I'm Talkin' 'Bout Pumpkins!

It's officially Halloween, a holiday specific to the U.S. of A. Italians don't so much celebrate it so I had to go out of my way to track down a pumpkin. We found some in San Lorenzo's indoor market and we managed to score this one for about 4 euro. These were definitely there JUST for American students, they had "Halloween" stickers with information in English and everything, but whatever, I can American-up any day I please, thank you very much!

P.S. I think it is hilarious (and yes, I mean HILARIOUS) that I, in a foreign country where Halloween isn't celebrated, still managed to find, carve and post pictures of a pumpkin before y'all in the U.S.

Suckas!

My little friend... still intact but not for long.
Oh no! It's brain surgery!
I'm in your brains! Scoopin' 'em out! With ma hands....
AAaaaahhhhhh pumpkin BRAINS!

And/or Pumpkin babies... whichever is scarier/more in the Halloween spirit.

He's just not like he used to be... not since the... surgery.
He seems like a hollow shell of his once vibrant personality. It's a sad day.
Until...

I carve a happy face on him! Now he's all better.

Now he's all better AND on fire!

And that is my Italian/Halloween pumpkin... carved by alternating between bread and butter knives.

Yep, I'm pretty much a badass...

Taya's Eye

I borrowed these from Taya's cammera. Danke Taya!

The Pompeii ruins monster!

The day we got lost looking for Forta Da Basso.
Taya's always chasing after pigeons. It's one of her endering qualities....

Dinner at our house with our teacher, Elizabeth.
Danilla, her husband and her sister in-law. Danilla is our land lady and the sweetest person ever. She took us out for dinner and treated us to pizza and panna cotta!

Taya, me and Ana

(incidently this is my first time in a bar... we'll see if that happens again.)



Ana and Rebecca

Thong-man

This guy apparently lives by the school on the street somewhere. There is something like a parking lot for the apartments in the area and I guess he spends all day washing the cars there. He's got their keys but he looks pretty homeless... or at least homely. Plus, he's got some sort of weird underwear/jock strap/sling system that keeps appearing as his pants sag.

He looks so peaceful sleeping on whoever's motorcycle this is.

Disturbia... the Toilet

I'm a little frightened by the lack of toilet paper or hand soap in all of Italy. No matter where I go on my little adventures one thing is certain, I will always be confused by their absence in my life. Italians, it seems, feel no need to be clean. They can sex-up every aspect of their lives, but personal hygiene isn't so much of a hot-button issue.

For example, in or around the train station are bathrooms. Naturally. However, you must pay to use 95% of these facilities. So, after seven hours of riding on a train I get to stand in front of a turn stile and fish out the exact change (it won't take anything less or more than EXACT change) from various pockets. This is no easy task BEFORE taking into account my exploding bladder and general travel-anxiety. Usually it's about 70 cents which is about a dollar in U.S. currency. What am I paying for? Who knows, but whatever it is doesn't include toilet paper or soap. It includes their dispensers, puddles of soap and scraps of paper on the floor, but there's a distinct lack of the actual products.

Our solution has been to take wads of paper with us in our bags. Now, I'm talking specifically about the girls... I have no idea or any real desire to find out what the guys do.. they're on their own as far as restroom etiquette is concerned. I don't even want to venture around the men's room... the horrors of Euro-potties are evident enough in the girls' room, which is universally better than the men's. Why? That's one of life's greatest mysteries.

The Plague

I woke up this morning with... THE SICKNESS. You know, the garden variety snuffles, "By head hurd and by dose id duffed" sick-speech, and impressively enlarged glands. It's been traveling around the school and it was only a matter of time before I was struck down. So I got up and puttered around in my slippers with a roll of toilet paper for tissues and then I thought to myself

"Maybe if I make some cocoa I'll feel better."
Did that.
"Maybe if I take a shower I'll feel better."
Did that.
"Maybe if I open a window..."
"Maybe if I put some pants on..."
"Maybe if I make my bed..."
"Maybe if I put a bow in my hair..."

and so on and so forth until I was ready for school. Still not feeling better, but at least I look pretty good for a sick person and my room is clean.... ish.

Bloodsuckers!

Ok, this is what crack does to you. Don't do drugs!

Oh, wait, wrong post.

This is what mosquitoes do to me. Don't do mosquitoes!

I did NOT do this on purpose... I didn't even think about it and I'm already paying for it so please don't e-mail me about how I should have taken the wipes with me.

You know who you are.

And no, I'm not going to die/loose my arm/get malaria. This is just how my bod. deals with mosquitoes here. Sucks to be me for the next week or so.

Boboli Gardens

I finally made it to Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti Palace. It was a beautiful day and what better way to spend a day like that than to go to a garden? Here's a link to a virtual tour of the gardens, if that's what floats your boat..

The only even remotely un-beautiful part of this little excursion were the mosquitoes. It's been cold for about a week, I haven't gotten any bites for three weeks and I thought I was in the clear.

WRONG.

I forgot that it was warm yesterday. I also didn't take into account that it'd been raining so Boboli was covered in patches of standing, stagnant water. Guess who likes to make babies in water very much like the stuff I've just described? Yes, mosquitoes. I now have four bites that became enormous in ten minutes tops. I couldn't figure out why my hand was itchy until these bites just appeared out of no where and started to take over my hand... sort of like those little sponge animals you drop in water and watch grow into slightly larger sponge animals. I've learned my lesson for sure now, those bug wipes mummy sent me with no live in my purse at all times.

I wish I could be all naive and get away with it.

This is a view of the backside of the Palace and part of Florence from the gardens.
I think this is the fountain (another Neptune) that the Florentine's call "The Fountain of the Fork" for Neptune's trident. I think. It's either this one or the one further down.


You've got to have little monkey statues in a garden. It's just a given.
The countryside behind the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens towards the south.
Part of the garden wall.
I think these trees look like fingers. Oh, and this is totally where I was eaten alive. But hey, mosquitoes have to live too.... or not.

This was one in a series of little gargoyles that were connected by a trough. When it rains the water would pour through there mouths and down these little grooves to end in a little basin. Some of them were melted and distorted from what I'm assuming is some sort of deadly air/rain pollution that we're responsible for. Thanks guys, I love melty statues.
Keep on truckin'

Doin' some Kah-ray-TAY!

Topless style... I like the way this sculptor thinks.

Could you imagine walking along and then seeing water pour out of this crazy-man's face?
The correct answer? Yes.. and it will be awesome.

Rocks!
Specifically gravel but who am I to be all specific?

These fish at the base of statues around the "natural" lake reminded me of Doctor Finklestein from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie.... just a little.
I decided that I didn't have nearly enough pigeons on this blog. Or at least I wasn't being very accurate in the ratio of statues and pigeons in Florence. Hopefully this is one step closer to showing the sheer number of winged-rats that are constantly eating something unidentifiable off of the street.
Neptune!
Florentines and Europeans in general really seem to like Neptune, but then that's only 'cause he's Neptune... I mean come on he's the god of horsey/water/ocean-ie things, that's got to charm the Renaissance ladies.


Shoes! And Roots!
NICE.
From behind you think to yourself... "Ahhhh another nudy statue... that's cool." But then you work your way around the front out of sheer curiosity and you see...
.... that she's GOT NO HAND! It's not simply melted off... it looks more like it was sculpted so that it's been chopped off and her bone's just hanging out saying "Hey fellas... how's the day?" all calm and everything. I think this was my favorite.
Adam and Eve... enjoying a nice day of misery and repentance.
But they're also doing so with matching stylish leaf underpants. Can't beat that God... maybe you should forgive them because their coolness factor is so high, in fact it's biblical!
Now this guy rocks. He's riding some sort of possessed eagle-dog that's about two sizes too small for him. I hope he was able to do whatever it is he set out to do with his little buddy there.