Let us begin with last weekend. As may have been previously mentioned, my roommates Caitlin and Becky went out of town for the weekend, leaving me and Micki (and Katherine) to our own devices. This mostly entailed significant lounging, punctuated by occasional eating. In case any doubts persisted, these are absolutely my two greatest skills (napping is my third). As such, I was in my element, and had a quiet Friday night. Saturday was a very productive day, since I both went to the gym and went shopping for a dinner party (ish) that we were to host that night. Micki and Katherine, having made Italian friends last semester, invited some of them over for dinner at our house so that we could practice cooking the meals M&K had just learned in their cuisine class (I'm not in it, but I still reap the benefits for the most part). We told them to come over at 8:30 or 9, assuming dinner would be fully ready within half an hour of their arrival. Half an hour turned into 45 minutes, which turned into an hour.... Basically, we sat down to dinner at 11 p.m. (I am quite sure that this is because we are so well-adapted to the European lifestyle, and not because I "cooked" the pasta sauce for half an hour before realizing that I had forgotten to turn on the burner-- these are just things that happen when you are a virtuoso chef, you are so busy composing brilliant recipes that you can't be bothered with the tedium of such pedestrian activities as stove-lighting). The menu for the night was gnocchi with fontina cheese, pasta with sausage and homemade sauce, salad with chicken, garlic bread, and a chocolate biscuit/pie thing for dessert. Also, wine. We tried quite hard, and results were mostly successful, I think. Although one of the Italians, whose English is minimal, communicated his thoughts to other Italian in their native tongue: "Un po' salato. Troppo alio." After I made it known that I understood he thought the food a bit salty and too garlicky (he was right about that, there was garlic EVERYWHERE, like I'm surprised we didn't use every garlic clove in Torino), there ensued a lively debate over whether or not the food was nevertheless very tasty (IT WAS). Overall, it was a very good night. Also, I'm glad I'm getting to practice my Italian somewhere other than the grocery store.... I'm learning lots of slang as a result, like "sborrare." Maybe Google can translate it for you, because I'm not going to. I don't actually know if it's a dirty word or just a slangy term, but in any event, it's another Italian word that I know, so SCORE.
The next day was almost entirely devoted to doing the dishes from the night before, which was speedily accomplished by probably 5 p.m. Pretty sure that one event of the day was bookended by further lounging. Er, and I watched The Lovely Bones. Having recently reread the novel, I found the movie subpar at best. Sorry, Peter Jackson. (Also, why was Mark Wahlberg playing the dad instead of Mark Ruffalo or maybe uh anyone else?) The next day, Monday, Caitlin and Becky returned. Almost immediately upon arriving home, Becky got quite sick and by the end of the night ended up in the hospital, where she spent the night, with some sort of stomach flu, as it turned out. She's better now, and luckily Daniele was on hand to help get her to the hospital and communicate with doctors, etc. Then, Tuesday was the ORANGE-THROWING BATTLE. I don't know why I insist on capitalizing the phrase every time i type it, but I think in my mind block letters portend greatness, which pretty adequately describes Ivrea. [This is where I'm going to insert the link to my next article when it prints on Tuesday, since it is 700 words of complete thoughts on Ivrea and was far too much effort (I mean, far too sacred) to devote more time to restating everything again. So uh, come back to this paragraph on Tuesday for aforementioned link. Or I'll make it a separate post, who knows, I am so spontaneous.]
Wednesday! Back to school after a strenuous and intellectually charged five-day weekend. Had my first midterm, in International Affairs! I spent the night before actually reading assigned pages for once, and learned quite a bit about the Cold War (although apparently not enough to know that Stalin's condition for reunifying Germany post-WWII was that it be neutral, and not, as I put on my exam, that it become communist...). Also spent the next morning studying, and as a result, I feel reasonably confident about how I did, although having made a bet with a friend that I would get a higher grade, I am rather hoping that I actually got an A (also, I will absolutely die if I don't get an A in this class). After that, I bummed around school for about a million hours until my last Composition I class :( This was a depressing day, since I found out that it would be my last time being taught by the Comp I professor, who I quite liked, as we're getting a new professor for Comp II. Anyway, I didn't have to take the final since I'm taking the class pass/fail, and now I don't have Italian again until March 3. Then on Thursday, I only had one class... Then it was the weekend again. I know, my life is SO HARD.
I must now take a short interlude to recount my non-shopping non-adventures. On Tuesday, I ran out of sensible food to eat. On Wednesday, I didn't get out of class until after the grocery store closed. On Thursday, I am a bum and don't do anything with my life. On Friday, ...I can't even remember Friday as having existed. It took me until Saturday evening to go shopping, meaning I subsisted for almost a week on stale sandwiches and a bit of sausage that I desperately bought on Thursday. This probably makes me a champ, if we think about it. It also makes me a super saver. However, I overcompensated when I finally did go shopping, and now I have quite an abundance of food, most of which will probably go off before I get a chance to eat it, since Italians are fundamentally opposed to preservatives (which, despite the inconvenience, I'm basically cool with, since I don't like being a chemical-addled mutant).
Okay, back to Thursday night, went out again, this time to a place called Big, which I think mostly refers to the giant space left in your wallet after you go and spend all your money there. It was pretty good fun, although one of the girls broke her heel (which, by the way, I've never seen happen in real life before) and had to walk around the gross/wet club floor in just her tights, saaaad day. But we got driven home again, thank God. Friday, as noted, is nonexistent in my mind. Guess I didn't do anything? OHH. I went and worked at my internship! See, being studious and industrious comes so naturally to me that I don't even remember having done it, even when I found a new bus route that drops me off directly in front of the building, which is basically miraculous and makes me much more inclined to go in and work. So I guess that's what I did. Still didn't do anything noteworthy at night...maybe..who knows anymore.
And then Saturday! Began the day by going to the open market with Allison, which from what I've heard is the largest one in Europe (good job, Torino). I suppose the big news that I am most excited about in this entire post is that I GOT BOOTS! They are shoes. That fit me. And are also black and vaguely leathery. They cost 10 euros. Mostly wooooooo sums up how I feel about this. I also bought a dress, a belt, grapes and potatoes. I am a woman of the world. Following this, came back home with Allison to struggle (and ultimately fail) to make travel plans. Pretty sure I'm one of the only USAC people who hasn't already left the country, don't really know why. I'm not really mad about it, though, because I've already been to a lot of the places that people are going. It's a little rough because I'm trying to only go to places I've never been before, but people are less inclined to go to weirder places before they hit up the big ones, which leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I really wish I could travel alone safely, but I fear this is not possible, unfortunately. Anyway, I'll figure it out. After that, went to the gym again and then went grocery shopping, which uneventful except for the fact that the lines were SO SO SO long, since it was Saturday night and grocery stores aren't open on Sunday, so the lines were doubly long to make up for this abomination. Also, a man asked to cut in front of us even though he had even more stuff than we did, just because he didn't feel like waiting in line. No, man. Came back and got ready to go over to some girls' apartment, where the Italians from last weekend were making us dinner so as to return the favor. Drank some wine (too much wine) and ate red wine risotto, homemade lasagna, tomato/mozzarella/basil, and American cookies! All was very tasty (too tasty?) and I ate more than I perhaps should have. Saturday turned out to be a rather excessive night, but good fun nevertheless. Got a bit sick at the end of the night, but by some miracle was fine when I woke up. Woke up today, cleaned the entire apartment for the first time since arriving, was cleaning for quite a long time actually...it pains me to think about it. But I am no longer living in filth. Was unfortunately overzealous in doing laundry and washed my bedspread...no dryer...bedspread still wet. About to go to sleep on a fitted sheet and nothing else. Also, obviously getting tired since I seem to be writing in sentence fragments. Cool. Skyped with Mum before she and Tom left to Mexico for the week (I am so damn jealous of my brother, who gets the entire house + car to himself for the next eight days. WHY did this never happen for me when I was a senior in high school). Bummed around the rest of the day/night. So, I guess that's about it. This post is molto speciale (more fancy Italian, I know), photos are included! Can't even form an interesting ending. Good night to all, and also buona notte. xx
This is Ivrea, if you couldn't tell.
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