Florence, Thursday, November 24, 2005

Still good

[Thursday, November 24, 2005 // 4:49pm]

[ mood | happy ] [ music | I Write Sins Not Tragedies by Panic! At The Disco ] So I called my family this morning and am therefore feeling suitably loved. Yesterday I got my first slight homesickness pangs and was all like "OMG an emotion! Quick, make it go away!" and scoured the local Tabacchi for a phone card, but couldnt find one and got all upset and stuff, but now it is better, so DONT WORRY ABOUT ME, IM FINE. We went out for dinner again on Tuesday night to this slightly more upmarket place, which was nice. The antipasti were really cool, and included Mozarella balls, which are THE BEST THING EVER except for possibly Oliver Wood. The lights all went out for a bit, but they went back on, so we were OK. Anyway, so Ive been drinking wine with dinner every night because, you know, its what you do, and I had two glasses of red, which was quite nice, and then they brought out a desert wine and Camilla (our lecturer) was all "you HAVE to try this, you dip biscotti in it and its gorgeous", so I had a glass of that. And then Hannah wasnt enthusiastic enough about the meal, so they brought us out some Limoncello gratis, which tastes like lemon icing with a LOT of alcohol in it, so I sculled that, because we had to leave. So anyway, leaving and everything, and someone suggests that we all sojourn to the pub because its bonding or something, so we do that, and they have cocktails for 6E, so how can I resist, right? I had this one called a Lisa, which was all strawberry-y and orange-y, and then I had a Cosmopolitan and then I had another Lisa. They were tasty. ANYWAY. I got to the stage where I knew I had to leave or Id drink more and then Id just be terribly hideously drunk, so I left with Rocky and Hannah and went back to the room. Hazel was asleep and MIRACULOUSLY did not wake up, even though I kept forgetting where I was and walking into things and then almost fell asleep on the bathroom floor. Finally got myself to bed, feeling only slightly nauseated, and went to sleep. Not for long. Katrina, my other roommate is usually such a QUIET little thing. Shes one of those people who comes across as inhumanly tolerant, you know? But my illusions about her were about to be DASHED. At ten past two, the lights go on. "HI!" Its Katrina. She is very very very drunk, and she wants to chat. Not being COMPLETELY sober myself (it had only been an hour or two since I stumbled home) I was in a mood to humour her, and Hazel was still too asleep to object. We had a wonderful talk, in which she repeated herself several times, bitched about people in the course, spilled water in her shoes and decided to wake Penny, so she could go out for a smoke with company. We didnt manage to dissuade her, but luckily she returned not having woken Penny, and talked some more. Loudly. Eventually, and thankfully, she fell asleep. When the alarm went off at seven the next morning, I was at least vaguely chirpy, and Hazel was fine, but Katrina slept straight through it. We went down to breakfast and returned to find her still asleep. Woke her up. This was possibly a mistake. We were nice. Ish. We gave her water and juice and stuff. But we also made her get up. She felt hideous. It was a little bit funny, but dont tell her that. We joined the class for our walk up the hill in the Oltrarno (cant remember the name of the church, but the piazza Michaelangelo is on the way) and there were a couple of people feeling seedy, but not too bad. Cassie, for example, spent the whole night throwing up, but was OK by nine. Kristy was chirpy like you wouldnt believe, and incredibly smug considering she drank possibly more than anyone except Jodi (who is the other tutor, and extremely cool, and was VERY drunk). Thankfully for the rest of us, the hangover hit her mid morning, and she went home. Ha ha to her. Thechurch was wel worth the hideous walk to get there. Beautiful mixture of medieval, Renaissance and Byzantine art and architecture. Really big and gorgeous paintings. Easily my favourite church so far. Plus it snowed when we were up there, and the view was INCREDIBLE. Today was pretty cool too. We looked at the three major Palazzi of the Renaissance: Strozzi, Medici and Ruccellai. We went inide the Palazzo Horne, which is a museum, so we could see the soft furnishings, and Hannah and Camilla spoke about gender issues and female space and everything, which I found very interesting. Shock! Horror! This afternoon I wrote my first essay - a mere 500 words, but I am still very proud of getting it in on time. Katrina and Hazel were both struggling when I left. :P I know this is out of order, but we had a lovely dinner in Prato too. This little place called the Music Cafe. We were the only customers, and the guy there was SO nice, and the food was really good. Raph is better. Thats pretty cool. I mean, he still throws up everything he eats, and hes lost tons of weight, but they gave him enough drugs that hes able to participate in classes and stuff. So thats nice, because it means I have good perving material. Katrina, Hazel and I missed 15 minutes of a lecture yesterday, because we all fell asleep in front of the TV. *blushes* Hannah called us and we caught the rest and felt very guilty. Afterwards we went out with Penny and Aron, which was odd. The waitress was really awesome, and it was good, cheap food and no cover charge, so well probably go back. I hope the Jane vs World launch went well and youre all doing brilliantly!Tegan, I want a full report of MySpace boys behaviour, do you hear? Todays special shoutout is to my Oma and Opa who I know are reading print outs of these entries, and who Im sure are SHOCKED at my drunkenness. I miss you all and love you all, even if Ive never met you.