A Night at the Opera

So I finally went to the opera. Here's a little snippet of the thing:




Oh! fooled you didn't I? Okay But really I finally went, and it was amazing! I'm so glad I listened to my grandpa's advice. I saw the opera called Attila. I was going to see Romeo and Juliet, but when i went i found out i had to go WAY ahead of time to get the rush tickets. So I just decided to come back the next day around 5. I thought 3 hours before should be pretty early. When I arrived there was some people already there so i got inline with them. A half hour later this man starts calling names and i'm just thinking, great...i was supposed to be on the list! so i decide to wait there anyway, and finally asked a woman how it all worked. She explained to me that in order to be on the list, one must go before 1pm! so i told her "oh! well i guess i'll come back tomorrow then?" and she said "OH! you didnt get on the list?" i shook my head and then she said that there was sure to still be some seats. so she asked the name calling man if I could get a ticket, he nodded his head and told me to wait. So, i waited as everyone's number was being called to get the tickets and finally I got to get mine! and i was so excited! I WAS SO EXCITED! I had no idea what i was in for either. I finally go in the theatre and it was one of the most magnificent things I've ever seen:































Totallly amazing!

anyway, my seat was pretty crappy i couldn't see a darn thing! so i look around and i see a seat that was better and i ask the men if i could sit there, they said sure! so i sit there for the first act until these people tap me on the shoulder and tell me that it was there seat. wah wah wah...well it was nice while it lasted. I ended up standing the rest of the time but it was still totally worth it and amazing to watch a bunch of italians sing opera and fight over rome! wow. and when the play was over it was so cool to turn around and look all the people clapping in the balconies. it felt like the titantic or something, except no ships sank. Thank God for that!

some final thoughts

After a couple of somewhat painful weeks of finishing exams, I have completed my year at NABA. I must insert the interesting finale into this blog because I believe it is note worthy:

It was June 16, my mother's 50th birthday, and I had finally finished my magazine that i had been putting off for some time in the morning at 8:30am, mind you the final starts at 9. I hadn't slept for two days. With some frantic nervousness and impatience building up inside of me, I get my stuff together to go print. When I finally get to the printer, there was some wait with people, so I was getting a little more nervous. When it was my turn to print and after some time of watching the printer look at the job he calls me over and says my pages are messed up. Not totally registering what was going on i looked at the pages, and it was true my page numbers screwed up some how! I looked at him and told him I will return.

i never go back.

I got to school nearly sweating and in quite a panic with my sleep deprivation. I was ready to cry but my classmates helped compose me. I could not even gather myself but some how got my problem out to them. Gracefully, they tell me "here we will fix it!" I give them my file and they fix it on their computer and I was like thank you! and i go to bring it back on my computer to make the booklet but i cant open the file because they used a different version of the program and i couldn't make the booklet on their computer because they dont have the software! Does this nightmare not end?! I tried everything until she told me i had to do it all manually, I reluctantly agreed. After sometime, when i was ready to go take it to the printer the printer is closed because it was lunch time... I was beginning to think, i was not meant to print this magazine and my life is over, i'm going to fail this class, and i will just have to tell the teacher my printing disaster. Igo back to school and tell my prof about my printing troubles and he was like that is fine lets see on the computer. I wanted to fall on my knees and praise God, all that nightmare turned into a miraculous wonder. I got a perfect score. In the end, stuff like this is not worth so much the heartache or the headache, because IT WILL work out, no matter how deep the crap is.

shortly after, I come home and sleep for as long as i can until lorenza came up. Groggy and confused, i see the window open. Lorenza, collects her things for a while and she is out the door again. I start on my very last part of another exam, which all i had to do was stick paper on cardboard to present. and i notice scrofini on the ledge of the window behind the shutter. I panic but dont make sudden movements because she could fall. Unfortunately that did not matter because she lost her footing and fell anyway. NOT AGAIN! I watch her body wiggle and fall to the ground she looks up at me and I scream "No! scrofini, No!" Without much thought i grab my keys and run out the door for my life, for her life, and i get to the grass area and see a dog and a man and freak out hoping the dog did not scare her away. I ask the man if he'd seen a cat and he said no but i looked farther into the grass and there she was just sniffing around being ever so curious. I grab her quickly and she fought me the whole way home! ugh! second time i save that cats like.

But oh my, I feel out of almost everything, scrofini will be the hardest to leave. She's been my best friend at times. I watched her grow up.



Last night I am pretty sure I entered into the second to last final stage in culture shock: Return Anxiety. I have less than 10 days left. I feel rushed. I have some excitement towards returning, but my heart is still here in italy. anxiety.

I plan on seeing an opera this week. I cannot leave without it. For my grandpa. I must see it. I have these next days to wander and wonder and eat the best food that ever happened to me. :)

and i leave you with this:

experiences.

I won't acknowledge that it is May now. No, just kidding, I will acknowledge that it is May. While I was not blogging, I had gone to Barcelona, where I took on the identity of being italian. yes, i realize i was spain, but I got by with speaking italian more than english, and even without thinking I would just speak it.

Had my bike stolen out of the quart yard of my apartment. It was destiny.

A couple weeks ago, I was graced with the company of these two


yes. my dear friend shannon messy face, and my home son smooth mcgroo. we ate the best gelato and had the best easter our nostrils could ever pick up on. like we were 3 dachshunds wearing hot dog buns. not really. but it was pretty amazing like...



the pope was there too.

now we also stopped down over by sicily and got so fat with amazing food.



and much much more!

Now here I sit with the load of the semester coming to an end settling on my shoulders. I say to you I have a lot of projects to finish. I also say do you some unfortunate news, but good news to some, I will be returning to california early, June 29 to be exact.

that was just a brief update. more to come in later days. though i have not a lot left. peace

In giro

so i got a bicycle and i made this video. :) the song is "Milano Milano" by articolo 31.

Do you ever feel like a flower frying in a pan and being burnt to its very core?

If I keep waiting for something landmarking to blog about i won't keep the promise i made in my previous blog post.

Lately, I've been enjoying the feel of outside markets as opposed to walking into grocery stores at random parts of the day. Yes, i am strange, there is just something about milan, or italy in general that draws me into its market places. I hardly buy anything because I don't have so much to spend. So i'm just the stange girl that wanders aimlessly with the only purpose of taking in the chaos of men yelling "1 euro!" and people bumping into me.

I was going for a walk today and for some reason it just hit me. Sooner or later this will no longer be my life. this is temporary. I don't know why I ever thought otherwise. I guess i just forget sometimes. I can't forget. there's morning's i need a bumper sticker plastered on my forehead that says "you're in italy". I can't take any of these days fore granted. Gelato is precious (i had some really good gelato today). the pizza. the pasta. all temporary. boom! in my face. perhaps i should just not worry about it and have fun. either way.

I've been enjoying hanging out with my friend audrey and merche, the other night merche and her friend who is visiting from mexico, made a mexican dinner. it was lovely though, i felt a little unfaithful to italy. for some reason any food outside italian food makes me feel unfaithful. however it was a delicious and fun meal. i forgot what it was called. but it was similar to tortilla soup. ;)

back to school monday!

basta cosi.

A Nice Pleasant Glass of

It's been over a month since I last updated. I was thinking the other day this blog is the next best thing to recording my study abroad experiences to my camera. I mean pictures say a thousand words but the least I can do is write a thousand more to say what the camera isn't. I really owe it to myself.
I trained the cat to be a scarf. she lays right across my shoulders, it's automatic now, she just does it. I really didn't mean to do this it just sort of happened. She is is also obsessed with the shower and just stares at it blankly, i'm not quite sure what she is doing but apparently is normal for cats to stare into nothingness.

I recently went to Venice, February 4th and 5th. It was a small trip. I tried a variety of Venetian specialties and road on a gondola. The restaurant i went to wasn't that great, attractive, but just not that great in service or quality.


quiete fishy i must say, but of course that is typical of Venice. I don't remember what all this is but liver and onions is definitely on that plate. mmmmm..........

However, besides making the wrong food choice, which i suppose was bound to happen sometime in my experience, the city was beautiful and sort of lead me instead of me trying to lead it. I'm not sure how to explain. I didn't use a guide, I didn't use a map, I just went. Knowing absolutely nothing. I even got dehydrated and got a headache in the morning. Venice smells a little bit. it took me 10 minutes to discover this and about and hour to discover there were no cars. I crossed atleast 100 bridges, maybe a few of the same, and saw a lot of boats. Colorful glass and intricate masks were at almost every turn on the main streets.



I'm currently on an unexpected 2 week break from school. Other years have workshops and intensive courses and tesi and exams. And here i am just taking another break. Tomorrow I plan on finally seeing Leonard Da Vinci's last supper with some friends.

My current thoughts and feelings on life:

Last month I finally reached the acceptance stage in culture shock after fighting a roller coaster of emotions of extreme excitement, to extreme depression and frustration. From being excited on discovering different cities and experiencing different traditions at christmas, to feeling alone and completely aware that i'm different from everyone else on an extreme level, sometimes not being able to communicate or feeling like the odd one out because i don't understand completely topped with the coldest crappiest weather in milan. After the new year passing I came to terms with Milan, I was on the tram after having a drink and bite to eat with a classmate, who is from milan, It all just came together. Before this realization I thought i was suffering some kind of depression disorder and would have to seek mental health, turns out its just a stage in culture shock and it happens to pretty much everyone. Milan is huge. It is nothing like the other cities i visited, and its like my dear roommate lorenza said, there is much to be discovered within it. I didn't believe her at first but. this place is damn big. I'm glad i'm here. I'm glad i'm meeting the people i'm meeting and I have met the people i have met. despite the crappy weather right now. it was beautiful the past few days and had some nice outtings with friends. I'm in italy.

okay before i get all cliche with short and shallow phrases i'm going to end this post right here right now and will try to be better about updating.

thank you and goodnight!

Buon anno!

Happy new year all!

I ended the year by taking a random trip to pisa. because I thought it was about time I saw that leaning tower, I mean who knows when it will fall down!? So, I quickly hopped on the train, or maybe not that quickly, the earliest train available was at 1pm...anyway, I arrived late but that was okay, and checked to the hostel and right away I had to go find the tower because, well that is why I went. I couldn't do anything else until I found the tower, I couldn't pee, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, until I found the tower. Fortunately, It did not take long to find the tower, Pisa is not very big. so it was dark and i found it and it was again, amazing to see a famous piece of architecture glaring at me in the night.

so there it was and I was hungry and very thirsty, I went to go find a place to eat some pizza, because pizza in pisa, sounds nice. and it was pleasant.

I always like to get 4 stagione (kind of pizza), because I like a little bit of everything. :)

After that, I had heard the people at the hostel were going out that night to hang out and I thought it would be a fun opportunity to meet interesting new people so I joined in. and it was fun there were a few people from the states, california and south carolina, a girl from indonesia, and two really silly italian guys. I made friends with another italian guy that is friends with the people that work at the hostel, we got to talking and I met up with im the next day to go around pisa, in the day light because pisa is hard to see at night, as you could imagine. so bam! here is the tower in day light:
and here is me kicking it:





It was a short nice trip to pisa, and i made a friend! beautiful! so then I returned to milan, to bring in the new year. At first i did not know what i would do, but i met with a friend and her boyfriend for dinner then we went to the disco club and celebrated there. some guy drew a picture of me:
not bad! hahaha! yes soooooo! I am excited to see what 2011 has to bring, very excited and happy because 2010 was just full of new things and learning. I spent most of the year preparing to be here in italy, not even knowing for sure that i would even be here! and here i am, going to different places in Italy and eating so much food. I mean I never ate so much in my life. Happy 2011 to all of you! Whether you're going into this year with a smile on your face, or with a not so happy face, I hope for all the best. The advice I just want to say is: Don't hold back, no matter what it is. The tricky thing with opportunity is that it's not always going to knock at your door, you have to go find it yourself sometimes. Grab it by the tail.