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Published: September 27th 2009
Well, this is going to be very difficult for two reasons. Firstly, I have a ton of things to write about. Even though it was just one week. I'll put it this way, if this last week were a glass, it would be filled to the point of overflowing with a thick, rich, liquid, probably purple in color, delicious, but with a slight sourness in certain sips. The second reason is that I already started writing about it when firefox decided to suddenly stop working and I lost all my progress, very frustrating. So, here I am again, about to write a novella to try and explain the experiences I had in 6 days, knowing it wont come close to really explaining anything, and having no idea where to start. *sigh* Alright, I'll do it like this, big events (and noteworthy minor ones) first, food notes second, and random observations third.
Big Events: Have you ever been alone in a strange city, a little scared, no cell phone, no knowledge of pertinent bus routes, late for school, and completely lost? If you have, I deeply sympathize. If not, well, neither have I, or at least, I wasn't COMPLETELY lost. Heres the story: So, every morning I catch a bus (public, there are no school buses) that goes directly to my school with just a few stops, and it runs only at just the right time to get me to school. Monday morning, I missed this bus. Now, the solution is simple: get to the city center, either by foot or another bus, and catch a bus there to school, which i have done before with Christina, my host mom. I opted to wait for a bus that would go to the city center, thinking it would be faster than the 15-20 minute walk. However, I started getting nervous when no bus came for a while and changed my mind in favor of more energetic remedies. Now, when the weather is nice, as it was this fateful monday morning, Christina rides her bike to school (she is a teacher at the school I go to). I was about two city blocks from the center when Christina came up with impeccable timing at just the right moment and place to put me on a different bus she said went to "the same stops". Great! Well, so I was on this bus, and there were a few other kids my age on the bus that I thought might be going to my school. The problem was that one time, I got on a bus with Christina and it turned and went the wrong way and we had to get off and go get another one, so I have to admit i was already dubious. Then, suddenly, I recognized the street we turned onto from my normal bus route, but we were going in the wrong direction, and at the next stop, the people my age got off. So, I panicked a tad and got off too, the people my age went away from the way to the school, so I thought maybe they knew of another bus. Also it was still a little ways to the school and I was fairly certain there weren't any other buses that went down this particular street. Not to mention I wouldn't dare getting on one without being sure it would stop at the school. So I went the same way as the kids and found a bus stop a fairly short walk away, looking at the map of bus routes I realized the bus i had been on didn't have the "same stops" but it did have one of the same stops, my school, it just went by a different route. Crap. The second problem was that there was only one bus line that came through where I was, and I had just gotten off of that bus with no idea how soon another would come. There was no one else waiting at the bus stop and that added to my fluster. I decided that all things considered, I couldn't sit and wait for a bus. So, after double checking my knowledge of my normal bus route on the map, I walked all the way to school. It took about 20 minutes and I even made it to class in time to be bored by the end of the first hour. It was quite an experience, but was oddly satisfying to sit down at my desk with the knowledge that I had been able to figure it all out, despite the emotional stress (which wasn't helped by the fact I was exhausted as any teen on monday morning).
This isn't really a singular event, but I think it still belongs in this category. Volleyball!! I had my third practice yesterday. The team isn't all that great, more like a jv team, or like Fort Bragg's varsity =P hehehe. but the people are really nice and its still good for me. They also do really good drills and I have started a special section in my diary to record the best ones to bring home. Unfortunately the practice is only twice a week, but its year round, and I am on the lookout for a volleyball I can practice at home with.
Last night there was a storm!! Pounding rain, thunder, lightning, the works, it was fantastic. And then today, warm and hot as ever, LOVE it.
I also went to dinner with the other american exchange student in Bergamo and the the Rotaract club (for people in their 20's) and some of the main Rotary. The food was incredible, which leads me to my next section...
Food Notes!
Did I already talk about the fried balls of fresh mozzarella? AMAZING! or the big green olives stuffed with ground meat of some kind, fried the same way as the mozzarella. sounds gross, tastes like heaven. And that was just a minor part of the aperitif! Then we had rice with vegetables and cubes of salmon, followed by amazing sword fish with olives and an amazing sauce. For desert there was a sort of apple cake with incredible gelato, all finished of with coffee and biscotti, to die for.
Next up, observations, my favorite part. First, another not on fashion. My History/Italian Literature teacher was wearing matching white necklace, earrings, ring, shirt, and shoes, then, her purse, little jacket, pants and belt were all a perfectly matching shade of navy blue, finished by the fact that her purple nail polish matched her glasses frame. Oh, and remember the girl who matched her green underwear with her shit? Well, she did it again in blue. Also, I noticed the same black and white scarf on a number of different people, always worn in the same way. I was curious, and when one of my classmates wore one, I asked. Apperently its not jsut a fashionable scarf, it labels you as "sfattone" a slang word describing the way I, and most of my friends in America dress, without coring overly much about the brand. Then there is "figetto/a" and that is someone who wears all brands. Then there is "truzzo" though I think that one can be taken as an insult, and we have no equivalent in America, I'm still trying to understand exactly what makes someone truzzo. Another thing I was thinking about the other day was how some things are universal. For example, the notion that if when you walk a pet on the street (for me horses in america, dogs here) and don't allow it in the road, at all, and are very clear on this point, this will somehow make the animal avoid the street if they ever break free. Somehow, I doubt it, it certainly didn't work with Palmiro (the family dog). Another thing that is the same is what guys are like when they play volleyball in P.E. They are very into it, but particularly love to just stand at the net and hit every ball they can down as hard as they can. Oh! and today at school, the guy that sits next to me in class commented that I "seem like a hippy", i believe he was reffering to my style and the peace earrings, or maybe the peace shirt I had worn the other day, but I think it was a compliment. Either way it cracked me up. The other thing I noticed was the large number of gorgeous eyes in my class. Heres a list of a couple
1. A girl with my eyes but enhanced times ten and more contrasted, yellow around the pupil, then blue. REally intense.
2. A girl from bolivia with black eyes, no joke, all black, its amazing.
3. A girl with brown eyes that have a green ring in th middle of the brown, a sharply defined line too, like a thin tiger stripe.
4. A girl with yellow around the pupils that turns to light green, and finally fenced in by a dark ring.
5. A boy with eyes that, unlike normal eyes, fade from green to yellow to brown in a blurred, soft way, like a sunset, seemless. Really cool stuff
And there you have it, I will try to write again soon so the next blog isn't so long, for everyones sake.
PEACE!
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Patti Tauscher
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thank you
A cup of green tea and Julia's Blog = happiness. Thanks, sweet pea.