COOKING CLASS / OM NOM NOM

So with GSE our advisor Chiara (we love her) took a group of us to a cooking class where we got to make our dinner and then get the recipes once we left. The table I was working at was with Katie, Jade, Hazel, Melissa, and Martina (who works with GSE and comes along with us to all our events, she's hilarious). Our chef that was teaching us was named Fabrizio, he hit on Melissa the whole time and was creepy/funny/awkward.

Example A.

So we started out making tiramisu, I had to pleasure of mixing everything because I was the male and stereotyped to get it done with my "brute strength" but whatever it was fun. Then we made the weird eggplant/potato/zucchini/cheese appetizer. Then we learned how to make this potato filled ravoli. Mind you throughout the entire time Fabrizio is hilarious, hitting on Melissa, yelling at us, the entire room is bustling as four different tables of groups are making food. Fabrizio stops and joins in on all our pictures. Chiara is literally jumping of joy because she loved the cooking class just as much as us, actually a lot more but it was funny. So then we ate downstairs below the kitchen and its straight up Tuscan wine cellar dinner room. Unreal. Oh and the food was BOMB.

 Rocking our trash bag aprons, whattup poor living status

Next weekend going to Perugia to see some friends and the Euro Chocolate Festival!

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER

Needless to say the past couple days have been my worst days abroad. Preface: I hate change, a lot. I worry about anything and everything so change and I are not friends, I de-friended change a long time ago. With my macbook deciding to become full blown bipolar, going from working perfectly to not working at all to spending an entire day of chaos trying to reach apple support on the phone (in english mind you) to working briefly again to going back to showing me nothing but a white screen, the apple logo, and the spinning wheel of death. This morning it miraculously decided to work for me again, but I'm only expecting the worse with this and having to spend mad dough to fedex it back to america to get it fixed because I can't get it done in Florence/Italy without it taking weeks. My laptop is how I stay sane sometimes, talking/skyping with friends around europe/us/africa, catch up on some tv shows (Greys Anatomy where has Lexie been the past episodes, did you get rid of her because of her HORRID bangs?) catch up on my pop culture fix via my own personal bible Entertainment Weekly. As much as not using technology and getting the most out of my abroad experience is important, I need this comfort zone to function sometimes.

Macbook Pro and I are on thin ice right now.... Praying to the God I don't believe in that it stays working for me.

(SIDENOTE: really sick of the mosquitos in Italy, thank you weather for finally getting colder now and hopefully they'll go away soon)

So this brings me to the inevitable abroad breakdown. Yeah Sugarland, It Happens. Everyone goes through their abroad experiencing differently, some people love it instantly never want to leave and never go down and some can't handle it and leave. I've think I needed this to become a stronger person abroad. I have no regrets about coming abroad, I may question where I choose to come sometimes, but I'm here and I'm not leaving until December 17th that's for damn sure. I find myself being constantly stressed about so many things that I can't let go. I don't know why, I just can't allow myself to. I'm not spontaneous, I'm not driven to do things outside my comfort zone easily, I'm not completely comfortable being in Florence... but you know what so fucking what, I'm not going to change into another person just because I am abroad, I'm just going to become a better me and being more self-aware of myself and the situations I am in has made me stronger. If I had to breakdown to allow myself to have more amazing  times in Florence, so be it. Shit happens. Life is what you make it. (Feel free to make stupid hannah montana reference).

We're all dealt with shitty cards, it's what are you going to do to get past those cards that matters. When the world decides to push you to your limits can you persevere? I've gone through harder times then this, and I'll get through my current rut no doubt. I'm not afraid to admit I have had a bit of a difficult time being in Florence, being in denial about it would be worse. I am done making excuses in my life, I can't control the situations am I faced with, I can control how I react. Life goes on.

Inspired by my Salamancan abroaders Julie Mills / Lauren O'Halloran for leaving me a 15 minute long video to cheer me up last night, What do say to taking chances?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKYKNZvQ6Jc

MY WORST FEAR HAS HAPPENED

So my macbook decided after skyping with my sister for 3 hours last night to freeze and then once I tried reviving it by shutting it off and back on it decides to stay attempting to load with the white screen. One of my worst fears coming abroad is that my laptop would break, and as I have found to be true my fears weren't just in my head. I spent hours trying to get to talk to an apple support worker on the phone in english, complete failed attempt. I'm already stressed about 15 million other things, the last thing I need is for my laptop to break, I can't afford it or to mentally deal with this. Luckily my sister was able to conference call me to the US support, I'm on the phone with him for an hour trying things, it's just not working, then we try some keyboard sequence (mind you I had been doing that all day trying to fix it) and I finally get to my home screen. Try some disk utility thing to check two things and they clear to be working fine but he still advised me to get to an apple technician.... great so now I have to find a way to an apple store that isn't in Florence (or find some computer store in Florence that can help but oh wait I don't speak any Italian....). Trying to back as much as possible but of course nothing is open when I need it to be (where the hell is a 24/7 CVS when you need one!) so I can't get to buy an external hard drive, so hopefully i'll be able to find one but if my computer decides to go against me again and I have to get a new hardware I'm literally going to go further insane. Yeah am I being dramatic? Yes but I damn well have a just reason for being so, this is one of the main things I just did not want to have to deal with while I was here. Wish me luck.... I swear this is Steve Jobs' ghost personally attacking me... He dies and suddenly my mac which has done me no wrong practically ever miraculously has issues? This has to be a joke.

ABROAD SONG OF THE WEEK

John Mayer - Bigger Than My Body

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ5wTHM1zkw

Thanks to Hal reminding me of this song, just where I'm feeling right now. Feel free to enjoy the hilariousness that is a baby faced old school John Mayer in the music video though.

WEEKEND WITH A VIEW

let's try this post again..

So I finally got to have a perfect weekend in Florence, that was casual/relaxing/and most importantly cheap.

Wednesday:
So I'll count this in the weekend cause after 10 hours of class on Mondays my week is for the most part over then, but also because in the morning my Lost Symbolism Art History class went to the San Lorenzo Church. Now this is a church I pass almost every other day, from the outside it looks ancient, no facade just straight rocks and earth. Total I'm old and just wait until you see inside demeanor, so when we actually went inside.. DAMN, total ornate paintings and white/gray marble everywhere, ginormous (I swear that's a legit word) ceilings. It was crazy and understandable why we weren't allowed to take any photos. However, it was pretty hilarious considering I'm the only male in my class and about 6 girls were given robes and shawls to wear because they were too revealing. Italy don't give a frig, put some clothes on Snooki & company. Then yet another hilarious Italian class with Daniele and it's officially the weekend.

Thursday:
So my Stonehill/Firenze friends and I decided to go out to dinner because in Florence it was the last night of this thing called Aperitivo: A Roof with a View, (aperitivo if i haven't mentioned before is this buffet style dinner with a free drink) and its a bunch of hotels around Florence that you can get a aperitivo dinner on their rooftops/terraces that overlook the city. So we decided to go to the first one on the list, figured if its first it must be good. We get there and find out the dinner is only for guests, but they were still nice enough to let us use the view... photo shoot opportunity GO. Also, as we are taking photos this sweet, hilarious woman from Illinois (she didn't know Tinley Park.. sorry Erin Kelly I guess you're not as well known over in Europe) who asked if we wanted a group photo.

So it's getting late and we're getting incredibly hungry so we decide to go to another hotel, and we find out its aperitivo with just cold cuts/cheese/wine/nothing really substantial at all enough to be construed into an actual meal, so after another awkward Americans not knowing what they're doing moment we bounce. Then we decide let's go to Gusta Pizza! (which I've been told by almost every person I know who's been to Florence to go there) only problem is we didn't know exactly where it was, but we did know we were on the right side of the Arno with it. We wish we hadn't make semi fools of ourselves in the hotel otherwise we could ask there, we walk past the Pitti Palace, we get useless info from a leather place, we ask random polizia, then we literally stumble upon it at the perfect time! Almost no line, and right after we order a huge line forms, get on our level.

Gusta Pizza's tables have the call number tabs under the glass with tourists/abroad students writings. We made a Stonehill one, Skyhawk symbol included.

So then we decide to eat our (some of the best pizza I'll ever have in my life) pizza on a bridge over the Arno facing the Ponte Vecchio. Casual, nbd. Small world, funny enough hilarious, nice woman and her husband walk past us. Too funny, they pretty much told us to have fun but don't do anything illegal crazy.

Casually running into Frankie Walsh on the Ponte Vecchio? check.

Friday:

So after spending 5 hours in the morning finishing up my still life for my art class (bringing me back to AP Studio Art days) we went to the Boboli Gardens and the Piazzale Michelangelo (both free WHATTUP)

So the Boboli Gardens are behind the Pitti Palace and its GIANT. Just what I like to see grass and trees! I haven't realized how much I love nature until I go to a city that pretty much completely lacks it. 

Cue link to Urban Dictionary: read the first one, the "official slogan" of Stonehill couldn't be more true

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stonehill%20College

So back to chillin' in the Bobes, enjoying more not real life views, the gardens has a fountain area surrounded by lemon trees (definitely my kind of place), wandering around just taking in the space.

Plank photo for all my Stonehill Summer Student Ambassadors, missing Donahue life

casual group lay in the Bobes

Lengel being Lengel

So then we walked to the Piazalle Michelangelo, the end all be all view of Florence. Enjoyed the view, sat by a restaurant that was playing michael buble-esque music, walked around the vendors got a purple Universita Firenze sweatshirt for 13 euros.. Katie was looking at one and the guy goes student discount 13 euros! Katie was sold and when I found out there was my size in the purple BOOM decision made, sucks that they don't have an LDM apparel but Katie and I will rock the SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE look with our sweatshirts.

I think I might name my first dog Duomo...

Fake Davids errwhere

Saturday:

So with my program we went to the Uffizi. Needless to say I was excited to see pieces of artwork I have learned about for forever, a personal favorite Botticelli's Birth of Venus and at least 10 pieces I learned about in Professor Sheckler's 181 (she's THE best). But to my dismay we had a tour guide... the same one as the walking tour of Florence lady... I've come to realize how much I despise bad tour guides, working in Admissions all summer giving tours after tours even if I used the same stupid jokes (I swear frisbee is a real sport, cocoa puff shortage, holding doors etc etc) I would at least try to mix it up a bit and not be stale, but this lady made my want to fall asleep in the Uffizi. Don't talk for 25 minutes about piece after piece that I've already learned about for year on top of your boring anecdotes. And the icing on my Uffizi Gallery cake was that it was stuffy and I've been fighting a cold for the past 2 weeks sooooo almost upchucked in the Uffizi. As an art major I could not allow myself to do it and silently suffered because I was not about to be the guy that vomited in an art gallery, let alone the art galleries of all art galleries. So I chugged a bottle of water right when we got out, I enjoyed seeing everything but I'm definitely going to have to go back on my own. Not the best way to end my weekend (followed by spending all of Sunday writing my business paper.... on Starbucks (aside from my vente java mocha chip I don't even like Starbucks, but the topic worked) but overall fantastic weekend in Florence.

WHAT THE FRIG

so I just spent the past hour and a half in my graphics class writing out my entire weekend and blogger just decided to erase it all..... thanks google and crappy italian internet... post will be up soon.

MISSING...

As it's Sunday, I'm thinking to myself I REALLY miss my Dunkin medium iced raspberry w/ a caramel swirl that I'd drink while eating my toasted sesame w/ butter bagel from Back Bay.

I even miss eating crappy Dunkin bagels and semi stale sprinkled donuts in the Atrium.

I will use this slightly embarrassing photo of Melissa (Trish) to illustrate my pain: