Don't second guess the milk!

So, you know how in the US we see the expiration date on that milk in the fridge and if it’s like, day of or a couple days after we’ll smell it and say, “Oh, it’s fine, just drink it!”  Don’t do that in Italy.  I made my regular cup of espresso yesterday morning, and normally I use a regular size mug, put in one sugar cube (that delicious cane sugar of course), fill it about halfway with espresso, and the rest is milk, and it tastes AMAZING.  I did just as that yesterday morning and as I poured my milk it seemed to me that I was pouring cottage cheese into my coffee…which is not what I had intended.  I smelled the milk and it smelt like it always does, and then observed that the bottle said “1 Sept” so I just assumed that, it being September 1^st, it should still be good!  So, like an idiot, I poured a bit more, thinking that maybe the milk had frozen a bit, but once again it was like cottage cheese, or maybe mozzarella because that’s more popular here and also sits in more liquid than cottage cheese does.  Rather perplexed (all this was shortly after I woke up, mind you) I grabbed a small glass and poured the milk in there.  It didn’t smell bad, but did appear to be expired, or have been sitting in the sun for some period of time.  I resolved that it had indeed gone bad as the clock struck midnight on September 1^st and poured out my coffee and threw the milk away.  Luckily, it was mostly gone anyway.  But, moral to the story is that milk here goes bad when it says it does.  So don’t push it!

So all the students for LdM arrived yesterday and are in orientations for the next few days.  My orientation is Friday.  I’m pretty excited to actually be meeting some people here!  So far I’ve found about five people attending LdM who are from Arkansas or attend school in Arkansas and there is another Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in the same district as me here who is from Oxford University in England.  I’ve sent e-mails to a few of these people to try and find out more about them.  Haven’t heard much back, but it’d be nice to find some people to go to the museums and such with, or get coffee or a bite to eat.

I’ve sent, or at least written and I’m just missing the addresses to, all of my postcards.  Well, just the first 12.  I’m going to buy some more, it’s just that they are annoying expensive to send.  They cost a total of $1.25-1.55 per card.  So you who are receiving them know you’re special!  I’m actually getting very into it and it’s fun to write them now, I think just because I have an Italian address and also because I remember how exciting it is to get postcards from friends abroad.  Which for me is now all of you!  Send me letters the good old snail mail way!  And don't forget to send me your addresses so I can continue to send postcards.

Scott Beasley

Via San Niccolò 80

50125-Firenze

Italy

I got some contacts ordered today!  Actually, I ordered them yesterday, but when asked for my phone number I couldn’t remember the last four digits and so I had to go back today and give them my number again.  But there were very nice!  After a while at least because when I showed them my handy-dandy prescription card they said that “Oaysis” contacts didn’t exist, but they’re really just a category of Acuvu, which I told them, and they said, “No, non è vero, aspetta,” and then he looked it up online and of course, j’ai eu raison.  So he happily ordered them for me after I told him I live here.  So, good stuff!

Today has not been a good day for saving money, sadly.  I try really hard and it just doesn’t always work. I went to a café today to get some lunch and went there SPECIFICALLY because they have free wifi.  I tried to sit outside because it was so nice today and I was in the shade of the Duomo (awesome).  Well, it wasn’t working and the waitress (who so far speaks Italian, Spanish, English, and German) and I decided that maybe it just didn’t work outside, so I ordered and then went inside.  Well, it still didn’t work and I was stuck there.  Then I got my glorified coffee, which was a substitute for a soda that I didn’t want but was supposed to come with my meal, so don’t freak out, Mom, and it was gorgeous, but just okay.  My homemade coffee with rotten milk would be tastier I think.  And then my chicken sandwich came and it was terrible.  I had eaten there before and used the Internet with success for a couple hours and had a delicious hamburger, but I attempted to cut my sandwich and the bottom bun was so hard I couldn’t cut through it!  I ended up picking it up and could barely bite through, and even at that I eventually got rid of the bottom bun and sort of nibbled on the rest of it.  And the fries were less than good.  Sadly, I have not had good French fries since I’ve been in Italy, but (of course) they were pretty amazing in France!  I should have a running tally on French and Italian food wins and losses….

So anyway, no Internet and a crappy lunch.  Sad day.  What was funny was seeing a group of teenage American girls come in and the first thing they asked was how big their margaritas were.  I’m assuming they had escaped their parents for the day and wanted to have a little fun.  This was at 12:30.  Ah, la vita bella….

I have now mended my Internet ways and returned, once again, to Internet Train.  This place is fantastic and reasonably priced.  And the guy who works here (and isn’t here today for the first time!) is super nice to me and has always spoken to me in Italian, even though I’ve heard him speak English to other people.  And this place does everything: faxes, copies, telephone, wifi, desktops (I’ve paid for both services because it’s nice to not always have to carry my computer and bag), postcards, bathroom, printing, routers and phones for sale, drinks, and snacks.  Of course, this also led to my other extra expense today.  I had to make copies of every page of my passport, which was only €2.25, but I had a €10 or a card, and the new guy didn’t have any change other than €.50 coins and my card didn’t work.  So I just bought a Fanta and said whatever.  I still got a handful of change and he felt bad, but I’m all about customer loyalty and this is one of the few places that’s been really kind, reliable, and spoken to me all in Italian!  So, it’s all good.  And I’ve been craving Fanta for about a week.

On a final note, as I was sitting here writing this a rather large couple, pretty sure they were Americans, walked in to use the Internet.  They just read the signs but never approached the counter.  They sat down and began to put a credit card into the card reader on the computer and I quickly explained that you had to purchase a card with time on it and that was what you used to access the computer.  They just sort of said, “Oh,” talked quietly to each other, helped each other out of the chairs (rather large), and then left.  They never even attempted to ask for help.  I see people come in here all the time who don’t bother to try and speak any Italian, not even a “ciao” or “buongiorno!” but they’ll still go up and ask for help.  It was just truly shocking to me that these two were either so independent or so scared of talking to anyone that they wouldn’t even approach the counter to try and get Internet access.  There are so many signs here you could easily point your way through the whole process if neither person spoke the same language!  So today’s tip:  just try; don’t let little things like a language get in your way.  I survived in France because my wonderful language teachers would always make me describe things I wanted to know about, as best I could, in the language until I could get an answer for the word I was looking for.  So in France I was always making up my own words or phrases and then asking what the real word was and half the time I was already right or really close!  Now, if only I could convince these dang Italians that I can speak Italian if they’ll let me practice and get back into the flow of things….

p.s. I was very humbled yesterday when after writing to my old Spanish teacher and telling him I didn’t really remember any Spanish anymore, I left Internet Train and immediately encountered a Spanish couple trying to use an ATM that didn’t have a Spanish translation.  I did my best but the only things I could really say were, “You speak Spanish” and “Ummm…if you go…” and the such, trying to tell them where there was an ATM with Spanish on it.  Alas, they were in a hurry and didn’t have time for my blundering and ran in the other direction.  I reflected on it a couple hours later and thought of plenty of things I could have said, but my Spanish just isn’t there anymore what with French and Italian floating around in my head.  Maybe I’ll pick it up again eventually.  Also, to my credit, I think they were speaking in Catalan, or at least they had very think Barcelona accents…