Somewhere out there

When I was about to hit the track, I wanted to check from the outside of the car at which end my compartment is.Well, the closer end, but the compartment was already inhabited by four guys in various states of drunkenness and undress, several bottles of beer, at least four cartons of Chateau Tetrapak and they had a party going on.
I'm tough but not tough enough for this so I found myself a place elsewhere. Luckily, the train wasn't that packed but admittedly, I'd rather stand in the corridor than socialize with drunks.
Thinking of it,the railways should provide a party car, it's 0538 and some arseholes play loud and bad music.(My father would comment it along the lines of Be glad, they could be singing. True.)
Sunrise at the Alps: pretty. Internet connection: bad. Trains get redirected somehow around Vienna, meaning half an hour of delay or so: not pretty. My shoulders freaking hurt from carrying all my crap around: not pretty either, especially since a part of the problems are abrasions, not only muscle fatigue.
I hope mommy makes me a cake.
While I got connected to something that works, I checked the weather forecast. It says hot and humid - as if I hadn't had enough in Italy. This is simply not fair.

Well, Italy...

...although it possibly may happen anywhere. I hear that people don't go on strikes in Finland and that trains are always on time and at the right place in Japan but those may be legends.
At midday, I wanted to take a bus to Santa Maria Novella to leave my suitcase there, the buses stop across the street, so that I wouldn't have to drag all my bags at once. After half an hour of waiting for the buses which didn't go, some compassionate fellow citizen told us who waited there that there's a bus strike. I brought the suitcase back home and went to take books back to the library and for a lunch with Laura. (The stuffed rabbit at Lo Skipper was excellent.)
I thought about not being caught by a rainstorm out in the wild and walking back barefoot several times this spring, so... exactly this happened today. I was soaked wet, with half-dissolved shoes and adequately pissed.
I finished my packing, went to the Campo di Marte station, the train was announced to be some 15 minutes late. I had a reserve for unscheduled delays and disasters so I was okay, it was still doable.
Alas, I had no reserve for unplanned unscheduled delays. The train for SMN landed not at the first platform but at the second and I wasn't able to catch it with some 50 kilos of luggage. I went to try and catch a taxi. Meantime, some logistic woman from Student Agency called me where the hell I am. In a taxi to Piazza Adua, will be there in a while. She started explaining that the bus is due in a few minutes, when I migt arrive and that she'll call the driver whether they could wait for me. So far so good, excellent service, I thought to myself until the logistic gal called back, saying that they totally aren't able to wait for me for a single minute and that I might take a taxi to catch the bus in Venice, for example. I held back and didn't tell the gal to go kill herself for such ideas - I don't have an oil well at the backyard to go to Venice by taxi, that's it. I guess that neither the logistic gal has.
The bus was due at 1815, I was there 1818.
Three minutes, the hell.
We cursed the ATAF, Italian Railways, bus drivers and just the whole world in unison with the taxi driver, he dropped me off at the train station and I went to buy the ticket for midnight express to Vienna, quietly hoping that there might be a sleeper place available.
The queue was long and slow so meantime I tried to call parents, I needed to whine and to let them know that there'll be no need to pick me at 0730 in the morning. Dad wouldn't pick the phone but mom was there. I summed up the situation and she said You're so chaotic. As always. You should've gone earlier. She's unteachable. When I need to whine, I need to whine and be told that they are all arseholes, whoever I'm whining about. I even explicitly told her to let me whine, promise me a cake and I'd be fine. Nope, she needed to say that so she got a full dose of pointy sarcasm. Well, then she promised cakes. And no, they had only seats for the Vienna night train. So, I dragged my possessions to the waiting room and I'm waiting. I'm high on adrenaline so I'm afraid that the next smartass who will give me useful advice or something might get a bleeding wound or two.
I settled at the waiting room - there's just about time for one lappy battery and one sandwich... and meantime, I invented a revenge.
Student Agency offers free coffee on their buses. A cup of vending machine coffee worth 35 cents. My unused ticket was for 63 euros.... so, let's drink all their coffee. Serves them right because giving false hope is just too evil.

Festa di San Giovanni - dedicated to M.

Bite the Day of the Republic, Easter or whatever, San Giovanni is the most important feast here. The city is shut down, people are in the streets and there're fireworks.
Laura found a spot at ponte delle Grazie - first we were to meet at ponte della Trinita but she decided it was too crowded there.

Well, could've taken pics with fireworks and Ponte Vecchio but one can't have everything. We had a spot... and the bunch of Russian girls had a spot just behind us. They were Russian and loud. Several times, I shouted to shut up but they didn't care so I was bound not only to hear but also to understand sophisticated comments like Look! A red one! Ooooh, a star! And a flower! Now! in high-pitched voices.

I had a tripod - and if I didn't want really much to get pretty pictures, I'd use it as an assault weapon. I'm tall so I got a big tripod and well, three kilos of sturdy and handy aluminium tubes... just saying. Laura and I. had the advantage of not understanding. I said something not very polite about idiots when the crowd dispersed and they were Oh, you understand Russian, and what did they say then? expecting something that would turn the world upside down, some deep philosophical truth that needed to be shouted despite the crowds and fireworks. See, that's a green one! They look like big flowers! I re-enacted, gained some undeserved praise and Laura started telling the rest of the group how I study due mila delle lingue and how she spent the whole day at work reading my blog and how the bits about that failed Japanese course are far the funniest. I knew continuing the course would make excellent blog fodder but I didn't want to risk my sanity.

I had some spare wine and instant coffee so I brought it to Laura - or anyone who'd be around - to use it up, I'd be royally drunk if I had to drink it all. And there's more at home, there was only an amount I could carry.

Hey, a green one! And a blue one!

Aren't these cool!!!

Prettyyyy!

Look! Stars!

And these are red!

The recital

I've probably already mentioned somewhere that I dance. Today, instead of packing, I was painting my nails (green, if you need to know) and photoshopping some pics from the rehearsal.
Erm...


... I never claimed that I'm a particularly good or charismatic dancer.

This week I don't bite

There must be something generally wrong with the world.
On Sunday, I was eating the Ikea meatballs - I'll be moving so I need to eat out the freezer - and in the last one, I felt something hard-ish. I spat it out and it looked like a bit of bone. It's minced meat, I thought to myself, so they minced the whole cow or whatever the meatballs are made of into the mixture.

Two years ago, I was eating mandolato, that sinfully good Greek candy made of nuts glued together with caramel. The nuts in questions were pistacho and I indeed had brains enough not to chew on it, I broke a bit, let it dissolve in my mouth... etc. Then, I felt a sharp bit at my molar. I thought a bit of something stuck to my tooth, tried to scrape it off and then I realized that I chipped my tooth without a reason. It was exam time, I was rather busy and it didn't bleed so I went calmly to bed. Next morning, I called the university clinic, supposing somehow that they would deal with students, after all, it belongs to the university. The secretary insisted that I register there so that they'd be my default care providers. I politely refused because my dentist rocks and good dentists are scarce and explained that I need a bit of cement so that the sensitive bit won't hurt. The secretary changed the attitude and said Oh, it's urgent, then you can come... and gave me an appointment in six weeks time. Next week I went home, dropped at the dentists, she had me open my mouth and exclaimed Woman, you ate your own healthy tooth!, cursed a bit and then proceeded to fix it.

This time, it was meatballs. Not stones but meatballs. Well, I'm going back north on Friday and after some necessary errands on Monday and Tuesday, I'll get the tooth fixed, no big deal, and meantime I'll eat soft stuff. Or not. I need to lose weight anyway.
On Monday, there was something going on at school and then we went for a lunch with our somewhat multi-cultural group. When I grimaced after the pasta poked my achy molar, someone asked what's up, I said Damn broken tooth and M. exclaimed Oh, you too?! She's returning to Japan a month or so earlier because we apparently share the general trust to Italian dentistry.

Recital: Impressions and Reminiscences

While hanging around backstage, people could please avoid:
- shouting. It's not a fish market, it's a theatre.
- running around with a nail gun.
- running backstage, in spaces crowded with dancers, of which good part are barefoot, in 10 cm stilettoes. Ick.

I did screw something up but I don't remember what it was so probably it wasn't that bad.

It was fun.

Dune

On Saturday, we had to get out of the hotel in some reasonable time and the vague decision was to go somewhere and hang around. Someone said Porto Azzuro, because it sounded nice. However, everybody seemed to have the same idea. We couldn't find any parking space within reasonable walking distance from the centre (two streets and a quay, I'd say} so my original idea, let's go to Lacona, there's a dune, you can bathe and I can see the plants, was recalled.

There's one single dune on Elba. I had my little book on plants of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park so I ranted about it all the time- my parents are not totally in agreement with my hobbies, neither do they appreciate that I can be pretty obsessive about whatever comes to my mind but there was nothing much to do anyway and the argument that where a dune is, there is a beach, worked. Dad parked himself in the beachside bar, mom did a bit more sunbathing - no I don't understand that someone voluntarily stays in the sun and bakes - and I was looking for things in the bushes.

Some sort of Equisetum (horsetail). Looks like science fiction...

Something pointy (damn, I wish I were a botanist)

Malcolmia sp. I knew the name and I forgot but this is another of Elba's endemites, growing only at the dune. It's a very visible plant, with gray-green stem and pale violet flowers and there are damn many of them.