i just made a f-ing cheese log...

**written on dec. 22
so! merry christmas! happy holidays! as ´ol blue eyes just reminded me, in these times we only need to think of the truth in the old saying "God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world". indeed.

am in marions kitchen, listening to her and kalla speak deutsch, curled up on the sofa together, happy as larks, christmas candles burning and neil diamond on the stereo. i just finished the first part of my preperations for tomorrows yultide get together, at which we will be serving a variety of fresh baked cookies, a cheese log (lord, i feel old...but is rosalynn carters recipe, apparently, so i love that), cheese straws (lots of cheese), guacamole (random, but delicious), and the infamous egg nog! bit worried cause we got the bourbon at the aldi, some mystery supposed-kentucky distillery...i mean, i dont want to kill anyone or anything. but i think it should be fine. and the truth is, i think bourbon only...interestingly affects southerners, as it is in our blood to drink the stuff and go buck wild, so they should be spared anything but a mild headache, worse come to worse. i´m sure it will be perfect! i hope to make mimi proud tomorrow. and aunt sally, as richard described those cheese straws and it sounds as tricky as a souffle...

ok, so where was i...

oh, marions class and singing christmas carols.
i had gone with kalla´s class bowling the day before (was great! we bowled and then kalla took me to the christmas festival in essen, which was beautiful and we ate and ate and shopped and i almost got lost but some kids found me and it was just a great day), and while the kids he teaches were for the most part pleasant to me, they didnt say one word. had no idea what to expect from marions class. we arrived very early in the morning, dropped a load of christmas celebration stuff in the classroom, and walked briskly to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee (my second). when we returned 30 minutes later, the class room was full of students and was decorated adorably, especially considering 80% of the class is muslim and doesnt even celebrate this holiday of ours. marion introduced me and i waved and everyone mumbled something and smiled and seemed excited to have me. we ate breakfast together, yummy fresh rolls and meat and cheeses. the class was wonderful in that you could tell that they all knew each other really well. everyone seemed to be friends and like they knew each other personally. there was joking and conversation and shouting from one end of the table to the other, and it was a very happy celebration. in the middle of it two other teachers came in, and seemed to be very well received. we all ate and one girl passed around homemade muffins and then the teacher asked the class to go around and say what they felt about the past semester and every student talked for a while, which was so different from what i have experienced, when a teacher asked the class a broad question and everyone starts to look at their nails or pretend to be asleep.
later there was the christmas carols\ kareoke hour, which was great. we sang rudolph the red nose reindeer, etc, and everyone sang along. during kareoke hour i was minding my own business, just witnessing the scene and picking at my nails, when one of the cute turkish boys started asking me questions in english. this got a huge rise out of everyone around him, and there were hoots and giggles as he came and sat next to me and offered me a chocolate. he was very nice and spoke nice english, and this encouraged some of the other students to talk to me as well. one boy asked if it was "hard" to live in america. assuming he meant, like, hard to immigrate and find a job and become a functioning citizen, i began to launch into my "well, lets consider the american dream..." speech, but realizing that he probobly knew about as much english as he had just uttered, he was spared, and i asked, "not really, why?". turns out alot of the kids had this totally weird vision of america which was granted to them by the TV, a vision wherein america is a tragic, violent, brutal country, with police and gangs and guns and hospitals and pervert priests and KKK meetings, etc. i laughed and explained that, good lord, no, we´re a very gentle people, come visit some time and see for yourself! then they asked if the girls were good looking and i assured them they were, so now everyone is planning on visiting.
after i bid my turkish boyfriend adieu, marion and i went into duisburg, where there is a beautiful mosque. we went inside, and aside from the smell of feet and the slightly damp (but unbelievably plush!) carpet, it was stunning! there was a giant golden chandelier in the middle of the room, which marion explained that some people found tacky. i loved it, though. it shimmered and looked beautiful and had engravings of prayers all the way around it (was a series of large golden circles), and when you walked underneath and looked up it lined up with the writing and colors on the ceiling. i was impressed and overwhelmed.

**present day
so, the christmas party went great! poor marion was a little nervous before hand, as she says she doesnt entertain often and is always worried a fire might start or the wine will run out and people will turn into an angry mob, and i assured her that everything would go flawlessly (i make this a personal quest when hosting and i generally succeed and ina garten says, even if you arent done cooking, just hand the guests a beverage and put some music on and they will be fine but that, of course, the best hostess is a hostess who is present, not slaving in the kitch- bah! anyway, not important). bottom line, i made sure all food was fixed ahead of time and that the plates were decorated nicely and marion looked beautiful and was an incredible hostess and annika did her unintentionally perfect part by serving the guests way too much eggnog in their glasses, which no one seemed to mind (or know the difference), and kalla is of course kalla and could make fantastic conversation with a stump and he kept everyone happy and entertained. the food was pretty good. the cheese log was actually not bad, considering that it was something that i never ever in my life thought i would make because, i mean, eww. but since the germans dont have cheddar cheese (which is fine with me, i abhor the stuff) i substituted with gouda, and used sour cream instead of mayonaisse and i dusted the top with hazelnuts and served it with raspberry preserves...and the cheese straws were more like crispy little biscuits but still spicy and delish (odd, though, that my crackers turned out more like biscuits, because whenever i do try to make biscuits they turn out like crackers...hmm...), and the guacamole needed salt (but i think that was just my demented tastebud problem) but was great, and the cookies were also sort of like biscuits (hm?) but very fluffy sweet wonderful biscuits, and the eggnog...mmmm. i think it would have definitely made mimi proud. especially since i messed up the converting (cups from liters or something? metric stuff...) and put 3X as much bourbon as the recipe called for. had a slight suspicion that the recipe wasnt exactly the recipe i was used to "drinking" anyway though, so i think it tasted just like normal.
christmas was wonderful! the house was decorated and warm, and christmas eve morning kalla and annika and i decorated the tree. their trees look slightly different then ours do, sort of like theres alot of branches at the bottom and then the yget soarse up top, so the ornaments at the top hang off the end of lone branches and it looks like beautiful weights holding the tree in balance. their tree is simple and lovely and made me so, so happy.
we went to a catholic church christmas eve, which was nice. kalla and i took communion. then we came home and made a nice dinner, some sort of swedish fondu-type dish with chicken and pork and a variety of vegetables, and like six different types of dipping sauces. we drank champagne and ate and talked and it was nice. gifts came afterward, and i was spoiled, of course. marion and kalla and annika have done more for me than i need or deserve, and all i can hope is that i was a good enough guest to merit even a fraction of their kindness, and that one day down the road i can repay them for all of this. im already cooking up some ideas...
christmas day annika and i went running (cultural), and that evening marion and i went and saw Australia, the new baz luhrman flick with nicole kidman and that shockingly gorgeous man hugh jackman (is adorable, marion for some reason pronounces his name "huge" jackman...makes sense, of course, in a variety of ways, so i dont correct her). the movie is fantastic, so ladies, go see it and swoon.
yesterday we went to marions parents house in rinteln, germany, about 2 hours away from here toward berlin. the town is incredibly old, built in the middle ages, and looks like something plucked out of a cookie-cutter-image-german-beer-mug catalogue. her parents house is huge, and fun, lots of rooms with secret ladders to top floors and attic spaces and rooftop balconies. her parents were great, especially her mother, who doted on me and hugged on me and told me all about ehr trip to visit my grandparents in cornelia in the 70s. there were artifacts from this excursion and others that marion had made to the US all over the house: stencils of the big red apple, photos of aunt beth, supposed letters from mimi. it felt strange and comfortable, like i had been there before which, in a metaphysical way ((if you want to go there...) i suppose, i had. we all went out to a wonderful dinner, and marion suggested a dish of wild pig, which i devoured, and annikas cute cousin lilly smiled at me and spoke random english words alot which made me happy.
oh! i remember...the other night, christmas night, marion and kalla and i were playing a game with his two beautiful daughters and his son, and the game was this thing where teams of two are given a word, a thing or a phrase, and they have to take turns saying words in order to build a sentence that describes this words e.g. the word is "tree"...so i would say "seeds" and marion would say "grow" and i would say "from" etc...and marions and my word was "potato". so naturally i thought "ireland"...so i make the first word of our sentence "irish", thinking the senetnce could turn into something like "irish people died because these blasted things went sour" or something. but when i said irish, marion looked at me like i had said...i dont know, japanese, and it came out eventually that no one aside from me at the table had ever heard of anything pertaining to the irish potato famine. and i assured them that probobly 75% of americans, upon hearing the word potato, would think of irish people. am i right? i mean, i couldnt make this stuff up. i could not make up a famine. was v tragic and serious. definitely.
so anyway.
today i worked on my italian for about 4 hours, if not more if i include vocab studying during the car ride. i made 200 vocabulary flashcards and did some sentence structure research and i now make it a point that when i communicate with anyone italian in email or on facebook i always write in italian. and they love it. and i have been told several times now how much i am improving! yea! honestly, i love germany, i have had an incredible time, and i cannot wait to go to berlin (!!!), but i want so so badly to go back to italy. it feels right to me, it feels, as ive said before, like home. so on the 9th of january i return to roma, and i can hardly breath till i get there...
but oh, berlin! just you wait...

germany, for mimi

is 8am and i have already been awake for an hour and 20 minutes, as i was invited to come along with marion to her work today for the christmas party that she has with her students. apparently we are going to sing songs and eat alot of food and have a secret santa. marion, as i wrote last time, is constantly concerned with my "being bored", and has made a huge effort to entertain me these past several days. she and kalla and annika have done a great job. aside from the time i spend sleeping (not too much, but im on a v. different schedule than them i.e. late nights late mornings vs semi-late nights absurdly early, productive mornings), studying italian via work books and movies in italian (the royal tenenbaums and breakfast at tiffays!), and cooking (yea!), i am pretty much always engaged in some activity or another. last night, for example, i accompanied annika to kickboxing class. was really fun, actually, though my knuckles are raw from punching (annika?). and yesterday during the day, i spent many an hour with karl heinz and his school class on a trip into Essen. we went bowling, which i am awful at, and then kalla took me to the essen christmas market, which was beautiful and i ate way too much good stuff. the night before marion and i went to a play, "same time next year". it was performed at a small theatre in duisburg, and was all in german. i enjoyed it, the acting was good, and every now and then i could pick out little words and phrases that i remembered from my years of german.
i can honestly say that i am totally, completely 100% happy and comfortable here. their house is an oasis if ever there was one for a ragged, war-torn italian refugee. i can study in peace, i can wash my clothes, i can talk to marion into the wee hours of the morning about all variety of things, i can take walks and baths and watch movies and listen to christmas music and cook and eat (i am getting rather plump, actually...). everything is wonderful. they are the kindest, most generous, loving people and i am honored to call them family. their house is decorated like a little christmas shop, trinkets and santa clauses and lights. the christmas tree is in the backyard, as they dont bring it in and decorate it until the night before christmas (our christmas or theirs, actually? i.e. the 24th or the 23rd...ill ask). the backyard is scattered in cute lighted bushes and the floors are heated so you dont get cold walking on the marble. i think this evening im going to take an orange and stick some cloves in it and bring it to a nice 64 second boil (they have one of those wild stoves that uses magnets to boil water really fast. i love it).
i suggested to marion that we make mimis eggnog, and marion ran with the idea and decided that we should have an eggnog party right around christmas and have the neighbors over. so we are going to make eggnog and aunt sallys cheese straws (please send recipes) and i might make some little quiches or something and we´ll have a little party and i cant imagine anything nicer.
ugh, god, i am getting so fat. cant move really.
so i found out that my next internship, in ROMA, doesnt begin until january 12th, as the italians are even lazier then the americans and have a major, massive christmas vacation (like a month! totally my kind of place). so i will be with marion until the 29th or 30th, and then i will go to Berlin to crash with costa or billy in that wonderful city until it is time to make my way back to italia. a nice interlude, and i hope to come back to italy with a new lease on the whole ordeal. id like to think ive learned some lessons and gotten acquainted and i can go back composed and ready for farm life.
i´ll blog all about this fun day at school with marion later, as i am in the middle of it right now. germany is awesome.
the way i think i will recap cormons is to put a little tid bit story at the end of each blog from now on...so lets see...

...did i tell you about that coffee shop in downtown cormons? i would walk down there from my dorm, down these little rambling roads, large stone walls or little houses on one side, grape vines for miles on the other. the town would loom up and i would follow the curving cobblestone into the square. it was what you would imagine. tall, flat building fronts with rectangular windows a shutters, frescos or molding near the red shingled roofs. the town is small, and pretty much always empty, except for a few older men or women loitering in front of the wine bars and cafes. the town is dead silent. there are cats walking around, but they wont ever let me pet them. some of the windows are so old that the glass has began to run, making the windows look wavy and like water, thicker on the bottom which eats the light and makes shimmering reflections onto the walls across the street. the stores sell fresh baked bread, sweaters and shoes, meats and cheeses, toys. i have been told that the population of cormons is 7,000, but there is no way this is true. it seems to be just me sometimes. the coffee shop is refreshingly tacky, a weird combination of modern, polite, british formality, small town ice cream parlor, and they advertise flavored syrups to add to your coffee, with a sign that reads, "make your morning to a flavor". makes no sense. i love this sign. they have the tv on silent, game shows, and the top 40 radio station on. i always take the table in the back corner, because there is a small tank that holds two little turtles (tartaruge!). the turtles are nicer then the cats, and i can hold them and talk to them and they climb on my hands. the best part is that when little kids come in for ice cream, they always come to the tank and i get to talk to them in my simple italian. the man who works there is my friend. we dont have anything to say to each other, really. he speaks no english and i am always there studying my italian, and hell ask me how its going and ill tell him its going well. we smile alot and he brings me cappuccinos and glasses of wine, and the best part is that when i order a glass of wine i get snacks as well, finger sandwiches or cookies. when i walk by the shop on my way home from somewhere else, i look in and we wave to each other. im a regular.
the train station in cormons is another place that i frequent, though not necessarily willingly. since i have to take the train to and from school everyday, im there quite alot. there is that sweet old man working there, the one i mentioned in an earlier blog. but there is also a beautiful woman, in her late 20s i would imagine, brunette and sweet looking, like aunt keli, slim and green eyed. we always see each other around town, and when we do she exclaims (and i mean seriously, exclaims, not just says) "ciao!" and waves and smiles brightly. i see her at the coffee shop, at a restaurant, in the supermarket, on the street. we are friends. the other day i was at the counter, buying an espresso and a ticket to gorizia, and she was making this fantastic looking drink for an old man (the best part about the train station, by the way, is the bar. old men pack into the little bar there from morning till night, and they drink wine and eat ham and play cards and talk, all day long). so shes making this drink that is like this: she pours red wine out of an unmarked wine bottle into a metal canister, one of those used for steaming the milk for cappuccinos and lattes. she then adds a cinnamon stick, fresh grated nutmeg, a few herbs which i didnt get a good look at, and a couple slices of apple. then she steams this up using the espresso machine, and the smell of christmas fills the air. i watched her make this, and asked, "cos´e´?" ("what is it?"). she explained and asked, "tu vuoi?" ("you want some?). i grinned and nodded of course. she poured me a little espresso cup full of the steaming wine, and then poured the rest into the tall glass for the old man. he watched her do it, and noticed, of course, that she had given me a good 1\4 of the wine, and he snickered and raised his glass in a toast. i thanked him very much for his generosity and tried the wine, which was just what the doctor ordered on a freezing cold italian day when one has hours and hours of beuracracy and train travel to look forward to. i just thought it was so wonderfully italian, her just giving me some of the wine, because we all knew he wouldnt mind. thats the spirit of these people; generosity, community, family, wine for all, toasts and salutations at any hour of the day (was 10am).

ok, more later, time for christmas caroling with marions class!

yall, im dying. i just saw, on facebook, this album made by someone whom i am not sure that i know but i am positive i must have met 100 times in cormons, and it was an album with pictures from the parties in cormons (including the famous "tu vuo´fa l´americana" party, and the chocolate party!!!), entitled "life in cormons", and i am in alot of the photos, just tagged as "mericana", which i think is hilarious, and i saw all these people that were a part of my life for this tiny beautiful bubble of time and my heart aches so badly for that weird life that i had there that i just dont know what to do. i dont even know what to say. the thing is, 60% of them i didnt know their names. 80% of them, if i saw them on the street sometime in the future, i would just wave and smile and say ´ciao!´. i love them all, though. they were fixtures in one of the strangest, most seclusive, beautiful periods of my life, the most seclusive beautiful period of my life. cormons. and they were characters in something that i couldnt have even dreamed up if i had tried. and they were so so kind to me. and the other 20%...the ones i know for real and keep in touch with and would hug so tightly if i ever saw them again, like marko (the gorgeous serbian) and martin (the incredible argentinian) and giulgio (italian, and so so good to me, we sang songs together) and so many others...
we were stranded together in this place that only fate could create and we had fun and...
im going to blog asap, about my life in cormons. because i never want to lose this, i want to keep this, i want everyone to know, at least some of it...

to be continued...

paris recap 2

hm...monday in paris. this is the day when quinn and i had our little fight. it was kind of cute, in a way. no sense going into detail.
that night we went to the Champs-elysses (sp?? french is not my strong suit) christmas market, which was positively magical. all up and down the great boulevard there were little white cottages decorated with blue and white twinkly lights and fluffy, fake snow and selling all manner of miraculous christmas goodies. food, wine, gifts, trinkets...one particularly amazing booth which i totally patronized had a sign that said "fucking party here!" and was playing techno music and offered 10 of the most delicious, crisp oysters i have ever had the pleasure of eating and a glass of white wine for 10euro. is quite an experience, really, standing in the freezing cold, slurping oysters out of their shells, tasting the ocean and listening to pounding house music while at the booth next door some old lady is buying a pair of socks with the hand-stiched image of a reindeer and having trouble paying because she dropped her coin purse into the fake snow and all the french people are gathering around chattering loudly and helping her to dig her coins out. love christmas. love france. did not think i would, for some reason (love france). i dont know, the first time i went to paris i didnt like it very much and i thought the people were a bit snotty and i always figured the french boys would be very smart and aloof and not talk to me. but could not be further from the reality! the french people were some of the kindest, most down to earth, helpful, insightful, genuine people i have ever met. they were so so sweet to us, and so easy to talk to, just as chatty as could be, and yes, incredibly smart. and they make possibly the worlds best food. so i love them.
the rest of paris was a dream. we saw a celebrity, a notorious crack head who was married to kate moss, at a restaurant and angela and he got into an argument which was possibly the greatest scene i have EVER witnessed. we shopped, we ate incredible food, we rode the subway alot, we saw cute boys. angela went to museums. quinn and i did not (but we did go to the paris ghetto!! ask quinn about that one, was baffling and hilarious and you should really hear that from quinns mouth as she is the authority on such things). one night quinn and i woke up at 1 am for no reason whatsoever except that we had fallen asleep at like 9 and our bodies werent use to going to bed so early. all of use woke up, actually, and we were all a bit annoyed cause it was now 1am and we were wide awake. so quinn and i went on a walk. we walked for a good 45 minutes, through the quiet, cold streets of paris. neither of us said a word to each other, we just walked and thought until we felt sleepy enough to go home. one of my favorite memories. i love my sister.

wednesday we took a train to aix-en-provence. i ended up being literally thrown onto the train by an attendant right as the doors slammed and the train started to depart (they do not mess around with their time schedules, not used to that) and ended up sitting on the floor of a hallway the whole 3 hour ride. was nice though, i had a big window and i could lay back by the heater (yes the trains have heaters, also not used to that) and watch the french country side go by. was stunning.
we arrived in aix-en-provence and sweet frederic picked us up and drove us to his apartment. was cozy and exactly what we needed after freezing, rain sodden paris, and we watched the godfather and i was pleased to note that i could understand about 65% of the parts in italian.
aix-en-provence was beautiful, a classic french town, cobblestoned and befountained and the people were incredibly atractive, like out of magazines, and it was great. angela had to leave friday morning, which was sad.
then we went to montpellier for the weekend, the city where frederic grew up, and a city that i have been hearing about for years from my friend teresa who insists that it is the best place ever and totally where she wants to live. i understand why she feels this way. montpellier is stunning, really beautiful, and fun and lively. the people are good looking and have that look of living in a perfect mix of big city and small town, where you never get bored but you never get worn out, either. the food was incredible, and frederic and i went out to a club with some of his friends and it was a blast.
saturday quinn and i were invited to have lunch at frederics parents house. before my trip to france, frederic kept asking what i wanted to do, and i insisted that my primary goal was to eat boullaibaisse (again, sp), a fantastic, typical, oh i forgot what you call it, poor-people-of-france-ate-it-when-they-were-poor-but-now-its-expensive-as-hell-cause-they-arent-poor-anymore-and-now-its-just-art food (the word i was looking for is "peasant"...), made from left over fish parts, cooked in a broth of heavy garlic and herbs, and served over crispy croutons with a spicy maionaisse. sounds weird, but its heaven, i assure you. we went to frederics house, and his mother, who is possibly the worlds most adorable person ever, was bussing around us offering tea and fresh olives and cherry tomatoes, and his dad was very talkative and asked probing questions and had alot of encyclopedias on the shelves and his sister was pretty and there with her fiance. i felt a bit stiff and formal due to the fact that a) this was possibly the worlds nicest, most normal, clean, wholesome family, all apple cheeked and bepearled and kindness and smiles and kisses on the cheek (**3. in montpellier you kiss 3 times. in paris only 2. it gets positively confusing, and the worst is when either you try to kiss the 3rd time and the other person doesnt, at which point you look like a fool and "take wind", and the very worst is when the other person goes in for the third kiss and you dont and then you feel awful at having made such a faux pas...france is hard sometimes, but v. beautiful e.g. constant kissing) and b) it seemed that the consensus between frederics family and...frederic (?!) was that i was frederics sort of girlfriend (?!) so this whole thing had this terrifying meet-the-parents vibe, and even though i am not, was not, and wont be frederics girlfriend (nothing against the boy, hes wonderful!) i still felt all this pressure to like...behave properly because i really, oddly and of course, wanted them to like me. wasnt hard, though, they were funny and made good conversation and lunch was amazing. the best part was watching quinn behave so oddly polite and formal and even frederic had to laugh afterward, saying hed never seen quinn so sweet. alot of "oui, s'il vous plait" and "merci beaucoup" and other french niceties. i ate like a horse, the food was PERFECT and even quinn was moved enough to TRY A BITE OF FISH (i was shocked), though she promptly gave up and frederics mom was kind enough to make her a filet of veal instead, which quinn said tasted "like a pork chop", and she ate the whole thing. after the boullaibaisse we sampled a selection of cheeses, one of which quinn deemed "tight", and then a fantastic fruit salad with pomegranate and passion fruit and mango was served with a variety of ice creams to chose from to put over the top (was hilarious, we were passing around the ice creams, and one of the cartons said in french-but-english-too that it was "caramel and vanilla" and quinn grabbed for it and frederics mom was like, "that one is-" and quinn said, "oh, i can read it!" and practically shoved the whole carton in her mouth, exclaiming that it smelled like a vanilla candle from the Body Shop. at this point a fruit fly or something landed on my lip and we both burst out laughing at each other, confusing everyone at the table, except for frederic, who was, in his way, quietly patient and amused). after lunch we retired to the den for a small pressed coffee, which i, of course, managed to spill all over my sweater and down my arm and then tried to ignore in manner of if-i-dont-aknowledge-it-no-one-will-notice, the kind of ploy that does not work when quinn is around, who immediately burst out laughing and called me a fool or similar, making frederics mother, frederic, the sister, and the fiance all start grappling for a rag, some soap, a dish towel, and anything else conceivable to help in a spill, while frederics father tried to play along with me, keeping the conversation going. was bright red and stuttering. and again, frederic was patient and amused.
after lunch there was a wine festival downtown (whew!), all local varieties of grapes, and you pay 2 euro and walk around and taste and swirl your glass and, if you are a pro (i´ll get to this later) you spit into a bucket, but if you are me, you just drink it. the wines were perfect and the festival was great except i could feel quinns eyes like daggers telling me shes fucking bored, she wants a bagguette and she wants to go home. by this point of the trip i didnt bother to argue. we left. went home and called it an early night.
6am frederic called, he was waiting outside to take us to the train station. 11am quinn and i arrived back in paris. 2pm we stopped in a mcdonalds so quinn could eat. 4pm quinn dropped me off at my bus station. 8pm, my flight home, thought would die, practically threw up on board when the plane did a 5 second nose-dive, promised myself i would never fly again. 10pm: back in italy. and i can honestly say i have never felt so relieved. i dont know why, france was perfect, france was beautiful, it was a blast, it was sophisticated and intellectual and the food was top notch and i had my sister and my friends and the boys were soooooo cute and the clothes were exsquisite. but when i got to my raggedy little train station and bought a 2euro panino col prosciutto and a cafe and i heard "il treno, regionale, 9245, directo a TRIESTE CENTRALE, arriva a binario 2" i felt like a great fist of love had socked me in the stomach. i felt like i was going home. i rode to cormons, arriving at 1am. pitch dark, starry sky. my castle was aglow on the hill. made my walk back to my dorm and breathed and felt like i had stepped into another century and was exactly where i was suppose to be. and it was one of the best, most reassuring feelings that i have ever felt.

back in action, paris recap 1

ha! am back. have no clear idea as of yet where i´ve been in the interim, either, in manner of high school year books where theres just too much to say to the kid youve known since 1tst grade, so all you can write is "what a long strange trip its been", or similar. except later, at some quiet moment down the road when youve had a minute or two to digest the implications of the time that has gone by and time to process the events and symbols and hidden secrets and beauties, then (then!) you write another, much more eloquent letter to that kid youve known from 1st grade (only in your head,though, cause hes off at college somewhere, dating and lerning and working for some Republican senator from South Carolina and just in a totally other world by now, and maybe at thanksgiving youll run into him at the Back Porch or something, which will pretty much be the only thing yall have in comon anymore besides shared playground experiences and we-were-both-in-the-assembly-in-the-marietta-high-school-gym-when-we-got-the-announcement-on-9\11, etc)and you say, hey, that time we got in trouble for popping the chocolate milk bags with those pointy capri sun-style straws in the lunch room in 5th grade? that was fun. thanks. because in the end, its those tiny, funny memories that make up our lives and give us pause.

i am not on drugs, i promise. but alot has happened and i feel very at peace about it all.

so, i believe i left you, dear reader, on my second night in paris. i had found quinn, we had made it back to our hotel, a long well deserved nap was taken...frederic called and woke me up, and we made plans to meet latish for more dancing. quinn and i dressed in our best urban-chic american-girl-in-paris-when-it´s-negative 2 degrees celcius-wear and took a rather complicated stroll through the parisian subway system. quinn, btw, was a native new yorker in her past life and is a mad genius at navigating subway trains and maps, and got us to the stop for the eiffel tower, pretty much the only thing quinn had an inclination to see is this great city, in about 20 minutes flat. we emerged from the underground with instructions to turn left, walk around a corner, and the eiffel tower should be somewhere in sight. i was walkng ahead of quinn, and when i turned the corner and saw it i grinned, i knew this was going to be good: i motioned to quinn with my pointer finger, a gentle "this way darling, look here...", and she walked up, turned the corner, and had an absolute spastic fit. the eiffel tower was huge, gigantic, looming up bright blue and shimmering before us. quinn screamed and flapped her arms and startled the nigerians selling miniature eiffel tower key chains and the pigeons that are often times their only customers. hopping up and down in ecstacy, quinn bounded to the edge of the railing and sighed a completely contented sigh (v. v. rare for this child). we stood and gazed and waited for its on-the-hour sparkle-fest. is miraculous, when it sparkles, the light bounces and shimmers on the grass, on the water, and in the windows of all the surrounding building, giving the impression of being in outer space at hyper speed with stars and comets flying all about and the great planet parisiana rushing toward you in some speed related to light years.
around midnight we met up with frederic and his friend, another boy named vincent, who looked like the cartoon character speed racer and was terribly adorable in a strictly parisian scarf-thrown-nonchalantly-over-the-shoudler-arrogant-grin-and-hand-rolled-cigarettes kind of way. we went to a club and met up with frederics other two friends from the night before. this night was incredible and impossible to describe, really. just madness. and margharitas. and the DJ played ´twist and shout´ and quinn and i talked about funny things grant use to do (she remembers alot!) and the french boys were all too cute and funny for words and taught me french phrases which i promptly forgot and quinn took about 150 photos which will all be on facebook someday. at 5am the club closed, and we wandered out into the streets. the consensus was that we were all hungry, and speed racer said he knew a place. we piled into 2 different taxis and sped off into the night, quinn and i singing twist and shout for the ammusement of the taxi driver. "the place" was not waffle house, not by a long shot. the place was Au Pied de Cocbon (google it) an all night parisian landmark that specialized in (?) pork products. they had guys in fancy suits opening the door for you and plush red velvet chairs and mirrored walls. the clientelle was the hippest-of-the-hip, all obviously wealthy, women dressed in sequined dresses with their hair boufonted high looking like they stepped out of Vogue, and guys in slightly rumpled tuxedos laughing into their champagne flutes. the air hung with the light smoke of expensive french cigarettes and tinkling conversation bounced through the chandeliers, and i felt right at home. i ordered froi gras and a diet coke, pascal had the beef tartar, quinn had french fries ("pooooom-frites!"). by the time we left the subways had reopened, so we made our way back to the hotel. 3 hours later (10am) i got a call from the front desk wanting me to verify that i knew a ms. angela jackson and that, if so, she was waiting in the lobby for me to come retreive her. considered telling him "i have no idea what you´re talking about, leave me alone" and going back to sleep, but figured would be mean to leave angela in the lobby just because i was unable to move my legs. pulled myself up and crawled into the lobby and embraced my darling angela and without more than 5 words to each other we went back to sleep.
several hours later the sweet frederic called and said, so even though its pouring rain, would anyone like to go to Montemarte? could not imagine a nicer place to see in the rain (v. optomistic because is paris), and we toured that famous neighborhood on the hill in a beautiful drizzle, and then took a warm cup of cider at a sidewalk cafe (inside, though, not on the sidewalk). that night quinn and angela and i took a long dnner of french onion soup and red wine and fresh bagguette and camembert and talked and listened to music and caught up. we found a little bar down the street that was open, and the boy working there was, quinn will back me up on this, the cutest boy in france, and he talked to us about tattoos and wrote me a map to a tattoo parlour which we did not patronize, and angela made quinn and i laugh till we almost peed our pants, and then we all came home and pushed our beds together and snuggled and watched ´home for the holdiays´ and fell asleep dreaming of america...

greetings from aix-en-provence...and happy thanksgiving!

*i wrote this on thanksgiving but never finished it, or published it, but here it is...


woke up this morning and my first thought was that i wish i was waking up in nanas old house. thats where i woke up on so many a thanksgiving morning. id always wake up in aunt kathis bed, and then go upstairs for scrambled eggs and bacon, and watch the thanksgiving day parade. then the rest of you would start to show up, my litle cousins, the lights of my life.
when we did grant family thanksgiving i always woke up in my old house. id be sleeping and would hear people start to come in. i would know mimi had arrived just by intuition, and then id hear aunt alice, and then hogan and grant would be running all up and down the hall. then a little later when the robertsons arrived alice ann would usually come and wake me up officially. id go downstairs and the house would be full and familiar. i love thanksgiving. i miss all of you so much.
so, oh my god, paris. am thrilled i survived. think i seriously came down with pnemonia for a couple of days. twice we were out walking, once in montmarte, one at a christmas market in the champs-elysses, and the sky opened up and poured. freezing weather plus rain plus converse does not mix. could not feel my feet and my lungs were rattly and full of water and i thought i had trench foot. angela gave me some theraflu and for an entire day i was blowing out what seemed to be live tadpoles. i feel better now but poor quinny is sick.

paris!

oh, where to begin? quinn is here, and angela is here, and we are having a fantastic time.
got into paris late friday night, really late, like, checked into my hotel at 1am. i flew into beauvais airport, which i learned after the fact is the airport for tourists who use discount airliners, and that, similar to treviso airport "in venice", it is over an hour away from the city. after a long, dark bus ride the city began to loom up, lights and traffic and twinkles from the seine, and then at the crest of a hill we could see it, the eiffel tower, lit up in blue and tinkling in the last throws of its on-the-hour laser show.
got to my weird, weird hotel, and was in my room long enough to throw on an outfit, and then burst out into the streets of paris. met up with frederic and two of his friends at a metro station down the road. as it was 1:30 in the morning, the subways were closed, so after deciding that we wanted to go to a club (dancing!), we had to figure out how to get there. no subways, taxis are too expensive, and paris is huge so walking is out of the question. so frederics friend vincent asked, "do you fancy cycling?", and i clapped my hands and cried "yes!!".
we rented bikes from these little bike keyosks, where you can insert your credit card and agree to a $150 fee if you dont return the bike within 24 hours, and you're off! we rode through the streets of paris, 2am, lights and cars and couples holding hands and 24 hour bakerys sending out fresh baked croissant signals into the night air. we rode over the seine, and all the boys simultaneously looked at me and pointed out onto the river and cried, "look! notre dame!". was breathtaking. after fourty five minutes or so (some of which i am thinking was sightseeing i.e. taking the long way) we reached our destination. danced and sang into the wee hours, and at 6am we went back to pascals apartment to sleep. 8 am frederic came into the living room and tapped me on the temple. "um, ele. stay calm. its 8". literally flew out the door in a fit of panic, trying desperately to create a plan for getting to the airport in a timely fashion. frederic walked me quickly to the subway, got me a ticket, rode with me to the connecting station, and sent me on my way. found quinn after a long interlude of running through the airport in my high heels and having her paged on the intercom. she was sitting slumped and worn out at a table in the airport cafe. hugged and kissed her and squeeled a bit, and we rode home, and slept till 6pm...when we woke up, refreshed and ready for france...all has been just perfect...
to be continued (when im not paying 3 euro an hour for internet)

PARIS!

hoorah! have made it safely and in a timely fashion to the treviso airport. remember last time i tried to take a flight form here, to rome, was the time i missed my plane and had a nervous breakdown out in the parking lot and then was forced to take the overnight train to rome in a tiny smelly cabin with 3 women from napoli. so planned ahead and have succeed in making my flight (almost, shouldnt jinx it...).
QUINN is arriving at 7:45am. she wants me to meet her at the airport. which i am glad to do, but i fear i will be smelly and possibly still drunk from tonights festivities i.e. dancing in paris with frederic and his friends.
in october, blake came to udine to stay with me for a night. we were told by everyone that udine is boring, there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, goodluck having fun. we decided to prove everyone wrong, and went out with a bang through the streets of my quiet old city. at the beginning of the night i was all sad because the boys in udine are super fancy and wear tight jeans and dont speak english and are not very easy to meet or become friends with. so i was on the hunt for a cute boy to talk to. had finally given up, as there was no one, and was all sad, and since alot of time cute boys dictate the amount of fun that i can have (is sad but true to an extent) i was like, ok well udine is a bust. again. but then out of this bar came this adorable boy with eyes so green i could see them in the dark and a scraggly 5o'clock shadow and a sweet smile and i said, thats him! i went up and asked for a cigarette in italian ("tu hai un sigarette?"...a good conversation starter) and the boy replied, "no, because i dont speak italian. but if you ask me in english i might" and i said, "oh, you..?" and he said, "oh, you...!" and then the rest was history...was frederic, my beautiful sweet french friend, totally fate. we spent the entire night talking, seriously, we were glued to each others side until 7am when blake and i wandered home. the enxt night we hung out again, and then we have messaged and chatted online since then. hes wonderful and kind and so easy to talk to and well read. he has been a lifesaver during this trip, helping us find hotels, book train tickets, giving me maps and directions. this weekend he is going to paris to visit his friend, and we will be there too, and then on wednesday Q and Angela and i are going to stay with him in Aix-En-Provence, and then to Montpellier, where he grew up, for the weekend. so anyway, hes all friendly and nice and i was all excited because i am positively sure that any romance we had is over and we are just good friends now, which is fantastic. however, he called me on the train earlier, to tell me that he checked with my hotel and it is infact ok that i dont get in till midnight, and the sound of his voice almost knocked me flat...soft and quiet french accent, a slight slur, but throaty from getting over a cold and a few too many french cigarettes. almost collapsed. and am now nervous that when i see him face to face ill freak and melt or something. when we call home on thanksgiving ill put him on the phone and all the ladies in the family can swoon...
ok, am so excited i might explode
head is feeling better just knowing i am closer to paris.
i love you all!

aunt kelli, with you its not a scent thing, its image. when i see women who are cute, petit, brunette, and wear red and hunter green (i dont know, for some reason i associate these colors with you) i.e. resemble you i tend to automatically trust them more and feel at ease. the most recent example is when last year or so i was applying for a job in an office at UGA, and a woman named danielle richards was interviewing me. i remember my first thought i had when i saw her was that she looked alot like you, and it made me happy. i even came home and told john, "i dont know if ill get that job, but the lady looked alot like aunt kelli, so i calmed down and i think the interview went well". not really sure how to put it into words, but i definitely relate you with good, safe, lovely things as well.
gah, ok, is travel day. have mild fever and my throat is swolen shut. seems like everyone in europe is sick right now, has been in the past week, or feels something coming on. feel like i have a rare disease or something, is awful. and paris is freezing cold so maybe will only get worse. good thing im going to montpellier where they make these special little candies which my friend frederic says are really only eaten when you have a "sick throat". will be in good hands.
ok, have alot to do, have to get going and stop watching youtube. ugh, might throw up.
i love you all!

oh, my god, aunt kathi, did i tel you that i do that? spray izzy, i mean? there is a profumeria in downtown udine, on my walk to school. i stop in there from time to time and spray that perfume onto the little sampling strips, and i keep them in my wallet, and whenever i feel sad or lonely or scared or nostalgic i take them out and smell your perfume. it is one of the strongest sensory-tied-to-memory-tied-to-emotion things i have; when i smell that perfume you wear i remember being small and loved and safe and in nanas kitchen eating goldfish or in your bed waiting for you to come home from chattanooga, or even more recent memories, its all just wonderful. and so when i smell it now it physically calms me and makes me happy. how funny.
so...oh my god, week of hell. have an incredible, incredible amount of things to do before i go to france, and its just like trying to swim underwater in a dream. not working. but, i did finally mail off my permit of stay:
...went to the "permit of stay" office yesterday, two weeks after my inital meeting with the lady. the first time she gave me all these forms and instructions and sent me on my way. then went to the university to tell the lady "in charge" of me that i had the forms ready to mail, and she freaked and psyched me out and was convinced that the info was not right. ended up taking 2 weeks for her to give me the "necessary info", and then she told me to return to the permit office and have them retype the forms. got to the office yesterday and the lady listened to me explain why i was back and what i thought i needed. she stared at me and explained that she already knew this and that all i needed was exactly what she gave me the first time, that, as i expected and was yelled at for supposing, the other info was not, at all, necessary. but the package she gave me was dated...it was suppose to have gone into a datebase...it is now very very late. "why didnt you mail it when i told you to mail it??" she asked ernestly, with a frightened look in her eye, in manner of a doctor leaning over a dying patient, writhing in pain, asking, "why didnt you take your appendix out when i told you to take it out?" and all the patient can scream is "because my chiropractor told me not to?". was scared i had messed up bad, but she told me it was ok, and today i mailed and got it verified, so i should be a-ok.
today the wonderful, life-saving angel who is simone translated a gigantic stack of course descriptions so that i can mail in my Credit Approval Form to UGA TOMORROW (MANDATORY!!!). UGA asks for a list of courses you want to take and descriptions of them, so that they can best match them up with UGA courses and give you credit. is all fine except was all in italian and there were lots of big words and i just couldnt take 10 hours out of my day to flip through my dictionary. went to simone, pleading, "please, simone, i need you!" (he lives for this kind of thing). took an hour for him to translate all the art history, molecular biology, and mathematic terms, but i think he liked the vocabulary exercise and he laughed alot when he got to use the term "lord of the lands". could not think of the english word for these people anyway, so it stays.
still have not begun my paper, will have to write it in france, but is ok as have lots of research hoorah.

other then majormassivestress work, all is very well. have made a new friend at my dorm in cormons, a v sweet and intelligent (and terribly attractive) boy from serbia who was some kind of child-prodigy in the club (spinning records, DJ, etc) scene in prague where he lived for 15 or some odd years. now his dad owns the best winery in serbia and he is studying viticulture. showed me pictures on his computer of wine related things, and in one photo it is him and a bunch of older men on a hill overlooking a winery. he pointed and said, "and thats the guy who started Slow Foods, you know" and i almost CHOKED on my non-alcoholic beer (an accident, i did not understand the term "analcoholic" and i thought "zero" meant it was diet, and i have too much pride to admit my mistake, so i just peeled off the labels...)because the GUY WHO STARTED SLOW FOOD IS MY IDOL and i screamed and was like, oh my god, hes why im here, i want to go to his university blahblah hes a hero you know him!!!! etc. also he knows the princess of tuscany, the guy who started the revolution against Milosevic, and like everyone else who is awesome. and he has lots of desperate housewives on his computer, which we watch, and we can agree that bree is the best, edie deserves more air time, lynette is horrid and cruisin for a bruisin, and susan should just be...killed.
so last night i made potato soup and the sweet serbian came over and after he went home and the tv was off i started hearing louds hoops and chants from upstairs. the chants turned into songs, loud rousing songs, a chrus of voices. so of course im thinking, oh god, theyre at it again, they must really be smashed tonight. so i followed the sound to go spy on the italians, to witness their maddness, and the singing grew louder and louder until i found the dorm room where they were, 3 FLOOR UP. went in to find about 20 italians, sitting around, lounging, singing as loud as they could some wonderful italian classics, and in their hands...hot chocolate. they were sitting around drinking hot chocolate, a pot of melted nutella over the stove was being spooned into big cups, and the italians were drinking their melted chocolate and eating cookies and singing and laughing. it was incredible. they are just really incredible. was handed a piping cup and i "drank" (spooned) it into my mouth and smiled and watched and was just so greatful to be around such happy people.
hm, ok, i think thats about all for now. is freezing cold outside and am avoiding having to venture out to make the long journey home.
love

ok, official announcement:
will not be making it home for christmas. just cannot be done. dont really want to talk about it as it is heartbreaking. but i will be ok, i will go to marions, where i am sure everything will be warm and cozy and perfect. and i will think of all of you and probobly cry a little bit, but marion has this thing where i can call the states for cheap, so maybe i can still hear some voices...can someone mail me cooper and parker and annabelle, though? and maybe nana? would LOVE to open a package christmas morning and find nana. ahahahahaha. ahaha.
ok.
gah! still have so much to do, i just cannot seem to get everything done (perche...i am blogging?).
so much is happening and so much is about to happen. over this next week, it being thanskgiving and all, i am going to begin to compile a list of gratitudes, thank you letters, and things for which i feel blessed.
stay tuned.

a small, wonderful thing just happened. i was walking through Udine, through the center of the old town, in the dying sunlight, on my way home from work toward the train station. in one of the piazzas i spotted in a 3rd floor window of a bank (the building dated 1722) a handsome, blond italian man in a business suit leaning against the floor to ceiling window, watching the people on the street. he looked so very dapper in his nicely cut navy blue suit, and he was leaning in such an enduringly italian way- careless, exhausted, pensively watching, seemingly smoking a cigarette just with his expression, rapt attention toward the crowd- and the setting sunlight cast a pink glow through the window which seemd to work as backlighting, creating such an incredible silhouette of this man that i could not take my eyes off of him. i just walked and stared and was awestruck. he saw me watching him, and smiled down at me, and mouthed "ciao", and waved his hand. i blushed and smiled and waved back and walked on, grinning from ear to ear about the small, simple, beautiful things that you can catch if youre not afraid to look at people, and you take a second to notice their pink backlighting.
i love it here so much sometimes i cant breath. today on the train into town, the sun was still rising and the train seemed to be floating through mist. it has rained for the past 4 days, heavy, freezing rain that has inhibited late night walks and shooting-star counting of any kind. but this morning i awoke to a white-blue sky, and bitter cold wind coming in off the mountains. the train traveled through the mist, and when at last it broke, i looked out the window and saw with crisp, clear glass-like vision the alps rising up around me on all sides. they were blue and grey and looked like metal, and the tops were blindingly white with fresh snow. its so cold here now, but i found a coffee shop in cormons where they serve hot chocolate so thick they serve it with a spoon.
am not sure exactly what ill do this weekend, but i know i have a ton of work. i have to finish my final anthropology paper before i leave for france. this is a big one, an aculmination of everything that i have observed and learned about viticulture and italian terroir, and there is alot of research to do and she wants me to illustrate a map of friuli and all sorts of stuff.
yesterday i sat in on my friend gabriele's class in cormons. he drives in a few days a week to teach a class on genetics to the viticulture and enology students, and the classroom he uses happens to be the one right outside my bedroom door. so yesterday i rolled out of bed at 9am and brushed my teeth and popped next door for the lecture. the lecture is of course on a subject that would make no sense to me even if it was in english, but i like to listen and try to undertsand the senetences, and i bring my dictionary and make notes of new words i learn. actually, was kind of funny...at one point, as far as i could gather, he was talking about a gene and he used the word "lungo" which i thought meant "long" (it does...) but in the context i didnt think it made much sense (i'm not a scientist, but a long gene?) so i looked up the word. "lungo" also means "weak". when i read that i smacked myself on the forhead in a homer simpson type "doh!", because every single day, multiple times perhaps, i go to these great little automated coffee machines in my dorm/college and get a cafe "lungo"...i thought the lungo meant long i.e. double the coffee. now i know it means long i.e. weak. learn something new every day.
so anyway, after the class, gabriele gave me a ride into cormons. i had him explain the whole "pucitare" thing to me, which i now know is a verb, the verb for the killing of the pig in friulian culture. he told me all about the pucitare, all about having to wake up when it is still dark to get a big pot of water boiling, all about having to kill the pig (which is very hard and slightly inhumane), about cleaning it and using every usable part for something. he said that it is best to do it when it is very cold, because the air helps to cure the meat, but that you cant wait too late, or the blood will freeze and the taste will be bad. apparently pucitare happen through february, so me and the anthropologist i met (also named eleanor) will try and find one to go to...is tricky because they are private, small family ceremonies, so i have to know someone...if all else fails simone has his in january...
simone, btw, has broken his foot and has left me at the mercy of the other scientists in the lab, which is lonely because they dont talk to me very much...
anyway, gabriele also told me on our ride back to town, that apparently the drunk italians in my dorm have cause quite a scandal as of late. he said that a few weeks ago the deen of the whole university came out to cormons to talk to them about their behavior, becuase things get broken and people complain about the insane noise and someone started a fire in the quad or something. too funny...insanity and recklessness...thats what happens when you stick a bunch of boys out in the country...that has been proven for ages now...

Tu Vuo'fa L'americano!

oh, my god. have come to the conclusion that italians are hardly more then mildly domesticated wild animals.
monday morning i woke up 45 minutes late, leaving me less then 20 to make it to the train station. i threw on a dress and my prada slingbacks and ran hell for leather all the 1.5 miles into town. arrived with one minute to spare, and sat crumpled on the cold concrete examining my feet: slingbacks had demolished them, as such shoes are not made for 8 minute miles. blisters, bruises, was terrible. after 10 minutes of agonizing pain and inspection, i realised that my train had not come. went inside the station and had a calming cappucino, as have become use to such things as trains-just-not-showing-up. one hour later, when the next train was suppose to come, i went and waited again. did not show. finally some maintenance man came over and kindly explained to me in italian that there was a strike on the trains and busses for the day. "well then why the hell is the train station even open?" i wanted to ask. but could not, as feet in pain and brain had stopped working from lack of comprehension at why in the world italians do the things they do, and was not even worth the attempt to put together a gramatically correct sentence. hobbled home mumbling to myself, but secretly glad that i was given a good excuse to miss class (clearly, was not my fault). in an effort to salvage what i could of my poor feet, i decided to take a moment to sit in the warm sunshine and paint my toenails. as i explained earlier, my apartment opens up into a lawn, and directly nextdoor to me is a classroom. so i sat out in the grass in shorts and a tanktop (was maybe 60', but i am very warm blooded) and proceded to paint. suddenly had the feeling i was being watched. looked up toward the classroom and saw the entire room full of italian boys staring at me, mouths agape. "oh my god, a girl, with feet, and she is coloring them!" they seemed to cry. for the next 15 minutes or so, they watched in awe. some guy even took a picture. finally the professor came over and gave me a dirty look and shut the door.
later the evening, around 11:45 actually, kind of late, i was in my apartment watching Grease in Italian and eating a banana, and there was a loud bang on my door. before i could even get off the couch, the door flew open, and in burst 2 of the argentinians and one of the boys from rome. "there is a beautiful dance party on the secondo piano! arrivi!!"
went to investigate this beautiful dance party for myself, as i was under the impression that...there was no secondo piano? apparently i have been such a hermit in my little ground floor apartment, that i had no idea that there was an actual dormatory in my building, and that there were maybe 100 kids who lived there. startling. anyway, i followed the noise and pounding base up to the thrid floor (secondo piano), pushed through a big heavy door, and was greeting by a chorus of shouts and cheers, all for little old me. was all the kids who go to those classes outside my door, i just had no idea that they lived here! so i walked in, and was immediately swarmed by italians, all shouting "americana! lei arriva!". there was house music and cigarette smoke and hoops and hollars, people dancing in the hallways, people spilling out of various doorways, bottles of wine being passed above our heads. suddenly, as though there was someone standing on high conducting a choir, the boys, in unison, burst into song: Tu Vuo'fa l'americano, the amazing song jude and matt sang in The Talented Mr. Ripley and a napolian classic. was dumbstruck. have seriously, seriously always wanted that to happen to me, was one of my lifes dreams: to be serenaded with tu vuo'fa l'americano. by a room (hallway?) full of italians. that is the magical thing about these people, they will sing at the drop of a hat, at the first utterance of a chorus line, just because they are moved to sing. one guy kicks it off, and the rest follow suit, at the top of their voices. football chants, napolian classics, "po'porno" (a new favorite)...italian boys sing, loudly and boldly.
so i made some friends of course. i imagine that its easy to dance the night away when your classroom is 2 floors down from your bedroom. i, however, have to travel a great distance in order to reach my school, so i think im going to take it easy for a while and let the italians have their fun. the good thing, at least, is that since i obviously didnt know they were there because they are so sequestered, their insane partying wont keep me awake at night.
oh, so much other good stuff is happening, and i want to write, but i have to go catch my train. oh, pictures of cormons (which is an incredible place!):
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2452772&l=598ed&id=4913936

i love you all.

ok, im feeling a little bit better now that i have the "knocked up" song playing on youtube...also, i just listened to mariah careys "all i want for christmas is you", which is possibly my favorite song ever, and that made me feel better too. the only thing is, my headphones arent very good so everyone can hear what i am listening to, and about the 4th time i pressed play on mariah carey the italian boy next to me seriously turned and stared at me with his mouth open, like he deifnitely thought i was crazy.
am having a case of what i have dubbed the Gruesome Purples, an evil, vicious mixture of the mean reds and the blues. i dont know what it is, but the thought of having another weekend strething ahead with no friends and nothing to do, mixed with my overall frustration with myself for not being able to speak stupid italian, plus my fear that i wont be able to stay for next semester and my whole life will dissolve in a burst of sad, sulferic flames like what happens to howlers after the message is conveyed...i dont know. i just feel really bad right now. miley cyrus is helping though...
worried that the slight depression that i have entered is causing me to eat more then my fair share of sweet things...cappucinnos, gelato, kinder chocolates...kinder chocolates are the WORST because they are a) small, b) come with a toy, c) sold at the check out counters at the grocery store, so when you are standing there with an armload of groceries and considering how sad it is that you are going to go home and cook dinner for yourself, and eat by yourself, in the aparmtent where you live by yourself, it is just too easy and d) have sentimental value now so they are DOUBLE dangerous when considering loneliness. anyway. just had two. and will not go back to grocery store anytime soon as am stocked up so not a problem.
went into school to finish up the first part of my grape assignment (thank heaven!). got it all typed up and formatted and analyzed. simone came into the office, looking terribly adorable with his collared shirt and sweater and 5 o'clock shadow, read over my papers, and gave his customary "good work, parker, good work". as a reward (since i am his slave) he admitted that professor zerbi came in to see him earlier today, asking if he was finished with me, and if i would be able to move onto another department (prosciutteria). simone was nice enough to tell him yes. so after next week, when i am done processing grape skins to (hopefully, good christ) find a correlation between the skin color and the sugars, i will be set free.
my roomate, btw, the sweet girl from argentina, has moved out, leaving me the whole place to myself, which is kind of nice. i ripped up my italian vogues and decorated the walls in various collages, so it looks fun and homey now. last night after i was done with dinner, i went outside to investigate the howling that was going on outside my door. the other argentinian kids, and the few italians who are from the south and therefore considered second class citizens, were all outside in the lawn drinking wine and celebrating the end of the rain. "vai, stiamo facendo una festa!" one of them cried. we all sat out in the wet grass and took turns butchering the italian, english, and spanish languages in our quest to communicate with one another. eventually one of the sweet argentinian boys brought out his guitar, and we sang rolling stones, nirvanna, led zeppelin, and aerosmith songs. i was MORTIFIED to relaize that i dont remember the words to the most obvious of songs, and i blame whitney for ruining "stairway to heaven" for me forever...anyway, it was a blast and a really fun night and i couldnt believe that i was actually singing outloud to these people, which i would never usually do. was fun, and maybe i need to remember these fun times with my fellow cormons-outcast friends before i walk around all day in a fog of loneliness.
anyway, am feeling better now. not sure what i will do this weekend, maybe explore cormons, or take the train out to the ocean at trieste...
oh, got to go catch my train...
ich liebe dich!!

oh my god i am absolutely in a state of hysteria.
i want this election to be over! then we can all nurse our collective stomach ulsers and start to beath again.
DAJE AMERICA!!!

ugh, just spent 6 hours in the lab listening to the girl with my least-favorite italian voice yack away about god knows what to simone, while i had to get up every 10 minutes to change my gloves dues to the copious amount of sugar that is in those tiny grapes and now i finally get the chance to break away and blog and the stupid keyboard is sticky...so glad to be back...
the only problem with going away somewhere and having a fantastic time is that you are sad when you have to come home. literally thought i was going to cry on the flight home from berlin. which is odd because it was the first time ever that i didnt want to go back to italy...i think im just tired of not having any good friends around and people to laugh with and it was so nice to be with billy and his friends. and one specific friend. am ok now, though, and is warm feeling when i realised that i refered to going back to italy as "going home" in my journal. when i was walking home from the train station last night, through beautiful spooky cormons, i went into an old grave yard. i dont know if it was because it was sunday or what, and i have no idea who did it, but every single grave had candles, either in red or white glass. since cormons is pitch balck except for starlight usually, the effect was haunting and surreal. as soon as i saw that i had a rush of love and devotion to all things italian again, and it gave me some peace. i walked the rest of the way home making a list of gratitudes in my head, adding up and aknowledging the things that i am thankful for. like how wednesday morning when i was leaving for berlin, i was at the cormons train station and i was rushed and worried about my flight and also broke because there isnt an atm in comons. the man who works the train station cafe came over with an espresso and a croissant (brioche, in italiano), and gave it to me for free, because i get an espresso every morning while i wait for the train and he just assumed that since i didnt ask for one that morning i was poor, but he guessed quite rightly that i needed one badly. so kind. love italians.
so berlin was just wonderful. hell will freeze over as soon as i say this, but i have to: billy is my favorite kunzler boy. and the cutest. yes, i said it, because its true. stephan who?
the "wondker fountain" party at the rich russian artists flat was so fantastic, one of the best parties i have ever been to. the people were all wonderful and engaging, young and old. the wodker was top notch russian quality, but dont worry mama, i didnt drink that much. the food was cavair and other fantastic treats. the art was pretty astounding. there was dancing, laughing, a real fight outside that left one of billys friends faces smashed but he seemed fine...best non-halloween ever! the best part was that i looked absolutely divine in my french silk dress. old ladies kept coming over and grabbing at it and feeling the material then babbling to me in german about how bautiful it was and asking "what is it?", and the german boys loved it too, if i do say so (unfortunately i have no pictures of the dress, but ill find a way to post it. finding that dress was on my list of gratitudes as well!). billy and i made quite a smashing entrance, him in his suit and my lovely self. we stayed and danced with the russians till 4am. billy is absolutely an angel to me, and we have taken the idea of "in a way adopted brother and sister" to just "shes kinder my sister". billy was adorably protective of me with his friends, and there was even a conference of sorts on the dance floor between him and his cutest friend who has eyes the color of grey ice water when billy thought his friend was getting a little too close...i just watched and giggled at how silly boys are and how sweet it was for billy to take such good care of me, and how sweet it was that, in the end, after a very boyish discussion and some reassurances made between them, billy relented and said ok.
saturday was the "most beautiful day ever"...thats all ill say. except that night we made fresh pumpkin soup, and it was wonderful!
billy told me hilarious stories about grant boy too, and sometime when the keyboard isnt sticky i will relate them.
anyway, tonight i am going to go have pizza with benji and mia and then go to cormons to hang out with my roomate...
pictures!!!
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2448618&l=da76e&id=4913936
ich liebe dich!

i really just wish bill pullman were running for president...i think we can all unanimously agree that Bill Pullman is the shit...

BERLIN!!!!!
hoorah! thought i would not even make it here, as i slept through my alarm and ended up having to take a train that may-or-may-not get me to the airport on time. these trains are really tricky things. you think because you are told since childhood that thing about trains always being on time that they are...on time. but is not true. trains are evil and, in italy, pretty smelly and given to lateness and weird delays.
anyway, am here, safe and sound. billy met me in the S-Bahn terminal at Alexanderplatz at 5pm yesterday, looking shockingly dapper in his fancy work suit and buttonless black overcoat (an outfit so fancy, he explained, that he could not carry my backpack for fear of rumples and creases...). he is the same as last time,totally insane and hilarious and irreverent, given to moments of enlightenment and severity. really think i am starting to like...like him or something. weird. ironic, at least.
last night was "poker night" which, though it is on a wednesday, pretty much means "drunken gambling night". a whole mess of adorable german boys flooded the flat between the hours of 8 and 3, and i sat nestled in the couch between the two cutest ones reading my book (a prayer for own meany, currently)and listening to them talk and giggle in german with delight. billys friends are all incrdibly friendly to me (except this one irish asshole, but to hell with him) and seem very interested in what i am doing and are chatty and kind. billys friends are so incredibly intelligent and well spoken and witty, seriously every one of them that i have me have impressed me greatly. the only thing is, you kind of have to prove yourself to them; they are very stereo-type-influenced and seriously assume that because i am from america i a) cannot read b) shop at wallmart c) vote republican d) have no clue about...anything e) am shallow, vague, dumb, and pretty much like the girls in american teenage booze and sex comedies. once they talk to me though (and i impress them with my 160 pt IQ and massive knowledge of german history and democratic ideals) they lighten up. now i think they love me! we had a great night, and i used my feminine wiles to help the really cute one win poker by cheating and spying on the other boys cards and then giving him a "tell". evil, i know.
woke up latish today and ventured out into the freezer-crossed-with-swimmingpool-like-world that is berlin. positively brutal weather. i, naturally, have no heavy coat, gloves, closed toed shoes, or sweaters, so i am pretty sure that i am going to come down with pnemonia and die before the weekends over. but at least im having fun!!
berlin is absolutely one of the best places that i have ever been; i totally understand both grant and blakes obsession with this city. it is as though the berliners are saying, "whew, thank god, all that bullshits over, now we can finally be born!". the city is like a breath of fresh air. its exciting, its inviting, its art, its drama, its romance...but in a way that cuts all the froo-froo poetic shit and just goes boldly through he present, like this city knows what pain is and now it cares for nothing but truth and art and adventure. i feel young here.
i cooked for billy and a couple of his friends tonight. i made potato soup and roasted chicken and pan-tossed zucchini. the boys, between the 3 of them, ate the entire pot of potato soup, a pot big enough to have fed a family of 12. they loved it, said it was the best soup theyd ever had. we cooked two hens, and they were devoured as well. love feeding boys. appetites are one of my favorite things to nourish.
so now the boys are watching "independence day" and making fun of american patriotism but agreeing that they would totally be proud to be an american if bill pullman was in charge. totally agree. i think billy and i will go out tonight, but we have to take it easy cause tomorrow is the "big party", at the home of some fancy rich russian artist. billy is going to wear a tuxedo and i am going to wear the FABULOUS hand-made french-silk dress that i got in ROMA. apparently there is to be what billy calls a "wodker fountain", so thats great.
ill keep you posted...

"boy, you gotta prayer in memphis..."

"she said 'tell me, are you a christian, child' and i said, 'ma'am i am tonight!'"
that part always gives me goosebumps!


have come back into the big city (udine) to spend some time preparing for the ginormous anthropology research paper that i am to have completed by tuesday. i use the internet in the western union office run by koreans who wear all white designer track suits and have sunglasses with opaque images of cartoon frogs on. it costs a little bit of money but i can watch youtube aerosmith videos, which always makes me happy.
went to dinner at my old cafe last night, where benji and mia work. it was wonderful to see them, and benji made me a fantastic pizza with eggplant, prosciutto cotto, funghi, and mozzarella. was having a fine time making italian flashcards and eating too much and sipping my campari, when mia came over and said, "there a boy here, who want you". looked at her for a second, sort of terrified, and then said, "dont say that mia. say, 'theres a boy here who likes you'". this is mia, btw, who speaks such funny english that whenever i come into the cafe she exclaims, "what happened to you?!" and i get startled and start looking at myself, wondering if i am covered in blood or something. need to explain "how have you been" to her, too. anyway, was a bit weary because mia, even though she is exsquisitely beautiful, dates albanian boys with potbellies, and i feared she might be trying to set me up with someone similar. was correct. the boy who "want" me was a greek-albanian with absolutely no teeth...or rather, rotten blue stubs where proper teeth should have been. he came over and smiled this huge, grotesque smile, and then totally freaked me out by saying, in a perfect british accent, "can i buy you a glass of the house white, my sweet?". except he has a lisp, sort of, because his tongue had nowhere to push when he pronounced his t's...i adamantly refused. he kept offering and i just said, no. no. seriously. he left and mia and benji seemed like, shocked that i wouldnt go for it. "but he speak english!!" benji cried, as though this meant the world. had to exlain to them gently that i am from a country where people have braces and teeth whitening gels, and i am not culturally...accepting enough to forget that.
made my way back to my apartment. cormons is so dark at night i can see other galaxies and the milky way and the constellations shine so bright! its quiet and i can see silhouettes of bats flying about through the light mist.
so another weekend with no one to hang out with...i think after i am done doing my research i will go home, make a nice dinner, and then take the train to gorizia i.e. cuter boy town and see what i can find there.
hm, thats all for now...love!

p.s. aunt keli, if its cute boys you want (which, i dont know why you would be interested, you have the most handsome brilliant husband in the world right there in marietta), then i suggest yall take a trip to greece. those boys are just...divine! everything you could want out of an italian, looks wise, but with green eyes and cunning smiles...mmm, think will go back there, actually...

well, actually, since i dont know enough italian vocabulary to read the political section of an italian "news source"...

i get my news from cnn, msnbc, and, occasionally, i go onto foxnews.com to spy and see what egregious offense against humanity it is that they are "reporting". and im not so sure that europeans are "biased" toward obama, i just think they have an outsiders perspective and are a bit more liberal overall, so yes, most of the europeans i meet are definitely pro-obama. what happens in america directly and, in alot of cases severely, effects what happens in the rest of the world, so their interests are at stake here, too. ive found that most of the people that i speak with over here are incredibly informed on american current events, as well as american history, and this election is a big deal to them, so they are not taking either candidate lightly.
i am well aware of what it is joe biden said, thank you. i think its the stupidest thing i have ever heard and an obvious misstep, but the message he was trying to convey was, you will see how strong our candidate is. the quote was taken out of context and used as a weapon of doubt by the mccain campaign, and what they turned it into was a threat, a threat that if people dont vote one way, dreadful things will happen, so if you dont want ahmadinejad kicking down your door in the middle of the night, vote for me.

but, you know, this is all a matter of opinion, all a matter of how one wants to view the situation.
however i find it a little insulting that i am accused of merely "jumping on a bandwagon" because i am voting for obama, insinuating that i am merely young and uninformed and doing the popular thing, instead of maybe considering that i take this very seriously, i am conscious of both sides of the debate and what is at stake for our country, and my passion for obama comes from my love for america and what i think it is that we need to become a stronger country. i am not dim to how much "manure" is being slopped around these days, how much manure has been allowed to be slopped around for a long, long time, which is why i am making the decision that i am.




what is this, if not fear mongering?

i love you all.


love, eleanor

i'm the only one in the laboratory wearing a dress

i think the udinese sense in me a denial of their values, and this is making them fearful. the scientists are looking at me like i am crazy because i am wearing armani exchange and singing 'rocky top' while i peel kryogenically frozen grapes. 1,000 of them...is tedious, daunting work, and i am begining to think that simone is a sadist and i am merely a gullibul pawn in this strange world of viticulture. have literally no interest what so ever as to whether or not "there is a corrolation between the size of the grape and its color and sugars" etc. i am merely here to anthropologically observe. they know this, and this is also making them fearful.
god! i have literally been completely way too busy this week to blog for one second. i mentioned in my last blog that last week professor zerbi took me around the campus, introducing me to way too many people to keep track of, in an attempt to find me something to do. v. greatful for his enthusiasm. on monday i got a frantic call from someone who, after several minutes of speaking a flow of italian, paused at the end to say, "hai capire?", and when i said, "um...no. no ho capisco" ("i dont understand"), said simply, "oh. luisa dalla costa is looking for you. go to her office. bye!". turns out that luisa had sent me an email to my uga account, which i never ever check, and had set up a luncheon for me- just for me!- on the basis of wanting me to meet with an anthropologist, an agriculturalist, a horticulturalist, and a professor of italian studies, who are all writing a book together about some village or other in the mountains that makes a particular kind of polenta. she had made plans for us all to have lunch together that day. i apoligized, mortified at not responding sooner, and we went down to the lunch room together. all the professors had brought different dishes from home and homemade wine and we had a veritable feast together. they all seemed to think that i am seriously already an anthropologist and that i am like, very important or something, and said that they would be honored to have me travel with them, sit in on their classes, help create lectures in english, give me anthropological books to read, etc. was marvelous! am making fantastic contacts. what a boost. as soon as i finish this damned grape assignment i can begin an internship in another department...god help me...
lord above, though. i really think these people have me pegged all wrong. on tuesday i got yet another frantic call, this one from alessia bruno, the v. unhelpful and kind of...cranky lady in charge of my program. she said that there was to be a conference of sorts for the exchange students, and that the lady who is in charge of the FIFPSE grant program (the one that is giving me all the money) will be there and wants to meet me, as apparently i am the only person who received that grant this year. so after an hour of trying to find the correct building i came into the conference hall, where about 200 italian students were sitting and watching a panel of official looking people on stage. one lady was giving this incredibly dull presentation in italian, and on the overhead projector there was information about, as far as i could gather, the FIFPSE grant and exchange opportunities. so i slunk to the back and started biting my nails or whatever, not really paying attention, and all of a sudden i see alessia bruno up front motioning to me. did the thing where you look over your shoulder to see if it is actually you being summoned, because, what the hell does she want, but was up against the wall so was forced to accept that it was me. people were starting to turn around and look at me so i finally gave in and started walking down the aisle toward alessia. when i got close enough she said, "no, no, go up there. up there. yes, up there, to the stage!". immediate panic stations in brain (and stomach) and i walked like a robot up onto the stage where the woman was still droning on and on. some man smiled and offered me a seat at the table and i perched awkwardly on the edge of my chair, trying to figure out why in the world i was on stage in front of 200 italian people. finally gathered that the topic of the presentation being given was about the type of applicant who would be granted such a prestegious award, who should bother to apply, and what it would take to be the chosen FIFPSE candidate. by this point i was sweating yet freezing cold with fear. my stomach was about to jump out of my butt, i couldnt see straight, my head was tingling, and my mouth was dry i.e. panic attack mode. looked out into the crowd of italian faces to see that they were all. staring. at. me. tried to smile. wound up making what i am sure was a manic, histerical upward-turned-mouth-type pose. suddenly the woman pointed to me and began saying, "responsabile (responsible), dedito (dedicated), ingegnoso (ingenious), creativo, affermato (successful)...". realized that those were adjectives that i was suppose to posess. the italians stared at me and nodded their heads, like, "oh, like that girl" and took notes. suddenly thought i was going to burst out laughing. or explode. then began to worry that the lady was going to ask me something in italian, something like, "tell the audience about your experience as an amazing person worthy of this grant" or something similarly obscene...but i was afraid she was going to ask me something in italian! and expect me to answer in italian! in front of 200 italians! was terrified. knew that if that woman spoke to me in italian while i was on stage i would vomit. prayed for the horror to end.
finally it did. evil alessia bruno came up to me laughing and patted me on the back and said, "you look sick! but good job! you're the US ambassador!". gave her filthy look but smiled. really should alert people to the fact that they are going to be on display. really. after that i felt like Dorian Greene from 'a confederacy of dunces' when he cries, "oh my god, now i'm going to be on pills all night!"

anyway. got through that. had to make up for lost time wed and thursday by working incredibly long hours in the lab, as i need to finish this project by tuesday, and write a anthropology paper, and attend the second round of italian courses (i got a b on my first level exam, hoorah).

oh, so, another big thing happening this week and adding hours to my days: i have moved, to the country, so to speak. cormons is a little town about 20 min outside of udine where they have lots of viticulture labs and make fantastic wine. the strange thing is that my new dorm is an apartment attached to the building where they hold classes. my front door opens up onto a sidewalk and next door is a classroom. so when i come stumbling out of my apartment in to morning, late for my train and cramming a banana in my mouth, there are students, usually boys, standing outside my front door with bookbags on. weird to have private home literally inside a school, but i like it. it atleast keeps me from going out without makeup on. apparently i have a argentinian roommate, but i have not met her yet. the apartment is actually pretty nice. we have a kitchen, and cable tv, and a bathtub (!!) and a little patio. the neighbors (on the other side from the classroom) are very sweet and chatty. i think cormons might be fun only because there is literally nothing to do, so everyone is forced to hang out together. the town is literally deserted at night, and dark, and you can see so many stars and smell grapes from all directions, and on the mountains you can see old castles lit up. they look like they are floating because there is no light on the mountains. i actually like it quite alot. the commute is lame, though, and takes like, over an hour, with the train and the bus to school, but its ok.
was v. exciting last night. i rode home from school on the bus, screaming into the phone at john about how i had almost had a SIEZURE FIT and fallen out of my chair when i saw that obscene, blasphemous, blatantly unpatriotic quote from john mccain in the news about how if obama's elected he will be "tested" or whatever, insinuating that f-ing terrorists will attack us if he is elected just because they can. i was flaming mad over this, still am, as FEAR MONGERING is disgusting, trying to fucking scare the american people into voting a certain way, planting doubts into the minds of american citizens as to the capabilities of our homeland security, not to mention being so retarded as to assume (and thinking the american people are retarded enough to believe!) that terrorists are even an issue anymore. FEAR MONGERING is dispicable, and i refuse to in anyway respect a man, or a party, who tries to scare people into giving them their vote. americans have quite enough to worry about right now, without some old asshole pounding it into our heads that we are physically at risk, when that is an obvious untruth. ugh. anyway. so i was going on and on about that, the whole while john laughing and trying to shhhsh me, telling me that he totally agrees, its disgusting, but he doesnt really think we have to worry because, lalala, it will not work and obama08 soon, and when i got to my apartment my absentee ballot had arrived! v. excited. filled it out right away and have mailed it off to cobb county so that i will have my say in this wonderful (but positively nerveracking) election.
so...monday and tuesday i work my fanny off. but...wednesday i go to berlin!! to see billy kunzler!! for halloween!!
i love you all

eating grapes is my work, dont you see?

ahem. correction: i have been in europe two monthes. i have been in udine, at school, for one. maybe i havent done a good job of explaining exactly what it is that i do at my..."job".
when i arrived in udine, i was assigned to one simone castellarin, a doctor of viticulture who leads a team of scientists who work on projects concerning grape production in the friuli-venezia giulia region of italy. each of the scientists are concerned with different projects at the moment, but the common goal is to produce new strains of grapes that are commercially viable and able to withstand natural and unnatural diseases so that they can be made into wine. the scientists work both in the laboratory and in the field, at the experimental farm, where there is a vineyard that is comprised of hundreds of different strains of grapes. strong, regionally proficient grapes are subdivided and "mated" with different "experimental" strains, in an effort to find a mix that works. this takes many, many tries, each new plant a creation of science and then grown from a tiny transfer of cells into a live plant. once the new plants are grown, simone and the scientists go out into the vineyard and take samples. tests are run on these samples (upwards of 50 at a time), and the new strains that seem to be strong enough are then shipped to the university of verona where they are made into wine. when i work in the lab with simone, gabriele, luigi, barbara, etc, i assist them in their experiments and research. currently, simone has assigned a project to me (im not sure what makes him think that i am in any way prepared to do this kind of work, but i havent messed up yet, so thats good) in which i am to perform experiments of 4 different types of grapes and find out whether or not the size of a grape and its color is directly related to its sugar content. this is important to know, becuase the sugar content of a grape is the defining factor on how accomplished a strain of grapes will be in making wine. so if we can find a relationship between size, or color, of a grape, production for the grapes that have the potential to make better wines can be more focused. im not sure why they dont know the answer to this question already, but apparently it is still a big mystery. anyway, over the past several weeks i have been acocmpanying simone to the experimental farms to test the sugar, soil, and general health of these plants of his. we clip certain berries, and i use "my" tool (we call it "my" tool because i have taken a serious interest in the instrument, some weird device which tells sugar contents when you crush a berry into it and stare at the sun...simone says i can buy one for my very own!)to measure the sugars. the information is recorded, and the samples are then weighed and frozen using liquid nitrogen, the skin is peeled, and tests are run on the skins in some machine that simone says will make a man sterile.
so this past week i did alot of very boring prep work in an effort to get things ready for my big research project, including clipping, weighing, and exmaining hundreds of grapes. on monday when simone returns from stupid bordeaux he will show me how to use liquid nitrogen and the sterlizing amchine so that i can PEEL HUNDREDS OF GRAPES and run countless experiments on them using all sorts of dengerous equipment and then i have to write up a report in scientific terms, of which i know none...
so, while i have only been working directly with the viticulture lab and not "food people", i feel like yes, i have been getting some valuable experience and insights into how and why grapes, a leading agricultural product of italy, obviously, are grown. once my project is over, i go to work with people at the prosciutteria, so then i can learn how pigs are slaughtered, cured, and made safe for commercial sale.
so there.
anyway, today is "italian vocabulary day". hoorah. today i will go to the store and buy some notecards and spend hours making flash cards because i am sick and tired of not being able to complete a sentence in italian due to the fact that i cant remember a certain key word.
currently though i am at the internet cafe by my dorm watching travis tritt videos on youtube. i woke up this morning so so homesick...i was having a dream about me, little jane, and annabelle taking a trip through the south...we went through the tennessee mountains, over to kentucky, down into alabama, around through south georgia to savannah...it was a wonderful dream and we sang "when that sun is high in that texas sky, ill be bucking at the county fair...amarillo by morning, amarillo ill be there"...damn, i would totally marry george straight. im thinking if things with a european dont work out, ill just go west and find a cowboy...its like that funny story that toren told me about when katy met travis tritt and told him, "i promise ill lose all my baby fat after we have our love child!" totally.
so on monday i move to my dorm in cormons, which is about 15 minutes away by train. i fear that there is literally nothing to do there, it is in the country so to speak. however, i know that deep in my heart i am a country girl, so i think if it is just me and the stars ill be alright. nothing is really happening in udine anyway. i go to my precious cafe and have cappucinos with mia and benji every day before school, then i go spend hours in the lab making jokes and yes, eating grapes, with simone (and also doing tedious but rewarding grape-clipping work)...then i go see a movie in italian and act like ignatius j. reiley or wander the streets and look for friends. since the cooking situation is so dire i usually eat an orange for dinner, or maybe have benji make me something with vegetables. life is simple and nice, but a bit boring, and i am hoping that things will perk up once i find a way to crack the code on these strange italians.
i miss marion and karl heinz! and billy! i am thinking of popping into berlin in a couple weeks, maybe for halloween weekend, for some good conversation and dancing...i also want to go back to duisburg for some warmth and company and also wonderful conversation with marion, whom i adore.
anyway, i love you all