Dearly beloved, we gather here to say our goodbyes...

Here she lies, no one knew her worth, the late great daughter of Mother Earth, on this night when we celebrate the birth.....



Okay sorry, I may have gotten a bit carried away with the Rent lyrics. But I am indeed in mourning today (well, really all weekend)-- I am now officially ::drumroll please:: vegetarian. So, I say goodbye to eating meat, and....well, I can't quite say I'm celebrating the prospect of eating a hunk of zucchini smothered in cheese every meal til June. Before some of you die of a heart attack or shock (ahem, Lelo and Jodi), let me explain. It does indeed torture me to give up my beloved activity of inserting my canines into a juicy hunk of steak, and I have every intent of returning to said activity as soon as possible. You may be wondering why I am opting for this protein-lacking diet in the first place. Well, the choice was obvious, and forced. The fish here is indeed fished from the lagoon (yes Dad, I know you don't think that's true, but I have real Venetian sources and they are not ones to joke around about such serious matters), and so obviously I cannot eat the seafood choice in the dining hall. Neither can I eat the meat, since I do not eat pork (unless it comes in "prosciutto" form), and the rest of it is almost always unidentifiable as to which live succulent animal it may have come from. I've got my money on pigeon of the San Marco Piazza variety. Seriously though, they had hot dogs the other day that were made of completely white meat. Have you ever seen white hot dogs? I sure haven't. So I am sadly left with my hunk of zucchini smothered in cheese. For lunch today they decided to do something daring-- they added a thin slice of eggplant underneath the zucchini and an entire red pepper on top of it. Sadly, since I had to get to another class right after lunch, I didn't quite have enough time to finish even my salad (a staple for me here...thank goodness Italians have oil and vinegar!!!), so by now I am FAMISHED. So I end my discussion of how horrible it is to be an herbivore. I look forward to the day I can yet again eat protein that does not come in the form of Nutella.

Moving on. So as you may or may not know, today was the first day of classes. I began my day by waking up leisurely at 8:30 (I love waking up without the sound of an alarm clock), showered and quickly ran down to breakfast about four and a half minutes before they closed, ate my croissant and handful of cereal in peace, drank my only cup of tea for the day (another serious deficiency in my diet here), and came back to finish getting ready for the day. I had a lovely chat with Mel (an Australian friend) online while I was getting my things together for class, and at 11 I made my way to Massimo Bruni's intermediate Italian class. That man scares me. It's too bad I have to see him everyday for an hour and a half. He's very intense, and enjoys sneaking up behind you while you answer your partner's boring questions about what time you usually read books, and then he critiques your answer, letting you know in no uncertain terms that "notte" begins at MIDNIGHT in Italia, and of course it would be obsurd for you to be awake reading in your bed at a time when 21 year olds are either asleep or out partying, so you couldn't possibly have meant that particular word, which one was it that you meant? Yes of course you meant "la sera." I was overjoyed when 12:40 rolled around. Then I went to lunch and went to my next class still hungry, Discovering the Mediterranean: Tourism and Literature in the 20th Century. I'm not quite sure what's with the long titles, but it's more like a history/literature class about western Europe. The professor is Lluis Quintana, and I'm pretty sure he offered something to the first person who could pronounce his first name since that sound doesn't exist in the English language. He told us to call him Louis til we could master it. He teaches at a university in Barcelona and is really nice and funny, and he's got the added bonus of no oral examinations, and no midterm either! Naturally I signed up for his other class, Social Climbing in a Changing World: Snobbism in the European Literature, at 5pm today, as well. Why are the Spanish so long-winded with titles?? This class is mainly about the changing roles of the elite during the 18-20th centuries. They both seem like decent classes, even though he's going to make me hunt through Venice to find the store ("I don't know what it's called or where it is, it's number 20 on your map!") that sells his course packets. At the end of his class I got into an interesting discussion with a girl named Silvia (who I believe is from Holland?) about the differences in university costs between Europe and America.

So that has been my day so far, and I am looking at my clock which is screaming IT'S DINNERTIME GO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO...A VEGETABLE! So I think I'll go do that. Later tonight they're showing Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips), a movie in Italian that depicts Venice. I figure it's a good opportunity to practice my Italian. Whenever I manage to find that bookshop I'm going to pick up a children's book also. I want to read an actual novel in Italian, but I want to be able to understand it too, and I find stories for children to be more entertaining most of the time anyway. Well, I'm now 3 minutes late for my vegetable and it's waiting there for me to come and ask the mean lady (there's a nice one and a mean one....more on them some other day) for a nice stingy portion of zucchini. Yummy. For now though, it's still better than Lagoon Fish or Unidentifiable Meat.


PS- Tia, when you come, please bring me peanut butter?? I need some protein!