It's a dirty old town...

Where to begin? At the beginning I suppose.

So, Having spent the whole night out/awake for carnevale celebrations I had not packed for my trip. I therefor had 4 hours from the end of my wine tasting class until I had to catch a bus to the airport. I was of course packing until the very last minute because I kept getting distracted. I am 'il matto' (the fool, from Fellini's La Strada).

A little while after arriving at the airport I found my classmate Katie and her two friends Katie and Kaitlyn... I know the easiest names ever. I was really hoping to tag along with them for the weekend but I didn't know how accepting they would be. You'll soon find out we had an incredible time together even after I inconvenienced them a handful of times. I think I have more friends in firenze now.

The Plane ride:
So, I've honestly been a little worried about traveling via Ryanair but the way there worked out pretty well. Like southwest, you pick your own flight, and like southwest, I wound up next to a creeper. This is my life. All I wanted to do was sleep and he kept waking me up to talk to me. SERIOUSLY?!?!?!

When we arrived I insisted that we go to the visitors center at the airport. REALLY GOOD IDEA! This very sweet irish man helped us with everything. We each checked into our hostels and grabbed food from a place next to where the girls were staying. The girl bartender gave us advice on exactly what we should do each night and our plans were set to go to the bar they filmed P.S. I Love You at; But first we were off to....

THE GUINNESS FACTORY. Okay, so I don't drink beer because most beers are't gluten free but this was still a pretty
cool experience. After about an hour there we ran into our friend Hector from the airplane ride, he goes to school in Florence to and goes to CSU Sonoma, very cool. This meant I had someone there to drink my free beer. But first, I had to pour the beer

Then we cruised up to the sky bar to check out the view and make Hector and one of the Katie's drink everyone's beer. The view was really cool, but of course the only picture I got was of myself. I do this way too often haha
So we had enough of sitting around watching people drink and one of the girls was very very excited about our next destination: The Leprechaun museum . We decided to ditch the bus and the 5 of us split the cost of taking a horse carriage there. Why not, right?

We got to the museum and I was so tired. I fell asleep during some parts of the tour but there was one room that I was WIDE AWAKE for. In this room, everything was three times the normal size, so we all felt like Leprechauns. We spent about 15 minutes taking pictures and I may have acquired about 7 bruises in the process. Thank goodness I packed tights, huh?

I can't get this to not be upside down =/ Can you read it?

So we were all quite tired and decided it was time to go our separate ways and get ready for our evening out in Dublino. I spent an hour trying to make my hair not look greasy and gave up got dressed and headed over to meet the other girls. We headed down to Wahlen's AKA the P.S. I Love You bar, but people were not really there yet.  Very different from the part of town we were hostelling in. At 7 pm people were already stupid drunk. So after a quick trip to the bathroom ad a picture of the mirror, we grabbed food and headed back toward the Temple Bar neighborhood and saw a modern look lounge with cute boys and nobody else inside. Decided to give it a shot. Turned out the boys were from all over Ireland ('the sticks') and we couldn't understand a word they were saying. They were already quite drunk and were singing to us. We ate it up. I will try to put together a video of them singing, but it really is probably only interesting to those of us who were there. The boys had to get out of their school clothes (yes they were wearing sweats and looked like irish slobs) before going out to the club so we decided to follow them to their apartment where one of the guys taught us all kinds of irish sayings while his friends got ready. Finalmente,  we made it to the club and it was so cool. We wouldn't have gone off of the recommendation of strangers, but my ex-boyfriend also recommended that we go there so there we were. It was soooooo big and I danced so much! Exhausting!

I got back to my hostel and my room was full when we all woke up, it turned out I was with two american girls from NY and 3 Boys from Reno, good think I didn't crawl into the wrong bed!

Decided it was time to sleep in, I was pretty sure I had no way to get in touch with my friends, but took and chence and facebooked them. Katie called right as I was waking up from my morning nap. PERFECTO. Turned out they needed to sleep in as well. We got breakfast, checked out Trinity college for a bit then walked all through Dublin and did wayyy too much shopping. Mom, I finally got you something!

We then went to TGIFridays for dinner. Not my fave but I managed to find a delicious steak with lots of veggies, so in the end it worked out as a fairly safe choice. After dinner it was time to get ready for another night out so I got dressed and then snuck into the other girls hostel. We decided to go to the giant  pub/restaurant attached to their hostel, its a pretty famous spot and we really wanted to get the irish music experience. This was probably the best decision we made all weekend. I had a legit Irish coffee and really liked it! Hopefully the irish pubs in italy can make them well! We then met some really nice gentlemen from Holland. We all went upstairs together to watch the live step-dancers and hear the music. Unfortunately the famous 'Randy Andy' wasn't playing that night... Bummer, but he other musicians were very good! I took lots of videos and met lots of people. Ireland is a much friendlier place than Italia.  During a break in the music we got to know the dutch boys and one of them fell in love with one of the Katie's. Not creepy italian love, more like American high school love where you are adorable. They traded belts to ensure that they would meet up the next day. We then went to this club across the street and no one was there, but it was perfect because I don't like crowded places and with the addition of 7 dutchmen we were the party! At this point my plan was to stay up all night since I was going to have to wake up at 530 am and I'm known to miss my alarms. When the club closed, we walked the girls across the street to their place and the boys and I went to get food. However, they got kicked out of the kebab place for being obnoxiously loud (and dutch). I walked outside to find them and thought they disappeared. Creeped out by crazy italian and irish men I took off for my hostel as fast as I could. This meant I had and hour and fifteen minutes to kill. I'm stupid, what did I do: I went to sleep.

When my alarm went off, I turned it off in my sleep. I woke up to the sunrise and realized that I missed my flight and didn't not freak out. I think, in truth, I just didn't want to leave Ireland so I wasn't sad that I missed my flight. Freaking out would be pointless anyways, but the old me would have been crying and hyperventilating by now. I texted my ex-boyfriend and he gave me the login info to use the computers at his school across the street. Life saver.

I found a flight for 180 euro ($250). But ryan air has the worst website on the planet and would not take either of my credit cards or my debit card. My roommate tried to buy it for me too but it just wouldn't work. I called Ryan air twice before the lady was willing to book the flight for me over the phone (wtf? right?) Those phone calls cost $21 each because I used the stupid credit-card slot on the pay-phone. NEVER AGAIN. (Is it weird that I'm more angry about the $40 phone calls than about missing my flight?)

So 4 hours later, I finally booked my flight and headed over to the hostel that my girlfriends were staying in and they had a last minute cancellation and squeezed me into a really cool room. I left a note at the front desk for the girls, and took a nap.

I'm ready to call it a night, so 'It's a dirty old town part II' will hopefully be coming tomorrow along with more pictures.

Ciao Tutti, Buonasera!

ieri sera..... Festa di Carnevale/ Compleanno di Fabio

Last night I accompanied my friends Jim and Jessica to a real italian party. Not quite sure what to expect, I was nervous... There were many freakouts:

• What kind of wine do I bring? (followed by facebook chatting with my wine tasting professor about getting the 'wrong wine' which caused another freakout, I don't want them to think I am an imbecille)
• What do I wear? Am I going to be the only idiot dressed up?
• How the hell is Jim going to get here/home?

My friend Jim lives kind of far from the rest of us. He's in a homestay and normally rides his bike to school or takes the bus. Jim called me at 11 to say his bike was broken and he didn't know when the last bus was. He was going to walk.... 5 miles or so I think. IMBECILLE! Five minutes, later he was at my door... HUH?

I decided not to ask questions, grabbed my mask, the bottle of Brachetto that I mistakenly bought (I wanted a different vineyard's Brachetto, one of the best Spumante's I've ever tasted, oh well) and we went downstairs to meet Jess on the fronts steps of the Duomo AKA my front yard. With our sparkly masks, and sparkly heels (Jim was jealous) we were ready to take on a real night in Italy.

We couldn't figure out how to get into the apartment-- felt stupid, like any other day in Italy. Some raggazzi (guys) rode their bikes up to us, they were headed to the same festa and they helped us get in. We found Fabio (the birthday boy, and our new friend from last weekend), he was ready to celebrate with us. CLEARLY He was dressed up as a doctor and was trying to tell the ladies he was a gynecologist, gross; but I can appreciate the humor and am happy to be familiar enough with people here to put up with such jokes! Meet Fabio:

Jess and I were of course uncomfortable to start but it just took a minute to take in the surroundings and relax. We made friends with a very sweet blonde girl from BELGIUM (I know I said Berlin in the video below, I can barely speak English, but thats a story for another blog post).

My fake name came in handy again last night. Some italians laugh at me when I say 'My name is Jill but you can call me Giulia if it's easier'; while others are so thankful that I've said a familiar name after not understanding what my name is. However, I got another name that was more popular-- Nicole, as in Nicole Kidman. I'll take it. It's always a good day when I get compared to her (especially considering my sorority sisters think I look like a girl from the MTV show 'Teen Mom', Nicole is a HUGE upgrade).

So, like I said it was a birthday party, there was of course singing and cake. I don't know how many times I was handed cake and I had to say 'Non posso mangiare questa, sono celiaca', but it's nice for that to be enough here. At home I would have to explain myself, italians get it and that makes me VERY happy.

My friend Jim has a video blog and was taking videos for it at the party, going to be so embarrassing... oh well. Anyways, his video-ing (I don't use 'film' as a verb unless I'm actually shooting on film, which is never) inspired me to shoot a vlog too. The obvious choice was to do this in the bathroom of Fabio's apartment, that is, until someone else had to use it. Anyways I wanted to share with the people back home one of the (few) differences that was clear between an american party and and italian party. So check it out.

Other differences included:

• The beverage selection: there was a dining table filled with wine bottles and like two bottles of gin. The only beer I saw was in a girl's hand
• The music, we listened to a lot of familiar songs, but I of course wanted to sing along and italians don't seem to sing along to american music, it's as it its another language to them or something haha
• People smoke inside-- 'Dear Zara dress, I'm sorry I will wash you this weekend'
• Nobody got super drunk 

Cool things that happened at the party:

• was given a poem by a guy from Cortona, I'll keep it with my note from 'Riccardo'
• correctly guessed where two people were from based on how their italian sounded
• Met a girl from Ghent, Belgium (What up Flemish people?) and a boy from Austria who invited me to visit his homeland one weekend this semester
• got invited to another festa questa fine-settimana (this weekend). It's a BBQ and we are TOTALLY going

Right now I desperately need a shower, and to start packing for Dublin. Get this: It's warmer in Dublin than Florence right now. It's like a vacation for me! Anyway, I have to take a 330 AM bus to get to the airport because the trains don't start leaving until 6 which is too late for my 7 am flight. A nap is going to be super awkward because I have class from 6 to 830 tonight. I may be running on fumes and irish coffee this weekend I think I'm okay with that. All part of the experience.

I have my very first hostel experience to look forward to tomorrow night, if you have tips send them my way! Here's hoping I don't have any awkward run-ins while I'm there. 

Ciao Tutti! A Presto...

Newsflash: I'm pretty good at wine tasting

I had a wine tonight, and immediately knew what grapes were in it, just by smelling!

I knew I had a good sense of smell, but damn I'm pretty excited about that. Also, we had another wine that claimed to be 100% San Giovese grapes, and I proceeded to say there was no way this was true, it smelled and looked like max 60% san giovese and the rest something more hardy like an international grape. The club director responded with a story of how this same winery has been trouble before for lying about what grapes they used in their wine, and that Italians are big liars-- it's a problem they are trying to fix. He agreed and thought it was about half san giovese half pinot noir. WOOT WOOT. Glad to have my nostrils back, thanks to a wind free sunday.

eew in other news, we had a really gross wine. Pretty much undrinkable. My recommendation: stay away from Cabernet Sauvignon from Tuscany, the grapes don't ripen correctly here. My glass smelled like chinese motorcycle tires.

Ho in Mente Te

We had an exercise in my italian class last week that I was dreading. All I knew was that it involved singing, and my roommate's class learned this really weird song so I was less than thrilled about having some weird song stuck in my head. Turned out to be a great exercise, mostly because I recognized the song. I'm not sure if my teacher (or even some of my classmates) realized this, but It's an american song that was translated and popularized here around the same time. I give you 'Ho in Mente Te"

Recognize it?

Anyways, I have a lot planned for this week including:

Monday: Wine tasting club, that I really don't even like; My class is SOO much better than the club

Tuesday: A real Italian Festa for Carnivale at the apartment of mio amico Fabbio 

Wednesday: HOPEFULLY seeing King's Speech if the Movie theater doesn't change the screening again, followed by staying up all night to catch a 3 am bus to pisa Airport

Thursday + Friday: Dublino

Saturday: Fly back to Pisa and check that out, then maybe go home and go for a ride on the bike I just bought! (unofficially, but hopefully the cash will change hands tomorrow) But who knows really. 

I have to get groceries, do some homework, and start packing. Not to mention I need to back track and blog about all the things I've already done so I don't forget when I look back on my blog in the future.

Things I miss

Okay, I'm determined to get this blog up and running today. I've started blogging a couple of times this semester, but never successfully posted. Today is different. It's raining in Florence right now, which would make me miss home, except the weather is probably about the same at home right now. The snow in LA got as low as 1000ft yesterday, INSANE!!! (I could probably bike to the snow, if I had a mountain bike still) The weather forecast says it might snow in Florence tomorrow, which I'm pretty excited about (make use of these rain boots I brought) but also kind of nervous because I heard the whole city shuts down when it snows (London much?) I had two goals today and I completely failed on one: Go to the Episcopal 'sung' service this morning (didn't set my alarm oops), they have spoken service but I secretly love church hymns and the silly chanting, it reminds me of the days when I served as an altar girl at my old church. My other goal is to check out this bike I'm probably going to buy, but I'm afraid someone is going to think I'm stealing it. The owner told me where it's parked so I could check it out on my own, super cool, but what if I can't find it? I'm really excited about getting a bike because I miss my beautiful schwinn that's sitting in mom and dad's garage, it's gonna get some TLC when I get back! Forse, una nuova luce? thinking about getting a bike here is making me realize the little things I'm missing:

The snazzy electric bike pump my dad gave me: I don't know where I will fill my tires when I'm here. There's always something I need to figure out how to do here. I feel like a child when things like this happen. I was trying to buy hairspray the other day and I had to ask people where to buy it and look up what its called. I, of course, got ripped off and found it much cheaper two days. You live, you learn... plus my hair looked good, and really that's what's important.

My Mom's Juicer that she thinks is mine: I would really like to make juice everyday here. Sure at Chaptown I didn't have a juicer, but I had a blender, a food processer, and access to plenty of fresh juice places (mmmMMMMmmmm Mother's Market, I miss you too). We don't have any of these things at my apartment, but we do have a juice place down the street that's kind of overpriced for the amount you get, but it feels super californian so I know I wont be able to keep myself away.

Ice: I didn't think it would be a big deal that they don't really have ice here since I hate ice cold drinks while I'm eating, but you can't even find bagged ice in the grocery store (this is my next mission). We have a tiny fridge so I don't refrigerate my stuff until I open it, which would be much nicer if I had ice so my first glass of (not freshly squeezed) OJ were not, you know, WARM. The other thing is the perfectionist/hostess in me always wants to have ice for guests. (I'm that person who calls/texts on my way to a party asking if I should pick up a bag of ice).

Eccentric People: I've seen one cross dresser, don't really miss them, but there's like no in between. I always thought the people of Chapman were so homogenized but everyone in italy wears the same (posh) stuff. All the people look the same. This may also be because I'm too scared to look at people and I tend to just see people in my peripheral and I'm like 'hey where are the lady gaga wannabes at?' Crazy Chapman people suddenly seem so much more interesting


Things I've managed not to miss:

The illusive ranch dressing: I've had three friends tell me to bring that powder you mix with sourcream to make ranch dressing. This was on my packing list back in november and I started trying out all the different brands from the super organic weird ones to the MSG filled weird ones. The drama of packing for two different airline requirements, and trying to skype with Jake got in the way of my frivolous ranch dressing needs. I was really sad when I got to London and noticed Bill's parents had the same packets in their pantry, Those Expats are very good at remembering to pick up such things (or maybe they sell them in London). Either way I was bummed until a friend of a friend of a friend took me to a grocery store that was like the equivalent to stater bros or food for less so obviously not my favorite store, but they had: swiffers(like an hour after telling my friend Topher he would never be able to find one here), a wide selection of cheap alcohol (that I didn't buy), and RANCH DRESSING! I got home and ate Gluten Free Pizza (Pizza Senza Glutine, duh) with ranch dressing. I'm SO American.

My car: Okay so I still miss the mustang, I always will. But I honestly, don't miss the exploder. Walking is cool, the trains are good even though I haven't used them yet and I'm determined to learn the bus system (I really just need a map)--unless this bike thing works out.

Big Cars: Jake told me nobody here drives big cars and it was going to freak me out so much. This is only partially true. As it turns out, there's major restrictions on the types of vehicles allowed in the tourist section of florence so you mostly see electric cars, scooters and every type of motorcycle cannot believe the number of ktms I've seen. Once you leave the center of town you start to see truck and stuff. In fact I took a bus to ikea and saw a huge chevy 1500 diesel covered in mud. These people definitely just got back from offroading.

Waiting in lines to get into places: I honestly don't go out often at home, but I hate having to wait behind annoying people to get into parties, events, or the very rare night out on the town. Everywhere I go here, I get to cut the line. I don't get it, but I'm not going to adjust back to LA well with this.



In my time here I'm trying to make a list of goals to set upon my return to the states, among them:
-Learn to use LA's public transit (PS scope out the news story where the Metro is buying Union station, there's hope for real public transit one day)
-Go to the farmer's market EVEN MORE OFTEN
-Attend more sporting events
-Keep track of cultural events in town and actually go (bonus points for using public transit)
-Ride my bike more, especially because I have to pay for my own gas now
Outside of LA:
-Go to Boston and visit my beezy Alex at Emerson
-Go to New York
-Get a summer internship in either Vancouver, Seattle or maybeeeee NYC


I'll be adding to the list all semester and hopefully have at least one new must do thing each blog post.
Praying for snow,
CIAO! -jf