Buon giorno, everybody!

Melissa from France, David from Indonesia, and Audra from Connecticut all enjoy some time in the park.

How's everyone doing? I hope you're all well. Today is a really gorgeous day in Florence. I woke up, put on shoes without socks, and after class, I sat in a park with some friends and napped a little. Now I'm in a bar with a mint soda using their internet to write you this letter. It's been a good day.

So as you can tell I survived the week with my parents. They're a part of this email listing so I won't get into all of the gory details, but I made it through in one piece.

Just kidding. Actually, they got here two Fridays ago and they left this past Sunday, and we spent a really, really great week together. Aside from the weather being cold and rainy half the time, we did manage to get a few nice days in, and when it was rainy, they saw museums, the indoor market, good places to drink hot chocolate or wine, and other important things. So the week went like this:

Friday was a Lent Friday so being in the country of Catholics we decided to be good Catholics and go to "Il Vegetariano".. a vegetarian restaurant.. with some friends of mine. Even if you're a carnivore you will leave there happy and full to the brim. It was really good, and they got to meet some of the people I hang out with, so now they know I have friends, too! Great! Dad thought it was funny how David is a Java programmer from Java, Indonesia.

Saturday we ate parma ham and parmagiano cheese in Parma... a lot of it. It's the epicenter of all culinary goods beginning with "parma-". Parma ham is the best prosciutto in the country! So that was a good day.

Sunday we hiked up a mountain for church, and then we headed to winery #1 of the trip. But before I get to explaining the winery, let me tell you how we got to the winery. The car was like this: little Opel Astra with stick shift; Mom with her eyes closed in the backseat; Dad dividing his attention between the road, the GPS, the crazy Italian drivers honking their horns, and me giving directions and saying Slow Down!; and me in the passengers seat grabbing the "oh shit" handle for a good portion of the journey. So we're on the road. GPS (we named her Bianca) is telling us how to get to Macie (where we expected Rocca della Macie) to be. And finally, we get to Macie. But what the hell is in Macie? There were some industrial buildings, a parking lot, some chickens, one residential area, and that was it, tutti, it. So I call up the people at the vineyard. I'm like hey! We're lost. They're like well let me give you some landmarks to look out for. I'm like well.. all I can see is trees and chickens so let me call you back.

..turns out we were in Macie, and we needed to get to Macie with an accent mark over the "i".

In other words we were in MA-cie and we needed to get to Ma-CI-e. So we drove another half hour, found it, drank wine and spoke with Valentina and her husband (the wine-ists) for four hours. Let me tell you. If you go to a winery in Italy to taste some wines, you better plan to visit one in a whole day. There's no sip sip buy leave. There's talk, sip, talk, sip, talk about your family, sip, talk about wine, sip, talk about how you should visit each other some day, sip, buy stuff, leave.

Valentina even offered me a job as an English tour guide! Look. I'm going to get a degree in television, but once I'm done, working at a vineyard is a serious, serious option.

Monday was another vineyard: Verrazzano... holy moly. Four more hours there with another small family talking to this guy named Gino. He didn't just love wine, he had a whole wine philosophy. Wine, to him, is a gift that makes you forget the past and relish the present. And it should be shared, just like happiness. And share we did. We ate lunch there, but we didn't just eat lunch. First of all, Gino brings us this TRAY of hams and whatnots, and we're all thinking cool. A tray of food for the table. But he puts a tray down in front of everyone. I'll attach a picture of the tray, Gino, and my Dad (by the way, the brown/grey shmear on that toast is kind of like a pate'... it's really yummy, so it doesn't taste what it looks like). So we ate and drank and got merry... learned what kind of wine goes with what... and we left!

At night Mom and Dad ate dinner at Ana's house (where I live). They even got to meet my roommate! Ask them all about it.

Tuesday... rain. Dinner at Porcospino (the restaurant where my cousin Lindsey knows Franco - the owner when the owner's not there). What a guy. Linds, I finally tried the pesto gnocchi. Holy ba-jeesus. I thought I had died for a second.

Wednesday... rain. I had exams this week, so you'll have to ask my parents what they did during the day. I'm pretty sure that they saw a lot of things and walked a lot of kilometers. For dinner I took them to my favorite panino place in the world. They make sandwiches that would blow your mind. I go there when I can. They have a rainbow disco ball hanging in the middle, and they're starting to remember me when I come back now!

Thursday... rain. I met my parents for hot chocolate, appetisers (big Italian custom where you buy a drink and get free food before you go away for dinner), and STEAK. Not just any steak. Florentine steak. It is flash cooked for about a second on each side, and it ends up being crispy on the outside and almost raw on the inside. Wonderful. The guy will cut it off the shank for you. Right next to you. Not for the faint-hearted. When you eat it, you feel like you're eating something that might have been living earlier that hour, but wow. Go to Florence. Eat steak.

Friday... what did we do guys? Oh! One last vineyard. Short visit, good wine, beautiful view. We found a nearby mountain with a castle and a perfect spot for watching the sunset over the ocean. We drove for 56 hours to find the restaurant we wanted to go to (also very yummy), and then Dad got us all home in the car. I think we were all surprised we made it. He was so tired. A little grumpy. Mom and I talked the whole way back to keep him awake.

Saturday we left for Milan. I like Milan. It's more city-like. We walked around, saw the Duomo and Fortress and Galleria. The Duomo looks like a sandcastle/dripcastle (said Mom). We ate dinner and they repacked their suitcases while drinking wine! I don't know if it was Dad's boyscout thriftiness or the wine that made him put the parmesan cheese wedges in his shoes, but everyone made it home safely without any broken bottles and without any overweight baggage fines.

Sunday I was in Milan alone, and a little bummed. Went to Duomo for church, and to be honest, it kind of was a huge disappointment. I was in the biggest church I had ever been to in my life, and it felt like a fishbowl/show and tell. Tourists were walking all around me, there was a gift shop behind me, and people walking in and out and I just wanted to be like SHUT UP!!! So I left and found coffee after Communion. The barristo saw that I was a little blue, so he gave me coffee for free and then I went to go walk around.

Met a girl while sitting on a bench who moved from Chicago to learn opera, and she told me places to go. So I went to a bookstore, a good panino place, back to the coffee bar for a glass of wine, and just moseyed. I'd like to go back to see more. Milan is big.

So life is somewhat back to normal! I'm back to eating apples and bread during the day instead of steak and pesto gnocchi, but it's alright with me. Alex is still here, still enjoyable. In fact, she's got whooping cough. Maybe not exactly whooping cough, but something that sounds like that plus black lung plus allergic reaction. It's not exactly Sounds of the Ocean when you're trying to get to sleep, but if I just play a little Joni Mitchell through the iPod in bed, it'll tune it out for a few hours.

A lot of friends are leaving next week because one of my courses is ending, so we're spending all the time together we can.

Except for right now. I'm writing an email to you.

And in about an hour I'm going to an artist's studio. I'm posing for an artist. With clothes on, promise. Actually, I get to wear a ballerina outfit! Even though it's probably too late for me to learn how to be a ballerina, I can fulfill my dream of being a ballerina in the painting. So Gabriele paints as he listens to Fabrizio d'Andre (classic Italian singer), and sometimes he listens to Buffalo Springfield! I told him next time I'd bring ABBA. He said he likes disco.

...I'm sure that just sounded really weird and a little seedy. But it's not. It's completely safe, really fun to sit and talk to this painter in Italian, and all I have to do is sit for an hour or two, and I earn some Euros while doing it. I'll see if I can send you a picture when he's done. He even asked if I'd do another one. It's kind of like I found a side job! This is another story for another email, though. I've tested your patience long enough.