Habituation

Each time I'm on a train, or a bus, I find myself in a seat facing backwards, not forwards. I see where I've been, not where I'm going. Appropriate.

In my apartment, we don't have cups. We only have a series of very fancy glasses, like you'd find at a nice restaurant for water. It's a good life, feeling classy as you drink water, or the fake Coca-Cola I bought at the supermarket that promises a "real American taste."

My bed is leopard-themed. Leopard print spots on my blanket and all my pillows. I don't often sacrifice my masculinity, but if it's what I have to sacrifice to live in this country, I may be tempted.

Someone told me that in Italy, wine is cheaper than water. On a grand scale, that may be true. But at the store I paid 15 cents for a 1,5 liter of water, and 2,70 for a bottle of Chianti. So... maybe not.

Today, lunch cost me 2 euro. I split bread and and pack of mortadella with Filomena, the only Italian in this program and the only Mormon Italian I know. Almost as strange as a Catholic Charlottean.

I got a job as a travel blog writer. My first assignment is for the 15th, a restaurant guide to Venice. Let's see what happens.

This city fosters a different kind of writing. It's loose, but it's continental, it's full of a kind of possibility, the transfusion of western blood into this city center. Each night I scroll down the wooden shutters and close the window on the mosquitoes that somehow dig their way anyway. And I sleep with no shirt because of the heat, exposing myself to their bites and constant buzzing. Other than that, it's quiet here. I want to get a radio to rattle off some Italian while I get dressed or cook - but maybe I should just accept the silence.

Still getting my stuff together. Coins are nearly invaluable here in Europe. I don't have a change purse (nor do I really want one). But I do have a plastic baggie that I keep in my pocket. "Nice wallet," I was told.

I'm trapped in a classroom a lot of the time learning about teaching. I taught my first lesson yesterday. It was good. It wasn't as interesting as it sounds.
-a