yo

It feels like forever since I last wrote, but in reality, I think it’s been something like three days. This is most certainly representative of the fact that these past few days have been JAM PACKED. Additionally, the fact that I really haven’t been able to sleep and that my long periods of lying awake at night are, for all intents and purposes, days in and of themselves, makes it easy to understand why I feel like I’ve been gone for a week. Anyhow, I digress.

I’m really pretty wired right now with all of this over-stimulation and speaking in different languages and the like, so I’ll likely forget to touch on most of what has been happening, so I’ll just focus on the high points.

1. My host family is wonderful. I’m staying with an elder lady, Grazia, who lives by herself in a beautiful apartment right by Piazza San Marco (a bit north of the Duomo). Her entire house is furnished with antiques, paintings, drawings…you name it. Grazia is an amazing artist, so it’s her work that adorns the walls of every room, including mine! She also has a daughter, Guia, and a grandson, Cosimo, who live in an adjoining apartment. I also have a roommate, Alexis, aka my savior. However, the first night here was terrible. As hospitable and as much of a culinary genius as Grazia was, I felt like an absolute failure. I couldn’t for the life of me recall all that Italian I’ve studied, so I couldn’t communicate AT ALL and I really couldn’t understand anything. Even 11-year-old Cosimo made me feel like an idiot, as he slowly talked to me like I was five. Then I got attacked by mosquitoes for three hours straight in the middle of the night. Not a pleasant situation. Alexis, who’s freaking awesome, definitely helped, but definitely emphasized the fact that I was the class dunce that night. I’ve since picked up my skills, and the world is at ease again.

2. I have my own room and bathroom. ‘Nuff said.

3. Oh! So back to those mosquitoes – those mofos run rampant around these parts. I’m guessing it’s the fact that we’re so close to the Arno, but that is still no excuse. And these things are aggressive. I think they’re called tiger mosquitoes or something, and these seedy little a-holes literally assault you when you least expect it. The innocent, naïve victim wakes up covered in bug bites. I, on the other hand, fight back. For two to three hour intervals during the past few nights, I have been lying awake in the pitch dark, daring those mongrels to challenge me. As soon as I hear their annoying little buzz floating towards my head, I strike. This does have its drawbacks, as I generally end up slapping myself in the face and don’t get to sleep at night; and inevitably, I end up giving in or thinking I’ve killed them and waking up covered in bites anyway. But because I want to protect myself, several of these bites end up on my face because I’ve pulled the sheets all the way up to my face – very unbecoming. I’ve tried hiding under the covers, but more often than not I end up gasping for air and hearing their awful hum close to my head anyway, so it really isn’t a practical solution. So last night, I decided to raise the white flag. I instead took up my iPod, with the intent of drowning out their horrible noise so that I might calmly fall asleep sans anymore conflict. It was really quite depressing though. I felt like I was committing suicide, offing myself in the most peaceful manner I could. The music made it even more dramatic.

4. My classes are looking like they’re going to be awesome. I’m taking two art history classes that meet on sight all around Florence, so I’m basically going to be taking walking tours of the city for my lectures. AND these classes are taught by Professor Timothy Verdon – if you know art history, you’ll likely know Tim, as he has written several books on the subject, and is also the foremost authority on Florentine art history. He’s also a high priest at the Duomo, so he gets us into all sorts of secret places that the normal public (i.e. you suckaz) couldn’t dream of getting into. His celeb status over here explains why we have several tagalongs during lectures. Then I’m taking an art class (theory and practice) with a famous Florentine artist, Fillipo Rossi. Don’t be mistaken though. This will not be ten weeks of me fingerpainting. I get to draw, paint, take photographs, and write dreadful response essays in Italian every week. I wanted to take the cinema class, because they’re going to get to go to the Roma Film Festival, but that was my only incentive for taking it, and trust me, the class itself was a heavy price to pay. Perhaps I’ll get to accompany them anyway, as well as visit the sets of movies with them. Yes, you can read that sentence again. The other class I wanted to take is taught by a member of the Italian Parliament – our teachers are kickass if you haven’t gathered that by now – but again, that was the only incentive there, and the class looked really boring.

5. Today I visited Fiesole with a couple friends. It’s this gorgeous little town right outside of Florence that overlooks the entire city. It’s very small and very old-world, and I may have even pissed off a nun while I was there. The story isn’t that interesting, but I’ll provide some context so I don’t seem like a total blasphemer. I enticed my friends to wander into a private monastery with me where I took a picture. But I didn’t know it was private or that a little, old nun would wander into the room right after the flash on my camera lit up the alter. The three of us and the nun literally stood there for 20 seconds, silent, and extremely awkward. We then asked her for directions for the best view.

That’s all I got for now…I’m tired of writing and I’m sure some of the issues I could discuss will come up again, so I’ll go into them later. Right now I have administrative tasks to attend to, i.e. postcards, letters for the mag, and figuring out my life.

Ciao lovers.