Forza Viola!

Truly, I was born to be a Fiorentina fan. Look at how dazzlingly purple their uniforms are.

For those not in the know, La Fiorentina is Florence's series A soccer team. Last night, they battled against AC Milan, whose team boasts notorious soccer divos (the masculine form of diva, just fyi) David Beckham (as in Bend it Like Beckham my peeps! I honestly don't know if I would know who he was were it not for that delightful flick, and the fact that he married Posh Spice) and Brazil's own Ronaldinho (I think I heard of him because his name was tossed around a lot during the World Cup). In the face of such formidable competition Fiorentina held its own, scoring its first goal before I even managed to make it through the gate (the bus from my house to the stadium took an hour and a half; I could have walked in half the time). However, Milan scored a goal fifteen minutes before the game was up and then scored ANOTHER about two minutes before the clock ran out. 2-1 for Milan. Despite the soccer royalty gracing Milan, I cheered passionately for my local boys, and shouted "Dai!" with the rest of the crowd as our chances of being declared victors dissipated.

I hear they are playing Juventus on March 6th, and I may have to see if Rosalinda is willing to go to another game with me!

I felt particularly young because when I bought my ticket I qualified for a "ridotto giovani" a "youth discount." You only have to be under 23 to qualify for it, but it filled me with youthful vigor. Which is good, since I keep deluding myself into thinking that 21.5 is old.

Things I've learned from "Felicity"

So, when I found out I'd been admitted to NYU, discussion of this college drama happened to come up a time or two. The series ran between 1998 and 2002, while I was 5th-8th grade. I remember that my mom watched it; I can't remember if she was a real devotee, but I do remember her pointing out to me that one of Felicity's friends is the pink power ranger, with whom I was mildly obsessed, back when the power rangers were cool.

Well, last summer I started watching Felicity and the snobby parts of me criticized its melodrama, but the guilty-indulgence side of me kept watching. I also started thinking that watching Felicity could help me solve my real-life problems. For example, how Felicity is going to finance her education in the city is a recurring issue in the first few episodes. I watched and listened intently hoping that the ten-year old T.V. show would enlighten me on how to avoid student debt. It didn't. Her parents choose to support her decision to attend such a high-priced institution and foot her tuition bill.

Anyway, when I don't feel compelled to do homework, which is all-too-often, I entertain myself with Felicity, and right now she is in her last semester and realizes all her education (and the dollars she, or rather, her parents, spent obtaining it) hasn't really provided her with a life map. She seems to have no definite future outside of college, and the "real" real world beckons. So, I've felt sort of a kinship with this fictional Felicity Porter.

I still don't know how the series ends yet, but despite that the show is pretty trite and that a lot of the drama hinges on love triangles and unwanted pregnancies, I feel that I have gleaned some insights.

#1) So, the 'tagline' of the show is "She went to college to find love* and instead found herself." Cheesy to the extreme. But I think if I had a tagline for my college drama it would be, "She went to college so she could prove that she was doing something with her life but instead realized that she needed to find herself." Maybe college, and the other crazy situations we put ourselves in as we try to race down the fast-track to success aren't always about how many marketable skills we obtain, but how we get to know ourselves. I guess that any college freshman learns this, but I feel that I am learning it with a new profundity.

#2) The show is a self-titled "college drama" but I swear those kids hardly ever do homework. Sometimes they complain about homework and sometimes they get bad grades, but it's not really about school. I think I know why this is: school is not the most important thing in life (also it wouldn't be the most interesting thing to portray on television, and ratings mater...). The relationships we have with other people will matter a lot more than whether we got an A in organic chemistry (even though Ben did) and will also bring us a lot more personal fulfillment.

#3) Student debt is burdensome and horrible, but if you are becoming the person you want to be it is worth it. Although some routes to self-fulfillment are cheaper than others, but could you ever imagine taking back the experiences you are having in the place you are?

So, I suppose if I meditated on this more, I could come up with more life lessons, but three is enough for one sitting.

*She drastically changed her college plans after this boy she'd loved from afar happened to write the most perfect thing in her yearbook.

So, the 411 on Roni

Well, I thought I would just publicly announce that I failed my exam in letteratura italiana moderna e contemporanea; I should have known that with such a long course title it was going to be difficult. And it might be a misnomer to say I "failed" the professore didn't even deign to fail me (or my 4 cohorts with whom I took the class). A typical oral exam (didn't mention this--almost all Italian university exams are oral) lasts, oh, maybe 15 to thirty minutes. We we're all kicked out after 5-8 minutes. The thing is, all of us studied pretty hard.

But, the silver lining.

The Italian university system is much different from the American one. A lot of students don't even attend class. They are called nonfrequentati and they just study the materials then take the exam with the professor, if they fail or get a subpar grade they just retake the exam on the next testing date. There is absolutely no limit to how many times you can take an exam. Hypothetically, I could retake this exam I failed 5 years from now (perhaps, I would be able to dazzle the professor by then). I think that this system probably makes the professors have pretty high standards. An F is not the end, just the beginning of improvement, which though I am frustrated da morire by my failure, sounds like a good attitude to have.

Anyway, as a consolation me and my fellow flunkies went out to this fab-o ristorante called Aqua al Due, with a location in Florence, and one in San Diego, incidentally. They have this steak in blueblerry sauce, which is a suprisingly delicious flavor combination.

Tasting the world's most delicious drink was not even the best part of my day

So, there's this artisan chocolatier festival going on in in Piazza Santa Croce, so my cohorts and I took a break from studying the poets of the novecento to check it out.

And that's when my sense of taste fulfilled its destiny.

I had a cup of hot chocolate, but let me tell you now, ciocolato caldo is not chocolate flavored water (although, I really do like Stephen's mint truffle water flavoring). It is like drinking a cup of warm melted chocolate. I had a cup of a hot white chocolate (even though I'm a little bit anal about the term white chocolate. There is no cocoa in white chocolate and therefore it cannot be classified as chocolate; it's just a bar of hardened and flavored sugar that melts deliciously in your mouth.) This ambrosial drink was not just artisan white chocolate (I cringe at the terminology, again), it was enhanced with traces of ginger, cinnamon and (wait for it...) pepperoncino (basically, the little dried red pepper flakes that some people--like me--enjoy putting on pizza). Oh, and it was topped off with a hearty helping of panna, a.k.a. wonderfully creamy whipped cream.

But, get this, that wasn't the best part of my day.

So I volunteer at a sort of women's shelter operated by the diocese of Florence. I usually keep an eye on the kids while the moms are at work or about their daily tasks. Sometimes I help cook lunch or tidy up, but usually I'm with the kids. I love kids, and I usually have a fairly decent relationship with youngsters, but I don't always make fast friends of them. Sometimes I over think kid-dom. I don't want to talk to them in baby talk and offend their intellect (I hated being treated like a baby when I was a kid. Around the age of 10 or so, I would seethe inside when I was handed a kid's menu at a restuarant), but I don't want to engage in a discussion about the principles of nihilism, which would probably be over their heads, and a little heavy. Plus here, I can't always say all the things I want to say to then because I am mutilating the language of the fine country of Italy.

But anyway, today I spent most of my time playing with Michele and Sunray, and when you get into playtime, you forget all your worries about how to interact with little ones. But playing with Michele and Sunray meant I spent considerable time attempting to discipline. Here's some vocab:

Fermatevi!................Stop it you guys!
Basta!.......................Enough!
Cosa stai facendo?!..What are you doing?
Non buttare!.............Don't throw [things]!
Non mordere!...........Don't bite!

Yeah, you get the gist. But so it is with 3-year-old boys. But anyway, the good part--the best part of my day-- is that as I was leaving, they said "Vieni" (Come here) and insisted on giving me kisses good-bye, the good ol wet ones that little kids give leaving a residue of saliva on your cheek.

It was just really sweet.

Dream Car

Okay, so I am not typically one to use slang terminology that relates to prostitution, but in my searching to find the appropriate adjective to describe my feelings about this vehicle, the only one that comes to mind is pimpin' (Although, one would have to be a pretty flamboyant pimp to cruise around in this pale pink beauty. I'm not sure if you can tell that it is pink from the photos (I apologize for my shoddy camera work), but it is this really pretty shade.)

I saw this in a car show in the Piazza della Repubblica back in December, and just stumbled across the shots going through my files. I also took a picture of the tiniest car I had ever seen, but there isn't anybody standing by it so you can't really gauge how small it is from the snapshot.

But the pink baby is my new dream car (usurping the position of a Jeep Wrangler (from 2-12 I lived in the 90's so it was only natural that my car tastes reflect those of the characters in Clueless). Curse that it probably gets 5 miles to the gallon, and probably costs somewhere in the six-digit range. Guess, I'll just settle for a Geo Metro when I can afford to buy a car.

Mastering the Art of the Scarf

So, here in Italy, scarves aren't just a fashion statement, they're a necessity. Everyone wears them men, women, children, dogs. I felt distinctly un-Italian not tying a piece of fabric around my neck. So, I've started to get into the habit wearing the adorable scarf pictured above. Initially, I wasn't sure exactly how to wear the thing, and I toyed with tying it around my whole head which resulting in me looking like a Russian grandma (though, a stylish Russian grandma nonetheless.)

But anyway, it turns out scarves are insanely functional. I stay so much warmer with this baby around my neck, although I still don't really know how to make it look exceptionally cute.