Macerata, e la vita è bella!

I am currently beginning my 3rd week as a college student in Macerata, Italy. I really am beginning to appreciate the little nuances  that make up the Italian culture that kind of bugged me before. For example, every day from 12-4, most stores close for a "paese" (break). This is a time to eat lunch, take a nap, and spend time with your family. At first it is really hard to get used to because you want to run errands and get stuff down NOW, but once you realize that you can't help it and all you need to do is relax, it's quite enjoyable. I take a nap almost everyday, eat a leisurely lunch, and do most of my homework before class later in the day. It's pretty great!

Now for pics:

This was our first concert in Macerata. It was during a food festival. We danced with a bunch of Italians and the band even had an "American Tribute" which consisted of Beach Boys and The Mamas and the Papas. I'm not mad about it!

The band, who changed costumes between EVERY SONG.

Our new dancing dog friend.

We have now spent 2 lovely Saturdays in the beach town, Civitanova. I have never swam in bluer, saltier, or warmer water in my life! The waves are nice and small too, so you can just swim as far out as your body will take you without much trouble. Then, you can just float (super buoyant because of the salt) and let the current bring you back to the shore. Annalyse and I even swam with a school of fish!

Some boats in the bay.

I never want to leave this beach!

Eva and Lindsay enjoying the warmth of the pebbly beach.

A highlight of my second week in Macerata was finding our little kitten friend who we named Gattino (little cat). He came right up to us but we thought he was a stray because he was skinny, beat up, and full of fleas. My roommates and I couldn't leave him so we brought him home, fed him, bathed him, and loved him! Turns out he has owners, so we returned him, but not without heavy hearts.

How I miss having animals in the house!

He was so tired! He just passed out after his bath.

We took our first excursion this week, which was a 4 hour tour of Macerata.

We hit up the most amazingly beautiful churches you could imagine. This is the vieling of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Misericordia

I climbed the bell tower all the way to the top (like 20 stories, no joke). The view was AMAZING!

Here is a night-pic of the Bell tower.

Hercules, guarding one of the many palaces in town!

A view of the city from the top of the bell tower.

What I see when I look into the Mirror of Esired- surrounded by friends! This is a mirror in the Teatro Comunale di Lauro Rossi.

The amazingly beautiful ceiling of the Teatro. Could you imagine watching a play from one of the boxes?

Italia

So, I am one of those lucky people who gets to study abroad in Italy for a whole 3 months. I got to Rome on September 3rd and I have been having an amazing time ever since. We stayed at a hostel in Ciampino and visited Rome for a couple of days before making our way to our new home in Macerata

My first Italian pizza panino

Trevi Fountain

One for Rome, Two in hopes of returning

The Pantheon was absolutely breathtaking, especially when there was a moment of silence

Me sitting on a column at the Pantheon

A wonderful view of Roma

We made it all the way to the top of the Spanish Steps

Zombie Invasion in Roma

There was a lot of beautiful street art

I love the streets in Roma

Inside the cathedral at the top of the Spanish Steps. Bellisima!

The day after we were in Rome, we headed to Macerata, where our program is.

We took a train from Termini station and we saw some really beautiful countryside. This is a castle probably built during the dark ages: people moved out of cities and into these cold, dark towers in order to protect themselves. Now it is a beautiful reminder of the past.

Another view of the countryside of the Marche.

And a view from Macerata.

A building in Macerata. The architecture here is wonderful but as our new Italian friends told us when we raved about its beauty: all of Italy is like this, so it isn't really that impressive. Seriously?

One of the many churches in Macerata

Amazing ceiling.

The artwork is absolutely beautiful

The weather has been extremely warm since we got to Italy, and I cannot wait until it cools down a bit and becomes fall, but for now the blue skies are great!

Yard Sales

I have been spending my week preparing my junk for the 3 day garage sale I plan to have this weekend. I am getting rid of a lot of stuff, including quite a few nice antiques. When I price my items I make sure to research each one in order to sell them for a reasonable and realistic price. Despite this, I know that I will get some of "those" customers. What are those customers? "Those" customers are the type that freak out if anything is priced over $1. They are never convinced of the worth of something and they will do anything to bargain you into bankruptcy. My true feelings about these types are accurately portrayed in this rage comic I have put together:

In essence, buy it or gtfo.

The All Natural Lifestyle: No more shampoo!

Sometimes I feel bad for my parents. Every time I tell my parents about my decisions to change my lifestyle to be a little more "green," I can see the look on their face as they think "Oh good lord, we have raised a hippy."
For example, when I told my parents I wanted to go to school in Oregon, they saw this:

Then, when I told them I had gone vegetarian, they saw this:

Now, when I told them I'm going to stop using shampoo and conditioner in search for a more natural alternative, I saw the grimace on their faces as they saw this:

Notice the slow progression into a person that my city-raised father and Christian-raised mother deem a figment of their past, reincarnated in their own daughter. Now, I never force any of my personal choices on my family and in return my parents have been amazingly supportive. They do everything possible to keep me at my school as long as I get the grades and do my best to help. I cook meat for them a few times a week and they don't complain about the meatless nights (usually). But, I may have just thrown them over the edge with my Shampoo-less decision; like most people, they don't see the need. But for me, it makes complete sense.
1. It's cheap and simple. All you need is water, baking soda, and apple cider vinegar- items that will last years.
2. It's natural. Shampoos contain detergents and toxins that my doctor sighted as the cause of the sores that I occasionally get on my scalp.
3. You need the oils that shampoos strip away and conditioners replace (synthetically). Going without shampoo allows your hair and scalp's oil production to regulate itself without need of any sort of hair product.

I have read multiple blogs and articles about the no-shampoo movement, and after finding some simple replacements for shampoo and conditioner, I decided it was my turn. I started the transition last Wednesday, and I am already happy with the results (most of the time).

My hair is not the oily type or dry type, but it is pretty thin and long.

This picture was taken a year ago, but it is a typical day for my hair during the summer. Megan (my bff sittin next to me) has the longest hair I have ever seen, and it is beautifully golden. Point of this picture is that I think that I have pretty normal hair that would easily transition into my new regimen which consists of a baking soda "shampoo" and an apple cider vinegar "conditioner." All you need a is a tablespoon of each combined with a cup of water in separate squirt bottles. You put the baking soda just on the scalp and let it sit for a few minutes before you rinse. Then, you use the vinegar mixture on the ends of your hair and let it sit as well. Super easy!

On the first day of my shampoo rejection, I let my hair air-dry and did not use any type of frizz-control product (like usual).

Pretty Normal, a little dryer and frizzier than normal, but it is to be expected. I usually wash my hair every other day and I have to say that my hair was much nicer looking the next day, but it was hot and I wore it up anyways. On the third day, I washed my hair again, but as I was off to LA that day I used my frizz-ease and called it a day. The day after, my hair was pretty oily

I think I've started the 2-week period of unruly hair that most blogs have mentioned as the hardship of this lifestyle. Keep in mind that this hair is after a full day at the beach in Venice, so it was also salty. All in all, my hair is not going too crazy from the lack of the sudsy stuff, and I can feel it getting thicker and it definitely has more body. So, win for now! Let's see how the rest of the week goes

Bonding over Faulty Technology

Years ago, my dad decided to enter the 21st century by putting remote controlled overhead light/fans into my bedroom, my parents' bedroom, and our living room. It was fine for a while until recently when "ghosts" seemed to enjoy turning our lights and fans on and off without our control. If I didn't manually turn my wall switch off before I went to bed, my light or fan would randomly go on in the middle of the night, inevitably waking me up. This happened to my parents as well and we were all confused.

Finally, my parents discovered that all three remotes worked for all three fans, meaning that when one person tried to turn on or off their light, the other lights would turn on or off. Now, this affect is really quite annoying, especially when my brother would come home at 4 am and turn on the living room light. But, there is always some humor in these events.

For example, the other day, my dad turned on his light, which turned mine off. In trying to correct my light, I turned his off. We began yelling back and forth as we fought to put our light at the setting that we wanted. After about 5 minutes of our battle royal, we just sat there laughing from our separate rooms. Eventually, my dad walked into my room and we continued to laugh for another 5 minutes. In reality, this event explains my relationship with my dad. He and I have these random inside jokes that we could bring up years and years after their conception. For example, there is a store near our house called "Tokyo Video." When we drove by the sign for the first time, we both said the name in our most stereotypical asian accent, and then laughed forever. Ever since then, my dad and I will randomly say it and we always seem to say it when the other is thinking it.

My dad and I are extremely different people, but when it comes to find stupid humor in everyday events, we couldn't be more compatible.

Summer Car Shows

Nothing says summer better than a fair ground full of incredible vintage cars. Last weekend my dad and I attended the Barrett- Jackson Car Auction in Orange County. We had a fantastic time! We walked around and looked at all of the cars for sale and even watched the auction and saw a car sell for $110,000, the same car my dad's family had when he was just a kid.

Dressing up was a must so I dawned my candy-striped button down and white canvas tennis shoes.

This car was an amazing custom "surfer" car. Part of the fun of the show was that the owners displayed their cars in a certain theme to entice buyers. This car had a surfboard on top and a picnic basket in the back seat.

Beautiful 1955 Chevrolet Custom Coupe, sold for $28,600.

My daddy with one of his favorite cars of the day: 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu, Sold for $27,500.

Total classic: 1965 Volkswagen Custom Samba Bus, sold for $82,500.

My dad had this car back in the day. He actually bought one as a fixer upper and the day he finished working on it, it was stolen. They found it later that week, his wasn't quite as tricked out as this one. 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, sold for $121,000.

This is the car that my dad had back in day. We watched it sell at auction which is a really cool experience! 1961 Chevrolet Impala, sold for $110,000.

I love old Woody cars, they have such character! 1951 Ford Country Squire Woody Wagon, sold for $48,400.

This car was by far my favorite of the day, I love station wagons. It was actually the very first car to sell in the auction this weekend, and I regret not being their to buy it myself because it only sold for $1,980!!!! 1974 Mercury Wagon. They don't make cars like they used to!

Summer Lovin

I love Summer in California; I get to grill, wear shorts every day, and generally enjoy life relatively stress free. I have been cooking every day for my family and I've decided I should start documenting the delicious meals I make!
Tonight I made grilled corn, balsamic grilled artichokes, and baked parmesan fries (no picture, I'll get better at this). The fries were so delicious. I added some garlic salt as well and we dipped it in hummus which turned out to be a fantastic combo!

Grillin' Outfit

Finished Corn

The most amazing thing you will ever have, ever.
(I left out the ginger from the recipe because I didn't have any. They were still amazing!)

Recipes:
http://www.grilledcornonthecob.com/
http://www.food.com/recipe/grilled-artichokes-157208
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/baked-french-fries-ii/detail.aspx