Venice and beyond

Just got back last night after 6 hours of traveling and then straight into 5 hours of theatre workshop that lasted till midnight. No doubt I'm so dead tired now I can't even think straight.
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At first I didn't feel like doing Venice cause the last time I did it with Lars and thought it might be a bit weird to do it alone this time but I went anyway after going to Siena for my scholarship money and Florence for the night to meet Michelle's mum.
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Okay so the canal stank a little but coming from Malaysia I wouldn't complain about the smell that stays only for like 5 minutes. First evening in Venice I hang out with an Argentianian hairdresser, we watched the launching of the clock which used to be there but now functioning after 9 years. It was a big fiesta in Piazza San Marco. Then we met a Canadian guy and hang out for a while talking craps. Great way to start a first day, meeting people and hanging out together.
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2nd day I decided to go to Padova since it was only 30 mins away. It's a big town but because it was Sunday, everywhere were closed and people were nowhere to be seen. My classmate Zehra said all the cute guys of Italy are there but I saw none.. Must have picked a terrible day.
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Then went back to Venice for the evening and ended up at Lido. I found my way to the beach and I cracked up and laughed so hard and loud. It was so dirty and ugly. It's like having a beach in Port Klang (which we don't). Then I started missing Kapas. :o(
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Then I spent the night in Piazza San Marco just admiring the surroundings and enjoying the live bands that were playing at the caffe. Cynthia told me to experience having a drink at the caffe but I couldn't bring myself to pay like 15 Euro for a coffee so I didn't. Then I spent like 30 mins staring at Bridge of Sigh.. You gotta feel the place... Once you feel the place, you will know Merchant of Venice. You can imagine the whole play taking place in Venice, it's wonderful! You have to absorb Venice to feel the place and it's a truly amazing feeling. And what they say is true, there's no other place like Venice.
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That night I bumped into 2 of my hostelmates and we ended up going to a local wine bar at midnight. Which then at 2am we ended up with 3 Italian guys in one of their apt having spaghetti and more champagne. It was mad, it was one of those weird night out and we got back at 5am to sleep.
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I gotta tell this because it's one of the weirdest experience I have. M. (the guy who owns the apt and a chef) told us let's go back to his place for more drinks and he will cook for us.. And in Italy the people are safe (can't say the same for South, but yea here people are trustable). So we went.. Then it happened:

1. When we got to the apt, M. told the 2 girls to cook and gave them instruction. and we had expired tomato sauce, super soften garlic and spaghetti. We were shocked bcuz we were invited for his cooking but ended up he ask the girls to cook. And he wasn't joking.
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2. One of the girl spilled what suppose to be the sauce on the floor and ended up on a piece of carpet, of course it was an accident, but Matteo goes 'Now look what you have done. Now we don't have sauce, you messed up my carpet and you spilled oil on my friend's (A.) clothes. All I asked you to do was cook spaghetti and you mess up everything. This is what happens when I invite you to my house'.

I laughed cause I thought he was joking but he then look at me with a serious face. Then his brother told me that he wasn't joking. OKAYYYYYY...
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3. Then he ask the girls to sit down and leave the kitchen and ask me to help him in the kitchen. So I did. Told me to put salt in the boiling water for the pasta so I did, then he goes 'What are you doing? Don't do anything without me seeing'. And I thought WTF? I told him it's boiling water and I'm putting salt. Yea okay fine... Then I put in the pasta..
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4. Then I turned towards the living room and talk to the girls, and he tells me 'Angelina, you have to stir the pasta'. This time it's WTF. It's his house, he was suppose to cook and he was instructing me! Okay to be honest and just, he didn't sound authoritative towards me and we were cooking together so I didn't really mind. I think I'd have left the house if he spoke to me like how he spoke to the girl when she spilled the oil.
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Then the girls spilled some cook spaghetti on another carpet but of course they picked it up without him seeing cause they were scared.
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The discussion the next day we girls had, we concluded that the guy was eccentric. He was really nice but eccentric. It was the weirdest invitation I've ever got in my life but it made Venice more interesting. We got to go in to an apt in Venice and it was nice and it's fun when you hang out with the locals.
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Italian guys really know how to take care of their women and that's very true but maybe a chef in the kitchen is like a director on stage.. They get into a whole different character in their space.
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It was a weird experience that I keep laughing about and hey at least we had good champagne and beer for the night and even though M. was eccentric, he was really nice to me. HAHA
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Missing Venice terribly now... Stayed there for 2 nights, found a great hostel for a price like anywhere else in Italy.. AWESOME BLOSSOM!

When my knees start to weak

Salve!

Am skipping theatre tonight.. We just started rehearsal yesterday, out on our set. An outdoor park. But my knees are no good, maybe it's the weather, maybe I've been putting too much pressure on my knees, my Asian classmates think it's the steep roads that I take everyday so tomorrow I am getting shiatsu treatment from my classmate (Yippeee!!). Anyhow, I tried walking to theatre practice with my bad knees yesterday and well it was really pushing my luck. So thought I'll give them some rest tonight and stay close around my home.

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Anyhow 2nd reason why I'm skipping theatre is cause hsemate Tomasso will be performing in uni's club tonight. So after movie this evening, Andrea will come over for dinner and we will go enjoy some live music together.

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It's beginning to get warm, at least in the day time, at night we still need our coats on.

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Eddie, you didn't warn me bout the mini red spiders that invade Italy in the Summer.

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Anyway, there's mini red spiders in the size of lice that invades all if not most stone walls everywhere, which means outside my window (yesterday they crawled in, which shouldn't have been the case) and everywhere else in town. Freaks the crap out of me. My friend in theatre said 'you probably have worse animals and insects in Malaysia than Italy and you are scared of these little tiny things?' good point.

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Plan to go to Cinque Terre this weekend have to be cancelled. 6 hours of mountain/hill hiking sounds great but with the condition of my knees, I could be in wheelchair by the time I am done.

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Our theatre performance is based on a poem by an American poet (forgot his name) about animals dying and dying.. So we had to do an animal gesture each yesterday. I was practicing tengiling (Malaysian ant-eater that curls into a ball when in danger) then my Director said an animal people would know.. Great, then I remembered.. Just the same morning I was talking about Orang Utan with Yohanna (my Swedish classmate) and hey it's known worldwide and yet has a Malay name, cool right? So I was an orang utan. When I finished performing my part, one a@@hole said to me 'That was a gorilla'. I don't come from Africa but I know how a gorilla walks, and I know the difference of the gestures of an Orang Utan and gorilla. But someone sure didn't.

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Of course as usual being me, I didn't quite get him at first and after 5 minutes I was furious. But like Michelle Wee said before, 'if you have a comeback only after 5 minutes, the argument is no longer valid, its way too late'... That in mind and with his girlfriend sitting next to me, I figured best to leave idiots being themselves or else the world won't be round. I don't like this guy because trust him to be the one to laugh when I make grammatical error when speaking to my Director.

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Finally now, the stripes are beginning to show.. My director is now a director... In the past 1.5 mths he's been the friend, the instructor, helping us improvise.. Oh well, it's gonna get tougher.

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Today's choir practice didn't happen cause Maestro didn't show up. You know, when you have someone who's 86 or so years old, it's quite hard to tell why didn't they show up. And he's known to be very prompt and punctual..

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By the way, for American Idol.. if Katherine McPhee wins, when I go home to Malaysia I will beat the sh*t out of Tucks. If I can't beat her up, I'll beat her No 1 fan up.
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That's all for now... Keep forgetting to buy my Eric Clapton ticket... grrrrr


Baci a tutti,
Angeline

Pain of using a public computer

This one is in Korean or Japanese or some character similar to Chinese. My blog website is in that language.. Lucky for me I memorized things sometimes. The keyboard appear to be European but is actually American. Quite a pain.

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Marco my friend from Milan came last weekend and we went to Assisi for a festival, the Medieval time festival, quite fun, I really like the costumes and all but there were just too many people. The next day we stayed in Perugia for the Parchi in Festa, where you get to try cheese, wine and prosciutto (ham) for free. See these items are too expensive to buy and then try, so when it is free, its cool. I can-t find a lot of symbols so pardon my typing.

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I attempted nasi lemak on Friday but rice cooked with coconut milk without pandan leaves is as good as normal rice. bleh.... Then Marco cooked dinner on Saturday, yummmyyyyy pasta.. slurrrppp...

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I went to Questura (Police HQ) today to get my fingerprinting done, of course I thought of going in the afternoon but later this morning I found out that they close at 1, so when I got there like 10am, they told me to come on Monday morning.. like 8am... yea whatever... I do feel like not getting it done at all... After all by the time I get my Permesso Di Soggiorno, I will be packing my bags to go home.

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Which reminds me I need to purchase my Eric Clapton ticket later today. My classmate told me Santana on 18th July is going to be free but neah, it was stale news. The ministry still hasn-t settle my allowance yet and honestly, if they don-t give me anything by the 1st of June, I don-t have anymore $$ to stay on. I know I shouldn-t buy Eric-s concert ticket now but this is one risk I am willing to take. Worse come to worse maybe I could sell my butt in June.

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Starting to sound ridiculous, here I am on scholarship and all I received so far was an air ticket. Which means, the scholarship isn-t for the poor, cause you better have 2000 Euro prepared to be spent here because they pay rather late. What would be really funny is if they pay me the whole amount after I-m done. hahaha

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Couple of days ago I started looking at the calendar and realise I have very little weekends and many places to visit. Basically quite screwed but I think I will manage... Done quite a bit of Umbria, now gotta move on to Tuscany but I was told Cortona isn-t worth my time, maybe Bologna... But that-s not exactly near... For some reason I seem to be putting off Rome... Kept telling myself maybe later...

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I watched Legend of 1900 yesterday in Italian. I watched the English version couple of years ago and I was bored by it, but this time it was so good. Even though I was watching from the floor. I must get the DVD, it-s so good. It-s called Leggenda della Pianista Sul-Oceana.. Or something like that...

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I-ve begin to realise that there-s more people my age around here than I thought.. Girls... The one important factor among these people is to get a boyfriend. As usual I don-t know how to respond. I mean yea maybe Italy is a great place if you wanna have fun and flings but I-ve seen people getting all emotional and depress because they are single.. Errr... Looks like it-s an international problem.... Uhh maybe this is when it-s good to be easily contented...

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More festivals in Umbria next week, so... will be busy busy... just by living...

When Your iPod owns you

My problem was, I was charging my iPod in the cyber cafe and I notice the PC I plugged in had iTunes. Now when you have iTunes present in the PC, you have to be careful and eject your Shuffle from the software. Of course in midst of uploading pictures and hurrying off to theatre workshop I forgot.

So what happened? The files are still in the Shuffle but it doesn't work on its own. You can hear the songs on iTunes though.

So what did I do? I was trying to work my way around the iTunes and next thing you know my playlist of over 100 songs is wiped off. It was either I let it over-write or the iTunes won't recognise my hardware.

It's only 6 mths old but there is no warranty. And if you want to call helpdesk you need to pay about 50 Euro. Now I always had difficulty keeping up with my iPod but this is terrible....

Was just talking to Bree couple of days ago about how unfriendly iPod is and she warned me bout the songs being wipe off with just one click. I didn't listen.

SERVE ME RIGHT AND TO HELL WITH MY IPOD.

Angeline.

ps. Super late for theatre workshop and my iPod is empty. Hopefully it works when I get songs off Bree.

I'm bad with titles..

Yes I am, ask my Editor. He often tells me I come up with real bad title and lame or corny ending to my articles. Makes me wonder if my last 2 Perugian articles were publish at all.

Today in class we had a discussion on what each of us like and dislike of Italy. This is when some comments shocked some of us and made us wonder why people come halfway round the globe and complain.

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We heard of dislikes such as:

1. I was studying in the local university and I dislike the fact that the local students are not interested in studying, I want to return to my country ASAP

2. The youth of Italy are too open minded, they dress too skimpily

3. I don't like the fact that the women smoke

4. I don't like the fact that the women here go out till wee hours of morning

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Of course there were more practical ones like:

1. There's too many dog poo on the pavements where we walk (which is really true)

2. The shop closes too long for afternoon break (3 hours)

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Sometimes you sympathise with people when they don't fit in, but when they walk in the class with an air of superiority over their head thinking they are better than the rest of the class, you just want to ask them to go home.

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Went to pay my monthly fee today, the manager at the student office in the university told me to leap into Grade 3 from this mth onwards. I felt so proud of myself, like wow... Someone actually thinks I'm good enough for Grade 3! But of course not happening cause my vocab/grammar still sucks. And it's a fact.

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Had a Labour Day outdoor concert last night, it was great music and awesome blossom everything, had this coffee tasting liquor called Borghetti or something. I got Bree to get me vodka and well I forgot to tell her what mix I wanted, so I got a raw. Like how I got a Sambucca raw some weeks ago while out with Priya. Why do I always end up doing things like that?

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Went to Spoleto yesterday too and it was beautiful as any other Italian towns, this place is great. Perhaps next day trip would be to Arezzo or Cortona. Will post pictures soon.

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Baci,

Angeline