fine art and alcohol.

I am so happy that the last 24 hours happened. By the end of this week I had gotten myself into a bit of a funk, what with not being able to decide on my classes and being too tired to ever go out and therefore feeling really disconnected from people, and spending most of my time with Mel and Marinna who are kind of having a hard time adjusting and therefore complain a lot, which tricks me into thinking I am unhappy too when really I’m definitely not, plus throw a little PMS in there, and basically it’s the formula for funk-iness (but not the 70’s-disco kind). But I knew that I had absolutely nothing to do Friday morning and therefore could go out Thursday with no consequences, and I did and it was great. I was worried that I had kind of lost touch with the Vassar/architecture kids whom I really like, especially Sam and Tyler (Jess is in my Italian class so we see each other every day), since we had never really gotten to hang out, so I ended up just stopping in at their place after dinner to say hi, and it was great. Sam had what could only be called a "man-friend" over, so Tyler and I took the hint and left to meet up with a bunch of the other architecture kids to go downtown and do a little bar-hopping, which was just so necessary. It just felt good to realize that I can still jump in with a giant crowd of strangers and be totally fine – all that time with Mel and Marinna, who tend to kind of isolate themselves from everyone, had me a little worried, but all was well.

I got to rekindle with the strange kid who sat next to me on the plane, which is a story that I think I forgot to write about at first… Basically, he and a couple of his other Syracuse architecture friends had gotten drunk at the airport before the group flight (how utterly collegiate-male of them) and had apparently been sitting a couple of rows away from me and the people I was sitting with at the gate, and right when everyone got up to board, he and his friends bounded over to talk to us and he was particularly, um, friendly with me but I kind of played along in a sort of you-are-a-drunk-frat-boy-and-therefore-i-am-better-than-you-but-I-will-still-play-along-cuz-its-fun kind of way, and then we all got on the plane in our assigned seats and that was that. But his assigned seat was only a few away from mine and he and his friends were hard to miss what with the drunken rowdiness, and eventually, when the girl sitting next to me got up to go to the bathroom, Danny came right over and took her seat. haha. And it was just a very strange encounter: he sat there for the rest of the flight, we basically talked the whole time, he was actually totally charming, in an in-the-process-of-sobering-up kind of way, getting all deep about architecture and music and like, how much he liked me?? It was very odd. But kind of endearing… but once we got off the flight I barely saw him again. Here and there, sure, but you would never have thought we sat next to each other on the plane and talked for like 4 hours, you know?

So anyway, back to last night – so in this large group of rowdy architecture students (I guess you're not the only rowdy one, Pat) was Danny, and again we didn’t really talk much until we got to the bar and he randomly bought me a drink, in what I thought was a kind of here's-to-sharing-random-drunken-encounters way, but then later it seemed not to be so… but in the meantime we all left and went to a different bar, where Fabrizio and his friend came to meet me, which was fun but kind of... I just don’t think I like him, to be honest; it would still be fun to be friends with him, but its hard enough to convey that to American boys, let alone someone who barely speaks English. So I don’t even know where we left it; Fab didn’t even meet up with me until around 1 am, so after about an hour most of my friends were leaving anyway, and I wanted to walk back with them, so we parted ways and I don’t even know what to do about that one.

But anyway, the walk back ends up being me and Danny and his two girl roommates, with Tyler trailing in the back with some girl he had been macking on all night, and I was just gonna come up to their apartment to call a cab but it has come to my attention that cab companies here turn retarded after about 2 am (basically as soon as you actually NEED them), so I had no luck and was just going to walk home as the whole way is very well-lit and major-street-ish, but Danny basically said no way and insisted on walking me back, and I thought he was just being chivalrous but it seemed to be motivated by more than that, cause he grabbed my hand right away and I didnt even know what to do because I've gotta be honest, it's nice to be shown innocent affection every once in a while... but then it seemed like he was gonna try to kiss me and he was just so obviously drunk that I basically said dude, I am not going to make out with you on the street and he was like "damn, well at least I gave it a shot" and we had a good laugh but then we got to talking about how it was weird that I never saw him around anymore and he seems to only talk to me when he's drunk and all of the sudden he got all intense again and was like “to be honest, I’m really intimidated by you, I think you are beautiful, etc etc” and it was just a little out of left field and I'm always surprised when boys express genuine affection without any ulterior motive (sorry guys, I know you're not all bad, but I'm just a little scarred), so I didn’t even really know what to say. Then he started to get all “you would never like a guy like me,” so basically I just said stop being a whiny drunk boy, I really appreciate you walking me home, I want to make sure you get back home safe, we will talk later. So who knows what the fuck to make of that. I have two boys vying for my attention right now but I'm not taking the bait and I don’t particularly know why. To be honest, I feel like I've been here a week and a half and don’t particularly want to settle on the first thing that comes along, but now I feel like I'm being a little ridiculous. Who knows. But literally since I started writing this post, Fabrizio has called me 3 times and I'm just not down. To be honest I just don’t feel like trying to speak Italian and be subtle at the same time, so I'm just avoiding his calls. Ohhh, language barriers.

Ok but ANYWAY, that is my current social situation, but what was also really great about the last 24 hours is that all day today I wandered around Florence and went to the Uffizi an hour before closing just because I could (Syracuse gives us a card that gives us free entrance to all the museums here, so why the flip not, eh?). It just totally helped me put into perspective all the little meaningless shit that’s been getting under my skin these past few days and has given me a bit of a wake-up call, like, look around you IDIOT, you are in FLORENCE for god's sake!! So I did, and it was great. This place is so freakin' beautiful and just the sheer number of gelato flavors I am going to get to sample in the next four months (mascarpone-nutella-pear, anyone?) is enough of a reality check to keep any whiny inner-thoughts at bay. Boo-ya depression, gelato is here to save the day!!

Ok, I'm sorry for this epic-novel of a post, mostly about arbitrary boy issues. I promise to talk about more important things from now on. But who's to say l’amore is not important? this is Italy after all…

PS I had stuffed eggplant and a baked pasta-frittata type thing for dinner tonight. Just for those of you who are really only here for the food. A presto…