Days 3 4 and 5 of (dis)Orientation

Day 3 started off with more long group talks and meetings, and then, JOY OF JOYS...going back to Milan and moving into our new APARTMENT!

The apartment is not huge, but it's a lot bigger than what I was expecting. We have a very nice-sized living room/dining room combo with a TV, two comfy couches and an upright piano. The kitchen has no diswasher but it's large enough to fit all four of us comfortably in. One bathroom (with a tub!!) and two pretty large bedrooms for the four of us. It's cozy, but very clean, and best of all, great location. About a fifteen minute walk from the Centro, a ten minute walk from the IES center, two supermarkets, a bunch of cute shops, cafes and pastiserie. Our street is almost always bustling, there's one of the best markets in the city that goes on right at the end of the street every Tuesday and Saturday. Best of all, this apartment actually makes me feel like I'm living in Milan, not just staying here.

Biggest fear: I have to cook. For myself. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I won't be surprised if I end up poisoning myself, cause I'll totally put something in an unmarked bottle into a bunch of sauce, thinking it's vinegar or something, and it'll turn out to be, like, H2O2 or something like that.

Okay, no, I won't actually do that. But still. This will be interesting.

Laura, our Italian roommate, made dinner for us the first night which was so nice of her and so incredibly good.

Anne looks like Scarlett Johansson. I'm not kidding.

I feel asleep that night pretty much the most exhausted I've ever been.

Day four started out pretty uneventfully. We had a little tour of the center of the city and were then pretty much set free. At this point I started voicing my concerns to the few people I was hanging with about other people in the group: about how, at this point, I didn't really feel like I had really connected with anyone while everyone else, it seemed like, had already found new bffs. To my surprise and delight, they voiced the same concerns. So that made me feel better.

Part of my social isolation at that point probably had a lot to do with the fact that I still didn't (and don't) have a cell phone. So while everyone was calling and making plans to do this and that and go see this and go out here tonight, I had to latch myself onto some kind person who was willing to invite me along. That's changed a lot now. I've also just, in general, learned to stop being a Debbie Downer and not assume that people are out to hate on me. Middle school was 6 years ago, so it's time for that to stop.

Day 5 I did something amazing. I went grocery shopping and cooked for myself. For the very first time. And I lived to tell the tale.
Actually, I thought it was really good. I just made a really basic mariana sauce and threw in some garlic, extra tomatoes, carrots, oregano and balsamic vinegar. Topped with some parmesan it wasn't bad. The sweet taste of the tomato sauce combined with the acid of the vinegar made it really tangy and interesting. Can't wait until my parents get here so I can duly impress them.

Also, day 5 we had our first Italian class. I was placed in the "Intermediate" class, which is good, that's what I wanted, and out professor is nice but I am so. far. behind. Or even if I'm not, I'm so rusty. The first time she called on me to speak in class, my voice so soft. I mean, actually soft. Not Maya-soft. Like, I could barely hear myself. I was tripping over my vocab and started conjegating verbs and sentence structures in German in my head instead of Italian...it wasn't good. I was pretty mortified. Things have gotten better since.

Friday night was interesting. Two of my friends and I decided to go to Piazza Duomo, and just walk around. On the way home we encountered two anamolies: The first was a gang of what I can only describe as figure-rollar-skaters. They were doing some pretty incredible one footed/toe-spin routines that were impressively entertaining. Just, in the middle of this pedestrain-street off the main piazza. Just, because! The main trick they did was to skate in various formations and styles down these two rows of cones that they had set up parallel to each other. Sometimes one footed, weaving between the cones, sometimes with two feet, making braid-looking tire tracks on the stone under their wheels. Sometimes one person went at a time, sometimes two, but in any case we must have sat there for about half an hour in the crows, just staring.

Then, walking back across the piazza to the metro stop, we encountered another wad of gawkers standing around the outside of a cafe that had a live band playing outside. As we go closer, we saw a bunch of people in the center of the wad, salsa dancing to the music.

Omg, salsa dancing. It was the first moment in a long time that I missed being on the ballroom team.

Anyway, me being me, I finagled my way to the front and managed to dance for a whole song with the one guy that everyone was staring at. He was incredibly sweaty, but it was still so much fun to be dancing again.

Then he proceeded to turn around and dance with Anne, who is a very good dancer, except in the middle of them dancing together, this gaggle of not-so-sober women shows up. One of them has a little fake veil on that had a tiny plastic penis on top, and was carrying a giant inflated cock that was signed all over by, I suppose, her friends.

Okay, bachelorette party.

Except, the guy Anne is dancing with promptly drops her like a sack of hot potatoes, runs over, grabs the inflated cock and starts prancing around with it, waving it and parading around like a douche.

Anne, Rachel and I look at each other and decide it's time to make a graceful exit while we can.