completely rediculous.
came to peterlungers class today. he's my viticulture professor, and also the guy who's supposedly, like, in charge of me while i'm here, my advisor or whatever, and the guy who pretty much slumped me off on simone that first day when he had no idea what else to do with me. he's a nice guy, pretty fun to talk to, very knowledgeable in the wine world. anyway, came to his class today for our long lecture (2 hours). the classroom was pretty much empty except for this adorable boy from spain, i think his name is sergio. we had that brief but rewarding intro italian class together last fall. i smiled at him and then went outside to check that i was in the right room; its 2 monthes into the semester and i havent seen him in class before. i was right, but we both managed to have missed opposing classes, so this is the first time we were both there. we chatted pleasantly for a while (he speaks great english), and then, when it became clear that half an hour had passed, we started bitching about the italians and their bizarre knack for completely destroying the concept of schedules.
"i don't know how it is in your country," he said, "but in spain, this sort of stuff, this not showing up, no note, just nothing, this is completely absurd and unheard of." i told him that, pretty much, in the US we like our schedules and appointments, too.
was glad to talk to him, as it seems we've been going through the same thing; random days where the professor just doesnt show, classes cut short, started late, weeks on end of nothing. he showed me his notes for the entire semester so far, which boiled down to 2 pages. i showed him mine, 3 pages. glad to know im not alone. i tried to explain that theory for not wanting to slit your wrist over this nonsense, that theory that the Evil Spaniard and i came up with in which these little blips are "gifts of time"- no professor for an hour? well then, take an hour for a nice cup of coffee and a chat. semester starts 2 months later than planned? well, then, hop a boat to greece, happy sailing! when i look at it like that, i don't mind this stuff so much. sergio wasnt quite on board and said, "yeah, well. it kind of pisses me off."
is crazyness here, but as i am studying the culture i just have to ride it out, this "italianness" of theirs. and i'm not one to complain about 4 month long semesters boiling down to 20 hours of class lectures, to be sure. my ecology professor, Zerbi, the great crazy old guy from calabria who drove me all over udine last fall introducing me to people, just like, up and went on vacation for the last 3 weeks. supposedly theres a note on his office door, but after attempting to go to his class 5 times to no avail, i ran into simone, and he gave me the heads up. otherwise, i would have just kept trying i guess. the italian kids just seem to either know through some 6th sense, or they just don't care. this semester, on the schedule, is suppose to end in mid-july. however, word of mouth is that everything will be done by mid june, exams and everything. when are exams? "don't know, june sometime". when do classes stop? "don't know, maybe june sometime". is insane, but i'm rolling with it.
anyway, time for lab work with the only punctual italian that exists. a gem.

btw, comment people, or i get discouraged and dont feel like writing anymore. i need feedback!

e

oh my god, the funniest thing just happened. came walking in from my day, headphones on and a bag of new groceries, and when i reached the front door of my dorm my friend thomas opened it for me. he said, "eleanor," (pronounced el-EY-O-noor)"there is a man here who wants to talk to you, from the carabinieri". i said, oh christ, why? and came inside. there was a man at the front desk, not in uniform, talking to valdevit, the guy who runs our dorm. my friends thomas, federico, and paolo were also there, and everyone gathered around to see what in the world the problem was, and i suppose, to back me up, just incase, cause the first thing valdevit said was, "you speak some italian, right?". he started talking (and i must have looked totally terrified), and i finally caught the thread of what he was telling me (not, as i first suspected, that i was under arrest and at risk of deportation for...?): this man (yes, a carabinieri officer, just a coincidence) had heard of me, that there was a beautiful american girl roaming the streets of cormons. he has a 15 year old daughter who wants to "learn all about america" i.e., apparently, how we dress, what we do, what we eat, what we listen to, etc. so the man came to invite me, when i had free time, over for a cookout with his family, food, "bloody marys", conversation. i laughed and told him i would be delighted. we planned for 4pm on friday. when i turned to go all the boys were grinning at me and federico let out a collective sigh of relief and we all laughed, and they said, "well brava!".

the sun has returned!! amen!

huzzah! the lady who serves panini in the school cafeteria just told me "brava! parli bene!", which means that i speak very well. all i did was ask for my sandwich to be to go, but still, baby steps make the world go round. quite proud of myself.
makes up for the, seriously, 6 people so far today who have looked at my outfit and laughed. am wearing a darling checkered dress i bought at a boutique in NYC, and is not my fault that the weather suddenly turned to icy cold slush and pounding rain. was summer when i left the house.
well thats not true at all. i had to threaten to beat myself senseless if i didnt get out of bed and run hell for leather through the pouring rain to the train at 7am. my clock is totally screwed up after the past couple of weeks, and i layed in bed having imaginary conversations with katherine baggett until probobly 5:30 when i think i lost conscousness due to mere frustration. at 6:45 my alarm went off, and not having the energy to pick out a new outfit, i threw on the dress i had planned to wear when it was bright and sunny yesterday and tossed a not-very-waterproof sweater over my head and ran for the train, cursing pretty much everything. skidded through the soaking wet halls of the school and about ran smack into the scientists, who were on their way to the cafeteria for a coffe, i'm assuming. lots of "where are you goings?!"s and giggles and i almost collapsed at their collective adorableness, all collared shirts under navy sweaters and eye glasses and ball point pens in the back pockets (nerds!). made it to class alright, only to be berated by my professor on what the italian translation of the verb "to sink" was while the entire class stared at my flip-flopped feet (its that time again). anyway. school.
so, oh my god. went out on a date with the F.L. (Friulian Lover) last night. as i said, i ran into him at the train station, and though i was planning on giving it a couple of more days until i called to tell him i was in town, when he saw me i had to face up, and he asked me out for dinner. i agreed, kind of begrudgingly, and he picked me up at 9pm. for some reason i wasnt really thrilled about going out with him; it takes my mind some time to prepare for a whole night of conversation in italian, and i think its out of habit more than anything that i kind of dread it. as usual though, as soon as we got together, everything was easy breezy. he really is an incredible guy, very gallant and sweet and he likes me a whole lot and he laughs so easily and when he does his dimples get about a foot long, a mile deep, and his blue eyes just twinkle. we drove to an old town about 30 minutes away; since it was tuesday, everything in cormons was closed, so hes an old hat at driving for food. we had paninis and a beer and made italian-english flashcards for funny words and laughed alot. toward the end of dinner, he asked if i was doing anything over may-day vacation (we get another vacation on friday for no reason what so ever. yea). i said no, and he asked...
well, remember how when i got back from Vinitaly i was OBSESSED with Alto Aldige, the region in northern italy where they speak german and make those wines that smell and taste like perfumes and clouds? well i came back and babbled on and on to him about it, and i guess he remembered, because...
he asked WOULD I LIKE TO GO ON MINIBREAK TO ALTO ADIGE. traveling via MOTORCYCLE. through the ALPS. i squeeled and clapped and hugged him around the neck and said, "oh, si, si, per favore!"
so la di da. after dinner we were driving back to cormons, and he said, "what a pretty moon, want to see it over the sea?" and i said of course, and he swung the car around, and 45 minutes later we were in Grado, an old roman island, surrounded by the sea, having a glass of wine on a boardwalk. really is a good guy...

**just back from the lab and lunch with Swooooon. came in bearing coffee for the boys, cafe lungo with 2 sugars for Swoooon, caffe macchiato with 3 sugars for gabriele. i'm pretty sure gabriele adores me now. feel like he was on the fence before, but i think we bonded at vinitaly, and now he always seems very happy to see me. lab work went very well. focused very hard on pipetting and not passing out from fumes or lust, listening to simone rattle on and on about antocianides, walking in circles around me in his lab coat, telling me intermittent stories about having toxic chemicals blow up in his face when he was working on his masters in a lab in germany.
oh crap, just remembered i left my ring in his office, got to run
byeeeee!

why why why is he so terribly attractive, its not fair! not fair! i can hardly be in the same room with him anymore my eyes turn to such obvious goo that he starts to grin and we both have to turn away. keep having day dreams that i come own with some severe life threatening disease and have to be rushed to the hospital and in my state i cant communicate with the italian doctors, so i can only urge them to call ______ because hes the only one who can translate for me. and as im lying there white as a sheet, near death, he confesses his love for me and it somehow revives me and i can sit up and slowly begin to injest solid foods again and then we get married and raise little friulano babies. damnit. came into the office today to discuss lab work and he said, "well, parker, while you were abroad i did some of our work, but it just wasnt the same. glad to have you back". i cringed and blushed and mumbled something and said id come back tomorrow. told him i had a fever and had to go home. kind of true.
oh my god mom just called and told me she and aunt gwynn are coming here!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm going to die of excitement!
oh yea yea yea roma roma roma.

so life is back to normal here in cormons. after i woke up from my three day long nap i came upstairs to the computer lab and was greeted by my friend francesco, the boy from rome. he said everyone has been totally "preoccupato" asking "where is the american?!" repeatedly since i departed. not true, of course, but it made me laugh. he said this place just cant get on without me.
ran into my friulanian lover at the train station this morning (small town life) and he asked me to dinner this evening, so im gonna do that. its raining outside, but i have never seen this place more beautiful than right now. the vineyards are lush and the mountain is bright green and the flowers are blooming. looks more picturesque than ever...

...jiggity jig

so, allora, io sono qui, i am here, a cormons, in cormons...
took long enough. the flight in from london wasnt bad (*note: on british airways the wine is gratis), though 4 babies situated on all sides of me cried either singularly or together, in almost perfect harmony, throughout the entire flight. managed to drown them out by keeping my headphones on with harry potter #4 going full blast, and dreamed fitful dreams that i was already in london (much like when i was living at the hostel in rome, right before i left for spain, and the evil spaniard (he turned out not at all to be actually evil, just the opposit, but the name suits him in a way so it stays) and all of his evil friends (who were kind of evil, actually) would come in drunk at 5am and go into the room next to mine and hoot and hollar at each other in spanish until the sun came up and i would wake up thinking i was already in barcelona...oh, the spaniard). was really heartbroken to leave the states. called teresa from the airport to whine a little and she told me that i was doing better than she did; the last time she left to go back to new york she said she cried so hard through security that they asked her to step aside while they rescanned her luggage, just incase she had a screw lose. upon arrival in london, however, my spirits perked up. i was so excited to be there, and kept thinking how lucky i was to have this day in london, all to myself, and it was bright and sunny and warm, a rarity in those parts. made it to victoria station and checked my bags. lighter on luggage, face scrubbed clean, i took off through london with no specific direction in mind. found buckingham palace, and strolled up through the park, saw big ben and that tacky ferris wheel, almost got slammed by a double decker bus, as well as about ten old timey taxis, due to the fact that i kept forgetting to look Right-Left-then-Right when crossing the streets. London was as i remembered it, clean and dapper, bright and collected. but i was so proud of the brits: on such a bright, lovely day, all the men in business suits were outside on sidewalk cafes, enjoying pints and coffees, soaking in the sun. from lunch time on, it seemed everyone had skipped out of the office and was taking advantage of the nice weather. the city was bustling, but not with a busy feel, more with excitement and sighs of relief and relaxation. everyone seemed so happy, and in between sleepy pockets when i considered laying down in the park grass with other happy sunbathers, i sat in the pubs and skipped along the sidewalks listening in on conversations and smiling at the cute boys. was positively lovely! i found a few galleries open, so i spent some time looking at art, and about 8pm i found a nice "traditional" london pub, and had a pint with the locals. spent the evening in soho, making friends with people in the pubs and eating indian food. absolutely everyone i met was so friendly and nice and helpful! love the british. at about midnight i felt the clock strike, so i made my way back to victoria, hopped a train to gatwick, was awoken by the train conductor at my stop 30 minutes later and bustled rather gently off the train, found a free couch at the airport starbucks, and curled up to fall into a coma for, oh, about an hour. after that, i was wide awake and hating the world until 8am when it was time to check in for my flight. easy jet is officially on my shit list (they get props for not crashing, thats about all). went to check in, luckily earlier than necessary due to ample- AMPLE- time. was told that my carry-on, which was the customary carry on size in a suitcase made for just that purpose, was too big. i was offered the option of paying 125 euro (15euro per kilo) to check it in. told the woman to bite me. decided instead to go find a plastic bag, as i have grown accostomed to traveling like a hobo, and put all of my stuff in there. trouble was, london is weird about their plastic bags. in the US we hand them out like fresh air, here take some plastic, take some styrofome, whats the harm. london chrages for theirs and makes them extremely small. so i began to roam the airport, desperately searching for an adequate plastic bag in which to put my stuff. finally found one of decent size at the Marks and Spencers. decided to empty suitcase and get stuff down to bare essentials, forgoing things like plastic containers for my cds and the bulky cardboard box for my tampons. ended up on the floor of the airport with a pile of lose things all about, hair ties and mascara and bed sheets and european plug adaptors. then realised could not find any british money. had managed somehow to spend or lose everything, down to my last pence. plastic bag cost 9 pence. was now searching desperately for money amidst pile of crap, keeping an eye on the clock which told me i had about 10 minutes to go recheck in. started to panic, flinging tampons and batteries all about in an effort to find enough change in american or euro coins to go to the Money Exchange counter, the whole while pulling at my hair like a psycho bag lady crying, "i just need 9 pence! 9 pence for a bag!". was terrible. people stared. finally came up with a euro and flug it to the guy at the exchange place, babbling about 9 pence for a bag and he very frightendly gave me 86 pence and a receipt. managed to shove all of my stuff into the M&S bag, loose tampons and postcards flying out of the top, and ran back through the check in just in time. had to lug my now empty suitcase with me, as could not just leave it cause surely people would think it was a bomb. lady at the easyjet counter looked pissed and defeated. i smiled proudly, held my head high, and walked through security. all the nice british people were positively aghast that i was being forced to throw away my suitcase, and encouraged me to hang on to it. didnt really have a choice. when i finally got to the counter to board the plane, the nice man smiled apoligectically and told me that the carry-on suitcase was the right size after all. dumped my plastic bag of stuff back in it and boarded the plane, plotting revenge.
made it back to cormons about 10 hours later due to train complications, ate a bag of salted peanuts, and commenced to sleep for pretty much the entire weekend.

so by now most of you know that i did, in fact, make it home, and that there was some wonderful work from above in my favor in that situation. left cormons early that last thursday morning for venice, where i was hopeful of hopping directly onto a plane to new york. however, once i reached the airport, i saw the dreadful "volunteers" sign flashing, which meant that the plane was overbooked. was told to stand aside and wait. finally the delta gate closed, leaving me and two adorable old people in a cloud of dust. the three of us wandered over to the delta counter and began asking questions. they, too, needed to fly to the US, and were on standby, so we were pretty much asking the same questions: where and when and what are our chances. we were told that there was a flight out of venice the next day that looked terrible, but was worth a shot compared to other flights from milan or rome. i was totally distressed, as i had been banking on a flight home that day: i had no money, no dorm to return to (was closed now for easter break), no other place to stay, and a plastic bag full of clothes. the lady, ann, turned to me and said, "what are you going to do?". and i told her, truthfully, "i don't know". "well," said bob, "why don't you come with us? we booked our apartment in venice for a couple of extra days just incase something like this happened. we have an extra bedroom!" i smiled and thanked them and told them that i would love to come. we met up a little later in piazza san marco, and they led me back to the darling apartment, all the while ann telling me stories of her parents, who were both italian, and growing up in boston. i LOVED hearing about this, and we talked for a long time about the italians and history and family. went out for a walk a little while later to regroup, and found that it was one of the most beautiful days that i have ever seen in venice. the streets were full and bright and there were children scampering through the alleys, over bridges. i felt, for the first time honestly, very lucky, extremely lucky to be in venice, and i felt then that good things were abound. that night we all went out to dinner, and i told them all about my family and bragged on grant and quinn for a while (one of my favorite things to do), and we spent some time calling their son, who works for delta in atlanta, and checking our chances on the flight the next day. it looked grim, but we got a wonderful nights sleep regardless. the next day we took a water taxi to the airport, and tried again. it was unsuccessful, as we suspected. but even worse, i was told that starting that day, there was an embargo. that meant that i could not fly on any delta flight for the next 4 days, not until tuesday. the sweeneys, being the stellar world travelers that they are, booked a flight to madrid, where they could get out the next day. they asked me again, what will you do? i told them this time, again, honestly, that i did not know. i still had no money. i now definitely had nowhere to go. all i had was my plastic bag full of clothes and 4 days to fill somehow. bob took out his wallet and pulled out $100 american. i tried to protest, but he said, "no, no. our son went traveling the world when he was in his 20's, and we always heard the best stories of people who helped him out, of people who were good to him. we always said if we got the chance we would do the same for some young traveler. all i can ask is that you give it back some day." my eyes filled with tears and i hugged them both and thanked them from the bottom of my heart and promised that i would give it back, in as many ways as i possibly could. we parted ways and i went outside. sat down on the curb and waited. i had literally no idea what to do. my mind was blank. a million options and no options. i just decided to wait until something happened. about 30 minutes later my phone rang. it was antonio, my darling, calling from rome. i had asked him earlier, before all the chaos about coming home, if i could use his apartment over easter weekend. he had told me that he was renting it while he went to tuscany, so i gave up on the idea. now he said, "oh, my apartment didnt rent. im leaving for tuscany tonight, but i can wait until you get here, if you're still coming, if you want it". i took the $100 bob had given me, exchanged it for 70 euro, bought a 65 euro ticket to rome, and was in antonios flat by 9pm. the next 4 days were some of the most beautiful that i have ever spent in rome. beautiful weather, beautiful easter, beautiful friends, a beautiful walk through the roman streets with a gorgeous roman at sunset, being shown a handful of tiny secrets i had never known, could have never imagined, a kiss on ponte sisto, the popes blessing, news of that wily spaniard, dancing till i got a cramp, cappucinnos and camparis and memories galore. it was incredible, and i knew then, and i know now, that those days were a gift, and i cherished every minute.
tuesday came, the day of reckoning. got scary news from john that for some reason i wasnt allowed to fly on the incredibly wide open flight to atlanta. said, well pish-posh on that, and went to the airport poised for a fight. marched right up to the counter and demanded to be let on, told them that this rediculousness would not stand. they relented. well, then. was shown to my cozy first class seat where i stuffed my now battered plastic bag into the overhead compartment, ordered a glass of champagne, and went right to sleep. 10 hours later i landed in the atlanta airport, was greeted with the smell of waffle fries, called my mama colelct from a payphone, and waited, thrilled, in the glorious hazy atlanta sun for my darling sister to arrive. i was home, and everything was perfect.

whoa im so nervous i feel like i might throw up...
might be coming to america on thursday. what a weird, weird thought.
was suppose to go to rome on thursday, and spend my easter break from school scouring the city for my long lost spaniard and praying alot at the vatican. have been trying to find hostels and places to stay, but the prices are outrageous over easter break. the hostels are going for 40euro ($60) a night at the cheapest, and plus roma isnt the cheapest city to lounge around in. did some math and considered my options and it turns out...i can fly home for a couple weeks for $250, easily what i would have spent in a few days in roma at this rate. so, i think now is the time.
i fly from venice to new york, new york to atlanta on thursday, arrive thursday night. fly back to london 2 weeks later.
strange strange.
but what the hell, is EASTER!!!

another lazy saturday here in cormons...just me and the chinese kids...
had a sad dream last night that jeff buckley came and sat on the edge of my bed and sang "lover, you should've come over" to me in french. i sat up and smiled and tried to take his hand but it was all wet, it was practically just water, from the river where he drowned. i started crying and begged him not to go back, to stay here where it was dry. he told me that he was ok, that he was better there in the river, which is why he went away in the first place. i kept crying and then realised that my tears were flooding the room with green river water and they washed him back out the window. i wasnt sad after that though, i just went back to sleep, and figured that everything was in its place.
gosh i am so lazy. i got home from the wine festival at about 10pm, went right to bed, and slept more or less until 6pm the next night. then went back to bed last night at midnight and slept till noon today. i dont know, i was just exhausted.
so! Vinitaly! met simone and gabriele at the udine train station at 6:30am. managed, miraculously, to arrive at all (had to wake up at 4:30am and run to the cormons train station in the rain), freshly showered and attired with painted nails and a pretty satin bow pinned to my blazer. simone gave me an approving look and we hopped the train to verona. was pouring rain outside, and dark and cupo (gloomy) and i slipped simone's ipod headphones into my ears and slept for the first half of the journey. woke up for a coffee and croissant (coutresy of sweet gabriele) when we changed trains in venice and after that i was good to go.
we got to verona and waited forever in the rain for the bus to the arena where vinitaly was being held. there were lines of people waiting to go through the ticket stalls when we arrived, but we walked right past them to an entrance on the other side. some guy in a lab coat came and opened the door and let us in. we were escorted through a laboratory, and simone explained that this was where the grapes went that we would harvest. we would pick them and send them here to be analyzed and made into wine. the guy in the lab coat led us through several rooms and out a side door...right into the festival! was great! the festival was set up così (like this): each region in italy got their own ginormous room in which to set up booths to display their wines. so this is like 20 rooms, and each one was decorated to represent that region specifically. so you'd walk in one room and be like "where are we" and look at the decor and it would be all orange and bright with lots of wooden booths and the people would be lounging about in button down shirts, blazers hung over the backs of chairs, sipping light red wines eating plates of olives and you could say, "well i reckon we're somewhere in the south" and it would be Calabria, etc. was great, and all day we could be like, screw this, i'm tired of Marche, lets go to Sicily! lets go back to Lombardia! etc., and it would be like a mini vacation. we started in Alto Adige, which was by far my favorite. it felt very clean there, very bright and fresh and chilly in a safe way, and the people demonstrating their wines were all nicely dressed and blue eyed and speaking italian with heavy german accents (they speak german in alto adige). we tried a couple of different booths and i sampled several of the most exquisite white wines that i have ever in my life encountered. the bouquets were like roses, like bouquet garni of mint and lavendar, of rocks and satin flower petals. one of them i just wanted to dive into, exclaiming that i would wear it as a perfume it smelled so incredible. and they tasted fantastic! lord, almighty. the best vinter i tried was called Tramin, and they use grapes called Gewurtraminer, and also Sauvignon. was unwillingly pulled away, down to tuscany, which i was not at all impressed with (too commercial), though we got to try some wine that was apparently very important (Tenuta di Sesta, Brunello di Montalcino). then on to lombardia! lombardia has a wine region called Francicorta where they make sparkling wines under that name, the sparkle called "spumante". let me tell you: proseco is out, spumante is in! this was some of the most fantastic sparkling wine that i have ever tasted, fresh and cold but it didnt burn the front of your tongue, settled instead in the back, and the little bubbles rose up in stick straight lines one after the other. was beautiful, from a vineyard called Villa Crespia, and another from a vineard called Marchesi Di Montalto (find the reisling, its flawless). it was wonderful being there with simone and gabriele, because they knew all about the grapes and the wines and which booths to try. they would explain the process for the different productions and talk with the vinters to uncover the secret details. they explained the grapes and how they were in alot of ways region specific, and why the terroir afforded the berries their flavor and chemical makeup (gabriele). the best part was that we went on thursday, so it wasnt crowded at all, was really only the people there for real business, so the vinters would stand and chat with us and tell us everything for 10, 15 minutes, let us try everything. we'd tilt our glasses and examine the colors, smell and taste and swirl and spit. was so very grown up. gabriele (who is hilarious and so very nice to me) refused to go to the Friuli room, proclaiming that we needed to move forward with our lives, that we couldnt go back, that to go back to friuli would be to die. simone, who is practically xenophobic, disagreed, and dragged me back there to try our local vinters (was hilarious, one could literally see simone get all figety and nervous in any region south of emilia-romagna; he'd say, "c'mon lets go home, this is scary, this too much"). we walked into the friuli room and i didnt know where we were. was all ugly and boxy and had this horrible shade of plastic blue decor. i asked, "what the heck boring region is this?" to which simone replied, "this is friuli." the wines, of course, were fantastic. there were some vinters who are in cormons, and simone introduced me as an anthropologist, here in italy and living in cormons to study their food and wine and culture, and everyone was so kind and excited and told me to please come by the vineyard anytime.
we left around 4, all exhausted and filled with delicious wine, and i slept more or less the whole 3 hour ride home. the whole day was just perfect, one of the greatest experiences that ive had here in this incredible country, and i wrote little letters of gratitude to the boys for letting me tag along and teaching me so much great stuff. there was a dinner party afterward at barbara's, one of the scientists who is beautiful and nice to me, but i just couldnt do it, i was too tired. as i said, i went home and slept for a lifetime.
so now is saturday. have been invited to a griliata (bar-b-q) by my cute italian boyfriend (the one who speaks no english) so i might go to that tomorrow. there will be lots of ham in customary friulian style.

other than that all is well...will make spaghetti for dinner and watch a movie...is stormy out. and thrusday...ROMA!!!

Vinitaly. was. AMAZING.
god, i will write it all soon. now i must sleep.
love

oh yea! oh yea! oh yea!
simone found me wandering the halls of school today, trying to force myself to go downstairs to study, instead of running outside into the hot sun and throwing all of my clothes off and asking the god of miraculously hot weather to eat me whole. he and the other scientist, gabriele, had just returned from lunch, and they grinned when they saw me, as i grinned at them.
"what in the hell is that around your neck?" simone asked, and grabbed at the tiny plastic camera which i wear like a cross: is a toy from rome, a mini slide show, and when you look through the lens to the light you can flick through pictures of roman landmarks, photos from the 1960's, all retro cars and sunshine on the pantheon. i keep it on my heart, around my neck, at all times.
"it's rome!" i said, and simone groaned, gave an "oh, god, you and rome", and smiled (he pretends to hate rome, as a good southerner would if someone were wearing say, new york city around their neck).
i went up to his office to get my notebook (have been using his office like my locker), and he told me that tomorrow he and gabriele are going to Vinitaly. Vinitaly is a huge wine festival, the most important in italy. it is specifically for italian wine, and showcases region by region all the important producers. all of the kids from my dorm are going, as we are all viticulture and enology students, and it is a huge deal. i wanted so badly to go, but tickets cost 80euro. simone said that he and gabriele knew someone who could get them in for free, and that i was welcome to come with them if i wanted to! i squealed and clapped my hands and cried, "oh, yes, please!" thinking evily that i could not wait to brag to the kids at my dorm that i get to go for free, and, more importantly, with simone and gabriele, who are two of the best viticulturalists in the region and at our university. am so excited i might die! hoorah! hoorah!
all that lab work with the grapes, by the way, the grape peeling work, turned out awesome. simone and i have been in the lab anayzing the samples and inducing them with radioactive chemicals and reading the microparticle outputs with beams of light rays (i'm making this up, i am really not sure exactly what the utensils have been called, but its something similar and v. impressive). he entered the data, and it turns out that his thesis is being proven, and that the results are exactly what we needed to find and prove, so far, that the size of the grape does directly correlate to the color. this is important for wine producers because obviously they want a wine with a good color. simone then gets to take this proof and use it for his straegies of stressing the grapes to make them a smaller size (basically abusing them?) which will be able to make a good profit for producers without neglecting the sugar contents and flavors. this is a very inadequate and quick version of what has been explained to me repeatedly in much more complex words, also with an accent. the bottom line is, my work is awesome, and when we finish simone gets to use this in his work which will be published and my name gets to be on it! the eleanor parker project it is called. huzzah, am a scientist! my astrology teacher was right when he told me, "sounds like you're pretty good at science!" which, aside from simone merely patting me on the back and saying "brava, eleanor!", is the best compliment i ever got. all that work, by the way, was worth it for that: a pat on the back and a "brava" from simone.
so lets see, what else...went to slovenia, was a blast! the party was so much fun and i wore moms 5lb sparkle shirt and danced and ate slovenian delicacies (way too many). the next day we all lounged around the house and goldian, the cute blue eyed one who speaks italian, played DJ and put on wonderful music to accompany the rainy day. tried to take a train back to trieste, but turns out the trains dont run on sundays (luka laughed and was like, god, its like barcelona all over again, you're trapped!). smiled and, instead of getting frustrated, realised that if i hadnt missed my flight in barcelona and gotten trapped i never would have met these wonderful people and wouldnt be in slovenia, so getting trapped in slovenia was the obvious next step and something to revel in. rode with them back to ljubjlana, the capital. was a beautiful ride, through the hills and forests, rain and mountains. stayed with goldian and his extremely nice and funny hungarian roommate in his dorm, which was designed by a famous artist who did alot of the architecture for the city. it rained so hard sunday night that we stayed in and watched movies, and monday we walked around the city and he showed me the sights. caught a train back to nova gorica, the town right on the border of italy. the train ride was incredible: we went up into the mountains at dusk, and the trees were black and spiky and there was snow on the ground and it seems so spooky, like wolves were prowling and dracula was near and the sky churned and i got chills. when i got to the train station i walked outside and it was deserted. i knew i was really close to italy and that it was supposedly just a 10 minute walk, but i didnt know which direction. ended up running up to some lady and attempting to ask her, in italian, english, and broken german, "where is italy? which direction? is italy there? is it behind me? where is itay?" all the while making a mime of italy, a shape of the boot, in the air with my hands. she in no way understood and i gave up and just started walking in the direction my gut told me. about 10 minutes later, i saw the italian border, and i walked across and let out a sigh of relief, home again.
ok, time for ecologia agraria, got to go
love, boo