Monday, February 15, 2010

Okey Dokey Artichokey

Okay, I am ridiculous. I never realized people were commenting on my blog! It never told me so. I probably never would have found out if Chris hadn't sent me an e-mail that said he had and then I went looking for it. Instead of finding just Chris' comment, I found lots! With questions too. Sorry about that. I'll try and be better.

So Kim - yes, I am registered in the country. That girl who missed it just went the day I registered. I'm not registered with the U.S. consulate, which I know I need to jump on, but I keep forgetting. Being registered means I have a special thing I have to keep with my passport and that I have a slip of paper to take to the immigration people in case I decide to move here. I didn't need any of those papers I took to the consulate in Miami and they told me to bring here.
That's the only question I remember from the comments I just read.

On the quick issue of artichokes... Americans need to be more inventive! Why should it be limited to pizza and dip? The other day I chopped up a fresh artichoke and garlic and I put them and mozzarella on top of fococcia bread. I then proceeded to toast them in the oven til the cheese had melted. This is super delicious. and I recommend everyone try it.
The fridge made my beef go bad the other day. I pulled it out to make a burger and asparagus (sometimes you just can't eat pasta) and it was spoiled. It had only been in the fridge for two days. I don't understand how my meat spoiled but my milk freezes. Also, I've bought meat before while here, and it didn't do that then. I'm disappointed, because I don't want to have to go grocery shopping. I went grocery shopping for the future last week, and I want it to last. I made asparagus here the other day, and it's big and delicious and I may end up turning green from all the asparagus I plan on eating. It ain't puny.

But what am I going on about?! I have to tell ya'll about Carnivale!
Friday was a bad start. I went home to clean before we left and the trash bag was so heavy that it broke and the food spilled all over the floor and I had to clean it with my hands. We almost ran late to the station. Alex missed her train entirely. But after I was in Venice I was like, "What am I holding on to this bad mood for? I'm in Venice!" and it became much better. We didn't do a lot that night. We met up with E's Italian friend and she took us to some outdoor parties. It was nuts! Firenze would never be so casual, even during Carnivale. We ended up not getting back until 3 30 in the morning, but I don't even feel like we were out that long. We did stop at places for food on the way back. E was drunk and she bought some kind of spicy shrimp wrap to eat. She tried to make me eat it. It was gross.

Saturday was amazing! First we got lunch at a little stand outside. They had culturally food that wasn't pasta! They were weird. They were from Sicily. The outside was like fried bread, followed by a layer of gooey rice, and then with a middle of, in my case, ham and cheese, and in other cases, ragu sauce and peas. I didn't really like it, but Emily did. We went to Piazza del San Marco (I'm guessing on the "del" part, but it sounds accurate.) There were so many cool costumes! I'm going to come with my laptop either later today or tomorrow to update my photos so that everyone can see, and I'll put more on my blog b/c Chris asked me too. There were a lot of people dressed up in Renaissance and Medieval outfits, but there were also people dressed up like the Sun, the Moon, Nature and Technology, the Garden, a Bat, a Spray Can, etc. etc. When they would look at you with their masks on, it was sort of freaky. A lot of people in costume weren't even Italian. I heard German, Renee heard English, and Nena heard all other kinds of languages.
We paid 8€ to go to the top of the bell tower and see the view. I don't feel like it was quite so worth it as it was for Il Duomo. You have to climb up Il Duomo, almost 500 steps, so you feel like you work for your money, but this one had an elevator. The view was alright. Then I went into the Cathedral while the other girls went elsewhere. It was giant and very Byzantine. I wasn't super impressed though because I don't really like Byzantine art. It took me a little time to get through. I looked at the ceiling mosaics carefully. I'm beginning to be better at recognizing these Christian saints.
The girls had wandered off and it took them about half an hour to get back to me. I wandered around the square and saw the costumes. There was a skit going on. You know those old German clocks where the figures come out of doors and dance? The skits were like that. There were men dressed up like 14th century Italian jesters and they did funny things. One skit was where they kept trying to hit each other with bigger and bigger hammers, but they just kept hitting themselves and that's what made the bell noises. Another was where a man and a woman were kissing and then the man accidentally kissed another man. It doens't sound funny when I write it at all, lol, but it was.
Dad told me to buy some Murano glass, and I was really worried I wouldn't find something I wanted. But I did! It's a beautiful pink glass bird. I love it a lot. I also bought something for Dad, and I hope he really likes it.
We were in the area of the square for a really long time. When we left, it took us FOREVER to get back. The streets were wall to wall crowded. We went to a dollar store and bought things to try and make little Carnivale outfits for the night. Gina's was coolest I think. She bought a tiny Carnivale mask, put it through a headband, and wore it like that. I put butterflies in my hair, Renee put in silver wheat, and Nalina, Emily, and Alex all put in flowers. Nena and her friends were dressing up as desperate housewives, so she had a shower cap, a feather duster, and... something else.
We went out to one of the piazzas we'd been in the night before. There managed to be a lot of drama, but everything worked out really well. We danced in the middle of the crowd, and there were almost NO skeazers at all, except for the girls who wanted them. It's so different than going out in Florence. I expected it to be worse because it's a holiday, but the men didn't really bother you unless you acted like you wanted them too. I ended up talking to this really emo Italian guy for like 20 minutes and it was AWFUL. He was just going on and on about why he hates Italy and how he lives in London and it's awesome. The first chance I had, I booked it out of there. I understood his reasons, some of them, but I didn't want such a downer.
Gina, Nena, and I sat on a stone bridge and talked to some Italian guys. Emily went off with someone to get beer, Nalina and Renee went to a cafe, and Alex was occupied with some guy from the army. We sat there for like two hours. It was great, but I was so cold by the end that my teeth were chattering. I was so glad to go to bed.

Yesterday was an adventure. We walked along the canal for a while. I was the only one who had a place to specifically go to, so we went to Santa Maria Gloriosa de Frari, which is the church where Titian's Assumption of the Virgin is. Little known to me, it also had the Canova tribute! I was so excited! The parts of Florence we walked around that day were not quite so touristy, so it wasn't so cramped. We tasted these pastries that are only made during Carnivale. They are sort of like Chinese doughnuts and funnel cake combined on the outside, with various things inside. I got a chocolate cream, but there was also just cream, and then the Viennese, which has raisins.
Nena took us to her friend's mom's shop. She doesn't trade with China, which is sweet. I bought some presents, which I'm excited to give. They had all kinds of beautiful glass beads and jewelry.
I bought some Carnivale masks for the nieces, which will be too big for them, but I hope they'll like to play with them anyway. Mine matches theirs', except it has feathers. I wore it around the city after this. Some of you may be suprised it took me a day and a half to put a mask on and wear it everywhere when it's totally acceptable. I am too, frankly, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a mask so I waited til I found something for cheapsies. Nena took us to get these traditional sandwiches that were invented in Venice. I don't know exactly how they differ from sandwiches in general, but they were DELICIOUS! They're just white bread triangles with no crust and something inside. Mine was spicy shrimp with little bits of veggies, all held together by mayo (the mayo is in every sandwich) but it was really good. I wish I'd gotten a second one. I wish I had one right now. I haven't eaten lunch. Or breakfast.

We made it to the train station in good time to get on, IF we had been boarding the trian during a normal day. Unfortunately, it was the last day of Carnivale and everyone needed to leave. We couldn't get on at all. There were so many people on the train that they were standing in the aisles. The police were there to make sure people didn't jump out the windows in order to get off at their stop. We changed our train to make us arrive at VE Mestre later on, but the girls were pretty panicked for a while, and I was pretty annoyed.
In VE Mestre, we had hours to kill. Seriously, hours. Our newest train didn't leave until 3 in the morning. We had tickets to leave at 8 and get home at 12, and this was our new sad lot. So we uh... squatted in the Best Western. I bought a drink and three of the girls bought sandwiches so we had a right to be there. We weren't squatting for free. But eventually we got kicked out because the bar was closed. By this time, everything was hilarious. We all had the early morning delirium giggles (minus Emily, who was asleep mostly.) We went to the station and thought we had to hang out in the underground area, but then we saw a sign! The sign had a woman sitting over her suitcase with a clock above her! There was a waiting room! "Scusi, dove la donna qui? How can I get to be like that woman?" We took pictures and laughed for like 20 minutes. The waiting room was gross. The instant we walked in a German man with hands black from dirt came and tried to talk to us. We were too giggly to be any use. He asked if Nalina's pillow was her friend in broken English, and we responded that it was in Italian. It didn't make ANY sense. I think we caused a ruckus, but we were having a good time. Plus, eventually someone turned on Indian stereo music, so we weren't the only ones making noise. The weird German man tried to take Nalina's pillow for sleeping. She almost gave it to him because he touched it. She is seriously contemplating throwing it out. That might sound extreme, but you should have seen his hands, and you should see the size of our washing machines. We don't have room to wash a pillow. One pair of jeans and my towel would fill the whole thing. Anyway, so this weird German man sits next to us and starts drawing something. And eventually, we realize... that he was drawing ME! That was too much for us. We cracked up so hard a different German man told us to shut up. Renee sneaky sneaky took a picture. Then we realized that there was a similar drawing on the wall. After finishing my drawing, proudly displaying it to his friend, and propping it up for my eyes, he then drew another girl, possibly me again, then he drew a man with chest hair, and then he drew Gina! It was too much. How could a ruckus have been resisted? I should have a six pack with all the laughing we did last night/this morning.

We thought our train was there, so we went out to the platform. We were wrong and it was cold! Some really nice Mexicans, who were on the same train, thought the same thing because of us. Whoops. But the train came soon after. We talked with those guys for a while. One of them carried my bag for me all up and down the trian until a compartment was found for us girls. We said Buona notte and passed out.
20 minutes before we needed to wake up this JERK of a conducter(or?) slams our door open and turns on the lights. It startled Nalina into waking with a cry, which startled me into waking with a cry, and I think we all just generally made a lot of distressed sleep sounds. I also think that sadist jerk enjoyed it. He had a smug, no good attitude about him. All of us but Alex were on the same ticket, so we gave him just the one and I couldn't figure out what he was still doing there until I remembered that Alex had to give him her Eurail pass. She hadn't filled in the date because the other train men always did it for her. This is against the rules and leads to a fine of 50€. While I understand that she should have read the rules, because if you don't fill in the date you can travel for longer than you're supposed to, I don't think that gave him the right to be such a giant jerk about it. He was pretty much shouting at her, and she was just asking him questions to understand what was going on. She wasn't being defensive or jerky back, just trying to understand (I think I would have been a giant jerk back, so go Alex.) Every time she'd say, "I have a question" he'd just repeat, "Cinquanta euro." She finally had to revert to Italian to get him to even listen to her. He kept calling her "Lady" in the most derogatory way. When she gave him her credit card to pay, he didn't just charge her and go, instead he stood in our doorway, with the lights on, talking in Italian to some other person. The instant he gave her the card and left I slammed the door and we all just kind of exploded about his jerkiness. I couldn't fall back asleep, even though I was so tired tears were involuntarily falling from my eyes.
We got home alright and we instantly caught the bus to take us close to our street. I passed out and woke up 10 minutes before class, was 10 minutes late, found out I made an A on my last Italian quiz, and proceeded to be tired and miserable until about an hour ago.

I need to go home and shower and eat and take out my contacts, which have been in since Saturday morning. I didn't expect to not get home til this morning, so I was okay with sleeping in them Saturday night. I will try and come back today and post pictures of Carnivale.

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