Random disjointed Italy updates
It's very humbling listening to early Beatles when you're in the middle of relationship confusion. Because they'll sing these simple, uncomplicated lyrics and it just hits you that that's exactly what you're feeling. And then you remember that these are the same people who were singing things like "Well, it’s the second time I've caught you talking to him, do I have to tell you one more time I think it's a sin . . . because I told you before, oh, you can't do that" around the same time, and you feel very silly. ;)
Last night (two nights ago, because I wrote this yesterday and didn't post it) I talked to someone from the program for the first time since US customs with Maria (the opera singer from my italian class). It was Will, actually, and I might as well admit now that stuff sort of happened that last Thursday night, and that was really what I was talking about when I said better late than never. (I seem to have almost comically bad timing with boys -- last time it was one week before we had to go back home for the summer, this time it was three hours before we had to catch our planes and trains out of Florence. *rolls eyes at self*) But we talked online for maybe two hours last night, and it was just so fun and relaxed and nice. But now I have no idea what I'm doing, because we can't date or anything -- he lives in Alabama and goes to school in North Carolina. He's a cool guy and I like talking to him though, so there's no real harm in keeping in touch and getting to know each other better from afar. wutevre, I'm sick of thinking about these things. No more thinking!
On the last Monday of the program, my Italian teacher Paola had our entire class over for dinner. Paola is the sweetest woman in the world. She grew up in Florence but is working on her PhD in Italian Literature at NYU, and while she's in New York she actually lives in the same building complex as me -- in the apartment across the hall from the one I lived in from when I was born to when I was about two. It's NYU faculty housing so I shouldn't be surprised that she and both the program coordinators live so near me, but it was pretty exciting to discover! Anyway, Paola's place in New York may be your standard tiny one-person apartment, but her house in Florence, the house she grew up in, is amazing. It's an apartment, but it's gorgeous and endless and has this long extended balcony all along the side of the living and dining rooms. I don't really know how to describe the style of the furniture or decorations, but it was all antique and ornate and very rich and lush.
One amusing tradition that sort of started up in our class was Paola asking us what we had done the previous night, and inevitably someone -- usually more than one person -- would answer that they drank. Eventually the question became "who drank last night?", and so we all got to know the regular partiers in our class. Paola acts very sweet and innocent, but you could tell she loved finding out this information, so when the time came for our class dinner she made sure there was lots of wine. And we drank lots of wine. But first! First we had dinner, prepared by Paola and her mother (because she claims she can't cook). In class that day we had asked her what she was cooking, but her answers were always very unsatisfying -- she'd give the Italian name of a dish we'd never heard of, and when we asked what exactly it was she'd just say "It's a Tuscan specialty," and leave it at that. So we were all a little worried about the food situation, but as it turned out we had nothing to worry about. This time I'll spare you the detailed descriptions of the food, mostly because I can't really remember most of it. There was a yummy pasta dish with some sort of cheese/cream sauce, and a bunch of appetizers including eggplant (friend? who knows!) and paté and...uh...I don't remember. Oh! For dessert we had chocolate cake, and then this really good stuff that was sort of liquidy sorbet spiked with vodka. I'm not sure what it was called or really what it was made of, but it was made by our coordinator Inga, who apparently went to lots of the class dinners and contributed to mischief. She brought along her Italian boyfriend and his two daughters, one of whom is fourteen and gorgeous and looks about seventeen, and the other is seven and the cutest little girl ever. After dinner we chatted a lot, and tried to talk to the girls in Italian, with limited success. The littlest one kept trying to get Maria the opera singer to sing for us, saying "Canta!" in her cute little voice. Awww. In fact there ended up being a lot of singing, especially as we loosened up a little. We put on Les Miz and sang to that, and then all sang various other musical theater numbers together, since Maria knows a lot of those songs. La. And then there was dancing -- this girl Stefani tried to teach us to salsa, but everyone just ended up sort of doing their own thing, because at this point the wine store had already been significantly depleted.
And then. And then. (Some of you have already heard this). I played spin-the-bottle for the first time in my life. I never played it in elementary school, or on middle school, or in high school, and I can assure you my life was tragically lacking for it. :D Well, at least it was lots more fun than I expected a game like that to be, which may be because of the wine. Anyway. Eventually we all went home and called it a night, and eventually Eleuthera wrapped up this long and rambling entry before she bored everyone to tears.
Italy updates have been getting fewer and farther between, haven't they? This may be the last of them, although I did want to do a quick writeup of Paris, the Uffizi, the David, and various other details. Maybe tomorrow we'll have a random mixed-up post of all the little things I want to remember. (That's what this post was going to be, but somehow I ended up dragging on and on about one subject and now I don't feel like writing another word on a single other topic.)
Last night (two nights ago, because I wrote this yesterday and didn't post it) I talked to someone from the program for the first time since US customs with Maria (the opera singer from my italian class). It was Will, actually, and I might as well admit now that stuff sort of happened that last Thursday night, and that was really what I was talking about when I said better late than never. (I seem to have almost comically bad timing with boys -- last time it was one week before we had to go back home for the summer, this time it was three hours before we had to catch our planes and trains out of Florence. *rolls eyes at self*) But we talked online for maybe two hours last night, and it was just so fun and relaxed and nice. But now I have no idea what I'm doing, because we can't date or anything -- he lives in Alabama and goes to school in North Carolina. He's a cool guy and I like talking to him though, so there's no real harm in keeping in touch and getting to know each other better from afar. wutevre, I'm sick of thinking about these things. No more thinking!
On the last Monday of the program, my Italian teacher Paola had our entire class over for dinner. Paola is the sweetest woman in the world. She grew up in Florence but is working on her PhD in Italian Literature at NYU, and while she's in New York she actually lives in the same building complex as me -- in the apartment across the hall from the one I lived in from when I was born to when I was about two. It's NYU faculty housing so I shouldn't be surprised that she and both the program coordinators live so near me, but it was pretty exciting to discover! Anyway, Paola's place in New York may be your standard tiny one-person apartment, but her house in Florence, the house she grew up in, is amazing. It's an apartment, but it's gorgeous and endless and has this long extended balcony all along the side of the living and dining rooms. I don't really know how to describe the style of the furniture or decorations, but it was all antique and ornate and very rich and lush.
One amusing tradition that sort of started up in our class was Paola asking us what we had done the previous night, and inevitably someone -- usually more than one person -- would answer that they drank. Eventually the question became "who drank last night?", and so we all got to know the regular partiers in our class. Paola acts very sweet and innocent, but you could tell she loved finding out this information, so when the time came for our class dinner she made sure there was lots of wine. And we drank lots of wine. But first! First we had dinner, prepared by Paola and her mother (because she claims she can't cook). In class that day we had asked her what she was cooking, but her answers were always very unsatisfying -- she'd give the Italian name of a dish we'd never heard of, and when we asked what exactly it was she'd just say "It's a Tuscan specialty," and leave it at that. So we were all a little worried about the food situation, but as it turned out we had nothing to worry about. This time I'll spare you the detailed descriptions of the food, mostly because I can't really remember most of it. There was a yummy pasta dish with some sort of cheese/cream sauce, and a bunch of appetizers including eggplant (friend? who knows!) and paté and...uh...I don't remember. Oh! For dessert we had chocolate cake, and then this really good stuff that was sort of liquidy sorbet spiked with vodka. I'm not sure what it was called or really what it was made of, but it was made by our coordinator Inga, who apparently went to lots of the class dinners and contributed to mischief. She brought along her Italian boyfriend and his two daughters, one of whom is fourteen and gorgeous and looks about seventeen, and the other is seven and the cutest little girl ever. After dinner we chatted a lot, and tried to talk to the girls in Italian, with limited success. The littlest one kept trying to get Maria the opera singer to sing for us, saying "Canta!" in her cute little voice. Awww. In fact there ended up being a lot of singing, especially as we loosened up a little. We put on Les Miz and sang to that, and then all sang various other musical theater numbers together, since Maria knows a lot of those songs. La. And then there was dancing -- this girl Stefani tried to teach us to salsa, but everyone just ended up sort of doing their own thing, because at this point the wine store had already been significantly depleted.
And then. And then. (Some of you have already heard this). I played spin-the-bottle for the first time in my life. I never played it in elementary school, or on middle school, or in high school, and I can assure you my life was tragically lacking for it. :D Well, at least it was lots more fun than I expected a game like that to be, which may be because of the wine. Anyway. Eventually we all went home and called it a night, and eventually Eleuthera wrapped up this long and rambling entry before she bored everyone to tears.
Italy updates have been getting fewer and farther between, haven't they? This may be the last of them, although I did want to do a quick writeup of Paris, the Uffizi, the David, and various other details. Maybe tomorrow we'll have a random mixed-up post of all the little things I want to remember. (That's what this post was going to be, but somehow I ended up dragging on and on about one subject and now I don't feel like writing another word on a single other topic.)