I’m beginning to believe that not only women possess an internal clock which tells them of significant changes in life. I think that my body itself knows that I should have graduated college this past semester and therefore has aided me in having one of the most self-exploratory periods of my life this summer.
I’ve realized that home isn’t a prison, that is hometown and therein family. I’ve enjoyed the times I’ve had with my family so much since my return from Rome. I don’t know if being away helped me in seeing just how important they are, or the cosmos have just aligned to help me realize it, but I have. My niece and nephew have become a huge part of my life and I am so happy for that. I cherish the times with my parents so much and was amazed by just how much I enjoyed a week in South Carolina with my family sans anyone of my age bracket.
I’ve gone through very personal changes as well. I would say that previously, my sexual activity was just a means to make myself feel wanted and by having someone wanting to be with me felt like I was attractive. Having never been in a relationship in my life, I resorted to sex as my form of personal touch with another person. I can even look back now and see that the times I went seeking it were times when I really had little to no human contact for the majority of that day. I’ve also began the process of reattaching emotion with sex, something I never really had. This is much due in part to someone in my life who has made me really feel as though I’m wanted. As previous blogs can attest, I have been in an internet-based relationship, one of which I never wrote an ending to. Unfortunately, I returned home from Rome to find out that he was not only talking to one but two other people simultaneously along with me, and in an odd twist of fate (or a rude awakening by the Universe?) one of them was the person subletting the other room in my apartment while I was away.
I met someone else and was ready to jump in feet first, but unfortunately midway through our internet courtship (yea, I’m that lame) he happened upon being in a relationship. Over time we continued to talk and he realized he was simply in a relationship of convenience. Before we had our chance to be together, he has left for a 3-week job in Europe. I’m eagerly awaiting his return, but in the meantime am learning a lot about myself.
Another huge change in my life has come in the form of a friendship being put on hold, but feeling more like a nasty divorce. My roommate and I have had our hardships throughout our 3-year friendship, and I left for Rome in a state where I felt I hated him as much as I loved him. After a 2-month breather of not speaking, he and I began correspondence again while I was in Rome. I returned home with a new sense of communication with him and thought things had changed. Within the weeks following my return I not only felt disrespected as a roommate to him, but as a friend as well. A final driving stake was the discovery of him harboring an inside-joke with mutual friends regarding my aesthetic appearance. I tried to not let this affect me, but I couldn’t help feeling truly alienated. The person who was my number 1, that I had basically put almost all of my friends on the back-burner for, seemed to not be reflecting back that same admiration. I knew that if I dropped things in order to become friends again, as roommates another quarrel would arise. I can’t see the point in rekindling a friendship that continually leaves me angered 90% of the time when the main component causing that is our proximity as roommates. It’s now resorted to a point where my parents are the go-between of communication for he and I. A far cry from the open channels of communication after Rome.
This change, although seemingly negative, has opened my eyes to many other things though. The total dependency I felt in that friendship was crippling. I now can count my true friends on one hand because I can almost guarantee the allegiance of most of the mutual friends he and I have. By sticking to my guns, I’m sure that I have come off as the enemy, a special forte of his.
I received a fortune cookie at dinner during one of my recent trips home. It said “new friends will help you break out of an old routine.” It has slowly become my personal tao. The only things that will help me move forward are myself and my friends.
I’ve started going to the gym every other day, and after only 5 visits I can already see results which is absolutely thrilling.
I’m excited for school to start again because in moments of despair in the last few weeks I wondered what I ever did for friends before. I remembered that so many of my great friends are forced to move home for the summer so I’m very excited to have them back in my life.
I can’t move back at this point anymore. Only forward.
I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for an update, but I can’t say I really have it in me to give a full one. Put it like this, Study Abroad ended (which was sad), I went to London for 4 days with my momma (which was fun), I was home for one night in NJ where I saw about 65% of the people who matter to me then I left the next morning to see another 5% of those people in Texas (Marissa).
Not having taken my April trip to NJ, I missed not only Shane’s birthday, but the chance to see Marissa in the tour of Ring of Fire. I decided to use a portion of my Continental eTicket to visit her in the final leg of the tour in Dallas this week. I thought it’d be a really fun culture shock to go from Rome, to London and then to the heart of America where I could not only get some Southern twang but also a little Tex-Mex in my life. The trip was really a great close to my travelling days of the Spring semester.
I arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International on Tuesday morning at around noon and finally got to see Marissa close to 5:30. It was a great reunion and I was uber happy to see her. I saw the show that night which was really different from the Broadway incarnation I had seen 2 years ago but equally chock-full of Johnny Cash.
Yesterday we had vouchers to go to 6 Flags Dallas and only lasted through about 1.5 hours and 2 coasters with the extreme heat. “The Big Texan” basically knocked us around so much we felt like we had gone through a full night of drinking when Sunday night was quite the opposite. After that we hit the much smoother “Titan” up then decided to leave the park in lieu of some Tex-Mex at El Sol. Last night we went to what may have been the modern day version of the “Dallas” mansion. Julie (“older woman” in the cast)’s father’s cousin’s son had an amazing house near the hotel where they offered us an amazing party where we offered acoustic entertainment in return. In an outdoor ventilated kitchen leading to the pool and tennis court, we set up about 8 chairs where 6 acoustic guitars, a fiddle and an electric went through Janis Joplin to Fleetwood Mac. It was an amazing experience I wish I could have shared with my equally acoustically adept brother, Anthony. Here are a few highlights of the night:
Tonight was a little bit of the last night plus a lot of amazing.
Today was to be an “alone” day. My father called my directly to my Italian cell which I’m sure is going to cost a fortune in the long run, but oh well. I put him to the task of getting me internet in my apartment, or at least finding me a McDonald’s near to me. He semi-failed/semi-passed at both tasks.
He e-mailed Sophia (the woman from whom I am renting my flat) asking about the Wifi. We then spent some time on the phone trying to get me to a McDonalds. I left the apartment around 14:30 (thus putting Notre Dame off until tomorrow) to find the McDonalds he claimed to be on Rue Suffren. As things seemed to diverge, I called him and asked if he had sent me to “McDonald’s Paris Headquarters” because I knew he had found it by searching “McDonalds Paris” in Google Maps (something I’ve done many times before). He goes, “Oh no I didn’t do tha- oh wait… yea, I’m sending you to Jennifer McDonald’s… apartment.” He then proceeded to use his high school French to navigate the McDonalds France website and get me to one. I spent a while trying to get linked up but finally did and spend about 1.5 hours collecting information/bullshitting.
He did finally hear back from Sophia who gave us what seems to be a network key… and a password… for a network called “Neuf” or as my dad put it “might have a 9 in the name.” There is a “Wifi Neuf” but clearly in some foreign land that is very far away from my flat, so much so that I could not get connected. After McDonalds I had gone food shopping and picked up some basics for the remainder of the week. I made myself a couple hotdogs on croissants and some pretzels in spicy ass Dijon mustard (like legit, clears your sinuses).
The depression I was feeling last night began to set in again as the pictures I carry with me of my various nieces, nephews and my parents holding them peaked out at me from the torn envelope they were in inside my bag. Carrie had told me she saw a gay bar the night before last where “the boys walk around in their underwear.” I explained to her that she may have very well peaked into a sex club, but hey, desperate times call for… well… me to go there. It was near the restaurant we ate at last night which had a McDonalds so I figured I would bring along my laptop and if the bar sucked, I could use the internet. As my luck would have it, the McDonalds at Voltaire does NOT have free Wifi. I then followed the (vague) directions I was given to the gay bar but to no avail.
Rather deflated I passed a “Velib’” bicycle rental stand much like the one on the corner near me and as I had seen throughout Paris both today and yesterday. Inspired by my failure, lack of evening plans and the coffee I had just chugged from McDonalds, I spent about 25 minutes trying to figure out how to rent one (it is basically a row of bicycles locked into stands with a machine near them where one pays, selects a bike, and goes [WAKE UP AND SMELL THE RENT-A-BIKE NEW YORK!]). I spend the next 2.5 hours riding the streets of Paris trying to get home. Although lost and feeling borderline frantic (due to a major bladder issue that needed to be tended to) I was amazed at what I was able to see. It also gave an amazing sense of accomplishment when I finally did turn a corner and magically found myself at the “Velib’ depot on the street to my flat.
I decided to drop a few more €uro to call my mother as I had already spoken to my dad, Anthony and Tricia today. I still miss them all dearly and wish I could be seeing Paris with them, but now that I have this new way to view the city I’m hoping the weather tomorrow will be clear enough for another ride.
I’m having trouble finding any music that won’t make me emotional right now. I guess a rather large side-note I overlooked was the fact that I’m in Paris right now.
Plans for Spring Break happened quite last minute as most people just parted ways in small groups to do things. I spent Easter in Rome sans the majority of my friends (thank God for Jenna and Signora Romano + the Exchange to keep me busy).
I decided it would be great to spend break in Paris. I knew I wanted to go and that I didn’t want to do 2 or 3 days encumbered by travel, so this seemed like the best option. At the time of booking I thought Carrie and Kate would be here for the 23-26th but came to find out that they would be leaving early morning the 26th for London. Jenna arrives Friday the 28th. I have all of tomorrow (Wednesday the 26th) and Thursday to fill on my own.
I didn’t think this would bother me as much as it seems to be. Today was rough, stressing about making the train to Fiumicino followed by barely making my flight then the stress of trying to navigate the center of Paris without a map or anyone to lean on was exhausting. I guess as I’m typing that I should “pat myself on the back” for even being able to accomplish all of that in one day. Go me.
Anyway, I really miss home. I had been watching “Sex and the City” almost on stream for the entire week leading up to my departure. It not only drew many parallels to my life, but also made me long to be back in New York so bad. I told Carrie tonight that I wish I could do all of the weekends of the next 6 weeks so I can just get back home.
May is going to be big… and busy. I’ve decided to depart Rome and meet my mother in London (as she’d be departing the day I was to return) and do May 11th – May 16th with her. In order to see my fB wifey in her show I would then fly into Nashville, TN and stay with Noel followed by a road-trip out to Dallas and see Marissa in her tour, road-trip home then fly back to NYC on May 23rd. That being Memorial Day Weekend means I won’t be home sweet New York until May 27th, at the earliest. Am I shooting myself in the foot? I’ve been telling myself that by that time I should be so used to travelling that it won’t matter, but the depth of loneliness I felt tonight as I walked from the metro to my tiny flat in the 17th district seems to make me feel otherwise. Christ how pretentious that one could be lonely when staying 5 blocks from the Eiffel Tower.
What didn’t help was this: I recorded “O” when I saw it two years ago with my parents in Las Vegas. During one of the scenes two of the clowns “dance” and leave the audience in stitches. Throughout my entire recording of this song (which came on while on shuffle) I could hear my mom and dad’s snickering and laughing. I think for the first time, I really truly miss them. As morbid as this sounds, my mind automatically goes to the day when this recording will be the only way I can hear their voices. Wow… I really can’t go down this road right now.
I need to get back to the city and people that I love. Not planning a trip back to the states mid-semester was a mistake. If nothing else, I’ll be more than happy to see them constantly throughout the summer.
Back to Paris. It is absolutely breath-taking. Although in the midst of a heated re-telling to Carrie I was caught completely off-guard by the Eiffel Tower tonight. When the flashing lights began to go off as we stood underneath it I completely lost it as I ran across the street to get photos/video. On our walk there neither of us could handle how much Paris looked like New York. If you take a few curly-cues off of the lampposts and architecture and make the buildings a bit more industrial, we could have been in the Meat-packing District. I wish I had the psychological capacity to tell you if that was a good or bad thing.
Tomorrow I am doing Ile de la Cite. I’ll be touring Notre Dame, walking Paris’ oldest bridge “Pont Neuf” and hopefully eating at my mother’s favorite, “Hunchback of Notre Dame Café.” If sunny, I’ll go to Sainte Chappelle. I’m thinking hitting up the tourist center then getting lost in either Monmartre, Bastille or Oberkampf which will polish off the day. Thursday is to be filled with whatever is on my “to-do” list and hopefully going to “Pulp” at Kendall’s suggestion (and hopefully meeting some of her friends if I can get the McDonalds internet hookup tomorrow).
Do underwear and clothes truly need a fan page? Isn't it safe to say that most of us are fans of one or both?
Anyway.
Tonight was cute. I sort of wanted to go out, so thats a good sign. I was very content with spending the night with Jacquie though. We went for Chinese food around 10:30 which is always a fun experience. We came back and straightened my hair for the first time (see below for results).
We read to each other from our journal/blogs respectively. It was pretty queer LOL. We watched some funny youtube stuff then I headed up here. 'Twas fun. Tomorrow I need to tan, punto and do homework in the library.
I'm just sitting here trying to figure out what my mental block is.
Here's the sitch:
I'm in Rome, for the semester. It's now gone from me being in that "vacation" mode of like "Hey! I'm in Rome! Let's go see stuff!" to now I'm living here. Like living here. How many days do I spend sight-seeing in NYC? Exactly...
Anyway. I feel as though I haven't done a ton of sight-seeing in Rome (as I was here and did most of that 4 years ago) but find myself spending too much time either in my apartment or that of my friends. I think I'm just sort of in that slump where the novelty has officially worn off.
I think the best remedy would be to travel a bit and do something exciting, but it feels silly taking a weekend trip somewhere when I'll most likely be doing 3 different cities over Spring Break which is in 12 days. That will probably be the remedy and I'm just wasting time trying to figure myself out right now.
I was talking to Jacquie about it today. I think that its not that I miss home, but that I'm looking forward so much to this summer. This summer I'll be in NYC, which is just too fun in the first place, I'll have my one of my best friends finally home after not being here for 9 months, I'll have my nephew 25 minutes away, I'll have endless amounts of shows to see (Um GYPSY? Xanadu? Anybody?), and on top of all of that my boy will be back in town. That feeling of excitement toward this summer is being felt in tangent with me sort of in the "lull" of my time here is creating an interestign dynamic in my mind.
Its not that I want to be back in NYC right now, its that I want to fast-forward to May 11th but have had an amazing time here and not feel like I've wasted my time/money. The perspective this trip has given me toward my life and lifestyle was worth the price in the first place. As I've said in previous blogs, its made me realize a lot of the toxic things in my life and given me the distance to be able to enjoy myself and realize that they are just that, toxic. My worst fear is leaving here and feeling like I wasted time, so thats why I've lowered my expectations.
I came here with many expectations not only from other people but from my first trip here on the Italian Exchange in 2004. Its a completely different experience this time around and I'm fine with that. I was giving myself so much grief because I wasn't hanging out with Italians and I wasn't fluent 5 weeks into being here, but ya know what? Who care?! I sure as hell don't (anymore). In 2004 I was living with an Italian family and hanging with all of my host's Italian friends. Now I'm basically back to dorm living (without the rules) and making American friends from all over the country, but ya know what? I'm OK with that!
I've found myself sort of apathetic toward going out in the past week or two. I have no interest in going to the gay clubs anymore because I really haven't been around gay people in so long that I don't feel I need to immerse myself in the "community" in order to have friends. I'm doing just fine on my own in the "straight" world. At the same time, I'm sort of tired of going to the straight clubs as they're just not fun or thrilling. If there was something like Happy Valley here that'd be a different story. The straight places are either all R&B/Rap or EuroTechno.
I just want a place I can go that will play Cyndi Lauper then like Camillionaire then Blondie and it just makes sense to the crowd and we all go wild. I guess thats sort of something I'll only be able to find back in NYC.
As much as I love my place at home I'd love a change of scene. I'd love to go back and just live in Long Island City in a luxury building for $1100 a month. Yea, I'd be one stop out of the city in Queens, but I could be looking at Manhattan through the big glass windows from the pool in my building. Ugh wouldn't that be nice.
Well, on to another night of apathy toward going out in Rome lol.
So, as I told basically anyone I came into contact with on Monday in class, I was ready to come home and stick my head in the oven and light it.
I'm blessed and cursed at the same time with an amazing schedule here in Roma. I have class Monday and Wednesday from 12p - 6:30p and then am off for the remainder of the week. Wednesday night I promote at GILDA then have the following 4 days off.
More times than not, Mon/Wed feel like a marathon, and since I'm such an amazing tima manager, Sunday night's are pretty much just as stressful. This week, being midterms, was no exclusion. I had a 5-pg Philosophy paper due Monday as well as a 1pg (in Italian) essay for Italian.
I, naturally, began all of this on Sunday afternoon in tandem with my mother's arrival in Rome. She was resting for the afternoon and I worked at school. I finally heard from her in the evening and I had to leave my paper (happily) to meet with her for dinner with her business associate Tana.
We got pretty well-oiled off some wine, pizza, gnocchi and raviolis and I headed home. I had to sober up and got to talk to my boy in the meantime, which was a plus. I then put myself to task attempting to write the paper. I had an outline so it was just a matter of stringing it together. I worked until about 4:45a then didn't fall asleep until close to 5:30a.
I was up Monday morning at 9:00a writing until I had to leave for school, where I finished and did my Italian paper in a little under 1.5 hours. After all of that I still had 6.5 hours of classes.
Bottom line: not fun.
Monday night we went out for Kate's birthday wherein the girls graciously invited my mother along. I fed her stories to tell to them and we all had an amazing time. Needless to say going home to bed was in order (even though I stayed up to talk to Chad :P).
I slept in pretty late today but had a date with Toni for some smoking, snacks, her bed and a good movie. I happily honored that commitment and came home completely unwound from Sun/Mon to suss out just what I had going on tomorrow.
Its gonna be another long one, but I'm getting used to it. Midterms here are proving just to be an all-around tough time. I can certainly handle it, but the timing is not wonderful as I have my mom in town for barely 5 days and would rather be at the mercy of her schedule than my procrastination.
Blah, I was going to write about the future in this post, but I'll leave that to tomorrow
I liked Ellen for a while, loved her comedy special, but then felt she was pretty overexposed as a result of her talk show. The dancing thing got old and I had watched it a few times over last semester when I was babysitting Shane and the show felt sort of forced and contrived, but when she is passionate about an issue she speaks with such conviction that it reminds you of why she is just such an amazing human being.
Ugh, I miss Grey Gardens. Like a lot. Have been listening to it here and there in the past week and have realized that even thought "Peas in a Pod" could be considered a "throwaway" little duet, its just so good. And so catchy.
Had a bit of a freakout last night. I stayed up until 4am waiting for the boy to get out of his second show. He got on and told me he was going to run to the bathroom. I was already in bed with my laptop unplugged. I went to plug it in as the battery was almost dead and it started to go to "standby" but then flashed some weird screen saying "performing hardrive dump" but then shut down. I've seen the screen before, but anytime I see something say "hardrive dump" I have a bit of a freakout. Well I tried starting it up again and some weird ass screen came up everytime and wouldn't let me get to Windows.
Of course, when I get up today my dad is no where to be found on SKYPE on his cell or house phone. My brother actually helped me figure it out just by googling. Go Greg.
Anyway, last night was fun. Carrie had me over for dinner. I fucking love her red sauce. Because shes Calabrese, its spicy and I love it. She made gnocchi which were delish. I'm going to miss the quality of the food here. I'll explain.
My first time in Roma in 2004 I was being grilled by everyone because I honestly just hated the food. While here I had to eat spaghetti with cooked tuna and corn in it (????) among other horrid things. This time around, as I'm cooking for myself, I'm realizing that you can be a shitty cook but still have your food come out well because the food is just of such good quality here.
I've become a master of making my own sauce. People seem to really like it, I've always wanted to have something I could cook thats like signature to me, especially red sauce which is so hard to perfect.
I cooked eggplant rollatini last week. It came out really well (surprisingly as throughout the process it was not looking so hot). I'm heading to Punto today and hoping to pick up some stuff to make Chicken Francese. Nothing like a nice, big kitchen to learn how to make new dishes.
Cutting back to last night, after dinner I was in my apt. for a bit talking to the boy as we had a SKYPE date. That was fun :) Then I headed down to see the girls downstairs and chilled with Niki and Dana. We ended up smoking which was fun. I left to come up and see if Chad was online but ended up just raiding my cabinet. I ate:
PBJ crackers Potato Chips Cookies Cookies in Nutella More Chips
Since I'm such a grand-master of time-management I left all homework to do this morning before class. I got up around 8:15 (8:55) and got to school for around 10:40. My big ass mouth was blabbin near the Aula with Jane and out came Carrie saying she could hear me from her class LOL.
Did my homework then she and I grabbed a cappucino at the bar across from school. I later found out that it was like crack-coccaine Cappucino because in my third class I found myself talking a mile-a-minute to the girl next to me that I've maybe exchanged 15 words with over the entire semester. It was frightening. Needless to say a panino was in my near future, which proved to be an odd experience (as most of my experiences are here).
I approached AristaCampo to get my Mortadella/Mozarella panino and was called from across the street by the two girl working the counter there who were having a ciggarette on the steps of the building across the street. She motioned to me as if they were waiting for the floor to dry, even though it was bone dry when I looked. It was odd, but whatever.
We owned in acting today (Andrea and I) as usual. Everyone else got reprimanded for low energy which we evaded :)
After class I walked home with Toni/Lindsey and (messily) ate gelato from my favorite place. Its so amazing. With gelato in general, they like expect you to have 3+ flavors in a small cup (€1.50) which is overflowing + panna (whipped cream) and a wafer cookie. Love. it. Came home to my boy waiting for me on AIM which is always nice after class all day. Tomorrow is gonna be a gym/tanning? day. I have to plan something entertaining to do with Mom when she gets in next week for her free day Thursday...
Appropo title though. I meant to set my alarm to wake up at some godly hour, but ended up sleeping until 3p. It was worth it for who I was talking to online last night :D
I literally hung around here most of the day. I decided to get some inspiration and shower in the hopes that I'd go to school and get some homework done rather than having to get up early and do it before my marathon of classes, but that didn't happen.
I went downstairs as I heard the girls were back from Barcelona and got all the dish from Niki and Jacquie about the trip. That segued into getting Chinese with Niki and Dana which was fun. We talked about hostels, travelling, Spring Break (ugh) and missing home.
I'm rather torn about "home." I want to go back to New York City for the sheer convenience of everything. Being able to walk down the street and have Mexican, Chinese, Thai or see a movie right around the corner. Everything just takes so much longer here. To see a movie, I have to first find an "original language" movie theater and then pray they have a website. The whole ordeal leaves me much like my research for Spring Break does: worn out and not wanting to do it.
At the same time, the "torn" feeling is from wanting to avoid going back into the same "rut" I was in. I wasn't happy with my living situation nor was I happy about where some of my friendships were going (or had gone). I'm hoping that making it through this experience will not only make me more worldly but also more willing to cut ties with the things that drag me down in life. While home I felt, for lack of a better word, selfless. I don't want to sound like I need to be taken down off my cross here, but I feel like I was so much at the mercy of others, reputations, my apartment and time that I didn't enjoy life like I am here. It almost makes me want to be back in the dorms with at least the housing responsibility off my shoulders, almost.
I know my reasons for wanting to be home are silly, I just don't want my time here to be mundane like today. In fact, I feel guilty when it does. Really guilty. I mean, I'm in Rome, there shouldn't be days where I'm indoors for the entirety of the day. I can't even use drunkeness as an excuse because I didn't go out last night. Oh well, things should hopefully balance out.
It seems the temperature is going to start climbing which I think is going to excite me for travelling more. I find myself turned off by the idea of going to certain countries/cities when its so cold because I feel like I won't be able to enjoy it, but after hearing Barcelona was high-60s - 70s this past weekend for the girls, I'm a bit enlightened.
Alas, early to bed for I have to rise early and do all my homework I've had 5 days off to do in the morning. I'm a time-management champ.
I set my alarm to be up for 1:15p-ish today, but snoozed a bit til 1:45p.
I got up and had a bowl of cereal attempting to inspire myself to go to the gym. I knew leaving to do that would set the chain of events for the day into effect (Gym, Tanning, Food-shopping). I worked my ass off at the gym as it was basically emtpy around 6p so I didn't feel embarassed at all trying new machines (and hitting myself in the head a bunch of times).
As I walked down the Lungotevere I realized that at this point, I'm literally living in this city.
When I first moved to New York, I walked around so awed by the fact that I was finally, and actually, living there. That novelty obviously wears off as you learn to adjust to daily life in new surroundings. I think this was one of the things that excited (and continues to excite) me about coming to Rome. Going to a completely new city and having to learn it is fascinating.
All cities are fundamentally the same. You start off setting up your home base (the apartment), getting used to the kitchen/appliances/bathroom etc. Then it stretches to outdoors when you discover your supermarket. The next step is branching out to discover means of transportation from where your placed to where you want to be.
As I walked from the gym down to the tram toward Trastevere I realized that, although still in awe of the things I see each day, I'm actually living in this city.
Tonight I made Eggplant Rollatini for the first time. The recipe claims 20 minute setup, 20 minute cooking but that was a farse. I had to be cooking for over 1.5 hours.
I made my sauce from scratch which I'm quite proud of and to hold myself over, dipped bread in to "test" it as the eggplant fried.
Its all good though, now I can just scoop 2-3 out, heat 'em up and I'm set for the rest of the week.
Well after a full day of my boy not being online, he's on, so that's all folks.
Thanks to Carrie I didn't spend 24 hours straight in my apartment.
I don't know why I'm being such a slug. I wanted to go to the gym at some point today, and possibly another travel agency to sort out spring break. I did spend a good chunk of it combing the web for deals for spring break. Things are still up in the air between Sharm el Sheikh and the Canary Islands.
I also think subconsciously I was sticking it out hoping my boy would come online, which he did so I spent a few hours online chattin it up, having some dinner, and trading virginity-loss stories with my roommates.
Carrie was going to Campo tonight for a more chill night before Alpheus tomorrow night. Seems its going to be myself, Carrie, her sister and some of my roommates who want in on the gay club. Should be an interesting mix.
I managed to stall/lie my way into getting to Campo around 1ish where I met up with Carrie and her sister, the guys from last night (+ some hottie that they were trying to set up with her sister). Grabbed a drink then they threw us out at 2am as everything was closing. I segued into getting a gelato then grabbed the tram back.
Tomorrow I want to make uber-productive. Gym, tanning, food shopping are all on the agenda. I want to figure out some other meals to make here other than pasta and chicken cutlets which have become my staple. I'm thinking of buying the ingredients for either (or both) Chicken Francese or Eggplant Rolatini.
So this is where my blog is going to divert into "ramblings from the road" as Patti LuPone would call them.
Speaking of which, Patti has said many times on her blog how she doesn't know how to style herself ("I've been wearing costumes all my life") but look at this bitch! She was at the Zac Posen show for Fashion Week. They met during the run of GYPSY over the summer and he actually disinvited his "celebrity" guests therefore making her one of the biggest stars there that night. He dressed her as well.
Today was fairly-to-not eventful. Woke up at 4p after being out until about the same hour (12 hours previous) "working" at Gilda. Cooked up some chicken cutlets in the evening while talking to Chad. Called Carrie to no avail but then heard back from here a few hours ago. She was in Campo and wanted me to come in for a drink, which I translated to getting a gelato.
We met up with some guy who she had met but didn't remember (???) and I had to translate their entire conversation. It sort of baffles me that they would have met and had connection enough to exchange numbers but then tonight be able to communicate at all. Oh well, I got a gelato out of it. It was called "macaroom" which made me think of "macaroon" and it had a cookie on the label. It was cinamony, and I got something resembling cherry jubilee with it.
Yum.
Thats one thing I know I'll miss back in NYC. I want to learn how to make it so I can incorporate it into the ice cream place I want to open at some point in the city.
Fuck, this is a boring blog. If for any reason someone is reading this, I'm sorry if you're bored to tears. I promise, it'll get more interesting at some point. Read the post before this about how I got verbally raped my some woman in Milan. Its worth the chuckle.
At this point I've told this story a shit-ton of times, so I'm going to put it down once more in blacn and white (white on black?) before this blogs becomes more of a tidbits of the day/rant space:
The girls downstairs were going to be away for my birthday last Friday (2/15) in Milano and had mentioned a few times the possibilty of me joining them.
I was a bit reluctant as I thought I'd want to spend my birthday somewhere I know (at least a little) rather than a completely new city. As the week progressed they told me they'd be in a hotel (rather than hostel) which had the reservation as 2 beds rather than 2 people, therefore leaving the loophole for me to go.
The first 4 girls (Dana P, Dana G, Kate & Niki) took RyanAir flights out on Thursday morning while Jacquie and Jenna stayed behind for the Thursday evening class and were to take the midnight train overnight arriving in Milano at 9am.
Mid-Thursday I decided I would join them. That evening (after an insane Wednesday night for all 3 of us) the girls were attempting to convice me to go in the morning instead, but we got our shit together and got ready to take the 12:47 train out of Tiburtina. We had no idea how to get there and were going to leave on public transport at 11:35p latest.
When I got to their apartment, a guy Jacquie has been talking to was there and we sort of hung out for a few minutes before leaving. We rushed out and took the tram to Largo Argentina in hopes of grabbing a cab to Tiburtina as none of us had ever been there. Arriving in the center at about 12:15 we didn't get a cab until about 12:25.
We arrived at Tiburtina at 12:31. My credit card didn't work on first try so I helped Jenna then Jacquie with their tickets. Jacquie's printed out 2 tickets so we thought we may have selected 2 so I took it as mine and we ran to the track. Once there we realized that Jacquie did not in fact have two tickets but we should all have 2 tickets. I ran back to get Jenna's and purchase mine. Jenna's was still there but when I attempted to purchase mine, it wouldn't allow me because it was within 10 minutes of when the train was to depart.
I asked someone (in the Italian) on the platform if I could buy one onboard and they said something along the lines of "yes." We boarded and found a nifty cabin and started scrounging our money together to make sure I had the €28.50 for a ticket. 2 hours in the ticket woman finally came through. [sidenote: from here on out if I say "said" or "spoke to" it normally denotes that we were speaking in Italian to the best of my ability] Luckily the woman had a credit card machine so we didn't have to worry about the exchange of money and had money for food. The problem was that in order to purchase the ticket onboard, there was a €50 tax, which therefore brought my ticket up to €78.50 (roughly $115). Already being on the train there wasn't much I could do so I had to suck it up and consider it a birthday gift to myself (as it was past midnight).
She was nice about it, thought, saying that if she could she wouldn't charge me. Idk, if she really didnt' want to she shouldn't have.
We arrived at 9a and went to the "hotel." Where we were "greeted" by a pretty rough looking Milanese man who informed us that the reservation was for 2 people not 2 beds. I told the girls just to go along with it and that I'd figure something out. Once in the room, we got a call and I went out where he informed me that I couldn't, in fact, be in the room.
I got my wits together and went out there to talk to him and explain that we came with the impression that as a hotel and a reservation for 2 beds we assumed I would be able to stay in their room and that we were friends (and lied and said Jacquie and I were cousins). He told me that there as a single available next door to them (and in front of his desk) for €60 a night. I told him that was impossible so he offered me it for €40 and I took it.
After a quick nap we headed into the center (with the already there 4 girls whose room was upstairs). We went to the center of Milano to the Duomo to see the church, the view from the top and shop.
We came out of the metro to the above view which was astounding. We were split on what to do as me and J-squared were still a bit overwrought from the ride there and wanted something slow and good to eat while the others opted for Burger King then the Duomo and its church. We stopped in a cafe and sat in the downstairs eating area for about an hour and ate a panini, some chips, cappucino and killed off some sodas/teas as we were all parched.
It was at this sitting, after spending nearly $115 on an 8 hour train ride & paying €40 for a room in the shittiest hotel on earth that we coined the phrase of the trip:"Whatever, buy it, I'm rich bitch!"
We then headed to the Duomo where we checked out the church inside which was breathtaking: At first the girls were not keen on going to the top of the Duomo but 150 stairs later, we were up there and it was insane: After il Duomo we headed shopping to the two H&Ms in the area, Zara and a few other shops. We re-met up with the other girls to try and find somewhere to have dinner but that was proving difficult as most of them don't open for dinner until 7p. We opted to head back toward the hotel and hope to find somewhere in the (sparce) area to eat. We ended up at the New York Bar & Grill and all ate huge cheeseburgers which was a nice birthday dinner for me.
At the hotel, we napped and prepared to go to Plastic at the suggestion of a really nice cashier (Miguel) at H&M. The girls had gone to the pizzaria the night before for pizza and cheap wine so we did the same thing that night to pre-game for heading out. The waiters wanted to take us out somewhere else but we opted to stick to Plastic so they offered to drive us. We also got some wine out of it which was a good deal.
Plastic proved more difficult to get into, so we ditched the Italians who got us in as we were 6 girls and 1 guy who they were willing to let in. The place was interesting having been described as 1/2 straight and 1/2 gay. The back room was a rock band and so grungy looking people.
According to the girls the bathrooms were hardly prepocessing. The other room was where the real fun was and the good 80's pop and techno. We decided to leave later in the evening just as I started seeing my first glimpse of a few gays in the mix.
To get back we ended up getting split up (myself and J-squared leaving to find a cab). The first cab refused to use the meter so we got out, but were lost in the middle of no where. That was interesting. We got back and played in the hotel room for a bit before going to bed at around 5a.
(attempting to find a cab in the middle of no where)
The next morning I was rudely awoken by a phonecall at 10:30a telling me I'd have to be out by 11a. I packed up and put my bags in J-squared's room and we headed out for american coffee. We hit up the center again. I texted a friend Mirko I had met online who said he wanted to meet up with us in the center. He did and showed us around the Monteleone area of expensive designer stores as well as an outlet in that area. He suggested I go to the gay clubs with he and his friends and could chill at his place until our train at 7am the next morning. The 4 girls upstairs were staying in and J and J were going out with respective guys in Milano they knew.
After shopping I headed back to the hotel and snuck upstairs with the girls to grab my bag and take a shower before heading over Mirko's. They went to grab a pizza and Jacquie came to use something in the room. While in the shower she knocks on the door and says,"Don't say anything, the mean one is here." The man from the desk and, I'm assuming, his wife worked there as well as a very nice older man who worked the desk at night.
I came out of the shower and she said he had left but the old man was standing there who I explained to that I was there to pick up my bag and then head out.
Out of no where, the woman comes tearing into the room screaming at the top of her lungs that I had to leave and that the police were on their way. She was asking me who let me into the hotel and who I walked by at the desk in order to get in and that I was going to jail. She literally had flames coming off of the side of her face
I then went downstairs and spoke to "the mean one" who was decidely more calm. He told me how if someone is in the hotel without their documents registered with the front desk and something were to happen, the hotel is held responsible and they don't have anyone to tell the police about because they don't know who was in the room. The woman, still screaming, was still fuming. I explained to them that in the US when you get a hotel you can have a party or an orgy and it doesn't matter as long as its been paid for. I secured that the girls wouldn't be charged or have any problems then left.
I'm now absolutely frightened anytime I hear an Italian woman raises her voice. This woman was a lunatic.
From there I moved on to Mirko's where I met some of his friends and went out to a gay bar (where I saw Miquel from H&M) then on to a gay club. The club was the run of the mill gay club. Good music and hot people. The downstairs had "la stanza di bugo" ie the Shadow Room where there was just dick all over the place. One section was a maze with doors that went into little rooms where people were doing there thing. There was also a big stone room that was completely dark and there was all sorts of things going on in there. One walk through there and I was done.
We got in around 5a and then had about an hour to get me a cab and to the train station. With a little frantic running around, due to our final destination not being printed on our ticket and only the stop we were getting off at, we found the train and headed to Pisa which was quite cool, but a short trip.
Well, as I'm in Italy now for a month and I've been sparse on photos and haven't been great about recording the happenings of my daily life in Rome, I think its appropriate that I do some catching up from January 12th to now:
The first week was awesome. I've learned through this and my trip to Vegas last January just how fun it is to travel with my parents. We had some great times and its amazing to share a city that you both know vaguely (from the 2004 exchange) but are re-learning yourself proved quite interesting.
During orientation I realized that Carrie (a friends of my roommate and ex-friend Emily) was studying @ JCU as well. I was, quite obviously due to the history Emily and I have experienced over the past year, scared of what this would mean. We quickly latched on to each other as having a little bit of New York with you in another person proved to be very helpful in the first weeks in Rome
Its become evident that the gay presence in Rome is not as visible as New York. This is something I expected as there are still many place in the United States that don't match New York in visibilty, but I can say that its interesting to see the juxtaposition of a major city which is very much like New York not carrying the same feeling of "acceptance."
John Cabot as a university seems overall more challenging academically then my home university of Pace. Each teacher seemed to be very adamant about their respective (strict) attendance policies. This seemed to be more to scare us "visiting" students not to use study abroad, weekend travel etc. as reasons to skip class.
Also, within the first two weeks, the school experienced extreme tragedy. One very prominent male student (fully attending JCU) was killed in a motor-accident the night after Heath Ledger's death. The following morning there were calls the girls in SAI from our program coordinator checking on them and their roommates as a female body had been found in the area of the ponte sisto bridge at 5am. We later learned (after many mixed messages and misinformation) that it was a study abrod student who was the roommate of Carrie's friend Jesse.
It was quite an experience to take on the second week of being in Italy (and the first week of classes). I was already for a vacation while on this seemingly vacation.
On to food:
Mostly everyone from the States here had been going into protein-deficiency due to our mostly Pasta-based diets of the first weeks so when the possibilty of Mexican food came up, I happily joined my roommates.
Oh, about them. All very nice, I was a bit stand-offish at first as to try and make friends outside of the school (hopefully Italians) which has proved more difficult.
Anyway. The Mexican wasn't good, but I did meet Jacquie and Kate from an apt. of 8 girls downstairs. The next night I went down and ended up meeting the rest of the girls and in the weeks following have all become very close.
(Jacqui, Dana P., Me, Dana G., Niki, Kate, Jenna: unpictured)
2008.02.10 I had my first trip outside of Rome to 2 small towns in Tuscany. The views were amazing and the towns looked fake, almost straight out of Epcot. We had a dinner which was outstanding.
I was a little annoyed with the ride home as the whole meal I talked about how awesome the nap on the ride home would be, but as I closed my eyes on the bus "Swordfish" came on the TV (and on the only speaker above my head) on full blast. It was torture.
Allora. Once back in Rome I realized that Friday was in fact my 22nd birthday. The girls downstairs (Jacqui, Kate, Jenna, Dana P., Niki, Dana G.) were going to be in Milan and invited me to join and on a whim I decided to do so. More on that in the next blog.
We read to each other from our journal/blogs respectively. It was pretty queer LOL. We watched some funny youtube stuff then I headed up here. 'Twas fun. Tomorrow I need to tan, punto and do homework in the library.
We came out of the metro to the above view which was astounding. We were split on what to do as me and J-squared were still a bit overwrought from the ride there and wanted something slow and good to eat while the others opted for Burger King then the Duomo and its church. We stopped in a cafe and sat in the downstairs eating area for about an hour and ate a panini, some chips, cappucino and killed off some sodas/teas as we were all parched.
At first the girls were not keen on going to the top of the Duomo but 150 stairs later, we were up there and it was insane:
