Bag-Ception

So here's the skinny. I like crafts. I craft all the time. I'm not so secretly crafty. And thus is my life while I am home. I have been attempting to work on my scrapbook from Rome (you know, the reason why I started the blog thing in the first place) and it's been an adventure. But there's a point when I can't do no mo pictures. So I decided to pick up something a little more mindless, albeit conscious.  Let me explain.

Michelle (you know that girl) said that she was going to knit some plastic bags together to make a super bag. And I'm thinking, "Huh? I couldn't have heard that right." But then she just looked at me like, "Did I stutter? I'm knitting plastic bags to make a super bag."

Wait for it... Wait for it. Yup. Mind blown.

The goal is to take all of the grocery bags that you annoyingly stuff into corners and then plan to reuse, but usually forget because no one looks in corners for bags every time you decide to go to the store. So you just end up having these mounds of should be reused, sculpted, or donated bags that look lonely and unloved and dingy in the corners.

The process works like this. You cut these unloved crinkle-wads into long strips of super thin plastic and then ball them up as you would yarn. Then once you amass enough of a ball (and/or clean out those corners) (That's where I put that!) (Yum, Halloween candy), you knit. That simple. You know, except for that part where you spend awkward mindless hours cutting apart bags to the strange looks of your friends (or those friends you would have if you didn't spend your Friday nights cutting apart plastic bags).

But here's what I've learned: This could be really cool. So far (and I only have a portion of the base of the bag) it looks sort of legit, and could end up the envy of every Environment conscious pseudo hippie I pass on the street (see, I told you that would make sense later).  I'll be sure to post pictures here when I do finish it, but I'm pleasantly pleased with the reactions I've heard so far (I knit a lot in public.... Hence my single, only child status).

Resounding Message: Go green! Knit more!

Espresso and Boats

The morning began semi-unassumingly with both Kate and Erica jumping into my bed and saying things like "Good morning sunshine," and "get up".  At that point, I knew that the day would be a pretty good one.  So here we go on a whirl-wind adventure. On your mark, get set, go!

The first thing we had to do was to wait for one of our SAI persons to come check our apartment. Those hours were designated between 10 and 1, or 10 and 13 for those of you playing the 24hr clock game.  So while we waited we divided into two groups so that we could go down to the local coffee shop to get our caffeine fix. That's right, I had expresso. Flat out, ye be warned, kind of espresso. Granted, I put an itty bitty tiny pinch of sugar in it, just to get used to it (let's face it, I also used to put cream in my American coffee, so things will change).  Needless to say, THAT is my jam. No more of this frilly steamed milk stuff for me. Let's talk about the pure caffeine in a baby cup in a baby saucer, and served up hot and beautiful. Pure love in a cup. Let's be real. About an hour later, after watching My Drunk Kitchen episodes, and generally being Friday morning bums. She finally arrived, and checked through everything, and helped us start the wash, and left without further complications. NOTE: The socket that we use for the wash was shot.  "The wall plate, it's scorched" (Chloe).  So every time we went to check on the wash (which is supposed to take an hour... blerg) it would be stopped. This eventually ended with a soaking floor, and us being extremely concerned about the bubbling plastic around the edge of the plug.... Not good? yup, probably not. So now that we have all of our clothing hanging joyfully in the foyer, we will have to send in a report about the outlet, and those turmoils begin. Alas.

After that we headed out to find some lunch and some other necessities where we found this darling little place called Otello (because that's pretentious) and had some DELICIOUS pasta, and had a wonderful conversation with the waiter (Francesco).  It was so adorable, I'm reasonably sure that we'll be back there.

Then, and this is the good part, we went to Orientation! For those of you following along, "Orientation" is a synonym for drool worthy power points and lackluster speeches. However, this was JCU's orientation (so a little bit more like what you did before you started freshman year with meeting strange people who you have almost nothing in common with, yeah, like that). But here, and I'm now going to use as many puns as possible (and to Alicia Gerber, on her boat adventures, I hope you like this), they were boat/ship themed. And that means that 'we' were the 'crew' (and if you didn't know you were 'on a boat', you had to go upstairs to find out) and were divided into different 'ships' (mine being The Nina).  And the leaders of each groups were not the 'captains' as you would initially assume, but rather the 'skippers'.  So after a very mumbled and at least partly Italian greeting from the president, we paddled our life rafts to the historic ships that were to set sail on this adventure and get our sea legs.  One quick round of names, and then we start discussing this "treasure hunt" around Rome. I said, "a what?" And truth be told, this was sprung on us, that we were going to walk all around Rome to see famous things (think Vatican, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain etc) and take funny pictures with your group to win some kind of wine tasting... Oh yeah, and do it in 2 hours. Bahahahahahaha, they're real jokesters here. Except not. They were very serious.  However, as a special clause to this "adventure," my skipper said that if we got lost, or didn't want to paddle any more, we could just go back to the JCU campus and grab dinner. Kate and I found each other on the side walk and spontaneously "walked the plank" by going back to our apartment.  On the way we called Erica and Molly to try and get them to jump ship with us. Erica caught up quickly to where we were, but poor Molly was viscously tied to the masthead and couldn't commit mutiny while retaining composure. So the three of us, pulled out from port (with out JCU IDs in hand-about time mateys) and shipped back home. There Kate and I updated our video blog (http://twopeasinpasta.blogspot.com) and relaxed a bit (with more laundry of course).

After a bit o that, the three musketeers (wait, no more Pirate jokes?) decided to head out to find important things like anything to measure ingredients with. As well some extra apartment things (tupperware? yup). This brought us to the less publicized Jewish sector of the city, so many Kosher cafes! (Sorry, I have to throw this one in. What does a Jewish pirate say? Ahoy Vey! -You laughed, don't lie to me). Mission success is what I like to call that trip. Then on our way back we found our last dog-paddling sailor, Molly, and threw her a lifesaver.  In short, Molly worked a lot harder than any of us today. Total mileage covered in flip flops? Approximately 11 miles-in the FOUR HOUR TOUR OF THE CITY. She got to pick where we ate dinner.  Actually I'm surprised that she's still awake.  None the less, I suppose that paddling out to tourist attractions was JCU's way of welcoming us to Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-o-m-a. (if you couldn't tell, that was pirate slang....  funny!)