Raining

Let's take a walk...

yesterday I met up with Giuseppe the guy that was an Italian Missions representative at Urbana 09. I had lunch with his family. it was quite pleasant. we had gnocchi, chicken, and salad. His wife is from Liverpool. She has a English accent and speaks Italian as well, but not with an english accent. This home was definitely unique with it's mixture of english and italian. the young girls spoke both languages, but of course Italian was their main language. We watched this really awesome movie called Summer Holiday. It's an old film from the 1960s. It's a brilliant film and i recommend it to anyone who likes musicals and traveling. e poiiiiiiiii, i went home to make pizza for a delighful pizza party, well i didn't make it...........but it was homemade...... mmmmmmmmmmm.

today, I went to Giuseppe's church, which is in a school. They just started the church last december and does not have too many goers. they said it really depends. the attendees are all new believers. this i think is cool, though when i came today, only one other person came so there was about 6 of us all together, which is counting the worship leaders, guiseppe and his wife, and the school janitor. the gathering/discussion was all in italiano and i understood about 40% of it. the other lady that was there was from sicilia and introduced herself exactly like this "Ciao, sono siciliana!" and it didn't register to me what she said so i just said "sono kristi" but she said she was sicilian, in case you didn't catch that either. Anyway. This could be interesting getting involved.

When one door closes a cat jumps out the window

...No really, she jumped out the window and we couldn't believe it. We didn't even know she did it until we looked around and realized she was no where to be found. Lorenza began to panic, but i kept calm and went out to look for her. I knew she couldn't have gone far, and that she was not dead, though Lorenza was sure she was dead. I looked and tried to ask if anyone has seen a cat and they did not know. I went back up to the apartment and still no sign of the cat so I stare out the window a few more times and this time I am sure she must have not gone far so I go back out and start thinking of my life without this smelly cat and how i will miss it's stupid smell and how sad our lives would be without it. I search again and this time one of the guys I asked about the cat started to try to help. Lorenza came down and started looking as well. The man spotted the cat, alive, of course. It tooks about 10 minutes to catch the cat because she was behind a fence and trying to climb trees...oooooooooooooh gatto.

... then we all went out for gelato!

stranieri

Hey everyone. so. let me tell you. not fun things. but some fun things. i will tell you. some things. so today i finally submitted the thing i need to submit to get my permit to live in Italy because i'm foreign. of course. I do what my paper says to report to the italian questura for a permit to stay, which is the italian police. I look up where that is and go there then they tell me to go to this immigration place. so i go there and the lady told me to come back monday (this was friday). so okay i go back monday and get lost because the train i need to take to get there was temporarily out of service so i guess i wander around aimlessly for a bit and get on a random bus and get off two stops later to look at a map and find the street i need is a few blocks away. so i follow the street and after 15 minutes i find that the street disappears somewhere else and i lost the street so then i just keep walking in the general direction not quite sure where i am going. i had called lorenza but she didn't pick up. Later, i find an outside market and i was thinking OH i've been here before, but no it wasn't the one i have been to before, so i make my way through the crowd and realize i am indeed hopelessly lost. oh but no! i notice a missed call from lorenza and call her back to tell her im hopelessly lost but she assured me i was not and to ask someone where the nearest station is. so i'm like thinking... oh dear... and right when i hang up with lorenza i turn the corner and there it is! the place i was headed to...only to discover...i could have gone to ANY post office. yep, thanks for letting me know. but 25 confusions, 13 wrong turns, 6 people and 70 euros later "LOOKS LIKE WE MADE IT!" i'm happy to be alive and get that business out of the way. what an adventure!

in the mean time........

cotoletta.

coffee!

just a little more panzarotti in my life

It rained pretty hard yesterday. a nice walk around the neighborhood was wonderfull, though i got a little wet.
we went to a friend of lorenza's for a panzarotti party. it was beautiful. so much. panza. rotti. so. much. goodness and panza and rotti. All in italiano. nice. we played a game. I managed to follow. it was easy. an extensive version of pictionary. rah rah rah. almost forgot to mention, i got to ride in a car on the streets of milan for the first time. in a smart car. and there was 4 of us. beautiful. you can imagine. the beauty. imagine it!

"the cat bit the sugar"

yesterday was much fun. except for failing at the post office, i'm not even sure if it was the post office. so i still have no stamps. sorry for those who are expecting post cards. I will figure this out soon. Later, I got to experience a cupcake celebration and met new people who were all very nice, friends of Lorenza. I got to meet a guy named "Davide", which is a great achievement because it reminds me of Oggi in Italia, the silly lesson films i had to watch in Italian 101 and 102. Made my night i must say. He said italian is a dying language and only italians speak italian. well.....yeah....but......that doesn't stop me from wanting to speak it. I just need to get over myself. then we headed over sometthing that was like a discoteca or club. ill say club. it was pretty amazing... the music...the dancing...amazing...the djs....amazing... i wish i can reinact it for you. one of the dj's enjoyed singing along with the music a little too much, i must say.

and today it is raining. woooooooo!

ho paura di parlare

so i sit here listening to the beautiful sounds of my korean neighbors singing karaoke at the top of their lungs. yesterday, was an awesome day. I think i had an italian over load. must have. my head hurts a bit. I discovered my great fear of speaking italian. I met Zaino, a friend of Lorenza, whose real name is not Zaino but sounds something like Zaino, which means "backpack" in italiano. He speaks english as well as i speak italian so we had interesting conversations. I think he might have been making fun of my Americaness i'm not sure. but this must have been good for me to struggle so i can learn. I got to experience a great italian delicacy panzarotti, which is fried bread stuffed with mozzerella e sauce. mmmmmmmmmmmmm. for dinner it was another adventure, Lorenza wanted to try quesadilla because there is not much mexican food around here and she never had it. we came up with something close to a quesadilla. then for dessert we had the best pancakes in the world. my brain is still exhausted even after sleep.

Il gatto tries to catch a fly

piove!

It was a nice switch up on the weather today with some rain. I decided to take pictures so i went around alittle bit back to the duomo and galleria. and it was so beautiful to see the rain fall and all the people unprepared and prepared. at one point it rained heavily and it was wonderful. I came back because it was getting cold and wet. I took a nice 2 hour nap. visited with Lorenza and had sparkly wine. she showed me how to make sauce out of nothing. well of course it was something but not the usual. it was delicious. we discussed foods that america has that italy doesn't. they don't have jello or pancakes. not too much of a shame on the jello. but pancakes. i must start a pancake revolution in italy! this must be why i am here! of course! anyway........we also discussed the italian government, which was also pretty eye opening. I won't go much into it but it made me think about how it is not only the US government that is corrupt. we just get more of say in how things work. what isn't corrupt? your face isn't corrupt, that's what! ha! so yes... i have 3 mosquito bites on my gomito (elbow). they itch.

<3

mangiamo gelato per sempre

so today was much better. this life, I can enjoy. I went back to the galleria and duomo with Lorenza and Francesca this time. AND i had gelato. chocolate and raspberry. this time it was like i went to heaven and then died. yes. went to heaven and THEN died. no just kidding i lived...
I got to finally experience an italian super market. it was fun trying to figure out what things were. good thing some foods are universal or else i don't know what i would eat.
theeeee evening was topped off with a fun time singing and playing guitar with Lorenza. she's a great singer. she should be a singer.

Don't Die

buona sera

so last night was fun and WOW! the streets of this street change completely at night time let me tell you. in the day it looks normal and not much people but once night time hits all the ristoranti put the table outside and there is so many people! SO MANY! and you can see soooo many people! it's like...........what are all these people gathered outside? for no good reason! it's amazing! lorenza, francesca, e i went to go get something to drink and we sat outside. wow there was a lot of...................pretty lights. ........and poeple. just everywhere in the streets on the side walks in front of churches. wow. night life here is happening. and it is happening now.

now for today........

today was not filled with gelato...................it was not filled with pizza..........how very sad are you to hear this. i went to go meet my friends from san francisco state. we went to one of the fresh markets buy their house and it was so amazing. i got fragole e vino. then we went to the duomo! I got a cellphone........kind of..........not really........i thought i could use the sim card in the phone i already have but it didn't work. nope. so i have to wait to get a phone to put it in. we went walking around all the stores in the great mall and it was beautiful. i was getting tired though. i think there is jet lag. so then.........i got a sketch pad. YAY! then it was getting late and the girls had to go meet some people but i just wanted to go home because i was so tired. and we almost got lost but then i wasn't lost and found my way home very easily. almost worried you didn't i? hmm? yeah so my strawberries went bad. so no more strawberries. but i still have my vino. tomorrow i must have a better day! I PROMISE! BUONA NOTTE! <3

ciao...

so this is my first entry for this blog thing. I am not much of a blogger but i thought the experience called for it.
Here i am in italy in my apartment getting ready to eat some pizza! yay! I already tried the precious gelato that lorenza told me that was the best in all milano. and it was amazing though i don't know if it was the best because it was my first but i guess i should trust a true italian.
I took a nap shortly after eating gelato. Everything is in italian which is awesome! so when i stepped off the plane i took the shuttle over to central milano and "Ironic" by alanis morrissette was playing on the radio, which was in fact totally ironic, dont you think?
I was able to contact lorenza using other peoples phones. very nice of them. we took the tram over near where we live and i was immediately greeted by the huge duomo! it was beautiful and i will take a picture soon. it is hot today, which i guess is unusual this time of year. must be because i am here. ;) so yes
the apartment is really awesome and there is laundry hanging outside! wow! It is hard to take in that this is my life now. totally different and different than what i expected. everyday will be something different for a while. AAAAAAAAAAAH! I love you.