Experiencing my life through words

Dear Blog,

There is something about being in Tuscany that makes you want to write and write. Everything is so picturesque and I find that it is easier to express myself.  Every night I sit out on my small yet sufficient balcony and turn on either my French music or my lovely Tuscany mix I made the other day and start to write. Most of the time it does not make much sense but it lets me express my feelings and I get to feel like Jane Austen for an hour or so.

Today I rode the bus home. Line One is my route and I get off at Strada dei Cappucini.  There are two men who ride the bus the same time I do. I noticed them the first day I took the bus. Since then I have decided to be the annoying American who smiles and says ‘ciao’ everyday to them, until they respond. Today I started with a smile. More like a huge grin. I know they saw me because they kept taking small glances my way but would immediately withdraw their eyes as soon as they saw me smile back at them. I guess that could be considered a bit strange and creepy of me, but I mean it as a small sign of friendship or respect. I feel like since I will be here for ten weeks, it could not hurt to make some ‘bus’ friends.  As soon as I learn some Italian I won’t hesitate to ask them how their day at work went.Tomorrow Sharlie and I are going to start running every morning. We live quite a bit outside the city which is hard to have close access to the city life, but nice to be in a quieter area and we have lovely running paths through vineyards and gorgeous Tuscan hills.

The weather is perfect this time of year. It is about 75 everyday with cool breezes. This Saturday some girls and I plan to head to the coast and spend a day at the beach. There are only a few more weekends we can really spend laying out and soaking up the Tuscan sun. I have a silly theory about the sun here in Italy. I think that it gives people a more olive skin tone. Not just the Italians. I have been here two weeks and I already have a slight skin tone change now. I secretly believe I am slowly becoming an Italian.

My Host mother Caterina is very… structured. She likes things to be just so and gets frustrated with us often. If we leave a window open she comes in and says, “ Allora! Non bene, capito?” and shuts the window. She seems to pop up out of nowhere. For example, if we walk out of the room to go to the bathroom, which is literally five feet away and we forget to turn off our bedroom light I hear within seconds, “ Luce, Luce, LUCE!” Like I did not hear the first time. She repeats it several times as I try and reassure her that I heard her the first time and am turning around to turn the light off. 

I often feel like she dislikes me and because of her dislike is purposely trying to make me fat. She dumps more food on my plate even if I say to her ‘basta’ which means full. I tried once saying “basta, basta, basta” hoping she would get a taste of her own medicine but she ignored me and served me some more of something I would not call real food. More like a burnt avocado with strange spices and other gelatin looking mush around it.

I must say that as I smiled and pretended to like what I was eating, I really imagined myself being held hostage and being forced to eat non-edible muck. It made my meal more bearable as I imagined myself the hero for eating the nasty concoction.

Although Caterina is a stickler, she does show me where her collection of soundtracks are and I found Amelie today which is a fabulous. I am downloading it onto my itunes now, and am sure that some of the songs will go in my Tuscan mix.  Ciao tutti!