Manic Monday

A bit of a crazy day. Kait (I) doesn’t have class on Mondays. So I ran around the city trying to finish up my purchases of textbooks, materials, paying lab fees, etc. Cody and I spent the morning at the market and looking for some cleaning products for our fine apartment. All of this went quite well but my adventures were not so fortunate. It’s true, two is better than one because things seem to go more smoothly together. He set off for class and I ventured on my own. Firstly, I traveled to the other side of the river to find a little booksstore there, and as I was following my map I was stopped by an older gentleman who wanted to help me. I was on the right track and just checking a street name but I showed him where I wanted to go anyway and he decided it would be best for him to walk me there. Of course. I was like, “!!!! ok…” So we’re walking along, he was pleasant enough, I discovered he was actually British as he explained he no longer liked big cities after living 25 years in London. He explained to me also that he was a painter and was looking for better light so he could work. He looked the part, a loose button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a sort of worn golfer’s hat. I explained I needed to find a store to buy a book for a class. We walked along the river and he said, “Let’s play a game.” yikes. He asked me what my favorite Beetles song was. I suddenly couldn’t think of any Beetles songs, so I told him I liked the remake I know of Golden Slumbers. I don’t even know if I’ve ever actually heard the real song. I don’t really know if he actually knew it either. But he told me you can tell a lot about people by what their favorite Beetles song is, and that he’s never heard someone give that answer before, “Very interesting.” Ok. He meant to ask me more questions but then he stopped to pick some leaves growing on a vine down the wall of a café. I waited for him to say something about it and noticed passerby probably wondering if we belonged together as I waited for him. We moved on, I kept checking my map and he would reassure me he knew the area. Then he kept stopping on the street while explaining to me this long tale of how he’s in love with a woman who doesn’t love him back. I told him that was unfortunate and hard, and he went off on a string of British curse words…so I told him we have to keep walking (my shoulder was absolutely killing me cuz I was lugging around my laptop as well). He remembered his self-inflicted duty and we found the shop. Of course, happy Florence naptime, it was closed. He then tried to convince me that he was going into a bar to have a glass of wine with a friend and would only be 5 minutes; I should wait and then he would show me where the shop was. After a bit I convinced him that I needed to go to class back across the river so I would be fine on my own, (the whole time I’m thinking, hello we’re standing in front of the shop, do you realize? I told him it was lovely talking to him, to enjoy himself a glass of wine and to have a nice day. He wished me the same and without so much as an exchange of names… I quickly fled in the opposite direction.

I know what you may be thinking, “Kait! That was vastly unwise of you by yourself in the city!” But I really thought he was an old Italian man who was going to simply point me in the right direction and leave me be. I never let him steer me off the right path and we were always on a quite public and busy street. If that makes you feel any better. Anyway, I’m alright and I don’t if I should ever see him again.

So now I’ve been accosted (favorite word to use lately) by an old artist, still haven’t found my book I need to buy, and my shoulder aches tremendously. For the rest of the day I am an unable to find the store where I need to buy film, nearly making Cody late for his next class, and giving me a dreadful headache. I then spend the afternoon trying to catch up on the internet only to have my computer overheat and shut down. When Cody returned I wasn’t nearly ready to go and turns out we can’t pay our lab fees until tomorrow and Oh, it’s down-pouring outside and we haven’t an umbrella, I’m in shorts and a t-shirt, and we needed to get the week’s worth of groceries. AWESOME! But it’s ok, we made the most of it and had a fine time scurrying through the rain and making it home safe and sound. We dried off, had a fantastic supper, and now we’re doing homework together to the sound of the rain. Crazy day but it’s ok. We’re happy to spend evenings like this together.

Culture Clues:

*Italian Lessons: Va Bene = Ok. Allora = So. Commonly used words that took us way too long to discover the meaning of.

*Bars do not mean the same thing they do in the States. Bars can be a place a refreshment selling anything from gelato to pizza.

*Internet Café does not mean a coffee shop with free wi-fi. Nope. It means a shop with desktops that you pay to use. Sad. We still haven’t tried very hard to find a good espresso place but you’d be surprised to learn that the espresso vending machines at school are impressively good.

* Aperitivo. This is something unique to Italian culture. It is sort of a happy hour/appetizers meal idea. You can go to most any restaurant early in the evening/pre-supper and order a drink which will be served with antipasti (appetizers) / finger foods. Fun! We have not tried it yet but our culinary school/place our meal plan takes place, Ganzo, does a weekly aperitivo event called, Aperiganzo. We are not on the meal plan but we did win vouchers for this event at our beginning of the year kickoff sort of party. We will take advantage of those soon, but it is on Wednesday nights and this week we are going on another historic walking tour in the city with our Seatle friends.

* Italy does not suit my sweet tooth. Things like gelato, tiramisu, and the occasional cake are sort of reserved for special occasions in the typical Italian home. There definitely isn’t much snacky stuff to be found unless it’s imported American food. We commonly see M&M’s and Pringles but we never buy them. This is fine but it’s not cool for chocolate to cost at least 3 euro. meh.