My third week of class

This is a little overdue so I hope you will forgive me. I was without internet service for a few days. Rough, I know, but I survived with snowboard and fashion magazines, my blackberry, and TV Moda - fashion TV in Italian with some blurbs in English. 

In the meantime there are a few things I would like to mention.

1. I received the receipt of my "permesso di soggiorno," which I have been told is pretty much the same as receiving the actual permesso. Of course after the whole ordeal I had to go through with the consulate I was shaking in my boots when I approached the woman at the post office with my application. Mind you, this application was nearly impossible to complete. There were corresponding charts that corresponded to charts that corresponded to tables that corresponded to charts that basically all said the same thing. I filled it out, and like a good little Italian-in-training, I went armed with copies of copies of copies of copies with the original and a sealed original of every document on hand. When I handed in my papers the woman behind the desk asked me "is this your first time appearing here" (giving me a look of... well this is certainly not going to be your last, if it is) to which I responded "yes" and she thumbed through everything, said, "wow, brava, you completed everything perfectly," and after paying 72.40 Euro (where they came up with this number beats me) and 22.30 Euro for the special stamp for the paperwork which you have to obviously buy somewhere else, she handed me a receipt for my permesso. She told me what I had already been told: the permesso (permit to stay) will most likely arrive to my Italian residence after I am already home in the U.S. Of course it will, would I expect any differently?

2. After nearly burning my apartment down twice, I finally learned how to use a stove-top coffee machine. I know this is supposed to be elementary but it really was not easy especially since I couldn't google it. After two pots of dirty water I finally succeeded although the whole canister is permanently covered in white plastic, since the garbage bag melted onto it... yeah. I will leave it at that. It does taste good, though.

After an interesting trip to Vodafone where they made me pay in cash for my internet service, I now have it up and running and am ready to fill you in on my third week of school. Yes, school, remember that? 

This, my friends, is the sewing machine. There are two in the school, and this is more violent than the one upon which I learned. The pretty little samples you see below took me awhile to complete (remember, there are 30 of each model) because every time I put my foot down on the pedal it would go about 100mph. I have to learn how to "pump" the pedal instead of keeping my foot down, which sounds a lot easier than it actually is. Every time I mess up, I laugh uncontrollably and without fail, someone in the class brings me food.. chocolate, a wafter, or cafe, because they know it makes me concentrate. I know how to sew clothing on home and industrial machines but it is very different. I can imagine it to be like driving the same SUV for 10 years and then switching to a sports car... with no brakes.

Almost all of you sent me personal messages expressing concern over the trincetto. Thank you very much for your overwhelming concern but guess what... I had already sliced my finger and I consider it my initiation. You will be happy to know that I came up with a new system to protect my finger. It's a nice little piece of black lambskin and it works wonders. It takes the pressure off and makes the pain a little more bearable.

This was my very first official cut of lambskin for my first official project. What you see is a pattern piece (labelled "pelle" for leather) laid out on the leather and the weight that holds it down while I cut with the trincetto. I promise I will not let another full week go by without filling you in... things are going very quickly now!