... please, please, do as the Florentines do. And I try my damndest, and have a marvelous time. I rolled out with the study abroad gang tonight and it's tried and true that knowing the language is elemental to a good time in a foreign country. Hey, I can order drinks for the gang and be a matchmaker; I can be the only Chinese girl fluent in Italian who doesn't live in Prato making purses. "Ma tutti loro a Prato fanno le borse, ed io sono diversa!" Plus, I offer the slant on American life. It's good to play ambassador, but you cannot find a more biased source, a girl who was raised on daddy's hard work, credit cards, and 80% educated by cable television. I tell them we have wide roads and excellent programming on television, but assuage them that Florence has much more to look at, which is neither hard to believe nor easy to refute.
I made a new buddy, who I had never met but had gone to my school the whole year. We went to Austin's part of town and I was delighted to be introduced to the first full-fledged supermarket I encountered in the city. I was thrilled at the prospect of buying pancetta, bresaola, vino da tavola, and toilet paper. I could get some of these things at the local markets, but my American tutelage has bred a preferred comfort in purchasing from institutionalized settings. We have to pass wild dogs and Italian bums en route to Austin's pad, but boy is it fuzzy fantabulous, and boy do I get jealous and bitter. He has his own large bedroom with large plush bed, living room with two couches (one of which is a sofa bed), large corridor lined with bookshelves, terrazza with patio furniture, and large kitchen, fully stocked, with a large wooden table. He had his study materials haphazardly spread out on the table but we only glanced at it, so remote is the prospect of studying. Tomorrow we will invite people over and cook up an Italian storm, courtesy of yours truly.
At the pubs tonight - the William Tell and then the Salamanca - I used as much Italian as I had ever learned and had long discussions about politics, ethics, customs, society at large. Nobody is a stranger to what kind of polemic I become when I'm good and plastered.
Oh yeah, today was also the first day of class. International Negotiations was like the first day of third grade as we went around the class introducing ourselves and our interests. International Intellectual Property was much better, though the Italian professor's accent was so thick the class would have fared better had he spoke his native tongue, and I was seated between two girls that desperately needed showers, which I suppose only authenticated the European experience for me.
Projects in progress: I have already located the two or three styles of Gucci sunglasses I want and now am just doing price comparisons all over town. There are a few Prada styles I think my sister would like, plus I am still considering some black leather Prada Mary Janes that I know both Vicky and I would give our first borns for.
60 pages of reading for tomorrow's lecture. Yeah, right.
posted by Lucy Sloan @ 6:37 PM
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