Capacity

I wish that there were someway for me to digitally remember and write throughout the day. So much happens per hour, per minutre here that I can never even keep up with it myself. I can't seem to absorb every aspect of what is surrounding me the way I want to. It's frustrating to not grasp it enough to describe it in words here in my digital memory since I want to tell everyone what's going on but I don't think that this experience will ever be fully understood or appreciated until it's in hindsight.

My first night at Ganzo turned out to be dinner and wine with my friends. The meals work on a menu voucher system where you can mix and match the things that you want in correlation to your wine or just however you want to do it. We all ordered something different so we could try each other's meal. *Note to self, octopus is apparently a big deal over here -- I have yet to understand why, I can't get over eating something with tentacles on it.* I sat across the table from this girl named Kelley who apparently went to culinary school in Tampa for a couple of years and coming to Apicius was her graduation present.

We chatted all night about our experiences in this new, spectacular country and compared our observations during our beginning phases of culture shock. Since the next day was my first day of classes, I finally made a good decision to not go out that night. Believe me, it was tempting but I needed to be an actual adult for 5 seconds and make the right choice (Mom and Dad would be so proud). I've found it so hard to not want to explore this place with every favorable circumstance that is thrown at me. I feel as though I am missing out on SO much when I don't go out or embrace every ounce of opportunity presented at that given moment. Carpe Diem right ?

I haven't actually attended a class since November so this whole idea of being in school again makes your mentality shift. As I walked to Via Guelfa 114 listening to my current musical obsession (Allison by Permanent Me) I couldn't help but think about how much has happened since November. The people I've met, the places I've been, the overwhelming feeling of living in an entirely new world, oh geez - the list could go on.. I stopped for a quick espresso (complete addict now btws) and continued my stroll to the kitchens.

I almost felt like a kindergartner because everything I was doing was hands on. Remember when you have to listen precisely to what the teacher is saying and follow her directions specifically so or else your entire project is messed up? Yea, that's exactly how I felt. I was excited to find out that Joel was in my class so we decided to be "lab partners" (just like 10th grade chemistry). Since the class is called "Italian culture through festivals and feasting" we made a dish that served at Italian Christmases. Victoria (our instructor) had a very strong Italian accent and has first hand experience with everything she was teaching us.

She told us stories about her huge Italian family during holidays and how her younger sister moved to the states and when she comes back home for the holidays, she's not allowed to cook anything. Apparently the Italians believe that they completely lose their authentic, Italian cooking skills once they move to the states. Victoria's charisma drew us all in absorb every word of her stories as she instructed us on how to hand made tortellini. She said that the secret to Italian food is that you have to make sure that every single ingredient that you use has to be the best of the best. Victoria is probably about 60 ish and you can see the years in her eyes and on her face. She has one of those warm, inviting voices with a genuine care sewn into her rhythm and style. Throughout our two and a half hours together, she made me want to spend every waking minute I could with her because she has so much to offer. I'm looking forward to spending the semester absorbing her brillance, she's just one of those people.

Making the tortellini could not have been more fun. Joel and I seemed to mess up nearly everything but it was entertaining. He was telling me about how he was taking a train to Rome this weekend to visit a friend from school. Since this is his fifth time to Europe, he seems pretty saavy on how to travel. I think he'll teach me a lot this semester too. On our stainless steel counter tops, we made a volcano shape out of a pile of flour and cracked an egg in the middle. I had so much fun trying to beat the egg inside the surrounding flour without letting it spill out. I could go into tons of detail on how this Italian delicacy was crafted but I'll just say that it was incredible.

I had to walk across the city to make it to my next class but finding different routes on how to get there is always fun. I think I'm going to experiment on which is the fastest way to get there each week. My next class was closer to the river near where orientation was. I was relieved yet again when I saw someone that I knew in my International Terrorism class. I met Sam and his friend Bobby in a panini shop a couple of days before class so we sat together for the sake of slight familiarity. This was a hard class to sit through. Our teacher was a young, Italian woman who made it clear from the start that she was not fucking around. It was a drastic change from my laid back, fun class earlier that morning. It was pure lecture and I took notes the entire time. She must have gone to the states for school or something because her English was very impressive although her accent was very strong. She is probably about 5'2" with heels on but she could quite possibly be one of the most intimidating women that I've ever encountered. The girl knows her stuff though, it was intriguing yet overhwhelming how much information was presented to me in such a compressed amount of time.

Wednesday nights are the ultimate Aperitivo nights at Ganzo and Carlos was volunteering. Joel and I met up at the Duomo to walk to Ganzo together since it's so far out of the way from anything. My roommates were super lame that night and decided not to join but that wasn't going to slow me down. I didn't know what the night would be like but I figured I might as well go check it out. Turns out, Ganzo is a huge hit on Wednesday nights. You could hardly even get into the door. The place was ragging with students and locals (which I didn't expect) and the line to get a drink was out of control. For some reason I had VIP access to the bar so I got drinks for my people and then made my way to our long waited for table. There was so many people that Carlos couldn't bring the food out fast enough. The beginning food of the night was not too impressive but once the people started to clear out, it got better. As I mentioned before, Joel lives with an old lady who makes him a homemade dinner every night so he left to go enjoy his privilege. The girls that I met up with and I stayed long enough to find out that the chefs in the back were the same guys that a couple of them had hooked up with the night before. AWKWARD.

I ventured over to their side of the river to check out their place. The more and more people's apartments that I keep seeing make me feel like I got completely jipped on mine. Their place was very homey and comfortable. The walls and the furniture just made it feel so much warmer and friendly than my above hostel flat. One of the girls had her own loaft and Kelley has a queen size bed! As we drank our 2 euro bottle of wine, a group of overly excited girls piled into the apartment and before I knew it, there were 20 of us.

I met this girl Brooke who I thought looked like a rock star. Her outfit, her shoes, her attitude made me feel like she is one of those girls that demands everyone's full attention. I wasn't sure how we'd mesh but turns out we were inseperable for the rest of the night. For some reason she had this eager instinct to do everyone's eye make up. Why I let a drunk girl touch my face with eyeliner is beyond me but it actually looked pretty good. Once we all decided that the pregaming phase was complete, we made our way to bar number one, two, and three. Funneling through places with a bunch of American girls in heels is as easy as it sounds, we get whatever we want. I don't think that I've ever been out with that many girls at once (especially one's that I hardly even knew) as well as in a completely foreign place but the combination of the two created a ridiculous amount of fun. Our last destination was supposed to be our main one at this club called Cavalli. There wasn't any cover but once you get inside, the drinks are at least 10 euro each. Fortunately we didn't need anything.

If you have ever been to Florence and never been to Cavalli, I highly recommend checking it out. I felt like a super model in this place. Everything was so sheek and extravagant with crazy lights and screens everywhere. Needless to say, it was a great night closed out with a long, drunken phone call to France (sorry Tay) on the walk back to Via Faenza. Going out was fun but having a wine hang over right before an 8 hour day of school is never a good idea (obviously). I had to walk to th train station to buy my train ticket to Milan for next Thursday to catch the plane to Barcelona. The train station is HUGE btw.. navigating it next week should be fun. Although my first class started at noon, I still had a crazy day ahead of me. My first day of classes were full of female teachers, and my second day (with three classes) were all male teachers.

"Food, Culture, and Society of Italy" was instructed by a man that if I were about 50 would probably find rather sexy. He's got that George Clooney persona about him, and he's a professional chef sooooo yea.. We made these crepe things with spinach and rocotta cheese, some white sauce stuff, tomatoes, throw it all in the oven and I had lunch on the go to my next class. "Modern Italy" was quite the drag. My professor just likes the sound of his own voice and it was WAY too easy to zone out completely. I sure hope that one gets MUCH better. My "Culture Shock Psychology" class was full of Northeastern wealthy, preppy bitches. They all looked like a carbon cut copy of the one next to them. Same hair, same bags, same boots, they all might as well have had the same wardrobe for all I know.

Our professor is probably one of the most worldy people I'll ever meet. He looks about 65 ish and he has seen the world! He speaks SEVEN languages fluently and has lived in TWELVE countries. He compressed his life story into about a 10 minute speech about his life in Milan, Germany, Paris, New York, L.A.,you know -- whatevs. He apparently was some huge manager of some branch of VW for like 15 years, then he moved to the states and decided that he hated our food (?!) randomly moved to Paris, learned how to speak French (language #5), no big. He said (and I quote), "So then I decided I was bored of that so I decided to open a hotel. It struggled for a while and now I own over 200 around Europe. I'm still doing that but in my spare time I teach management and psychology here(just because HE CAN), I've written a couple books along the way. Oh yea, and my 'companion' lives in London so every Friday I fly there and teach a couple classes and hang out for the weekend." SERIOUSLY GUYS, I WISH I WERE MAKING THIS UP! This guy is so cool. If anyone knows anything about "culture shock", it's HIM. Throughout his lecture I was amazed by how strategically his words were strung together. It was such a perfect seminar that it seems like something that should have been memorized but he was just talking. He's kind of like Victoria, he'll be interesting to learn from.

All of my days now seem to just clash together to make this huge arrangements of stories. I seriously am having difficulty just keeping up myself. I've been pretty sick ever since I left London and this cold just won't go away. It might be this climate or this new life, I'm not sure. But whatever it is, this flu thing needs to go away like NOW - it's driving me crazy. These transitions are fast and hard. I'm doing fine dealing with them I think but I just always feel SO busy and overwhelmed. There is ALWAYS so much to observe, absorb, and explore that my mental capacity is on overload. I want to be able to talk to everyone and keep up with each person's life as much as I can here and back home but that seems merely impossible, so I do apologize if my attention has been elsewhere.

Since I'm currently in a bar at Aperitivo because my internet in my apartment refuses to work anymore, I will do my best to compress the last couple of days as simply as I can. Friday was a mission to find the books for each class, I found out that each book was located at a different copy center throughout the city and I ended up only finding two of them. How frustrating, I guess I'll finish searching on Monday. I met a girl from NYU who is a freshmen from Dubai that has never even been to New York. She was very hardcore, freshmen material (you know how you can just tell?) We talked about Florence and New York, exchanged emails, and I actually hope to hang out with her eventually -- nice girl.

I met up with Carlos for our adventures across the river to see THE David and the church dedicated to Michaelangelo for protecting the city in its' hard times. Our tour guide somehow got us free gelato (which I finally got to try)and we explored in the cold rain. (Please view pictures on facebook, this whole blog/picture thing and I are not very good friends). For Friday #2, Carlos and I had dinner at some random, authentic hole in the wall place (those are the BEST) where I got to learn more about him. He's now convinced that since we have had dinner together two Fridays in a row that it is now "our" date night. Whatever, it's fun. I finally got to see his apartment where he lives with 5 other guys, ironically every wall in the place is bubble gum pink, so masculine. Later on, the girls and I pregamed with our cheap wine from downstairs and made it over to "Mayday". My annoying flu has made me rather lame on nights out but the rest of the lot stayed out until about 6 a.m.

Saturday was a rough morning. My nightmares have been getting worse and worse it seems the longer that I've been here. Friday night's dream was probably the worst one I've ever had. The details aren't necessary but I woke up hot, sweaty, crying, and terrified. Oddly enough, a couple hours later Brooke recieved an absolutely devistating email that one of her good friends from Colorado State had been hit by a train and killed a couple nights ago. It's always so hard to see someone cry and not break down yourself. I thought back to some of the people that I've been to school with that I've lost in the past and got rather emotional. The prior wake up didn't help either, all in all, it was a very difficult morning.

Fortunately though, there has been a chocolate festival at Santa Croce that we all decided would lighten the mood and at least make us be able to eat our feelings. I got to try chocolate rum for the first time and see all of the different famous chocolate providers in Europe. It kept our mind off of things and GOD was it delicious! Saturday night we went back to REX for Aperitivo and some deep conversation about our pasts and futures. It's kind of weird how much the four of us have gone through together with only a couple weeks of knowing each other. Last week, Catherine's credit card got stolen and she lost $5,000! And then this thing happened with Brooke, so Alissa and I are afraid to see what happens to us in the next couple weeks.

Our internet connection that the Australians gave us the hook ups to is now not working at all. It stresses me out way more than I should and this morning as I was searching for a WiFi cafe, I became annoyed at myself for how dependent and consistently reliant I am on the internet. Geez, what an American huh? I felt like I almost couldn't function without having some sort of direct connection to the outside world. I can't lie though, it has been rather nice being somewhat disattached from the realities at home. Not always having to answer to someone or constantly being on the phone. I think I'm going to learn a lot more about myself in Europe now that I can actually focus on myself.

Barcelona this coming week should be super fun. I'm excited to see Alex, Morgan, and Tay again. Small links to familiarity are nice sometimes. I've noticed that people's voices are very helpful as well. There are so many things that have come to attention that I never usually think about in my bubbled world. When you are pulled out of your normal frequencies, you start to think about things and people that really matter. I've been sitting in Moyo for hours now catching up on my life and just getting away from my apartment. It's SO cold in there. It was actually sunny today for the first time in a while which felt like a bigger relief than it should. (God, the DJ sucks in here.. terrible transitions). I need to get my shit together this week. I need more of a structured schedule, I've been free lancing for too long. I'm meeting Carlos and Joel at Joshua Tree tonight with Meara and Shannon to watch the Super Bowl at MIDNIGHT. I don't really care about it but it should be fun.

Priorities Liz, PRIORITIES. That's what I need to focus on this week. Ugh, there is so much to do. I want to go to Paris soon, I've been thinking about it a lot. Maybe do some planning this week for that too ? Keeping up with this blog is kind of hard. I know it's so much to read (for those of you that do) but I'm just trying to document as much as I can while I can. MAKE ME KEEP UP WITH IT. I will regret it if I don't. Ugh, I need to get out of here -- Gonzale (the obsessive bartender) just spotted me so I need to pretend like I'm on my way out! More updates soon. Pinky.