Take Pity On Me

Dear relatives who supposedly love me so much,

Both Jewish and Christian holidays are rapidly approaching and perhaps in lieu of gifts this year around december-ish, you could send them to me now!

What I wish for most is:
low fat caesar salad dressing
graham crackers
goldfish
100 calorie packs
Indian food (just kidding)

Jewel Rocks Italia

My roommate Alex gave us the name "Postergirls for Weekends in Perugia." I was not so kind when I christened Sara, Alex and myself "Broken Dolls in Santa's Workshop." The three of us had elected to stay in Perugia this weekend, and because we were each suffering some sort of malady. Sara had a horribly bruised ankle from a Thursday night disco adventure that while I attended, I left after 5 minutes (a shame because we really worked hard to get there- the bus to get to the disco was so packed we had to sit on random Italian guys laps to get there..don't worry, minimal groping was involved), Alex was sick in every way possible, and I had lost my voice. To describe it, I sounded somewhere in between un ragazzo (boy) and a yippy dog. Tres lovely. Anyway, despite our sickness and all the reasons that we should not have, we decided to go out Saturday night.

Our good friend, Francesco, called and told us that his dear friend was having a birthday party and it was going to be the hit of Perugia, we just had to attend! Plus, it was being held in the former office building of the headquaters of LS, a once very famous european sporting clothing, which he assured me, was the top of the top, and was once worn by President Hoover. How could a girl say no to Hoover?

Saturday night arrives, with Sara is sensibly flat boots, and Alex practically overdosing on cold medication, while I handily brought along flashcards reading "Ciao" and "Voray un bebito molte forte, per favore" (I would like a strong drink, please) just in case my reed thin voice struggled to make even the slightest of sounds. Francesco picks us up in his convertible car, with the roof up, and DutchGirl, some girl that he always has around. Francesco, being 35 years old, and yet not quite knowning it, is playing a mix tape of Ja Rule, Sean Paul, and Jewel...circa 1999. Definite mood music. Especially for what we were about to endure.

As it turns out, the birthday party was not for a 20 year old, as we must have imagined, but for a 40 year old woman, and her 40 year old friends. Francesco, the pimpin' italian that he is, brought three 20 year old girls decked out in disco clothing to a 40 year old birthday party. The men were in awe of him, and the women looked decidedly sour as they sipped their pink drinks. To give the party due credit, it did look pretty spectacular. A huge circular room with glass walls, there were pink bows everywhere, pink carpeting, guests in pink, a bar serving only pink drinks, and little white leather cubes and white tables, a live band, and waiters in pink bow ties circling with pink chocolates. Pepto Bismal threw up over the entire place.

You could say we took a little too much pleasure in the open bar, but before long Sara, Alex and I were enjoying ourselves, and rocking out to such hits as "YMCA" and "RESPECT". We also brought the limbo to Italian, something not to be taken lightly, as very few Italian men would ruffle their Dolce and Gabbana to bend their torso in such a manner. The highlight of our incredibly wonderful inappropriateness was no doubt when Alex casually strolled through the lobby of the building on our way out, walking through a huge black and white patterned circle on the middle of the floor. Turns out, the circle was some sort of fountain, and had 4 inches of water in it. Elegant despite her soggy soles, Alex, Sara and I strolled out of the party knowing we had rocked the 40 year old birthday party the way 20 year olds would: drinking a tad too much, wearing a tad too sparkly clothing, shoving too many chocolates in our purses, and receiving no less than 1 invitation for a private plane ride, 2 for dinner, and 2 to travel to Milano or Roma. Great Success!

Baby's First Opera

From left to right are Angela (pink sweater), Alex (blue sweater), Sara (glasses) and some stunningly beautiful girl that is no doubt a model visiting from Milan. ....oh i wish.
Here we are at our first opera in Perugia/our lives. While it was not quite what I was expecting (i.e: a scene from Pretty Woman, complete with Richard Gere, a gorgeous red dress and borrowed jewels for the evening (my parents are right, I do watch too much TV)) it was entertaining nonetheless. And through and through it was Italian. The opera was Cinderella, and so of course being girls who grew up in the 1980s we are Disney freaks, and only for the princess movies (Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty etc), none of this Lilo and Stitch bullshit, and so we thought we would be able to follow the plot of the Opera.

We were wrong. As I said, it was most definitely Italian, and reflective of their culture. And so, there was not only one Prince Charming, but TWO! Yes, there were two men with her slippers there to wisk her away, and no doubt would have wisked each other away as well...Italian men are surprisingly touchy feely with each other, though they are very clear that they are not "Ohmosexualll" (homosexual). Anyway, being a one guy kind of girl, as I do hail from the States, which was founded by Puritans, I quickly lost interest in the plot and studied the decor instead, which was gorgeous and marvelous all the -ous adjectives you can think of. As it turns out, Operas are really very long, as in around 4 hours. So I took a little nap...shhh....but no doubt that is what the little opera cublicles are for, so no one can see you. a duh.

The Italian Paradox

The Italian Paradox, as we learned it in class, is that Italy produces some of the best quality wine in the world, and yet the inhabitants of Italy, the Italians, actually prefer to drink cheap wine of lesser quality. The high quality expensive wine that Mario Batali boasts of is actually created with foreigners in mind. 

However, the Italian paradox that interests me has very little to do with wine and more to do with kcals-which is what the Italians call calories. Kcal values are on every box/product of food here, and they are done per 100 grams. 75 kcal per 100 grams of pesto/beans/salami. Only it is really more like 100000000 kcal for salami, but I digress. The paradox that I am referring to is how little interest the Italians have in exercise, and a great interest in food, and yet America is the country struggling with obesity. The logic just does not make sense. Yes, yes, I know, everybody thinks it is because Italians walk everywhere and have smaller portions and don't have processed food. Only this is bullshit. Very few Italians walk great distances ever since the Vespa was invented, and Nutella is most definitely processed and full of transfat, and that is a staple in an Italian's diet here.

This is how an Italian eats: Breakfast consists of a pastry of some sort, and a foamy and milky coffee. Lunch includes mozzarella, lots of bread, pasta, and wine. Many glasses of wine. 

After that, later in the night before dinner, the "aperitivo" is taken. This is basically happy hour for the Italians. They gather at a popular bar and have an aperitivo, which is a drink that is supposed to open/ready your stomach for dinner. A typical aperitivo is a glass of white wine, champagne or Compari Orange. Do not be fooled however, by the word aperitivo. It might be singular, but it always involves drinks in the plural. Two or three glasses of wine. If my mother had 3 glasses of wine before dinner, she would be on the floor. 

Dinner is then eaten much later at night. So late in fact that my parents, despite being 6 hours behind me, probably have dinner before I do. In Italy, dinner starts at around 9:30 pm, and goes for around 2 hours. They also have four courses-so this stuff about Italians having small portions and us being used to extra large Olive Garden portions of pasta is simply not vero (true).  Also, the Italians start their first course, primi, with pasta. Their secondi with meat, and their contorni (third) with salad. This is the opposite of the United States, where we eat our salad first to prime our stomachs for heavier food, and to help full us up so we don't gorge ourselves on pasta and pizza. Finally, after the third course of salad that no doubt they cannot really eat after all of the wine, cheese, pasta and meat, there is dessert and coffee, or sambuca, which is an after dinner drink that tastes like licorice.  

This is, as you can imagine, quite an assault on the stomach. A lot of alcohol, a lot of food in general, and then because it is so late, the food simply sits in your stomach. This is the paradox. How can Italians shun exercise, and then eat all of this fatty food, especially in such large amounts late at night and still remain slender?! It goes against all of the advice of South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers and most importantly, Oprah (otherwise known as God) who never eats later than 6pm because otherwise the calories you take in will not be burned off. 

This may just sound like an interesting anecdote about food and culture and Italian, but to me, this realization has rocked me to the core. Everything I thought about life (and as girl who recently relinquished, quite unwillingly and not without a few temper tantrums, her teen years to enter her early 20s, I have spent a good portion of my life thinking about nutrition and calories) is no longer true. It is as if I just found out that the sky is not actually blue, but red, and that nothing is how I think it should be. Much like a Quentin Tarintino movie. 

...while I may be exaggerating a little, this Italian paradox is still quite shocking, no?

PIKA ITALIA

abbe, maria, maggles, brooke, christine, monica, katy and anyone else who regularly accompanies us to the frat of the underachieving, always-hungover/drunk/in that transition point-boys who don't hit but don't respect bitches....BE JEALOUS. Why?

Because I found Pikes in Italy. Oh yes. I know, you just stopped breathing for a moment. Before you break out the Everclear to reminisce about our drunkenly fabulous freshman and sophomore year, let me tell you about my night. 

In earlier posts I mentioned how we had a dinner party with a group of italian boys nicknamed "The Dream Team" for whatever reason. We went to there house for the first party, and then we hosted a party at ours for them with 4 cheese mac and cheese and actual silverware. Another anecdote about that night that is important to mention is how we went to a bar afterward, and some random dude groped my crotch. yes! not even grabbed my butt, but actually went in and cupped my crotch on the outside of my jeans as he walked by. I never caught his face, but was obviously distressed. The boys of the dream team, some of whom speak english, some of whom do not, came over and asked why I was upset, and I told them some sketchy guy just basically went to 3rd base with me. Very inappropriate. The boys were confused by my vocabulary, in particular the word "sketch". To explain it to them my friends and I reached out with our hands and grabbed their shoulders and were like, "If someone does this, or touches you, it is sketchy. Creepy, si?" Oh the italian boys. They now think the word sketch means to grab someone, and now as a way of greeting when they see us they will pinch our arm or cheek and go "Sketch! Sketch!"

We learned last thursday night that it  the boys of The Dream Team are pretty sketchy themselves, and do not really need a lesson on sketching. We had them over for a second dinner party, where they were supposed to cook Mexican food for us. When they called from the supermercato asking if they should bring white or wheat bread, we decided to scratch the Mexican food fearing that they would put meat and tomato on white bread and call it a queseadilla.  So instead they showed up at 9 o'clock, which is when Italians typically eat dinner, with 15 bags of tortellini. Oh, and they were wasted. Completely wasted from the tips of their toes that were so fashionably encased in Gucci loafers to the tip of their overly gelled hair. Apparently they went for an aperitivo, which is the Italian before dinner drink which usually is a glass of white white, or proseco or compari and soda. They must have had all three and then some. 

Anyway, the boys are cooking (or attempting to boil hot water) while smoking cigarettes (which they lit while holding it in between their lips and leaning over the burner) and we have music going. All is fine. The boys there are Micael, Antonio, Nathan (an American who lives here) Francesco (a bartender who was not at our last dinner parties, but is 32 and speaks great english, and is very nice and calm-and not drunk, like the rest of the ragazzi. (boys)) Valentino and Phillipo. And us girls. After dinner, we turn up the music and are dancing around the apartment, after having a lot of vino ourselves. Sara, Micael and I are dancing together near the coffee table and Antonio decides it would be a good idea to get up on our glass coffee table and have a little spotlight moment.

While I appreciate a spotlight moment myself, I have enough common sense to know not to dance on glass tables. Why? Because you fall through. Which is what Antonio did. He shattered the coffee table into a billion pieces, cut his feet in multiple places, and just kept dancing. We finally (as in the girls, the boys were still rocking out to "American Boy" and "Miley Cyrus" (they only listen to American music, it is the funniest thing) get Antonio to sit on the couch and we give him band-aids, while others are picking up the glass. Distracted, we finally notice that the boys are no longer dancing and are around the table. What are they doing? 

OH, JUST SMOKING CRACK!  Now, the girls of my apartment started freaking out because 1. they are way sketchier than we imagined and what bizarre behavior we  had previously chalked up to being cultural differences is, in reality, probably just due to being drugged. 2. because they brought the crack into our apartment, and that is absolutely unacceptable and our host institute was very clear when they had the chief of police of Perugia speak to us on the first day about how if you are caught with drugs in your house it is an automatic 5 years in jail. In Italy, you are guilty until proven innocent. You don't have bail.  

Understandable, then, that the girls are freaking out. I however, was not so much freaking out as I was stunned. And, oddly enough, homesick for the Pi Kappa Alpha frat of Richmond, VA. It felt comforting and very familiar to me to watch boys ingest cocaine in a variety of ways, and I had the strongest urge to call Ricky Rudolph and tell him I met the boys that would be his BFF should he ever visit me in Italy. 

Needless to say, we told them we don't care what they do in their free time, but they will never ever ever snort coke, cook coke, or smoke crack in our apartment again. And that they owe us a coffee table. 

Just to Brag

Here is a quick sneak peek into the trips my roommates and I have planned (and have already taken) for the next 3 months. Thank you cheap flights on Ryanair. 

September

12th-14th Sorrento

20th-21st Rome

26th Florence

October

3rd-5th Milan (possibly)

17th Florence

18th Pisa and Spain

19th-24th Spain, specifically Madrid and Barcelona 

November

6th-9th Parents visit!!!

13th-16th Prague

21st-23rd Skydiving over the Alps (possibly, flight costs 500 euros, please feel free to donate!)

December

4th-8th Paris

17th-Home!

Red, White and Blue

Last week I had a mini-breakdown of sorts. The week started well, with me industriously deciding to wash my now 10 day slept in sheets. For anyone who knows me well, they know I prefer to wash my sheets every few days, and this 10 stretch was probably the longest I had slept in anyone one place without a cleaning-except maybe in the womb. Anyway, while we have a washer in our apartment, we do not have a dryer. This means that sheets must be done first thing in the morning or they will not be dry by night time. So I assumed. 

The morning comes, and I go to do my sheets, and I see that Sara was planning on doing the same thing. Remembering my latest effort at going with the flow, being an easy going and relaxed person, I said "hey, no biggie, you go ahead." She, of course, being a naturally easy going and relaxed, not to mention nice person said that she did not have class until later in the day, so she would put my sheets in for me as soon as hers were done since I would be in class at that time. I had class all day (ugh) but had texted Sara and asked if she would mind hanging my sheets up on the drying rack since I would not be back in time. She understood, as we had already realized that because the washer took 2 hours to run a cycle, everyone would have to help everyone else out when it came to laundry, because obviously no one could hang around waiting for 2 hours. 

I return back from class at 4pm, and automatically call out "thank you soooo much for hanging up my sheets". Silence. Turns out that since Sara's sheets were already hanging on the drying rack inside, and it was raining outside, they had to get creative with where to put my sheets. May I just say that while there was no ideal location, they suck at creativity? I discovered that they hung my sheets in the bathtub. The bathtub that everyday 5 girls shower in and had not been cleaned in the two weeks since our being there. There were dirty footprints on my sheets from the tub, there were various clumps of hair, some being of the lower region kind, and to top it off, my sheets were soaking wet. 

I flipped out. I managed to mumble a few words about consideration, and then I ran out of the house to go to Conti, a home good store in the neighborhood that I had hoped was something like Bed Bath & Beyond. I had to buy another set of sheets because at 4pm, there was no way I could rewash my incredibly dirty sheets and dry them in time for bed. So at Conti, sheet shopping, realizing how incredibly handicapped I am because I have been spoiled all these years by my mother's affection for egyptian cotton and high thread count, I find nothing but sheets that feel like canvas and have Looney Tunes on them. Nonetheless, I am forced to purchase a pair, that in broken Italian, I ask if they include a top and bottom sheet, and the lady at the counter "Si"s me. Great. I bring the sheets back home, amazed they cost 30 euros when they feel like a new canvas plastic hybrid, and realize that I did not purchase a top and bottom sheet after all, but a mattress cover that you are supposed to zip your mattress into. 

NO! I look frantically for the the piece of paper she wrote the exchange out on, so I can immediately return it, and realize that I am missing my credit card. AGAIN. I depart the house, in the rain, making raindrops of my own as I sob my way to the gym, located 1 mile away from my apartment, to try to find my credit card, thinking this is the last place I used it, to purchase a gym membership earlier today. The man assures me that no, they do not have my credit card, and when I all but fall down under the weight of the not-sheets-but-a-mattress-cover and my own disappointment, he takes my wallet from me and looks for the card himself. And of course he finds it. My relief is somewhat eclipsed by my embarrassment that I am crying in front of the entire gym over a credit card that was in my wallet the entire time. Sheepishly I thank him, "Grazia mille" (thanks a million) and head back to Conti to return my mattress cover. I decide on the way over that 30 euro is not worth trying to find the right sheets, and when I hear from my roommates that they have kindly re-washed my sheets for me, I think that I will just rough it one night and sleep without sheets, as gross as that is. 

I arrive at Conti, and discover another thing that the good ole' USA has that Italy lacks besides a dryer, microwave, one shape of socket (yes, plugs here come in many shapes and require multiple adapters), chinese food that the sweet and sour chicken does not come boiled with pickles and pineapple (?!!), and that would be: a return policy. Yes, as it turns out, no where in Italy can you return something for your money back. Only exchange, and that is if you're lucky. Ciao, 30 euro! While we may have an embarrassingly oafish President and be known as the uncultured mac n' cheese eating masses, at least we have established return policies, and for the record, I like mac n' cheese.