TARADISE

Wednesday
I had just gotten out from the shower when the doorbell rang. Tara had arrived! Lots of joy. Lots of catching up. Then off to the wine bar to celebrate with a few glasses of red. Promptly followed by a nap. When we got up, I made curried carrot cous cous (lots of Cs) for dinner, and we had that with a bottle of wine while accompanying The Wives – aka Diedre and Marlene – at the dining table and watching Italian Wheel of Fortune – aka the best show ever. Barhopping then bed.

Thursday
Tara and I went on the mandatory scenic walk. Ponte Vecchio. Uffizi and all its exhibits. School. Santa Croce. We stopped by the cultural association for the Food & Art Aperitivo before going to Baccarossa for a delicious seafood dinner. We hit up the bar for espresso and then back home for a couple of drinking games with the roomies. Then everyone went to karaoke at the usual Irish pub.

Friday
We somehow miraculously slept ALL DAY, probably because the windows and shutters were both closed, locking the room into perpetual dawn. Imagine the opposite effect of when you’re in a basement with no windows at night and suddenly it’s morning. So we took our “morning” walk to Piazza Michelangelo to see it at sunset. Then we had “brunch” (or aperitivo) before going barhopping with Tom and Alex.

Saturday
We went out to get pizza for lunch and then hit up the Mercato Centrale, The Duomo, the archeological crypt underneath, and of course gelato. Followed by shopping for clothes and shoes. Then the wine bar for aperitivo at yet another bar followed by Italian hot chocolate, Tara’s dark with Aztec spices, mine white with raspberries. After a quick stop at the station for train tickets for the next day, we continued barhopping.

Sunday
We actually got up in the morning to go to The Cinque Terre. We stopped in Monterosso and had a long leisurely seafood lunch at Il Belvedere. On to Vernazza for food and wine shopping. Corniglia for a Schiacchetra (dessert wine) tasting. Then we “hiked” from Manarola to Riomaggiore. While waiting for the train transfer at La Spezia, we got McDonalds(!) for dinner and dark chocolate for dessert while waiting.

Monday
The train strike postponed our trip to Lucca, so we went back to Mercato Centrale for the beginning of Tara’s gift-shopping spree. I showed her the culinary school’s campus and then we hit up Amon for a porto-via lunch. We took chicken kebabs with moussaka and falafels with hummus back home to eat with a bottle of white wine. And who could resist the three kinds of dessert Amon offers – semolina cake, rice pudding, and of course baklava. Then it was more gift-shopping spree, cosmetics, perfumes, clothes. We had our daily coffee on a department store rooftop overlooking Piazza della Republica then spent some time admiring the whimsical European houshold objects and trinkets inside. Aperitivo, a catnap, and then a dance club with Aerie, Diedre, Marlene, and Tanjila.

Tuesday
We took our postponed trip to Lucca and after lunch immediately headed to Palazzo Mansi. (Unfortunately we didn’t see the Hot Naked Mansi Countess Ghost who supposedly rides her chariot around at night.) But the Palazzo was beautiful and made us want one someday. Museums, churches, a famous local café all done in dark woods and perfect for rainy afternoon coffee, and Tara buying Tuscan lotions and soaps for gifts. And definitely the highlight of the trip was an amazing, perfect Tuscan dinner at Buca di Sant’Antonio. One art store was selling journals with appropriate quotes embroidered on the cover and this one caught our eyes:

Il mondo è un libro, e chi non viaggia ne legge solo una pagina.
[“The world's a book, and one who doesn't travel only reads a page.”]

Wednesday
I left Tara to her own devices for her last-minute souvenir and gift-shopping while I went to do a photo shoot (!) with my class for a local organic fashion designer. Real cameras, real studio, real on-location shooting in Florence. It was awesome. Tara and I just spent the afternoon chilling and enjoying each other’s company while we still could. We went to the wine bar and split a bottle of wine and then had a splendid dinner at Alle Murate, which was definitely the most expensive meal we’ve ever paid for ourselves but definitely one of the most delicious ever as well. Lots of food. Lots of wine. When we got home, the apartment was a shitshow, to say the least, as everyone else had decided to do the “lots of wine” part also. Great times.

Thursday
Tara left in the early morning, so after seeing her ride away in her taxi, I went back to bed and woke up late. Adrian had left for Prague but left me an impromptu gift, a Florence Moleskine. Meaning its tailored to the city with maps and a great layout for notes, addresses, memories, etc. So awesome. I’ve been using it since. I spent the rest of the “day” (afternoon) online at the wine bar and beginning a post-Tara detox. I stayed there into Swedish aperitivo for the “Mamma Mia” party. Hampus as the DJ. Christian at the bar. (I asked for a Swedish drink and he made me a mandarin daiquiri.) Swedish meatballs on the table. Abba blaring in the bar.

homecoming

Adrian came back at some point before Halloween (the days blend together.) Jesse Jesse was the first to arrive on Saturday morning, fresh from a UK shopping spree likely inspired by Aeri. Herbs and dried fruits and a whole new wardrobe. Diedre and Marlene came back in the evening with pictures of Greece, so the girls, Kyle and I went to aperitivo and got back just in time for Sal’s and Gerard’s returns. This was followed by a massive effort to get everyone to go out, even those who had gone to bed. This proved successful, so we went barhopping and stopped by a few clubs. Back at home, we played, up-the-river-down-the-river and kings with Ognissantinis and Frescobaldi wine and 95. Sal, Diedre (who forgot about this), and I had breakfast really really early in the morning. Cheesy scrambled eggs with diced onions, pancetta substituting in as bacon, and hash browns. Sal and I tried to play Rummy, but after one round he just had to crash.

So besides all that late-night adventuring and the day of sleeping and grocery shopping, we had a HUGE “family dinner,” and Tanjila arrived back just in time. We spent the entire afternoon and early evening cooking and snacking on chicken nuggets, fried potato skins, and broiled zucchini slices with balsamic and parm.

• Veal stew with porcini mushrooms and cipollini onions
• Rosemary bread
• Curried chicken
• Curried grown beef
• Vegetable cous cous
• Beef and porcini pasta
• Mashed potatoes
• Lots of sparkling, red, and white wines
• Chocolate pudding upside down cake
• Pear pie
• Banana pudding with sugar cookies

We also went around the table and said what we were grateful for:

• Sal – Stonybrook having a study abroad program
• Gerard – food more delicious and complicated than cereal, yogurt, and buttered pasta
• Jesse – that the best part of break was coming home
• Marlene – that we let her move in
• Kyle – a lack of drama
• Diedre – a clean kitchen
• Tanjila – the laughter we all provide
• Adrian – that someone was odd enough to put two random brothers here
• Myself – us finally having a family-style dinner together

But yeah, after that foodgasm, major food comas began. People sort of drifted off to sleep Thanksgiving style, which was made easier by the candlelight we'd dined by. We stopped combating the cave-like qualities of our living room with lights and decided to embrace its dimly lit atmosphere.
Beginning with our going out at midnight and ending with our relaxed sleepy time at midnight, yesterday was definitely the best 24 hours the apartment has ever seen.

holler back

Let’s pick up as if I never stopped writing due to a lack of Internet. All the gaps will fill themselves in sometime. Since I just introduced all my roommates on our arrival, I’ll just begin with them leaving for break.

Here’s a picture of my roommates that I wish I had been around for. Adrian and I had already left to go drinking out, but we all wound up at the same club. Anyway, I figure I have enough pictures of The Super Marin Bros. Marlene is missing too, but she hadn’t moved in yet.

Front row, from left to right: Tanjila, Vanessa, Tom
Standing, from left to right: Aerie, Kyle, Diedre, Jesse, Lisa, Sal, Gerard

This picture is almost two months old, so everyone looks slightly different now.

Wednesday
My exams ended. I turned in my fashion photography “legs” assignment. See a picture below. Then I went to my wine tasting final. Wednesday night pretty much everyone took it easy and opted for a rest and relaxation night instead of a party hard night. Jesse and Sal both left that night for break. Jesse’s visiting Chad in London, who visited by the way. [We spent the 24 hours he was here drinking and dining. And luckily (?) for us, there was no casino with blackjack anywhere in site. And of course, everyone loved him, particularly Tanjila and Diedre.] When he heard she was couch-surfing a random stranger’s couch, he suggested he be the stranger so it would be a little less random. Kyle, Tom, Gerard, and I went for a walk just to get some fresh air. And then we just hung out in Kyle’s room with Tanjila, Aeri, and Diedre.

Thursday
I don’t know remember what I did all day. Tom, Gerard, and I started a game of Rummy500 in the afternoon. (Half of us roommates play it. A lot. Everyday.) Neely, who came to be with Adrian during break, Adrian, Gerard, and I went to a bar for aperitivo. We got back here and Adrian and I popped off some bottles of spumante (Italy’s version of champagne) we had bought off to celebrate midterms and break. Eventually, Aeri, Diedre, Marlene, Tanjila, her visiting friends, Gerard, Kyle and I went my favorite bar (now everyone’s favorite bar) in my old Santa Croce neighborhood. Or Santa’s Crotch, as some of us have nicknamed it. Of course, Sergio and the regular crowd were there. Molly, a friend of ours from class who lives in an all-girl building on my old street Ghibellina, was out too. Her birthday is coming up and we need to celebrate it in a fashion reminiscent of Nick’s and Vanessa’s (from class) birthdays, which were honestly kind of shit shows, in a good way. Eventually we all went to a dance club and then worked our way back home. A bunch of us were still awake, so Tom, Gerard, and I finished the game of Rummy. (We always play at the dining table in the middle of the living room, and non-players tend to sit on the couches L-shaped around the table.) We ended just in time for Tom to catch an hour or two of sleep before his flight in the morning.

Friday
Vanessa, Lisa, and Tom left for their break adventure together. It’s possibly Tom will end himself or the other two before their return. Gerard, Kyle, Tanjila, and I have all bet on the probabilities already. Adrian left, with Neely of course. What else? Aeri went to Rome to fetch her mother but came back the next day. Marlene, Gerard, and I – mostly Marlene – made the kitchen the cleanest it’s been since we got here. I met Gerard’s visiting parents. They went to the same Mexican aperitivo at Sei Divino that Kyle and I went to. He and I got back here in time to meet up with Diedre, Marlene, her “conversation buddy” Simon, his nameless friend, and Alex. We taught the two Italians how play Up-The-River-Down-The-River and Kings (the two house drinking games) and then went to the Festival of Creativity. Or Whatever. On the way back, sans Italians, Marlene and Alex, we stopped at our neighborhood enoteca (aka a wine bar… that has become our other hangout besides my old bar) to get a round of drinks and finish off the night. I accidentally got drunk because when I ordered tequila shots for the table, Christian generously poured the rest of a bottle into my mouth and opened a new one for the table. We talked about ethnic heritage for some reason. Kyle freaked out when he realized he was the only white person. We got back here, and I made drunk food for everyone. Farfalle with a simple sauce of garlic, shallots, white wine, and truffle extra virgin olive oil. We borrowed Tom’s laptop to play music to listen to. Kyle and I had a sleepover in my room because we were jealous (?) that Diedre and Marlene, and Tanjila and her visitors were having sleepovers. Drunk logic.

Saturday
Diedre and Marlene left. I woke up and went to the bathroom, where I found Pablo sitting on the closed toilet with a note “Dear Andrew, please take care of me. XOXO.” Pablo is Marlene’s stuffed animal, an ear-muffed penguin with shut-happy eyes. I put him in between the beds Kyle and I were on but didn’t fall asleep again. I finished reading Invisible Monsters, another thing Marlene had entrusted to my care. It was crazy and outlandish and freaky-deaky but all in a good way. It’s by the author of Fight Club, and its protagonist is a supermodel who gets half her face blown off. It has great twists and turns, some of which you see coming, some of which you never would, and some of those what-a-surprise-but-looking-back-it-should-have-been-so-obvious-but-it’s-crazy-enough-not-to-be.

Anyway, apparently we all slept through a cleaning lady coming (?!) who cleaned the floors. And she also cleaned our balcony’s ashtray, and by ashtray, I mean the rain gutter enwrapping our balcony.

Tanjila and her friends went out for the day, so Kyle showed me a museum with an exhibit he really liked that closed that day. He stayed to watch a film and sketch, so I picked up my jacket from the wine bar, where I had forgotten it on Friday. I went to the grocery and made myself boar pappardelle since the kitchen was clean. Kyle had fallen asleep, and the house was empty. I started to read Haunted but took a nap. When I woke up he was awake, and the girls were home, and Gerard and Aeri were both back. Gerard and I played a quick game of 500. Tanji’s visitors went to bed so roommate bonding among Aeri, Tanji, Gerard, Kyle, and me ensued. Music and dark chocolate (71%) Perugina sfoglie all around. Everyone loved how thin the slices were. Kyle suggested we put them atop these crackers he had. Amazing.

Tanjila: “You should make a movie, like Harold and Kumar.”
Kyle: “Kyle and Andrew Go to Kebab? It would be like three minutes long.”

Although now that I think about it, Tanjila and Aeri get kebabs way more often than we do. They keep our neighborhood kebab guy in business since the rest of us have gotten over our first-week dependency on him.

Sunday
Tanjila and friends left. Aeri and Gerard spent the day with her mom and his parents, respectively, and leave with each Monday and Wednesday, respectively. I spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and walking around the city then met up with Nick for mass. I planned on roasting a chicken when I got back here, but seeing as how both Kyle and Gerard had already eaten and I was impatient, I ended up out for dinner. After months of eyeing it, I finally sat down at Rossini, the Michelin-starred restaurant on the river. The manager, who was accommodating a party of 30 Japanese businessmen and women and a table of Russians with finicky women, seemed relieved to find out I only wanted a light dinner and not a six-course tasting menu. He kept the Chianti Classico, an awesome pairing for the meal, coming. Acqua naturale, of course, and three kinds of bread so fresh they were warm. The primo piatto was homemade pappardelle with tomato, chunks of meat, and “salty ricotta” garnished with a little arugula. Words can’t do it justice. The secondo was roast pork flavored with thyme, chicory, and balsamic vinegar over steamed zucchini, eggplant, mushroom, and peppers. Pork is almost always my last choice when it comes to protein, but this was extremely delicious... perfectly moist and right in the balance of leanness and fattiness. I also got treated to a dessert that wasn’t on the menu, a coffee-flavored semifreddo with a hint of cinnamon and topped with blue, rasp-, juniper, and straw berries all whittled to the same size. If you wash all that down with some Italian coffee, you’ve got the best meal I’ve had in Florence this season. When I got home, Kyle was procrastinating and Aeri had just gotten back from chilling with her mother, so I popped open a bottle of spumante to try Adrian’s suggestion of an “Ognissantini.” It’s like a bellini or a mimosa but instead of putting peach nectar or orange juice with the sparkling wine, you put ACE juice. It was a success. We all enjoyed them. Nick came over to discuss possible travel plans. We’ll see.

Monday/Today
Aeri left this morning.
And then there were three.
Gerard will leave on Wednesday.
The Asylum will be empty.

it's the freakin' weekend.

Yeah, I have four day weekends. I don't think this has happened since sophomore year of college, and Lord knows what sort of mischief I got into that year.

Anyway yesterday I was dead to the world, but I made it to Fashion Photography anyway. I need a few more pictures for my first assignment... a six photo spread on Shoes, Hats, & Accessories. (Accessories is open-ended, so let's get creative. Anyone with cool jewelry, expensive purses like those birthday gifts from junior year, or inappropriately small dogs, let me know.) Pairing Food and Wine was entirely about white wines, so my classmate Val and I had fun with that.

We both hung around after for the workshop on Tasting and How We Taste, Etc. It was no new information for me after all my crazy classes in psychology and food but still entertaining. Met up with Kyle, Adrian, Aeri, Tanjila, and Tom for aperitivo at the usual bar. Then we went on a mission to regrop with Aeri who had found her way to the Uffizi. Back home, I made hot chocolate from scratch for Jesse, Tom, Adrian, and myself. Since I finished Rosemary's Baby I started reading another book from our well-stocked shelf. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

I haven't finished it yet, but it reads so familiar for some reason?

Prologue - Someone dies a mysterious death.
Chapter 1 - The protagonist is having a dream. She (in this case) wakes to a ringing phone with bad news about a mysterious emergency to which she must immediately MYSTERIOUSLY attend to.

(Dan Brown wrote Angels & Demons and its more famous sequel Da Vinci Code, if you're not familiar with popular fiction.)

After that I crashed for several hours.

Today has been very productive. Granted, today began around noon. But I finally sent off my Permesso Siggiorno - I wonder how many exasperated and exhausted student the lady at the post office has dealt with. Then I went to the bookstore and registered to vote with a friendly lady from California who reminds me of a grandmother slash junior high teacher. Then I went and got Gelato from St. Sarah and Southern Anna's favorite gelateria since it was next door. I got my (second) locker here in the arts school and dumped the photo paper in it. Three errands in less than an hour.

Enough productivity. Sergio wants to "party big" tonight, so I think that's the plan. Game on.

Tara, if you're still reading, of course I'm aware you're coming. We can cuddle. It'll be awesome.

Space Mountain the other week

Let's put some faces to these names.

If you don't know who he is, you probably don't know who I am.

Nick, Diedre, Sal, Jesse, and Tom executing some symmetry

Jesse, Aeri, myself, Vanessa, Alex, Tanjila, and Deidre catchin' a breath

Firenze

Happy birthday, Nick. Belated happy, Adam.

It was a good weekend. Saturday night, we went out for Nick’s birthday. Nick is one of “The Triplets” that live across in the river in Jack and Juan’s former apartment. He, Adam, and Alex (my old roommate Giuseppe’s younger brother) are “The Triplets” because “they’re all kind of the same person.” But not in a bad way. They love to go out, party, and pick up girls. That sounds like every guy our age, but they have more in common than just that. Cool guys though.
Anyway, so the three of them and all of us roommates (except Adrian who along with his visitors Neely and Aly were tired from a day of sightseeing) went out to celebrate. I guess this is a good time to say that we have a thirteenth roommate named Marlene, a little bit of Latina fire from New York. She was practically living here already because her other roommates weren’t as much fun I guess? But she officially moved in, paperwork and all, the other day.

Jesse, who enjoys baking more than cooking, made dark chocolate birthday cakes for Nick and for Adam (whose birthday was like the second night we got here). They were delicious, and Adam’s was slightly mangled but then took on a mountain theme because he’s a climber anyway. Afterwards we all went out to my (now our) favorite bar and got shots and bought Nick drinks and got pretty messy. Sergio was there, and he and Kyle finally met after hearing so much about each other and were surprised at how actually cool the other was and not just the product of exaggeration. Eventually, as the drink numbers increased, the party numbers waned, and we all split off. Sergio, his friend Rose, Sal, and I went to another club for a bit. But I stayed only for one round, courtesy of Serg. I went off to find Sal and he called me and told me he got lost and wound up at The Duomo, so we just met up at home. People here were in various states of... functionality, the more functional ones babysitting a little bit.

Me and my Daydream

Sunday I thought the sin of the day would be sloth, but mine turned out to be gluttony. We all got up late to really late. Some of us went to the bar to get some free internet. The same mass-goers as last week (Marlene, Lisa, Gerard, Sal, Nick, Adrian, and myself) all planned to go but ended up losing track of time and missing the one English mass across town. We’ll fix that next week probably. And just when I thought I’d do nothing all day, I started eating a lot. On the way home from the bar, Tom and I stopped for kebabs. And then some time later I had a bowl of cereal and donated the remains of a bottle of red wine to Gerard’s stew. And then I went with Jesse to her favorite falafel place. And then I came home and had some of Gerard’s stew. And then I showed Adrian the falafel place, and he tried a kebab from there and an egg sandwich, and I bit off some of each. And then I came home and had more of Gerard’s stew and pieces of Deidre’s orange and apple.

And Deidre, Sal, Gerard, Lisa/I (forming a team who’d trade off), played two games of Rummy500. I was winning most of the first game, probably due to the fact I was the only innocent one not affected by the these-are-stolen-cards karma. But Sal won both games. We sat at the dining table originally just singing whatever and changing words around to make the songs aout our roommates, and when that got old Sal brought out his laptop and playlists.
Around 11:30 at night, the entire apartment came to life and everyone either woke up or came home and people were milling around. Everyone went to bed late.

Gerard also made use of the random scroll paper all over our dining table by marking it as “Scripture” and beginning to inscribe all the quotable stupid things people have been saying. It won’t take long to fill up between the twelve of us.

The rest of Monday was pretty much just my chocolates and confections class. We made cremino-filled chocolates. (Cremino is a hazelnut cream made of hazelnut paste and white, milk, or dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate, but it overwhelms the nuttiness in filling. White is a good contrast to the dark chocolate shell. Milk is the best taste on its own... like Nutella.) After that, I stopped by the Chinese take-out place in my old neighborhood on the way home. I spent the rest of the evening reading (and finishing) Rosemary’s Baby, which is in our rather sizable library of books-left-by-previous-tenants, the majority of which being Florence or travel books.
We played Rummy500 again, Jesse playing instead of Sal. Team Lisandrew won, despite the jeers from Team Diedrian (Adrian was on Die’s team in spirit). We left the TV on to watch shows in Italian, which got pretty amusing. Some time after midnight, Tom and Alex came home, so Vanessa, Kyle, Adrian and I hung out with them in the kitchen. We all got hungry, so Tom donated his ingredients to my care. Red bell peppers, tomatoes, ground beef, Parmesan cheese, and pasta became… a pasta. My olive oil and Vanessa’s fresh basil helped a lot too. After everyone else went to bed, Kyle and I just talked a bit while he drew for art class. I changed his world with our discussion of the magic of aperitivo. He also said he’d help me with lighting and stuff for fashion photography, so that’s a major relief.

Today has been pretty uneventful. I wasn’t feeling well, so I missed Mediterranean Diet’s Pasta with Chick Peas and Cod with oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. Along with Vegetarian Cooking’s market trip, which Sal and Diedre assured me wasn’t that epic anyway. I figured I should take today easy rather than be sick tomorrow and miss Fashion Photography and Pairing Food and Wine, the two classes I’m least experienced in anyway.

I walked to Jesse’s Egyptian falafel place, unaware it was closed for siesta time during the afternoon. I just chilled at home and got some actual studying done and then met up with Adrian for sushi aperitivo at the wine bar near our house. Vanessa and Tom eventually joined me. (Adrian left to go see Tristana et al.) After a few glasses of wine and several shots of Swedish liquor Cristian brought back from Sweden, my head is swimming. I’m writing from The Triplets’ Apartment (aka Jack, Juan, and Anton’s old apartment) where we’re eating Pringles, watching Half-Baked, and eating the eggs and buttered toast Alex cooked. And I’m catching up with Jack and Sarah. And Aneet. And Liane. And Anna. Man, I miss them.