i'm going going back back

I'm sweaty. Bad way to start. I am alone. The family has gone and left, not without a lot of fighting, cursing, money spending, and drinks a'drinking. We had fun. But I am ready to go home. So much has happened this past month and a half. So much even since the last time I posted a blog. For starters, my roommate tried to fight me at the happenin Central Park dance club. Blame it on the alcohol, but I know there was hostility there. It was a long month living with four (and a half?) other roommates and I know we were about ready to kill one another towards the end. And perhaps I am hard to live with. I can admit to that. But honestly, I am leaving this place with beautiful memories of each and every one of my roommates, fighting aside. Each weekend was breathtaking and it is because of my roommates that I enjoyed it so much. I have that to thank them. It was a good night, that aside, and I left kicking myself for never going to that club before. Oh, did I mention I brought Tess to Central Park? Yeah, it was the day my family got in. I wanted Tess to meet all my roommates and for all of us to show her a good time. Things changed. I accidentally knocked Natalie in the eye with my elbow while dancing, Irum poured her drink out and said "I'm just kidding. Relax." Oh and then Irum tried to fight me. All in a night's fun. Tess was quite amused. But I am going to change subjects. The last week and a half with my family has been quite interesting. We spent three nights in Florence, went to the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio. Then to the Cinque Terre-ish. It was more like Cinque Terre's distant, more Italian, more happening cousin. But it was gorgeous and peaceful nonetheless. Then to Lucca for a night, over to Siena, and back to Florence. They left this morning. And here I sit at my internet cafe. I forgot to mention a few other things. More to come on the plane...

Waitin on a Dream

The family is almost here! They are in at 3 but I know if I head over now I will be waiting for quite a while. You know the time it takes to get your bags, get through the airport, get a cab, get to your hotel, etc. I have prepared a bag with gifts, uffizi book for mom, vatican calendar for grandma, bracelet for tess, wine, some travel books, and our itinerary. I regret not blogging for a while. I suppose you could say I have had a long week. I had a messy drunk night on tuesday, or school's going away dinner. I believe there was more wine than actual food. It was less than an aperitivo, let me just say. But I enjoyed being with my friends. That is until Vincent came up to me and said my hair looked a mess and I should have reconsidered letting it down and not straightening it. Perhaps he doesn't realize that converters don't really work with American straighteners. They blow up. Anywho, the night was interesting. Apparently I puked over someone's bed. Sad thing is I don't remember! I also had a lot of projects and studying to keep me busy. And we went out for blueberry steak at Acqua al Due (AMAZING! I made reservations for the family). But I mustn't forget to mention my lovely weekend in Capri, worth being penniless today. It was utterly breathtaking, a place left for dreams, deserving of a day without words, only sight. My counselors were a bit creepy, but they made the trip perhaps laughable in many ways, judging from their drunken escapades. I met a gorgeous couple from Australia, travelling through Europe for 8 weeks, just back from the racing of the bulls. That is all for now. Ti amo.

Tombola

On Tuesday night the three of us decided to attempt another Pub Crawl with our good friend Vincent. It was basically the same set up as the one in Rome, except less people and much better booze. I even made to every bar. I met a guy from Iowa named Austin and we reminisced about the Iowa State Fair and all things Midwest. It was a pleasant, actually memorable (!) experience except for the end. Vincent yanked Irum's camera and now it does not turn on. I took Irum's keys to go home and it turns out I broke one. But somehow I woke up with more money than I had so all is good in love and war. I don't know why I used that reference. I met up with people from my Italian Grand Tour class to work on our group project. One girl has chosen to talk about the Italian Bingo-esque game "Tombola" and another about Italian pasta. I had prepared two parts and she basically shot my ideas down completely. Whatever. I'm doing it anyway. I hate group projects. I am actually the one who always takes controls so she particularly erked me. Whatevs. In twelve hours I will be in Capri! Ciao!

Bus2theAlps

Yeah. That is the name of the company I have paid £217 to take me to the Amalfi Coast this weekend. I hope it is worth it because I am down to $200. I have no idea where all of my money has gone to. But I had to do. I was peer pressured and it is my last weekend with my roommates. Go big or go home, as we say in the states. So we'll see. I am really mad at myself for not writing this week. But i'll try to do a quick recap. So last weekend I went to Rome with Irum and Natalie. We left after Natalie's class around 6:00. So we got there around nine. We never booked a room beforehand, but we figured we would figure something out on the train ride to Rome. Rome is huge. There's tons of hostels. What could go wrong? As soon as we got off the train some short aged man with glasses caught us and lured us into his £15/night rooms at the Amore Hostel. He was a little too forward. Our little group and the Brazilian guys he talked to all thought he was in the "selling young naiive kids' bodies business" so we booked it out of there. Sorry, but I have seen one too many Taken movies to trust Pepe in the train station. We walked a ways with the too, tanned and built I might add, Brazilian boys until we found one hostel offering only two beds, for the both of them of course, since we had three. On our way out of that hostel I met Gusha, a young Turkish teacher backpacking (by herself!!!! eek!!) through Europe. She seemed a little frazzled, without a room, map, or dinner. So we decided to have her join where ever we ended up. And we did end up somewhere. It was cheaper than the first hostel we saw, the smelly, dirty, dilapidated one, and more spacious. So it was A Ok with me. The next day, Saturday, we made it to our 12:00 reservation at the Vatican. It was all a blur to us until we reached the Sistine Chapel. I had seen it before. It's pretty cool, but to be quite honest the shit leading up to it is more enthralling for me. What the hell is Genesis anyway? And the whole Sistine Chapel apron and doggy toy seems a bit Sacreligious to me, if it is indeed so important to the Catholic faith. Whatever. All I cared about was calling my grandma and getting whatever her little heart desired. If Holy Water from the Pope was what she wanted, I would have stood in another mile-long line just for her. But thank God she didn't. So ya. Saw the Vatican, did some shopping. Then we found ourselves at the Poppin Hostel. We met some guy from New Jersey who had recently participated in a pub crawl in Rome. He gave us the details and we made plans to do it that night. Thus began pub crawl preparations: cold shower, espresso, red bull, and greasy, but filling meal. In this case it was a Kebab, and no I never get sick of European Kebab stands that dot the streets of all Italia. Once we got to the Colisseum and met up with our crawling crew the night went a little something like this: first bar it was all-you-can-drink cheap beer in 40's that was inevitably luke warm when you reached the bottom AND cheap rum and vodka drinks mixed with whatever was on sale at Conad. Yum yum! Needless to say, the mix with the added espresso and red bull did not sit well. The funny German boys who were biking across Europe seemed to settle my stomach, and mood, but not for long. They kept bringing up WWII and their grandfather's struggle (?) That weirded me out a little. They were swell guys nonetheless, and I have pictures to prove it. Four bars later, after far too much walking, forcing myself to throw up, being gifted with a rose outside a bar in the fetal position, and fighting with Irum about walking to slow, I was home. Oh wait, on the way home some drunk bitch threw a bottle at us just grazing my left shoulder AND we got free tuna pizza. Then I crawled into bed, makeup, puke residue and T-shirt still on. The next day was better. We got a complimentary coffee and croissant from our hostel and they let us keep our backpacks there until we got on the train. We did a bit of shopping, Irum visited Bulgari exhibit, and I even found a shirt to wear out and about. We decided on Asian food for lunch, which turned out to be a not so good idea. It was all very strange and Italian tasting. My curry was slimy and our chicken tasted like fish. We decided to take an early train, because we were going to save money and take the slow train anyways. Once home, four hours later, I got to study for my midterm.

(Paper for Class)

Observing Italy: Via del Giglio

My apartment is situated the Lorenzo de Medici campus and Hotel Giotto, in the heart of Firenze, Italia. To get there, one must climb eight flights of stairs, passing by tourists with wall-to-wall luggage and my neighbor’s dog Pepe, the most annoying of little dogs. But once I reach “Piccioli 85,” owned by my landlord, Piccioli, I know that I am home.

Outside my dining room window I feel a sense of home, in a place that is so foreign. It is a feeling unlike any other. Laundry hangs in a plethora of colors, shapes, and sizes. Music plays from every genre, in every language, from all over the world. I immediately smell curried meats creep out from my next-door neighbor’s kitchen window, and if I lean my head out far enough I smell sulfur from rotting sewage down below.

Children play video games in one room, while old ladies play card games and smoke cigarettes in the apartment next door. Pigeons line the terra cotta roof above us, while men in wife beaters play basketball below us.

A dried up sink lives outside an abandoned apartment, waiting to fill a bucket and feed the dying plants close by. Hundreds of forgotten clothespins have fallen to the street, amid thousands of tarnished rags. But as I stroll to my bedroom window, the scene begins to change.

Students rush to and fro, juggling cappuccinos and cigarettes with one hand and international cell phones in the other. Hotel guests stop and go, haunted with a look of confusion and disgust. Waiters gossip outside their restaurants as young couples whizz by in baby blue Vespas. The smell of shrimp and mango lingers out of the VVM Asian Market across my street as Porsches and Beemers, shiny and new, exit the garage next door.

Discoteque Space

I am so tired. Today has been the longest day. It all started last night after much too much Grey Goose and not enough grace. Originally the plan was to pregame hard and go out dancing, but plans changed, as they often do. Natalie and I decided to change things up a bit and pick up some Peronis, as opposed to the standard chianti and sippy cups. On our way to the club we bought Bacardi Breezers from a snack stand. So when I finally reached Space (weird name, huh?) I was already pickled, a colloquialism care of Tina. Tina and I hopped inside to check out the scene while Natalie and Irum waited outside for her friend in town from Pakistan. Inside I felt a strange feeling like I had been there before. When I finally made it to the dance floor I knew for sure that I had been there before, unmistakable cigarette room off the dance floor, large room with flashing lights and dancing cells above. It was four years ago on my high school Europe trip. I distinctly remembered because this was the club where Emilie Susanin was caught dancing with an older man when her dress fell off and our teachers called her parents. Anyways, Irum's friend Hussein finally arrived and decided to do bottle service. Needless to say, he is pretty well off. Irum explained that his mother owns the equivalent of the Paul Mitchell of Pakistan. Get the picture? Oh, and he models. So it was VIP all the way, equipped with our very own room in front of the dance floor. Long story short, after drinking enough to call it a night ahead of time and taking advantage of free Grey Goose and Absolut, I got shit-canned, made out with five people including Natalie, and told Tina "I don't care if you are Catholic, I am not going home with you." She won't stop gifting me with details and cute little anecdotes of my stupidity from last night. And honestly, as alcoholism runs in my family and, priding myself on my own maturity, I would rather she stop that now. I don't want to know what else I said or who else I puked on. Frankly, the blacking out is kinda nice because I can just say "I don't remember." I skipped class this morning, after waking up in my wedges from the night before and a back ache from the linoleum of the bathroom floor. Apparently I didn't know how to unlock the door last night in my drunken stupor. Ok, breathe. Repeat "stupid maya. stupid maya. stupid maya..."

Herro

I'm sitting at the computer lab. Bored. I went to Santa Crocce this morning, a magnificent church with catacombs of Michelangelo and Galileo. It was nice, aside from the fact that my teacher neglected to remind us about the whole covering your shoulders and legs thing. I had jeans on before class but my roommate Tina said they were unnecessary, come to find out at the church that I could not enter. Needless to say I bought a cheesy scarf featuring Italian tourist traps and was allowed entrance. Some of my roommates have been fighting lately, really petty stuff, so I organized a house meeting, which half the house never showed up for. Whatever. Pub crawl tonight with Irum and Natalie and my hilarious friend Vincent. After free sangria and shots at each bar, my entry tomorrow might not be as chipper.

Chianti and Cinque Terre

The last two days of my life in Italy have been the most memorable. On Friday my roommates, Irum and Marie, and I went on a wine tasting tour of the Chianti region. The region consists of Florence and surrounding small towns. We bussed our way to a castle and vineyard outside of Greve, Italy. There we toured the castle and wine cellar. One barrel we were shown, approximately 20 feet in diameter, was over 100 years old. I had never toured a cellar, let alone been introduced to such a mammoth structure of booze. After the tour we had the fortunate opportunity to sample not one, but four wines. Three were samplings of their Chianti and the fourth was a pleasantly sweet dessert wine. Paired with the wines were salamis, the best I ever had, breads with olive oil, parmiggiano reggiano, that weird Italian bologna with the cubes of fat (mortadello?), and biscotti, which they don't actually call biscotti in Italy, for the dessert wine. All in all, a splendidly booze-soaked afternoon. I even met a beautiful Australian couple who were eager to let us in on some secrets of Italian wine tasting and cheese eating. A wonderful day. I must admit the booze hit me on the way home and a nice kitty kat nap soon followed. As for yesterday, I went to Cinque Terre with Irum and Natalie. Cinque Terre, translated five lands, is a gorgeous seaside area where tourists and Italians alike go to hike or simply stroll from one village to the next. The three of us woke up bright and early to catch the three hour train to the first village. We decided to stop outside the third village so we could attempt the shorter, hour and a half, hike to the next. Once we got to our destination, after a 400 step stairs finale, we had a filling lunch, accompanied with a well deserved Beck's and made our plans for the day. The nude beach we wanted to try out was closed for the day so we settled on a quick dip in the nearby rocky beach. Next we hopped on a train for the "better beach" in the touristy Monterossa. It truly was a better beach, aside from the £13 price tag for pool chairs and a better view. The water was dirtier, surprisingly, or not considering the beach's popularity. After a quick dip, Natalie and I got some beers and chatted it up while Irum, adventurous as she is, canoed on her own for an hour. A great day. Aside from this burn.

"There is no foreign land; it is only the traveller that is foreign." Robert Louis Stevenson

So yesterday was a bad day. I went to my first class utterly exhausted even they I went to bed early the night before. I fell asleep in class and as soon as it ended I raced home and got in bed. When I awoke from my nap I had the most intense, debilitating migraine of my life. I was dizzy, and saw spots when I walked upstairs to the kitchen to have lunch. After lunch I had a shower and felt as if my entire left side was numb. I thought I would pass out. I called my mom and realize now that was a bad idea because all I did was worry her. Dehydration? Heat stroke? I tried to make it to my second class but as soon as I explained my symptoms to my teacher she ordered to go to the doctor with my advisor. Once I met up with my advisor she took me to the pharmacy. The pharmacist checked my blood pressure and decided it was too high to not go to the hospital. Sally Heaven, my cute fashion-forward South African advisor and I cabbed it to the hospital where my vital signs were checked and I received a needle full of pain killers in my ass. On the way back I puked my entire lunch of chicken fried rice in front of my advisor on the street, arrived home and slept for what felt like days, and here I am today. Alive and well. I took it pretty easy tonight because I do want to go out tonight. the bar is called central park.

Pasta Milanese

For my readers (mom),
Today is monday (right?) and I am sitting in the computer lab waiting with my roommate Irum, who is from Pakistan and goes to school in Ontario, and Natalie, a native of Chicago who went to culinary school a few years back, for our next class. My roommate from staten island has only one class a day and she is officially done for the day. the four of us are the fabulous four, i.e. we hit it off really well when we first met and there is a whole fight club motto we have. of course, you know, i cannot talk about it. because you do not talk about fight club. rule number one. anyways, marie, staten island, is making us a traditional family dish called pasta milanese. i am very excited for that. tina, l.a., is taking a wine and food pairing class so hopefully she will pick only the best. natalie made a beautiful pasta and chicken last saturday. our friend domenico, who we met one late night scrounging through the city for pastries, had dinner with us that night. he is courting marie. it is pretty adorable. what else? so much, so much. we tried to go to the boboli gardens and a mineral museum today but unfortunately, as it is monday, they were both closed. still a good day though. i had my frist day of class, italian travel writing, and afterwards, as i was thinking it would be marvelous to be done at 11:45, i visited my advisor to see if i could drop my later class. i wouldn't get any of my money back. or rather, any of my dad's money back. so i have decided to bite the bullet, lip, gun? bite whatever, suck it up and go to interpersonal communication from 4:15-7. love.

In case ya get antsy....

Missing me? Well you are in luck because I purchased an international cell phone today for the meager price of £.39 per minute for International calls (free for me if you make the call).

011-39-335-774-3025

sweaty but hopeful

I am here. This computer is on Italian lock and unfortunately the hot Italian dude has left and I do not know how to change it. But I will say the international travelling by myself was a hell of a lot easier than I thought. I had the fortunate opportunity to sit next to a wonderful lady from Poland who was returning home for her sisters funeral. I did not ask how she passed. She really made my flight bareable. And so, now I sit at this internet cafe outside of my wonderful 6 person flat, fully equipped with washer, dryer, dish washer, living room, and dining room. now i can sort of understand the 900 dollar price tag. so much to say. it was not until today that i really felt like i was on vacation. i have been by myself up until this point, well i suppose i still am. the hotel was not fun. i slept the whole time. the breakfast of bread, cheese, and cappucino was the only thing were telling about. to jake and tess, thank you.

Packing

It is the Thursday before my trip and my emotions continue to brew between anxious, fatigued, confused, and blissful. I know, I know. Everything will be fine by I am honestly scared to travel by myself internationally! I'm gonna get back to my preparations. Until the next time (when I'm on the plane!) maya