God has really been on my side lately. This morning I headed to the Uffizzi for a little morning art history lesson. This was my first time at the Uffizzi since I have been here. It is truly spectacular. The museum is huge. In just one hour we only made it to two of the rooms, and there are probably 200 rooms, just to give you a little perspective. I have my first paper due on Monday where I have to compare Giotto's Madonna and Jesus, with an unknown Madonna Jesus. Although I am a little bit on Madonna and Jesus overload, it was interesting to see the transformation of these two characters over time. Way back in the day, both Jesus and his virgin momma were portrayed as looking more Palestinian but in the 1440's, artists looked at the classical for their inspiration and therefore the Madonna transformed from a long shnoze mama with brown hair and Mediterranean skin to a blonde haired, blue eyed, idealized babe. Jesus just gets a little freaky and says to hell with clothes, and like a stripper, jesus did away with them. What more could you want in a morning but wait my day only gets better. On our way to our Italian class the Gorilla and I were dreaming about our favorite foods back home considering the past three days we have survived on gooey pasta we made Sunday night and I said that I would be willing to kill someone for an ice coffee and the Gorilla said she would kill for a Dean and Deluca salad bar and I told her that I would do more than kill for one of those. After climbing 6 flights of stairs to get to our Italian class I snapped out my dream world of lust and realized that I was a little screwed for class today because our teacher told us that were going to have to act out little skits with our partners in Italian about how to get around in the train station or order something from a restaurant or how to book a hostel. My partner is a Gorilla, so technically it is not my fault we didn't practice. But to my surprise, our teacher told us we were going on a field trip to eat Sicilian granitas. I almost asked by teacher if she could read minds because If you put two and two together a granitia is better form of an iced coffee. We walked across town.. aka two streets away from my apartment to this little hole in the wall gelatoria and we ordered in Italian, small coffee granitias. I didn't even have to kill anyone today and my dream came true. We didn't have to do our skits and we just drank iced coffee and talked about life. Not to mention we got to leave straight from the coffee shop which meant that we were able to leave class 30 minutes early. With a smile on my face, caffeine in my blood, the gorilla and I skipped over to the market to get some lunch and dried fruit for our barcelona adventure this afternoon. We were originally going to bank off the free samples they offer in the market for lunch but we stopped at a place we had sampled from before and the man grabbed his knife and started threatening to cut off our hands. I didn't understand him the first time and I thought he was joking so I took a piece of bread. Then the Gorilla heard him say "Bambino Bambino, and combined with his rather vulgar sawing motion to his left head. We translated that as "I cut your baby hands off". Very confused, I grabbed an olive and walked away. I am still confused as to what he was trying to say but we decided that spending three euro on an egg and veggie sandwich was much better than having our baby hands chopped off. Even now as I am writing this blog I am still confused and will probably have bad dreams tonight about the thought of butcher wanting to chop off my hands. I had ants in my pants all through panting because after class the Gorilla and I were going to embark upon our first non Italian travel adventure...watch out Spain, the Gorilla and the Sidekick are coming to Barcelona. I am skipping school aka I am only skipping one class because my photo teacher is still sick and we are going to stay with my long lost lover Gef, my long lost pony neighbor Amy, and my long lost Frank's freak Julia (they decided to study it up Spanish style for the semester) Unlike last time, we actually did research about how were going to get from point a to b before coming. We found out that we actually had to take an hour bus from the airport to Barcelona that would actually run during the times were coming in because we decided no more rides from strangers and we can't judge spaniards like we can Italians. So just pre-warning you, expect an adventure because I officially decided my life is pretty much a joke. My cousin reconfirmed that the other night and she only speaks the truth. We get aboard the Florence to Bologna train because while florence is the best city in the world, it is impossible to find a flight out of. Our flight was leaving at 8:45 p.m. from Bologna to Barcelona and just to make sure we would get there on time, we left at 4:38. The train was wonderful, quick and easy. We read online that we could "apparently" take a five minute bus from Bologna bus station to the Bologna airport. We were able to find a cheap flight on Ryanair (which for all you ol folk, it is the european version of a lower class, student friendly budget airline) We get off the train in Bologna and immediately see a bus for the airport. Luckily we asked a lady on the bus if this takes us to Ryanair airport. First off we were on the wrong bus, second of all the Bologna Forli airport is not in Bologna and Forli is actually another city even though Ryanair has both online and on the ticket (that we did print off before coming.,..."yeah" to being responsible) The nice young lady tells us that the airport we need to be at is an hour away from here, and that we can take a bus or get on a train. The next 20 minutes of my life was actually as if someone video tapped me and put me on fast forward double time and then put me in rewind. We literally ran, and by that I mean darted off the bus we were on and then back in the train station, We asked for information on the bus times and found out that the bus was leaving in four minutes. After two of those four minutes were used with the bus attendee explaining to us how to get to the bus station, we literally sprinted to the bus station. and by sprinted I mean, rocket powered because the Gorilla ran out in the middle of the street without looking both ways (and I being her sidekick followed) just so we could get to the bus station. Well can you guys guess what happened next. Typical we missed the bus because chit chat bus lady used up 3 of our minutes and there was no way that a Gorilla and her Sidekick with two large bags could run down the street and across in one minute. When we arrived at the bus station empty bused, four nasty Albanian men starting hooting and hollering at us, and I just couldn't take it anymore and I dropped a big f-bomb on them. About to burst in to the tears, (actually just the Gorilla..I just felt like I was having heart murmurs) we stopped to ask a bus attendant if there is a train we could take. I had never met such a nice and good looking bus attendant and he assured us that we were going to be just fine, he sold us our tickets and we head to the airport. So for all of you traveling from Florence to Barcelona, taking a flight out of Bologna, Ryanair does not speak the truth and you must get to Forli airport, which is actually not in Bologna. Two train stops later, we arrived at the Flori train station. A creepy man sitting next to us in our train (he looked like garbage can version of Screech from Saved By the Bell) offered to take us to the airport. He was weirdly checking out the Gorilla's ipod and kept starring at us during the entire train ride, so we decided to actually use our brains this time and refused the ride and decided that if there was a bus available we should take it. Indeed there was and we made it to Forli airport a-okay. The Gorilla and I finally made it on to the plane, however the Gorilla had to actually spoil our flight by letting out a huge Gorilla fart. I actually thought that I was going to die getting on this flight, or possibly die taking the flight, but after the Gorilla let one rip, I realized I was going to RIP from her gorilla gas.
The Gorilla actually thought that she might too perish in the unforgivable plague that escaped from amongst her granny panties, actually, it was just a suicide attempt to save herself from the misery of Ryanair. (from the Gorilla) I know how I said earlier in this post that God was on my side...now I am not so sure. I guess he is. Maybe I am just the worlds most unlucky lucky person.
post from two thousand and eight year in the month of february on the fifth day in the week day of wednesday.
