Spring Break, and Mom Comes to Visit

Hey team,

Sorry again for the lack of updates. See, what happened was I went on spring break and when I came back to Florence, my mom showed up for a ten day visit. On second thought, that's approximately half of my readership right there who were staying in Florence, so I guess not too many people missed the updates.

Anyway, I've done a lot of stuff in the last few weeks, and not only would you all get bored reading it, I don't particularly feel like writing it. So I decided that what I'll do instead is give a brief summary of everything, followed by something like a photo-guided tour, where I'm your tour guide, the pictures are the exhibits, and the Internet is the museum. That was a pretty good metaphor I just came up with on the fly like that. Everyone with me? Okay.

First, as promised, the summary. I spent spring break traveling between Alicante, Spain; Galway, Ireland; and Paris, France with my lovely girlfriend Brianna, who was kind enough to plan the entire thing in extremely economical fashion. We were in Spain for the most amount of time, buzzed up to Ireland to see our friends Nic and Natalie from school, and then stayed over in Paris on our way back to Florence. Sure, there were lots of mini-adventures in the meantime, but that's the gist of it. My mom got to Florence a few days later. We spent most of the time cruising around the city seeing stuff, but for the last few days we headed north to Cinque Terre, which has to have been one of my favorite trips of the entire semester so far. Since I was in school all week, mamma spent a lot of time on her own, doing cool things like seeing museums, ordering coffee, wandering the streets, etc. But this is not a blog about my mom, it is a blog about ME. And I should never forget that. Thus, onward to the photos:

The view from our hotel room in Alicante. It was a really fancy hotel, four stars or something like that, that Brianna found for dirt cheap somehow. We only stayed there for a night though. Off to the right you can sort of see an old castle on the top of the hill.

On the beach in Alicante.

We found Nic in Ireland.

He and Natalie took us out to an Irish lunch. It was weird having everyone speaking English.

Then we walked out into the countryside, arriving at this old castle on the bank of the river.

Sitting on the edge of said river.

Back in Italy, I took mom to a Fiorentina game her first full day here. She sang all the songs and chanted all the chants. Good mommy.

Then we headed to Cinque Terre.

This is pretty much what it looked like. Tiny streets, colorful houses, dramatic landscape. Plus the people were generally very friendly, much more so than in Florence.

This is a shot from the little bulkhead where we ate lunch.

I got my first Italian haircut in Cinque Terre. Funny story - the barber I went to didn't speak any English, but I noticed he had a Fiorentina scarf/poster combo up above the mirror . So naturally, we started talking about Fiorentina (who he loves), and when he found out I'm from Florence, he called his buddy in from outside. He poured three mugs of beer, and after toasting to Fiorentina we all pounded them. Mind you, this was before he even started cutting my hair.

A shot of me and Brianna

The only of the five villages that's not right on the sea, Corniglia is still quite beautiful.

We were lucky to be able to see the sunset. I tried to take a cool picture, but it obviously didn't turn out very well. Hopefully you can get the idea that it was very nice to look at.

And that should hopefully bring you all more or less up to speed on everything I've been up to lately. Mom, sorry for all that stuff I said earlier about not wanting to write any more about you. I didn't mean it, and it was really great having you here.

Thursday - Cooper Updates His Blog

Good evening, Internet.

It's been a while since I last posted an update. There are several reasons for this - lack of memorable events, social anxiety, general lethargy - but the main one is that I've been really surprisingly busy with midterms this week. I think I ended up writing about 19 pages of papers this for today, plus I had three tests today and another yesterday. We had a game every night this week, too. All in all I can't complain though. One week like this is a small price to pay for having done little to no work the entire semester thus far.

Although you're all undoubtably salivating at the thought of a thrilling recount of my late night study sessions, I thought I'd talk about some other stuff instead (don't worry, it's equally boring). First things first - there's this group of highschool girls who are frequently on the same bus as me, and they've been giving me lots of looks and giggles lately. It's getting a little weird. Only because I'm now caught in a weird love triangle with the 14 year old girls and the gay guy from last week's post, all of whom apparently ride the same bus as me. So yeah, I got that going on big time.

One more thing - I have this one crazy teacher who is literally out of her mind. I have her for two classes, and I swear she just gets worse and worse every week. Describing her via a blog just wouldn't do her insanity justice, so I'll leave you with this: Remember that scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker is blowing up the hospital, and it's making him so excited that he's just kind of jumping around waving his arms and shrieking? That's like her. Except for also a raging feminist (keep in mind in one of my classes with her, I'm the only boy in a class of 20 girls).

I realize that there's been a distinct lack of picture updates lately, and for this I apologize. I know all of my peers are going to stop reading soon (if they haven't already), and I wouldn't blame them. My attention span quit about three sentences back; I can't even imagine what the rest of you are going through. You old timers didn't have pictures growing up though, so I imagine this blog has been rather soothing for you as of late. I apologize for the shock that's about to come.

These are just a few pictures I've taken from around my neighborhood while I've been here, and I thought people might like to see something other than just plain text for once. Next week is spring break, so hopefully when I get back there'll be something more exciting for you.

Walking around near the stadium

Behind our apartment

The view from the front of our building, from the balcony outside my room.

Another Soccer Game

We had another game tonight. My understanding was that it was to take place at 7:50. I was reading in my room; around 6:50 I casually started getting ready, planning on being out the door by 7:00 - plenty of time to get there. On a whim, I checked my email before I left, curious about what time we're going to be playing next week. It was lucky that I checked, because I also saw that our game tonight was at 7:15, not at 7:50 as I had thought. I looked at my clock; it was 7:01.

My house is, according to Google Maps, 1.9 miles from the field. Because Fiorentina played AC Milan tonight, the streets around the stadium are absolutely crazy, and the buses are hardly running at all. I decided I'd have to run for it. I was on the road at 7:04 according to my cellphone, and I made it to the field just as we were kicking off. It wouldn't have been as big of a problem if was had had subs tonight, but we were pretty short on players. Anyway, I was practically sprinting along the crowded sidewalks and weaving in and out of traffic, but I made it there. The game was our easiest so far, the other team wasn't that good and we played pretty well so we ended up winning without too much difficulty.

My night doesn't end there though, because on the way home I casually engaged a young Italian man in conversation while waiting at the bus stop with Pietro to come home. What began with innocent banter ended with me and Pietro deciding it would be for the best if we just walked home. The guy was friendly enough, but he started talking about how the Americans were beautiful, going to great lengths to communicate to me that he thought I looked like Prince Harry, offering me cigarettes (but not Pietro), asking me how to say "dick" in English - things got kinda weird in a hurry. So we got outta there. On the plus side, I was able to more-or-less carry a conversation in a different language (probably leaning towards the "less" half of that equilibrium, but still). And now I'm at home. The end.

This Week, a Kid Thew Scissors At Me

Well, another week has passed in Italy and like any other, it has had its ups and downs.

This weekend I went to the Fiorentina game versus Livorno. Strangely enough, the highlight of the day came outside the stadium before the game even started. I was standing in line to buy tickets (because I'm never on top of my stuff enough to do things head of time), and this guy started talking to me in Italian. That's right, for some reason I've continued to trick people into thinking I'm one of them, and I'm always being approached for directions on the street. The last laugh is on them though when they find out I don't know what they're asking and even if I did, I wouldn't know the answer. Anyway, I actually got the gist of what this guy was asking, and I replied. A little later, he asked me another question, and I got that right too. The moral of the story is not only did I boss this guy at his own language (okay not exactly), I also out-knowledged him on Italian stadium procedures, something that he should generally know more about than me. I'm calling it a victory.

Monday I went back to my internship at the elementary school. Overall it's a really good experience, although it continues to be extremely fatiguing. I think the single moment that best illustrates this point is when the teacher stepped out of the classroom for literally ten seconds and two kids pulled out wooden swords and started fighting. It's either that or when a kid actually threw a pair of scissors at me to start class off. But in general the kids are all really sweet - the boys think it's cool that I play soccer and know Italian teams and players, and the girls think I'm scary, but that's okay. Kids give me chocolate after class a lot of the time, which I think means that I'm cool.

Monday also marked the first day of the 5-a-side soccer tournament I'm playing in with my school, which is coed and not super intense, but still pretty fun. When I got to school that morning my coach asked me if I would be the team captain. Cool, right? I was excited. I was also informed that along with the captaincy came certain responsibilities, the first of which was to cut three people from the team to get our roster down to the required ten. Not so cool. It was supposed to be a joint coach/captain kind of decision, but it basically came down to me picking three people who, even though they'd been showing up to practices, weren't going to be able to play in the tournament. Later my coach sent out an email telling the people they were cut, and I think it was obvious that I had a part in the decision. I thought it was kind of weird that I had to do that. Anyway, that was one of the lows of the week. We played two games on Monday - won one and lost the other. Tonight we played another game, which we tied. I play as a striker on our team, which is also kind of weird since I'm used to playing defense. I scored seven goals out of our eight tonight though (while playing more than a lot of other people), and I also hurt a girl on the other team, so, so far my dream of convincing everyone I'm the biggest d-bag at school seems to be coming true.

Cooper

In This Post, I Do Some Stuff

This past Saturday I went to Ravenna on a school trip, so there were a few professors who took us around to see everything and explain it to us. This is cool because they are all extremely knowledgeable and I inevitably learn way more than I would if I just showed up in the same city and walked around on my own all day, but my god - we looked at a lot of churches. Churches are cool and all, and no disrespect if churches are your thing, but we literally looked at different churches for six hours straight. And yeah, part of the reason I came to Italy was because there's lots of cool, historically significant stuff to be seen here, but I also came to Italy to watch soccer and eat sandwiches. And in activities belonging to the latter category, this past Saturday was sorely lacking. Ravenna is still a very interesting city, I just got a little bored.

My weekend attempted to redeem itself on Sunday when I went to Vieraggio for carnevale. This weekend was the last weekend of carnivale in Italy. There are two huge carnevales, one being in Venice and the other in Viareggio. Viareggio is closer and cheaper, so I went there. From what I can tell, it's a lot different than Venice. There everybody dresses in really expensive, elaborate costumes. They dress up in Viareggio too, but in goofy, halloween-esque costumes. Things like Tigger, Alice in Wonderland, etc. There's also a huge parade with GIANT (as in at least three stories tall) floats made out of paper mache. Viareggio is also on the coast, so I got to walk on the beach and see the sea for the first time in Italy and get sand in my hair and in my underwear, so that was cool. Alas, I forgot my camera on Sunday, so all I have is this picture that somebody else took of me and I... found.... later:

And that was pretty much my weekend. All in all, pretty good.

Today was Monday. School was the usual. The highlight was learning a new verb tense in Italian class. After school I was slated to start my internship, where I'm helping teach English in a fifth grade Italian classroom. I rode to the school with my faculty supervisor, but from now on I'm taking the bus there. I am there for an hour of recess and then two hours of class, but with all the buses I have to take the whole process is really closer to a five hour commitment. Also, it's exhausting. Anybody who's ever witnessed a conversation between a group of Italians know how they go - lots of shouting, no turn-taking, everybody trying to be heard. Anybody who has spent time in a classroom full of fifth graders knows what that's like. So combining the two is absolutely devastating for one's brain - there's just no way human beings were designed to sit through that for two hours, let alone participate and teach. By the time I finished I was pretty pooped, and then I had to take two buses to get home an hour later.

Random Musings

I've been in Florence for exactly one month today.

I joined a gym that's really near my house and pretty cheap. The only thing is that it's almost all guys, and almost all of them are super jacked, and most of them seem like they know each other. I'm just the shrimpy little American who isn't jacked enough, doesn't know enough Italian, and nobody knows where he came from or why he's there.

I bought another sweater (only six euro). This one's purple, which is the dominant color in Florence. On the one hand, I feel pretty legit having a purple sweater. On the other hand, I feel like 1-year-ago Cooper would be absolutely disgusted by sell-out Florentine Cooper.

I don't remember if I already wrote this in the blog, and I can't be bothered to go back and check. Last week I took a cooking class where we made three different kinds of pasta from scratch, different sauces, and tiramisu. It was super duper good.

I found a little grocery store near my school with a deli counter in the way back where you can order panini. It's delicious. And way cheap.

That's all that comes to mind. I'm going to Ravenna tomorrow (leaving at the crack of dawn, again) and possibly Viareggio on Sunday.

Another Miserable, Absolutely Horrendous Week in Florence

Hey everybody. I'd apologize for the lack of posts in the past week, but that would be presumptuous on my part to assume that a) anybody reads this thing, and b) they actually enjoy it when they do. So I won't.

The main reason I didn't post anything this week is because nothing of note really happened. It was pretty much a boring week of school, and nothing exciting happened. I mean, I guess I was in Florence and all, but that's probably getting pretty boring to hear about by now.

There are no classes on Friday, so Thursday night I went to this bar near my house with the two other guys who live in the same apartment building as me. It turns out this is far more convenient than taking a bus downtown for the night and having to walk 45 minutes back home at 3:30 in the morning. Anyway, we went into this bar and there was nobody there. The bartender was looking at us kind of weird and asked if we wanted to go downstairs, so we did. It turns out that's where all the people who are in the know go, because there was this crazy Italian karaoke night going on, complete with a crazy DJ, crazy Italians, and more cigarette smoke than oxygen. The mood was great, and then the DJ left and some guy came out and started rapping over these super intense beats. His whole act was way angrier than what was called for, given the mood there. We left not too long after that.

Friday night was my mom's 53rd birthday, so we went to a restaurant for dinner with Paulo, Luisa (my host sister who is visiting from school in Milan this week), my mom's sister (see blog entry number 1), my mom's friend, and her friend's son. We were supposed to go at 8, but it got pushed back over and over until we didn't leave until around 10. At this point I was beyond hungry, but my mom knows the owner at this place so it was closer to 11 by the time we actually sat down. Over the course of the next hour we just sort of ate a constant stream of different courses. Although it's a restaurant during the evening, this place made its fortune as one of the best discoteca's in Florence. Around midnight they move all the tables out of the middle of the space and people start dancing. They're playing all these Italian dance songs before midnight though, so by the time we were eating people were already pumped; everyone was up on tables and benches dancing and singing along, etc. Even my mom was singing along. They finally played an American song that I knew the words to; I tried singing along but of course I was the only one singing so I just looked stupid. Anyway, we didn't make it home until around 3 in the morning. Mom, if you're reading this, I expect the same from you on your next birthday.

Last night was Fiortentina v. Roma in the Serie A. A big game for Fiorentina, since Roma's in 3rd place and Fiorentina, while they were not too long ago in 4th, have been steadily sliding since I've been here. I waited too long to buy tickets though and by the time I got around to it they were all sold out. The atmosphere around our house was great, people were singing and helicopters were circling overhead and there was even a fight between Roma supporters and police in riot gear on the corner right by my building. So anywhoo I went down to the stadium at halftime to try to sneak in, but that place is locked down like prison. The only positive was that I owned these Italians at their own language (that might be an exaggeration. I did do pretty well, though) - I was all like, "I've forgotten my ticket inside, my friend has it." "No, I can't call him because it's too loud, I can't hear anything." "It's already the second half, I can't just go in?" "For the love of God, man, have pity on a dying man whose last wish is to see the second half of the Fiorentina game." (I didn't actually say the last one. Mostly because I don't know how - I would have tried just about anything).

And that whole sequence of events just about took me to Monday morning, where I was supposed to get to watch The Matrix in my moral philosophy class until the stupid girl who sits right behind me and thinks that because she took a philosophy class once sophomore year she knows everything about everything and can argue with the professor (who has a PhD in philosophy) about anything, and who always asks stupid questions that bear no relevance to what we're talking about but which the professor is forced to respond to, thereby taking up the entire period so that we run out of time to watch The Matrix, started asking questions. If you were able to follow that aggresively long run-on sentence, you might be able to figure out that we didn't end up watching the move. But then I went and ate a panino, so I felt a little better.

That's about all. Stay tuned!

-Cooper