follow me to my new address

in the literal world and in the virtual world, I mean that both ways. I am moving to Gainesville and I am moving my blog to a different url. This is my new url, if you feel like following me. Now that I'm not in Italy, I'm not really sure what I'm going to say.


http://pavonepavleenpau.blogspot.com/

Born in the USA

So I'm back home I haven't posted about it yet. Maybe people aren't expecting me too. But basically I haven't done this because I'm crashing at my dad's, who doesn't have internet. I have an iphone now, but posting a blog by iphone... ugh, that sounds awful.

Last Saturday I said goodbye to my friends who I had to wake up, and left my apartment, 25 Via Fra'Angelico, for the very last time. The bus wasn't too full, which was nice because I had a lot of stuff taking up space, and a nice Italian man helped me take my bag off the bus. BUT I couldn't have my last Italian bus experience go smoothly! That would be too weird! As my bus, the ever late 14, pulled up to la stazione di Santa Maria Novella, the blu Sita navetta por il aeroporto pulled out... 15 minutes early! All my careful planning was for taught! So I sat around waiting for the next one, listening to two non native Italian speakers talking in Italian to each other and translating everything they said, just like a creeper. Is that even the favored phrase these days? "Creeper"?

I almost didn't make it out of Italy. That ash cloud that had been constricting my airways (not the continents, but my personal airways, which I keep inside of my throat,) which had reached Florence but wasn't supposed to be a problem that day, was, in fact, a problem. The pilot says, "Unfortunately, there will be a no-fly ban put in place in 20 minutes. So we're taking off in 10." Thank goodness! I made it out!

It was really surreal to fly into Paris CDG. I saw the Eifel Tower, the Arc d'Triomphe, the Sacre Coeur, all the biggies, all the things I'd seen 6 years ago, but I saw them from above. It was really very cool.

My flight home was awesome. I had 1st class luxury. The guy sitting next to me, and about 10 of his buddies, were all from a Coca Cola bottling company and the company sent them to ATL in the prima classe to attend a Coca Cola conference. Talk about a sweet job. I watched The Young Victoria and Precious and I cried during both of them. Unashamedly. Who cares if people see me crying over touching things? Also, the man next to me was asleep lol.

I had a bit of a freak out when I got in the U.S. It was super weird to be there. The man at Customs didn't think I was me. He looked at my passport for a long time, had me take off my glasses, had me turn over another ID, and still had me look at him glassesless for a while. I was wondering if I wouldn't be allowed back in just because I change my hair all the time. Finally he let me pass and I waited for my bag. I looked at the time on my watch (military), the time on my phone (Italian), and the time on my boarding pass and thought I only have 30 minutes! By the time I acquired my bag, I thought there were only ten minutes. I called family and said I doubted I would make it and got in line at Delta. Meanwhile, a baggage man walks up and says, "Is anyone here Jessica?" It was me, and I had dropped my passport! I have it in this little owl cover, but the Customs officer took it out of the cover to look at it. I just shoved it back in, but didn't tuck it back in, and it dropped out in my haste. Then the Delta woman told me I had like 40 minutes. I just felt flustered and dumb.

Now imagine this: You're riding up an escalator and this smell hits you. It's grease and nausea. It just smells like being sick. That's what America smells like. That's what my very first reminder of America was. I was disgusted. I wondered what all the visitors think. We're so used to it, we don't realize. I tell you, it's horrifyingly awful. Then I was shoved into a giant mass of people speaking English and eating fast food. There wasn't Italian anywhere. I'm walking through all these masses and I feel so stressed and bewildered. What is this place? I thought to myself, "I want to go find a bed of Italians and jump in it." I started thinking in Italian. I wouldn't look at anyone, and I pushed through everyone. I went into automatic Italian defense mode. It was five in the morning where I was from and I was tired and surrounded by all these stranieri. It was stressful and awful and I hated it.

We landed 45 minutes late, but I'd been asleep the whole time. I tried to think what it would be like to see my mom but I couldn't. It was now 6AM my time, 12 AM their time, and life was still pretty weird. I was too tired to be happy really. I see Mom... and then I saw Ivan... and then I saw my sisters and their mariti and mia amice. It could have been more joyous if I hadn't been so bewildered and tired. And Delta broke the zipper on my front pocket of my suitcase.

There is so much space here in America. There is so much space between buildings. Holy crap, yards are huge! Buildings are big, and I went to get a toothbrush at like 1 AM! When is the last time I was able to acquire anything useful that late at night? It seems like, never.

That night seems like years ago now. It's something I barely remember.

Marissa, Tom, and I went to Lake Ella the next day and met up with Mom. We decided to get lunch, but everything sounded heavy to me. We ended up getting, dun dun dun, pizza. I wasn't ready to leave Italy yet. But Chinese for dinner! I mostly ate the rice, though the lo mein wasn't as greasy as I thought it would be.

Since then I've just been getting used to being here again. I can watch TV in English. Wow! I've been driving around. I got an iPhone. I still haven't finished that dumb book I've been reading. I've been trying to catch up on sleep, but I'm still jet lagged. I used a dryer for the first time last night! How exciting! How soft clothes are when they haven't been dried outside! And then rained on and then dried again!

I'm in Gainesville helping Stace and Kim move. We went to Moe's for dinner, but I slipped back into my Italian mindset. I told Kim I didn't have any cash, meaning, I don't have any cash, can I borrow some from you so I can buy dinner? But she said, I don't have any cash either! Don't you have a card?

...

Right. In America, I can use cards to buy dinner. Righttttt.

I'm exhausted. I miss my friends back in Italy. I still think of Italy as home, even though I'm not going to be just hopping on a plane and going back. I'm not going back, not for a long time. I'm not okay with that.

Italian is slipping out of my grasp since I'm not using it all the time. Fortunately, Italian and Spanish are pretty close. I texted Kim entirely in Italian the other day, and she knew what I said and replied in English. Tonight I asked Stace something in Italian, and he replied in Spanish. I'll be taking Italian again soon, and talking with friends in Italian. It won't be so bad. Only yesterday I forget the word for rabbit when I saw two on the side of the road. I don't like that it's slipping away. I don't like that at all.

"Girl's not dumb."

So my flight is still a go-go. I feel a little sick and a little sad to be leaving. It just blows my mind. Gina and I have become such good friends, and the same with Renee and Pati. Alex and I were just getting to be friends. Kevin and I often stay up til 3 AM just talking and laughing! It's over and sono molto triste.

I made a 10/10 on my oral Italian exam btw. I was really happy about it. And I feel pretty sure that I did well on my written exam. I also feel like I did well on all my other exams.

Last night was our farewell dinner. It was delicious. There was the typical Toscana apettizer, which is meat, cheese, bruschetta, and a pate. Plus the brought out fried pizza dough, which was AMAZING. Dinner was a gnocchi (a little too salty, I thought, which is saying something) a lasagna, and a papa al pomodoro. Dessert was a tiramisu and biscotti, which you dip in a sweet wine. Some CAPA kids, including myself, did a little skit mocking our teachers and the staff. The prize was a 50€ cook book, which I didn't want because it would have added like 10 lbs. to my suitcase. It's alright, cause I didn't win. I mocked Jeremy and his Mannerist jean metaphor and how much he hates Mannerism. He actually got mocked the most. Jordan's mockery of Guido was fantastic, I can't believe he didn't win. It was so Guido. And Kevin mocked Lorenzo with the typical, "Ciao Ragazzi... we are closing!" It was hilarious. Lorenzo should be doing that right now, in fact, because CAPA closed technically 12 minutes ago. Hmmmm...

Yesterday I was making a list of things I will and won't miss about Italy. What I won't miss?

A certain someone, unforutanetly, made it to the top of the list
Not having a washer
Skeazy guys
No fountain soda
The expense of the euro

What I will miss
Everything else
My friends
My home
the GARLIC
the language
The experience of getting to use that language every day and getting better and better at it
the store Promod
The art
Anto (my Italian teacher)
the stress free life
my kitchen
taco night
all the fun things there are to do
on and on and on and on and on...

Home is in Your Head

I don't want to leave, not really. I've made a home for myself here. And even though I am excited about things to come this summer, I keep viewing them as something distant, something I will eventually get around to. But there's only two days left now, and I have to acknowledge that the end is LOOMING. My suitcase has been packed. My carry on has been packed and repacked. I finally finished buying gifts. I'm started to get annoyed by nagging things like my thighs because it's so warm at home and where are my summer clothes? I'm not going to be able to cook all the time. My produce won't be as fresh. My food won't be as delicious. This is apparently just a fact. Everyone says the food won't be as delicious. My garlic won't fill the entire kitchen with the smell of deliciousness. Life will be hard again. School will be boring and overloaded again. I'm so not looking forward to returning.
Sorry if that hurts or offends you, but that is how I feel.

volcanic disruptions

I should be able to make it home. I should be able to make it home. I should be able to make it home?

When Dad was booking my tickets, I went out on a limb and asked for first class. And to my surprise... the answer was yes. Maybe this was just my being a genius, because since I have premium tickets, I am less likely to get bumped from my flight.

Now there's all kinds of articles about confusion in the airports and warships picking up British citizens and limited airspace.... I really want to make it home. I really want my bag to not get lost. I really want to have smooth sailing. My flight is at 1, so I need to get there at 11. Dad told me to get there early in case of problems. How early is early? Florence airport is smaller than Tallahassee's, and it's boring when you get there early. I got there early for Amsterdam, and what did I do? Read and be bored for hours. I hope I can get on my flight okay. If I take a cab (if I have the money to take a cab) I'll get there with time to spare But I'll probably just take a shuttle, which is 15€ cheaper.

Today I finished buying gifts. I was looking for cute, fashionable sandals. I tried on so many pairs, but I didn't find any I like

I have 2 exams tomorrow, and I haven't started studying yet. I can't inspire myself to care.

ima fight til we see the sunlight

That song always makes me want to dance.

Tonight is the very last Taco night for Kevin and I! :( Sad! We're switching roles. I always make the queso and he always makes the spicy, but tonight we're switching so that when we get home we'll both know how to do both. Everybody in gli Stati Uniti, prepare yourselves! We're making tacos when I get home!

My oral went well. Only, I said it really really fast, so it was shorter than it was supposed to be. I was a tiny bit nervous. Oh well. She saw it written out, and she knows how long it would have been if I had been slower. I ended it with, "Insegno lei. La prima cena è italiana! è possibile risotto con salsicci." Which, if you had heard all of it, you would know that "lei" is Kim, as in, I'm going to teach Kim how to make Italian food since I'll be living with her, and the first dinner might be risotto with a spicy sausage." Risotto is delicious, I ate it last night. I hope Stace and Tom are okay with not eating meat whenever I cook something, because there just won't always be meat. A cheese risotto = molto buono!

I enter into the Pioneer Woman's website competitions to try and win the fabulous cooking utensils she gives away (thepioneerwoman.com) and today she is giving away an apple green mixer. I'm bound to win someday! I really wanted to win last week's competition - it was a crock pot and a cookbook! The cookbook I'll buy anyway. The food inside sounds delicious.

So, Nemo came last week, which is why my updates were few and far between. As in, I think I only posted one. So our cooking class was not in Italian! How disappointing! I learned all these kitchen terms just for it. It was really hard to remember kitchen terms... I was like, okay, I mash things with a glas... what would the actual utensil be called? What are measurements? I do it all by hand here... hmmm... and I couldn't remember a lot of cooking verbs, but Nemo and Kevin helped me out. BUT there were two other students who didn't speak Italian, so the teacher taught in English. I did get a sweet cookbook entirely in Italian. I can read it too! And Anto gave us a recipe that day in class for popo al pomodori in Italian. Look out world, all I want to do with my life is make ya'll fat. The food was good. We made a pannacotta, which was really easy, and rich and delicate, but not really my kind of dessert. After the class, a bunch of CAPA kids went out, and Nemo obviously came too. I assume he enjoyed it? We taught another kid to play convergence, and he taught Kevin some weird math game. We got home around 3.

We made our very last day trip to Volterra. Honestly, I didn't really enjoy it. The countryside around, however, was beautiful! And I really enjoyed the view. But other than that, it was nothing spectacular. I wish we'd gone somewhere else.

Kevin, Nemo, and I watched The Exorcist and The Village that night. When I returned Catch me if you Can and Night at the Museum and check those out instead the woman at the desk laughed at me, and said, "Molto pensato, eh?" (heavier?) I enjoyed that she was so friendly, because typically, they're not. It's just all business.

Well, Nemo left Sunday. The city is covered in little white parachute seeds. Pati and I went down to the Cascine and the seeds looked like summer snow. That's what we called it. We're so poetic.
The Italian guys here are getting worse. One rode past us twice and then stopped and got off his bike. He tried talking to us, but we both just ignored him and read. In response to this, he pulled out a camera and took a picture of us! UGH! And he was the same guy that bothered Pati in the park by her house. Plus, the other night at Bigallo, there were these guys who tried to stop me from leaving the room by stretching out their legs and then they asked, "do you like sex?" UGHHHHHH THEY'RE SO SKEAZY. Maybe the really bad ones come out in the summer.

We've all been so concerned here because of the volcanic ash. Some programs have already ended, and no one can go anywhere. Some people were planning on traveling by train, but all the trains are pretty much full. It's been really worrisome. Yesterday I resolved myself to staying here because I found out I don't have to register for summer classes til the 10th. And then housing came by and said we could stay until Monday. But Dad sent me an email that said flights from Atlanta to Paris are operating tomorrow, so I think I will get home. The only concern would be if my flight from Florence to Paris were canceled, but today NYTimes said all the Italian airspace was opened. I wasn't sure about that, because they also updated a map that said most of the airports in Italy are closed. But I'll find out.

Well, I have an art history exam tomorrow. Not too concerned. Did the reading, now I just have to memorize some dates. I think Kevin and I are going to watch the final episode of Dexter, Season 2 with our tacos tonight instead of watching a movie, because of the exam tomorrow.

Il martedi

Ahh, I want to update, but I'm thinking in Italian because I have to give an oral exam soon. I'm going to be talking about cooking here. "è una spatola. Ho portrato esso perche cucio spesso in la apartamenta mia. ....." and on.

A brief update, then??
Il venerdi scorso, il mio amico Nemo e io, abbiamo preso una clase de cucina. Ho pensato la classe è stata in italiano. è stato aventuroso! Ma, sono state due studentesse non hanno parlato in italiano, cosi il capocuoco Ricardo ho insegnato in inglese."

Lol, I really don't have time for this update, I'm sorry. That says, Last Friday my friend Nemo and I took a cooking class. I thought it was in Italian. It was very exciting! But, there were two other (female) students who don't speak Italian, so the chef, Ricardo,taught in English.
So sad, my class was in English! I'll update later. Lots has happened.

Ciao ragazzi!