a little late, Italian style

Yeah, I’ve been really behind. I’m back in Florence. Classes are great. Adrian is here. Um, what’s new this semester. Let’s start with the obvious. I no longer reside at 80 Via Ghibellina in the wonderful Santa Croce neighborhood. I live on the opposite end of town. And I am one of twelve roommates. Yes, twelve (12). People we meet in bars sometimes say to us “Oh, you’re one of THE TWELVE.” They’ve heard.

I’m not entirely sure this was supposed to happen because we are six girls and six guys in one huge apartment. But so far so good. There are six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a pretty large kitchen, and a huge living room. So, besides obviously Adrian and myself, the other ten of twelve are:

• Aeri, who is Korean and really laidback. She loves shopping, and she gets mad when I say I’m old because she’s a year older than me.
• Diedre, who is Jamaican and seems to be the best mix of sensible but fun-loving of the dozen of us.
• Gerard, who is Costa Rican, Chinese, and Italian. He eats a lot. But is jacked. He and Sal are the only ones who came here together as friends from home.
• Jesse, who is from Alaska and not as conservative as that would make her sound. She likes the outdoors and seems tired of being asked what she thinks of Sarah Palin.
• Lisa, who is Filipina and petit. (Tila Tequila size?) But she’s always reliable to have a camera and is fun to convince to go out when she almost stays in.
• Kyle, who is the ex-boyfriend of Liane from last spring, and is pretty much everyone’s favorite and very cool. He also has nice hair.
• Tanjila, who is Bengali and to everyone’s amusement sounds like she’s always high, even though she never is.
• Tom, who is tall and has tattoos. He always says “I don’t give a fuck,” which sounds a lot more aggressive than he actually is. It just means he’s the most chill person ever.
• Sal, who is Italian-American and from Brooklyn. He loves to go out and he is always looking for the best bargain regarding bottles of wine.
• Vanessa, who’s loud and very what-you-see-is-what-you-get. She’s fun though and either by self-appointment or by default (can’t remember) is the mommy.

So yeah, it’s a little like The Real World on steroids or Big Brother without any cameras. Our rooms are pretty uniform, like hotel rooms. They’re really comfortable and we have a maid service that brings linens and towels. Strangely, I haven’t had any problems with personal laundry schedule. There are three fridges and lots of shelves in the kitchen, so food storage isn’t an issue. Clean-up is though. There’s been a great amount of drinking and not a great amount of dishwashing.

But yeah, we all get along better than apartments of three or four persons. Some people of course are more likely to be found together (e.g. Adrian and myself) but nothing cliquey. There have been a few nights when all of us have actually been out together. I’ve been hitting up my favorite bar in my old neighborhood, Adrian’s made friends with some of the guys at the wine bar in our new neighborhood. We’ve all hit up a bunch of clubs, some very near our place. Domenico and Miko are gone but Sergio and Antonio are still around and I’ve seen them a good bit. And I’ve made some new friends too. We’ll see which become familiar faces and mentions on here.

My classes are great too. Mediterranean Diet and Italian Vegetarian cooking are both full of dishes you’d expect. Both had eggplant parmigiana the other day. Max teaches the first and Marcella teaches the latter. Both are really chill and specified seafood as their favorite thing to cook. Max has a cool soul patch, and Marcella is kind of like our class’s mom. Chocolates and Confections is in Andrea’s chocolate shop, which is really distracting because it smells amazing. He’s got one of those genius-almost-crazy things going on. So far we’ve done chocolate tastings and tempered chocolate bars both milk and dark, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Fashion photography is with Cosimo, who taught me food photography last semester, and I’m going to milk my little point-and-click for all it’s worth once I find some willing models. Pairing Food and Wine might very well be my favorite but is pretty challenging since I don’t know that much about wine… yet. But we get to eat and drink in class.

But yeah, classes, good. Friends, good. Apartment, good.

I think it was Tom who pointed out that “on those shows, it’s always like the third episode when the shit hits the fan.” So we’ll see. But so far so good!