Dinners with G.

It’s 8pm on a Friday night; dinner has been served.

I am famished. My eyes light up at the sight of bowls and plates stacked on top of one another in the dining room. Excitement. This means we are having three courses.I feel like a little kid again – when you used to wait hours and hours for food to be prepared. My diligence has been honed.  Tonight’s meal: risotto with artichokes and leeks. Marinated chicken with arugula. Homemade jam and cookies. And a smörgåsbord of fruits huddled in a big, colorful bowl.

My mouth is salivating and I can’t hide the excitement on my face. Pure joy. “Start eating ragazze, start! It’ll get cold,” Grazia says to my roommate Erika and me. Before we begin, Grazia looks at me and waits. “Photo, Angela?” It’s become a ritual now. In the beginning, she thought it strange. But now, she expects it. I take out my camera and start snapping. “Oh, you are too funny Angela, you must remember everything you eat!” I smile. Yes I do. I must remember. In less than two months, I will never taste these foods again and I will yearn for them. I know I will. Every time I walk into an Italian restaurant, I will think of Grazia’s pesto pasta, her minestrone soups, her perfectly seasoned and steamed vegetables. I take a bite. Heaven. Absolute heaven. I always tell myself to start off slow. To enjoy every bite. To remember the texture, the taste, the smell. But it’s good. So good. Grazia wouldn’t want this to get cold. So I slovenly devour whatever’s left on my plate. I abandon the utensils and use my hands. I am an animal. But the Italians don’t mind. They like animals at the dinner table. It shows a primal dedication and love for food. I am satisfied. Too satisfied.

Plate by plate and an hour or so later, dinner is finished. I can’t move. But it is a good kind of immobility. The kind where you are so happy with what you’ve eaten, you just smile. Every night, I smile. We chat with Grazia about her day, about her plans for later tonight (a show and perhaps a game of bridge at her friends’ house). I call her a social butterfly. She giggles. She loves it. “Social butterfly, I am, ragazze!” When she laughs, her eyes crinkle and you can tell when she was younger, her pixie haircut complemented her demure face. Her white hair is now silver and it is a nice contrast to her stylish purple Ray Ban sunglasses.

Today, she’s outfitted herself in a thick orange sweater. She layers a white collared shirt underneath. Straight-legged deep blue jeans. And she completes the look with some rings and a gold, heavy-looking pendant. She says she never takes off the gold pendant. It was a present from her husband. She talks about him, sometimes. About how he was the one who taught her how to play bridge, how wherever they traveled (which was everywhere), her husband, who knew no English, always asked her questions. “So many questions,” she said. Everywhere we went, he would go, what’s that Grace? What are we looking at right now? By the end, I was so tired of asking questions for him, I told him, you learn to speak English and ask yourself!” We laugh and wait for her to continue. There is a long pause and we can tell, she is reminiscing about her husband.

She sighs and smiles to herself. She is reliving a moment she had with him. It’s been 10 years since he passed.

In the many memories I will collect from this trip abroad, what I will miss most are the daily dinners and conversations I have with Grazia. When I tell strangers I have been living with a host family in Italy since January, most of them react in surprise and sometimes, shock. “Four and a half months with a stranger? Don’t you feel weird staying in someone else’s house?” I was, initially. But now I can’t fathom Italy without a host family, even more so, without Grazia. Living in a different country is scary enough, but to be on your own completely, without the ease of knowing the language nor culture; it is a harrowing thought.

Now, food is no longer just an edible entity of pleasure – but for me at least – a dialect. Everyone speaks ‘food.’ A good meal is contingent on the idea that with food comes company and with company comes conversations and with conversations come relationships. A life without sustenance would be boring and habitual. It would be death. Whenever Grazia brings out a dish, her face is painted with a sense of accomplishment and finesse. I’ve asked her why she hosts. Why she would want to offer up her home to two strangers every semester – with no idea of how they would be and how they would treat her home. It is a gamble. A huge one.

She looks around and shrugs. “Because, I enjoy cooking and the company,” she says. “Just like how this has been new for you; each year, it’s new for me too.”

Hold your horses; I went to Venice!

Hey. hey. heyyyy.

Hold your horses. I know. I haven’t written in awhile, but trust me…with good reason. It’s been exactly a month since I’ve been here and while I still haven’t soaked up all the Florentine air, I knew it was time to explore. So I did. On a whim, my new friends and I decided we were going to take a weekend trip. Anywhere in Europe! Katie said. Anywhere?! Francesca exclaimed. Anywhere, I answered with my brows burrowed in an effort to convince the unconvinced.

So we started throwing out some names. Names that were familiar to us, names that were foreign, names of countries I hadn’t even heard of. (Um…Cork, anyone)? But we didn’t care, weekends were filling up and we had to decide. How about Prague? Ehh too expensive. Morocco? Perhaps a little bit later. Amsterdam? Why not! Vienna? I’ve always wanted to go! Wait guys…what about..VENICE?!

Jackpot.

For an unbridled romantic like meself (or so says Mr. Vilas-Boas), I’ve always been a little bit – shall we say – fascinated with Venice. Sure, it’s practically considered the most touristy city in all of Italy and most people pay an arm and a leg trying to plan their honeymoon there, Venice, for me at least, just seemed – I don’t know – wonderfully quaint. The only thing I really knew about Venice was the gondola and gondoliers (typical), so when mi amiches agreed upon Venice, I started scouring my closet for anything blue, white and striped, in hopes of looking more like a “Venetian.” (Would you expect anything less from me?)

So we went. We went and figured out how to ride Italian trains, how to switch trains in Italian, how to find our bed and breakfast, how to read a map, how to remember to buy a map, how to haggle with our gondolier who looked like Michael Bublé (I know), how to do sad puppy eyes so the train conductor felt bad and didn’t fine us for unpaid one euro tickets from one train station to another, but most importantly, we figured out what it meant to really travel by ourselves, with no one to depend on but our sanity and half-assured confidence that we would get to this unknown place safely, and in one piece.

And it was worth it. For all the hype Venice gets…I now understand why. In three days, I was able to see some of the major landmarks that makes Venice, Venice. First, we strolled along the streets of Venice and saw gondolas practically everywhere:

Completely candid. I know...they just look like that in real life. Dang.

Then it was to Pizza San Marco, one of the most famous churches in the world (for its design and gold interior)

And then we trekked our way to Dosoduro to the Peggy Guggenheim Modern Museum. This was part of the trip that made me wish friends from home had come to Venice with me. The museum housed Umberto Boccioni’s famous “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space,” one of Chris‘ favorite sculptures ever(!) from the Futurist movement, and also had a whole room dedicated to Jackson Pollack. Surprisingly, Peggy Guggenheim also held special affection for Mr. Francis Bacon, and even had his“Study for a Chimpanzee” hanging in the corridor. There was a strict no camera policy at the Guggenheim, but I managed to sneak in a few:

Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

Jackson Pollack

Giacometti's "Woman"

We ended our Friday at Cipriani’s Harry’s Bar for their famous (15 euro) Bellinis. Not only was it delicious…we got two free desserts and postcards to send home. It should be noted that other than the fact that Venice is beautiful, this weekend trip should also be renamed as “the one time my friends and I went to Venice and got a ton of free swag.”

But what is Venice without a gondola ride? My friends and I were insistent that if we only had time to do one thing in Venice, it would be to go on the gondolas. And yes peeps, we did. And we did it in style. Thanks to our Michael Bublé-lookalike gondolier, we were graced with a rendition of his version of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”…cause we’re all from California.

We love to cheese it up!

My view from the gondola

My face says, "I AM SO HAPPY," courtesy of Katie

Venice is known for their seafood and on Friday night, we stumbled upon an amazing restaurant by our bed and breakfast. Called Hosteria Al Vecio Bragosso, we had some of the most delicious raw fish for appetizer, unlimited vino (sort of) and just overall amazing service with a wonderful server who decided he was going to cut 60 euros from our bill. When we ended our night with tiramisu, they wrote us a little message:

No, we love you! Courtesy of Lizzie

On Saturday, we decided to check out the Rialto Bridge for their daily farmer’s market, where I may have possibly eaten the most wonderful .90 euro Fuji apple. We also got the chance to go up the bell tower (for 8 euro) and see all of Venice:

And in the afternoon, we were worn out and tired so we decided to take it easy and just walk around Venice when we came across a little trattoria Ristorante Marco Polo…where we made friends with the waiters (cue free food, vino and drinks here):

Courtesy of Katie

The street to my B&B

Um. WHAT, courtesy of Francesca

What's goin on hurrr

I don’t know. I was pretty impressed by Venice. Not just by the city (although it is pretty magnificent) but also the overall vibe of the “Venetians.” I was a little hesitant, afraid that visiting Venice, my dreamt up view of the City on Water would be tarnished. Fortunately, it went unscathed, and perhaps even a little bit improved. Another thing to cross off on my bucket list.

I bid you adieu, till next time. Ciao!

If interested, more photos can be found here!

Meet Grazia.

OK. I know. I’ve been behind. Really behind.

But try not to hold it against me? This whole trying to “blog daily” business that I had previously cemented on the Internet is turning out to be more difficult than I had anticipated. There’s really little motivation to type in front of a tiny computer when I know that I can instead spend my day running by the Arno or walking around the Duomo. But worry you not, I come to you with the most exciting updates.

First things first, I’M IN ITALY!!!!! The dreary anticipation that had enveloped me prior to my trip has dissipated and transformed itself into trickles of excitement that seem to ooze out of my pores as I finally come to terms with the fact that I am actually in Florence. The city itself is so beautiful – imbued with the history of art and architecture – living in Florence is akin to the experience of reading my textbooks and seeing those pictures come to life. In the past couple of days, I

have ran by the Arno…

The Arno

Random strangers smiling for my camera...kidding.

walked around the Duomo…

Me pouting in front of the Duomo – a daily occurence

pa-pa-parrazi.

 

saw Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise…

Gates of Paradise by Ghiberti

went to Piazza de Michelangelo…

Panoramic View

what what

oh, hey there!

and the San Miniato…

obligatory 'bad angle' photo

Damn.

and oh yeah…

met my host mama, GRAZIA aka the most bombtastic Italian host mama, ever.

workin' it

There are so many things about her that just makes her so awesome. Like how she lived in England for five years when she was 20, so that’s why she speaks almost perfect English with the cutest Italian/British accent. Or the fact that she’s been hosting SU students since 2001. Or how she bikes everywhere. Or how she makes these delicious, amazing, out-of-this-world three course meals for dinner every night. Or the fact that she referred to the rapper, 50 cent, as 5 cent. Or how she constantly tells my roommate and me to “Don’t worry, Be happy.” Or how she wears two-tone colored Ray Bans.

Grazia and me chillin like a villain

Grazia trespassing a monumental cemetery like a badass.

…Or the fact that she lets me have a view like this all to myself

Hollah @ the terrace

Anyway, there’s so much more I want to write about this city – the people, the culture, the art, the food – but there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day. But just know that in the couple days since I’ve been here, I am overwhelmed by the hospitality of the Italians and the fervor and beauty this city offers.

Ciao! Until next time.

The holidays have put me in a bind.

The holidays have put me in a bind.

I’m realizing and confronting the difficulty in how to be a DEDICATED blogger whilst simultaneously living away from the cyber world. It is a cruel dilemma: to want to document every waking moment of your life on the interwebs while trying to live it. In the last week and a half, I’ve baked (check out my food album!), cooked, cleaned, ran, but most importantly eaten, a lot. With an extended family of 20+, it’s hard not to avoid family dinners without feeling like the grinch. But anyway, 40+ words and two cake pops later, I am back on the grind. (Only my third post but whatevs, it’s still ‘the’ grind). There is less than 14 days left in the pretty U.S.A before I am shipped off to Florence for a semester of Chianti-drinking-pizza-pasta-indulging-leather-shopping studious Art History and English lit studying. Can y’all say Salve?

I’ve been worrying sick that my passport and Italian Visa wouldn’t arrive on time for my trip to Italy (apparently the Italians are known to be quite tempermental with their time), but there are obviously some angels working in the LA/Italian Consulate and my local post office…they got here safely this morning!

I love how despite the scaled down version of the photo, my cheeks still manage to make their grande appearance. They will never rid themselves from me. And look how festive the actual visa is! Many wonderful colors compounded into one tiny, important single slab of a paper. But really though, this whole thing is actually becoming real in my head now that I am *officially* cleared to enter the country for the next few months. A dollop of reservation still resides in me despite the fact that I have less than 1 1/2 weeks to go. It seems people are more excited for me than I actually am for myself. But I assure you..I really am. I just don’t think I will believe it until I am physically in Italy. So bear with me, there are still two very empty suitcases waiting to be filled. And that will require a lot of documentation.

 

“So do you speak Italian?”

“So do you speak Italian?”

No, I don’t. Not at all actually. A lot of people assume that because I’m going to Italy, I must speak some Italian. They were obviously thinking ahead in that department, not me. That really should have been the logic I had gone with initially when I decided to go abroad. But no, not even an ounce of Italian drips in me. It’s a shame, to be honest. Had I known I would be studying abroad in Florence, I would have taken Italian throughout college, just so I would have at least some understanding of the language. If it tickles your fancy, I do know some Spanish – un poquito, por favor – and Mandarin, and of course, English. Mandarin has always been my first language since I was born, and then I learned English when I was eight. I decided to pick up Spanish in high school for a few years, before continuing the sequence in college.

I’ve never been a person who’s been especially good at planning ahead. Decisions are just made and then memories are imprinted. Before I really settled on Italy, I had been going back and forth among a few different countries: Madrid, Israel and India. At the time, Spain seemed like the most ideal situation: I was already well-versed in the language so getting around would be much easier. And also, it was a place where I could travel in and out of Europe, learn (Spanish) and eat. Oh, how I love to eat. If that were a profession, I would make it mine. Food is such a cultural emblem of any place and even if the country were not so amazing, but the food was satisfying, delicious and out-of-this-world…in any case, I would be sold. For future reference, if anyone needs to bribe me, let it be known that food works. Food may perhaps be the most effective thing. That, and love.

Still, I haven’t forgotten about Israel or India. Those two are still very much on my radar. I plan on visiting these places, but perhaps, at a later time when I am not so financially paralyzed and indebted to my parents for paying and allowing me to embark on this journey. It was hard to let go of the fact that I’m not really going out of my comfort zone and realistically, I will be studying abroad in a destination where it is inundated with tourists and Americans (so many Americans). Nevertheless, with the fascination of being able to study abroad anywhere in the world, came crashing down the thundering reality that I simply could not…study anywhere in the world. My choices were limited: I had to choose a place where I would be able to complete my majors and minors in a timely fashion, all the while have it be a location where my parents considered it relatively safe. And on another note, I also had another selfish reason on why I finally decided on choosing Florence…

The art. Remember how I mentioned I love food? Well I also hold the same amount of adoration for art, if not more. Just like when a man is mesmerized by a beautiful woman, there are certain pieces of art that seduce my soul. Whenever I come across a painting that is so striking, I must consciously remind myself to plant my feet firmly on the ground. For that few seconds when I look at the piece – I am so physically entranced – I forget to take a breath. It is silly, I know, to think that mere strokes of paint can be so emphatic. But that’s what art does to me. To think that I can be in a place where the finest artists – Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Da Vinci – called home, well, is there really a better place to be to immersed in art other than Italy?

It’s almost here.

It’s almost here.

Less than three weeks left and then I’m off to a foreign country. It is a bit surreal. Florence, Italy. Italy. Italy. Italy! There are so many things that people associate with Italia. A destination of love, of art, of beauty, of really forward Italian men. Am I nervous? Yes. Am I excited? Yes. Am I losing my mind? Probably. The reality that I’m really going to be spending five months in a foreign country is finally hitting me. How would I communicate? I barely even know any Italian; the only phrase I know how to say is Ciao, and that doesn’t even get me anywhere. What would I do once I got there? Yes, of course, there would be classes, lots of them. Writing prose, studying Brunelleschi, learning about Italian cinema…but to think that I would be only one, two, or three hours away from cities such as Sicily, Sienna, Rome…I am brimming with excitement.

But I don’t want to be too excited, at least not just yet. There is a sense of heavy responsibility for someone who decides to document their experiences abroad. Thoughtfulness is a must, and passion and enthusiasm and…creativity. Damn you creativity! How does one write about a foreign country without being cliché and ignorant? There’s a fine line between being a faithful observer and a blind tourist in a country such as Italy. You can only write so much about the culture of Gelatos and Michelangelo before you realize it is everything that others had described, and most likely, they’ve written about this country better than you have and ever will, in your lifetime.

Really, to be honest, I had to restrain myself severely before deciding that I was to be seriously committed into writing and updating this blog. The Internet is vast and wide and it has been an easy way to document certain pieces of my life on the web without the treacherous and horrid possibility that everything would be eventually lost, tossed or faded away. I wanted to do pen and paper. I adore pen and paper. There’s something so archaic about writing with pen and paper. Ink leaks, papers rip; I value the simplicity, volatility and spontaneity these two tools offer me. But I realize that if I really want to document everything, in a way where writing about Italy will be the same as you experiencing it at the same time – simultaneously, with me – wherever you happen to be, then this is the only way possible.

So I will write feverishly, fervently, foolishly (and with fewer alliterations). Through words, photographs, sounds, this is going to become my biggest endeavor yet.