The Devil Does Not Wear Prada and All Other Divine Comedies.

No. No. No. The Devil does not wear Prada but rather the Devil wears neon orange onesies with two white strip reflectors on his legs and sits in a bull dozer and has decided to demolish my street with his sledge hammer, pitch fork and all other loud machines that shake my building.  For a little bit, I thought the devil lived in my water heater but I figured out how to restart it if it god-for bid goes out again, so I know he doesn't live there anymore but he definately lives outside my window. In Florence they are always doing construction just like they are at U of M, but for some reason they believe that my beautiful street needs some work and they have decided to rip up the side walk on my street. I don't hate that they are doing this construction but what I do hate is that they only do the construction from 12 am to 3am in the morning and then again from 6 am to 8 am in the morning. Why? I don't know but what I do know, is if they don't stop I am a. never going to sleep again because apparently they won't be done until the end of February and b. I am going to kill them. I even tried sleeping with ear plugs in but the sounds eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH cannot be stopped by little orange pieces of foam.  Besides the fact that I woke up to a dream about Dante's Inferno ( because I have seen a million images of what hell looks like in the past couple of days) only to find out it was just Jack the Ripper and Mr. Hammerhead ripping apart my street aka the devil.  Besides that.... TODAY WAS THE BEST DAY THUS FAR. Life is good. I woke up for book making class, learned how to make photo transfers 4 different ways and then our class headed to see an exhibit on the illuminated scrolls. Talk about years of hard work. One monks' sole job for his entire life was to paint parts of the scroll red. I get attention deficit disorder just going to look at them, these dudes spent their lives doing the same thing. It was incredible to see the process.  My teacher is so knowledgeable and interesting to listen to (just the way she presents herself is fascinating and I might have to kidnap her and bring with me on all of my tours because the past few guides I have had have equaled = zzzz)  We got out of class early only to go eat at the worlds best sandwich shop...duh...Anna's.  The usual. Repeat after me. tomato, mozzarella and what...yes...you know it...Tuna on flat bread! The Gorilla and I introduced a few of our classmates to our second home.  Following lunch we strolled back home to kill some time before our next adventure of the day...TEA TASTING. We sat up on our delectable roof top, sun glistening in all and I wrote some e-mails, and the Gorilla painted. Zach and Cody...you think you live the sweet life...ya no...I do.  So about this whole afternoon adventure of TEA TASTING. Basically my program rockers my boxers off and has a million and a half free opportunities of fun.  This week is TEA TASTING. Did you hear that TEA TASTING (I for some reason feel the need to capitalize it because it is just so cool) There were supposed to be 6 other people for the tasting but only the Gorilla and I and our two (quasi-good) other roommates (the best of the 4) showed up and then our group leader dude (who happens to be very attractive but has an unfortunately small forehead, hopefully he will be blessed with a mans worst nightmare, a receding hairline because he could use a tiny bit more space up there) Anyhoo. The TEA TASTING was at this resturant called Mago Merlino something something (Magical Tea). We arrived there at 2:45 (granted I have class at 4:00) and are welcomed by a 65 year old hippie who owns the place and makes all of the teas.  The restaurant (which was actually a tea bar) had a main entry area and it was filled with stained glass Moroccan lanterns, indian rugs, incense in all four corners and an interesting display of color strings that were interwoven across the ceiling.  On one of the walls there was a map of the entire world with different arabian characters and illustrations on it. In the back part of the bar there was a lounge with large fluffy pillows surrounding the circumference of the room. No chairs. Just pillows. Apparently Mr. Mago Merlino is only open during the night from 10pm-3am and you can drink tea and smoke hookah, but upon special request you can come during the day (hence we went at 2:40pm) Mr. Mago (the hippie man..who now that I think about it would be great lover for my photo teacher if she was not an outright feminist lesbian) brewed us three different kinds of tea: chi, green, and then one that tasted like black licorice.  I have never in my entire life had such delicious tea. I think he put some type of drug in it because for the first time the Gorilla and I were actually enjoying our time with our roommates.  We told classic stories of ralphing, learned about Mrs. Rumplash's terrible decision to feed the class pet, a hamster, named Thunder, a piece of cheese because it died and the Gorilla shared a classic tale about her father killing his own cat out of love. We sipped tea and ate orange cakes, chocolate crispy yummy-ness-ness and ginger snaps. Mr. Mago was working up a storm to brew us these teas. He travels four times a year to different places like India and Africa to learn about different teas.  He was extremely interested in our perspective about the election and we got in a pretty deep convo with him about it.  He has the voice of a man who has been smoking for 50 years, a heart of a grandfather who loves his grandchildren and dresses in Indian gowns and wears slippers.  As I said earlier, we got there at 2:40 and we giggled and sipped our way through 3 hours of tea fun.  We missed 90% of our photo class but good thing, our photo class only has 6 people in it and three of us were at the tea tasting. We showed up to class 2 hours late and our teacher was so happy we went to the tea tasting, counted us present and thats the story.  I skipped my first day of class consciously, and I was rewarded with the mark of presence. My life is good. After my one hour of photog, I stopped by the il centro (grocery store) to pick up a box of spinach for dinner. (They sell pre-cooked spinach in a plastic box and it is wonderful...I was craving it!) Tonight the Gorilla and I and the bad "camera gamer" went to a bar called Rex to listen to our sweet innocent receptionist at the art school sing Janice Joplin.  Okay for one thing, never make judgements about your sweet little receptionist where ever you are because she probably has another ego, lives another life and is just sweet and innocent at the desk but the minute she leave she someone else. This is exactly how mine is.  We walked into the bar and screaming at the top of her lungs behind jail cell bars made out of rope, is our sweet little innocent receptionist belting her little heart out.  It was incredible.  Still in shock but in a good shock, I walk around the corner to find my Italian teacher with her hands in the air singing and dancing to the music with her fiance. This country is like fairy tale land and I love it.  Half the art school was there rockin out and I couldn't have been happier.  I love the students in my school much more than the kids on my program.  A old hip man, that might have been Richard Branson's brother, started talking to me aka hitting one me.  Apparently he and his wife just signed with Barney's and Nordstroms to sell a line of purses but he is also a producer and does something with music.  I overheard him talking to girls before me and all I could think of is a. what are you doing here in this bar b. where is your wife and c. you could be my dad.  Thank god the bar was slowly closing and we peaced out of there because I smelled a huge fat lier and I don't like talking to my dad at bars unless you are my real dad nor do I like lying old men trying to be cool when really they are hitting on girls half their age. We stayed there until 2 and then realized we were on the same street as Mr. Mago's tea place so we knocked on the door and went in for some tea.  Well I realized something really important, only go to the things that are free because they are free for a reason. IT WAS 8.50 PER PERSON for a pot of tea.  I love you Mr. Mago but 8.50, come on. But I did have sweat dreams.