly, I'm kind of in trouble. I get lost everytime I leave the house. Yesterday I left the Piazza Della Republica and headed to my apartment to use the restroom. The walk should take about 5 minutes and is almost a straight shot. I managed to get lost and as I was wandering the crowded streets, I kept hearing the line from "What About Bob" echoing in my head... "What if I can't find a bathroom and my bladder explodes?" but seriously, I was wondering what the Italians would think if an American girl suddenly peed in her pants by the Duomo...Luckily, I found my apartment in time and to my relief, my bladder did not explode.
Valuable lesson #2- This one was learned this morning and is compliments of my roommate Danielle (the same one who brushed her teeth with dish soap by accident). We were in a cafe where Danielle got an espresso, and as we were leaving, she was trying to put her change away. Now, she wears one of those Rick Steves money belts that goes in your pants (something I have always openly mocked, not because of it's lack of usefullness, because it is a good idea, but because of the pure ridiculousness of it). Besides, Rick Steves is so creepy anyway that the money belt is just another thing...ANYWAY. All of the Italians are wearing tall boots over their jeans these days and some of the girls have purchased some boots. So, Danielle, in her boots, was putting the money into her money belt. Picture this, American girl with a giant backpack (being worn in the front for security reasons) is walking down the street with her hand in her pants when she JUST DROPS ALL OF THE CHANGE DOWN HER PANTS. All I heard was a weird noise, look back and there's Danielle, frozen on the sidewalk with her hand in her pants, as her change slides down her legs slowly and into her boots. She jingled the entire way to school. Thought I was going to die it was so funny. Rick Steves should warn people about that...

Chianti

Yesterday afternoon we took a short bus ride to Chianti. We visited a vineyard named Verrazzano. It was gorgeous. We didn't arrive until almost 5pm so the light wasn't good, but it felt good to get into the countryside a little and out of the city. The owner of the vineyard gave us a tour of the wine cellars and explained the process (some of which I could understand through his thick accent). Then he gave us a wine tasting of their 3 finest wines. After the wine tasting, they gave us dinner and it was delicious. It was an authentic Italian meal, which was fun to have for the first time in Chianti on a vineyard.
The city of Florence is starting to become a little more managable. It is funny because the first day it seemed so huge and it's just getting smaller and smaller. We're starting to realize how close everything is to each other and I'm hoping to be able to know my way around pretty well soon. Classes start tomorrow so it should be interesting to see how that goes. It's Sunday today and I woke up at 10 AM to the sounds of the church bells coming from the duomo. It was pretty amazing. So, that's all my news for now. Just a lazy sunday in Florence.

Italian Men

All of my friends were like, "oh you're going to go to Italy and fall in love with some beautiful man named Paolo." Let me tell you about Italian men. You know when you walk past a construction site and you can tell that everyone has stopped working and is staring at you? that happens whenever you pass almost any man here in Florence. It makes perfect sense to me now because Italian men don't bother Italian women because Italian women are mean. They'll tell you they're mean. They have to be because every man in Italy is running around completely controlled by their testosterone. It has already gotten on my nerves so it should prove to be an interesting 3 months.
Other than that things are great. We went to the grocery store today. I was so excited to see some of the brands I recognized. By the way, all of the stores here sell Barillo pasta, so it must be authentic. When I get home I'll probably start using that...The weather was really nice here today. Sun was out and it was pretty warm. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

I Have Arrived!

So, I would like to start this post by saying that I am writing this in a little computer spot next to my Florentine apartment. It's called "Webpuccino." It is a small midieval looking white room that has paintings of naked disproportionate men all over the walls. Kinda odd. Not sure if I'm missing some kind of joke or if I should be worried...
Anyway, I am here. My apartment is amazing. I can see the Duomo from my bedroom window (I'm on the 4th floor). Which is another interesting thing...the Italians consider the first floor to be the ground floor so when they say it's a 3rd floor walk-up they really mean 4th. I though I was going to have a coronary dragging my gargantuan bags up the never ending stairs.
My roommates are really nice. The program left us a bag of things for the apartment to get started. We are having a little problem with the language barrier... my roommate Danielle accidently brushed her teeth with what we soon found out was dish soap (she was fooled by the mint leaf on the front and what seemed to say "baking soda"). She was blowing bubbles when she spoke for about twenty minutes. Really entertaining.
It's fashion week here in Florence so there are crazy parties and promo things everywhere.
I get my school schedule tomorrow so i'll really be starting everything on Monday. I'm still pretty jet lagged and tired, but it's really nice here and so far everything is working out really well!
I hope everything is well for all of you.

Kate

No F-ing Way

I would like to inform you all that I am safely in Baltimore with my wonderful grandmother and all is well. HOWEVER, I would like to recap what happened to me today at the airport.
The morning started out normally enough. Woke up at the crack of dawn for an 8:30 flight, and surprisingly my whole house was in order and I was set to go. To the best of my knowledge, I was going to be flying on US Airways. So, my mother and I get dropped off at the US Airways terminal (she came with me to Baltimore). I go up to the guy standing at the curbside check-in (and i'm totally excited because there isn't a soul around or in line and I have my two gargantuan bags so this looks like it might be nice and easy. The guy (while reading his magazine) asks for my destination. I say Baltimore and he looks up from his magazine like I just asked him to sell me crack or something. Fast forward a few minutes and we establish that my US Airways flight is operated by United. Why the hell didn't the itinerary just say f-ing United on it??? moving on we take the two gargantuan bags and schlepp (spelling?) across the airport to the United terminal. My mother with her tiny bag and printed boarding pass goes to the self check in while I take my huge bags and try curb side check in again. Wait in line.....five minutes...then the guy looks at my bags and takes them to the scale. All I hear is, "Your bags are overweight sweet pea." Sweet pea? are you serious? I f-ing hate that. So I grab the gargantuan bags and head inside to pay even more money for the stupid flight. The United lady puts me in a nice looking short line. I wait...5 minutes...10 minutes....20 minutes....finally at the counter. The lady weighs my bags and informs me the extra weight will cost me $50 per bag. Seriously??? you must be joking considering that United has already taken away my extra leg room and offered it back to me for an additional fee. Now I have to pay you $100 for 20lbs total of extra bag weight? maybe if the plane starts to go down they'll offer me my air mask for a steal of a deal. Oh, and the life preserver under the seat takes credit cards. Assholes. but I deal. I pay and move on, a little less perky. My Mom who is the forever optimist says,"I think other than the bag thing everything for this trip seems to be falling into place really well." KISS OF DEATH. Lets fast forward to the security line. I failed to notice while standing in the line that my boarding pass was marked with a "ssss." If you don't know what this is, I'm going to tell you. It is the scarlett letter, the mark of the devil, the kiss-your-next-half-an-hour-goodbye-and-pray-to-survive-the-probing mark. So I get to the front of the line and I get sent to the left. Lane 10. The lane with the puffer thing. I think, oh, puffer thing. That's no big deal, I have had to go through the puffer thing many times. Nope. Not just the puffer thing. After the puffer thing they go through my carry on bag and I'm thinking I'm safe because all I have is my purse and some books in there. Wrong again. This lady takes the swipey thing and swipes my cell phone. She removes the tip of the swipey thing and puts it in the bomb residue scanner thing. The alarm goes off. Yeah. My cell phone apparently has bomb residue on it. You can imagine this is a surprise to me. But of course the TSA assholes can't tell you what's going on, the girl simply looks up and goes, "uh oh." UH OH? SERIOUSLY? So, the search becomes intensified while they are waiting for the results of the bomb residue test to say what type of bomb making materials I have on my phone. They open my purse and in the side pocket which I had completely forgotten about is my PEPPER SPRAY. When the guy finds this I really think they're going to take me to a private room and get out the gloves. They call some lady over who then takes the pepper spray, my id, and leaves. Still not telling me what is going on. I'm still freaking out about the bomb residue when the guy starts lecturing me about how my lip gloss is a liquid and I should pay better attention to the video. Are you f-ing kidding me? seriously? Anyway, to wrap it up they took my lip gloss and pepper spray. Apparently I had the good kind of bomb residue on my phone instead of the bad, and they let me go.
To finish it off, once I'm on the plane and we are going through some nauseating turbulance, I start to smell something weird. Look over, and yep. She's eating a banana. If you don't already know I think there should be a law against eating anything in public where the odor involves everyone around you in the snack- especially bananas. Eating bananas in public should be illegal. And yes, I'm serious.
All I could think to myself is no f-ing way.

The question: Will I actually get it all done by tomorrow night?

Ok. So I have been preparing to leave for months. However....I haven't done much at my house. Will I actually be able to clean, wash, dry, unplug, and pack all of my stuff by tomorrow night? I guess we shall see....