swaziland, my new home.

man. so this housing thing is really a problem. like, really.
i mean, gibson, really? because i'm pretty sure gibson is the armpit of south campus, the new jersey of pomona college. andrea intellectually noted that it is like the swaziland of africa; and even though that puts all my other insults to shame, i decided to add it onto the list. whatever, i'm pissed.

originally, i was supposed to defer, such that when i would request which housing i wanted (in order of preference), all i would have to write is "smoking dorm, please." why, you may ask? the concept of students who are smokers is a loophole that is really worth looking into. even though it's kinda unclear which dorms on north campus are specifically smoking dorms (although clarified by deanna bos "...The only residence halls that allow smoking are Clark I, Clark V, Clark III portion of Norton Clark, and Lawry A and C towers. All traditional hallway type residence halls are smoke free and smoking inside will result in a policy violation..."), it is important to note that ALL dorms on south campus are SMOKE-FREE. meaning that where i was deferred, it would HAVE to be on north campus. worst case scenario: a double on NC with someone i didn't know, however this, too, is unlikely since all of the dorms she mentioned are single-heavy (most doubles are in walker, which is a hallway type residence). My chances of getting a single on NC seemed to be increasing by the second. Meaning I had either come up with the most brilliant plan known to students screwed over in room draw, or i had seriously forgotten something important and was about to be seriously screwed over.

well, the latter occurred, as seeing as there were more students applying for rooms than rooms available, no one was allowed to voluntarily defer (only those students who were so low that they literally had no rooms left by the time it was their turn to choose). my plan failed. miserably. because when i opened up my email this morning, prepared for an email from alissa telling me that my plan to defer had worked, instead i got an email from sammy telling me i was in gibson. gibson you say? the dorm that is actually so unimportant that the pomona website doesn't even list its room dimensions? awesome. this'll be fun. because there is nothing i love more than eerie, seemingly deserted fluorescent-light bulbed housing, colder than i don't know, colder than deanna bos' heart, perhaps? i am thinking of committing suicide, but only if i can do it on her doorstep.

i only wish i had more time to sit here and complain, but alas my battery is about to die (just like my social life next semester), and i think punching doug (who is living in a suite on north campus) would actually just make me feel much better. i would much rather hurl poisonous insults at him anyways, it's way more satisfying.

the gypsie that tried to steal my borsa

dude. so some bitch finally tried to mug me. i mean, i was kinda waiting for it to happen, considering i run around all the time by myself at night, it was really only a matter of time before the statistics caught up with me. anyways, i guess i kinda asked for it, since after dinner mamma gianna had made lasagna so obvi i had fasted all day and then eaten my weight in meaty deliciousness, so then i was laying on the bed afterwards feeling very pleased but ill, and i knew that i would never complete all the italian homework that i had for the next day (because it was all the way across the room, and fuck that shit if i was going to get up and do it in my condition--plus i had actually lost the story i had to read and do a report on...), so i prayed really hard that i could have some sort of excuse not to go to italian the next day....and then of course God answered my prayers by having someone mug me!!!
anyways, so basically i was walking to elly's to watch the new episode of grey's anatomy and this guy comes up behind me and tries to grab my borsa. and i'm just like, fuck no, not only is my computer in my bag, but it has the new episode of grey's on it that cost $1.99 (that's 20 minutes of work at whole foods, fyi) and took like 50 hours to download since the network is so shitty at SUF. so basically i would rather risk getting shanked than for you to take my fucking hot-shit bag and computer/only connection to the rest of the world. so basically after i don't let go, he pushes me against the wall and i risk physical damage to my face (i am going to ireland this weekend and i need to be looking hot as shit for those gorgeous irish boys), i'm pretty much pissed as shit so i elbow him in the nose/break his nose and groin the bitch, so hopefully he will no longer be able to have children. baby-muggers, obvi, i was doing the world a favor. and then he comes back to get my purse YET AGAIN, except i was yelling at that point (i couldn't remember the italian word for help, so i basically just downed like a dying creature of some sort) and someone came around the corner with his dog and then the guy ran off. fairly lucky, i would think, because i wasn't shanked when in all reality, i probably should've been. plus i owned the bitch. i hope i broke his nose so badly, shards of it pierce his brain and he dies. slightly graphic, i apologize, but really, what a little bitch. the best part, however, was after telling mamma medi (elly's mamma) what had happened:

mamma medi: was he black?
me: no, he was white
mamma: not white, he was romanian.
me: what?
mamma: gypsies. gypsies are from romania.

now i do realize that all of italy's problems lay on the shoulders of the gypsies (and communists), since every time anything wrong happens in the world, mamma gianna always blames it on the communists or gyspies (she even called the monks in burma gypsies that were causing problems....). yet i actually laughed out loud when i saw how absolutely serious mamma medi was when she assuredly told me that it was the gypsies that had tried to steal my bag. elly's pappa, however, cheers every time i walk into the room, since i'm such a fucking champion, and all. obvi.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
1) when in doubt, just break someone's nose. that shit hurts, AND leaves dna (blood) and makes them look like babies when their eyes water up and they cry
2) if someone tries to steal your stuff, it was probably a gypsie.

mike's birthday party freshman year, part duex

okay so glad we started this out appropriately. that's my ass. that nice, white, bruised, ass. but there is a good story behind it (ha ha ha, behind, get it?? hahahhaha).

so i went to prague this past weekend and it was pretty much had the time of my life, dancing with sketch foreigners in five-story clubs, seeing the incredible charles bridge, prague castle, the jewish cemetery, blah blah blah blah blah. because let's be honest, the highlight of my weekend (and everyone else that was a witness) had nothing to do with prague, rather my own stupidity that could've graced everyone in any part of the world. so saturday was the anniversary of 'kristalnacht'--you know, the 'night of broken glass', the first real violence against the jews in which nazi supporters destroyed a bunch of homes, synagogues, and jewish businesses. anyways, seeing as it has one of the largest jewish quarters in all of europe (and the oldest synagogue in all of europe, and largest jewish cemetery--so basically the jews are kinda a big deal here), prague celebrated this night of hatred with...wait for it...you guessed it--hella neo-nazi marches and anti-jewish protesters. now i realize that joking about such hatred is in incredibly poor taste (let's leave it to the social justice studies major to preface any story with a comment like this), but in light of the delight that is about to follow, any seriousness at this time would probably be really worthless and kill the story. so just wait for it, and then later i'll rant about how much intolerance sucks, etc. okay so. basically this night is important because as neo-nazis are marching around the city, it's kinda advised that tourists don't really go out, such that they won't be caught up in any of the bashing-in-of-heads and stuff like that. and as important as this is, it was still our last night in prague, and we wanted to party hella, obvi, even though we did not want to end the night in the hospital or morgue. so instead of making the decision at the hostel, we decided to go out to a really nice dinner and discuss it over wine. i mean, it was basically classy pre-gaming, and we all know classy is how i roll. so 4+ glasses in (good joke since i get wasted after 2 glasses), i decide that i'm really 'not that drunk, guys!!!' and am really upset over the fact that my tolerance has increased what seems to be exponentially. although again, since i was 4+ in, i had basically gotten so raging drunk that i was pissed that i wasn't drunk enough. so then i had to pee but the bathroom was upstairs so obvi i went upstairs to go and then as i was coming back down....okay so wait so the stairs were a spiral staircase and i was walking on the very inside narrow part in order to accommodate the other bitches i was with, and then well basically as i was coming down it was actually a flashback to mike's birthday party freshman year. minus the nosebleed and short skirt. but okay so i basically bounced down three stairs and when i fell it fucking HURT and i tried to grab the banister to break the fall except i ended up just hitting it really hard with my elbow, making for double noise (and a double bruise). so then i look around the corner after yelping only to realize that EVERYONE and their mother in the restaurant is STARING at me with open mouthes because it sounded like someone had just dropped a bomb on beruit...or for the sake of the evening/place, israel. and then after someone sitting at a table ACTUALLY POINTS at me while staring, lally turns to me and is all, "i'm so embarassed for you." oh, thanks lally, because i couldn't figure it out...except it probably seemed like i couldn't because i'm laughing so hard because it was so funny and my ass hurt SO FUCKING BAD and i was really drunk so obvi i didn't know what to do and then i was like fuck it, let's just go out, so we did. and we went out to this horrendousLY AWESOME club and got a private car home because we made friends with the bouncers and they said that if they couldn't sleep with us, at least they wanted to make sure no one else did, including the taxi-drivers (and neo-nazis).

okay so this is where it gets good. a little graphic, but it's kinda worth it. okay so i get my period the same night, as i'm fucking wasted, so naturally i didn't think it was my period, and that i was actually bleeding internally. like, seriously. i thought i was dying and that my tailbone had pierced some important internal organ (i'm not sure which one, i was too drunk to remember their names) and that i would bleed out somewhere on the street in the czech republic and not be able to go to the hospital because the czech republic isn't in the EU so obvi they are barbarians and don't even HAVE hospitals much less the means to fix a bleeding ass, and even if they DID have them, i wouldn't want to end up with them doing something else with my ass instead of stitching it up, you see. naturally, i was terrified, and such were the only logical consequences of falling down the stairs. NO ONE could talk me out of the fact that i thought i was dying, because the thing is, since being on birth control, my period has been fucking CLOCKWORK and i wasn't supposed to get it for like 3 more weeks. thus i was TRULY CONVINCED that i was going to die, since i was bleeding everywhere and the non-legit-EU-wannabies didn't have the means (or the conscience, since they're heathens) to take care of me. but then when i woke up the next morning, i realized that since i hadn't taken by birth control for 4 days (i left it in florence) it had fucked up my hormones and that's why i had my PERIOD rather than internal bleeding. okay so that's that.

so i guess the moral(s) of the story are as follows:
1) if you have a giant bruise on your ass, dont assume the worst; you may have fallen down a very public spiral staircase
2) if you fall down the stairs and subsequently start bleeding out your vag, you may actually NOT be dying. but still check that shit, because those tailbones are pointy and can puncture shit

ow.

i think i broke my foot at oktoberfest.

owwww.

at least i don't have hemophilia, though. i was bleeding a while ago, and now it's stopped, so i guess that's good.

i went to oktoberfest and i brought an albino, bootylicious babooska, and a chilean boy with catskillzzzzz......

so a weekend in munich. aka: oktoberfest.

the trip can best be summed up and divided into three main experiences: [not-so-]sleeper trains, "couchsurfing", and the stereotypical joy of oktoberfest (and the realization of its unfortunate reality of puke and actual disease). main characters: my two traveling companions sarah and elly, manuel and his frat-house-mates, and random puking bavarians.

the discovery of a night-train to munich at first came as a blessing--after all, pop a few ambien and down a glass of wine, and that rocky train ride complete with obnoxious whistles and hacking compartment-mates turns into a lovely...well...nothing. you wake up in munich, ready to celebrate bavaria one liter at a time.
this, unfortunately, was not exactly how it worked out--the lack of couchettes (beds) left only actual seats, and no amount of ambien and codine cough syrup could save us from waking up--rather drifting in and out of consciousness to crumpled necks and smelly coach-mates (the windows didn't open...how convenient). people sweat a lot. and that's awkward.

the excitement of a weekend in germany, though, left us with a false sense of refreshment, and we headed to oktoberfest at 8am, like EVERY OTHER PERSON UNDER 30 IN THE COUNTRY OF GERMANY. stellar. or it seemed that way, at least, since we were black-out-drunk by 10am. i suppose not sleeping helped to induce this intoxicated state even further, and at least everyone else was too drunk to notice the bags under our eyes, so we were pretty set. even when it came time to meet our couchsurfing host, we were absolutely hammered, stumbling and all. man, don't you want us to stay with you now? it's nice to meet you, tall, blond blob lacking any distinct features! 11am-5pm remains fairly unclear...something to do with brown jackets, beer pong (it is possible?), and talking/slurring politics. then we headed back to oktoberfest where two security-guard house-mates led us to a nice tent where we subsequently imbibed more, setting up for a night of poor/great choices.

let me intervene for a moment, to explain the magical, magical world of couchsurfing. magical, i feel, is an appropriate choice of adjective, since couchsurfing, my friends, is free. in sort, people from all over the world post their couches online, and if you're traveling, and are poor and cheap like me, you can find someone's couch where you are staying, and sleep on it for free. it's genius, really.
the official mission statement is as follows: "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."
And with a mission statement like that, well, if the experiences are waiting, i best not let them escape me! sign me the fuck up. so i am searching in munich for couches, and i send out my emails to everyone who has good references (from previous couchsurfers, who confirm that this potential host is neither a rapist nor any other kind of convict), alas everyone is booked due to the fact that it is oktoberfest. morgan has just about resigned to the harsh reality of staying in florence for yet another weekend when a beautiful, blond german boy accepts her request on the basis that she is cuter than the three canadians that he has previously agreed to host. sketch? yes. important? no! we're going to fucking germanyyy!!!! train booked? check. place to stay? check. WE'RE LEAVING IN 5 HOURS hells YEAH.
so how did this experience quite turn out? what was couchsurfing like? apart from the fact that morgan, elly, and sarah's host was GORGEOUS on every scale of human-attractiveness in existence (like really, REALLY freaking attractive, i'm not even kidding), it turns out he lives in a house with a tall bald man, a chilean guy, a greek guy (named vegono?), and like 5,6,7,8+ other guys (it's actually really unclear as to who actually lives there--at one point, we witnessed a small child running around, and while we originally thought it was simply a drunken mistaken blur, it was later confirmed that one of them--god knows who--has a child), in what is basically a frat-house. like, a frat-house in every sense of the term, both literally and conceptually. as in rented out to students from this particular college for over 75 years, such that the entire second floor of the apartment was filled with just really old antiques such as old fencing masks (creepy) and stuffed foxes (doubly creepy) in memoriam to their older brothers; and in the other sense, the fridge contains no food or water, rather shelves and shelves (and shelves) of beer, next to which are crates stacked one upon the other, of more beer. hmmmm. most importantly, the apartment is decorated entirely in a frat-house fashion, with wooden board as tables and posters of naked women pinned up on most available surfaces. there was also an attic where a bunch of oktoberfest security-guards lived, and fencing matches took place.
(side note: morgan thought the fact that this was a frat house was incredibly interesting, considering that half of its inhabitants seemed to have passed their twenties some while ago, suggesting that they may not have been, in fact, students, but COUCH SURFERS FOR LIFE?!?!?--THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE CONCEPT FOR MORGAN, ONE THAT WILL BE ANALYZED LATER)

apart from the fact that morgan hooked her couch surfing host (morgan thinks that this not a typical experience for couchsurfers, but the tall, blond one was GORGEOUS so...and the details of which will be left for the closest of morgan's friends), this seemed to be a typical couchsurfing experience...it was fucking ridiculous, crashing for three days with someone nobody knew, but the adventure proved incredible (not just the hook)--having to operate by someone else's clock (a drunk frat-boy's clock, to be more accurate) and schedule. in fact, morgan, elly and sarah came to the conclusion that this is probably what these guys do all the fucking time--drink all day/all night, pass out in random places around the house, and the go out and do it again the next day/night. and look at a lot of porn. germans look at a lot of porn. no violence, as it was explained to us (i suppose they are still trying to recover from nazi flashbacks?), but porn is pretty much on every channel, the equivalence of basic cable. niiiiiice!!! man, it made me feel right at home. (...)

saturday was spent shopping (beautiful munich has three beautiful H&Ms) and sunday was spent visiting Dachau, one of the most terrifying concentration camps from WWII. it was an incredibly sobering experience, especially walking through the gas chambers and crematoriums. there were also a lot of photos posted around the site showing what that spot looked like back during its time of operation--meaning that you could look at what looked to be some random brick wall, and then see that almost 70 years ago it was used to support piles and piles of hundreds (if not thousands) of dead bodies awaiting disposal. you also learn that no matter where you stand in the camp, chances are someone died in that exact same spot at some point, whether from starvation, disease, or by another human. while a number of memorials spotted the camp with phrases like 'never again' and 'remember the suffering', i would actually like to take a moment to be very serious (difficult, i know), and to point out that we ARE forgetting, because such suffering and crimes against humanity happen everyday in this world, and continue to happen as others stand by and just watch. does a concentration camp necessarily have to be built in order to qualify these actions as unacceptable? because regardless of the setting or methods of killing, the origins are the same: intolerance and hate. it is never acceptable, it is never okay, and to accept the status-quo or the "nature" of the on-goings in other countries is doing a disservice to humanity.

okay i'm done. that's all. with the serious part, that is. but really, think about it, because often we are caught up in our own exciting lives our couchsurfing and beautiful german boys and it takes such a sobering experience to place the world in perspective. okay so, a few overall notes about germany:

1) munich is very, VERY clean. this may be due to the fact that most of the buildings are new, since WWII destroyed much of the city thus it needed to be rebuilt...but actually the streets are incredibly clean; rarely there is any garbage or dog shit everywhere (thanks, italy). thus morgan is lead to think that germans are prone to cleanlinesses, which makes sense; first their race, and then their streets--the second being a much healthier channel, yes? (morgan realizes what incredibly poor taste this last comment was in--and would like to retract it (but not delete it because she felt it was very clever)).
2) drinking beer at every hour of the day should be acceptable in all parts of the world. even when morgan, sarah, and elly took saturday and sunday off of oktoberfest, they still drank at every meal, since it was cheaper than water and juice (seriously). what a great concept. the USA should note this.
3) traditional german meals taste great when going into your mouth, but are not equally as great when settled in your stomach. very heavy, indeed, it was, and such piles of sausage, sauerkraut, this really delicious pasta-cheese thing, and then a lot of beer, really actually make you feel ill as shit. ILL AS SHIT. my digestive system is still recovering.
4) never, NEVER go to oktoberfest at night, sober. you will regret this decision inexplicably. i can't even being to delve into the disgusting ACTUAL mounds of trash and puke that is everywhere. you don't notice it so much when you're drunk--in fact all of the pretty lights from all the rides and shops are quite nice and happy, and the stumbling people seem friendly and harmless. but sober, you realize that everything around you is harboring obscene amounts of puke. the rides become instruments for inducing dizzying, upset stomachs filled with puke, while the people themselves aren't friendly, they're just vehicles of puking-machines, that can spontaneously spew what can only be described as satan-in-chunk-form, totally unprovoked. so just don't do it. go wasted, sure, and then get even more wasted. but never. go. sober.
5) when you take sleeper-trains, make sure that you wake up at your stop. while this has nothing to do with munich itself, the ticket was bought there, so here it is probably most appropriate to mention this. traveling from munich to home, florence was actually just one of the stops from munich-->rome. so while at 5:30am, morgan, elly and sarah were in theory supposed to get up and stumble home and then crawl to school, in reality, they woke up in rome, at 8am, at the approximate time morning classes start. nicely done. bought tickets BACK to florence, 3 more hours on the train, arriving in the afternoon, after classes were done for the day. sweet unexcused absences! oh, and PS--wind phones charge hella roaming, it basically costs money to breath around your phone. yet texting is cheaper than calling, so opt for that?

THUS in the end, we felt as if we had been hit by a train, after traveling by train for fifty million hours (more like 22, but that's actually almost a day).

BOOTS! (but not the good kind)

this morning on the way to school, morgan passed not eleven, but TWELVE cars in a row that all had these giant yellow spider-looking things consuming their driver-side tire. morgan thought this interesting, because while italians are prone to setting fashionable trends (even concerning their cars), it did not appear that these cars could move (much less dodge poorly dressed american pedestrians such as morgan)while harboring such decorative ornaments. elly confirmed that this was the case. it turns out, that italian parking enforcement does not just give a ticket, but also gives your car a freaking boot, such that they won't take it off until you pay the ticket. which sucks hardcore. reflecting on this, and the multiple parking tickets morgan has on her car (big red has YET to even be registered at pomona...) morgan only felt a twinge of sympathy for these poor cars before relief that her glorious country does no such thing, set in. and that she walked everywhere, for if she drove, she surly would've had the boot at least twice by now, considering she is not yet able to read italian street signs, and even if she did, would probably not be in the habit of following them. note to self: boots are pretty on my feet (very pretty, in fact), but not on my car.

this i miss part one.

things that i miss:
1) my comforter (slash having my bed against a wall)--this is important because now that i actually sleep, it would be nice to have a bed that was long enough slash i could comfortably pass out/curl up and read in.
2) guacamole --i am ALWAYS craving guacamole, but i don't think it actually exists here. it doesn't matter how delicious mama gianna's dinners are (which, can surly attest to, they are incredible--such that i often feel like i have eaten entire babies for dinner, and then subsequently must lay on my bed for a while to stretch out and hate my existence a little because i ACTUALLY HURT from eating so much...) i STILL ALWAYS CRAVE GUACAMOLE. no matter how ill i feel from eating unhealthy amounts of pesto lasagna (omg incredible) or pointedly menta gelato hits the spot...i would always, ALWAYS like some guacamole. i just want a few freaking avocados, okay? oh my godddddddd i miss mexican food sooooo much. note to self: next time you must fend for yourself (i.e. weekend) make a mexican dinner. tortilla chips and guacamole included.
3) normal fucking gum--no one everyone smokes here....there is no decent gum to replace this unhealthy form of oral fixation. besides, none of the gum is wrapped in foil, meaning it is IMPOSSIBLE to make grillz.
4) sadie-kins--i miss the love of my life more than any other kind spirit in animal or human form.
5) sleepovers omg i love sleepovers, except the rules of the program state that you are not allowed to bring guests back to your host family's house (even though it is designed to prevent a certain type of guest, it encompasses all), so even crashing at elly's or sarah b's is pretty much out of the question, so i just have to walk home at 6am, which is fine, except i'm not always up for a gang bang (which is evidently what happens to girls who walk around alone that early in the morning).


i wish i would've brought a huge-ass comfy sweatshirt (like the seahawks one i stole from my dad) and FREAKING SKITTLES OH MY GOD I MISS SKITTLES SOOOOO MUCH (as well as oreos. double stuffed oreos....) i realize that the fact that i am complaining about all the food that i miss and wish i had when i am in ITALY (which unlike jess pool's meals, which are comprised of unicolored blobs of unidentifiable nuclear debirs, i have some of the best food in all of europe) is quite ironic. however, i truly look forward to the day that i am able to gorge myself on skittles, guacamole, and double-stuffed oreos.

a moment of truth....oh wait....

every morning from 8:45-10:45am, morgan is tossed into a small cage with a large lion and waits to be slowly consumed for two hours, her internal organ ripped out one by one. in reality, this small cage is actually her italian classroom, the large lion her actually-really-petite italian teacher, and her slowly diminishing organs her quickly diminishing dignity. for the first few days morgan wondered how she would get out of this one--she actually is a fairly decent converser, except when she feels intimidated and then she gets really nervous and any/all synapses that connect the english and italian-speaking parts of her brain instantly are fried. this was the unfortunate case until morgan discovered the cunning art of LYING. yes, morgan is now a pathological liar in her italian class, so that she can dig her way out of instances when she mixes up verbs and tells her teacher that she "worked the table" instead of cleaning it (morgan left the working of inanimate objects such as tables and poles for more intimate settings, okay?) why yes, i worked the table, BECAUSE I BUILT IT MYSELF, THANKS??? once started, morgan can't stop. at first it was unconscious, but when morgan needed 30 more words for her italian essay, that extra brother named anthony who lives in new york, really came in handy. morgan only realized what a problem it was becoming when she was desperate and slipped and told her teacher that her mom had cancer. as in currently, because morgan is pretty sure that she used the wrong tense on accident. well okay this sounds worse than it actually was (actually, i'm aware, okay?) okay so the premise is as follows: professoressa benedetta was grilling morgan on why she didn't have pets when she was little, and saying that morgan's parents didn't think that her, hunter, and hailey (well, obvi anthony, too) could take care of pets because they were irresponsible and couldn't even keep their rooms clean--that was too much trouble, not to mention required three different tenses including subjunctive. it was much easier to say "mia mamma era malatta". morgan thought this sufficient, after all, what kind of evil person would ask you to explain why your mother was sick? oh, benedetta, how convenient. she kept grilling morgan, so finally it just came out--"malatta, era cancro" (cancro=cancer). silence. very awkward silence. "mi dispiace" another awkward silence. now while morgan should feel bad, sacrificing marilyn's good health due to her inability to speak italian (and the fact that she realized the verb-tense mistake as soon as it happened, yet was too lazy to correct herself), she couldn't help but feel twice as relieved since benedetta didn't call on her again the ENTIRE class period. GREAT SUCCESS!!!! sorry marilyn, it's a good thing you don't have the link to my blog, otherwise you would know that NOT ONLY DO I SMOKE POT BUT THAT EVERYONE IN MY ITALIAN CLASS THINKS YOU HAVE CANCER!!!!!! oh man.

the moral of the story...

well then. a few more things i have noticed about this delightful city:

1) the lack of fucking pedestrian rights. this, my friends, is a problem. why, you may ask? think of my driving, worsen it a little (due to chain smoking, singing along poorly to american music, and dodging all the fucking mopeds), and then multiply that by 400,000. of course then you must also take out all the crosswalks, and then you are left with the current state of italian pedestrians. maybe not italian pedestrians, because you see they are small and agile and are used to dodging their ways around the various swerving cars, however lame american students such as myself, who is used to having her right-of-way pretty much even jaywalking, it is quite unfortunate. see, italians don't care if they hit a pedestrian, because the car has the right-of-way and italians are already obsessed with population control (nicely done, EU) so it fits in and all. but that just sucks for me because i have to walk to school every morning (crossing about 20 streets, awesome), constantly in fear of my life for 30 minutes (not to mention to then go on and be in fear of my life for another 2 hours during advanced italian class). will expand more later on this bitchass subject.

2) the lack of right-of-way for ambulances. in the united states, you hear an ambulance in the far-off distance, and even if you don't see it, you pull off to the right, so that ill/injured people may in hopes be quickly delivered in one piece to the nearest hospital where they may fixed up and then recover. in italian drivers ed, however, the exact opposite is taught: when you hear an ambulance siren, honk wildly at anyone who deviates from the natural flow of traffic (actually, honk more, since chances are, you are already honking an unnatural amount). so now you may ask what this may have to do with me? well when i am hit by a car and/or moped after failing to remember my lack of pedestrian right-of-way, means that i will probably die in the back of the ambulance that would supposedly be taking me to the hospital, while it tries to fight off the other cars for road space.

3) ookay do you have any idea how difficult it is to find weed in this country? so some random italian guy tells elly and i where to buy weed while he is hitting on us, so we go to santa croce where we attempt to 'find the moroccans', since they are evidently the ones that sell it. and we debate whether or not to sit down on the steps of the church (considering there are threatening non-moroccans catcalling us nearby and we do not feel like getting gangraped tonight, plz, especially BEFORE getting the weed....), so we are awkwardly walking around the square when this guy on a bike comes up to us and is like weed? and we're like FUCK YEAH!!! and then elly all stealthily walks around a lamppost with him and then three minutes and 20 euro later comes back with a huge nugget and is like, man, it's hash and we're like man, that sucks but whatever CUZ WE'S GONNA GET HIGH TONIGHT!!!!! "what was his name" "fuck if i know, he's a fucking drug dealer", but it's chill because i guess we can have like 10 different deals because they're all moroccans and all charge the same price. so we're good and then it lasts two nights and the second night we watch degrassi and eat a lot of pesto so it was actually really incredible. WINNERSSSS!!! so i promised amy, my roommte, that we were going to smoke again because she was really super jealous and almost cried when she found out that i had smoked so we're going to do it out on the balcony, even if mama gianna's home, because we're pretty sure we can still totally get away with it.

4) you can't get away from the fray fucking anywhere. as if the stupid radio station back at home didn't play them enough, you escape how many thousands of miles away and they are still there. THANKS, GLOBALIZATION, BUT I ACTUALLY HATE THE FRAY. SO THANKS FOR NOT GIVING ME INTERNET AT MY HOST-MOTHER'S HOUSE, BUT PLEASE, FORCE ME TO LISTEN TO THE FRAY EVERY FUCKING DAY. and it's worse, because it's way more deceiving, because all the italians sing along and at first you think they speak english because they sound totally normal but no, they actually have no idea what the fuck you're saying and then you realize how great they are at mimicking things. like my mamma gianna's niece can sing rianna's umbrella PERFECTLY, and she sounds like a little star, except then she doesn't speak a WORD of english. it is quite upsetting. so moral of the story: too much american culture on the radio and i hate the fucking fray.


i think that's all for now, will reflect on flashing my tot's to all of pisa and other crazy stories next time, when hopefully i have actually done the reading for class and actually have legit time.

<3>

the cast of my life.

okay so let me give you a quick rundown of the various lovely people that i spend ample loads of time with:

elly: this creature is quite amazing. while the petite coach handbag and personal hand-sanitizer was quite deceiving at first, her love for degrassi abolished any further doubt towards her character (as well as her love for thizzle (norcal, alissa?) and farting). she is also a lovely chain-smoking companion, and sasses almost as well as alissa. ex:
elly: (calling down to the other end of the street) "okay, izzy, see you in the morning"
random drunk guy: i'll see YOU in the morning
elly: (snort) HAHA YOU WISH, FUCKER (snort)
she cackles like i do, which is a relief, and we're going to london, edinburgh, brussels and amsterdam together over fall break, so i best like her because imma be chained to her for at least two more months ;) no, but really, she's a delight.
(picture: elly and i doing the THIZZLE dance in front of Dante's tomb. clearly, that is a huge flavor of LOVE LOCK around my neck, obvs)

amy--amy is my roommate and we're really similar in that we're both pretty laid back, we fart and do stupid things together, and she's actually more directionally impaired than i am, if you can possibly imagine that. she loses things, too, just like i do, and we both have large feet and our mothers are crazy. she's really fabulous and i really respect her a lot, and i love how that we're not best friends and we don't feel obligated to hang with each other all the time but we still get along really well. she's a freaking delight, okay?

mamma gianna: MY HOST MOTHER!!!

enough said.








okay so then there's passport girl. who is freaking crazy. and everything is always an issue, as in she needed to go to the hospital for a mosquito bite. and she's super high-maintenance and i feel like i'm being suffocated when i talk to her. she's like one of those girls that freaks out when someone says that she's not being chill. oxymoron, anyone? more on her later, examples will follow.

kaley and lallie: roommates with whom morgan plays with quite a bit. they are both delightful and wonderful and lallie has a boyfriend named doug whom she talks about all the time which confuses morgan because she knows a quite different doug. kaley is best friends with morgan's old best friend from high school (meaning that she is morgan's replacement is chelsea presto's life). basically, they are both very good.

the sarahs--sarah butler and sarah codrado, also very delightful, morgan doesn't get to see them as much due to conflicting class schedules, but she loves them a lot and they are both wine-os like morgan and morgan hopes to play often.

pretty much every other girl here: in a sorority at santa clara, gettysburg, or syracuse university and it is a sad thing, because most of them are in delta gamma, in which they refer to themselves as the delta glamours. remember the devil wears prada? they're pretty much all clackers who wear a new pair of shoes every day to match all the clothes that they are buying (since daddy gave tem $10,000 just for shopping. not even kidding). anyways, it is very difficult to take many of them seriously, because morgan is definitely NOT a delta glamour and their definitions of classy differ quite a bit.

mitch hedberg--played by himself. morgan feels as if he is necessary to mention as a regular cast member to her time in italy, because she listens to him quite often. would you like some more homemade sprite? NOT TIL YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCK ELSE IS IN IT!


okay so that's really all for right now.

oh yeah, and besides that MY LIFE IS SHIT CONSIDERING IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT KELLY CLARKSON IS AT BIG BRIDGES RIGHT NOW AND IS GOING ON TOUR IN THE FALL AND I WILL BE ABSENT FOR THIS OCCASION I PRETTY MUCH FUCKING HATE MY LIFE AND WHY THE FUCK DID I CHOOSE TO GO ABROAD AT THIS TIME MOTHERFUCKERS!??!?!?!?!! dolly parton best show up and go on tour in europe or else imma have a fucking breakdown.


PSS--this picture pretty much sums up my life so far in italy:


mkaythzbye

FIG YOU, YOGURT!!!

this morning morgan was tricked into eating fig yogurt. tricked, you may ask? why yes, she was indeed TRICKED. the container CLEARLY had blackberries drawn on it, and how figs would come to be drawn like blackberries is simply unclear to morgan. morgan though that the italians were good artists...renaissance, anyone? clearly she was wrong, seeing as how she ate fig yogurt instead of blackberry yogurt this morning.

reflections from a week in florence, via mama gianna's apartment.

yes, yes, morgan's host mother's name is gianna. gianna bini, to be exact, a retired art-history teacher. this old widow is a devout catholic who loves to drink, chain-smoke, and go out and hit the bar > go to church. she is absolutely delightful. actually, delightful doesn't even begin to cover it, really. within the first five minutes of morgan's arrival, she is offered an alcoholic beverage, a cigarette, and a lot of cheese. you think i am exaggerating? she is the EPITOME of italian mothering, complete with force feeding, an incredible vocabulary of curse words in EVERY language, and an air that says 'shut the hell up, not only do i do what i want, but YOU'LL do what i want'. she definitely wears the pants in any relationship...except maybe other italian mothers, in which morgan would like to see her duel, because morgan has the upmost confidence that mama gianna is the fiercest, most badass woman around, and she would cut a bitch faster than fitty. in fact, she'd probably cut fitty himself, but then feel such remorse that she would force-feed him an incredible 5-course meal. anyways. she has this gorgeous terrace that overlooks the arno river (across from which stands michelangelo's statue of david), filled with a TON of flowers and plants and best of all, wireless internet (HA!). it perpetually smells like gardenias, which as marilyn's favorite flower, reminds morgan of her mother. this is an interesting feeling for morgan, because while she feels sentiment towards her loving mother, she cannot forget the fact that every time she calls home, her mother says drying "what do you need now, hailey", and will actually argue on the phone for a while as to which daughter she is actually talking to. really, mom? really? this is sort of unsettling for morgan, because it suggests that marilyn should have a reason to wonder who she is actually talking to, which in turn suggests that either marilyn is crazy (which are most certainly NOT ruling out), or that hailey has called before, pretending to be morgan. now while that may seem paranoid, we turn to exhibit A in which hunter sent incriminating emails to morgan's mother around the time she went to mexico. why are the hargraves trio so fucked up? anyways, enough about that. tomorrow morgan is waking up early and mama gianna is taking morgan and her roommate to the countryside where she has a house next to bono. yes, bono. i am sure he keeps many of his sunglasses there. maybe morgan will steal a pair and live vicariously through them, walking around italy hanging out with AIDS victims and seeking world peace. in that case, morgan must be off to bed, for she (and bono) have a lot of work to do tomorrow. <3

BON VOYAGE!! (i know i'm going to italy, but i'm flying AIRFRANCE so the title is totally kosher, okay?)

(so PS, pretend this is from like, a week ago)

morgan's trip started off grandly, as she quickly found out that european airlines ride in class--all the way to serving wine with meals. so while one may wince at the disgusting airline food, at least he/she can dull the pain a little with a mini bottle of red or white wine of his/her choosing. well THAT'S convenient, considering morgan's affinity towards wine. the plane ride was MUCH better after her meal of bread and cheese. and something curry (how ethnic). man, AIRFRANCE really went all out on that one. anyways, morgan sits next to two people--one delightful one, and one not-so-delightful one. the not-so-delightful one is this french hippie woman (probably a fucking gypsie), who passive aggressively steals the armrest within the first 10 minutes of the flight and tells morgan to be quiet when she is trying to sleep (yeah, she says nothing to the crying baby, but yells at morgan. pfft bitch) whereas the delightful girl to morgan's left loves degrassi and offers morgan her should to sleep on. enough said? oh, and hunter (being hunter, and all) slips morgan many prescription drugs such as vicodin and ambient. nicely done hunter, especially with the wine. gee, i'd like to actually wake up and GET to florence, but thanks, really. nicely done. anyways, so the flights are good, morgan's layover is in france, so she and charles de gaul hang out for a while (not really, but she charges her computer such that she can watch more degrassi).