Sunday, February 17, 2008

When Life Gives You Cucumbers, Make Pretty Pictures.

A little groggy from the night before, I headed to book arts where I learned how to make four different Japanese style bound books. I met monica and Crazy Friend for lunch and obviously I introduced them to my favorite place in the world, Anna's. They enjoyed it, but not as much as I do! We headed to the open market to buy food for 20 people because tonight we decided it would be fun to cook a large feast in honor of Monica's arrival and invite friends to the Ginori to dine and wine. 6 eggplants, 6 zucchinis, 12 mushrooms, 10 tomatoes, 5 sweet potatoes, 1 large loaf of bread, 2 red onions, 1 clove of garlic and a kilogram of meat later, we headed home to drop off our purchases. I introduced the girls to one of my newest favorite and delicious gelatoria discoveries. Overly satisfied from our afternoon treat, I took the girls on a little walk around town. About 5 minutes into our stroll, Monica looked at me and goes "Is that Courtney - - y e r?" Sitting on the steps of the Duomo (aka her second home) was indeed our long lost soccer playing, bible thumping friend Courtney - - y e r. She moved away in middle school and we hadn't seen her in 6 years. She is studying in Florence this semester, what a small world. Photog critique today with the hairy-hippie-mole-face. She loved the project and I hated most peoples work. With one girls project, I thought I was back at Michigan where the toilets don't flush and the bullshit keeps rising. However, hairy-mole, knew better and called that stank out. While I was in class, Monica worked the kitchen, making scrumptious bologanese sauce, dicing potatoes, and stirring pasta. I came home and set the table and then the Ginori house became quite the hoppin place. 16 of us gathered around our dining room table to talk about our weekend adventures, catch up on life and just enjoy the fact that we were all in Italy together. Friends. Food. Fun. Stuffed from dinner, Monica, the Gorilla, Unfortunate Emily and I decided that going to Paul's to hangout was much more exciting than getting freaky to Tuesday night Beatles cover band music. We discovered that cucumbers are delicious and worthless pens are good for playing pick up sticks. Monica and the Gorilla decided to draw a picture my future husband, and from the crystal ball it looks as though he might be an elf, with three curly hairs, a peg leg and skinny tummy. I can't wait! When life give you lemons, make lemonade or when life gives you cucumbers make pretty pictures.

P.S. I forgot to mention that this time when I went to the market, I was threatened to have my baby hands chopped off, however one lady asked me if I was going to eat all of my friends. From prey to predator in just one week. Beware of that market I tell you.

post from the tuesday the twelfth of february in the year to to to aight.

Milk Money.

Monica and Crazy Friend went off to Pisa and Lucca while I turned in my first Art History paper. I starting painting a portrait of a girl in my class today. It is quite unfortunate, but she has terrible achne that takes over her face and I had a rather difficult time deciding whether or not to include the blotches/patches of pimples in the painting. For her sake and mine, I left them out and used a more abstract approach, using thick layers of paint instead. Hopefully it turns out okay. After class I headed home to get ready for the evening. I have literally been on the go non-stop and as of now it looks as though I am not reaching for the breaks for a very long. Monica, Crazy Friend and the Gorilla and I headed down the Arno to experience our first true Italian apertivo. (I think I mentioned the whole concept of apertivo, but basically it means "apatizer" time here and most restuarants offer it before they either turn into a club for the night or before they take reservations for dinner) For just 9 euro, they offered us a wide array of cheeses, breads, pastas and many miny finger foods. The deal was that we had to order a drink and then we could hit up the line as much as we wanted. Mojitos all around. We stuffed our stomachs and then headed back home to prepare for my first night out at the the infamous Yab club. Down the street and over a couple of blocks houses the Monday night hot spot where all the local Italian men thrive and the American girls get all japped out for a night of expensive drinks and wild dancing. Obviously, we couldn't miss out on the Monday night scene (clearly, I am always in the scene..puke puke..yeah right, I think this is actually my first Monday night out in my college career. Judge all you want, I am not afraid of my own loserness) Our friend Jordan (who joined us for the evening) got a fb message telling him that if we said we knew Fabio we would be able to cut the lines and get right in. Indeed we did know Fabio and we walked right in. We were forced to check our coats. Monica and I even tried to avoid the extra tariff by putting my coat inside of hers but the bitch bouncer was no dummy. Crazy Girl ran off to see her friends from high school and Monica, Paul, Jordan and I formed our own dance squad and pop lock and dropped it, while ghetto fabulous men who actually knew how to dance showed off their moves. All of the sudden, in the mist of "lettin' my shoulda lean', a posse of big men forced the crowd back and three women wearing very little started stripping what remained of the very little. It was extremely bizzare. Monica and I decided it would be the perfect time to head to the ladies room to freshen up. We ran into yet another jew-crew-camp chi connector, who was visiting for the night from Rome. Around 2 a.m., I was getting pretty exhausted so I convinced the troops it was a good idea to head home. They have a system at these types of places where they give you a punch card when you enter the club and every time you order a drink they punch it and then you have to check out at the end of the evening. We didn't order any drinks but we still had to check out. We waited in line for 10 minutes to find out that our evening of no drinks was still going to cost us 14 euro. Miss Card Check-Out Lady proceeded to tell us as we are paying and fighting about the price, that we could of gotten a free drink. Do you know what I say to that baloney! I quit. No more scene for me! That forever solitified my desire to EVER follow the mass trend of Monday Yab. Regardless what you say 14 euro (almost 28 dollars) for a coat check is not worth it, when I can enjoy a glass of wine at a nice bar and actually hear my friends speak, not WHAT followed by WHAT) I now that I think about it, the money was probably used to pay the strippers that I didn't even ask for. Despite coughing up my milk money to see some hoo ha's, I had a wonderful time with Monica and in the end that was all that mattered. Bed Time.

posted in the year 2008 in the month of february in the day of 11.

THE BEST DAY EVER (depends how you see the world. is the glass half full or half empty..you tell me)

I am not sure how I get so unlucky and then get re-paid with more luck than I actually deserve, but damn I am a lucky girl. I woke up from another delightful nights slumber with my minki pinki next to me. We picked up falafuls to go and headed to the port to sit in the sun and to eat our lunch. The port of Barcelona overlooks the ocean and rows and rows of large fishing boats. Hundreds of fat unwanted fish gather at the edge of the port and people gather around (especially on sundays) to sit by the water, to feed some fish, and those romantics snuggle in each others arms. The five us, just plopped in the sun, and went to town on our delicious falafuls. Before we knew it, it was already 3:30 and we realized we better head back to the residenica to pack up and give our goodbyes to our favorite little barcelonean creatures. Three hugs, three kisses and three goodbyes, the Gorilla and I walked down the illuminated hallway to catch a cab to the bus station. We successfully made it on the bus to the airport and we successfully made it to the airport. However, "apparently" if you are American, you can't check in online (which we did we just didn't print our boarding passes, because on the way there, we checked in online, printed out our boarding passes and were the first on the plane) but "apparently" doesn't won't fly leaving Barcelona. We arrived an hour before the flight and thinking that since we checked in online we could just get to the ticket counter and pick up our tickets. Easy as pie. Well, yeah no. We were told that we would have to pay 4 euro to get a new ticket because Americans weren't allowed to check in online. I still don't understand. We were directed to stand in another line to retrieve these tickets and 10 minutes before our flight was about the leave we were still standing in the same line about to sweat our hands off. Then "last call" was announced and the Gorilla and I attempted to negotiate with people in front of us and explain to them that our flight was about to take off and that we needed to cut. We finally get our tickets and RAN. At this point we still hadn't gone through security. The Gorilla goes through the detector and beep beep beep. We did not have any time for a game of beep beep. Thankfully, the officer realized that the Gorilla had some type of metal on her boots. I am still not sure how she did it but I turned around and all of the sudden I see the Gorilla leaping through the metal detector barefoot. We scrambled for our stuff and darted faster than the speed of light. Keep in mind the Gorilla is still barefoot. We literally fly on to the run way and sit in the first seats available. We made it! Whoo hoo. If the jews thought miracles happened because of some oil, then they should truly evaluate the miracles that happened in the rest of our adventure home. Due to our unfortunate discovery that the Bolgona airport that Ryanair claims to be situated in, is actually false, we realized that we were probably going to have to spend the night in the Bologna train station. Prior to our trip we calculated that we could take the last train out of Bologna in plenty of time, but due to the little mishap, we were told by multiple people that there was just no way were going to make the 10:20 train leaving from Bologna to Florence, when our flight was to arrive at 9:10 in Forli because we would still have to take a 15 minute cab to the train station. And the train from Forli to Bologna is 45 minutes and the last train out of Forli to Bologna would arrive at 10:22. Impossible they told us. We would literally miss the train by TWO minutes. Remember what I said, two minutes actually mean something. This whole missing of the train wouldn't have been that big of an issue if A. my bestest friend in the entire world, whom might I add, I haven't seen in 5 and a half months wasn't coming to visit me and stay with me. B.DID YOU HEAR ME...Miss Monica Beth Pack was coming to Florence and if our planned worked, she was going to meet us in Bologna to take the train to Florence with us (a minor detail I forgot to tell you. Monica spent the past couple of days in Venice and her connecting train to Florence was in Bologna, the same train that we were supposed to get on) C. The train station in Bolgona is sketchy D. I had a paper due tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. F. We were exhausted from a fabulous weekend. Just to name of few of the problems with missing the train. Back to the story. The Gorilla and I boult off the plane, hop in a cab and jump on to the 9:31 train to Bologna. At 10:00, we ask the guy in front of us how much longer to Bologna and he said 20 minutes. All hopes of actually making the train were shot. I called Monica and she was waiting at the train station. I told her to fake an asthma attack, or better, offer the conductor a peep show, anything to delay it for TWO minutes. At 10:15, I called Monica again to ask the bin number for the train and at 10:18 the our train stopped in Bologna. Our train got in four minutes ahead of schedule but we had TWO minutes to get from bin number 9 to bin number 3......At 10:20, we ran up the stairs thinking we had already missed the last train BUT............standing at the top was a. Monica b. No Train. The train was 20 minutes delayed. I almost cried and died. The thought of staying up all night almost made me vomit but there was no ralphing tonight, just pure happiness. I finished my paper and Monica and I spooned in my frozen little twin bed. I am still in shock that we made it. I had the best weekend ever, followed by the best reunion with my best friend. Truly the best day ever.

post from the tenth of february in the year of oooo eight.