Harry Potter and The Lion King seem to be recurring themes in my life.

OMG it has been 15 days since my last blog post. I fail! But so much is going on! Also, I was discouraged my lack of comments, so I decided to punish the 3 of you that follow this blog by not posting. HA! GOTCHA!

Kay anyway, moving away from that bout of egoism to talking some more about myself, this is what has been going on. (I realize I said I'd dedicate this post to food, but fuck that, I'll talk about food later). I write to you now in bed, fresh out of the shower, with toothpaste on my face in the hopes that it will demolish the zit that is rudely forming on my chin. Basically, I look awesome.

I have been having a blast here in Firenze. I'm all about making friends with the locals and, my favorite part, flirting it up and getting free shit. I now understand what it means to be "having fun" as a single girl abroad! It does not mean contracting a plethora of venereal diseases, as I had once thought. Whoops.

Last night was our Big Night Out, so all of my friends and I went out in a large group to a bar called Rex Cafe. It is super cute, with a Gaudi-like interior and a crowd comprised of mostly, if not all, locals. There, I met Juan, my new Gay BFF from Costa Rica. He is traveling around Europe alone because his friends and boyfriend didn't want to cough up the dough, and he is Florence until tomorrow (slash today) noon. Juan began as my own selfish outlet for Spanish practice, but ended up a fabulous addition to our group. At Rex Cafe, we also met this creepy 35-year-old Tommy-Lee-look-a-like. OMG so many hyphens in that sentence right there. Anywho, he was gross. Also, my friend Humai was grabbed, kissed, and then ass-groped by this horrifying sneak-creep sitting in a corner near the bathroom. We decided it was then time to leave, and I made sure to stop in front of the sneak-creep, stare at him angrily for a good 10 seconds and then flick him off.

Then we (me, Alex, Sophie, Shelly, Jenny, Joci, Kim, Humai, Ryanne, and now Juan) decided to head to Amodeus, our new favorite bar a little further south. It was a great time, as always, because the creepy owner gives us free shots and the Senegalese bouncers are in love with Ryanne and call her Mother Africa (wtf? compliment? yes? we think? still weird..?). A new Senegalese man seemed to want to make me his bride also. COOL. Additionally ran into the Albanian guy I met there the last time who bought me drinks, but I was too obsessed with this Italian boy I had just met to pay him any attention. OMG guys, this Italian boy. I love him. His name is Karem and I woke up this morning to find his number in my purse on a napkin. Only then did I recall our conversation...

(Us for 10 minutes: flirtflirttalktalkflirtflirtyay)

Him: I have a girlfriend.

Me: That sucks.

Him: blahblahblah flirtflirtflirt

Me: flirtflirtflirt...we should hang out..

Him: I have a girlfriend.

Me: Right. That sucks. But..we can still be friends right?

Him: Yup. Yup! Here's my number!

Me: Right...but you have a girlfriend. But it's okay, you can still show me around the city?

Him: Yeah! Oh by the way, here's my friend--he wants to meet you and your friends.

Enter short, fat friend.

Anyway, Karem is beautiful and tall and has a lip piercing (yes please!) and also, if you guys didn't hear, has a girlfriend. Fuck my life. Oh well, I don't think I'm going to call him...though I do love him. I'm always afraid that when guys give me their number, they are wasted and if I call them and they see me in person again they will be like "WTF who are you and why did I give you my number?!" Ergo, I don't call back. Ever. Ever. Evereverever. But oh Karem, you should break up with your girlfriend. And ditch the obnoxious small fat friend.

So yeah, that was last night. It is almost 2 am here and though there is so much more I'd love to blog about (homemade risotto, chocolate mousse gelato, my British boyfriend-for-a-day, the gay bar, Siena, etc. etc.) alas that will all have to wait. I have to wake up at 6:30 t0 catch a train to Cinque Terre. I'll be there till Sunday, so I'll blog when I return.

A presto!

Nami

P.S.

Mi dispiace amici, ma non ho photos for this entry! Next post will be photo-obese, promise!

Economic recession and emotional regression

I've never lost a phone in my life. I've almost lost a phone before, sure, but never lost one. No matter how wasted, how confused, how spastic, I always remember my shit. Wallet? Check. Lighter? Check. Camera? Check. Phone? Checkcheckcheck. But somehow, after a little over one week in Italy, I manage to lose my phone on our first real night out on the town. I wasn't even drunk! It literally must have fallen out of my pocket.

This mostly sucks because technology is mad expensive here, and my phone was a rental. So I guess that's Euro 98 down the drain. I hate myself right now.

Otherwise, it was an interesting night. We went to this club called Twice, a schmancy/borderline-tacky looking joint made of some black-sparkling rock on the outside. It's kind of like being in the cave of a well-to-do neanderthal. Around midnight, Andrea the Panino-boy and his friend Lorenzo met up with us--some of us literally jumped from our streets to go meet him. No, we are not pathetic.

Sophie and Humai

Anywho, he's not just about delicious Italian sandwiches and good looks (though I'm willing to bet heavily on those two). Andrea is also studying psychology; Lorenzo, law. We hung out and danced with them at Twice and after a while, most of our friends had gone home since they had class in the morning. I found myself with Andrea, Lorenzo, Sophie my roommate, and Joci, girl in the NYU program from Duke. We decide to leave the club, at which point I realize I have lost my phone. I'm frantic, but honestly too exhausted of the crazy busy crowd inside that I decide I don't care and I'll come back the next day to look for it.

Humai and I

Not tired, we start walking towards a cigarette machine (you heard right) for Andrea. Then we are lead to a park, which I hear is beautiful in the daytime but looks a lot like Wash. Square pre-facelift at night (read: stab-tacular). Apparently, it's time to smoke some hash. During this entire time, I've realized that although these boys are nice, I am just not interested and frankly, really bored. Sophie and Joci reach the same conclusion so we make up an excuse to leave the park and let Andrea and Lorenzo smoke their hash in peace.

Alex and I

We saw Andrea today at the panini-place, Antico Noe (we go because it's arguably the best panini joint in Florence! not because of the cute waiter anymore), and it wasn't terribly awkward. There was the same morning-after dread but without the needed night-before hookup, if that makes any sense. Either way, I'm sure we'll hang out with Andrea and Lorenzo (who was also very cute) soon again, but I don't see anything going on there.

A few nights before, on the way to a bar on Wednesday, we were walking towards the Piazza di Santa Croce and who do we see other than banana pants! In a black Mercedes convertible, with his hair looking impressively more tame than I had last remembered. Wednesday nights are the big party nights at Central Park and that's where Stefano was headed; were we too? he asked. I told him no, we had class the next day but I'd e-mail him, which I did later that night. He was going to try and stop by Twice last night, but didn't make it--alas. My friends think he's cute, but all I see is Ali G + Cosmo Kramer. With a Mercedes convertible.

Tomorrow we are going on an NYU sponsored trip to Siena, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in Tuscany. I'm going to try to get to sleep, but it may be hard seeing as how the enormous throng of American students at Lion's Fountain across the street don't seem to be planning on quieting down anytime soon. Who can blame them for having a good time on venerdi, though?

Also I've decided on making some of these posts thematic, just for organizational purposes. As such, the next post will be about two of the things I love the most about this city: food and wine. It'll be just like the magazine, but way classier.

P.S. For more thorough accounts of life here, check out my roommate Sophie's blog--she's much better about updating daily than I am and she gets in all of the little deets I leave out.

Stupid NYU Scare Tactics

Because of the thousands of e-mails and briefings we've gotten on swine flu, my developing sore throat and runny nose is making me stupidly nervous. NYU wants you to think you are going to die if you have the sniffles and that you will get murdered if you walk home alone at night. Thank god life is so much safer in New York! Wait, what?!

Anyway, some stuff to catch up on. Let's see...oh, although I know I previously said otherwise, I've already begun to frequent Lion's Fountain. Okay, no, lies. I've been twice...but damn, drinks are horrifically overpriced. Beer for 6 Euro? That's $9--more outrageous than New York! But I mean, that's the price you have to pay for such a quality establishment--the kind where you don't have to worry about being left alone by creepy Italian men who are socially inept. No, at Lion's Fountain, you get your $9 worth of creepdom. Better call it the Lion's Den.

Beer on the street? Yes, please!

Last Friday, a large group of us went in search of this club called Central Park. After getting lost multiple times (Italians give you fake directions all the time when they don't know where something is--why!?), we found it but our group of originally 8 had dwindled down to 3. I of course did not admit defeat. Why give up when you can reward your hard work with alcohol and crazy dancing? Anyway, the club was ridic huge and full of basically American students and Italian creeps. You know how in New York, or I guess anywhere in the States, sometimes a guy will awkwardly latch on to a group of girls dancing in circular formation and do the sneaky-grind? This is like that, x1000 and the grind is not so sneaky. They will grope the shit out of you, but that's why god gave us boney elbows I guess.

Borgo degli Albizi, my street

The night itself was absurd. I went there with these two girls Humai and Kim, both of whom are absolutely gorgeous. Humai gets super wasted, Kim wants water, I go with Kim for water, we can't find Humai, Kim starts crying, and I realize that I'm super wasted. BUT then I get into the zone where I start telling myself, "OKAY NAMI. SHIT IS GOING DOWN. YOU'RE WASTED. GET YOURSELF TOGETHER." Works like a charm. We find a belligerent Humai, pay to leave, Kim loses her ticket during the 1 minute walk from the register to the exit and starts crying again (what the fuck?), but eventually, we escape. We had met up with a rather large group of Indians at the club, all of whom are in the same NYU program and they were planning on leaving too. I remember drunkenly finding out some guy was Gujarati and getting way too excited about it and probably seeming a freak. Good thing I don't subscribe to drunken shame!

Me and Anwar, the Indian man who runs an Indian jewelery stand in the Mercato Centrale and gives me "Special Indian Price" which means dirt cheap + free shit. I love being Indian.

The Indians all live in the same building, which is close to me but when I ask if I can take the taxi with them they tell me it is full. SO I walk back with Humai and Kim, who live about a 15 minute walk away from me. I get them home and then have to walk home alone at 3 am. Why does this always happen to me? Thankfully, since I had pulled myself together and was hyper-aware of my drunken state, I remained alert and assured myself I'd be fine because 1) I could stab someone with my keys and 2) I knew how to say "FUCK YOU GO AWAY" in Italian. Vaffanculo, vai via! Also I called Mary and got to talk to her, which was nice.

On another note, I've been consistently proving to myself here that Nami + alcohol + technology = disaster. I've said it before--technology is a privilege, not a right. Clearly haven't earned that yet. Fuck.

I got home at 3:30 and didn't sleep till 4, yet woke up the next morning at 9 am to meet Alex and her family to go to the beach. We took the 1.5 hour train to Viareggio, a little town on the Adriatic Sea. You have to rent out umbrellas and chairs, which is stupid but the beach was so wonderful and relaxing. It was great to get out of Florence for a day and just lounge around. Plus I go to wear my overpriced, accidentally purchased J.Lo bikini.

Walking to the beach in Viareggio

J. Lo, without the lovely lady lumps

We had gone far into the ocean on a sandbar when Alex screams as a huge wave came towards us. People start looking around, confused and concerned, and she starts babbling on about some animal in the water. We then had to escort her out but later saw that she was right, and a huge ass jellyfish washed up that had almost hit us smack in the face. Thing was huge.

Enormous

Granite di pompelmo, grapefruit ice made with fresh juice and had bits of pulp in it--yummm

We got back into Florence that night and went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant--you know, to try and switch things up. Never get Mexican food in Florence. Maybe even in Italy, who knows. In the words of Charles Barkley, it was trbl trbl trbl. Gnarls Barkley even, because that shit was crazy. I miss Mexican food, y'all! It's okay, apparently they sell cheddar in the market and so I'm going to try and see if I can get the ingredients to put together some sort of makeshift Mexican feast. Wish me luck!

Also have found 3 Indian restaurants, which I will check out soon I'm sure. For the time being though, I'm loving Italian food and have been eating so much gelato it is obscene. We went across the Ponte Vecchio last night and got quite possibly the best gelato in the world. I know everyone who comes to Italy raves about "the best gelato place in the world" and that I haven't even been here long to really know, but we got directed towards this place by locals and I swear, I felt like I was enjoying the ambrosia of the gods. I got una coppeta con yogurt&nutella flavored gelato and dark chocolate gelato. Really though, guys. This is probably what cherubin shit tastes like or something--un-freaking-believable.

Artichoke pizza and prosecco at the cafe beneath Alex's apartment

I was going to write about classes, but I don't really feel like it. Eh, it's good so far. Italian is so similar to Spanish that I am terribly bored in my elementary language class and translate everything the professoressa is saying for other students, but recognize that I can't realistically transfer into intermediate because although I can understand Italian relatively well, I still don't know how to speak it. So frustrating! But I'm trying everywhere I can. For example, I spoke with Fernando, the Sri Lankan (holla at Suri--he's from close to Colombo!) barista at NYU's campus cafe, in Italian. Then tonight I spoke to the man who works at the wine bar across the street. And of course, the highlight of my day, attempting to flirt with the beautiful 21-year-old Italian boy who works at the panini joint across the street. Andrea...oh Andrea....we love him. I love him. He has classic Italian good looks--dark hair, tan skin and bright green eyes. Plus he's adorable. Did I mention he is fucking hot? And the panino I got was crazy good and molto economico, so I have a legit reason to stop by almost everyday right? I'm a creeper, I get it.

Where I catch the 25 Bus to campus, the Piazza di San Marco

Il Battistero di San Giovanni in front of il Duomo

Alright sleep soon. My shoulder and back are killing me at the moment, I think because of the 4 hour art class I have on Mondays where I must sit on a wooden slat stool with no backing and draw for 4 hours straight. Plus the art studio has no air conditioning and is infested with mosquitoes. Plus we were working with charcoal so my hands were completely black and I had 30280 itches I couldn't touch. Plus flies kept zooming around my face. Plus my Professor is super critical. So much for my slack class!

Long post, lots of pictures but that's okay right? I'm gonna set my computer aside so it can take an epic hour to upload 5 pictures. Yay.

Buona notte,
Nami