Bruschetta (pronounced Bruce-kehttah)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

I woke up to a cloudy sky and wet ground. It was raining again. I had set my alarm for eight am, but found it particularly difficult to rise that early with no class ahead of me today. I rolled out of my lovely warm mess of covers and stretched out my sore body. There is most certainly something to be said for walking everywhere with a heavy bookbag slung over your shoulders.

I washed up and readied myself for the day, taking care to strategically aim the showerhead so that the bathroom wouldn’t flood. Showers in Firenze, from what I have experienced, are all very shallow. The reservoir in which one stands to wash is at most two inches deep, and the showers themselves at most 3x3feet. With such a little amount of workspace it is very difficult to keep all of the water inside of the darn things. The first week that my roommates and I lived here in Firenze our bathroom was flooded almost every night.

I met Jaimee at noon at Student Point to apply for our Permit to Stay. I got there early and did my thing and then went on the internet to wait for her. When she had gotten her paperwork done, we both went to talk to my advisor, Elena, about where we should buy our tickets to Rome. We knew that we should probably get them at the train station so our credit cards wouldn’t accidentally be charged extra online, and so that we wouldn’t have to worry about finding a printer to print our ticket, but we weren’t sure as to where that station was. She showed pointed out the largest building on my map of Firenze, and we both, Jaimee and I, felt slightly silly.

Since I was there I also inquired as to whether or not I had been granted permission to switch out of Philosophy of Magic and into an Italian Foods class. Elena’s face lit up as she told me excitedly that she had just gotten my paperwork from the office and that the transfer did go through. Luckily there had been space enough for me to switch into a Foods class. No more Philosophy of Magic! I could have danced.

But instead I went with Jaimee and Nick, whom we met up with in the street, to buy a new straightener.

Later on that day we had all made plans to meet up for a free wine tasting that Courtney had found out about from one of her teachers. However, Nick wound up, when trying to reserve a train ticket, getting lost…and he has refused to buy a cell phone. Sigh. Needless to say, he was not at his apartment when Jaimee, Court and I went to get him, so Noah and Steven, his two roommates, joined us for free wine and bruschetta instead. Jennifer met us at the wine tasting place also. We sat for a good hour and a half just getting to know each other better. I learned that Bruschetta is actually said wrong by Americans. It is properly pronounced Bruce-kettah. Then we all went for gelato, which was – as always – delicious.

Afterwards we decided to go to the guys’ apartment to play Catchphrase and drink wine. I have never had more fun playing a game than that night. The majority of the time was spent by Nick trying to win and getting angry when he didn’t. Steven, on the other hand, was new to the game and it showed. Every time he got a turn he would start off by telling a story to give clues to his word, but all of the stories mysteriously began with a guy at a bar with a girl. Once, when he had the word ‘surprised’ he tried to get his teammates to guess it by saying ‘So…you’re at a bar with a girl, and you leave, and then you go to turn a corner and a guy jumps out and you __*wild gesture*__.’ Nobody got it. So then he tried ‘so you come out of a SUPERmarket and someone jumps at you and you get __*another wild gesture*__.’ HILARIOUS.

 By the end Steve really did improve a lot, though, whether as a result of the wine or as a result of practice, we’ll never know. Nick just got more and more drunk and therefore more and more competitive, neither of which go well with losing almost every game! The guys finally conceded that they would not win against the girls and we all decided to go for pizza. Our friend Kat met us there. Courtney and I walked home afterwards to pack for the next morning – and Roma.