I’d Prefer “Satanic Verses” To This Satanic Heat

First of all, yes I did make a reference to the beyond weird book that got Salman Rushdie his very own fatwa!

Anyway, Satan has once again decided to take his vacation above ground this year and the “aura” that surrounds him has come along for the ride because I moved well beyond hot flash yesterday and entered heat stroke territory.  Once again, for all the wonderful things Thomas Jefferson did (Lewis & Clarke, The Declaration of Independence, that incredible wine collection, U.Va), the man was awful at picking real estate because he found the one place in America where there is no breeze at the top of the hill.  I get to my class everyday looking like a disease and it’s just disgusting.

However, Satan did bring some good news because last night, Brian Stelter of the Times broke the most wonderful story of the year: the wonderful executives at NBC News are trying to get rid of Ann Curry as co-host of “Today” after a year of humiliation, to say the least!  I haven’t been this excited about morning television since Kathie Lee Gifford made it perfectly acceptable to start drinking at 10 in the morning, and that was four years ago (can you believe it’s only been that long?  Poor Hoda)!

But yes, America, it is soon going to be possible to watch morning television without ear plugs or the mute button.  According to the paper of record, Savannah Guthrie, the only attractive person on that show, is rumored to be the frontrunner to replace the nightmare.  If they did that, it would be wonderful because that Natalie Morales is a joke and Al Roker… as Andrew said to me last summer, “Your meteorology course makes you more qualified to do his job than he is.”  Speaking of Andrew, this was such big news that he even replied to the nightly email I sent him yesterday!

Other than that minuscule note of good news, Satan is just here to stay for a while.  He has made this very clear over the last few weeks since I have been robbed of so much money that went to graduation and birthday presents.

Can I just stop for a moment and ask a question: why did the parents of way too many people decide that September was the perfect time to conceive a child?  Was is it the celebration of not staining your one pair of white pants before Labor Day or being able to wear jackets again because frankly I’m at a loss.  Furthermore, do y’all not realize that I’m already reeling from buying people overpriced graduation presents!

It would be about here when my own human Satan would no doubt remind me that the gift I’ll be receiving is going to be my education, to which I would reply by saying that you can’t wrap an education in a box with a bow and a card attached!

Now, it actually turns out that I know more people with July and August birthdays, but they make sense at least because October is a beautiful time of the year to decide to have a kid after a drive through the idyllic countryside that looks  not unlike the photographs on the covers of so many L.L. Bean catalogs.  November also makes sense because a bit of that idyllic October weather is still around and there’s the chance that if you have a daughter and she’s born on the Fourth of July then you can name her Betsy Ross!

Moving on from that lovely tirade of mine, the heat does have one or two positive attributes.  Case in point, my rather obnoxious and arrogant neighbors, who have taken a page from the Silvio Berlusconi and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi Guide to Life and insist on having “Bunga Bunga” style parties all day and night everyday, aren’t spending as much time in the sun/poolside because it’s too hot.  Sadly, that hasn’t stopped them from blasting their beyond awful music at decibels that making the floors shake.

My final morning here, I’m going to get sweet, sweet revenge by setting my very powerful Bang & Olufsen stereo to the maximum volume and play Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” at dawn.  Even though the song itself is very long and grand/imperial, it’s really those last few minutes that make it so entertaining!  I use it as one of my alarms each morning in fact.  Plus, my version has real cannons so you get the full effect!

The actual positive attribute to Summer is that it’s once again “beneficial” to our health to eat one of my all time favorite foods, ice cream!  So far, I’ve only made two ice creams in the last week and a half: Isaac Mizrahi’s Mint Chocolate Chip and Honey Lavender, the ice cream flavor that inspired my stomach to demand that I buy an ice cream maker.

What I loved most about that Isaac Mizrahi recipe is that he put his name in the title, which, aside from being narcissistic to a level that even Justin has yet to attain, means that if it turned out to not be edible, I would knew exactly who to call and yell at!  I used, for one of the few times, the Epicurious App, which I’ve had for over a year but hardly used because the iPod screen was always so small.

Now, however, with the iPad, it’s wonderful, especially since for only $0.99, the app will sync your iPod/iPhone recipe box with the one on your iPad so when you go to the grocery store, you don’t have to look like the obnoxious brat who takes an iPad with them to a grocery store!  Plus, you can actually see the recipe and all of the ingredients at the same time, which you can’t do on the iPod/iPhone.  All I need, though, is one of those protective screen that people have for cookbooks for the iPad because I was constantly worried that I was going to spill something on my new favorite toy.

Back to the ice cream, which I did not dye green because I’m not that crazy, it was mind-blowing to say the least.  I promptly made my friend Hannah rush over and try some because, as I predicted, it was gone 48 hours later by yours truly.

The only thing I would have done, and will do, differently is that even though the recipe calls for the chocolate to be coarsely chopped, I feel it should be chopped in a way that creates chunks that are found in Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Chunk because what child, or adult reliving his/her childhood, doesn’t love letting the ice cream melt in the mouth with those big chocolate chunks just resting there for a moment providing the coolness of an ice cube!  I’m salivating just writing that.

As for the Honey Lavender, it is rich, really rich.  However, it did curdle faster than I anticipated and so anyone looking into my apartment saw me looking like an addict as I was devouring all of the honey lavender scrambled egg that was left in the strainer.  One of these days, I’m just going to let it curdle  so I can have truly decadent scrambled eggs.

Unlike the Mint Chocolate Chip, the Honey Lavender is not an ice cream that can be eaten directly out of the container with a spoon (trust me, I’ve tried).  It just doesn’t feel right.  It needs something to go with it that can counter the rich, intense flavor that it gives off.  That’s why I’m making a pound cake this weekend and giving it and the ice cream to someone else so Andrew and Justin don’t tell me I’m getting fat!

Speaking of Justin, his photography interest has once again trumped his desire to sit down and study for the LSATs.  Last weekend, he continued what I will now refer to as “Justin’s Grand Tour of Florida” by driving about halfway between Winter Park and Palm Beach to a place I’ve barely noticed on my drives between the two glimmers of civility in Florida, Port St. Lucie.  From the well-taken photographs he uploaded, it looks like I wasn’t missing anything I couldn’t find in just about any other coastal city or town in Florida.

In all honesty, if his photographs depict all of Port St. Lucie, as opposed to simply a very gringy side of it, which he would do, then it basically looks like a has-been city that peaked in the 70s or 80s because everything he photographed looked like it was from around then.

However, because this is Justin, of course he only photographed the “real” city and completely ignored Tradition, a place I’ve passed looking at with curiosity over the years.  It’s essentially a town within the city of Port St. Lucie, located on the less-expensive side of I-95 that I was convinced would never survive the real estate nightmare of the last few  years in Florida.

It’s a terrifying place to drive past, especially at night because out of this sea of darkness is this glow of halogen lights that illuminate perfectly-planned shopping centers and roads that lead to nowhere.  You know it’s Tradition because of these two lighthouse-inspired towers at both ends of the community that inform you that you’re about to pass or have successfully avoided hideosity at its finest.

Truthfully, I’m a bit disappointed that he didn’t go to see what kind of people inhabit this architectural nightmare of a planned community (I can see Walt Disney, whose original idea of creating an experimental city of tomorrow (E.P.C.O.T.) on the very land that Walt Disney World currently sits never came to true fruition, just rolling around in his cryogenically frozen chamber at the very idea that someone would try to create such a hideous version of a utopia).

Back here in Charlottesville, a place people actually visit so they can see the beautiful architecture and then get drunk on local wine (as opposed to Tradition, where you get drunk on cheap tequila and then see if that makes the horror look any better), Hannah celebrated her Twenty-First birthday, which I missed due to an expected conflict.

The day before, however, we lunched at Feast, a place I was floored to learn she had never previously been since it is very much so her kind of food store.  Naturally, she fell for its numerous charms, including the Mediterranean Salad and one of those delectable little chocolate-covered peanut butter balls they sell at the cash register.  I, as usual, had the Turkey, Brie and Cranberry Panni, which didn’t disappoint.  Plus, proving that old age does have a few perks, I enjoyed a nice mason jar of red wine sangria.  I swear the fruit was more intoxicating than the alcohol.

Since it was tolerable, dare I say comfortable, outside, we dined al fresco under the covered seating area which was very nice until we noticed a decomposing cricket in the window next to where we were eating, which made our dining experience so enjoyable because nothing says bon appétit quite like a rather large, decomposing insect staring at you the whole time you’re eating.  She was lucky because I noticed it first while eating whereas she didn’t see it until she was practically finished!  At least we didn’t have a dull dining experience, right?

Alas, that’s all for now because I have to leave my air-conditioned cocoon and venture out into this dreadful weather which will do doubt make me look as though I just went swimming within ten seconds to go get my dinner that I don’t feel like cooking tonight.  I don’t know how my friend Tasleem is able to deal with this heat now that she’s living in Dubai where it’s pretty much gonna be in the triple digits for a lot longer than it will be here!

Until next time…

JD

The Paris I Saw Was Not The Same As The One In “Midnight in Paris”

Last week, I went to the Vinegar Hill Theater in Charlottesville to see Woody Allen’s new movie, “Midnight in Paris.”  I know the movie came out in late May, but it’s better late then never!  Okay, so I loved it, but probably for the wrong reasons because for me, it was more about seeing Paris and less about the story that Woody Allen created around what is probably the most beautiful city on earth.

In case y’all have been in the Sahara for the last year,”Midnight in Paris” follows Hollywood writer Gil (Owen Wilson) and his new money fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), on their freeloading trip to Paris with Inez’s parents (Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller).  Inez and her parents remind me of the cast of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  I say this because only people from Beverly Hills would check Goyard luggage and bring multiple Birkin bags on one trip.

Gil goes out for a walk and ends up going back in time to the Paris of the 1920s, meeting Hemingway, Picasso, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, and Dalí.  It’s an era that Gil feels was Paris at its best.  It’s at this point in the movie when I began to question why he was engaged to Inez, a Malibu-loving label whore whose mother is one of those women who thinks she has great taste and has turned herself into a decorator because she hast too much free time and nothing to do!  Inez is the exact opposite of Gil and it becomes quite clear that they have little in common and she really just with him because he’s rich.

All of that said, I loved the movie!  I thought it was Woody Allen at his best.  No, it wasn’t “Manhattan” or “Annie Hall,” which will forever be his greatest movies, but it was really quite amazing.  The way Allen shows Paris is just as magical as the way he shows New York in “Manhattan” as a character on its own, and it was just so enchanting that I’m ready to go back tonight (no really, instead of driving back to Virginia Beach for the 4th, I can just go straight to Dulles to catch the 21h50 flight to De Gaulle)!

Now, in my last note about the movie, I have to say that I read last year in the Daily Mail that Mme. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the prettiest spouse of a Head of State anywhere in the world, required thirty-five retakes before finally getting her scene right.  I thought she did a great job playing a tour guide at the Rodin Museum, regardless of the number of takes that were required.

Moving back to reality, the pair of J Brand raw denim jeans I bought finally made it up here to Charlottesville, courtesy of Annie, just in time for Grace’s birthday bash.  Now, maybe it was the heat that was messing with my brain, maybe it was the fact that I bought them very quickly (I tried them on because they had to be shortened), maybe it was because I had just had an interview, or because I had eight blisters with two more on the way because I was wearing my new pair of Tod’s, but these jeans are very slim-fitting!

Now, I’m not complaining because I love them and I wanted a pair of jeans that doesn’t have a label on my tuchus!  I’ve gone nearly seven years with everyone knowing that I wear 7 for all Mankind or AG Jeans because you can tell by the logo.  Even though my new jeans have a leather label on the back, my belt will hide the J Brand logo (I always wear a belt and I don’t understand why people don’t wear belts, especially if there are belt loops on their pants), so I have nothing to worry about now!  Plus, I was talking with my favorite Rollins graduate/fellow French class survivor, Tasleem, and she said that she only wears J Brand because they’re “The only brand that fits me well.”  That’s all I needed to hear, because as much as I loved that first pair of 7’s, these feel right.

Now, everyone who knows me now knows that I’m obsessed beyond all belief with Twitter after a few years of me refusing to accept Twitter as a normal social media tool.  Now, I think it’s brilliant!  Well, among the now seventy-five Twitter accounts I follow as of right now is Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Ivanka Trump‘s husband, soon to be father and owner of the New York Observer Jared Kushner.  Unlike Jared, Joshua Kushner actually tweets things and on June 28th, he tweeted this video, which I watched at about 3h30 because I couldn’t sleep and it rocked my world:

This has to be the neatest thing I’ve EVER seen in my life!  I just can’t get over how amazing this is and I have to try this “liquid mountaineering.”  Thank you, Joshua Kushner, and Twitter for this amazing moment that has captivated me for the last few days!

Finally today, I have a major announcement to make.  After years of refusing to visit, I’m finally going to go somewhere I’ve never been before, even though I’ve had the chance to go so many times!  That’s right, 2011 is the year that both the New York Times and I discover BROOKLYN!  Andrew used to live and go to school in Brooklyn Heights, but I still never saw a reason to go across that bridge to see it.  Well, that changes this summer because this time next week, I’ll be back in Virginia Beach packing to spend the last six weeks of this summer, my last as an undergraduate, in New York, interning at Departures Magazine, the American Express Platinum and Centurion card member only magazine!  I’m so excited because it’s a magazine that I love to read and find to be not just entertaining, but interesting(Andrew says it’s his favorite magazine), and I just can’t wait to get there to start because all of the people there seem to actually enjoy their jobs!  And as an added bonus, Andrew is working two blocks from where I’m working, so we can get lunch on a regular basis!  Last summer, my lunch consisted of me in a Starbucks for thirty minutes.  This summer, I have so many options that I won’t know where to begin!  This might actually be the first time in my life that I genuinely love Midtown Manhattan, even though it’s full of tourists who walk at a glacial pace!

Getting back to talking about Brooklyn, I figured that with this being a year of trying new things (after all, I stood on an active volcano on the island of Sicily, toured vineyards in Bordeaux, went to a museum dedicated solely to medals given to the Republic of France, and managed to get wine back from Italy without changing the color of my clothing in the process), so I figured that if Brooklyn is good enough for the Times to re-discover, then it’s sure as hell good enough for me to see for the first time!

I’m going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, see where Andrew went to school (oh yeah, Andrew, you’re going with me on this little journey to Brooklyn) and then that’s all I’ve got so far, but I am going to visit the Brooklyn Slate Company because I think their slate place mates are kind of neat (and can double as great shields during food fights).  Well, that’s all for now, but I wish y’all a Happy Fourth of July and until next time…

-JD

“Sorry I Couldn’t Make It Tonight. I Had to Take My Mom to the Hospital!”

That line was used on a friend of mine this past Tuesday evening by a “solid eight” girl with whom he was supposed to have dinner.  Yes, it’s tragic that this young lady stood him up, but with a line like that, she is definitely a perfect ten when it comes to having a great excuse!  That is so much better than feigning an illness and I felt it needed to be shared.

Moving on, I have to say that it is so hot here in Virginia Beach that I’m ready to trade in my new Tod’s for a pair of hiking boots and my suitcases for a hiking bag and head to Antarctica because at least it’s cold there!  I’ll probably just end up moving into my freezer for the next 72 hours before I head to Charlottesville, where the high yesterday was 98, though I’m told it felt like 103.  And Wednesday, I was in New York for an interview and it was deathly hot out!

I arrived Tuesday night and went straight to dinner with Andrew after dropping my off my bags.  It didn’t seem that hot out so I decided to walk from the Upper East Side over toward the West Side through Central Park, which is one of my favorite things to do.  I just love being in the park and will find any excuse to spend time there.  By the time I hit the West Side, my shirt was untucked and I felt like Justin on a Thursday night after a few drinks with my shirt unbuttoned nearly all the way; all I was missing were a cigar and one of his fedoras!  I quickly tucked my shirt back in and buttoned-up and headed over to meet Andrew at Boulud Sud.  More importantly that actually getting a reservation there, I beat Andrew!  This never happens because he is always on time so I was very excited, especially since he only lives like two blocks away.

Dinner blew me away!  It’s a mediteranian-inspired restaurant so it has a very light and relaxing feel about it to begin with; the sea-foam greenish color on the wall and the light woods and white marble just kind of made me feel like I was on the Med instantly; the Birkins and the high-pitched voices of their formally-dressed totterers, however, reminded me that we were not on the island of Crete, but instead the island of Manhattan!  To start, Andrew and i split this plate of imported, Spanish ham with olives and grilled bread, which I was great, aside from those olives being a bit too spicy for me.  The bread they served was phenomenal; they were all made fresh and the focaccia with olives on it was just killer in my opinion!  For a main course, Andrew tried the Carpetto Orecchiette, which is a pasta dish that he certainly seemed to enjoy, while I had the Lamb Shoulder Cleopatra, which just would have blown my socks off had I been wearing any!  The sweet potatoes and the sweet potato purée, along with the onions and apricots were so delicious and that lamb shoulder was simply incredible.  In fact, I didn’t even need a knife to cut it now that I think about it.  Plus, when it arrived, the waiters covered it with a white-ceramic tagine instead of a silver cover, which I thought was kind of neat while still keeping with the whole Mediterranean feel of the restaurant (remember, North Africa is on the Med as well).  As an added bonus, I had a glass of the Terre Nere 2009 Etna Rosso, which was made with grapes grown on Mount Etna, which I visited in March.  The volcanic soil in which the grapes are grown give the wine this very smooth and uncomplicated taste to it that didn’t try to overpower the lamb, so I was very satisfied and I’m definitely buying a few bottles (I’ve recently decided to take up wine as a hobby of mine).

Dessert, which in my opinion is the only part of the meal that really matters, was a bit of a problem.  Unlike Café Boulud in Palm Beach where that warm upside down chocolate soufflé has never let me down, Andrew and i failed to find anything that really jumped out at us.  So instead, we decided we would go next door to Daniel Boulud’s new Épicerie Boulud to get dessert because it was basically designed to compete with Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery a few blocks away in the TimeWarner Center, but when we got there at just after 21h0, it was already closed!  One would expect that a place like that across the street from Lincoln Center would be open until at least 23h0, if not later on weekends!  For some horribly stupid reason, however, it’s only open until 20h0.  Instead, we went to our favorite standby, Grom.  This was my first visit to Grom since I was in Siena with mother so y’all can imagine my sticker shock when I realized that a small at Grom has gone up a dollar to $5.25 since last summer!  That didn’t stop me from a cup of melone and fiondente!

After walking around for a bit while we ate our Grom, Andrew took me to see his family’s new apartment on the West Side, which was beautiful, even if it lacked most of its furniture!  I must say that I’m quite jealous of Andrew’s brother William because while mother insisted that my KitchenAid be stainless steel so that it would match all the other appliances in the house, William’s is lime green!  Oh I would kill for that color and since I have to schlep my mixer to Florida in the winter to bake, I might just ask my Jewish Mr. Grinch for a lime green mixer to leave there this Hanukkah.  It was also great getting to see Andrew’s mother, who I love because she’s so nice.  As an added bonus, I got to see photos of Andrew from his youth, which was hysterical!

Wednesday morning saw me rising with the sun so I could go for a walk with “Aunt Faye” (I was also staying with her for the night), which was nice aside from the deathly heat that hit before 9h0!  I then attempted a five-mile run, but had to stop after only three miles because it was simply too hot to continue.  On my way back to her apartment, I stopped at E.A.T. to get some Health Loaf bread as well as the best hamburger buns on earth; they’re brioche hamburger buns and they just put Peperidge Farm to shame.  I also got little brioche rolls, which I use when I make sliders.  While there, Eli himself showed up, which was kind of neat.

By the time my interview finished up around Noon, it was so hot that by the time I reached Barney’s, fourteen blocks from where I had my interview, it was clear that I needed more than a pair of dark jeans!  In fact, (and I know this is disgusting/embarrassing, but we’ll get through it together) I was in such desperate need of a new shirt that I couldn’t even bring myself to take off my blazer since I could only imagine how my shirt looked!  The only problem was that I didn’t plan on needing a new shirt so I had to buy one (so tragic)!  Instead of going to Ralph Lipchitz as usual, I decided to check out that J. Crew on 79th and Madison since it carries a nicer selection than the normal J. Crew line.  I ended up with a shirt that I wouldn’t normally consider to be “my style,” but I’ve decided that I need to shake things up a bit more so why not!  While I was there, though, I overheard this clearly lost father and his fourteen-year-old son telling the salesman that the “tween” needed a tuxedo for one of his friend’s fourteenth birthday party!  Now I know that New York kids, especially New York Prep School kids do things differently from the rest of the world, but you have got to be effing kidding me if you think it’s appropriate for a fourteen-year-old to be having a black tie birthday party!  At that age, it sounds kind of stuffy and boring, though because of its intrigue and fascination, EVERYONE will obviously being attending, so maybe that kid’s on to something.  While I owned a tux of my own at that age, it was only because I had worn it to my Bar Mitzvah party and not because I needed it for a classmate’s fourteenth birthday!

After changing and making myself look like a human being again, I headed down to Union Square to meet Aunt Faye at the Union Square Greenmarket, which takes places every Monday, Wednesday Friday, and Saturday, so I could help her get ready for the dinner she was preparing that evening.  In between getting the seafood and the snow peas, she finished catching me up on what was new in her life.  The Greenmarket is another one of those things I absolutely love because you can get the freshest food that was sometimes picked just the day earlier and have it in your kitchen while its still at its peak.  Plus, everything is so much cheaper than going to a grocery store, so it makes economical sense to go there as well!

After we got back to her apartment, it was time to leave and just as quickly as a I came, I bid farewell to my beloved New York, but not for long since I’ll be back in four short weeks.

Meanwhile, Justin has had some super diva trouble real estate drama down in very much so Hotlando this summer ending with him moving after only being in his apartment for about a week.  He was originally renting a room in an apartment for the summer that he was going to be sharing with some random Canadian woman, but she turned out to be an actual alcoholic (not just a very social drinker) who was also kind of crazy and so he moved into a house of his very own not far from Rollins and so he’ll be living there until he finishes up the Fall semester.  His job at the law offices of Jew, Jew and Jew seems to be going well as he’s loving foreclosing on people who bought houses they couldn’t afford.  Personally, I don’t know why people thought Orlando was the only place they could go for a vacation, but they did.  Personally, I would have picked Cap Ferrat.

In addition to interning with Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin, Andrew has managed to attend the hottest events (literally) thus far this summer in New York.  Last weekend, he went with Nathaniel and Caroline to the Veuve Cliquot Polo Classic on Governor’s Island and to say that I am jealous is a huge understatement!  The three of them also went to see the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, which is not an event I see Andrew voluntarily attending.  When I asked him about it, most of the conversation was spent discussing the movie Whip It, which is about the “sport” that is roller derby.  Plus, he was supposed to spend Thursday night in the park (in actual death heat) at the Black Eyed Peas and Friends Concert 4 NYC to Benefit Robin Hood, but I read that it was canceled due to “inclement weather,” which is a shame because I saw them setting up for it on the Great Lawn while I was walking with Aunt Faye and it looked like it was going to be amazing!

Finally, I’d like to wish an early Happy Twenty-First Birthday to Grace!  She hits the legal drinking age in America on Saturday and I’m so excited, partly because I’ve managed to not tell her what I bought her since March!  Sadly, I’ll be heading to Charlottesville on Saturday, so instead, we’re celebrating tonight.  Grace has also decided to be a good humanitarian (I guess that’s what you call it) and rescued a bird.  I know it was done with the best of intentions, but y’all know that bird must have gone insane when it saw Beatrice, Grace’s stuffed rooster, just standing there in her living room, motionless.  Anyway, I’m off because I have to go bake her birthday cake and pack so until next time…

-JD

Apparently, My Bathing Suits Are Too Short For Suburban Housewives With Small Children

First of all, I’m back in suburbia and was just about to learn how to tie a noose  because it’s so boring here, but then Monday happened.  So I went to the grocery store to buy everything needed to make Ina Garten’s Flag Cake, which has a cream cheese frosting with which I’m not thrilled, and in honor of the unofficial start of Summer, I wore a very standard Palm Beach outfit for me which is just a bathing suit and a polo shirt.  Well some beyond incompetent mother had the nerve to come up to me and tell me that my Vilebrequin bathing suit (which was not cheap, I might add) was too short to be worn in a place with children and that she and “other mothers” found my rudeness to be insulting.  Somewhat confused, I simply looked at her, smiled and said, “That’s nice, but I don’t really care” before walking away.  I’m sorry, suburbia, but my bathing suit is only 2.5 inches shorter than standard “American” bathing suits (I measured).  It’s not like I’m wearing a thong/speedo (the whole Simon Van Kempen thing isn’t for me) and I’d rather have a shark eat my legs before I put on a pair of those extra-long boardshorts.  To say the least, it made for an entertaining moment.

So I have to say that it’s a bit weird to be back home, but only because when you go from being busy every single day to suddenly having nothing to do, it makes trying to even get dressed every day seem like a difficult task because there’s nothing I have to do aside from attempt to unpack.

So after arriving in Milan, I expected mother to meet me at our hotel, the Hotel Principe Di Savoia, but no, instead I was told to meet her on the Via della Spiga.

The hotel, which isn’t exactly in the middle of the city, provided a complimentary car to all of the shopping areas, so as if mother was waiting for me to show up.  I ended up with one thing, a safari jacket I had been looking at from Allegri since December.  It’s not a true safari jacket, but rather a safari-style rain coat that I got in a slate-color in an attempt to shake things up a bit in my closet.  I have to thank Justin for not only encouraging me to buy it, but for also getting me completely obsessed with the safari jacket look before everyone started doing them.  Also, I justified buying it (like I need a reason) because it’s replacing this rain coat I’ve had since the 9th Grade that is Burberry, reversible (navy one one side and nova check on the other) and just not for me anymore.  I wore that thing to the movies and treated it as more of a jacket than a rain coat.  And no, I NEVER wore it nova check out.  I’m not crazy or from Hollywood.  The funniest memory I have of wearing that jacket was the night Grace and I went to dinner and then the grocery store and I wore that jacket and she had on her Burberry nova check boots and people stared at us like we were that couple that matches.  I’m giving it to Mother who will also use it for trips to the grocery store and to the hair dressers.

Dinner our first evening was at a lovely restaurant on Corso Como, Alla Cucina delle Langhe, which is courtesy of mother’s seatmate on the plane-ride over to Milan.  Sadly, it wasn’t Snooki, but instead she sat next to someone named Patrick who works for Loro Piana.  And this being my mother, instead of asking for discount, she asks for restaurants in Milan.  I love her, but their cashmere sweaters cost over $600 and I would LOVE this half-zip one they have in burgundy so badly.

So Friday was probably the most amazing day of my life and mother’s life because we first began with the most amazing breakfast we’ve ever had in the hotel’s restaurant.  Then, following more extreme shopping on both our parts, we headed to the restaurant Paper Moon, which is right in the heart of the shopping district and a great place to unwind; it’s also a great place to do some people-watching, which mother and I could get an Olympic Gold Medal for doing.  We thoroughly enjoyed watching the caspian sea of Russian blondes stream in and out following a lunch consisting of three pieces of lettuce and two bites of a 20€ pizza.

After lunch, we high-tailed it past mother’s close friend, Muccia (and by close, I mean we went to every Prada in Milan) and decided to see the Last Supper, which was actually worth the pain of getting those tickets.  Though, I have to be honest, I kind of liked the fresco on the other side of the refectory a little better than Leonardo’s great masterpiece.

So as it turns out, right next to the Last Supper is this store I read about in Departures last Spring named Bernardini and I’ve been dying to go ever since I read about it so of course I schlepped mother there.  Bernardini is this vintage, luxury travel store and while we didn’t buy anything, it was fun to see everything they had for sale and in case anyone truly loves me, there is this Rolex in the window second window from the door that I’d love!  From Bernardini, we strolled around this very residential and less-touristy part of Milan before realizing that it was almost time for what will forever be one of the all-time highlights of our lives, the opera.

Now as many of y’all know, the Teatro alla Scala is without question the greatest theatre in the world when it comes to opera and when mother and I found two tickets available, we jumped on them before looking at the price.  We were in the front row, orchestra, therefore making me so close to the conductor that I kind of spent the majority of  Act One watching him sing than I did watch the stage.  We were at La Scala for the final night of the opera season and the closing night of Giacomo Puccini’s superb opera, Turandot.  Seeing “Nessun Dorma” be performed at La Scala actually brought tears to my eyes because my Italian teacher in prep school played Pavarotti’s rendition of it at least once a week for the two years I took Italian with her and it was just so breathtaking that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly describe the experience.

La Scala’s stage with the curtain being raised

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that evening for the rest of my life and I’m so grateful to my mother for not even looking at the price of those billets and just giving me her credit card number so we could buy them.  A side note to the folks at La Scala, it was so damn hot in that theatre that it made sitting in the Verona Amphitheater in the deathly heat of July so I could see the Barber of Seville tolerable!  Y’all need to get some air conditioning because I was beginning to schvitze by the end of the performance!

So meanwhile, Saturday arrived and we spent our final day in Northern Italy taking a “short” two-hour train-ride two stops from Venice to Vincenza.  Now the last time we spoke, I said that all there was to do in Vincenza was to visit the Bottega Veneta factory store but as it turns out, I was wrong.  Apparently, Vincenza is really known for the Palladian villas, and of course this would happen to me, but the most famous of the villas is the same one from which UVa founder Thomas Jefferson copied in order to design the Rotunda, so y’all know we went to see La Rotunda.

Let me say this, if anyone is dumb enough to let their mother convince them that Vincenza is a short train-ride away from Milan, don’t go.  And if you end up going, RENT A CAR!  It was so difficult to get to La Rotunda because mother just expects things to run very smoothly and effortlessly so clearly she hasn’t spent enough time in Italy to know that neither of those two things is possible.  We also visited the Teatro Olimpico, which was kind of a special place, but, and I feel bad saying this, it wasn’t La Scala.  It was my fault because I was still on a mental high from the night before so I didn’t really give it the attention it deserved.

Now don’t think for one second we came all this way and didn’t stop by to see the Bottega factory outlet.  Oh, we went and we didn’t even have an address to give the cab driver, but he knew exactly where we wanted to go.  The address, in case anyone wants to know, is Viale della Scienza, 9/11.  So here’s the thing, it’s nowhere near the city center and is really in the industrial part of the city, which makes sense since the Bottega factory is directly across the street.  Also, there wasn’t a whole lot that grabbed my attention, or mother’s for that matter.  At most, they had this one wallet, but considering all the damage I had done this semester, I figured I needed to start thinking about stopping.  Our dinner that night was courtesy of our hotel’s concierge and was so touristy that I won’t even bother mentioning it.

On Sunday, we took the train down to Siena so mother could see where I lived and spend some time exploring the city after we took photos of our hotel room in Milan because it was so stunning!  That bathroom had the most amazing shower of all time and I’ve told mother that I’m having that shower head installed in my bathroom at home.  Plus, I took this kind of neat photo in the bathroom of my watch:

In Siena, we ditched my dumpy apartment and headed instead for the Grand Hotel Continental, which was so much nicer than where I lived for the previous four months.  Our room was beautiful and had this amazing view of the Duomo:

I showed her all the sights and took her to a great little dinner not too far from our hotel that I frequented from time to time.  We went to Grom, where I had my final May flavor of the month.  On Monday, we visited the Duomo and strolled around the city before us and our seven bags (including mother’s purse) headed to the train station.

Now I love my mother, but the woman is useless at helping with the bags.  Normally, I’d accept this simply because she’s never helped before so why should she start now, but this time, it was a bit hard for me to manage them all by myself.  Once we arrived in Florence, I was ready to kill her because we only had a very short amount of time between our train from Siena arriving and our train to Rome leaving.  So when we went to board our train to Rome, I put her and her bags on board and then put my Ralph bag on the train before the big suitcases.  I asked her to just move the bag and she looks at it like it has some terminal illness and just taps the bag ever so slightly, but as if that thing moved.  In the meantime, a lovely line began to form as I struggled with my lovely seven bags.  At least someone took pity on me when we arrived in Rome.

When we arrived in Rome, we headed first to our hotel, the Hotel Slpendide Royal, which looked onto the Borghese Gardens, but was still just a block from the Via Veneto and only five minutes from the Via Condotti.  The view from where we had breakfast was so amazing as it looked out on this sea of green with the Vatican off in the distance.  Fortunately, both mother and I have done the major tourist sites in Rome so we had more time to do things we would have otherwise had to miss.

So I made the executive decision (because someone had to) that we would make Tuesday our shopping day and Wednesday our “cultural” day, even though members of my family believe that the Via Condotti is an historical site since both Bulgari and Buccellati were founded on that street!  In addition to shopping, I also took mother just three blocks away from the Via Condotti so we could visit my all time favorite gelateria, Giolitti.  I went four times over two days:

Tuesday night, mother wasn’t feeling too great so we headed to the nearby Via Veneto for a simple dinner and ended up at Ristorante Tuna, which was a lovely seafood restaurant.  I think we sat next to three members of the mafia however.  The restaurant had a very Upper East Side feel to it with a very Upper East Side kind of clientele, which was fine because let’s be honest, I’m a little Upper East Side boy and my mother doesn’t like to leave the Upper East Side when she’s in New York.

Wednesday, our last day in Italy, was spent doing a tiny bit of shopping for my aunt, but then we went first to see the Richard Meier-designed Ara Pacis museum, which was… interesting.  Ara Pacis was a peace alter built for Emperor Augustus  and located in his Campus Martius.  Unfortunately, I feel as though we were ripped off by the Italians because we paid about 15€ a person to just see the alter and nothing else because the other exhibit wasn’t opening until later in the week, but the space itself was simply breathtaking and the way Meier designed it to really focus all of the attention on the alter was just brilliant.  There was a great deal of natural light throughout the space the just made it this very calm and serene space that just happens to be in the middle of bustling Rome.  I mean, there’s a major road that’s right next to the museum, but you almost seem to forget it’s there because the space is just so peaceful.

From Ara Pacis, we then walked a very long way toward the Forum to get lunch at Tricolore, which was a really neat place with delicious sandwiches.  Despite being right next to the busiest tourist parts of all of Rome, the restaurant is in this neighborhood that is in a world unto itself.  There were very few tourists, simple shops, hairdressers; it had a very locals only feel to it, which is what I enjoy the most about any city because there are times when you need to escape the tour groups.   The place is so brilliantly designed because they have little sinks around the walls so you can come in, wash your hands and then sit at this counter that has ovens all around the base and order your sandwich or panino.  Raised in a vertical position around the marble counter are about eight, maybe nine ranges and you just sit there and order your lunch and Pellegrino and it’s prepared in the back, which you can see from where you’re sitting.  It’s very small and really designed as a take-out place, complete with take-out window, but they love having people stay for lunch, which we did.  I honestly believe it was one of the best meals I had in all of Italy and it was a sandwich covered in warm prosciutto on the most amazing bread ever!

After lunch, a very grumpy and gradually annoying mother and I took a taxi (because someone wore the wrong shoes) over to see the Borghese Gallery, which had been closed for the past fifteen years for a renovation/restoration project (which doesn’t surprise me because the Italians are well… slow) and had just reopened.  Well, a word of advice, book early and ladies, don’t bring a purse because they make you check them before you can enter; they give you a little bag which I had to carry that can hold your wallet, but that’s it.  It was a little strange.  Now, the galleries were lovely and all, but at the end of the day, 15th-18th century art isn’t really my thing because I’m more of a 19th-20th century art fan, plus Jeff Koons because I love those poodles and want one in my front yard.  That said, there were some lovely pieces and the building itself was an amazing space nonetheless.

After our visit ended, we strolled in the Borghese gardens for a while before getting ready for dinner, which proved my mother is insane.  So we had made reservations at this place that was kind of on the other side of the city so we take a taxi over there and she won’t get out of the taxi because “it looks creepy.”  This was because she didn’t see anyone in her age group there and there were only 20-somethings walking around.  So instead, we went to this other restaurant we had heard about called Cucina Roscioli, which was out of this world amazing!  It’s really a salumeria that happens to have a restaurant and so we sat next to a wall of wine and across from refrigerator cases filled with cheeses and meats.  As an added bonus, this guy who looked like an Italian version of Stanley Tucci was seated across from us and was staring at mother the entire time!  It was a great way to end our time in Italy and a phenomenal final meal in Italy.

Thursday Morning had us up and in the taxi by 6h0, so we missed breakfast.  Then, five minutes into the taxi ride, I realized I had left my iPod in our room so we had to race right back and retrieve it.  This was a first for me because usually I’m always on top of where everything I have is located.  From there, it was off to Fiumicino for the flight back to America.  Thursday also happened to be Andrew’s 21st birthday so as if I was going to pass up being in New York for that!  So, when the plane landed in fabulous New Jersey!, I put mother on the train to Baltimore and headed straight for Manhattan to celebrate his birthday with Maggie, Nathaniel, Caroline, and of course, Andrew at Café Gitane in the Jane Hotel.  It was so much fun and we had such a good time celebrating Andrew’s big day, even though he was on the tail-end of a cold and by the time dinner arrived, my body thought that it was 1h0 Friday morning!  I went to bed at what my body thought was 6h0 Friday morning and was up by 8h0, so I think that it actually helped my body re-adjust to EST.

Friday morning, following a little food shopping for mother and me, I hoped on the Acela with three enormous bags (I condensed since I knew it would just be me) and headed down to Baltimore for the Preakness.  Friday night was the traditional Chinese food dinner we always have and then Saturday, it was off to the Baltimore ghetto to go to the races.  I was in a so-so mood that day because my cousin and I got into a bit of a tiff and I just didn’t really have the usual excitement about being there that I’ve had in years past.  However, I ended up having a great day at the races because I broke with my usual “methodical” selection of the horses on which I want to bet and picked the winner, Shackleford, simply because I liked his racing colors.  I won $60 on one $5 bet, which was amazing and I ended the day making quite a bit of money, which was good for me.  As an added bonus, mother and I did something I’ve waited years to do and that was buy two Black-Eyed Susans, the official drink of the Preakness:

Since returning home, I’ve been struggling to dig myself out of the obscene amount stuff I have between the mail, the clothes and the stuff I bought, but I’m down to just one or two last things.  I’ve been baking, grilling and getting ready to head to Charlottesville for a month so I can take a fun-filled science course.  However, there was one event that occurred last weekend that I still can’t believe I attended.  So Grace has decided that since she can’t show horses anymore, she’s now going to compete in dog shows with the not-so-little Henry Flagler.  Y’all, I’ve never been to a dog show before so I had no idea what to expect when we arrived and so to say that it was a spectacle is like saying that the Real Housewives of New Jersey are completely normal people and that there’s nothing wrong with their trailer-park-trash lives.  This was just insanity at its finest.  We met a woman who has TWELVE Corgis and travels the country with her husband and daughter selling dog grooming supplies and showing her dogs; we saw just a whole bunch of crazies and I have to say, I almost stole four dogs.  Though at one point, Grace asks this lady with four King Charles Cavaliers where she got her crate for her dogs and I mentioned that the dogs were so well-behaved and she tried to sell me one.  At that point, I mentioned that my parents would kill me if I brought a dog home because we already have one and when I told her that Buddy was a (very expensive) mixed-breed, she turned around and walked away without saying another word!  I still love my cockapoo, even if he is a mixed-breed.  I just have to say this to Walter: Get Grace another horse because those dog show people are crazy and I miss the fact that I could look for a girlfriend at the horse shows; you can’t do that at a dog show because a lot of the people there lacked teeth!  Anyway, it was an experience that I will never partake in again.

Finally today, I guess the time has come for me to really look back on my semester and express my overall opinion on it.  In short, I loved Italy and being there and being able to explore it was just something I’ll never forget.  However, I picked the wrong program.  It was too small and there wasn’t really anyone with whom I really clicked.  Some of those girls were flat out rude to me, while others were nice to me, but not necessarily people with whom I plan on being life-long friends.  I tried my best to be friendly and go along with the group, but in the end, it was made very clear that I wasn’t really welcome so I did my own thing and had a great time.  No, I don’t regret going at al, however, Siena was always back-up since I couldn’t study in Paris due to having too many transfer credits from Rollins, so I didn’t really have the same enthusiasm I might have had if I had spent the semester in Paris, but oh well.  As I said, in the end, I had a great time in Italy, but just not with the people in my program.

Anyway, this officially concludes the travel guide only part of the blog and next week, I’ll be returning to writing about life and the crazies I call friends who are in it.  Until next time…

-JD

All My Bags are Packed, I’m Ready to Go to Milan, Vincenza and Rome. Then Maybe We’ll Think About That Jet Plane Back to the States

That’s right, by the time this posts itself, I will be on a Eurostar headed north to meet Mother in Milano and officially on summer vacation!  While I won’t really have time to “reflect”on my time here in Siena until next Thursday on my nine hour, forty minute flight back to New York (okay fine, Newark) from Rome, I did genuinely enjoy my time here in Tuscany.  Siena is a very beautiful city that y’all should spend more than the two hours it seems that most tourists spend here.  I’ll save my overall “reflection” of my semester here in Siena for two weeks from now, after I’ve had a chance to actually see my own home and reflect properly on my time here.

This week is going to be quite insane.  I’m heading to Milan today to meet mother and tomorrow, I managed to get us tickets to see Leonardo’s Last Supper, which was not easy at all.  In fact, it was as if they don’t want me to visit , but as if that stopped me.  I called that damn number every two minutes nonstop for three straight hours!  Then our concierge at our hotel in Milan, the Hotel Principe di Savoia, told me how to get them because they’re apparently not allowed or something stupid like that.  Whatever, I got them and I got a student discount which is how I’m sticking it to the Italians for putting me through all the trouble of getting the damn tickets.  Apparently, they sell the majority of the tickets to tour guides who include the Last Supper in their waste of time tour, but your best bet is to check on Mondays because that’s when they show openings from people canceling, which is how I found my two tickets.

As a special treat, though, Friday night is about the opera.  Mother has wanted to go to see an opera at La Scala for years and lucky for us, Friday night is the final performance of Puccini’s Turandot and we got tickets!  This is actually going to be pretty amazing simply because it’s La Scala and if y’all need any help in knowing what it is, let me put in a basic of a way as possible: if you’re an opera singer and you perform at La Scala, you can basically die the next day having lived a complete life.  There is no greater honor than to perform in La Scala and once you’ve done that you really can’t do anything else that can top it, unless you marry Prince Harry, in which case, yeah, you can.

On Saturday, we’re visiting Vincenza, a city known for one big thing: Bottega Veneta‘s factory and headquarters are both located there (as is a factory outlet).  And she didn’t think I know that!  Please, I remember her going on and on about how she wanted to go to Vincenza for Bottega Veneta when we were in Italy in 2007.  I’m okay with this because the black wallet I want is from Bottega and as much as I love it, I’d rather put that 210€ toward the Allegri safari jacket I plan/hope to get in either Milan or Rome.  Maybe she’ll remember me talking about how unique the wallet was (it’s black, but there’s a lot of hunter green mixed in and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and I’m trying to move away from my longtime staple color of blue and I’ve gone to green and I just love the contrast of the colors) and take care of a birthday present now, and you can never start too early with those hints!  Please, I start dropping hints about birthday presents for next year the day after my birthday!

From Vincenza, where I imagine I won’t see anything besides Bottega, which is fine because Italian fashion is kind of like a national treasure, we’re moving down south to Siena for the night on Sunday so Mother can see where I’ve been living these past few months.

Finally, we’re spending the last few days of our time in Rome.  I’m so excited because we honestly have nothing planned and we’ll just see what happens.  However, next Thursday, when they open that cabin door in Newark, it’s off to Manhattan because I’ll be arriving just in time for Andrew’s twenty-first birthday!  I am SO excited for this because well, Andrew’s turning twenty-one and I don’t think this requires any further explanation.  I just have to figure out if I’ll have enough time to pick up his present before dinner or if it’ll just have to be shipped.  I’ll figure it out.

Well, that’s all for now and until next time from back in the States (or Colonies, if you’re English)…

-JD

PS: If I pull a muscle or miss a train during this week, it’s going to because I’ll be traveling with someone who absolutely refuses to touch a suitcase (and we’ll have four very heavy suitcases) because of completely phony injuries.  I know that a man should always carry the bags, but um… two of our bags are the largest size bags that can be checked so where should the other two bags go?