Makin' dough in Florence

Now I'm not actually making any "dough". In fact i'm spending it at an alarming rate. Now only 150$ in the bank account and still plenty of shit to buy here. The dough I am referring to in the title of this post refers to the literal dough I baked into yeast rolls only hours ago in this apartment. Emily, I and Emily's best friend's mom, Cheryl Wood (who currently resides in Kosovo) are staying here. Making bread is incredibly satisfying as anyone who has actually done it can tell you. I am going to start doing it regularly.

Cheryl and I actually went on a cooking frenzy tonight. We made a spicy pasta sauce from onions, garlic and italian sausage that we will later serve over pasta. However, I had a pretty weird encounter with one of our neighbors at the apartment complex when I was sent out to borrow a can opener we needed to open a can of tomatoes for the sauce.

I was wandering the hallway when I heard a noise down the flight of stairs. This guy, who sort of looked like crazy horse (only he was wearing a soccer jersey) was walking up the stairs towards me. I asked him for a can opener in Italian and he murmured some sort of uninteligible comment, which seemed pretty positive to me so I waited for him to climb up towards me on the stairs. When the guy finaly reached me, I realized he was really, really drunk. So much so, in fact, that he would have fallen backwards down the stairs had I not been there to catch him. He was constantly loosing his right flip-flop which I would quickly grab and put back near his foot so he could slide into it. All the while we are making our way up the stairs to his appartment.

We get to the appartment and he goes inside (to get a can opener I guess) and I wait outside his door for a while. His appartment is pretty weird. It has a big couch facing the front door and a huge vase of fake tropical flowers. Around the corner I can see this really weird picture of an eyeball with a tongue coming out of it and a dagger through the tongue. Freaky pirate shit. Anyway. The guy comes back with a wine-uncorker. I am astonished now at his drunkeness. How can he mistake the quart-sized can I have in both my hands for a bottle of wine? I ask him if he can speak spanish because there is spanish music playing loudly in the background of the appartment and he says that he can! So I then explain that I what I have in my hands is a can that needs opening and for this task I require the use of a CAN OPENER. The man retreats into the darkness of his appartment and returns with another version of a wine-uncorker. Looking back on these events it seems to me like this guy was ironically drunk by only giving me devices that would lead to further alcohol consumption. The guy, however, finally realizes what needs to be done and sets my can on the ground and says in Spanish he is going to go get a knife. This freaks me out. He is way to drunk for a knife. To my suprise and relief the dude puts the knife on the can and strikes the hilt with the flat of his hand and then proceeds to open the can hard-core style by cutting the sonofabitch open. I thank him and am really glad that I met someone who could speak Spanish. Plus, we really needed those tomatoes.

I realize that I have not elaborated at all about my transition from Rome to Florence. Emily and I took the train and I sadly departed from my friends at the hostel. (A special shoutout to Roger and Stephanie!) On the train in itlaly you are not allowed to put your feet up on the chair opposite you as I was told twice by this Art Garfunkel lookin' Italian dude who I liked a lot, in spite of our conflict.

Once in florence whe kind of kicked around and I wrote my latest blog post. This morning we got up early to see the museum dell'accademia which has a ton of Michelangelo in it. That includes the famous David. No homo but I am physically attracted to that statue.

The museum also had a ton of lame shit. ie every tryptich and dyptych the world has ever seen. (I don't think I spelled that right.)

Whatever. Florence awesome.

-Jibreel