ROBBED!!!

We don't know how it happened.

The door was locked when we came home; the place was intact. But 600 euros in cash was taken from me, and 400 from Tracie, my flatmate. We had a safe in the apartment, but the hotel managment staff didn't have the key, so we couldn't use it. What scares me is that it was no random theft; it was done by someone who has the keys to our apartment. With both of us, we hid our cash in envelopes in the wardrobe. Mine were tucked away with a tonne of plastic bags in my backpack, left in the wardrobe. The thief must have been in the apartment before to know where to look. What was strange was that only euros were taken; I had an envelope with euros, pound sterling and HK dollars in it; only euros were taken. Tere had a wad of US dollars sitting in plain view in the wardrobe, yet it was untouched. Credit cards, passports and electronics were left alone. Even more disturbingly, the thief left 300 euros (the envelope with my airfare had 800) and 200 in Tracie's (she had 600). Did the thief do what he / she did just for kicks?

The timing couldn't be better; Tracie is leaving today, Tere and I on Monday. There's nothing we can do. That 600 euros was re-imbursement from the museum for my airfare. Now I'm fucked with my credit card bill. I'm just upset, angry and speechless. We didn't get mugged in Florence or Rome or any touristy destinations, but in our own home.

Once again, thanks to the Wynton Marsalis Sixtet, I feel like the luckiest girl alive. Who would have thought you can find such a tremendous, tremendous jazz concert in Lucca, of all places?

Things that stuck out from the two hours of pure aural bliss:
* Marsalis presented an Italian boy prodigy saxophonist, Francesco Grafizzo (-sp?), who can't be older than 15. The boy wonder almost stole the show!! He was as good as the masters themselves! At one point, Wynton et al were all standing behind him, joking about, with expressions on their faces that say," Yeah, we'll just let him play the whole gig alright!"
* The drummer did a wicked solo with a tamborine and drums; the man moved like an African tribesman in a rhythmic ritualistic trance; his raw energy was simply remarkable.

Oddly enough, there were hardly any locals at the concert. Everyone is either American or German.... does that say something about the non-diversity of Italian musical tastes?

Essential Rome in 36 hours by Tere and CY:

Day 1

01:00-03:15 waiting outiside Pisa Centrale for the night train. Acted homeless and napped on bench, road, platform with dozens of fellow student backpackers.
03:20-07:00 slept on and off on the night train, only to be rudely awoken by conductor with limbs all sprawled out in deep sleep.
08:00 San Pietro Cathedral in the Vatican. Splendid enough to make moi, christian-non-apparent, consider acting religious and open mouth in awe.
09:15 Lost Tere after she went to confession [the first time in years for Tere]
10:00 got impatient with fruitless search for Tere and went up to the Cupola of S. Pietro. My my, was it a hike. Endless spiral stairs that get narrower and narrower as you hike up and hyperventilate. Not recommended for the physically unfit on a blazingly hot day.
Though view of Piazza S. Pietro was well-worth the killer hike + all the nasty sweat that make you glisten like an oiled Thanksgiving turkey.
10:50 Tere appears like an apparition as I came out of the Cupola stairs. Apparently God rewards those who redempt.
11:45 The Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. Unwisely brought B+W film when everything around me is in glorious, if not gaudy, Baroque technicolour. The fabled chapel with all the Michaelangelo murals was packed with ppl. Any contemplative / appreciating mood for the sumptuous art surrounding me promptly vapourised at the sight of the touristy crowds.
15:30 Colosseum. More tourists, which make the Real McCoy look even smaller.
16:45 Attempt to go to the Pantheon. Hopped on to a bus and ended up in some piazza behind a monmouth governmental palace.
17:20 Pantheon Take 2. Lovely lady sign-languaged us in the right direction off the bus. More people. I spewed out everything I learnt about this building from lectures and became Tere's tourguide.
18:10 Piazza Navona. Lovely fountain. Lots of pigeons attacking Bernini's sculptures.
18:25 Fountain of Trevi. Heat-stroke induced hallucinations of self swooning through the tourist-infested waters of the fountain a la Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita. But due to the "People Mountain People Sea" effect, and Tere's disuation, the Tripping One decided she'd be better off making an offering to the Fountain Wishgranter / Money Collector instead.
19:00 Il Gelateria de San Crispo.... my my. See full details below.
21:45 Walk walk walking past the Spanish Steps back to hotel. Eye bedazzled by the $$$$$ shops on the way. Smelly armpits does not a pleasant Metro ride make.

Day 2 -

09:30 S. Pietro again. This time to deliver Tere's family's petitions for prayer.
> Piazza Venezia
> Capitoline Hill; Piazza Campogiano
> Roman Forum
> Via del Corso
> Spanish Steps
> Piazza del Popolo
> Picipoli Park
> Roma Termini Station; Eurostar train back to Pisa
21:40 Stolen Firenze-Pisa train plaque from Pisa Centrale station. Yes! My first act of delinquency in Italia.
Now what should I do with the god-damn-it's-heavy sign?
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Amo Roma!

I must have seen 70% of all the Italian buildings I've ever seen in my Architectural History lectures. Love the ubiquitous fountains, the obelisks, the endless avenues, the gigantic parks, the whole palava. Rome may well become my second fave city ;D

The Holy Grail of Gelati:

    

If Italy is the motherland of good ice-cream, Il Gelato di San Crispino in Rome must be the ultimate Mamma of all ice-creams. The gelato there would make you wonder if justice exists at all, and how God can deny this to us non-Rome residing mortal souls. For a more accurate description of this utterly devine gastronomical experience, here's a review from NY Times:

The fruit flavors, which are almost as dense and velvety as the creams, taste like pure essence of fruit, only better, with no watery aftertaste. After a few bites of pear gelato, you wonder whether you'd ever really tasted a pear before. As for the pink grapefruit, imagine only the sweetness of the perfect fruit, with none of the bite.

In 2 days, I went twice, and tried:
* Cream with Honey
* Ginger and Cinnamon - I thought ginger doesn't exist here? Thank god someone knows how to use it with flair!
* Zabaione - the Marsala is definitely there. *tipsy*
* Plum - oh my oh my was it better than the fruit itself...
* Meringue with Nocciola - hazelnut with small, heavenly meringue chunks :d !!

arg.... a total change of my summer plans:

what with the unexpected announcement from the museum staff yesterday - I won't be receiving housing + stipend post July 27th -, and that no one else on the team will be staying in Italy after that, I have to cancel all my plans to travel around Italy / Spain. And rebook all my plane tickets. And forget about sunbathing in a bikini. =(

I don't think I can work for Flavia again. I forgot how insane that woman is, despite her academic brilliance, she is totally disorganised, has no budgeting skills and can't keep her employees in the loop. Ever. Aaaaaah!

New projected plans:
1) fly to london on 28/7
2) fly to Amsterdam on 30/7 and chill till 3/8....
3) go home to HK for 3 weeks
4) fly back to London on 24/8, then to Edinburgh to see my mate Janet
5) fly back to London, then back to Boston on 31/8 to start school.

If all goes according to plan, [unlikely] seems like I'll be passing through London more times than I can count!

Woohoo...

You know blogging has gone mainstream when your 14 yr old lil' bro starts his own blog on Xanga.
May I present.....Caesium Zone!

itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini...

Yes mum, I've gone demented to the point beyond redemption - I bought my first [2] bikini[s]!
After going to the beach at Viareggio, I realise the only ppl in Italy who wear full length bathing suits are blubbery, bloated obasan's. Sooo... even if I am blubbery and bloated in all the wrong places, I have to dress my age.
What with the glorious summer sales [apparently all of Italy goes on sale on the same weekend; =D instinctively I went berserk] I picked meself 2 halterneck bikinis. Now I can "show off" all my newly acquired ungainly + untanned flabby bits from all the gelatos I've consumed over the past month.
Be warned: If you happen to be in Italy / Spain this summer, and spot a short-haired, pear-shaped Asian chick with her belly hanging all out, COVER YOUR EYES to avoid baaaad mental images~~
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Alanis in Lucca:

Entertainment post-10-pm has finally landed in Ye Olde Historic Lucca, even if it's only for the month of July. Went to an Alanis Morrisette concert yesterday. Was totally random cos I'd never pay to see her in the States. I don't know any of her songs besides the ones on Jagged Little Pill, my high school's unofficial anthems circa 1996.
The venue: A nice big piazza bound by tall trees and the Duke's Palace, 2 mins from my apartment - basically I could have listened to it from my apartment, had i known I couldn't see the stage anyway.
The crowd: A lot older than one would expect at a rock concert. we, aged 22-24, seemed to be the youngest lot. Everyone else is in their late 20's to early 40's. What's even stranger is that ppl don't seem to like the music for their lyrics, as no one apart from us + other English-speaking tourists seem to know the words to her songs. The Italians either sway to the beat, or not move at all when Alanis played her new, lesser-known songs.

funny food francais...

[images nicked from Jason Pultz, creator of Scary Bear.]

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the marginally cooler things you get from watching German MTV and surfing the web at work.
Magic Key by One T ft. Cool T, and videos by Anders Morgenthaler, I like! [via Scary Bear]
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This week's gelati: kiwi, green apple, gianduia [an exquisite chocolate made of hazelnut paste, milk choc & hazelnuts :d] and zabaione, an eggy dessert made with Marsala.

Food-induced homesickness:

As lovely as Tuscan cuisine is, I think I've had more than enough. 3 weeks straight on pasta, salami, cheese and olives will wear out any Italophile taste buds. Gelato is still tasting good, but it's definitely taken a toll on my already subaverage figure. Another olive oil + balsamic leafy salad, and I'll swear off rabbit-food for the rest of my life.

Tuscany is uninspiringly homogenous restaurant-wise. All the menus are starting to look the same. I could have gone to that one and only Chinese restaurant outside the city wall, but word has it that Chinese food in Italy cannot be touched with a 10 ft pole. Am desperately missing me old stir-fries with bak choi / pea pod stems / choi sum, basically anything green with stems would do. And cha siu [roasted pork] and roasted duck, and all the summer fruits: mangoes, lychees, Loong Ngan [tastes a bit like lychees but they have brown smooth shells, and are called "dragon eye"]....Aaaah! Went to the supermarket to look for things to cook, but apparently ginger does not exist in Italy.

So my first non-Italian eating experience took place at.... a Macdonald's off a highway going into Lucca. Aiyaiyai!!!
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I ain't no Ching Chong Chinaman!

I'm getting fed up. Whenever I leave home for work, take the train, go to places where tourists don't go to, I get gawked at. Should I even attempt to go out partying at night, slimey drunks come up and go, "Cheeena!" Sucks that my Italian swearing is limited to "fuck off" and "shit", which never gets my msg across to their chauvinistic pea-brains.

Get with the programme! It's the 21st century, and everyone travels damn it! Even the yellow ones!
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Cool gelato flavours of the week: Nocciolasa [whole hazelnuts + choco fudge + vanilla], Dolci di Latte [basically that yummy Dulce de Leche caramelly stuff]

the new Blogger is not letting me post big, long, windy week-long diary so I'll have to break it up into digestible chunks.

Extended paid leave?

Am having such a fine time here in Lucca [inspite of electronic limbodom and a total lack of nightlife] that I'm starting to wonder if I can take a 'real' job after this one....

Exciting excursions, mishaps and arrivals in this past week:

Shot lots of touristy videos in some of the most amazing locations I've ever been to for the Pucciniana project.
So Giacomo Puccini is not exactly a billionaire rock star / hearthrob actor, but damn he picked the most beautiful spots in NWestern Tuscany for his countryside retreats.

Sat 22/6
- The day started off badly with Claudio driving off to the East to Florence, instead of our intended destination of lakeside Torre del Lago in the West.

- Torre del Lago: lovely small village next to the Lago di Massaciuccoli. Lots of sun + palm trees. Went on a boat tour of the lake. It reminded me of Mai Po before Shenzhen became a haphazard blotch of skyscrapers and malls filled with counterfeit handbags. The lazy morning sun & the breeze made me feel right at home. Just like the boat rides my family did on Sundays, only on a lake instead of on the sea. The lake was bound by small hillside Tuscan towns, like little pieces of coral or amber embedded on hills behind overgrown rushweeds.

- Viarregio Beach: We played hookey and went to the beach before shooting another Puccini house. Strangely organised with rows of rainbow-hued sunbeds and beach brollies, where you have to pay to use. Beach OK. Huge waves. Got yelled at by Mr. Old Lifeguard who thinks I'm a subaverage-Asian-weakling who might drown if I swam 20 yards offshore. Got sunburnt too...am Miss Kogepan, yet again.
- Viarregio: Apparently a v. popular Tuscan seaside resort. A strange melange of Brighton + Miami (ie. looong seaside strip of palm trees, Beaux Art bldgs, Art Deco fonts, lots of overpriced Victorian hotels)
Puccini has a lovely Frank-Lloyd-Wrighty brick house bound by lush trees. I picked up a pinecone the size of my hand, and smelt amber for the first time. It was full of pinenuts! Had no idea pinenuts have shells too.

- Pineta: we drove off to the pine woods next by the beach to get a shot... supposedly Puccini's house was in the middle of pine woods but now it's swallowed up by urban Viarregio. The sun was setting and the woods looked golden, lush and glorious.
- Claudio unintentionally took the scenic route on the way back. The drive from Pisa to Lucca was simply the most memorable car journey in my short but wonderlust-y life. We went through poplar-shaded, winding small country roads. The drive up the Lucchese mountains made me speechless: the whole Pisan plain was bathed in the golden light from the sunset. Campo di Miracle stuck out in the orangey roofed town, amidst a lovely crisscross patchwork of hay and emerald fields.

I can't say enough how happy or grateful that I'm here. I do feel like the luckiest girl alive.

Sun 23/6
-My other teammate, Teresa arrived!
She's a lovely Mexican girl hailing from Colorado. and from what I've learnt, she's as prone to putzing around as I am! Hurrah procrastinators!

Mon 24/6
- Celle dei Puccini: A tiny, rustic, picturesque village (with a population of 40!!) up in the Alpi Apuane. Beautiful medieval stone cottages up in the mountains. The air smelled sweet, with mixed scents from the pinecones, the flowers and the soil. The local old men are sweet and friendly. They're so excited that their tiny village is going to be in a documentary that they wanted to show us everything Puccini. *awww*
If I have any money when I retire, get old and wrinkly, this will be the place where I'd spend my remaing summers, removed from all worries of the earthly world.
- We finally found a supermarket, outside of the walls which define our existence. Lucca may be historic and picturesque, but no one besides tourists live within ye olde city walls. We raided the place with pleasure.

Tue 25/6
- Back to Torre del Lago to shoot the house itself. No beach this time.
- Chiatri dei Puccini: Another hilltop retreat near Lago di Massaciuccoli. �??U�??? that fell into disrepair, unlike all other Puccini houses. It could easily play a haunted house in the middle of nowhere. It has however ?o��??��[a killer view of the lake] where you can see the surrounding towns out towards the Mediterranean coast, all the way to Elba.
We saw a pair of butterflies [black wings, navy stripes, white spots and a handsome black abdomen adorned with one bold yellow stripe], mating. They dangled on a thin, fragile piece of grass, one end to another, bending it over with their combined weights. It was an act so delicate and acrobatic; I was in awe.
Lunched at a marvelous ristorante on another hilltop nearby. A spiky caterpillar crawled up my leg. Am starting to wonder if I'm getting ?���?�?? [too happy to miss home].
- Massa Rossa: We had too much time between shots. I pranced around in a rice corn field with stalks taller than me, as Claudio napped in the car. It was just like the corn fields in Signs?�no aliens in sight though.

- Villa Ginori-Lisci, Massaciuccoli: Another lakeside villa. This one is not a Puccini property, but his mate's. The house is a majestic Victorian Neo-Gothic brick house, that has a snazzy little canal in its garden that links the boat "garage" of house to the lake. The garden is amazingly eccentric for Tuscany. It is bound by tall palm trees, and the marshy canal area make it look like Florida. The canal alone could have been the set for Robinson Cruesoe, or Survivor (!) The present owner of the villa is just as strikingly strange. The old Marchese Ginori-Lisci is tall and skinny, with long silver grey hair, twinkly eyes, and a white-blonde-white mouchestache [bad dye job?!] so thick and long, he looks like a 19th C personality or someone right out of Tin Tin.

*PROMISE i'll put the videos online as soon as I sort out my laptop connection*

- Claudio almost flipped on me. Living, eating AND working with the same person 24-7 for a whole week can be tiring, no matter how charming / witty / good at bursting into random 80's songs they are. It's like an accelerated intense relationship, where you stop fancying the person cos you know them too well after three days, and all mystery is lost.
Another thing: he likes to drive the puny rented Fiat Punto like it's a formula one race car. Good thing I wear seatbelts and don't get travel sickness. Bad thing I don't know how to drive.

Wed 26/6

Bagni di Lucca: A spa town that Puccini played in as a broke student. Mirror like reservoir in a steep, lush valley. We went into a doctor�s home with yet another Puccini-touched piano. The living room had a strategically framed view of the opposing valleyside, and was lavishly decorated with trompe l�oeils of marble, plaster mouldings and wallpaper.
The doctor took us to a sweet, gentle retired general�s home, whose grandfather was friends with Puccini. His house is a living collection of memorabilia. Every wall is covered: sepia-toned family photos from the 19th c, medallions of all sizes and ages, family china, copper pots and pans, souvenir knives from every corner of the earth. He wanted to show us anything and everything. Amidst all his treasures, he took out the death mask of Puccini from some mysterious dimension. The interior of the house itself was also a feast on the eyes; cameo friezes, more trompe l�oeils, Tiffany styled lampshades, plush antique chairs, dark musty colours, crocheted linen drapes.

Thu 27/6
Tere, my lovely flatmate made guacamole. Was a mighty flop according to her cos the avocados were too raw. Plus we didn't have all the right schtuff. We discovered that ??�� cilantro is not a universal phenomenon. She had to cook the avocados a little to be able to mash them. Apparently not a good idea. I ate it all anyway. Tere was both amazed and amused.
Attempt at making tacos for dinner was even funnier. We decided that we are cooking and living like modern-age cavemen. No microwaves, no oven in our IKEA-clad apartments. But we do get cable, even if all except CNN & EuroSport Live, are in German. South Park in German is strange to watch.

Fri 28/6
Had a strange, pathetic little party in our apartment after dinner, as we were not yet ready to call it a night, and cos there is NIL in Lucca after 10pm. [everyone sleeps after midnight, remember? Even on Fri night >.<] Tere brought her latin music and I pseudo-mamboed. Claudio was reluctant at first but he did boogey and sing at the top of his lungs when I put on Jamiroquai. Everyone walking by the piazza looked up to our balcony to find the source of the raucous. We got bored after an hour, and chanel-surf for a porno channel after reported sightings of German porn on our weird cable. We found �Sexy sports clips� where naked chicks half-assly mud-wrestled. Bad porn makes highly comical late-night entertainment.

Sat 29/6
Tracy, the 4th teammate arrives! Tere and I missed her arrival. But then we saw an Asian girl wondering towards our apt as we headed out for a cold chocolate. Who else can it be? There are only three Asians in this town! (me and another 2 ABC girls who are in some music programme at the Fondazione I�m �working� at) Now we have four. [reprezenting�.]
Tracy is well cool. She spent junior year in Florence and so she speaks Italian. *envy*

*** :d Cool gelato flavours of the week:
Tiramisu, Rum cake (Italian name is Zuppa Inglese � apparently means English soap?!)
Claudio thought I have an eating disorder cos I just need one everyday. Am going to be a chubby bunny by the time I leave Italy.