I will also update my blog about the happenings of the last few days, starting with Thursday, because Thursday was a Good Day.
For some completely unknown reason, Ren Art wasn't a pain. This was probably just a fluke. Also, we were talking about Leonardo. Also, I think Paola seemed a little sad.
I didn't buy a bag for my laptop. The bag I was going to by doesn't zip across the top, and while I've never been pickpocketed at an airport before, or know anyone that has, why risk it? I decided to shop around. There is a really beautiful bag at Accessorize that zips across, has the inner pocket for the passport, and is covered in birds and flowers. However, it is also sort of huge... but maybe not as huge as it is when it's full of paper. It's almost 50 euro though, so I decided I would take some time to think about that, before I bought a 50 euro bag. It will probably be gone before I'm done thinking about it... there were only two in the store yesterday.
Psych was pretty interesting. We played a game where we were divided into two groups. One of a us was a culture and the other group were anthropologists. It was all about the difficulty of getting to know one another from a cross cultural stand point. Apparently, it's really common in business classes, so maybe you've played it before. After we were done playing, we talked about mental health in Italy. We didn't talk about it near enough. I would like to talk about it more.
She did give us a sheet of paper with mental problems that seem to be purely cultural. One of them was called "blacking out" and is limited to the Southern United States and the Caribbean. It is when you just randomly pass out or go through "fuzzy" periods and forget how to function for a few seconds. I was like, wait a minute! I've heard of this! I know people this has happened to! This has happened to me! Amy thinks it's just because it's so hot haha. Honestly, before I went to college I don't think I knew the term "black out" drunk. I knew it as a term for passing out. We used the term "bat shit" drunk in high school, or just drunk.
After class, Gina, Kevin, and I went to Santa Maria Novella Stazione to buy train tickets to Naples for the weekend. We went to the window and I said, "Vogliamo andare a Napoli a domani. Il treno e a quaranta e venti." (There should be an accent mark on that first "e".) The ticket seller and I successfully managed to talk about what we wanted and how much it cost and we were just about to pay when he told me it was sold out. Bummer! We'd already booked the hostel and everything! But as much as I really wanted to see the South of Italy and Herculaneum and Pompeii, I also really wanted to see the Explosion of the Cart here in Piazza Duomo. And I really had to work on this paper.... so I was willing to just accept it and do whatever here for the weekend. We went to the library and canceled our hostel but Gina and Kevin and Bryce still wanted to go, so they got tickets and rebooked the hostel.
Since I have been here, I have been craving a crepe. We were going to a movie that night and didn't have time to go home and get dinner. So I got a crepe at this place that I had seen, Gina got a burrito at the place across from it, and Kevin got a kebab (gyro) at the place right next to it. It was all really convenient and really good! The crepe man and I talked all in Italian and it was exactly what I wanted.
We had some time before the movie so we went to the market of the boar. There are two things you're supposed to do with the big boar statue at the market. First, you rub it's nose. Second, you put a coin in its mouth. If it drops out of the mouth and into a drainage hole, you get good luck. All three of us won! Haha, we'd never done it before and our luck was assured.
Except, of course, when it came to the movie. Our luck was not assured in that aspect. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was terrible. Bad acting, bad direction, too much in one movie - it was just bad. Don't waste your money on it.
Yesterday was Friday and Friday was Alright. I went to school and was informed that Housing would be coming after six because one of our heaters is leaking and is causing wood rot. Seriously, our apartment has been falling apart, so this new event was just like, oh, we're still falling apart. Our balcony door doesn't close, our water keeps going below 0, our washer went crazy... etc. etc. But remember my experiment where I wasn't going to clean? Well, this is what I learned. Most of the dishes get done. If there are some leftover in the sink, no one will own up to them, each of us insisting "I always do my dishes." But after we'd put them on the drying rack, that was it. It took days and days for the dishes to get put away. It only happened when there were so many dishes on the drying rack that we just couldn't wash any more of them. No one swept, wiped off the stove, the wall above the stove, etc. The drain cloggers were rarely emptied. So yesterday, I had quite a mess to deal with. I went home after class and I cleaned. I wiped down the table, the counters, the disgusting stove tops. I didn't have to clean out the drain clogger because Gina did it yesterday - our other roommates had done a lot of cooking and they hadn't cleaned it out. I swept and swept. I made the couch that Emily had promised to make, since she's the one who messed it up. I cleaned so much that I was in a little bit of a rage about the condition of the apartment and how everyone insists they clean, but no one really does.
Here's the tricky thing about Florentine floors. They look clean. E.M. Forster wrote about it in A Room of One's Own. He said something along the lines, on the very first page of the book, "The floors that always look clean but never truly are." You're not supposed to walk around barefoot in your home here. A Florentine would tell you it's because sickness comes from cold feet. I will tell you it's because they don't want you to know how dirty the floors are. They don't want to know themselves. I can walk around barefoot for less than thirty minutes and come away with black feet. My roommates have noticed and told me they were disgusted. I told them, it's from our floors. They were then even more disgusted... but not enough to sweep.
Also, our apartment came with about 5 brooms. But there is not a mop. I am going to clean them though. Everything is going to be closed, Sunday and Monday, because of Easter. So I might as well clean the floors.
Back to yesterday... Gina and I met in front of the Duomo and went shopping. We ended up in a Murano glass store. She bought her mom's present and I bought a big hunkin ring that is half Murano glass and half Dijon glass and entirely fabulous.
Kevin and I made fish tacos last night with a goat cheese parmesan cheese queso topping. They were pretty good, but they needed more spicy and more fish. We watched 28 Days Later which I've been wanting to watch since I first realized our library had it. It was checked out for weeks! Thursday was also good because I finally got it.
I'm not going to have time to go to the Science museum. Who am I kidding? It probably closes at 5. I stayed up until almost four reading Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. I don't really like it, I don't think, but I'm not sure, so I kept reading it. I did something I haven't done... maybe ever though. I was really bored, so I skipped ahead looking for an interesting part. That makes me feel like a bad person... but I was really bored. But because I was up til 4, I woke up around 1. A day wasted? Probably not. There's still stuff I can do. Mainly homework and grocery shopping.
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