The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

Before I start, let's get one thing straight : Italy is no more racist then any other country on this planet. The lower ends of the working class cannot deal with the idea of immigrants - a characteristic that is true of pretty much every nation. This is not simply constrained to an "Italian problem". So, with that in mind, let me account my Saturday night...

"This doesn't look like a nice area," was the remark of my (very, very camp) Idonesian friend when we got off the metro... with a 2km walk ahead of us through an unknown area, on the outskirts of Milan. "Yes, doesn't look like the type of place you'd expect an opera house to be," I replied, marvelling at the sheer amount of graffiti, litter and abandoned warehouse buildings. I mean, my dormitory is situated on the edge of a pretty rough area filled with prostitutes, but this was a whole new level of "ghetto". Nevertheless, we set off... using a roughly sketched map copied from Google as our guide. Couple that with the fact that both me and my friend look pretty exotic compared to Italian standards - he's clearly Asian and I've got pale skin and red hair - we might as well have been carrying a flashing sigh reading "NOT FROM AROUND HERE!". Boy, did we feel safe.

At the first road we had to cross, a drunk guy on a moterbike drove past, yelling immigrant insults at us. You would have thought that 8pm was too early for drunk guys to be yelling and driving moterbikes, but not here! We walked further, more people drunkenly yelled at us from moterbikes and cars. Frankly, as long as they didn't stop, we didn't care.

"Wait, is that car up ahead slowing down?"

Oh, crap.

So, I feel like shit that's been through a mincer and then sat on by an elephant. Apart from the whole "only sleeping two hours a day" shindig, this is by in large because I'm sick. Not sick caused by ridiculous sleep deprivation, but flu that has flying around the University and has decided to introduce itself to me. No doubt the sleep schedule is making it worse, but I'm attempting to ignore the flu symptons and carry on with the naps (I've spent a week adapting to this schedule I'm not going to give up now). To dope up on pills would wreck my napping, so instead I'm trying to cope with the flu by binging on tasty fruit and attaching cold objects to my forhead... Success is limited.

On the bright side of Dymaxion, I've finally solved my oversleeping issues. Simply, I've stopped napping on my far too comfortable bed. Instead, I just take the pillow and put it on my desk to rest my head on and nap in my chair. Little to say, my cleaning lady was confused this morning when she came in to the room to find me asleep on the desk with a pillow! But, this method of napping makes it far easier to wake up and get going. The problem with napping on the bed was that I was in such a sleep deprived state, I would wake up to the alarm, turn it off, and before I could make another movement the fact that I was laying down comfortably would send me back off to Neverland in seconds. Not anymore! Although, I still have the whole "wake up freezing cold" issue, which is horrorific. But, I have started waking up on my own without the alarm, so the adaption finally seems to be taking hold. I would really like to think.

Me pretending to be cool on a bridge in London. 



The conversation that led to this last impromto trip to London went, literally, like this:

*Long awkward topic searching silence*
"You know, I'd much rather see Philip Quast in La Cage aux Folles then John Barrowman."
*Le gasp* "Me too!"
*Squee* "Let's go!"

Thus, we went to bathe in the utter awesomeness that is both London and the musical of La Cage aux Folles: The gay show, which is far more then just a gay show. A French gay show.  I actually think it was funnier then the original French film, which I loved before seeing the musical, and found it just as touching too.  Roger Allam and Philip Quast were both fantastic in the lead roles i.e. as the "the old married couple".  And, yes, I was far too much amused by the fact that they both played Javert in Les Mis.

Further awesomeness was had when we went to clollect our tickets from the box office to find that we'd been "upgraded" from the cheapest seats in the house to the dress circle.  The front row of the dress circle. 

*OMGGOODSEATSSQUEE!!*

Ah, fun times in England indeed.

To buy the cheapest pair of smart shoes possible that I will be allowed into the opera with! 

...

In Milano, this is going to be tricky.

NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS ROCKED!!!

Especially since, during the interval, we snuck past chatting security men to commondere seats twenty/thirty meters from the front row.  And did I spend 10 Euros on a programme just for all the pretty pictures?  You bet I did!

I'm expecting a red letter from the bank any day now...

I love Milano and its random fashion/design/art exhibitions.  I love even more that at said fashion/design/art exhibitions free stuff is abundent!  Stickers, bags and caffine-overdose-coffee for the win!

Of course, such an afternoon could not be complete without being shouted at by an Italian woman who was most upset that I mistook her art for a sofa and procceded to sit down and put my grubby converses up on white leather.  Oops.  

Also, today I found out (theoretically) that it's an incredibly bad idea to mix spirits with caffine based drinks such as Red Bull.  Another oops.  A worse idea than even mixing a spirit with another spirit, apparently.  I can vouch for this.  Spirit + Red Bull = Hospital.

All LJ friends rush off to buy Red Bull and vodka.

In other news, I am totally excited for Saturday; I'm going to Torino/Turin to see the Italian musical of Notre-Dame de Paris!  I have two favourite books of all time and Notre-Dame de Paris is one of them, so the chance to get to see the musical (really famous in Italy and France) is utterly awesome beyond all sense and reason.

And will I be buying an overpriced programme all in Italiano with pretty pictures?  HELL YES!

OK.  Phantom of the Opera is officially the most amazing thing I have ever seen on stage.  It was utterly fantastic.  Dare I say it, I've been "moved" by musical theatre.  Really moved.  When I went in, I had no idea what I was going to watch as I hadn't seen the movie, read the book or anything...  and it suppased all expectations ten fold.    It was beyond awesome.  It was pure magic. 

I now want to see it again... but I'll just have to settle with buying the soundtrack... and urging you all to go out and see it too.  Just amazing...