Aforementioned "Street of Hell" or also "Street of the Inferno" I suppose:
Ariella:
"What are you doing? What, what, what are you doing?" I refer you to "Sassy Gay Friend" on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwnFE_NpMsE, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnvgq8STMGM)... I flipped the scarf over my shoulder shortly thereafter:
Examples of flyers:
Drew's artsy shot, showing the looooooooong wall of flyers we had to go through:
Always fun with graffiti:
I almost forgot the awkward picture from our first day of wandering about. 3/4 of us clearly weren't ready for the camera, but I love it anyway:
Anyways, afterwords a big group of us went to dinner at the pizza place from the first night. Some people were going out after, but Ari and Jennifer and I ended up just wandering the city and absorbing it all. We came back and went to bed at a normal time, but were soon woken up by a very drunk Drew, who proceeded to crash in our room until 4:30, yelling the whole time about how he was sexiled from his room and his roommate was an idiot and he just wanted to go to sleep in his own bed and eat cookies. Ari and I were laughing hysterically the whole time. It got even better when said roommate knocked on the door to tell him he could come back to the room (after I'm sure overhearing everything Drew was yelling through the wall). I about died laughing. Thursday I spent most of the day calling numbers from the flyers and making a profile on easystanza, a housing website. The calling didn't go well; two rooms were already rented and all but one of the rest of the people didn't pick up. The one who actually said something other than "the room's no longer available" rattled something off in Italian that I didn't catch at all (it took me 3 months to be able to have short, simple conversations on the phone in Spanish, mind you). I was like ummmmm....... and she said "English?" and started speaking to me in English. I fail. :( Anyways, I made an appointment for that afternoon. It was a really cute attic apartment (at the end of a huge staircase I nicknamed the stairway to heaven after the first few floors), the room had a beautiful view, it was centrally located, and the girl I talked to was incredibly nice. She's from Israel and plans to start med school next year. I would have considered taking it (beginners luck, eh?!) but they wanted to rent it for at least a year. BUMMER! The day greatly improved, however, when a group of us went out to dinner. There was a woman singing, and throughout the evening the italian clientele began using her setup as an impromptu karaoke set. Well, we of course had to show up the italians! Drew and Jennifer and I sang "Con te partirò" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcrfvP11Hbo which means that they sang it and I croaked out the only three words of it I know during the refrain), then we kind of just kept singing- "We No Speak Americano"/ "Tu Vuò Fa L'americano" (of course! The former is a techno song that's HUGE in at least Spain and Italy right now based on the latter, an old Italian song about an Italian pretending to be/acting like an American http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR8logunPzQ, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM4PHnGD4BE), "Mambo Italiano", "Stand By Me", some random Italian song, "New York, New York", etc. There's a video, but unfortunately it won't load. :( We kept going until we woke the owner up and were kicked out, but we're invited to come back for his birthday on Thurs. =D We probably should have gone to bed then, but Ari and I stayed up late watching 9 (the movie of a musical based on another movie, Fellini's 81/2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_(film), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8½). It was fun and an interesting reflection on the creative process and the balancing of personal relationships; I really want to see 8 1/2. Fri. morning, we had to apply for a Permesso di Soggiorno (so we can stay in the country) at the crack of dawn. The post office was having technical problems, so we trekked to another which only had 3 receipts. Therefore, we had to head back to the first where the problem was solved by the time we arrived. Ugh! Typical Italy. Speaking of typical Italy, puffer coats are a must here. And not just puffer coats, but SHINY puffer coats. Especially colorful ones if the wearer happens to be male. Ari and I have a running joke about earning the shiny puffer coat through creeping-- something the Italian men are spectacular at. We passed one family where the husband, wife, and baby all had matching puffers. Fantastic. So one lunch, Drew and I both got water, and apparently we got them to scale:
P.S. In the background is Alex, the only person I’ve ever heard describe an enzyme as sexy. Yeah. Speaking of which, there's a sex shop ("69 sex up your life" in English) down the street from our hotel. Yep, that's made of condoms:
So I’ve decided that I’m going to get pet mini cacti when I have an apartment and name them Mario and Luigi. Because I can, that’s why. So Fri night, Drew's Italian host-brother and friends took him to a bar for his 21st birthday party, and we were all invited. It was all rather low-key at the bar, but we moved to a discoteca, Sodapops, shortly thereafter. It reminded me of Camelot in Toledo with the brick arches and colored lights and all, only bigger, sans smoke, and significantly less sketchy. Other than being majorly creeped on/mouth raped by a random Italian (seriously, he pretty much grabbed me and stuck his tongue down my throat. EWWW!!!! NOT ACCEPTABLE! I brushed not only my teeth that night, but my tongue and roof of my mouth, the insides of my cheeks, under my tongue, practically the back of my throat. SICK. I sincerely hope I don't have some disgusting disease now. Sorry, rant over), it was a really fun night. We danced for several hours to such awesome songs as "Barbra Streisand" (my new fav; I want to learn the lyrics but I just keep forgetting... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1mGWhLwu64) and the aforementioned "We No Speak Americano". Good times. Saturday was spent in making housing appointments for Sun. and Mon. and taking a jaunt around the city by night to the Basilica San Domenico and another that I can't remember. Then, we had a lovely dinner and went out to a bar with fun group mojitos. I could've sworn I took a picture, but alas it appears not.
The next day I had to walk practically to Switzerland (30 min north from the university) to see an apartment that was in a sketchy area and smelled like smoke. It was a good size, but really expensive in addition to all the other negatives. The other girl living there was an astrophysics student from Sardinia, but she planned to move out in April. She was really nice, and we ended up chatting while the landlady or agent or whatever talked with another couple interested in the room (with only the skinniest twin bed I've ever seen... I don't know how they were planning to swing that one). Needless to say, I didn't plan on renting it. I spent the rest of the evening doing nothing, watching Divorzio all'italiana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce,_Italian_Style crazy and hilarious- I love it), eating, and drinking some hot chocolate after dinner (not as good as that found in Spain, but better than American, for sure):
Yesterday morning (Mon), we started our 2-week presession/grammar crash-course. We mostly just talked today, nothing too exciting. We do have to think up a research project, interview people, write a paper and give an oral presentation (in groups) by next week, though. Ugh. But, EXCITING NEWS!!!! I HAVE AN APARTMENT!!! YESSSSS!!!! =DDDD I'm so excited! And relieved! 3rd time's the charm, I guess, as Ariella ended up with the 3rd room she saw too. I walked in and immediately fell in love. The hallway has lime green walls and the oven is zebra print-- what more can I say?! I’ll post pictures when I move in Fri. I was greeted by Daniela and Daniele (confusing, eh?) and Daniele’s mom, who was visiting apparently. Daniele is leaving Thurs. until April and a girl from Austria is taking his place in the meantime, so it should be interesting. They kind of have an artsy/hipster vibe going and were so nice and welcoming and easy to talk to (even with my crappy Italian, but then they’d had a few international students live with them before who didn’t speak ANY Italian at first!), and they invited me to have lunch with them! My room is huge- I’ve got a queen size bed AND a guest bed! So, if anyone wants to visit.... They told me to invite friends and family to come stay. It’s not too pricey for a single, either. I’m so excited to move in! I told them I would take it in spite of having another apartment to see (impulse decisions, that’s kind of how I roll), and they were very excited and called all of the other people (while I was still there!) to tell them the room was taken. YESSS!!! I was pretty much jumping up and down. I’ve felt a bit like a bellows the past few days-- I’d be all excited and happy one minute, then not have any responses and a sadly empty inbox and feel deflated. But, hurray! I still had to go to my other appointment though, and I felt rather bad about it. The apartment was huge and centrally located, and the girl who showed me around, Valentina, was incredibly nice. We talked for quite awhile- she’s studying Spanish and English! :) She studied in Madrid three years ago and is trying to go back. So we spent some time reminiscing about Spain and saying how much we missed it. She still has a connection, though, as her brother came to visit her when she was there, fell in love with one of her friends (in 3 days!!!), and moved to Spain. She’s rather jealous of him being there, which I totally understand. :) The people you meet... I’m extremely glad I took the apartment I did, but I rather hope I can be friends with Valentina (she’s already friends with one of the year-long students, so why not?). Anyways, I went to dinner with Ari and her roommates who are fantastic. We talked for four hours. It was fabulous and even though my Italian sucks, it’s exciting to be able to communicate more or less successfully! =D
