tuscan hills and thrills

The Last Month and a Half

Well, surprise, surprise, I’m awful at keeping a blog. If you’d  asked my old piano teacher, dance teacher, or every athletic coach I’ve ever had, you would’ve seen this “giving up” thing coming. But really, I’m sorry I haven’t kept this up for so long! I have had a ton of amazing experiences in the last month and a half though, so I figured I’d break it up into briefer pieces, starting with way back when…

EARLY OCTOBER

I don’t remember doing anything too interesting during the last week of September or the first week of October. Classes, some work, a field trip to San Gimignano, yet another Art History visit to one of Florence’s 120 churches and monotonous talk of frescoes and the Renaissance…that kind of thing. But on October 6th Breanne came to visit and stayed for a week. We had the most amazing time together, and I know Bre had an awesome week. Needless to say, we didn’t spend much time in museums or churches, and instead preferred culturally immersing ourselves with lots of delicious food and wine! 

Honestly, we ate like kings that week. I don’t go to restaurants very often because I have lunch at school and dinner with my homestay family. When I do eat out, I’m generally looking for the budget meals, but Bre and I spared no expense for the most delicious food! A few highlights: a dinner at a place called “Il Santo Bevitore” (the Holy Drinker) which was delicious and very cool ambience-wise, a dinner in a well known old place where they basically give you no option and serve you four courses without question, my favorite dinner at a place where there are only 14 seats and the clientele are all old friends of the owner and waiter, and a wine tour and tasting in a beautiful winery in the Chianti region. We walked around a family owned winery and then sat down to enjoy three different types of wine and some cheeses and crostini. We loved the wine but we were forced to make small chat with a very odd woman seated at our table the entire time. Which brings me to two themes of Bre’s trip: Weirdos Love Us, and Italian Men Love Breanne.

THE WEIRDOS

It seemed like everywhere we went to eat, we were seated next to or sharing a table with a pair of oddballs. The woman at the wine tasting was from California and with a dazed perma-smile kept insisting on how much she loved cities and vitality and the hustle and bustle of life while encouraging me to take as long as I wanted to finish college, take a year off, travel the world, etc. Sure lady, I’d love to take a year off and travel, as long as you’re paying. But over here in the real world, I’m already delaying my father’s retirement by 15 years by taking just this one semester abroad. Honestly, I appreciated her idealism but she was a total wackadoodle.

Alright, now onto my favorite story of Bre’s visit. At that restaurant I mentioned where they just bring you four (delicious) courses without asking Bre and I were sat at a table of four next to a young couple—a perky little blonde and a forgettable faced guy. The way the restaurant worked, we shared a vat of wine with them and were no less than 2 centimeters away from them. After a few minutes of not speaking, we eventually made the mistake of engaging in conversation with these two weenies, and for the next two and a half hours, learned everything we never wanted to know about them. Turns out, Shannon and Bill were newlyweds, venturing around Italy for two weeks. Shannon informed us of their marital status by explaining, nay, whining, that Bill had already lost his wedding ring in the Mediterranean—an unbelievably fitting bad omen, which I realized after watching these two interact for all of ten minutes. She didn’t stop talking about herself for the entirety of the dinner, and really only engaged Bill to whine about how he’s been on his Blackberry too much during their honeymoon. Our new gal pal Shan also informed us that she’s a nurse but LOVES to teach Bar Method exercise classes. She loves it, she just loves it. She proudly told us it totally changed her body, and if we did it we’d see results too, we’d just have to give it 3 to 4 months. To which Bill creeeeepily replied, “Oh you’ll see the results. Believe me. I’ve seen the results.” Ewwies. Another highlight of our conversation with the nitwits was when they discussed their relationship. First, Shana Banana lied to us about how the two of them started dating: “Well I was a freshman and he was a senior.” “No babe, you were a sophomore and I was a senior.” “Well whatever, freshman and senior sounded better.” Honestly? This chick was crazy. And then she offered me this little golden nugget of advice: “Whoever you date between the ages of 18 and 26 does NOT matter, honestly just forget about them! Do you think about your exes at all babe? No he doesn’t think about his exes at all!” Really though, if I had to choose my favorite part of their ridiculously insufferable dronings, it would have to be when Shannon launched into two attacks against Bill’s sisters. First, she called them fat and short, then an hour later she was calling them ugly. Oh, and then she called Bill short and said she didn’t like her new last name. Truly, these two were a match made in miserable people heaven. That Bre and I were able to both smile and nod and completely mask our judgment of them is a true testament to our social skills. Actually, it’s creepy how similar Bre and I are in those kinds of situations. We both convincingly fake laughed our way through the meal. Thanks for the lessons in fake charm, Dad! 

THE MEN LOVING BREANNE

I won’t divulge too much here because Breanne will kill me, but I’ll just say that in the 2 months I’ve been here, Italian men haven’t even batted an eye at me. She hopped off the plane and suddenly it was raining men. Everywhere I went with her another Italian was asking for our email addresses. One day after lunch we left a pizza place where the men were fawning over her, walked ten feet and then were approached by another (attractive!) man offering us directions and his phone number. If she’d stayed another few weeks I’d probably have an Italian brother-in-law by now. 

I could go on and on about Bre’s visit and how much fun we had walking around, hanging out, and even getting to legally drink together for the first time! Woot woot! Bet ya loved reading that Reggie! I was so so happy to have her here, to be spoiled by her, to get to sleep in her nice hotel room, and to make memories that we’ll always cherish (and always bring up to annoy Justin)! So thanks so much for coming to visit me Breezer, I wish you’d never left! 

 

Just one more thing in this entry before I post another entry about my fall break. The weekend after Bre left I went on a really cool field trip. We went to the Val D’Orcia region of Tuscany. We spent most of the morning in a gorgeous monastery being lead around by a monk who’d visited our school. We were able to listen to four monks do their noontime gregorian chant. Then we went to a nearby restaurant and had a great lunch of handmade pasta. We concluded our day with some deliiiicious wine and a tour of a sheep cheese farm, and had a DELICIOUS cheese tasting afterwards. I was happy as a clam afterwards, and wouldn’t have minded being left behind on the farm(below)!

Lucca, Pisa, Wine and More Austrians

Bear with me, this is going to be a LONG post. I’ll start with last week.

AWKWARD AUSTRIAN DINNERS AND OTHER HOMESTAY STUFF

Having all these randos come and stay with us for a week has its pros and cons. Pro: I have less pressure to personally speak, and my home stay family usually slows down their Italian a little so the Austrians can understand. Con: My grandmother’s favorite dinner pastime is a little game I like to call, “Who’s the Palest at the Table?” Inevitably, I win this game. Two weeks ago, I lost to a particularly pasty Austrian, but only by a small, small margin. Then my sassy grandma likes to point to her arms and chest and show off how “abbronzata” she is. Sick. As if I wasn’t self-conscious enough. But it’s actually been pretty fun, because the Austrians are always in high school and a little bit shy, so I feel more confident asking them extremely basic questions: Where are you from? Have you been to the United States before? What did you do today? Clearly, this leads to very deep and meaningful conversation. In all reality it’s just a small break from my scarfing down of pasta.

I can never remember these girls’ names, because they’re all English-sounding names pronounced in crazy Austrian accents. But the trend seems to be that the least attractive one of the group is the one who speaks the most Italian. Then there’s a “slow” one who giggles a lot and needs to be explained things. Then there’s an attractive one who’s worried about eating too much pasta. I guess I’m generalizing based on the 8 Austrians I’ve met, but my findings are frighteningly accurate.

Anyway, last week the less-attractive-better-at-Italian-one said something in German and I repeated it in a silly German accent and they thought it was hilarious. So then they tried to teach me the word for “squirrel” in German. I can’t remember it for the life of me, but it’s pronunciation sounds like you’re sneezing and choking at the same time. Hilarious. I made them say it like 10 times.

On Saturday another 3 Austrians came, and then last night a Swedish girl arrived. She’s here for a month and is staying in the room next to mine. She’s only 16, and she seems pretty shy. Best part? Her name’s CHIARA. I will never forget her name, and I will forever associate her with the world’s most ferocious and ferociously blind Pomeranian.

We all ate together for the first time tonight. 3 Italians, 3 Austrians, a Swede, and me. Felt like I was sitting in on an EU session. But it was actually really fun, because Elisa (my Italian sister) and I started discussing MTV Italia. Did you know 16 and Pregnant is an international show? The Austrians knew what it was, too! How insane is that? These stupid pregnant girls are INTERNATIONALLY recognizable. I’m so glad they’re the diplomats for our country. That and the Jersey Shore. We chatted about “The Situation” and “Snooki” for a while. I’m so proud to be an American.

One more note about my homestay before I move on to real study abroad stuff: In the last week or so the “vacation” mentality of my trip has worn off and I’ve actually realized I’m here all semester. That being said, things that once seemed charming and tolerable are now becoming a little obnoxious. For instance, I’m certain that sleeping on a bale of hay would be more comfortable than my homestay bed. I fall asleep every night with a large coil poking my spine. Also, taking a shower is like waging aquatic war. My shower head becomes more broken by the day. A ever-thinning trickle of water leaks out of the center of the head and then a full-fledged blast of water shoots out the side and splashes violently against the wall. So to wash this rat’s nest of a mane I have 3 options. 1. Press my head against the tile wall to get the run off of the broken part (haven’t tried that yet) 2. Spend 20 minutes trying to wash out a milliliter of shampoo (do this often). Or 3. Maneuver the shower head as a hand-held weapon (stopped doing this after the first time when I realized that I’d basically flooded the bathroom).  In other news, I’d thought my mosquito bite problem was resolved, but it was only because they’d put this mosquito-killing thing in the outlet in my room. Then this weekend after changing my sheets my grandmother must have taken the outlet-thingy back. And so, the blood-thirsty steroid-pumping mosquitoes have returned with a vengeance. Lastly, I’m about as likely to do a load of laundry here as Gregory was at getting a girl’s number pre-Ann. Water and electricity are super expensive so I feel really awkward asking to do my laundry. I’m literally out of clothes though, so I’m asking tomorrow morning for sure.

Ok those are all my complaints. I know, I know. I sound obnoxious. And I should just drown all my problems in wine and pasta. So speaking of which…

LUCCA AND PISA AND WINE DRUNKENNESS

Because I’m poor and stingy, I made the (regrettable) decision of not going to Oktoberfest this past weekend. Instead, I went to the Tuscan cities of Lucca and Pisa with 4 friends from my program. Very cultural and way cheaper. It made Reg happy, too. As she said today on Skype, “Well that was probably just a drunk fest anyway.” No kidding Ma, it’s THE WORLD’S LARGEST BEER FESTIVAL. Anyway, while in those cities I had a really good time, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sad as my classmates dominated today’s lunch conversation with their fun Munich stories about chugging beer while being hoisted up by huge German men. Whatever, I guess I’ll recreate the experience over Christmas break by downing some Bud Light atop Tom Cat’s broad shoulders. Creepy? Whatever.

No for real though, Lucca was so so beautiful and charming. It’s called “The Walled City” because it’s surrounded by these 16th century, red brick, 40 ft tall walls. But they aren’t what I imagined. Inside, there are sloping hills built up to the same height as the walls which you can walk or run or ride bikes around. We chose to rent bikes for an hour and ride around. It’s 4 km in total, and it was SO much fun to do. I’ll post some pictures of biking. We also meandered around most of the city, and paid to climb the tallest towers, one of which has trees growing out of the top! From the top of the towers, we could see the entire city and the mountains beyond. It was gorgeous, especially because all the buildings have uniform red roofs. Oh and one of our professors had recommended the most delicious place to eat. We had this lentil soup that they’re famous for and a huge vat of white wine and bread and grilled vegetables. Too delicious!

Around 7 o’clock we took a cheap and quick train ride to Pisa. By the time we got there it was dark and justttt a little sketchy. Our hostel was about a 5 minutes walk from the train station, which isn’t generally a good thing in European cities. Thankfully, the hostel was really clean and the bed was actually about 50 times more comfortable than what I’m used to sleeping on. As a hostel rookie, I didn’t realize they wouldn’t give us towels or soap, so I opted out of showering. By the end of the weekend I’m sure I smelled fantastic. Once we checked into the hostel and put some of our stuff down (don’t worry Mom, I didn’t leave anything valuable—not that I even possess anything valuable!) we wandered off to find food. Someone had recommended a place close to us, but it ended up seeming gross, so we wandered for another 20 minutes across the Arno, and after finally finding an adorable pizza place, we waited another 15 or 20 minutes to be seated. By that point I literally would have eaten a fried rat. But the pizza was worth the wait! My friend got a pizza with a fried egg and ham— ingenious and delicious!

We thought we’d want to hit the Pisa nightlife, but after walking and traveling all day we were exhausted so we sat for a bit on the walls of the Arno watching the University of Pisa students then trekked back to our hostel. The next day our main goals were breakfast and the famous leaning tower (which, apparently, is literally the only reason anyone goes to Pisa). We walked there around noon and after about 45 minutes of obnoxious and lame picture-taking, we’d had enough of Pisa. So we hopped on another train to Viareggio, a beach town which is like a Spanish (yes, Spanish not Italian) version of the Jersey Shore. Overall, not the classiest boardwalk I’ve ever seen. We stayed there for a couple hours and then took another cheap train back to Florence.

Then on Sunday we decided to enjoy “Wine Town,” a city-wide wine tasting festival. (I can’t believe I’m going to be under the legal drinking age when I get home. Thank God it’s only for a few months!) Our first Wine Town stop was the Bobboli Gardens. “Garden” is apparently a loose term, because as I’ve said before, they’re more of a small park. Even though I’d already been, I was happy to go again for free! Plus, how often do you get to walk around historical gardens with a glass full of expensive wine? 

We made it to about 8 more Wine Town stops before our drink tickets ran out. At each stop, they played great live music, which I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, I’d expected more food to be served at this shindig. I literally ate 3 saltines all day. Combined with lots of wine tasting, I had quite the buzz. So we were desperate to get a sandwich somewhere. But it was Sunday, so of course everything was closed. (hello bad Italian economy). Anyway, I ended up buying a peach at a random mercato and just waiting it out until my 8 pm dinner, at which I fully stuffed my face (and then suffered through the relentless mocking of my grandmother who couldn’t get over how much I’d eaten). 

That about sums up the world’s longest blog post. If you made it this far, congratulations, and I’m sorry. I promise, at some point I’ll learn how to break these puppies up into manageable chunks. Next post is pictures and no words, promise!

Cinque Terre, Bed Bugs, Etc.

CINQUE TERRE

So the last 9 days have been some of the craziest and strangest of my life. I should have posted sooner about Cinque Terre— now it seems like it happened 10 years ago. I absolutely loved it there and had so much fun hiking and eating and beaching it. It is such a gorgeous place with such beautiful people—and by that I mean I was checking out cute Italian men but I was also staring down Italian middle aged women who were absolutely rocking bikinis. I didn’t see a single overweight person at the beach. It’s so obvious now why they think Americans are fat and gross—in comparison we’re absolute cows. Anddd yeah that about sums it up.

THE BED BUG SCARE OF 2011

Remember all those “awful mosquito bites” I’d been complaining about? Well unless “mosquito” is the Italian word for “bed bug” I was wrong. Last Wednesday I was at school and as I stood there scratching myself like a heroin addict, my friend explained that I prooobably had bed bugs. Ya know, since mosquitos don’t generally attack you in small clusters or all over your face at night. I didn’t want to believe it was true but I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I told one of our directors. She called another director who called my home stay grandmother, who apparently didn’t believe it was anything more than mosquitos. (Probably because they haven’t even heard of bed bugs here). Anyway, I had class until about 5 that day, and then a cooking class that night, so I didn’t come home until around midnight, so my family was already asleep. When I walked into my bedroom I could tell the sheets had been changed but I absolutely refused to go near the bed. I skyped with Justin and had a legitimate mental breakdown. He convinced me to check the mattress for bugs. Summoning every ounce of courage in my body I lifted the sheets. No bugs. Still, I wasn’t about to hop in that bed. I mean, at home I have trouble falling asleep when there’s a fly in my room. Little parasites in my pillow were a whoooole different ball game. So, what did my irrational self choose to do? I slept on the marble floor with a towel as a mattress/pillow. Truthfully. That is the course of action I chose. Fun fact—marble floors aren’t soft. They also aren’t warm. Oh and they were also still slightly covered with small shards of glass because my light fixture shattered on my floor in the middle of the night last week. Sooooo.. not the best night of my life. I did fall asleep though—first on my back, then my side, then inexplicably in “child’s pose” because it was the warmest option. But child’s pose ain’t too great for the blood circulation and I woke up with both legs asleep from the knee down, then had to wait 15 minutes for my blood to painfully start circulating again. Not surprisingly, I was at a total breaking point by then and I deigned to sleep in my stupid bed. 2 hours later, around 7 am, I woke up, went to the bathroom, and then was attacked in the hall by my frantic Italian mamacita. She tried to explain to me that they’d cleaned the whole room—floor to ceiling, and replaced everything and sprayed a bunch of bug killing stuff all over. Didn’t really get all she said though, unfortunately I haven’t covered the “So You Think You’ve Got Parasites” chapter of my Italian book yet. Anyway, after that, and about 15 bed checks, I concluded there were no more (or never had been any) bed bugs. The last few days I’ve been totally fine and the bites are going away. Although I did get an enormous mosquito bite on my face last night. So now I’ve got a super attractive lump in the center of my forehead. Hot. I think Craig is paying off these bugs to make me as unattractive as possible. Because really though, who wants to be friends with the girl with bed bugs? It’s the modern social stigma equivalent of being a leper, or like, a puppy killer. 

OTHER BORING STUFF

I mentioned a cooking class—that was fun. Except I didn’t do anything during it because I was afraid the girls I was working with would think I was peppering our pasta with bed bugs. (Apparently I’m great at self-ostracizing, likely because I’m Reggie’s clone). And then we had field trips to Arezzo and Urbino on Friday and Saturday. I tried to stay positive during the experience, but we saw about 7000 frescos and now I never want to see another biblical depiction in my life. 

This morning I went to mass at the Duomo (gimme those brownie points, Reg) and then had deeeelicious pizza for lunch. I was going to go to this cool library to do homework, but it started raining, so I just went up to the villa and did work. And then I came home at 8 and noticed 3 more place settings at the dinner table. Apparently, Three Austrian girls are staying with us. Two stayed with us last week. This place is less of a homestay house and more of a hostel/brothel. The girls are really nice though, and these three are cuter than the last batch. Unfortunately they’re 16 so I probably shouldn’t pimp them out to my male classmates. I’ve stopped assuming I’ll get an explanation with these random visitors, I have no idea when the next ones will come or for how long. Whatever. My homestay sister Elisa and I talked for a while after dinner in English. I love this girl. She’s so nice and might actually speak better English than I do. But of course.

Alright I’m finally concluding this. Hopefully I’ll post again sooner so it’s shorter, because I know no one read all the way through this.

 

Peace in Jesus.  

Mia Sorella and Such

Welp, if this program was designed to lower my self-esteem—mission accomplished. Finally met my home stay sister andddd she’s beautiful. She has a model’s body and gorgeous long curly hair. As I watched her scarf down a bowl of pasta and this delicious mozzarella/cheese/olive oil/fairy dust confection, I couldn’t help but hate myself for being the American. The awkward American who followed maybe 6 words of their conversation. If the mom speaks rapid-fire Italian, then this girl speaks another language entirely. Wish you all could have seen our first encounter, too. It was a nice little uncomfortable side to side dance move while she went in for the double kiss and I lunged for the hug. Apparently, my awkwardness transcends cultural boundaries. Nay, it flourishes within them. She and the mom spoke a lot to each other during dinner and when I spoke my two sentences they told me it’s funny listening to me because I have a combination of a spanish and american accent. Super! Wish I knew how to say, “nope that’s just me mumbling.” Maybe Bre will be able to explain it to them! The sister left to go who knows where (I’m sure it was explained but went over my head) right after dinner. So I guess we won’t be painting each other’s nails and braiding hair tonight. Her loss. As always, I’m just kidding and being dramatic. She seems awesome—very funny, very nice, and she told me 3 times that I should always tell her to slow down or explain something in English if I need it. So I’m definitely less anxious now!

Today was quite the class day, due in great part to last night’s activities. I’ll delve into that part first (sO KoLLeGEe!) (…my mom’s going to be so confused as to what that means). The group went out with the intention of dancing (read: sweating profusely and making body contact with 7 different people simultaneously). Now, those who know me well know that “Alexis” and “dancing” do not go well together. “Alexis” and “keeping feet planted, pumping arms oddly and making a pained face” are much more suitable. So I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to go out and exchange sweat with strangers. Plus I was really tired. I mentally prepared myself for one drink and an early bedtime. …Finally made it home basically just before dawn. Not because I’m cool, but simply because “taxis NON sono qui”  (jersey shore reference, duh!). Really don’t have much to say about the night, it actually ended up being fun, but I lost more brain cells talking to the drunk American girls in the bathroom than I did imbibing. I’m fully confident they’re all here for their strong appreciation of the Italian language and fascination with Renaissance art.      Alright, enough smugness. Excuse me while I dismount from this oddly high horse.

So anyway, I was super tired and today was our first “city of florence” class. It would have been extremely cool if we had been able to hear more of what our professor was saying as we walked around the main squares and across the Arno, but we saw three really beautiful churches and I was glad to become a little more oriented with the city. Although right now you could definitely ditch me for a day if you told me to try and navigate the streets by myself.

But the real pinnacle of the day was our post-lunch return to the villa to watch a movie on Florence. The movie was called, “A Room With A View.” While watching it, the only view of the room I wanted was the inside of my eyelids. It was this Victorian-era quasi-love story about a girl and some guy she made out with once in a field, with an inexplicable 10 minute full frontal male nude scene thrown in for variety. Needless to say, the old man genitalia was less than appreciated.

Ok, that was a long and pretty pointless post. Apologies. I’m going to go pack for Cinque Terre —so excited to go and I’ll definitely post pictures! xo

Firsts (Days, Nights and Mistakes!!!)

CIAO!!! Finally finally I’ll write about my first week in Florence! As I said in my last post, this blog will in no way be Pulitzer-prize worthy, but I’m so excited to update it!

MY PROGRAM:

I’m studying here through Georgetown’s Florence program. The villa where I take classes is ABSOLUTELY amazing and so so so gorgeous. It is located in a quintessential Italian town and everywhere I look is an amazingggg birdseye view of Florence. I don’t just want to get married here. I want to get married, give birth (except with an American epidural) and raise children here! The villa was donated to Georgetown by some descendant of the Rockefeller family (but, of course), and sits in the hills of Fiesole with a fantastic view of the entire city of Florence. It has sprawling gardens, plenty of room to study and hang out, and enough space to sleep 20 students. I am one of 10 students who were placed with a homestay family for the semester (I chose to do homestay so I could work on my Italian—after a year of taking it I can now proudly speak like a confused 5 year old). All of my classes are taught here, and it’s been awesome to have such small classes and to spend so much time with this group of great people!

MY FAMILY:

Now onto mia famiglia italiana: I’m living alone with a divorced travel agent Mom, an 18 year old sister, and a very young (like 60) year old grandmother 20 minutes from the center of the city, but still very much in Florence. I’ve been staying there since last Friday night, but I haven’t met my sister and grandmother yet. They’re coming back from a summer by the ocean on Friday night. The apartment is great..I have almost excessive storage and my own bathroom! And my mom is so nice and cool—she’s sarcastic and spits absolute rapid fire Italian so half the time I just nod and smile and say “si.”  So far it’s made for some interesting situations. For example, we have more homestay students coming to stay with us for a couple weeks, and right now I’m under the impression that there are three swedish girls coming in October who will all be sleeping in one king sized bed. ….You’re going to have to wait this one out with me and find out what happens. Right now it sounds like the intro to “Girls Gone Wild: Study Abroad.” I shouldn’t have mentioned it to any of the boys in my program, they’re suddenly extremely interested in my visiting my apartment. (and no Justin you’re not welcome here). Apparently my homestay sister is an absolute genius—she’s studying to be an engineer but she’s fluent in 4 languages and acts and plays the piano. I’m so glad I can represent American ingenuity and progress with my English major and zero plans post-graduation. Let’s see what else, what else… I’ve done a couple dumb things in my homestay so far. I cannot for the life of my figure out how to open my freaking front door. I struggle with it for like 5 minutes at a time and when I open the door the Mom is always standing in the foyer staring at me saying, “To the-uh left-uh! THEEE LEFT-UH!” Kidding she actually speaks great English, because she has to for work, but she basically speaks to me entirely in her “Tom-McNamee-after-doing-coke” speed of Italian. It’s nice though because when I totally don’t understand or know a word she helps me figure it out. And she’s been so great about correcting me and teaching me slowly and kindly. I’m so lucky! She also just has this great outlook on life and seems calm and like a straight up good person. After a lifetime with “Crack Rock Betty” (aka Reggie-Kins) it’s almost disconcerting how little this mom worries about me. I’m really excited to meet the grandma, too. Apparently she’s a fantastic cook. I look forward to a life of fitting only into spandex pants. On that note, let’s discuss my diet…

IL CIBO!!!

I will straight up renounce my US citizenship for a lifetime of eating like this. I’ll become an illegal immigrant. I’m already considering finding a hole in the wall of the villa and hiding out here until next semester. So yea I know what you’re thinking, “10 pound weight gain already?” Actually, haters, no I don’t think I’ve gained a pound because you all teased me so much about how fat I was going to get. So instead of stuffing my face with this deliciousness I’ve been trying to eat slowly and eat smaller portions. Plus we walk a lot and I’m trying to run or exercise every day. Thank you family for instilling true fear in my heart. And thanks Craig for your, “I know what I’m getting you for Christmas already—bigger pants” comment. If I may be so bold, I now fully understand my friend Notorious B.I.G.’s feelings when he so aptly mused, “

“this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me
I’d never amount to nothin’, to all the people that lived above the
buildings that I was hustlin’ in front of that called the police on
me when I was just tryin’ to make some money to feed my daughters,
and all the niggaz in the struggle, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Well put, Biggie. So well put. So f—k all you h—-s. I’m not getting fat! [SORRY MOM, SORRY RESPECTFUL FAMILY MEMBERS…IF SOMEONE READS THIS TO NANA, CENSOR THAT PART!]

CLASSES:

Oh ok I guess I should talk about classes too—- so far they’re awesome. My italian class is only seven people, and because I really want to communicate with my homestay family and around the city, I’ve been actually paying attention and trying to speak. I’m probably coming off like such an annoying loser in class but I don’t care because for once I’m invested in something and not doing my homework in the 45 seconds before class. (Although it’s only been 3 days—-we’ll see where this goes). I’m also taking two english classes, both of which seem dope. One’s on Italo Calvino and the other is on Female Italian Writers. The teachers are both funny and chill. We all have to take a 1 credit class on the city of Florence and our first meeting is downtown tomorrow. And my last class is Art History. The teacher dove into this extremely confusing 3 hour lecture yesterday like I’d been studying art history since birth and I honestly summoned every fiber of my being to stay awake and semi-focused. There aren’t a ton of lectures though, and I’m pumped to go into the city and actually see these things in person. Aren’t I so cultured? Speaking of cultured, they serve us wine every day at lunch. (which is why this post has the distinct hint of a “buzzed Alexis”)

I’M SWEATY:

Oh also, it’s gotten a lot cooler here now, but the first few days I could literally not stop sweating. Like could wear nothing but sleeveless shirts and carried deodorant with me at all times. They don’t have air conditioning here. Did you all know that? Did you know that and didn’t warn me about it? So I fully appreciate the whole, “Italians are smelly and hairy thing” (I mean, I’ve always understood the hairy part, but now I get the full picture). Take pity, you chilled and comfortable Americans with your sweatshirts in August. The real world isn’t quite so cozy. Adjusting to sleeping in a 90 degree room was a blast though. Loved it. I probably got 10 hours total of sleep in my first 5 nights here. I had to sleep with my window and door open, so I got noise from both the street and the courtyard, plus the extreme heat, plus jet lag, plus general anxiety. So I bought some homeopathic sleeping pills and since then I’ve been set.

Alright this has gone on far, far, far too long. For anyone who actually read through this, thanks and you’re welcome for the opportunity to procrastinate. They won’t all be this long, I promise! I love how I’m addressing an audience like I have a legion of followers and not just my mom who won’t even be able to figure out how to find this blog.

So for you, Reggie-Roo, LOVE AND MISS YOU SO SO MUCH! Ciao!