Monday, September 29, 2008
My weekend in Florence
9/27/08
1. New blog format
2. All my friends left me, I’m sad
3. 5 euro sweater/ Just a taste of donkey
4. Behind the Glory: Adam Caniparoli, wine connoisseur (did I spell that right?)
5. Fortza Viola: Fiorentina soccer
1. What’s up, folks? I’ve decided to introduce a new “user-friendly” format for my blog. At the top there will be a paragraph-paragraph identification guide in case you’re in a hurry and you don’t want to read about all of my non-sensical blatherings (is that a word?). Also, I haven't written in awhile, so this is a really long blog. Maybe read it and take breaks in between sections.
2. So this weekend, all but one of my usual friends left to Venice and I was left to entertain myself. I found myself entertained with a lovely head cold for most of the weekend. But after sleeping for 30 hours over the last three nights, I’m feeling a lot better.
3. Yesterday was an outrageously exciting day. I met my friend Lauren in the early afternoon and we went to the market, Piazza Sant’Ambrogio to explore and buy stolen merchandise for prices so low, it should be ILLEGAL. It probably is illegal. I bought an awesome sweater for 5 euros and then bought some cheap fruit. It was then lunch time and we tried to eat at a number of places, but lost interest when there were too many people trying to eat there. We then wandered into a tiny little hole in the wall to try to buy some rolls that we could eat with fruit to have a sort of makeshift lunch. So using my superior Italian skills, I tried to order two rolls and the well-dressed man working behind the counter asked me (in Italian) what I wanted in it. Confused by this question, I sort of muttered and looked confused at him at which point he said a bunch of things in Italian, caught on that I spoke English and then started speaking in Italian. It turns out that what I took to be a bakery, was actually a large game shop. The options for the insides of our sandwiches were hare, wild boar, venison and my personal favorite option: donkey! We thought he was kidding when he said it was donkey meat. So I ordered venison and my friend, Lauren ordered hare, but the dude said, no no. “You must try taste of donkey.” Taste of donkey. So he gave her a donkey sandwich and he gave me a hare sandwich for some reason. In the process of all this, after we said we didn’t want anything to drink, he told us you can’t eat game without wine, so he gave us each a free glass of chianti. And the food was so good. It was in a sort of gravy and I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to would be brisket. But donkey and hare meat instead of beef. After that he brought us a bowl of grapes and then we paid, having no idea how much it was going to cost. It turns out that after the sandwiches we didn’t mean to order, the wine and the grapes, it was just 4 euros each. And then we were on our way.
4. After the market adventure, we went across the river to a big wine tasting festival to meet two of Lauren’s friends from the states. There were about 30 or 40 tents set up in three separate piazzas and each tent housed two wineries where you could taste their wine. The system is as follows: You pay 10 euros and they give you a little book on the wineries with room for notes on the different wine, a wine glass carrying pouch (it looks ridiculous, so I of course had mine on as much as possible) and a punch card good for twelve wine tastes. Wine tastes should more correctly be referred to as glasses of wine. My previous knowledge of wine tasting is you go and they give you a bout a mouthful of wine to swish around and then spit out. These people pour you whole glasses of wine! Sometimes they pour you a more reasonable amount, but usually, it was a lot closer to a full glass. And you’re supposed to be able to get through 12! Needless to say, I got through four and as we were ready to leave, I promptly dropped my wine glass on the ground in front of a church and a crowd of about 50 people. I picked up most of the glass and brought it to the place where I was issued a glass originally and got a new one. I figured it was time to go home then. On our way home we were greeted by a wine parade with men throwing flags in the air and wearing silly wine clothing. It was very cool. I went back to the wine tasting event today with my friends to try to finish off my other 10 glasses (I only got punched for two of the four glasses that I had the day before) of wine (ambitious, I know, but I love a challenge!). There were three of us, so they bought one more card and between the three of us, took down a good 15 or 16 glasses of wine. Then it was time to talk to the parents! I ate some breadsticks and drank some water, and then I was all set. It was a ton of fun and I got a wine glass out of it as well as a wealth of knowledge of Tuscan wine (This is, of course, not true. They sort of all taste the same to me.)
5. The final event of Saturday evening was the Fiorentina game. Un gioco di calico. A soccer game. Fiorentina is the Florence soccer club and apparently everyone in the entire city is a big fan. They were violet jerseys because the city flower of Florence is the violet. About 30 students from the school showed up and walked over together, led by our fearless leader, the director of the program. When we got there, we found some seats (there are assigned seats, but no one sits in them) and observed that the sea of purple was interrupted only briefly by four sections of the stadium that were all in a row. We learned that the away team (in our case, Genova) is given a police escort to and from the train station so they aren’t beaten up. They also are contained in their own two sections separated by large metal walls and two lines of security guards. As if that weren’t enough, the two sections on either side of them aren’t sold to either team to create a barrier between the two groups of fans. I couldn’t understand anything that either group of fans would cheer at each other, except for one cheer that our team did, which I managed to catch “Va fancola, Genova,” which means “Go [whoops] yourself, Genova.” I learned later, first hand, that when the Genovese wanted to buy concessions, they had to go to the metal wall separating the two sides and buy concessions through bars in the wall, like caged animals. There was literally no chance of fans from the two sides ever physically interacting. Of course at halftime, the two groups of fans would scream obscenities at each other and shake the metal wall separating them until the security guards broke them apart. It was very exciting. Very glad to be on the Fiorentina side of things. Incidentally, the game was also quite entertaining and Fiorentina won 1-0. We couldn’t really see how the goal was scored because we were on the end of the field, opposite that goal that was being scored on. I’m sure it was amazing. I bought a purple stocking cap and got my face painted by a very polite Southern architect major from Kentucky. I plan on coming to as many Fiorentina games as I have money for. They play at home every other week.
All in all, my weekend mostly alone in Florence turned out to be a ton of fun. I got much closer to another person and got to catch up on some sleep. Florence really is a wonderful city. Una bella citta.
AJC
1. New blog format
2. All my friends left me, I’m sad
3. 5 euro sweater/ Just a taste of donkey
4. Behind the Glory: Adam Caniparoli, wine connoisseur (did I spell that right?)
5. Fortza Viola: Fiorentina soccer
1. What’s up, folks? I’ve decided to introduce a new “user-friendly” format for my blog. At the top there will be a paragraph-paragraph identification guide in case you’re in a hurry and you don’t want to read about all of my non-sensical blatherings (is that a word?). Also, I haven't written in awhile, so this is a really long blog. Maybe read it and take breaks in between sections.
2. So this weekend, all but one of my usual friends left to Venice and I was left to entertain myself. I found myself entertained with a lovely head cold for most of the weekend. But after sleeping for 30 hours over the last three nights, I’m feeling a lot better.
3. Yesterday was an outrageously exciting day. I met my friend Lauren in the early afternoon and we went to the market, Piazza Sant’Ambrogio to explore and buy stolen merchandise for prices so low, it should be ILLEGAL. It probably is illegal. I bought an awesome sweater for 5 euros and then bought some cheap fruit. It was then lunch time and we tried to eat at a number of places, but lost interest when there were too many people trying to eat there. We then wandered into a tiny little hole in the wall to try to buy some rolls that we could eat with fruit to have a sort of makeshift lunch. So using my superior Italian skills, I tried to order two rolls and the well-dressed man working behind the counter asked me (in Italian) what I wanted in it. Confused by this question, I sort of muttered and looked confused at him at which point he said a bunch of things in Italian, caught on that I spoke English and then started speaking in Italian. It turns out that what I took to be a bakery, was actually a large game shop. The options for the insides of our sandwiches were hare, wild boar, venison and my personal favorite option: donkey! We thought he was kidding when he said it was donkey meat. So I ordered venison and my friend, Lauren ordered hare, but the dude said, no no. “You must try taste of donkey.” Taste of donkey. So he gave her a donkey sandwich and he gave me a hare sandwich for some reason. In the process of all this, after we said we didn’t want anything to drink, he told us you can’t eat game without wine, so he gave us each a free glass of chianti. And the food was so good. It was in a sort of gravy and I suppose the closest thing I can compare it to would be brisket. But donkey and hare meat instead of beef. After that he brought us a bowl of grapes and then we paid, having no idea how much it was going to cost. It turns out that after the sandwiches we didn’t mean to order, the wine and the grapes, it was just 4 euros each. And then we were on our way.
4. After the market adventure, we went across the river to a big wine tasting festival to meet two of Lauren’s friends from the states. There were about 30 or 40 tents set up in three separate piazzas and each tent housed two wineries where you could taste their wine. The system is as follows: You pay 10 euros and they give you a little book on the wineries with room for notes on the different wine, a wine glass carrying pouch (it looks ridiculous, so I of course had mine on as much as possible) and a punch card good for twelve wine tastes. Wine tastes should more correctly be referred to as glasses of wine. My previous knowledge of wine tasting is you go and they give you a bout a mouthful of wine to swish around and then spit out. These people pour you whole glasses of wine! Sometimes they pour you a more reasonable amount, but usually, it was a lot closer to a full glass. And you’re supposed to be able to get through 12! Needless to say, I got through four and as we were ready to leave, I promptly dropped my wine glass on the ground in front of a church and a crowd of about 50 people. I picked up most of the glass and brought it to the place where I was issued a glass originally and got a new one. I figured it was time to go home then. On our way home we were greeted by a wine parade with men throwing flags in the air and wearing silly wine clothing. It was very cool. I went back to the wine tasting event today with my friends to try to finish off my other 10 glasses (I only got punched for two of the four glasses that I had the day before) of wine (ambitious, I know, but I love a challenge!). There were three of us, so they bought one more card and between the three of us, took down a good 15 or 16 glasses of wine. Then it was time to talk to the parents! I ate some breadsticks and drank some water, and then I was all set. It was a ton of fun and I got a wine glass out of it as well as a wealth of knowledge of Tuscan wine (This is, of course, not true. They sort of all taste the same to me.)
5. The final event of Saturday evening was the Fiorentina game. Un gioco di calico. A soccer game. Fiorentina is the Florence soccer club and apparently everyone in the entire city is a big fan. They were violet jerseys because the city flower of Florence is the violet. About 30 students from the school showed up and walked over together, led by our fearless leader, the director of the program. When we got there, we found some seats (there are assigned seats, but no one sits in them) and observed that the sea of purple was interrupted only briefly by four sections of the stadium that were all in a row. We learned that the away team (in our case, Genova) is given a police escort to and from the train station so they aren’t beaten up. They also are contained in their own two sections separated by large metal walls and two lines of security guards. As if that weren’t enough, the two sections on either side of them aren’t sold to either team to create a barrier between the two groups of fans. I couldn’t understand anything that either group of fans would cheer at each other, except for one cheer that our team did, which I managed to catch “Va fancola, Genova,” which means “Go [whoops] yourself, Genova.” I learned later, first hand, that when the Genovese wanted to buy concessions, they had to go to the metal wall separating the two sides and buy concessions through bars in the wall, like caged animals. There was literally no chance of fans from the two sides ever physically interacting. Of course at halftime, the two groups of fans would scream obscenities at each other and shake the metal wall separating them until the security guards broke them apart. It was very exciting. Very glad to be on the Fiorentina side of things. Incidentally, the game was also quite entertaining and Fiorentina won 1-0. We couldn’t really see how the goal was scored because we were on the end of the field, opposite that goal that was being scored on. I’m sure it was amazing. I bought a purple stocking cap and got my face painted by a very polite Southern architect major from Kentucky. I plan on coming to as many Fiorentina games as I have money for. They play at home every other week.
All in all, my weekend mostly alone in Florence turned out to be a ton of fun. I got much closer to another person and got to catch up on some sleep. Florence really is a wonderful city. Una bella citta.
AJC
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Gioco basket
09/23/08
This will be just a brief check in because I have a ton of work to do tonight and it’s almost one am. Today was acting workshop, spazio conversazione (locals come to the school and we sit around and try to talk Italian with them, while they work on their English), and basketball practice. Result of acting workshop: there is a really cute girl in it, but she already has a boyfriend (see disgruntled blog from sometime last week). Boo. But she has the most amazing smile. I can’t ignore her. The rest of the workshop was fun too.
Basketball was awesome! There were only four of us who showed up. I had heard we would be playing with another team and I assumed it was going to be a team of college-aged students. We show up and a 40-something man who speaks great English introduces himself as Andrea. The rest of his team is probably in their forties or fifties. We observe this unexpected scene and start warming up. It turns out this team of 40-50 year old men is actually quite hardcore. And most of them are named Marco. We did warm ups and drills for about 40 minutes and then scrimmaged for 30. They are all really good and in excellent shape. We kept up with them though. One of the Syracuse students who was playing with us is about 6’5” and enjoys effortlessly dunking the basketball. I think our team is going to be pretty good. I made some good passes and made about half my shots. Learned some new words: blocco means screen and stoppata means block. Andrea (the team captain, I later learned) taught me how to say these and other words, but those are the only ones that stayed with me. My highlights of the practice include taking a big charge from a different big kid from Syracuse and diving into the legs of the seemingly oldest member of the team and having him fall on me. All in all, it was amazing. I got a great workout and had a ton of fun. I think we play games some time as well – don’t know yet though. Gioco basket! I play basketball!
Everything else is great, I’m gonna try to do some reading before I pass out.
This will be just a brief check in because I have a ton of work to do tonight and it’s almost one am. Today was acting workshop, spazio conversazione (locals come to the school and we sit around and try to talk Italian with them, while they work on their English), and basketball practice. Result of acting workshop: there is a really cute girl in it, but she already has a boyfriend (see disgruntled blog from sometime last week). Boo. But she has the most amazing smile. I can’t ignore her. The rest of the workshop was fun too.
Basketball was awesome! There were only four of us who showed up. I had heard we would be playing with another team and I assumed it was going to be a team of college-aged students. We show up and a 40-something man who speaks great English introduces himself as Andrea. The rest of his team is probably in their forties or fifties. We observe this unexpected scene and start warming up. It turns out this team of 40-50 year old men is actually quite hardcore. And most of them are named Marco. We did warm ups and drills for about 40 minutes and then scrimmaged for 30. They are all really good and in excellent shape. We kept up with them though. One of the Syracuse students who was playing with us is about 6’5” and enjoys effortlessly dunking the basketball. I think our team is going to be pretty good. I made some good passes and made about half my shots. Learned some new words: blocco means screen and stoppata means block. Andrea (the team captain, I later learned) taught me how to say these and other words, but those are the only ones that stayed with me. My highlights of the practice include taking a big charge from a different big kid from Syracuse and diving into the legs of the seemingly oldest member of the team and having him fall on me. All in all, it was amazing. I got a great workout and had a ton of fun. I think we play games some time as well – don’t know yet though. Gioco basket! I play basketball!
Everything else is great, I’m gonna try to do some reading before I pass out.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Merrily we roll along
9/22/08
Life is like a dream. Well at least parts of it are. Life is just so different than it has ever been before, I’m sort of just waiting for someone to punch me in the face to wake me up. It’s actually not a coincidence that I use the term “punch me in the face” because on Thursday (four days ago), after I left my buddy Luke’s birthday party, he was asking some people in a car for directions home and he and his buddy got punched in the face. They asked a couple in a car which way to go to get back to their house, and the guy got out of the car and punched first one and then while the first one is bleeding, he punches the other one in the face and then gets in his car and drives away. They didn’t get a license plate number. Weird. Italy is weird.
But enough about other people, let’s talk about ME! Dinner this evening was quite tasty, nothing outrageously bizarre, but when we finished with dinner, Giovanna cleared our plates and brought out bowls. Now, bowls usually means gelato that she pulls out of the freezer, but I guess you could say, there was something in the air that made me think that tonight was a different night. Something more miraculous than gelato was about to grace our presence. From the refrigerator, Giovanna whips out a cookie sheet of homemade Tiramisu. The only homemade Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten was Uncle Chip’s and while his was quite nice, I was reduced to primal grunts and occasional sighs of delight while I slowly took down the bowl of Tiramisu. I can’t describe it. It was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. Giovanna says, “You like it?” and we don’t know how to express ourselves in Italian. Buonissimo. Molto buonissimo. Molto buonissimo di tutti mondo! I don’t know. I wanted to laugh and cry and do a little jig at the same time. All over a serving of desert. I’m going to get the recipe from her.
I took a spontaneous day trip to the Cinque Terre on Sunday. This was my dentist’s recommendation for the place I absolutely needed to go while I was in Italy. We caught the 7:45 train and made it to the third of the five cities at around 11. We bought our passes and started hiking. In trying to describe what the landscape around the Cinque Terre is like, I discover that it is sort of a combination of a number of both real and non real lands that I have seen pictures of. Combine the Shire with Narnia, the Garden of Eden, rural China, an orchard and the Olympic Coast. That is the Cinque Terre. Unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the hiking trip I led for freshmen before I came to Italy on the Olympic Coast. Both places involve rigorous climbs to the tops of hills where you get breathtaking views of the sea. It was spectacular, the photos I hope to include soon can only partially express the beauty that is the Cinque Terre. While there was a large number of tourists, I didn’t feel completely closed in by them like I do around the Centro in Florence or anywhere in Venice. The climb was pretty difficult, but the train stops in each city, so we could’ve taken the train anywhere around there for around 1.5 euros. For lunch, we ate fresh 1.5 euro foccacia. It was so good. That might have been the hike talking, but that foccacia was, in the wizened words of Bryce McKay, ridonculous. Other highlights of the trip included sitting on a beach in a rainstorm, seeing an enormous grasshopper (probably about 5 inches long) and watching other students form Syracuse in Florence sprint across the last town to catch a train back home (we were on the train after that).
I met some cool new people, took some sweet pictures and ended up spending about 30 euros the whole day (this included train tickets, two meals, wine and the trail pass). I got back home and deliriously finished my Italian homework before passing out. I still need to catch up on sleep. I think I’ll do that right now. Arrivederci e buono notte.
AJC
Life is like a dream. Well at least parts of it are. Life is just so different than it has ever been before, I’m sort of just waiting for someone to punch me in the face to wake me up. It’s actually not a coincidence that I use the term “punch me in the face” because on Thursday (four days ago), after I left my buddy Luke’s birthday party, he was asking some people in a car for directions home and he and his buddy got punched in the face. They asked a couple in a car which way to go to get back to their house, and the guy got out of the car and punched first one and then while the first one is bleeding, he punches the other one in the face and then gets in his car and drives away. They didn’t get a license plate number. Weird. Italy is weird.
But enough about other people, let’s talk about ME! Dinner this evening was quite tasty, nothing outrageously bizarre, but when we finished with dinner, Giovanna cleared our plates and brought out bowls. Now, bowls usually means gelato that she pulls out of the freezer, but I guess you could say, there was something in the air that made me think that tonight was a different night. Something more miraculous than gelato was about to grace our presence. From the refrigerator, Giovanna whips out a cookie sheet of homemade Tiramisu. The only homemade Tiramisu I’ve ever eaten was Uncle Chip’s and while his was quite nice, I was reduced to primal grunts and occasional sighs of delight while I slowly took down the bowl of Tiramisu. I can’t describe it. It was probably the best thing that I’ve ever eaten. Giovanna says, “You like it?” and we don’t know how to express ourselves in Italian. Buonissimo. Molto buonissimo. Molto buonissimo di tutti mondo! I don’t know. I wanted to laugh and cry and do a little jig at the same time. All over a serving of desert. I’m going to get the recipe from her.
I took a spontaneous day trip to the Cinque Terre on Sunday. This was my dentist’s recommendation for the place I absolutely needed to go while I was in Italy. We caught the 7:45 train and made it to the third of the five cities at around 11. We bought our passes and started hiking. In trying to describe what the landscape around the Cinque Terre is like, I discover that it is sort of a combination of a number of both real and non real lands that I have seen pictures of. Combine the Shire with Narnia, the Garden of Eden, rural China, an orchard and the Olympic Coast. That is the Cinque Terre. Unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the hiking trip I led for freshmen before I came to Italy on the Olympic Coast. Both places involve rigorous climbs to the tops of hills where you get breathtaking views of the sea. It was spectacular, the photos I hope to include soon can only partially express the beauty that is the Cinque Terre. While there was a large number of tourists, I didn’t feel completely closed in by them like I do around the Centro in Florence or anywhere in Venice. The climb was pretty difficult, but the train stops in each city, so we could’ve taken the train anywhere around there for around 1.5 euros. For lunch, we ate fresh 1.5 euro foccacia. It was so good. That might have been the hike talking, but that foccacia was, in the wizened words of Bryce McKay, ridonculous. Other highlights of the trip included sitting on a beach in a rainstorm, seeing an enormous grasshopper (probably about 5 inches long) and watching other students form Syracuse in Florence sprint across the last town to catch a train back home (we were on the train after that).
I met some cool new people, took some sweet pictures and ended up spending about 30 euros the whole day (this included train tickets, two meals, wine and the trail pass). I got back home and deliriously finished my Italian homework before passing out. I still need to catch up on sleep. I think I’ll do that right now. Arrivederci e buono notte.
AJC
Monday, September 22, 2008
Photos
So, I have a picasa profile all set up. You can check out more photos at the following URL.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli
I don't know how to use technology, so here's some more albums on picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/Upload99?authkey=mSO_t_gSoJk#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/AdamSAmazingEuropeanAdventure?authkey=4JB8K3hLXrU#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli
I don't know how to use technology, so here's some more albums on picasa.
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/Upload99?authkey=mSO_t_gSoJk#
http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.caniparoli/AdamSAmazingEuropeanAdventure?authkey=4JB8K3hLXrU#
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Italian food is tasty (this should come before the assissi posting, sorry...)
9/17/08
Some fun things happened to me today. First off, Giovanna made a ridiculously tasty dinner tonight. Some kind of long, thick pasta with a tunnel down the middle a sicilia: with hard boiled egg slices, melted gorgonzola cheese, and an eggplant, tomato and olive sauce. It was the most delicious thing ever. I’m going to try to make it when I get back to the states. For secondi (main course), we had baked mozzarella cheese with tomatoes. After salad, we had apple cake she made herself.
It was the tastiest thing ever, even better than the pasta. How does she keep making the best food I’ve ever eaten? Ridiculous.
Today in Italian class, we did presentations on the streets we live on in Italy. I did an elaborate presentation with powerpoint and spent about two hours looking up exotic words to spice up the presentation. It turns out that after two weeks of studying Italian, I don’t know sentence structure well enough for that to actually work. It just came out like jumbled word mush and my teacher spent the whole time correcting all my mistakes. Which was many. But after that, the other boy in my class (there are two of us) did a presentation pronounced very poorly and admitted to using freetranslator.com to create his presentation. It made me look a lot better, so I guess that’s cool.
I briefly fell in love with a girl yesterday only to find out today that she has a boyfriend. Damn. Everyone already has a boyfriend.
Our Comedy class took a trip to see an ancient theatre ruins just outside of town in another tiny town called Fiesole. It’s an unbelievably gorgeous little town that overlooks Florence on one side and the rolling hills of the rest of Tuscany on the other. We’re shooting for a Sunday picnic there if weather will permit it. Our teacher continues to make a buffoon of himself at every possible opportunity. He tells us we have guest performers to entertain us at the ancient theatre. He then runs behind a rock wall and comes back out with a middle-aged woman’s mask and starts doing an over-the top impression that befuddles both our class as well as the handful of elderly French-speaking tourists who stop to stare at him. He then runs off and returns with an old man mask and continues his “witty banter?” as the members of the class, myself included, try to hide our faces in shame and pretend like we don’t know him. It was an adventure.
Things are really starting to settle in here. I am content.
AJC
Some fun things happened to me today. First off, Giovanna made a ridiculously tasty dinner tonight. Some kind of long, thick pasta with a tunnel down the middle a sicilia: with hard boiled egg slices, melted gorgonzola cheese, and an eggplant, tomato and olive sauce. It was the most delicious thing ever. I’m going to try to make it when I get back to the states. For secondi (main course), we had baked mozzarella cheese with tomatoes. After salad, we had apple cake she made herself.
It was the tastiest thing ever, even better than the pasta. How does she keep making the best food I’ve ever eaten? Ridiculous.
Today in Italian class, we did presentations on the streets we live on in Italy. I did an elaborate presentation with powerpoint and spent about two hours looking up exotic words to spice up the presentation. It turns out that after two weeks of studying Italian, I don’t know sentence structure well enough for that to actually work. It just came out like jumbled word mush and my teacher spent the whole time correcting all my mistakes. Which was many. But after that, the other boy in my class (there are two of us) did a presentation pronounced very poorly and admitted to using freetranslator.com to create his presentation. It made me look a lot better, so I guess that’s cool.
I briefly fell in love with a girl yesterday only to find out today that she has a boyfriend. Damn. Everyone already has a boyfriend.
Our Comedy class took a trip to see an ancient theatre ruins just outside of town in another tiny town called Fiesole. It’s an unbelievably gorgeous little town that overlooks Florence on one side and the rolling hills of the rest of Tuscany on the other. We’re shooting for a Sunday picnic there if weather will permit it. Our teacher continues to make a buffoon of himself at every possible opportunity. He tells us we have guest performers to entertain us at the ancient theatre. He then runs behind a rock wall and comes back out with a middle-aged woman’s mask and starts doing an over-the top impression that befuddles both our class as well as the handful of elderly French-speaking tourists who stop to stare at him. He then runs off and returns with an old man mask and continues his “witty banter?” as the members of the class, myself included, try to hide our faces in shame and pretend like we don’t know him. It was an adventure.
Things are really starting to settle in here. I am content.
AJC
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